Why?
Why?
“Acorn–” I start to say.
And a horn blows a deep, long call across the entire valley.
Acorn whinnies sharply, no words in his Noise, just a flash of fear, of terror so sharp I feel my heart leap, echoed by the disbelieving gasps of some of the people running past me, many of them shouting out and stopping, looking behind me, back towards the city and beyond.
I turn, even though the sky’s too dark to see much.
There are lights in the distance, lights coming down the zigzag road by the falls–
Not the road the army is on.
“What is it?” I say to no one, to anyone. “What are those lights? What was that sound?”
And then a man, stopped next to me, his Noise bright and circling with amazement, with disbelief, with fright as clear as a knife, whispers, “No.”
He whispers, “No, it can’t be.”
“What?” I shout. “What’s happening?”
And the long, deep horn sounds again across the valley.
And it’s a sound like the end of the world.
The Mayor wakes before I even finish tying his hands.
He moans, pure, real Noise ratcheting from him, the first I’ve ever heard outta his head, now that he’s off guard.
Now that he’s been beaten.
“Not beaten,” he murmurs. “Temporarily waylaid.”
“Shut up,” I say, pulling the ropes tight.
I come round the front of him. His eyes are still misty from my attack but he manages a smile.
I smack him cross the face with the butt of the rifle.
“I hear one stitch of Noise coming from you,” I warn, pointing the barrels at him.
“I know,” says the Mayor, a grin still coming from his bloody mouth. “And you would, wouldn’t you?”
I don’t say nothing.
And that’s my answer.
The Mayor sighs, leaning his head back as if to stretch his neck. He looks up into the coloured glass window, still standing, impossibly, in a wall all its own. The moons are rising behind it, lighting up their glass verzhuns just a little.
“Here we are again, Todd,” he says. “The room where we first properly met.” He looks around himself, at how he’s the one tied to the chair now and I’m the one out here. “Things change,” he says, “but they stay the same.”
“I don’t need to hear you talking while we wait.”
“Wait for what?” He’s growing more alert.
His Noise is disappearing.
“And you’d like to be able to do that, too, wouldn’t you?” he says. “You’d like just for once to have no one know what you’re thinking.”
“I said, shut up.”
“Right now, you’re thinking about the army.”
“Shut up.”
“You’re wondering if they really will listen to you. You’re wondering if Viola’s people can really help you–”
“I’ll hit you again with the damn rifle.”
“You’re wondering if you’ve really won.”
“I have really won,” I say. “And you know it.”
We hear a BOOM in the distance, another one.
“She’s destroying everything,” the Mayor says, looking towards the sound. “Interesting.”
“Who is?” I ask.
“You never met Mistress Coyle, did you?” He stretches one shoulder and then the other against his binds. “Remarkable woman, remarkable opponent. She might have beaten me, you know. She might really have done it.” He smiles wide again. “But you’ve done it first, haven’t you?”
“What do you mean She’s destroying everything?”
“As always,” he says, “I mean what I say.”
“Why would she do that? Why would she just blow things up?”
“Twofold,” he says. “One, she creates chaos so it’s harder to fight her as an orderly enemy. And two, she obliterates the safety of those who won’t fight, creating the impression that she cannot be beaten, so that everyone’s that much easier to rule when she’s done.” He shrugs. “Everything’s a war to people like her.”
“People like you,” I say.
“You’ll be swapping one tyrant for another, Todd. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”
“I won’t be swapping nothing. And I told you to be quiet.”
I keep the rifle pointed at him and go to Angharrad, watching us both from a cramped space in the rubble. Todd, she thinks. Thirsty.
“Is there a trough still out front?” I ask the Mayor. “Or did it get blown up?”
“It did,” the Mayor says. “But there’s one round the back where my own horse is tied. She can go there.”
Morpeth, I think to Angharrad, the name of the Mayor’s horse, and a feeling rises in her.
Morpeth, she thinks. Submit.
“Attagirl,” I say, rubbing her nose. “Damn right he’ll submit.”
She pushes me playfully once or twice then clops off outta the rubble, making her way round the back.
There’s another BOOM. I have a little flash of worry for Viola. I wonder how far down the road she’s got by now. She must be getting near where the Answer is, she must be–
I hear a little stirring of Noise from the Mayor.
I c**k the gun.
“I said, don’t try it.”
“Do you know, Todd?” he says, like we were having a nice lunch. “The attacking Noise was easy. You just wind yourself up and slam someone with it as hard as you can. I mean, yes, you have to be focused, tremendously focused, but once you’ve got it, you can pretty much do it at your will.” He spits away a little blood pooling on his lip. “As we saw with you and your Viola.”
“Don’t you say her name.”
“But the other thing,” he continues. “The control over another’s Noise, well, I must say, that’s a lot trickier, a lot harder. It’s like trying to raise and lower a thousand different levers at once and sure on some people, some simple people, it’s easier than others and it’s surprisingly easy on crowds, but I’ve tried for years to get it to work as a useful tool and it’s only recently I’ve had any level of success at all.”
I think for a minute. “Mayor Ledger.”