Beast of Stone, Page 3

  Then he did what he had always been told never to do around a horse: He ducked beneath it. The horse stamped in surprise, then shied and reared, a hoof coming within inches of Raffa’s head.

  Raffa collapsed to the ground and rolled under the wagon, which was now being jerked forward by the startled horse. Barely avoiding being crushed by the wheels, he kept rolling until he was out from under, which put him right at the open gate.

  He scrambled to his feet. Echo flew to his sleeve and hung on while he dashed into the street. He could hear the panicked whinnying of the horse and the roar of Jayney’s curses as the guards tried to get past the wagon.

  Faster! he screamed at himself. This was his chance to get away!

  He wove through the traffic of pedestrians and pushcarts. Up ahead he saw a street corner he recognized from the last time he had escaped from the Garrison. He turned into a small lane and slipped down a stairwell, which led to a cellar room where he and Trixin and Kuma had hidden before.

  Only then did he collapse into a corner, feeling as though his heart and lungs were about to explode. It seemed to take forever before his pulse stopped its frenzied hammering.

  He had done it. He had escaped from the Garrison, and from Jayney as well.

  Chapter Four

  THE first thing Raffa did after catching his breath was to send Echo out on a mission.

  “Echo, do you remember where Jimble lives?” Raffa said. Echo was still hanging on his sleeve. “We were there once, with his sisters and his baby brother—”

  “Jimble friend,” Echo said.

  “Yes, that’s right. Can you find his house again? I need you to go there and ask him to meet me here.”

  Echo clicked in annoyance. “Sleep,” he said.

  “Oh.” Raffa’s face reddened. He had forgotten his earlier promise to the bat.

  He held out his forefinger and gently moved the bat to hang there. “Echo, I know you want to sleep, and I didn’t mean to break my word. But there are things we have to do. . . . If we don’t, it will be really bad for a lot of creatures, and for humans, too.”

  Echo looked at him and blinked. “Raffa no good?”

  Raffa was moved by Echo’s obvious attempt to understand. “That’s right. If we don’t fix things, it could be no good for me. And for my family.”

  Echo gave a little chitter. Raffa stroked the soft fur on the bat’s back. “It’s not far from here, honest. It won’t take you long, and afterwards—”

  He hated the feeling of breaking a promise, letting both himself and Echo down, so he chose his words more carefully this time. “I—I’ll do my best to see that you get some sleep.”

  “Echo go, Jimble come,” the bat said, and flapped away.

  Raffa had been right: It wasn’t long before he heard footfalls on the steps. Echo flew in through the door and landed on the perch necklace.

  “Ouch!” the bat said. “Not Jimble friend. Trixin friend.”

  Raffa heard Trixin’s voice first: Even before she entered the room, she was already asking a question.

  “However did you get out this time?” she said in that impatient tone he knew well. “Did you magic the guards again?”

  It was just like her to start right in on things without the bother of a greeting.

  He had told her before that apothecary was far more knowledge and skill than magic, but like many city dwellers, she still viewed the practice with awe and a little suspicion. “No magic,” he said. “It’s a long story—”

  “—which we don’t have time for,” she said. “First, I need to tell you to be careful with that bat of yours.”

  Raffa looked down at Echo. “What’s happened?”

  “Rumors,” Trixin said, “about a bat that can talk. I don’t know who started them, but the Chancellor has heard about it. She’s offering a reward to anyone who brings her the bat.”

  Raffa’s hands shook as he put the perch necklace underneath his tunic. Echo was finally getting his well-earned sleep. I need to get out of Gilden. Echo will be safer outside the city.

  “Come on, then. We have to hurry.” Trixin strode past him to a door at the rear of the room; he jumped to his feet to follow.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The Chancellor is going to give a speech,” Trixin said as she lit a candle. “It was announced yesterday morning, and it’s been posted all over the city, and every family has to send at least one person to hear it. The guards have been in and out of people’s homes all day.”

  A speech to the whole of Gilden?

