A Mischief in the Woodwork

CHAPTER 10

Negotiations, Armored and Otherwise

I kept an eye on Tanen as I read from the diary. The others were about their business as I tended the morning fire. As far as Tanen knew, sitting across the room from me, I was simply passing the time waiting until the fire needed to be fed. He could not know I was not planning on sacrificing the volume in question when the time came.

I was all set to send him off with the rising of the sun, but Letta was not so quick to shoo him off without breakfast. Hence, the sun had crested the peak of its great cradle, and Tanen was still here with us.

With me.

He sat there innocently enough, but I could not tame my guard. My eyes kept straying to him over the top of Lady Sebastian's diary. For awhile, he did little things like whittle away at some little trinket from one of his coat pockets. I watched him roll his nice white sleeves up, wondering how he had kept the garment so nice, figuring he must have commenced with a good many more layers and been stripped of the other garments as they wore out along the way. A pair of lovely strong wrists were bared from beneath his sleeves, and then I lost interest in the rhythmic task that followed and immersed myself back in my book.

After a time, he put the trinket and his knife away in the pocket of his coat where it was slung across the back of his chair, then pulled the coat around to serve as a blanket and settled in to take a bit of a cat nap before his day's journey.

I considered him, wondering if the nap served to conquer boredom or if he was earnestly in need of sleep. I considered the shadows where his thick lashes fell against his cheekbones, then took in the lines of the rest of his nonchalant face. He looked agreeable enough in his sleep.

My eyes traveled down, considering his coat. I pondered the scratches and from whence they came, and then I pondered the pockets. What else did he have in them? I had the strange sudden urge to snoop, to creep into his pockets while he was asleep and see what kind of man this was, as if I could judge that from what trinkets were found in a man's pockets. They wouldn't be just trinkets. They would be symbols.

The bottom edge of the coat fell against his knees, and I followed the muscle of his calf as it plunged into his boot. His boots were worn, light gray in color, with scars of white criss-crossing like lashes on a slave's back.

My eyes trailed back up to his face, considering still, and then a certain sense of horror clenched me; his eyes were open. He was looking back at me – blank-faced, but he had caught me in the act.

My cheeks bloomed hot with roses, but the diary hid them from his witness sight, and then defiance came along to thrash aside the ridiculous idea of being ashamed in his presence. I wouldn't be caught dead being ashamed in his presence.

Tanen's hair disrupted his face again this morning, but those eyes were just as clear as ever. They were like crystals in the sun, reflecting back at me in the dim interior of Manor Dorn. They were many-faceted, two pristine windows of stained glass secrets.

I was grateful for the sound of the screen door creaking quickly open, announcing the return of the children just before they spilled into the room, feet heavy and clumsy on the floor as they romped past. Tanen and I were broken from our guilty little trance, but I noticed him shift a little distastefully to keep his legs out of the fray as the children brushed by.

I bristled, thinking it was more than mere avoidance of their antics. They were children, for the gods' sakes. They hadn't done anything.

Letta followed them in, a bushel of feathery oats bulging in her apron. On one arm was a bucket of water pumped fresh from the well.

The makings of our breakfast.

The children were in the kitchen already, and I heard the banging of pots as they selected the necessary cookery.

“Not quite so much passion, Dani,” I heard Letta remind the boy as she disappeared into the kitchen. Things quieted down to a dull rattle as they set about preparing the oatmeal.

“They won't bite, you know,” I said to Tanen, unable to keep from remarking.

He stared back at me, shifting slightly – but in a lazy fashion, nothing awkward. “Who?” My, wasn't he comfortable in his unwelcome mannerisms.

“The children.”

There was a slight pause before he spoke. His hair fell heavy in his face, his hands heavy in his lap. His fingers draped idle and careless between his comfortably splayed legs. “I should hope not.”

I did not appreciate the way he was slouching. It could be taken as entirely impolite.

That was how I took it.

