There was distaste at how shrill my voice was and of the language I spoke.
There was dread and shame at what I represented, what I meant.
And there was the briefest of pauses before they crossed the final stretch of road towards me, before they came forward with their assistance and help. And they did come forward, they did help me to my feet and asked me for my story, which I told in the language of the Burden, and they listened to me with concern, listened to me with horror and outrage, listened while also making plans for where to take me and what would happen next and reassuring me all along that I was one of them, that I had returned to them now, that I was safe.
That I was not alone.
But before they did all of that, there was shock, there was distaste, there was dread, there was shame.
Here at last was the Land. And it was afraid to touch me.
They took me to an encampment, deep to the south, through thick woods and over a ridge of hills. Hundreds of them lived there in bulbous secreted bivouacs, so many and so loud and curious that I nearly turned and fled.
I did not look like them, being shorter, slighter, my skin a different shade of white, the lichen I grew for my clothing a different type. I barely recognized any of their food or their shared songs or the communal way they slept. Distant memories from the voices of the Burden tried to reassure me, but I felt different, I was different.
Different most of all in language. Theirs was almost unspoken, shared among them so quickly I could almost never follow it, as if they were just different parts of a single mind.
Which of course they were. They were a mind called the Land.
This was not how the Burden spoke. Forced to interact with the Clearing, forced to obey them, we adopted their language, but more than just that, we adopted their ability to disguise their voice, to keep it separate, private. Which is fine if there are others to reach out to when privacy is no longer wanted.
But there was no more Burden to reach out to.
And I did not know how to reach out to the Land.
While I rested and fed and was healed of all of my injuries save the red pain of the 1017 band, a message was passed through the voice of the Land until it reached a Pathway, where it went straight to the Sky faster than it would have otherwise.
Within days, he arrived in the encampment, high on his battlemore, a hundred soldiers with him and more on the way.
The Sky is here to see the Return, he showed, giving me my name in an instant and ensuring my difference before he had even seen me in the flesh.
And then he laid his eyes on me, and they were the eyes of a warrior, of a general and leader.
They were the eyes of the Sky.
And they looked at me as if they recognized me.
We went inside a bivouac secreted especially for our meeting, its curving walls reaching to a point far above our heads. I told the Sky the story as I knew it, every last detail, from being born into the Burden, to the slaughter of us all, save one.
And while I spoke, his voice surrounded me in a sad song of weeping and sorrow which was taken up by all of the Land in the encampment outside and for all I know every part of the Land this world over, and I was held in it, the Land placing me at the centre of their voices, their one voice, and for a moment, for a brief moment–
I no longer felt alone.
We will avenge you, the Sky showed me.
And that was even better.
And the Sky keeps his word, he shows to me now.
He does, I show. Thank you.
This is only a beginning, he shows. There is more to come, more that will be pleasing to the Return.
Including a chance to meet the Knife in battle?
He looks at me for a moment. All things in their due course.
As I watch him stand, a part of me still wonders if he is leaving the possibility open for a peaceful solution, one that would avoid the outright slaughter of the Clearing, but his voice refuses to answer my doubts and for a moment I am ashamed to have thought them, especially after an attack that has taken part of the Land.
The Return has also wondered if I have a second source of information, the Sky shows.
I look up sharply.
You notice much, the Sky shows. But so does the Sky.
Where? I show. How does the rest of the Land not know of it? How does the Clearing–
The Sky asks now for the Return’s trust, he shows and there is discomfort in his voice. But there is also a warning. And it must be your unbreakable bond. You must promise to trust the Sky, no matter what you might see or hear. You must trust that there is a larger plan that might not be apparent to you. A larger purpose that involves the Return.
But I can hear his deeper voice, too.
I have lifelong experience with the voices of the Clearing, voices that hide, voices that twist themselves in knots while the truth is always more na**d than they think, and I have far more practice at uncovering concealment than the rest of the Land.
And in the depths of his voice, I see not only that the Sky, like the Return, can conceal with his voice, but I can also see part of what he is concealing–
You must trust me, he says again, showing me his plans for the days to come–
But he will not show me the source of his information.
Because he knows how betrayed I will feel when he finally does.
[TODD]
There’s blood everywhere.
Across the grass in the front garden, on the small path leading up to the house, all over the floor inside, way more blood than you’d think coulda come outta actual people.
“Todd?” the Mayor says. “Are you all right?”
“No,” I say, staring at all the blood. “What kinda person would be all right?”
I am the Circle and the Circle is me, I think.
The Spackle attacks keep coming. Every day since the first one on the power stayshun, eight days in a row, no let up. They attack and kill the soldiers who are out trying to drill wells to get us much-needed water. They attack and kill sentries at night at random points on the edge of town. They even burnt down a whole street of houses. No one died, but they set another street alight while the Mayor’s men were trying to put out the first one.
And all this time, there still ain’t no reports from the squadrons to the north and south, both of ’em just sitting there twiddling their thumbs, no sound of Spackle passing ’em to make it into town or on the way back from another successful attack. Nothing from Viola’s probes neither, like everywhere you look, they’re somewhere else.
And now they’ve done something new.
Parties of townsfolk, usually accompanied by a soldier or two, have been going thru the outlying houses one by one, scrounging whatever food they can find for the storehouse.