Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (69 page)

[T
ODD
]

It’s a sound but it’s not a sound and it’s louder than anything possible and it would burst yer eardrums if you were hearing it with yer ears rather than the inside of yer head and everything goes white and it’s not just like I’m blind but deaf and dumb and frozen, too, and the pain of it comes from right deep down within so there’s no part of yerself you can grab to protect it, just a stinging, burning slap right into the middle of who you are.

This is what Davy felt, every time he got hit with the Mayor’s Noise.

And it’s words–

All it is is
words
–

But it’s
every
word, crammed into yer head all at once, and the whole world is shouting at you that
YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING
and it rips away every word of yer own, like pulling yer hair out at the roots and taking skin with it–

A flash of words and I’m nothing–

I’m nothing–

Y
ER NOTHING
–

And I fall to the ground and the Mayor can do whatever he wants with me.

I don’t wanna talk about what happens next.

The Mayor leaves some soldiers behind to guard the house of healing and the others drag me back to the cathedral and he don’t say nothing as we go, not a word as I beg him not to hurt her, as I promise and scream and cry (shut up) that I’ll do anything he wants as long as he don’t hurt her.

(shut up, shut up)

When we get back, he ties me to the chair again.

And lets Mr. Collins go to town.

And–

And I don’t wanna talk about it.

Cuz I cry and I throw up and I beg and I call out her name and I beg some more and it all shames me so much I can’t even say it.

And all thru it, the Mayor says nothing. He just walks round me, over and over again, listening to me yell, listening to me plead.

Listening to my Noise beneath it all.

And I tell myself that I’m doing all this yelling, all this begging, to hide in my Noise what she told me, to keep her safe, to keep him from knowing. I tell myself I have to cry and beg as loud as I can so he won’t hear.

(shut up)

That’s what I tell myself.

And I don’t wanna say no more about it.

(just effing shut the hell up)

By the time I get back in the tower, it’s nearly morning and Mayor Ledger’s waiting up for me and even tho I’m in no fitness to do anything, I’m wondering if maybe he played a part in all this somehow but his instant concern for me, his horror at the shape I’m in, it all sounds true in his Noise, so true that I just lay slowly down on the mattress and don’t know what to think.

“They barely even came in,” he says, standing behind me. “Collins just opened the door, took a look, then locked me in again. It’s like they knew.”

“Yeah,” I say into my pillow. “It sure is like they knew.”

“I had nothing to do with it, Todd,” he says, reading me. “I swear to you. I’d never help that man.”

“Just leave me be,” I say.

And he does.

I don’t sleep.

I burn.

I burn with the stupidity of how easy they trapped me, how easy it was to use her against me. I burn with the shame of crying at the beating (shut
up
). I burn with the ache of being taken from her again, the ache of her promise to me, the ache of not knowing what’s going to happen to her now.

I don’t care nothing bout what they do to me.

Eventually, the sun rises and I find out my punishment.

“Put yer back into it, pigpiss.”

“Shut it, Davy.”

Our new job is putting the Spackle to work in groups, digging up foundayshuns for new buildings in the monastery grounds, new buildings that’ll house the Spackle for the coming winter.

My punishment is, I’m working right down there with ’em.

My punishment is, Davy’s in complete charge.

My punishment is, he’s got a new whip.

“C’mon,” he says, slashing it against my shoulders. “Work!”

I spin round, every bit of me sore and aching. “You hit me with that again, I’ll tear yer effing throat out.”

He smiles, all teeth, his Noise a joyous shout of triumph. “Like to see you try,
Mr. Hewitt
.”

And he just
laughs
.

I turn back to my shovel. The Spackle in my group are all staring at me. I ain’t had no sleep and my fingers are cold in the sharp, morning sun and I can’t help myself and I shout at ’em. “Get back to work!”

They make a few clicking sounds one to another and start digging at the ground again with their hands.

All except one, who looks at me a minute longer.

I stare him out, seething, my Noise riled and raging right at him. He just takes it silently, his breath steaming from his mouth, his eyes daring me to do something. He holds up his wrist, like he’s identifying himself, as if I don’t know which one he is, then he returns to working the cold earth as slowly as he can.

1017 is the only one who ain’t afraid of us.

I take my shovel and stab it hard into the ground.

“Enjoying yerself?” Davy calls.

I put something in my Noise, rude as I can think of.

“Oh, my mother’s long dead,” he says. “Just like yers.” Then he laughs. “I wonder if she talked as much in real life as she wrote in her little book.”

I straighten up, my Noise rising red. “Davy–”

“Cuz boy, don’t she go on for
pages
.”

“One of these days, Davy,” I say, my Noise so fierce I can almost see it bending the air like a heat shimmer. “One of these days, I’m gonna–”

“You’re going to what, dear boy?” the Mayor says, riding thru the entrance on Morpeth. “I can hear you two arguing from out on the road.” He turns his gaze to Davy. “And arguing is not working.”

“Oh, I got ’em working, Pa,” Davy says, nodding out to the fields.

And it’s true. Me and the Spackle are all separated into teams of ten or twenty, spread out among the whole enclosed bit of the monastery, removing stones from the low internal walls and pulling up the sod in the fields. Others are piling the dug-up dirt in other fields and my group here near the front have already dug parts of the trenches for the foundayshuns of the first building. I’ve got a shovel. The Spackle have to use their hands.

“Not bad,” the Mayor says. “Not bad at all.”

Davy’s Noise is so pleased it’s embarrassing. Nobody looks at him.

