Monsters of Men

Perhaps even helping them to survive.

Who can say?

The Source returns. I feel his concern as he approaches. The Mayor’s flown the ship to the ocean, he shows. Bradley and Viola have already set out to find him.

Then so shall the Sky, I show.

I’ll go with you, the Source shows and I see why.

The Knife is with him, I show.

The Source nods.

You think I will kill the Knife, I show back. If I finally have the chance.

The Source shakes his head, but I see his uncertainty. I’ll come with you, he shows again.

We stare at each other for a long moment, then I turn to some of the Land soldiers at the front line and show them my intention, telling ten of them to accompany me.

Accompany me and the Source.

I turn back to him. Then let us be on our way.

And I tell my battlemore to run towards the ocean, faster than it has ever run before.

{VIOLA}

Acorn’s front legs crumple mid-stride and I go tumbling hard through some undergrowth, jamming my left hip and arm into the ground with a painful grunt, and I hear Bradley yell, “Viola!” but Acorn’s still falling forward, still crashing in a heap in the brush–

“ACORN!” I yell and I’m getting up and limping quickly over to where he’s lying twisted and broken and I get to his head, his breath coming out of him in great raking sounds, his chest heaving with the effort. “Acorn, please–”

Bradley and Angharrad ride over to us, Bradley leaping down and Angharrad putting her nose down close to Acorn’s–

Girl colt, Acorn says, pain wracking through his Noise, not just from his front legs, which I can see are broken, but the tearing in his chest which caused him to collapse in the first place, it’s too much, he’s run too hard–

Girl colt, he says–

“Shh,” I say, “it’s okay, it’s okay–”

And then he says–

He says–

Viola.

And then he falls silent, his breath and his Noise both stopping in a final sigh–

“No!” I say, holding onto him tighter, pushing my face into his mane. I feel Bradley’s hands on my shoulders behind me as I cry, and I hear Angharrad quietly say, Follow, as she rubs her nose against Acorn’s.

“I’m so sorry,” Bradley says, gently as ever. “Viola, are you hurt yourself?”

I can’t speak, still holding onto Acorn, but I shake my head.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Bradley says, “but we have to keep going. There’s too much at stake.”

“How?” I say, my voice thick.

Bradley pauses. “Angharrad?” he asks. “Can you take Viola the rest of the way to save Todd?”

Boy colt, Angharrad says, her Noise strong at the mention of Todd. Boy colt yes.

“We can’t kill her, too,” I say.

But Angharrad’s already putting her nose under my arm, urging me up. Boy colt, she says. Boy colt save.

“But Acorn–”

“I’ll take care of him,” Bradley says. “You just get there. You get there and you make it worth it, Viola Eade.’

I look up at him, look at his faith in me, his certainty that good is still possible.

And I give Acorn a last, tearful kiss on his unmoving head, and I stand and let Angharrad kneel next to me. I get up on her slowly, my vision still cloudy, my voice still thick. “Bradley,” I say.

“It can only be you,” he says, giving me a sad smile. “It can only be you who saves him.”

I nod slowly and I try to put my mind on Todd, on what’s happening to him right now–

On saving him, saving us, once and for bloody all–

I find I can’t say goodbye to Bradley but I think he understands as I give a yell to Angharrad and we race off on the final stretch to the ocean.

Here I come, Todd, I think. Here I come–

[TODD]

I don’t know how long it takes me to loosen the strap around one wrist even slightly. Whatever medicine was in that bandage, still stuck to my neck, itching where I can’t scratch it, it was enough to slow me way down, in body and Noise–

But I work and work and all the while the Mayor’s out there somewhere, on what I guess is the beach, a little stretch of snow-covered sand thru the broken wall in the corner. I see a sliver of waves crashing, too, a sound that’s constant with another sound beyond it, a roar I reckernize as the river, loud and full of all that water now finally returning to the ocean. The Mayor musta flown us straight down it, landing here to wait for whatever’s sposed to happen. The two armies fighting their last war.

All of us dying under a million Spackle.

I strain against the strap on my right wrist again, feeling it give a little.

I wonder what it musta been like to live here, to settle a community by the big, big water for fishing. Viola told me the ocean fish on this planet are more likely to eat you than the other way round, but ways coulda been found, ways to make a life there, a life like we nearly did in the valley.

What a sad thing men are. Can’t do nothing good without being so weak we have to mess it up. Can’t build something up without tearing it down.

It ain’t the Spackle that drove us to the end.

It was ourselves.

“I couldn’t agree more,” the Mayor says, coming back inside the chapel. His face is different, way downcast. Like something’s wrong. Like something really big is really wrong.

“Events transpire out of my hands, Todd,” he says, looking nowhere, as if he’s hearing something, something that’s disappointed him beyond belief. “Events on a far hilltop–”

“What hilltop?” I say. “What’s happened to Viola?”

He sighs. “Captain Tate’s failed me, Todd,” he says. “The Spackle have failed me, too.”

“What?” I say. “How can you know that?”

“This world, Todd, this world,” he says, ignoring my asking. “This world that I thought I could control and did control.” His eyes flash at me. “Until I met you.”

I don’t say nothing.

Cuz he’s looking scarier.

“Maybe you did transform me, Todd,” he says. “But not just you.”

“You let me go,” I say. “I’ll show you all about how I’m gonna transform you.”

“You’re not listening,” he says and there’s a pain in my head, enough to leave me speechless for a second. “You transformed me, yes, and I’ve had no small effect on you.” He walks down the side of the table. “But I’ve also been transformed by this world.”