Beast of Stone

  The Afters seemed both determined and good-humored. They called out encouragement to one another, laughed off the stumbles, and worked without cease. Their movements were shakes and tremors at first. But after several rounds of repetition, the action smoothed out and began to look almost like a dance.

  If only it were a dance, Raffa thought.

  Farther upstream, accuracy practice was taking place. The council had speculated that the guards would not be wearing heavy armor, for two reasons: because the Chancellor knew that the Afters lacked weaponry, and because, with the battle taking place in the Mag and the Forest, the guards would need to be quick and agile. But they would still be well protected by layers of leather and padding.

  “Hands!” The squad leaders were calling out. “First choice, hit them in the hand. Second choice, face or neck.” These were the places where the thorns had the best chance to penetrate unprotected flesh.

  To Raffa’s astonishment, squad members began setting up a few dozen scarecrows in a long line, their poles planted in the shallow water at the stream’s edge. The last time he had seen scarecrows was at the shed compound, where they were being used to train the crows—to peck out people’s eyes.

  The squad members were now blowing darts at the scarecrows. Raffa could not help an involuntary shudder at the similarity between what he was seeing now and what he had seen at the shed compound.

  A sober realization: War made both sides alike in frightening ways.

  Raffa left the stream bank. He meant to head for the pother tent, but his feet took him toward the outskirts of the clearing. He began to jog, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he found himself barreling through the Forest. He plunged on blindly, branches whipping at his face and catching his sleeves. He did not know how long he had been running when he saw an enormous neverbare tree with a hollowed-out trunk.

  He veered off the path, then headed straight for the tree and ducked into its hollow. Pulling the hood of his tunic over his head, he made himself as small as he could by hugging his knees.

  Slowly the wild pounding of his heart began to ease.

  What had happened?

  The scarecrows. It was something about seeing the scarecrows, and the thought that both sides were using them.

  The image in Raffa’s mind shifted. He saw himself at the center of the circle, speaking to the council and all the squad leaders.

  They were cheering for me! So exciting . . . and everyone so hopeful . . .

  But his body had known the truth just now, and had made him run away—in shame.

  A few thoughtless words had exploded into a dreadful fraud. He had lied to all those people.

  Just like the Chancellor, who had been lying all along. Saying she wanted animals trained to do the work of people; giving away grain as a means of ferreting out all the Afters; claiming that her plan was to raze the slums . . .

  Well, he was no better. He had lied to people who were depending on him. Not only that, but his mistake was grounded in a cowardly yearning: the wish to make a difficulty vanish without effort.

  But I never said it! I never said the word magic, it was someone else—

  Now he was making things worse by trying to justify what he had done. He cringed at the thought of how his parents would react if they knew.

  If everyone thinks they’re protected by magic, they might do really foolish things. They won’t take care to protect themselves.

  His mistake might end up getting more people hurt or even killed. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Tears filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks—tears of rage at himself mixed with tears of self-pity. It was surely one of the most awful combinations in the world.

  If only Echo were still with him! The little bat would have comforted him, and probably even made him laugh. He recalled the many times he had been puzzled or troubled, and just being with Echo had helped him solve the problem.

  His forehead on his knees, Raffa thought about his conversations with the bat. He always had to choose words that Echo would understand, which usually meant explaining complicated situations in basic terms. He would slow things down and simplify them—and it was then that a solution would come to him.

  I know exactly what Echo would say if he were here now. He’d say, “Raffa no good?”

  “That’s right, Echo,” he whispered. “I—I told a lie. To a whole lot of people. Many people.”

  Did Echo know all those words? No, so he might say, “Lie? What lie?”

  “A lie is—is when you don’t tell the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “Truth? Truth is—well, it’s the way things are.”

  No. That wasn’t quite right. Because, Raffa thought, there isn’t just one way. People see the same thing in different ways. Sometimes even in opposite ways. What’s bad to one person might be good, or at least okay, to someone else. Like the Chancellor. Dosing the animals and using them against people—somehow, she sees it as a good thing. . . .

