The Unspoken: Book One in the Keres Trilogy (7 page)

Taking up a space about three inches wide and six inches tall is a raised black imprint of exquisitely detailed smoke black fingers, positioned so they look like they are pressing into my chest. I have been branded with the Heavy.

Abbot dismisses me from the hall. He tells me to eat as much as I can tonight and in the morning for breakfast, that I might need it for training tomorrow if he has time. Letting go of my collar, I pick up the pack from the chair I had been sitting in and walk out of the room to the elevator car. When I reach out to press the call button, my hands are unnervingly steady. My whole body feels like it
’
s shaking, but my reflection in the polished surface of the elevator door is perfectly still.

Once I
’
m in the open air, I turn my feet towards the back gardens instead of to the Quad. Some time to process what has just happened, and not happened, is required before I can look anyone else in the eye. I
’
m overwhelmed with the desire to know what happens if I try to talk about Abbot and the hall. Given PG3456
’
s feeling that I am weak and need to be coddled, it would be unwise to test my new tattoo in front of them. Finding a secluded spot isn
’
t difficult this close to feast time. I only pass a boy and a girl sitting close together on a bench. They fly apart when they hear my step, and I can feel their eyes on my back when I pass them. I crawl under a large weeping cherry tree and try to slow my heart rate. If the tattoo is going to keep me from physically talking about the hall, it will most likely do it in an acutely painful way. Thinking about Abbot and the hall certainly hasn
’
t caused it to do anything. I
’
ve thought of nothing else since I was stamped.

I try first whispering Abbot
’
s name. Nothing. And nothing would happen, as he lives among the rest of Chelon, he even wears a Banded cuff. Of course his Play Group would have to call him by his name. His existence and that he is an Unspoken aren
’
t secrets. Next I whisper that I was in the Gratis Building tonight, again nothing happens. And again it
’
s clear to me that these are things everyone already knows. I relax a little and start to say in a normal voice
“
The hall, my den,
”
and the tattooed smoke fingers push hard into my chest and I am thrown backwards against the tree trunk, knocking the wind out of me. Trying to stay calm, waiting for my breath to return, it strikes me that this method is incredibly effective. It wasn
’
t the impact with the tree that knocked the air out of my lungs, it was the push itself. You can
’
t talk if you can
’
t breathe.

Gradually, I am able to gasp in air, and I lay choking in the dirt for several minutes. Abbot was right. I don
’
t like it. It feels like I am drowning with heavy chains wrapped around my chest. When PG3456 asks questions about my Service, I might be able to say my leader is Abbot and we are in the Gratis Building but that
’
s all. I wonder if I could show them the black smoke fingers and if they would understand. Somehow I don
’
t think it would be allowed.

Breathing normally again, I turn my attention to the pack. Unfastening the cords and clasps, the only thing I find is a leather bound notebook with a symbol embossed on the cover, a wooden case filled with colored pencils, and a jar of writing ink with a pen. I tilt the notebook so I can see the symbol better. A swirl pattern circles around the soft leather, enclosing a hand. All the fingers of the hand are curled inward like a fist with only the thumb extended to the side. On the thumb is a carved ring. I can
’
t make out the pattern on the ring; it
’
s too detailed for the thick leather of the notebook. It sends an uneasy prickling feeling over my spine and I bury the notebook deep inside the pack again. I have a feeling that the smoky black fingers on my chest won
’
t let me show PG3456 this either.

Suddenly, I don
’
t want to be alone anymore. I scramble out from under the tree branches and start towards the Quad. The feast is already in full swing, the Keepers performing an over the top exhibition of dance and water art on the center stage. The feast tables, loaded with every kind of food imaginable, are set up along the edges of the courtyard. Dishes of sauces, complex desserts, and every kind of meat available are piled high on beautifully crafted etched orange and purple glass serving pieces. My stomach rumbles a deep appreciation for the smells drifting past. I
’
m starving. I load my plate with chunks of beef stewed in rice and tomatoes, yellow and green squash sliced into thin ribbons, and something that looks like yams cut into little star shapes.

I already have a mouth full of rice when I find PG3456 sitting at a table right in front of the stage. It
’
s so loud this close to the performances I can
’
t hear Harc welcoming me back to the group. I think Frehn says something about the yams because he takes one off my plate with his fork. Each of us take trips back to the feast tables for seconds, some of us even go for thirds. The Service entertainments swirl around the stage in a mass of color and sound.

When we can
’
t eat anymore, Frehn grabs hold of my wrist and pulls me to the dance floor already crowded with other Play Groups. Soon Wex and Harc appear beside us and I see Doe dragging Merit out to join us. We dance until we are dizzy, sweating with exertion. I can
’
t hear anything but the music of the strings and horns from the Architects now on stage above us. I push everything out of my mind. The Solace feels years in the past and the hall with Abbot and his pulsing tattoo doesn
’
t feel foreboding in the least as I spin around the courtyard in Frehn
’
s arms.