I ground tight the muscles in my jaw and drew myself more stiffly upright on the hearth, letting pride hoist the sails that seemed ever coiled around my backbone in his presence like a scroll that was a proclamation of royalty, of superiority. I knew it only hurt my philosophy that people ought to be treated as equals, because here I was spitefully looking down my nose at another, and that really it made me a hypocrite, but I just couldn't help it in his presence. And since it was pride as a person rather than because of any class, and pride for others, I seemed just in getting away with it.

Tanen shifted then, this time perhaps with the slightest need to break the tension, scraping his extended boot over the floor until it was back where it belonged and he was sitting like a gentleman, rather than a slob.

I gave an inaudible sniff of approval and fastened my eyes once again to the pages my nose was still tentatively stuffed in.

“I don't suppose you've ever seen any of it crumble with your own eyes,” Tanen mused – and it was harmlessly enough, but instead of appreciating that he was making an effort toward pleasant (could that be called pleasant?) conversation I found myself annoyed that he spoke at all, incensed that he had once again interrupted my reading.

I reminded myself that it had been my eyes that had wandered to him the first time. Promptly, I didn't appreciate the reminder.

I glanced up in thought, thinking it was an odd mix indeed to be annoyed and thoughtful at the same time. “No,” I replied. I had never seen any of it crumble with my own eyes. “We hear it. We see the evidence. But I've never seen it happen.”

It occurred to me that he had been out in the open a lot more extensively than I had, so what about him?

“Have you?”

He shook his head, bemusement and intrigue showing in the lines of his face. For the first time I noticed those lines, and that his handsome face was weathered in a way. And shouldn't it be? “I heard it once, just behind me. But by the time I turned, it had happened. I was left in the onslaught of the cloud of dust. Don't you find it curious?”

“That we never see it? We stay cooped up as much as possible. And it seems to fancy happening overnight.”

“But I crossed countless cities. And I saw nothing.”

“I don't presume to have an answer for any of it, Cathwade,” I pointed out. “So it doesn't strike me as a particularly nagging observation.” Besides, Winifred Sebastian had seen it. I recalled the tower she had witnessed as it crumbled to the ground.

Tanen considered me, and seemed to decide it wasn't worth speaking of these things to me. I was not a very sympathetic ear.

With more determination, I raked my eyes back down to the pages in my grasp. I had been stuck on the very same sentence for far too long.

Was I being entirely too insensitive? This man had lost things, I reminded myself. What had I lost? In essence, nothing. I had gained freedom because of the devastation. It occurred to me that I was perhaps unfairly void of empathy for the plight that these times meant for others.

It humbled me for a moment, and then I realized I had neglected that same sentence yet again. It hovered on the page before me, unable to anchor me. And it was then that I... said Winifred Sebastian.

Then that you what? I demanded, and drilled on without patience for the tentative words, wishing they would speak up instead of letting my attention wander.

Presently, Letta called out that breakfast was ready. I turned to poke the fire and tucked away the diary while I was at it, and then rose to join the others in the kitchen. Tanen, having risen and donned his coat with a sense of finality, or formality (or both), followed me in.

Letta had already dished up two bowls. I reached for the empty stack of broken old crockery and began serving some to be taken up to the Masters. Tanen paused in the doorway, waiting as we served. Letta glanced up at his idle posture, and nudged a bowl toward him, indicating he ought to start. I slopped the swollen oats into a bowl and set it on the counter to start another.

Tanen came forth as urged, and reached for a bowl. His fingers passed the entity Letta had indicated, and went right for a bowl I had served instead. I caught this, and watched with suspicion out of the corner of my eye. It was a farther reach for him to take one of the bowls I had served. It went against logic, as well as what had been indicated.

But not against prejudice.

My hackles burned. I felt like slapping his hand. Like biting his hand. The next spoonful of oats slopped hard into the bowl in my grasp.

Still acting ignorantly discreet, Tanen moved gracefully from the scene. My eyes burned into his back.

Letta seemed not to have noticed.

