Monsters of Men

“You could be me,” the Mayor says. “Or you could be him.”

He takes a step back.

A step that I didn’t make him take.

“If you kill me, it’s one step further away from being him,” he says. “And if that’s as far as the goodness of you has changed me, goodness enough to stop you becoming me, then that’ll have to do.”

He turns to Viola. “The cure for the bands is real.”

Viola glances at me. “What?”

“I put a slow-acting poison in the first batch to kill all the women. The Spackle too.”

“WHAT?” I shout.

“But the cure is real,” the Mayor says. “I did it for Todd. I’ve left the research on the scout ship. Mistress Lawson can easily confirm it. And that,” he says, nodding at her, “is my parting gift to you, Viola.”

He looks back at me, the sad, sad smile on his face. “This world will be shaped by the two of you for years to come, Todd.”

He sighs deeply.

“And I, for one,” he says, “am glad that I shall never have to see it.”

And he spins round and takes one big stride toward the surf, then another and another–

“Wait!” Viola calls after him–

But he don’t stop, he keeps striding, almost running, and I feel Viola slip off Angharrad and both of ’em come over next to me and we watch the Mayor’s boots splash in the water and he wades in deeper, a wave nearly knocking him over, but he keeps upright–

He twists back to look at us–

His Noise is silent–

His face unreadable–

And with a yawning grunt, one of the shadows in the water breaks the surface, all mouth and black teeth and horrible slime and scales, surging towards the Mayor–

Twisting its head sideways to grab his torso–

And the Mayor makes no sound as the huge creacher slams him into the sand–

And drags him back under the water–

And as quick as that–

He’s gone.

{VIOLA}

“He’s gone,” Todd says, and I share every bit of the disbelief in his voice. “He just walked in.” He turns to me. “He just walked right in.”

He’s breathing heavy, looking startled and exhausted by what’s just happened.

And then he sees me, really sees me.

“Viola,” he says–

And I take him in my arms and he takes me in his and we don’t have to say anything, anything at all.

Because we know.

“It’s over,” I whisper. “I can’t believe it. It’s over.”

“I think he really wanted to go,” Todd says, still holding me. “I think it was destroying him in the end, trying to control it all.”

We look back at the ocean and see the huge creatures still circling, waiting to see if Todd or I will offer ourselves up next. Angharrad sticks her nose right between us, bumping Todd in the face, saying Boy colt with enough feeling to bring tears to my eyes. Boy colt.

“Hey, girl,” Todd says, rubbing a hand along her nose but still holding onto me, and then his face looks sad as he reads her Noise. “Acorn,” he says.

“I left Bradley behind,” I say, tearing up again. “Wilf and Lee, too, but I don’t know what happened–”

“The Mayor said Mr Tate failed him,” Todd says. “Said the Spackle failed him, too. That can only be good.”

“We need to get back.” I twist in his arms and look at the scout ship. “I don’t suppose he taught you how to fly that?”

And then Todd says, “Viola,” in a way that makes me turn back to him.

“I don’t wanna be like the Mayor,” he says.

“You won’t,” I say. “That’s impossible.”

“No,” he says. “That’s not what I mean.”

And he looks me in the eyes.

And I feel it coming, feel the strength surging through him, finally free of the presence of the Mayor–

He opens up his Noise.

Opens it and opens it and opens it–

And there he is, all of him, open to me, showing me everything that’s happened, everything he felt–

Everything he feels–

Everything he feels for me–

“I know,” I say. “I can read you, Todd Hewitt.”

And he smiles that crooked smile–

And then we hear a sound up the beach, back where the trees meet the sand–

(THE SKY)

My battlemore makes the final leap onto the beach and for a moment I am dazzled by the ocean, the sheer huge fact of it filling my voice–

But my mount races on, turning towards the abandoned Clearing settlement–

And I am too late–

The Knife’s one in particular is here with her horse–

But the Knife is nowhere to be seen–

Only the leader of the Clearing, grabbing onto the Knife’s one in particular, his uniform a dark blot against the snow and the sand, and he is holding the Knife’s one in particular close to him, imprisoning her in his arms–

And so the Knife must be dead–

The Knife must be gone–

And I feel a surprising hollowness because of that, an emptiness–

Because even the one you hate leaves an absence when they go–

But those are the feelings of the Return–

And I am not the Return–

I am the Sky–

The Sky who made peace–

The Sky who must kill the leader of the Clearing in order to secure that peace–

And so I race forward, the figures in the far distance coming closer–

And I raise my weapon–

[TODD]

I squint thru the snow, which is getting thicker by the minute–

“Who’s that?” I say.

“That’s not a horse,” Viola says, stepping away from me. “That’s a battlemore.”

“A battlemore?” I say. “But I thought–”

And the air is torn from my lungs–

(THE SKY)

He pushes the girl away, seeing me coming, and I have an open shot–

I hear a voice behind me, shouting something in the distance–

A voice shouting Wait–

But it is hesitation that has hurt me in the past, being at the moment to act and not acting–

And that will not happen now–

The Sky will act–

The leader of the Clearing is turning to me–

And I will act–

(but–)

I fire my weapon.

{VIOLA}

Todd makes a sound like the world collapsing and grabs at his chest–