When the fiddles and pipes of the miners finally die away, Fauna Management is announced. Everyone clears the dance floor, the animals already being moved into position. Fauna Management is always the highlight of the feast night. Unless you are part of the Service, you don
’
t get to interact with the animals much. All of the lines use them in some way, hauling and transport generally, but we almost never interact with them out of harness. The horses, muscles rippling under their lustrous coats, carry a special weight with us. While they comply with the trainers
’
commands, you get the feeling they only do it out of compassion. Like the horses know we are beasts of burden too.

The poultry is showcased first and they fly from one trainer to the other, wings whipping the air. A row of peacocks, tails spread wide, are guided up from the back of the stage. A dozen horses leap over the peacock line as sprays of fire sparks shoot up from the four corners of the dance floor. The crowd gasps, then applauds wildly. The trainers, dressed in long coats that spill over the sides of their horses, begin to move in high-stepping patterns across the dance floor. I glance at Merit. He could be one of those trainers in a few years. It seems impossible that our Service training starts in a matter of hours. Yesterday we were still thirteen, today we are fifteen. The Solace took our remaining childhood, our last years of freedom. Tomorrow we are adults.

Harc lays her hand on my shoulder and I know she is thinking the same thing I am. Polar opposites in every way, I never understood how she and Merit were always the closest pair within PG3456. Her strength seemed to count for both of them and his gentleness acted on her like a calming spell. They spoke without words somehow, the rest of us kept at a certain distance without being excluded.

I remember when Harc was in a rage over marks she received at the end of a Pedagogic year. Merit simply sat while the rest of us tried to calm her down so The Mothers wouldn
’
t overhear.

We were completely unsuccessful, only making her eyes blaze. Once we gave up, Merit crept up to her, put his forehead on hers and just whispered something quietly. Then he walked away as she sank to her knees in the dirt, holding her head in her hands. Merit herded us away and when Harc rejoined us an hour or so later, she was completely calm. It was as if her tantrum never happened. I wished a hundred times while I was struggling and lost under the Heavy that I had known what he said to her. Perhaps it could have helped me.

Fauna Management ends their entertainment with a series of cross jumps with silk flags flying from the horses
’
harness and the trainers
’
hands. The streams of color blend together with the rapid movement. I can
’
t take my eyes off the animal on the end of the row, his countless white spots on the sea of gray that makes up his coat are not like any other horse I have seen. The tip of his nose would come just to mine, I think. I
’
ll never be close enough to him to know for sure. Merit will though and he can tell me.

The last line
’
s entertainment approaches the stage, as the Healers always end the Oath of Service feast night. Their large string instruments have such low methodical tones, they sound like they are lamenting the pain and death that accompanies their Service. People trickle back out to the dance floor and just kind of sway around. It
’
s mostly Banded couples now, but there are a few teenagers among them. PG3456 doesn
’
t have the luxury of joining them. Un-Banded teenagers take a certain amount of risk when they parade their preferences during the Healers
’
songs. They risk feeling more for each other than The Mothers allow, and with that they are almost guaranteed a punishment.

The Mothers keep a low profile on feast days. Their presence is most certainly felt, but to a significantly less degree. They stand just outside the reach of the lights in the courtyard, always on the watch, ready to swoop down upon us when the time comes. But generally they keep out of sight. Which allows all of us to relax our formal friendships a little and just enjoy the celebration of the last night of childhood for the Play Groups who were assigned Services that morning.

PG3456 has been virtually shunned by the other Play Groups tonight- no one has stopped by our table as they would have before the Solace. I appear to be the only one who notices though, and even I don
’
t mind. I pretend it
’
s because they want to give us space to recover our group dynamic and not because we carry a stigma. And certainly not because I now wear the black diamond.

There are Unspoken here tonight, there must be. I sit up a little and begin to look at other Play Groups for the first time tonight. All the Services are represented in the entertainments, all of them except for the Unspoken of course, but they would attend the feast because they are part of their Play Groups. Yes. I see Abbot at a table not far from me, laughing with two men. And by the feast tables there is another man, younger than Abbot, with the distinctive haircut and his whole arm covered in weaving lines. On the dance floor a woman sways in time to the music with her Banded partner, her tattooed legs showing under her skirt when her partner spins her. I count twenty-seven in all. Including me, that
’
s twenty-eight Unspoken.

That
’
s a fraction of the forces in the other Services, which range from 100 to 1,000 people, the factories and keepers at the larger end of the scale and the teachers, architects and healers being at the low end. Even if some had already left the feast, it would still be an almost comically low number for a line that is supposed to serve a city of thousands. Less than thirty people couldn
’
t possibly serve all of Chelon. Unless the Service was rarely needed. Like torture.