It was hard to muster the self control to resist marching in there and demanding what he thought he was accomplishing by avoiding Letta's offering. She had gone to the trouble of insisting he stay for breakfast, and he returned the decency by exercising prejudice? She had still picked the oats with her hands, I wanted to tell him. She had still cooked it with her hands. Not even the Masters would pull such a stunt as he had, and anyone who kept a slave obviously thought themselves superior. But it was her job, as a slave, to sustain them. To serve them food. They thought themselves superior, but did not avoid her like a plague of death.

My stomach churned with anger. The sludge of oats in my bowl lost its appeal, never mind that I was hungry. With an effort, I continued serving without any climactic outburst, and willed myself to carefully lay the bowl aside and go for another.

Dashsund appeared then, sidling into the kitchen. His hand went gently to my shoulder as he moved past me. His tenderness struck a chord in me, and I softened for that moment, touched by that casual but meaningful contact. But then the upset feeling returned as I got out the tray and banged it a little harder than necessary on the counter to be loaded. An eye or two glanced up at the rattle, but I offered no explanation, and they did not ask.

“Where's Henry?” I forced out instead, to divert attention.

“Mending the back shutters,” Dashsund replied.

I nodded, stiffly, and then whisked the laden tray off the counter to spirit it upstairs.

It was tempting, as I traversed the living room, to dump the contents quite 'accidentally' into Tanen's muscled lap.

“Make ready to leave,” I bade curtly, and whisked up the hem of my skirt to ascend the stairs.

At the end of the hallway, I quieted my footsteps and put my ear to the door for a moment before delivering breakfast. Every now and then I attempted to glean what went on beyond this barred threshold. Were they all well? Did they stew about; pace? Or did they huddle in the corners? And were they going just a little bit mad by now?

I heard nothing. Then, something stirred. A whisper. A murmur. Something scuffed. Then everything returned to silence.

I waited a moment longer, then drew back and lowered the tray. Rapping briefly on the door, I distanced myself down the hall and made for the stairs again. I heard the door creak open as I reached the landing, and couldn't help glancing over my shoulder to catch a possible visual. I only caught the briefest, ghostly portal, though, and then the boundaries returned to their discriminatory order.

Letting it go, I returned downstairs where the others were eating.

“Time to go,” I told Tanen. “I'll walk you into town on my way to see the newsboy.” I did not relish the idea of his company, but I wanted him out, and since I had an appointment with Johnny, I might as well see him out and assure that that's where he went.

“Where are you going to go from here?” Letta was curious.

Halfway through a nod, Tanen turned to her. “I don't know, Monvay,” he admitted. “It's not as if there is anywhere to go.”

Letta nodded, pursing her lips.

“We all have to make a way for ourselves,” I said, sounding encouraging only to hide the predominant pointedness. Tanen took my meaning; I could tell from the flick of his eyes. If Letta did as well, she didn't make it known.

Tanen rose to return his empty bowl to the kitchen. While he was out of the room, I went to the mantle above the hearth and reached to take down a sack of vegetables we had set aside there. It was what I would use to pay Johnny.

Tanen came back into the room just in time to see me sheathing my knife for the trip.

“Let's go,” I bade, and we both headed for the door.

“Keep your wits about you, Tanen of Cathwade,” Letta offered.

He nodded over his shoulder.

“The corners and the shadows tend to try to bite.” With that last amiable warning, Letta stayed behind framed by the door, and I took my charge across the yard, past the walls of the house. A bit of a breeze nipped at my skirts and hair, and I eyed the hazy-turning sky. A bit of weather? Or simply the gust of some shift, and powder over the sun?

Tanen hefted his coat more snugly onto his shoulders, and fell into step beside me. He stayed agreeably quiet for a good portion of time as we headed down the road into the city, but finally he had to pipe up.

“You know you are just taking me back the way I came.”

I glanced at him, a lock of hair whipping gently across my face. “You may go the other way if you like.”

He did not look back at me. His eyes watched his feet, his face grave. “If it's all like this, I think I would rather not know.”

Pity trickled through me, but there wasn't much room for it. “Suit yourself,” I said. “We've survived quite well not knowing.” There, perhaps that was encouraging.

“Your Masters – how long have they been up there?”

