Monsters of Men

“If you hadn’t killed all the ones in town,” I say, “you coulda asked.”

He ignores me. “All of which adds up to the fact that our enemy gets more formidable by the moment.”

I frown. “You sound almost happy.”

Captain O’Hare comes back over to us, his hands full and his face sour. “Blankets and food, sir,” he says. The Mayor nods towards me, forcing Mr O’Hare to hand them over to me himself. He does and then storms away again, tho like Mr Tate, you can’t hear his Noise to see what’s making him so mad.

I spread the blanket over Angharrad, but she still ain’t saying nothing. Her wound is healing already so it ain’t that. She just stands there, head down, staring at the ground, not eating, not drinking, not responding to nothing I do.

“You could tie her up with the other horses, Todd,” the Mayor says. “She’d at least be warmer that way.”

“She needs me,” I say. “I gotta stick by her.”

He nods. “Your loyalty is admirable. A fine quality I’ve always noticed in you.”

“Seeing as you don’t got none at all?”

In reply, all he does is smile that smile again, that one that makes you want to knock his head right off. “You should eat and sleep while you can, Todd. You never know when the battle will need you.”

“A battle you started,” I say. “We wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t–”

“Here we go again,” he says, his voice sharper. “It’s time you stopped whining about what might have been and start thinking about what is.”

And this makes me a little mad–

And so I look at him–

And I think about what is–

I think about him falling in the ruins of the cathedral after I blasted him with Viola’s name. I think about him shooting his own son without even pausing for thought–

“Todd–”

I think about him watching Viola struggle under the water in the Office of the Ask as he tortured her. I think about my ma talking about him in her journal when Viola read it to me and what he did to the women of old Prentisstown–

“That isn’t true, Todd,” he says. “That’s not what happened–”

I think about the two men who raised me, who loved me, and how Cillian died on our farm to buy me time to escape and how Davy shot Ben on the roadside for doing exactly the same thing. I think about Manchee, my brilliant bloody dog, dying after saving me, too–

“Those were nothing to do with me–”

I think about the fall of Farbranch. I think about the people there being shot while the Mayor watched. I think about–

I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.

He sends it, hard, straight into the middle of my head.

“Stop that!” I yell, flinching back.

“You give too much away, Todd Hewitt,” he snaps, finally almost angry. “How do you ever expect to lead men if you broadcast every last sentiment?”

“I don’t expect to lead men,” I spit back.

“You were going to lead this army when you had me tied up, and if that day comes again, you’ll need to keep your own counsel, now won’t you? Have you kept up your practice with what I taught you?”

“I don’t want nothing you could teach me.”

“Oh, but you do.” He steps closer. “I’ll say it to you as often as it takes you to believe it: there’s power in you, Todd Hewitt, power that could rule this planet.”

“Power that could rule you.”

He smiles again, but it’s white hot. “Do you know how I keep my Noise from being heard, Todd?” he says, his voice all twisty and low. “Do you know how I keep everyone from hearing every last secret I’ve got?”

“No–”

He leans forward. “With as little effort as possible.”

And I’m saying, “Get back!” but–

There it is again, right in my head, I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME–

But this time it’s different–

There’s a lightness–

A breath-stealing feeling–

A weightlessness to it that makes my stomach rise–

“I give you a gift,” he says, his voice floating thru my head like a cloud on fire. “The same gift I’ve given to my captains. Use it. Use it to defeat me. I dare you.”

I look into his eyes, into the blackness of them, the blackness that swallows me whole–

I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.

And that’s all I can hear in the whole world.

{VIOLA}

The town is eerily quiet as Acorn and I walk through it, some of it even silent, the people of New Prentisstown having fled into the cold night somewhere. I can’t imagine how terrified they must be, not knowing what’s happening or what might be waiting for them.

I look behind me as we ride through the empty square in front of the ruins of the cathedral. Hanging up there in the sky, above the still-standing bell tower, is another probe, keeping its distance from Spackle arrows but tracking me, watching me go.

But that’s not all I’ve got.

Acorn and I make our way out of the square and down the road that leads to the battlefield, closer and closer to the army. Close enough so I can see them waiting there. They watch me as I ride up, soldiers sitting on their camprolls, huddled around fires. Their faces are tired and almost shocked, looking at me like I could be a ghost coming out of the darkness.

“Oh, Acorn,” I whisper nervously. “I don’t really have a plan here.”

One of the soldiers stands as I approach, pointing his rifle at me. “Stop right there,” he says. He’s young, dirty-haired, with a fresh wound on his face, stitched badly by firelight.

“I want to see the Mayor,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

“The who?”

“Who is it?” another soldier asks, standing up, too, also young, maybe even as young as Todd.

“One of them terrorists,” the first one says. “Come here to set off a bomb.”

“I’m not a terrorist,” I say, glancing over their heads, trying to find Todd out there, trying to hear his Noise in the rising ROAR–

“Off the horse,” the first soldier says. “Now.”

“My name is Viola Eade,” I say, Acorn shifting beneath me. “The Mayor, your President, knows me.”

“I don’t care what yer name is,” says the first one. “Off the horse.”