  So you had to try to look at the world as clearly as you could. But that alone wasn’t enough: You also had to measure what you saw against what you thought was right. The truth isn’t just facts. It’s feelings, too.

  “Truth, Echo . . . Truth is seeing the world with both your mind and your heart.”

  Raffa had been thinking so hard that he felt like his brain was getting sore. He knew how he wanted this imaginary conversation to end: He wanted to hear Echo say, “Raffa good!”

  He would have to earn it first.

  For the next hour or so, Raffa made birchbark masks. First he walked through the Forest, locating birch trees. He cut the bark, always careful not to take too much from any one tree. When he had gathered a large stack of bark, he sat down on a log, trimmed the pieces into squares, and cut eye slits and “fake” eyeholes into each square.

  He knew that he should go back to the pother tent to see how Garith and Jimble were doing. But after what had just happened, he needed this time in the Forest for succor and strength. And there were bound to be some folks who hadn’t had a chance to make their own masks and would need one, so at least he was still being useful.

  As he worked with his hands, his mind was hard at work, too. How could he fix his dreadful mistake?

  It did not take long for him to come to the conclusion that how was not the hard part. He knew what had to be done: The only way to undo a lie was by telling the truth . . . and getting people to believe it.

  I’m NOT like the Chancellor. She thinks it’s okay to lie. I know that what I did was wrong, and I have to fix it.

  The hard part was when and where. And to whom.

  He tried out various scenarios. I could tell the council. Or—or just one or two of them. Fitzer, maybe?

  Then what? Leave it to the council to tell everyone else?

  No. That would be putting one act of cowardice on top of another.

  I could go around telling the squad leaders one by one. That way I wouldn’t have to stand up in front of a whole bunch of people again.

  Another no. There wasn’t enough time.

  Only one solution had the best chance of succeeding, but the thought of it made Raffa queasy with fear. Please, please let me think of something else—and soon. . . .

  Finally he could delay no longer, and walked slowly back to camp. He was relieved to find the pother tent empty when he arrived; it was time for the evening meal, so Garith and Jimble were probably at the pavilion.

  The tent looked almost forlorn. In contrast to the constant activity of the past two days, the worktable had been cleared, with empty basins and buckets underneath. The piles of knitted and filled collars, the touchrue thorns, and the jars of blue-goo were all gone; everything had been distributed throughout the camp. One basket held a few birchbark masks; he added the ones he had made.

  Garith and Jimble had worked hard and heroically. Nearly everything was ready.

  Raffa couldn’t face seeing everyone at the pavilion, not yet. He found the lun
ch basket, which contained some leftovers. He ate the rest of the skillet bread with some cheese and jam. Then he went to Haddie and Elson’s tent.

  Haddie came out when he called.

  “I need to arrange another meeting,” Raffa said.

  “The council?” she asked. “Or the squad leaders?”

  He gulped. “No,” he said, forcing out the next words. “The whole camp.” By now, most if not all of the leaders would have passed the lie on to their squad members. It was his responsibility to make sure that everyone knew the truth.

  She didn’t bat an eye. “That’ll be easy enough,” she said. “The council is going to address the camp tonight, at moonrise. You can say your piece there.”

  Raffa’s stomach filled with tremors. He realized that he had been hoping she would say something like, “The whole camp? That won’t be possible.”

  It was done now. He had to figure out what he was going to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ON his way back to the pother tent, Raffa saw Kuma and the two raccoons up ahead of him on the path. He called to her.

  “How did it go with them?” he asked, nodding at the raccoons.

  “Couldn’t have gone better,” she said. “They think it’s a game. Twig trusts Roo completely—she doesn’t bat an eye. Bando was a little skittish at first, but he followed Twig’s lead.” She grinned. “You should see him. He closes his eyes really tight the whole time.”