This time, my glance was not so tolerant. I could do without references to our 'masters' at this point. They had as good as faded from my life. I was no longer controlled by them. I was free.

I was free.

“We don't count days,” I said in the way of an answer. It was true enough. I counted only by way of having an appointment with the newsboy, or by how much the garden had grown, or by the week as I had to go out looting. But I did not keep track of everything else with much precision.

“Are they opposed to a guest in the house?”

What did he mean to get at by that? “They are opposed to anything and everything that comes from the outside, except what we need to survive. They are even opposed to some things that come from within. The house is diseased, like everything else.”

“Like me? Is that why you are so quick to hustle me out; because you believe everything is diseased?”

So he was going to challenge me, was he? “Can you blame me for not wanting to take chances?” I asked pointedly.

The tentative uprising that lit his face softened. “No.” He couldn't.

I did not want to point out that he treated the darkskins as much like a disease; I was too upset at him for it to bring it up. I would not stay civil if that came up as a substantial topic between us.

“You've been a lot of places,” I pointed out instead. “Who can say what you've brought with you? You could have tracked anything across the borders.”

“Certainly nothing that could come to your advantage like a good sense of the land or a diverse insight for resources.”

I bit my tongue. Why did he have to talk? Couldn't he just tag along and be on his way?

I reminded myself I was the one to offer to escort him into town. I was beginning to regret it, even though I wanted to see him off.

“We're plenty resourceful,” I said, because I had to say something.

“Is that the reason for the array of shiners slashed all down your unprotected back?”

“What are you, an aristocrat?” I challenged, not liking his crafty way of getting at things. It occurred to me, after saying it, that that may very well be what he had been.

“Maybe,” he said mysteriously.

“Well it won't do you any good out here. We survive on grit, not politics. Fancy words are useless to charm a fortress from collapsing unless you're a wizard. Words just get drowned out, trampled. They're as good as ash on your tongue.”

“There is still something to be said about strategy.”

“If my strategy didn't work, I'd be dead.”

“And if it fails, you will be.”

I thought a moment. “Everyone has their time.” It was something one of the Serbaens might say of the matter.

“That's it? Nature will take its course? Don't you think that's a rather condemning philosophy in this day and age? Nature is ruthless. It's bloodthirsty. Look around you – it's clearly become not only unforgiving, but morbid.”

“It's not as if we lay down at the foot of the towers and tempt fate.”

“So...all those people – it was their 'time'?” A twinge of bitterness lined his voice, like dead, rained-down leaves lining a gutter, clogging it even as the season passes. I could see his shoulders stiffen as if his coat had suddenly become heavier. He carried it as if drenched, weighed down. Yet the thick sides flapped slightly with the force of his gait.

“Maybe,” I said gently as if admitting I could not really claim such, but still leaving it up in the air.

A rock scuffed under my boot. I began to watch the ground.

The rest of our jaunt down the road consisted of the burnt velvet whispers of dust under our feet. It sifted into the cracks of my boots, creaking in the leather.

The city was a hazy cluster in the distance, almost like a mirage behind the constant mask of powder. It grew slowly more defined as we inched closer.

Once we reached the buried gates of the city's respective entrance, picking our way cautiously across past the giant, decayed threshold, we stopped there, eyeing the still piles of rubble. Then Tanen said:

“You have a newsboy?”

“An odd concept, I suppose.”

Our surveillance spread to the farther nooks and crannies, assessing the layout of it all. In the back of my mind reared the image of a loose wardog, escaped from its nocturnal shackles. The image slunk through the sunniest crannies of my mind, a shimmering taunt. It could be here, anywhere.

I heard nothing over the misshapen towers, mounds and hillocks. Nothing echoed in the sunken chasms and ravines.

“Hm. Odd...yes. But a decidedly resourceful way to survive in these times,” Tanen admitted after that moment of thought.

I peeled my eyes off the rubble and turned them on him. “This is where we part ways,” I said.

“Where are you going?” he wondered as he took it all in. To the naked eye, it was nothing but an unmanageable disarray.

