“Can we win?”
Malik swung his axe, flinging a sheet of blood into the wind. “The Red King and these white ghosts should have sent twice as many,” he said. He raised the blade. “For Imanuel!” he roared.
“Imanuel!” the cry returned, from all around the field.
The rally spurred Zhang. He was shit in a fight, but that didn’t matter. Malik protected the soldiers, the General protected the books. “You handle the battle, I’ll handle the fire!”
“No, leave it!” Malik yelled, but the engulfed carriage had almost reached Zhang’s own, close enough that maybe he could do the stupidest thing of his life. “Zhang!” he cried.
“Malik, go! Just keep them away!” Zhang shouted. Malik finally nodded and raised his axe again. Zhang ducked back into his carriage and rummaged around. There was some water, but not enough. Not enough to stop a blaze like that.
“I don’t know how much longer I have!” the soldier driving the burning carriage shouted as he lurched into the empty space where Malik had just been. His horse was soaked, as though it had plunged through rain, sweat streaming off it. It didn’t understand why it couldn’t outrun the flames. The whites of its eyes glinted in terror.
“Stay!” Zhang yelled. “I’m coming over! As long as we can last!”
“What?” the soldier cried, face pale with shock. But he didn’t jump—he kept the reins and gritted his teeth.
“Keep as close as you can,” Zhang said to his own driver, and then turned to the one commanding the carriage on fire. “You watch the horse,” he shouted to him, and pointed at the half-wild beast galloping in front of them. “When we’re out of time, you jump down onto its back, unhook the yoke, and ride off!”
“What about you?” the soldier cried.
“I—” Zhang looked at his driver, struggling to keep their own wagon within reachable distance as they flew at breakneck speed. Behind, the Reds cried out all at once, a shrill and keening scream that purged everything in Zhang’s mind for an instant. It was the sound of what their color meant, if a color could speak—a dedication to a singular, absolute goal. The horses reeled, hysterical. “I’ll jump back to the first carriage!”
The soldier stared at Zhang for a stunned moment, but then nodded. “Yes, sir!” he finally yelled back, and saluted with the hand not on the reins. He stuck it out to help try to grab at Zhang once he was in midair.
“On three!” Zhang cried.
WE ARE GOING TO THE PLACE. I DON’T KNOW THE NAME. BUT there is a painting of it on the side of the big moving house. I saw it just now, when we all climbed outside, because we didn’t know why we were in the house or where we were going. Then we saw the painting, and the one who makes the house move said, “We should go there.” So we are going there.
We are going, but I don’t know why. But knowing where is enough, because it is all we have. There are some things that just can’t be known.
Maybe I said this before. It is a strange way to be. To do things because something suggests you might have done them before. There is no way to know reasons this way. You can only do, not understand.
I think before, I used to understand. I don’t know how this could be. But there are too many things we see to be an accident. These shapes, pictures on flat sheets of metal that stick out of the ground—someone made them once, for some reason. But they all look different, which means there must be meaning. Otherwise would they all be the same? Maybe when I looked at them, I never understood. Maybe they are not for us at all.
ORY—
HOW
PLEASE, CAN YOU HEAR ME? I DON’T—
I THINK IT’S HAPPENING NOW, ORY. IT’S HAPPENING.
Ory! My Ory. I have so much to say to you, but no time left to say it. Everything hurts—it’s a horrible, empty stretching. Every moment is a storm, and I’m in the center, unraveling. It’s so hard to breathe now. Do you go to the same place when you forget as when you die? I wish memories were stored anywhere else, anywhere at all—my eyes, my fingertips, the soles of my feet. Everyone is so afraid of losing their body when they die, but a body is worthless. A body remembers nothing at all. Nothing at all. It’s not what’s terrifying to lose.
I have seconds left, I can tell. Just seconds.