  Raffa squatted down and smiled at the twins. Twig began trying to untie one of his bootlaces while Bando pawed at the dirt beside the path. “Where’s Callian?”

  No answer. He glanced up to see a worried expression on Kuma’s face.

  “He left,” she said at last. “He’s on his way back to Gilden.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He said he has to help rescue his father. That he realized he never should have left him in the first place, except for having to deliver the message from Salima.”

  “But that’s just reckless—he might end up getting caught himself!”

  She flashed a scowl at him. “You weren’t there, Raffa. I didn’t even try to talk him out of it. The look in his eyes—there was no way I could have stopped him.”

  He held his breath for a beat. “Okay. I didn’t mean— I’m not angry at you.” Pause. “I guess I’m not really angry at him, either. I—I just hope he’ll be all right.”

  They stood in silence for a moment. Raffa found himself wishing silently, Find my mam and da, too, Callian. Get them all out of Gilden.

  Then Bando chittered, and trundled over to him. “Errrmmmm,” the raccoon said happily. “Errrrmmmm.”

  Something dangled from his mouth. Raffa bent down for a closer look.

  It was a fat, juicy earthworm.

  Bando mistook Raffa’s interest. He took the partly eaten worm out of his mouth and held it up. “Errrmmmm?” he asked politely.

  Before Raffa could refuse his generous offer, Twig loped over. She swiped the worm out of Bando’s paw and swallowed it in one gulp.

  It happened so quickly that Bando was completely flummoxed. He looked at his own paws, first one, then the other, squeaking in puzzlement. What had happened to his worm?

  Raffa and Kuma both laughed. Bando continued to squeak until Raffa comforted him with a piece of dried apple from his rucksack.

  As they reached the pother tent, Jimble and Garith joined them. Kuma decided to take the two raccoons to the stream to let them play and scrabble for crayfish.

  “They worked hard—they deserve a little rest,” she said.

  She picked up Twig, who chirped cheerfully.

  “Let me hold her?” Raffa begged. “Just for a minute.”

  Kuma handed over the raccoon, who was now quite an armful, not the little furball she had been when Raffa first met her. He rubbed behind her ears, then cradled her close to his face. She reached up with her humanlike hands and patted his chin and cheeks.

  “Hey, Twiglet,” he murmured, thinking of her future mission. “Be—be careful, okay?”

  “Bee-bee kay,” Twig said. “Bee-bee kay.”

  “I like it,” Kuma said as Raffa handed Twig back to her. “Bee-bee kay, everyone.”

  “Bee-bee kay-one!” Bando squeaked.

  “Bee-bee kay-one!” Jimble repeated, and giggled.

  Raffa had to roll his eyes. What he had just heard was a human who was imitating a raccoon who was imitating a human.

  Jimble went with Kuma, delighted to have a chance to play with the raccoons. That left Raffa alone with Garith for the first time in what seemed like weeks. They straddled the log outside the pother tent, facing each other. Raffa was trying hard not to think about the upcoming meeting at the pavilion.

  “Garith, have you gotten used to being deaf?”

  Raffa was astonished by his own words. Where did that come from? “Sorry. Never mind—I don’t even know why I asked.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Garith said. “Nobody seems to— I mean, everybody avoids the subject. I don’t ever get to talk about it.”

  He leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. “It’s not like I think about it every single second,” he said. “Sometimes I forget about it. When it doesn’t matter. Like when I’m pothering. Maybe that’s why I like it so much these days.”

  Raffa nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

  “You’re not gonna believe this,” Garith said, “but there’s even times when I’m glad.”

  “Really?” Raffa exclaimed, both startled and skeptical.

  Garith grinned wickedly. “Think about it. If I weren’t deaf, I’d probably have killed Jimble by now.”

  Raffa snorted. Garith jumped to his feet. He started bouncing around on his toes and doing a reasonable imitation of Jimble. “‘Garith, how much of this should I put in?’ ‘Garith, am I stirring this right?’ ‘Garith, I want to do it myself—will you watch me?’”