“And you, Todd?” The Mayor turns to me. “How is your morning progressing?”

“Please don’t hurt her,” I say.

“Please don’t hurt her,”
Davy mocks.

“For the last time, Todd,” the Mayor says, “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m just going to
talk
with her. In fact, I’m on my way to speak with her right now.”

My heart jumps and my Noise raises.

“Oh, he don’t like
that,
Pa,” Davy says.

“Hush,” the Mayor says. “Todd, is there anything you’d like to tell me that might make my visit with her go more quickly, more pleasantly for everyone?”

I swallow.

And the Mayor’s just
staring
at me, staring into my Noise, and words form in my brain,
P
LEASE DON
’
T HURT HER
said in my voice and his voice all twisted together, pressing down on the things I think, the things I know and it’s different from the Noise slap, this voice pokes around where I don’t want him, trying to open locked doors and turn over stones and shine lights where they shouldn’t never be shone and all the while saying
P
LEASE DON
’
T HURT HER
and I can feel myself starting to
want
to tell (
ocean
), starting to
want
to unlock those doors (
the
ocean
), starting to
want
to do just exactly what he says, cuz he’s right, he’s right about everything and who am I to resist–

“She don’t know nothing,” I say, my voice wobbly, almost gasping.

He arches an eyebrow. “You seem distressed, Todd.” He angles Morpeth to approach.
Submit
, Morpeth says. Davy watches the Mayor’s attenshuns on me and even from here I can hear him getting jealous. “Whenever my passions need calming, Todd, there’s something I like to do.”

He looks into my eyes.

I
AM THE
C
IRCLE AND THE
C
IRCLE IS ME
.

Hatched right in the middle of my brain, like a worm in an apple.

“Reminds me who I am,” the Mayor says. “Reminds me of how I can control myself.”

“What does?” Davy says and I realize he’s not hearing it.

I
AM THE
C
IRCLE AND THE
C
IRCLE IS ME
.

Again, right on the inside of me.

“What does it mean?” I almost gasp cuz it’s sitting so heavy in my brain I’m finding it hard to speak.

And then we hear it.

A whining in the air, a buzzing that ain’t Noise, a buzz more like a fat purple bee coming in to sting you.

“What the–?” Davy says.

And then we’re all turning, looking at the far end of the monastery, looking up over the heads of the soldiers along the top of the wall.

Buzzzz–

It’s in the sky, a shape making an arc, high and sharp, coming up thru some trees behind the monastery, trailing smoke behind it, but the buzzing is getting louder and the smoke is starting to thicken into black.

And then the Mayor pulls Viola’s binos out of his shirt pocket to get a closer look.

I stare at them, my Noise churning, slopping out with asking marks that he ignores.

Davy musta brought them back down the hill, too.

I clench my fists.

“Whatever it is,” Davy says, “it’s coming this way.”

I look back round. The thing has reached the high point of its arc and is heading back down to earth.

Down towards the monastery where we’re all standing.

Buzzzz–

“I’d get out of the way if I were you,” the Mayor says. “That’s a bomb.”

Davy runs so fast back to the gate he drops the whip. The soldiers on the wall start jumping off to the outside. The Mayor readies his horse but he don’t move yet, waiting to see where the bomb’s gonna land.

“Tracer,” he’s saying, his voice full of interest. “Antiquated, practically useless. We used them in the Spackle War.”

The
buzzzzzz
is getting louder. The bomb’s still falling, but picking up speed.

“Mayor Prentiss?”

“President,” he corrects but he’s still looking thru the binos almost like he’s hypnotized. “The sound and the smoke,” he says. “Far too obvious for covert use.”

“Mayor Prentiss!” My Noise is getting higher with nerves.

“The city’s all been bush bombs, so why–”

“RUN!” I yell.

Morpeth starts and the Mayor looks at me.

But I ain’t talking to him.

“RUN!” I’m yelling and waving my hands and the shovel at the Spackle nearest me, the Spackle in my field.

The field the bomb is heading right for.

Buzzzzz–

They don’t understand. Most of ’em are just watching the bomb coming right for them. “RUN!” I keep shouting and I’m sending explozhuns out in my Noise, showing ’em what’ll happen when that bomb lands, imagining blood and guts and the
BOOM
that’s on its way. “
RUN,
GODDAMMIT!”

It finally gets thru and some start to scatter, maybe just to get away from me screaming and waving my shovel, but they run and I chase them further up the field. I look back. The Mayor’s moved to the entrance of the monastery, ready to ride further if necessary.

But he’s watching me.

“RUN!” I keep yelling, getting the Spackle to move up and away, fleeing from the centre of this field. The last few hop over the nearest internal wall and I hop over with ’em, gasping for breath and turning round again to watch it land–

And I see 1017, still there in the middle of the field, just staring up at the sky.

At the bomb that’s gonna kill him where he stands.

I’m jumping back over the internal wall before I even know it–

My feet pounding over the grass–

Leaping over the trenches we’ve dug–

Running so hard there ain’t nothing in my Noise–

Just the
BUZZ
of the bomb–

Getting louder and lower–

And 1017 raising up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun–

Why ain’t he running?

And
pound pound
go my feet–

And I’m chanting
“Damn you, damn you”–

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ–

And 1017 don’t see me coming–

I slam into him hard enough to lift him off his feet, feeling the air punched from his lungs as we fly across the grass, as we hit the ground rolling, as we go end over end across the dirt and into a shallow trench, as one titanic–