  “That sounds pretty important,” Raffa said. “Has she ever done this before?”

  Trixin shook her head. “It’s usually the Advocate who gives the big speeches. But we weren’t ever required to attend. And the guards—they’re scaring people.”

  Raffa had never met the Advocate, holder of the highest office in Obsidia. His job was to represent the people. The Chancellor’s was to execute the laws of the land.

  Trixin began trotting. “We’d better hurry if we don’t want to miss any of it.”

  They descended a steep set of stairs and entered a long passage. After a few turns, Raffa recognized where they were. Trixin’s younger brother Jimble had once led him this way to show him how he could enter the Commons without having to go through the gate. They climbed a ladder that Raffa had used before. Now they were beneath a building just outside the Commons wall.

  Trixin put a finger to her lips and pointed up. Raffa listened.

  He could hear the tramp of feet and the buzz of voices. A great mass of voices: It was strange how he could sense the presence of hundreds of people overhead without seeing them. He pictured the Commons Green—a huge open space, roughly oval in shape, that served as the hub for the government buildings, walkways, shops, and elegant homes on its circumference. The Chancellor would be standing on the wide steps of Discussion Chamber, with the crowd before her filling every inch of the Green and spilling into the streets outside the Commons wall.

  Raffa envisioned the Chancellor, tall and tan and silver-haired, a striking figure to all who saw her. But how would everyone be able to hear the speech?

  Then Raffa heard a male voice, so loud and clear that its owner must have been almost directly overhead.

  “Citizens of Obsidia, greetings! May your lives be solid and steady!”

  Trixin leaned toward him. “They’re using shouters,” she explained.

  Shouters? He knew how they worked, although he had never encountered them before. There would be dozens of shouters stationed throughout the vast crowd. The first shouters were positioned close enough to the Chancellor to hear every word she said. She would pause after a sentence or two; they would repeat her exact words, shouting them to their colleagues standing farther away. The second set of shouters would turn and repeat the words again, and on and on throughout the whole crowd in all directions, until every last person had heard.

  “Ours is a strong and proud land,” the shouter said. “We were able to rebuild after the Great Quake when all around us, so many others could not. A true demonstration of the superior strength and determination of our people!”

  Raffa frowned. It was disconcerting to hear a man’s voice; he had to remind himself that these were actually the Chancellor’s words. And he found himself thinking of his cousin, Garith, who was deaf.

  I wish Garith were here. He wouldn’t be able to hear the speech, but I could tell him what she’s saying, and then we could talk it over. . . .

  Because the Chancellor was twisting the truth. Obsidia had been able to rebuild after the Great Quake in part because of sheer luck: It had sustained relatively little damage compared with its neighbors. Beyond the Sudden Mountains, which had been thrust up overnight by the Quake, lay hundreds of miles of wasteland in every direction—untillable, uninhabitable. Obsidia had been spared such destruction, with the exception of an area called the Mag, a desolate place littered with eerie rock formations. If the lands around Obsidia now looked like
the Mag, it was no wonder that no one had ever been able to rebuild there.

  “As Chancellor, I take my responsibilities very seriously. Today I am announcing a program of new laws and acts that will not only protect our way of life but also improve the lives of our citizenry.”

  Raffa could hear a low buzz from the crowd, sounds of puzzlement that echoed his own reaction. What new laws was she talking about?

  “Our first goal is to ensure better homes for our people. You are all aware that Gilden has two areas that are shameful eyesores, blots on our national pride. Those areas are going to be completely razed, and beautiful new structures will be erected in their stead.”

  The slums!

  Raffa’s stomach lurched. Several days earlier, he had learned that there was to be some kind of campaign against the slums, but he didn’t know exactly what the Chancellor had in mind. Now, it seemed, she was ready to execute her plans.

  The shouter went on. “Naturally, for such improvement to take place, those areas will have to be evacuated. Later today and tomorrow, residents will be receiving notice. Please cooperate with the authorities. Everyone must be prepared for removal in three days’ time.”

