But not even Noise can stop a body when it’s moving.
I feel all these things and I’m still flying at him and I still hit him and I still knock him over on the steps of the cathedral.
He grunts as the air is crushed out of him and the Noise attack stops for a second. Corporal Pot Belly calls out and falls over and Ivan’s gasping for breath and Viola’s calling out “Todd!” and then a hand is around my neck and it’s pushing my head up and the Mayor is looking right into my eyes–
And this time it hits me full blast.
“Give me the rifle!” the Mayor is shouting, standing over Ivan, who’s crouched on the ground below him, hand over his ear again but the rifle still pointed up at the Mayor. “Give it to me!”
I blink, grit and dust in my eyes, wondering for a second where I am–
YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING
“Give me the rifle, Private!”
The Mayor’s screaming at Ivan, hitting him over and over again with Noise blasts and Ivan is sinking to the ground–
But his rifle’s still aimed–
“Todd!”
I see horse legs beside my head. Viola’s still up on Angharrad. “Todd, wake up!” she’s yelling. I look up at her. “Thank God!” she yells and her face is a picture of frustrayshun. “My stupid feet! I can’t get off the goddam horse!”
“I’m okay,” I say, tho I don’t know if I am, and I lean myself up, my head spinning.
YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING
“Todd, what’s going on?” Viola says as I grab a rein to help me stand. “I hear Noise but–”
“The rifle!” shouts the Mayor, stepping closer to Ivan. “Now!”
“We have to help him,” I say–
But I flinch back at the strongest attack yet–
A flare of Noise so white you can almost see the air bending twixt the Mayor and Ivan–
And Ivan grunts sharply and bites his tongue–
Blood spilling from his mouth–
Before he screams like a child and falls back–
Dropping the rifle–
Dropping it right into the Mayor’s hands.
He lifts it, cocks it and aims it at us in one fluid move. Ivan lies twitching on the ground.
“What just happened?” Viola says, too angry it seems to care much about the rifle.
I put my hands in the air, still holding the reins.
“He can use Noise,” I say, keeping my eyes on him. “He can use it like a weapon.”
“Just so,” says the Mayor, smiling again.
“All I heard was shouting,” she says, looking at the men lying on the ground, still breathing but out cold. “What do you mean, a weapon?”
“The truth, Viola,” the Mayor answers. “The best weapon of all. You tell a man the truth about himself and, well,” he nudges Ivan with his boot, “they find they have trouble accepting it.” He frowns. “You can’t kill him with it, though.” He looks back up at us. “Not yet, anyway.”
“But . . .” She’s not believing this. “How? How can you–?”
“I have two maxims that I believe, dear girl,” the Mayor says, coming slowly towards us. “One, if you can control yourself, you can control others. Two, if you can control information, you can control others.” He grins, his eyes flashing. “It’s been a philosophy that’s worked out rather well for me.”
I think about Mr. Hammar. About Mr. Collins. About the chanting I used to hear coming from the Mayor’s house back in my old town.
“You taught the others,” I say. “The men from Prentisstown, you taught them how to control their Noise.”
“With varying degrees of success,” he says, “but yes, none of my officers has ever taken the cure. Why should they? It’s a weakness to have to rely on a drug.”
He’s nearly on us now. “I am the Circle and the Circle is me,” I say.
“Yes, you were certainly making an impressive beginning, weren’t you, Todd? Controlling yourself while you did the most unspeakable things to those women.”
My Noise turns red. “You shut up about that,” I say. “I was only doing what you told me–”
“I was only following orders,” the Mayor mocks. “The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time.” He stops two metres away from us, rifle pointed firmly at my chest. “Help her off the horse, please, Todd.”
“What?” I say.
“Her ankles, I believe the problem was. She’ll need your help walking.”
I still have the reins in my hand. I have a thought I try to bury.
Boy colt? Angharrad asks.
“I assure you, Viola,” the Mayor says to her. “If you think about running on that beautiful animal, I will put more than one bullet through Todd.” He looks back at me. “However much pain it might cause me.”
“You let her go,” I say. “I’ll do anything you want.”
“Now where have I heard that before?” he says. “Help her down.”
I hesitate, wondering if I should slap Angharrad’s flanks anyway, wondering if I should send Viola riding off into the distance, wondering if I could get her safe–
“No,” Viola says and she’s already working her leg round the saddle. “Not a chance. I’m not leaving you.”
I take her arms and help her down. She has to lean on me to stand but I keep her up.
“Splendid,” says the Mayor. “Now let’s go inside and have that chat.”
“Let us start with what I know.”
He’s brought us into what used to be the room with the round coloured glass window in it but it’s now open to the air on two sides and above, the window still there, looking down, but looking down on rubble.
Looking down on a little cleared area with a broken table and two chairs.
Where me and Viola sit.
“I know, for example,” the Mayor says, “that you did not kill Aaron, Todd, that you never took your final step towards becoming a man, that it was Viola here who put the blade in all along.”
Viola takes my arm and squeezes it tight, letting me know it’s okay that he knows.
“I know that Viola told you the Answer were hiding at the ocean when I let you escape to go speak with her.”