  Now Raffa was laughing, and Garith joined in. When their laughter ebbed, Garith added, “He’s great, really. But I’m glad we’re too busy for him to experiment. Who knows what he’d get up to!”

  Raffa stood, too, and faced his cousin. “Speaking of experimenting,” he said, “I put some of the cavern-plant powder aside. When all this is finished”—he gestured toward the camp—“I’m going to experiment. And try to make an antidote for you.”

  Garith was silent for so long that Raffa wondered if he had understood. At last he spoke. “If it’s just because you feel bad about—about what happened to me—that’s not . . . enough of a reason.”

  Another long silence. “I can’t be sitting around waiting and hoping, you know what I mean? I have to—to get on with things. With my life, the way it is. But if you want to experiment because what you find out might help other people, then that’s a good reason.”

  Raffa inhaled a quick breath. He’s talking about yearnings. An antidote that might help a lot of people: That was a truly worthwhile yearning.

  He gave Garith a mock-scowl. “When did you get so clever?”

  Garith shrugged. “Always been that way, dear cousin. You just never noticed before.”

  They took turns jostling each other as they walked to the pavilion.

  The tables had been moved out of the pavilion and replaced by benches, stumps, and logs for seating. Lanterns hung from the posts. Every available place was taken. More people stood around three sides of the pavilion. The rumble of talk was low but constant.

  Quellin, Haddie, and Missum Abdul, three of the council members, stood along the fourth side, on a crude dais made of split logs. They were surrounded by the squad leaders. Raffa sat on a log near the front between Garith and Kuma, with Jimble next to Garith.

  Haddie nodded at Kuma, who put her fingers to her lips, and a sharp whistle pierced the air. Most people stopped talking, but not everyone. Kuma whistled again, and this time silence filled the space all the way to its canvas roof.

  The camp denizens numbered over a thousand, so the council had decided to us
e shouters for this gathering. For the Chancellor’s speech in Gilden, there had been dozens of shouters; here, there were only two. One of them was Kuma’s uncle Elson, with his beautiful basso voice; Fitzer was the other. They stood at the back of the pavilion, which put them right in the midst of the crowd.

  Haddie stepped up onto a stump and greeted everyone. “Once upon a time,” she said, and held up her hand.

  “ONCE UPON A TIME,” Elson and Fitzer yelled together.

  Haddie opened both arms toward the gathering, inviting a response.

  “Happily ever Afters,” everyone called.

  Haddie frowned. She turned her head, put one hand to her ear, and made a beckoning gesture with the other. “ONCE UPON A TIME,” she repeated.

  The crowd understood. “HAPPILY EVER AFTERS!” they bellowed.

  She nodded, satisfied. “First, I want to thank everyone,” she said.

  “. . . I want to thank everyone.” The shouters continued to echo her words.

  “I know it hasn’t been easy, and the way we have all worked together is truly impressive. We are most of us Afters. But whether or not you have After blood, you are here with us because you believe in fairness and justice.”

  After the shouters had repeated her words, applause rolled through the pavilion and spilled out its edges. Haddie waited for quiet again.

  “Fairness and justice. So I would have you remember this: The guards against whom we fight are our neighbors. And will be our neighbors again. We seek a victory not against them but against those whose orders they follow. Fight for your families and friends, for yourselves, for Obsidia. Fight hard and well. But know that a quest for justice without wisdom and compassion can all too easily become cruelty.”

  “. . . cruelty.”

  “Your squad leaders have briefed you. You know that we cannot match the guards in either numbers or weaponry. Our advantages are surprise and agility, and we must work together. That is where we will find our strength. So I leave you with this.”

  Looking to her left, she began to move her head slowly, slowly, so that her gaze swept over the entire crowd. No one spoke. The silence and stillness were majestic.