  Raffa exchanged glances with Trixin. A frown line appeared between her eyebrows.

  Almost at once, people began raising their voices.

  “Removal? What does she mean by that?”

  “Just temporary, right?”

  “Of course temporary. She can’t be saying forever—”

  “Those who receive official notice are required to prepare for departure,” the shouter continued. “Take only those belongings you can carry by hand. Guards will serve as escorts as far as the foothills of the Suddens.”

  Now the confusion in people’s voices was mixed with anger. “The Suddens! We can’t move there—how would we survive?” “What about my job?” “When can we come back?”

  The crowd was no longer standing still. Raffa could hear thuds and creaks overhead; people were clearly becoming restless.

  “We will rid Obsidia of weakness and blight!” the shouter bellowed. “We will not stop until the land is free from all that prevents us from greatness!”

  Then he heard other shouts.

  “GET OUT!”

  “LAZY SLUMMERS!”

  “AFTERS OUT!”

  That last phrase quickly became a chant.

  “AFTERS OUT! AFTERS OUT! AFTERS OUT!”

  The chant was ugly and menacing. Chills shook Raffa to his very core.

  Afters.

  Obsidia’s history was defined by the Great Quake, which had occurred more than two hundred years before Raffa was born. Afters were the people who had arrived in Obsidia during the years following the Quake. They had survived the Quake itself, but their homes and lands had been utterly destroyed. Then they had made a harrowing, arduous journey across a decimated continent and through the forbidding Sudden Mountains.

  Afters were now part of Obsidian society and culture. At the same time, they were proud of their own history and kept alive the stories of their struggles and triumphs. Raffa’s father, Mohan, was descended from a family of Afters who had brought with them valuable plants and seeds from their former homes in the land of Zuelaca far to the south and west. Califer plants, source of one of the most important and widely used botanicals, were just one example of the countless contributions Afters had made to life in Obsidia.

  Not everyone in Obsidia had welcomed the newcomers. Many Afters had ended up camping in two enclaves to the north and south of the city. Over the decades and generations, those camps had evolved into shantytown slums. Some families, including Raffa’s, had eventually moved on and out. But the slums remained largely populated by descendants of the original Afters.

  Da is an After. I’m half-After. The people shouting, they—they don’t even know us. . . .

  “Ears! Please, everyone, ears! We ask all citizens to allow the authorities to do their work without disruption.”

  The sound of the chanting faded, but Raffa could feel its menace lingering.

  The shouter bellowed the Chancellor’s closing lines. “Thank you for your cooperation! We look forward to a new era of greatness, for Gilden and all of Obsidia!”

  A smattering of applause was followed by the rhythmic thud of guard boots. Raffa guessed that they were forming up to ensure order among the now-unsettled crowd. He hoped no one would get hurt.

  “I don’t understand,” Trixin said, her frown line deepening. “Why does everyone have to move out all at once? Surely they can’t knock down every house at the same time. It’s ridiculous.”

  While not an After, Trixin had grown up in the slums. Her family had recently moved to a better home near the Commons, but Raffa knew that she and her brother still had friends among the slum dwellers.

  For a long moment, Raffa couldn’t speak. He recalled his encounters with the Chancellor, and remembered especially her bouts of fury—when he and Kuma had slipped out of her grasp with Roo, and again in the courtroom. They had provided glimpses of her blind and unshakable conviction. He knew what the crowd overhead was only beginning to suspect.

  She won’t stop until every last After is out of Obsidia.

  “It’s—it’s not about the houses,” he said at last.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Afters. She wants to get rid of all of us. My—my da’s an After. His family was Zuelacan.”

  Trixin’s eyes widened. “She never mentioned anything like that. And besides, she can’t possibly mean people like your family.”

  He shook his head. “You said it yourself. If she really wanted to just clean up the slums, she wouldn’t have to move everyone out—they could do it street by street. Or whatever. And she’s already ordered attacks on other Afters, at Kuma’s settlement, so it’s not only the slums. And Garith told me that Jayney was talking about driving out all the Afters, remember?” It was all adding up to a horror he could never have imagined.

