Monsters of Men

“He’s the last obstacle to peace here,” I say to the Sky. “If we can stop him–”

Then someone else will pop up in his place, says the Sky. That has always been the evil of the Clearing.

“Then we’ll just have to work that much harder!” I say. “If we managed to get this far against the man in that ship, don’t you think that at least shows how much it means to some of us?”

The Sky looks back up and I can see the rumblings of agreement there, rumblings that what I say is true against the other truth of the ship hanging in the air–

And of the ships to come–

The Sky turns to 1017. Send a message along the Pathways, he says. Order the weapons to be prepared.

(THE RETURN)

Me? I show.

The Land will need to learn to listen to you, the Sky shows. They can begin right now.

And he opens his voice to me and I am sending out his orders in the language of the Land almost before I know I am doing it–

I let it flow through me, as if I am merely a channel–

Flow through me and out into the Pathways, into the soldiers and the Land waiting around us, and it is not my voice, not even the Sky’s voice nearby speaking through me, but a voice of the bigger Sky, the Sky that exists apart from whatever individual goes by the name, the Sky which is the agreement of the Land, the accumulated voice of all of us, the voice of the Land speaking to itself, the voice that keeps it alive and safe and ready to face the future, it is that which speaks through me–

That is the voice of the Sky–

And it urges the soldiers to battle, urges the rest of the Land to fight as well, to gather the spinning fire and the weapons on the backs of the battlemores in our hour of need–

It’s working, the Source shows to the people from the Clearing. Help is coming–

And then there is a hissing sound from above and we all look up–

To see a waterfall of fire pouring out of the engines of the vessel–

Pouring down like blood from a wound, smoke and steam billowing around it in the cold air, pouring down onto the Land and setting it ablaze and as the vessel starts to fly a wide circle around us, the fire roars up from the ground in walls, burning everything that can burn, trees, secreted huts, the Land, the world–

“Rocketfuel,” the man from the Clearing says.

“He’s trapping us here,” the Knife’s one in particular says, spinning round on her beast, which calls out in alarm at the flames that face us on all sides.

The vessel rises higher in the air, its circle arcing wider, the fire still pouring out of it–

He’s destroying everything, the Source says. He’s setting the whole valley ablaze.

[TODD]

The ship pitches this way and that and I can hardly stand up straight in front of the comm panel.

And on the screens, there’s fire everywhere–

“What’re you DOING?” I shout, trying not to panic as I sweat thru the words on the panel–

“Old pilot’s trick that Bradley forgot his grandfather taught him,” the Mayor says. “You change the mixture of the fuel, oxygenate it, and it just burns and burns and burns.”

I look up and see us higher in the sky, swooping across the rim of the upper valley, circling round and pouring the rain of fire down onto the trees below, and the fire is sticky and super-hot, kinda like the Spackle firebolts, and even tho there’s snow coming down, the trees are just exploding in the heat, catching other trees, the fire just zooming thru ’em, faster than the Spackle can run, and the screens show a massively expanding band of flames following us as we fly, circling the valley, trapping ’em inside–

He’s setting the whole world on fire.

I look back at the comm screen. There’s a bunch of boxes I could press but I’m still trying to read the top one. Rekent, I think it says. Rekent Comms. I breathe in, close my eyes, try to lighten my Noise, try to feel it like when the Mayor was in there–

“Watch as the world burns, Todd,” the Mayor says. “Watch as the last war begins.”

Recent Comms. That’s what it says, Recent.

I press it.

“Todd?” the Mayor says. “Are you watching?”

I look up at his face on the screen. I realize he can’t see me. I look back to the comm box. There’s a red circle on the bottom right saying Visuals Off.

Which I read first time thru.

“You don’t care who wins, do you?” I say. He’s flying a wide circle round New Prentisstown now, soaking the forests to the south and the north in a fire that can’t help but eventually reach the city. I can already see an arm of it shooting thru a row of outlying houses.

“You know, Todd?” he says. “I find that I really don’t care, no. Isn’t that something? Just so it’s over. Just so that it’s all finally over.”

“It coulda been over,” I say. “It coulda been peace.’

The comm screen is now a list of the Recent Comms I guess and I’m working my way down it–

“We could have made peace together, Todd,” the Mayor says. “But you decided that wasn’t for you.”

Comm, I read, comm, commoony, communicay–

“For which I must thank you,” he says. “For returning me to my true purpose.”

Communicaytor 1. Communicator 1. That’s what it says, Communicator 1. The whole thing’s a list of communicators. Going down from 1 to 6, tho not in order. 1’s at the top, then 3 (I think it’s 3), then 2 maybe, then whatever the others are–

“You said you were transformed,” I say, sweating as I look at the panel. “You said you were a different man.”

“I was wrong. Men can’t be transformed. I will always be who I am. And you’ll always be Todd Hewitt, the boy who can’t kill.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, with feeling. “People change.”

The Mayor laughs. “Have you not been listening? They don’t change, Todd. They do not change.”

The ship lurches again as he makes another pass, torching the world below us. I’m still sweating over the comm panel. I don’t know which number is Viola’s but if these are recent and in order then she must be 1 or 3 cuz–

“What are you up to in there, Todd?” the Mayor says.

And the comm panel goes blank.

{VIOLA}

The scout ship’s hardly visible now through the smoke that’s rising everywhere. We’re safe so far in the middle of the rocky riverbed, but there’s no way to get out with fires all around. The Mayor’s flown around the whole valley, which is burning so bright it’s difficult to look at directly–