“The barber's alley.”

“You have a barber too?”

“Just...the sign, really. It's stayed mostly stationary, even though the shop disappeared.” We shouldn't have been talking.

He accepted this readily enough, but for a moment I was cast back into the past, to the essentially imaginary realm of bustling streets and businesses running as usual. There would have been teeming market squares, preening parlors, manor tea parties and luncheons – men tipping their hats in the streets and women gossiping and strutting about like peacocks in the latest fashions. I could scarcely muster the images. They had faded like old paintings from generations past. That was a lost world.

Livelihood was a lost art.

“Well...I hope you find it well,” Tanen offered in way of parting.

I struggled a moment with what to say. I did not like him, but there was no need to say something condemning as I sent him off into the cruel wilderness never to be seen again. And that, when there was a wardog abroad.

Although, I thought to remind myself, wardogs were always abroad. For us, a beast that scavenged during the day was something new to be reckoned with, but for someone like Tanen who would have no shelter around the clock, he would be dealing with the creatures of the night as well. A wardog in the day was nothing overly relevant. After all, it was just one. By night, he would be at the mercy of the masses.

“Do you have light?” I asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“For the wardogs.”

“I am not a wizard, as you pointed out. I cannot just charm light from my fingertips.”

“I suggest you comb the rubble for a source, then – a candle, a lantern; something. There is a wax shop that was overturned down Ash Lane.” I pointed. “You can see the street sign pitched on its side there. Take the lane as it crumbles until you come to the hill of mirrors. The shop will be on the left – it's buried, but there is a makeshift opening half protruding from the rubble. You can get down inside from there. The room is on its side, essentially, but sometimes I find candles there. If things haven't changed since then.”

He took this in, only a hint of bemusement on his face for the unorthodox manner of the instructions. It wasn't every day someone received directions such as these.

“Good luck,” I said.

Hesitating only a moment, he nodded, and then I was off. Only after I'd trudged a few good paces in the opposite direction did I steal a glance over my shoulder, where he was just then turning with resignation to commence on his journey down the twisted path I had assigned.

I turned back to my own path and squared my shoulders toward my goal, skirting a sharp, crippled hazard and hoisting myself onto the giant, fissured slab that created a more or less level road in my bearing. I made a game out of walking along the crack that snaked all down its length, fancying that I was a damsel of the circus and it was satin slippers against a high wire rather than boots against old stone.

The image crumbled quickly, though, trashy stains sullying the satin of my slippers and the tight rope fraying into a jagged void beneath me.

Fantasies were fleeting here. They all died quick deaths.

The slab sloped up gradually until I was traversing another level of the city, and then it broke off and fell away and I got down to pick my way over the debris. Ahead of me, two black buildings stood with the front of their bases erupting in an upheaval, tilted back as if two horses rearing up on their hind legs. It was an impending angle, as if any moment they were to come crashing down – but whether or not it would be toward me as horses or the way they were leaning was debatable.

I sifted my way carefully between their giant, rearing bases, eyeing the jagged, broken windows that ran up their lengths. Out from a few, old, tattered curtains spilled over the sills and down the sides. They were burnt and stained, floral patterns decayed like rotting gardens on the breeze.

Past these buildings, the broken land sloped down into a nestled village of sorts, where a cluster of smaller, makeshift buildings made up a more or less orderly arrangement. It was only once you realized some of them were on their roofs and some of them lay on their sides that it became clear it was a fortuitous landing ground for the common disarray.

I made my way down into this topsy-turvy village, walking carefully along the main, buried road until I found the side lane that led to the barber's shop, or where it used to be. Now there was only the barber's sign strung across the maw of an alley, crude and lopsided, like an old board meant to nail a door shut. It was eerie seeing this remnant of civilization cast so, ripped from glory but tacked up by chance as if it...meant something.

I stepped under the sign, where it bobbed slightly overhead in a faint breeze. The alley made a sharp turn up ahead, and I hugged the wall to take it, cautious, but around the bend lay only what I had come there looking for.