  Trixin drew a long breath. “I’m not saying you’re right about all that,” she said slowly, unlike her usual impatient manner, “but it would probably be best for you to get out of Gilden. You heard her—there are going to be guards everywhere.”

  Raffa nodded. “But I need to talk to my mam first.” After seeing her in the Deemers’ Hall of Judgment and then wishing for her almost every moment that he was in the Garrison, he missed her more than ever. “Please, could you tell her to meet me here? As soon as she can.”

  “I’ll try. But I don’t always see her. She’s out and about a lot, treating patients. And you should think of somewhere else to meet. She won’t know her way down here.”

  “My da,” Raffa said. “I have to tell her that I saw him—”

  He stopped, his throat lumping up. Why had he been so quake-brained with the keys? If only he had picked the right one straightaway, Da would be here now. Instead, he was still stuck in that horrid cell, and Raffa had no idea what to do next.

  Then a tiny feather of memory tickled him. Da, telling him to get away . . .

  “Find a man named Fitzer. He can help you.”

  Fitzer!

  Before his imprisonment, Raffa had been trying to enter Gilden without guards seeing him. He had hidden himself in a wagon full of rotting compost, which had crossed the Everwide River by ferry. The driver had persuaded the guards at the ferry landing not to search the wagon, saying he was in a hurry. Raffa had overheard the guards say the driver’s name: Fitzer.

  Later, Raffa realized that Fitzer had known all along of his hidden presence and was helping him on his way. Neither of them had seen the other: Raffa had heard Fitzer’s voice but had no idea what he looked like.

  With all the people in Gilden, how had Fitzer and Da met? Was it even the same person? And if it wasn’t, how would Raffa find him?

  Chapter Five

  “OH!” Raffa exclaimed in a sudden moment of comprehension. “Trixin, do you get deliveries of compost, for the plants in the glasshouses?”


  “Of course,” Trixin said. “How are you going to grow all those plants without compost?”

  “Is it Fitzer? The driver who brings the compost?”

  “Yes, Mannum Fitzer—that’s him. Why?”

  The mystery explained: Da had been staying in Gilden, at Uncle Ansel’s apartment. He would have visited the glasshouses, maybe even done some work there, and that was how he would have met Fitzer. It was a coincidence that wasn’t: Fitzer couldn’t have known that the boy he helped was Mohan’s son.

  “He—um, he’s a friend. Of the family.” Raffa was mindful of Trixin’s rather precarious position. She helped provide for her large family by working at the laboratory, a job she did not want to put at risk. She had agreed to tell him whatever she learned, but had adamantly stated that she did not want to know anything about what he was doing.

  “Would you give him a message?” Raffa went on. “Ask him to meet me at the inn. The one near the ferry landing—he’ll know what I mean. And if you see my mam, tell her that’s where I’ll be later today.”

  Trixin nodded. “This way, then,” she said.

  She led him through the passage until they reached a turning. “I’m going on straight here,” she said. “You take the right, and you’ll be walking a ways. Keep to the left every time. And you’ll see some stairs, really steep ones—”

  “I remember,” he said. “Jimble took me that way before. I’ll end up near the ferry, right?”

  “Yes. . . . Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached into her apron pocket and took out a napkin-wrapped parcel. “I figured you’d have had nothing to eat except Garrison gluck, and I remember my da telling me how awful it is.”

  She handed him the parcel. He unwrapped it to find an oatcake, split and buttered, and a handful of walnuts and dried apple slices. His mouth watered; in the excitement of the escape and the Chancellor’s speech, he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. He wolfed down half the oatcake in a single bite.

  “My, that’s a pretty sight,” Trixin said, rolling her eyes.

  Raffa chewed and swallowed. “It’s not the first time you’ve given me food,” he said. “I really— I mean, I don’t know how to say thanks—”