I raised the map to compare as we neared. Shapes swam in front of me, the same meandering colored lines I’d been staring at snaking back and forth across the paper through little dots. The splotches of green in places where the lines were rarer and thinner. Wide ribbons of light blue.
Very slowly, I put the map back down in my lap. A fold was wrinkled. I smoothed it out as gently as I could with my hand until it laid flat again.
“Ursula,” I said, “I need to tell you something.” I was surprised at how calm I sounded. Or perhaps it was shock. The RV’s engine droned in the background. “I don’t remember how to read anymore.”
Orlando Zhang
“LAST RESORT,” AHMADI SAID AS SHE HANDED ORY AN ALUMINUM baseball bat. “Life or death. If you kill one of them, they’ll burn hundreds of books.”
Ory nodded as he peeked over the barricades. They were back on the front lines again, shivering under the freezing drizzle. A deep hum of thunder rolled slowly overhead. On the other side of the street, he could see tufts of crimson hair pop up, then disappear again. Beyond, the Red King’s library gleamed grotesquely under the dim silver light. It looked freshly wet, as if the sky had bled down onto the building.
Malik pointed at half the team. “You five with me, and you five—including Ory—with Ahmadi. We stay together unless there’s a reason to divide. If we split up, you follow the commander I just assigned you.”
“Yes, sir.” They saluted. Ory followed an instant afterward, shyly.
“You ready?” Malik asked him.
He gulped and nodded. “I just—one thing,” he asked. “Before I die. Why is everyone doing this?”
“Saving books?” Malik asked.
“Yeah. It’s nice to read them until we all lose our shadows too, but then what?” He glanced at the patrolling Reds. “I understand Imanuel—the General’s—reasons, but everyone else here knew Paul only a short time. This kind of risk, just to have literature for a little while longer?”
“The books aren’t for reading,” Malik said.
Ory blinked. “What are they for?”
“You let the General worry about that,” he replied, and then his voice boomed. “On my command!” he cried. The soldiers shifted, ready.
“Survive this, and the General will explain later,” Ahmadi said to Ory. “For now, you stay close to me, and you do nothing unless Malik or I tell you to do something. Then you do it immediately, whether or not you understand it. Got it?”
“Got it,” Ory said.
“At least you listen.” Ahmadi stifled a chuckle. “You’re nothing like Paul.”
“Here we go!” Malik shouted. He stood up slowly, his hands up.
Immediately, the Red side burst with color. From out of nowhere, a dozen flaming shapes erupted and dashed toward the no-man’s-land between the two forces, whooping and screaming. Red-streaked hair, red scraps of fabric tied to elbows, red handprints pasted onto the fronts of chests—swirled together in an angry storm.
“Stand up,” Ahmadi ordered, and then rose slowly, her hands up as well. Ory copied her actions. He tried to ignore the feeling that something sharp was going to sail through the air and puncture a hole straight through him at any moment. Ahmadi started moving forward.
“Wait,” he hissed.
“Walk,” Ahmadi ordered. “We have to meet them in the center.”
His feet disobeyed his terror and followed her, picking their way over the rocks. His eyes darted from Red to Red frantically. “Where’s the Red King?”
“He won’t come out,” Ahmadi answered. “He never comes out—not unless they need something very, very badly. The General is the only one who’s ever seen him up close.”
As they neared the center, Ory jumped as a few of the boldest Reds darted suddenly past them. “Where do they get this paint?” he asked, raising his voice over the clamor.
“We have no idea,” Ahmadi said. “Look for a giant!”
“What?”
“A giant!” Malik yelled. “A huge Red negotiates the trades.”
As soon as he said it, from across the no-man’s-land on the Red side, a monster of a man with a shaved head began to lumber forward. He was a giant in every sense of the word: tall, wide, built like a tank. He looked like he might have been a bodybuilder or sumo wrestler before he lost his shadow. The Reds had painted him in stripes, wide red bars that started at the crown of his head and wrapped sideways around him down to his ankles. He was clothed in some kind of awkward long loincloth, likely the only thing they could devise to fit him. It was more than some others had.
“There he is!” Ahmadi yelled, and raised her arms higher to attract the big man’s attention. The Reds started hooting. The soldiers pushed them back with the butts of their shotguns when they got too close, but they just kept coming.
“Over here!” Malik’s shout rallied them. The big man stumbled to a halt in front of him and pointed at Malik in recognition. The other Reds around him whooped.
“How do we know what they want to trade?” Ory yelled to Ahmadi.
“We don’t,” she yelled back. “We just keep guessing until we get it!”