Johnny's lanky silhouette was cast at the end of this new length, waiting for me. With more confidence, I treaded toward him, business on my mind.

I was also glad to see him well after watching him disappear into the ill-tasting gloom following my warning of the day-savvy wardog.

“Johnny,” I greeted as I came to his side.

He stood with his shoulders raised and hunched against his turned-up collar, hands in his pockets. But he had a way of making the cold look casual. He always had.

Then I realized it wasn't very cold, especially nestled here in the alley.

He nodded. “Vant.”

“The usual renewal,” I said as I reached into my pack and withdrew his sack of goods.

He slipped it discreetly into his own pack, until a cough sent his hand quickly to his mouth and the rest of the sack spilled to the bottom of the larger one.

A twinge of concern arched through me.

“It'll be by,” he assured me by way of sealing the deal, but I felt odd about simply turning and leaving him just like that, signs of instability ignored in my wake.

“Are you ill?” I asked, taking in his form again.

“It's nothing,” he dismissed, but I could see the dark circles under his secretive eyes now. And, even though he didn't move, he seemed to shrink deeper into his coat. Perhaps he only looked smaller.

“Pollution runs wild out there,” I warned, as if he didn't know that.

“It's just the elements,” he insisted.

I gave a whisper of a shrug, not buying. “The elements are cruel.”

He sniffed. “The paper doesn't stop for the elements, Monvay.” Then quieter, but more firmly; “The paper doesn't stop.”

I hesitated a moment, but nodded in understanding. He was like a knight delivering a message for his king, he was. A devoted messenger. And the paper was like the wheel of our world. He had taken it upon himself to turn it, and turn it he would. He would not let the people down. He was the voice that they clung to.

A little resignedly, I reached into my pack and withdrew the papers I had brought to return. I handed them to him for re-use, letting respect glint in my eyes.

“I'll be seeing you, then,” he said.

“Take care of that,” I bade regarding his condition, and at his guarded nod I turned to leave. Lingering wouldn't do either of us any good. Johnny was made of stubborn stuff just like the rest of us were. I could only trust he knew how to take care of himself out there.

Out here.

I paused, and looked back over my shoulder. He raised a quizzical brow.

“Have you seen it?” I asked. “The wardog?”

“Not a sniff,” he replied.

I breathed in relief, but it only tasted sour as it settled in my gut. For there was something to be said about the discomfort of not knowing such a status, rather than the dread of confirmation.

*

After the task of threading my way back out of the great maze I had immersed myself in, I found a surprise waiting for me at the gates of the city.

Tanen.

What did he want?

There was something in his hands, I saw as I came closer. It looked a bit like a corset, but gray – or silver? What on earth was he doing clutching a corset in his fool hands?

Wearily, I treaded up. I didn't speak my questioning thoughts, but rather let my idle stance press him for an explanation.

“I found the candles. Thank you,” he said.

I nodded.

“And this, for you.” He thrust the garment contraption at me.

“What is it?” I asked warily, unable to tell even now that it was before me.

“An...undergarment,” he identified with a bit of his own bemusement, twirling it delicately as if admitting its nature made him unsure of how to handle it. “Reinforced for protection.” And with that, purpose returned to his face, and his grasp on the entity was sure again.

And then I could see it – the makeshift chainmail wired over the fabric that looked like it might have come from one of the curtain-oriented fireplace screens I had seen in my time, and the extra boning, an array of metal pieces, that lined the outside.

“Armor?” I asked in disbelief – skepticism? – as I identified it.

“So you won't be caught ill-prepared again.”

I considered it, dangling from his patient hand. “You just...found this?”

“Hardly,” he said with a frown. “I made it.”

My brows rose. “In the time it took me to run an errand, you made this?”

“You don't really think I could have just found something like this, do you?”

I opened my mouth, but it fell shut again. The lad had a point. I thought back, retracing my steps through the city, as if trying to disprove that he could possibly have had the time. It did take a chunk of time to navigate the city's layout, though, I admitted. It wasn't as if I just trotted down to the barber's shop and trotted right back. Negotiations with Johnny had been brief, but there was certainly an element of journey about the trip there and back.

Was I to just...take it, then? Suddenly, I felt awkward. Uncertainly, I reached for it, if only to inspect it more closely.

It clinked gently into my hands, and I turned it over, assessing his handiwork.

“Corset, fire screen, and various metals,” he explained. “A bit make-shift, but functional.”

So I was right about the fire screen. How had he cut it? Not feeling partial to admitting his expertise, I resisted asking.

“I don't know why you went to the trouble,” I said instead. I did not tell him I was impressed. “Don't you have your own survival to think about?”

“This is how I survive. I use my resources on the spot. I thought if I showed you, you might realize you could use me.”

This was a ruse to get reinstated in my expired good graces? I should have known. Resistance bubbled up inside me. An instant, vehement 'no' sprang to my lips, surprising even me with its finality. With an effort, I swallowed it. There was no sense in being ruled by what I felt. I had to be smarter than that. I knew I had to be smarter than that.

And the weight of craftsmanship in my hands was an undeniable testimony to his point. My thumbs drifted over it in tentative thought, but I didn't try to keep the disinclination from my eyes as they flicked back to him.

“You think you can just charm your way into the ring of security that we've spent so long establishing? We slave to proof those walls against breaches. We keep everything out, Cathwade. That's how we survive. A breach would unravel the foundations that we cling to.”

“And you've done well,” he approved. “But you could do better. No one is ever going to rise above this age if we don't fight back. We have to harness it. You're surviving, but things aren't getting better. You're still a victim. We are all still victims. What if things get worse? You'll be overrun. No one is ready for that.”

His point was humbling, but not in a way that convinced me. My eyes downcast in grave thought, I responded, “There's a reason no one is ready for that. Much worse, and the prospect itself will destroy a man.”

“It doesn't have to,” Tanen denied. “We can claim an advantage. We have to adapt, not just cope.” He nodded at the garment in my hands. “Put it on, and you'll feel it. That there are powerful resources you haven't tapped yet. That you can become something, instead of clinging to what you are. Instead of clinging to the fragile achievement of humanity. You are doing nothing but clinging to a level of existence that is completely vulnerable.”

I considered him more fairly – unconvinced, still, but I had lost the scoff.

“You've done well adapting to the primitive lifestyle you have been thrust into,” Tanen said. “But in this” – he indicated the craft once more – “is born a whole new way to live off the land.”

He was right, wasn't he? Never had there been so much potential to 'live off the land'. We used it for survival, surely – it wasn't that we ignored the heaps of resources piled up there for our convenience – but we had never taken advantage of the potential to craft anything imaginable. The Serbaens knew how to use their hands in conjunction with the earth, and to a miracle-working degree – but they weren't inventors, none of them. They had an earthly harmony about them, not an innovative brilliance, and I had always been too occupied doing what I could to ensure we survived on what the rubble had to offer. I did not know if I had the mind for what Tanen was suggesting, but I certainly had never had the time.

He was gaining appeal as the missing piece of a dire puzzle.

But I didn't want to admit that.

I struggled for a moment, arguing with myself. There were a great many demons to be tackled in my opinion of him. If I admitted he was right, I would be inviting him back into the place I had been protecting by shunning him. He would hurt the people that I loved. He could not live in harmony with them. He would be a thorn to the peace, maybe worse.

But I recalled Letta's patience with him, and a dangerous thought occurred to me; what if we could change him? Suddenly I wanted him to see – see that they were no different, that they were as beautiful as him – and he was quite beautiful – and he as wretched as they. That they felt and loved and fought and...died. That they faced tragedy, and it hurt just as much as whatever he had been through. And one person's pain was as good as another. Exactly the same. No difference. No color. Just its raw, transcendent qualities that everyone could relate to.

He would taste my authority if he stayed. He would learn his place among them. I could make the rules. I could break him.

With that candleflame of my own ruse lit, I came to a decision. “What else can you make?” I asked, and a twinge of a smile lit his face – as if in triumph, but he didn't know what he was in for.