Resenting the Hero (33 page)

“Yes!”

“And you believe I can do this, don't you? I have proven I have the power to move earth and call floods, haven't I?”

The man was insane.

“Yes!” everyone screamed.

Move earth and call floods? No one could do that. It was impossible.

But then, so was healing people.

But this was different. Surely. This wasn't just redirecting forces, as all Sources did. This was creating them. And that had to be impossible, because the alternative didn't bear thinking of. But his audience believed him.

Creol dropped his arms to his sides, let his shoulders droop a little, and assumed an air of chagrin. “I did fail to destroy High Scape,” he admitted. “But I think my failure can be forgiven under the circumstances.” He swept a dramatic arm in my direction. “I beg to introduce Dunleavy Mallorough, most talented Shield of her generation, and the sole reason for my failure.”

I tried to keep my expression blank as everyone in the building stared at me, but my poor mind was scrambling. What was he talking about? What failure? He was acting like there'd been some kind of attack on High Scape. And there hadn't been. Not to my knowledge, and I would have noticed something like that.

Well, there had been the Rushes, of course. But those had been natural phenomenon.

He was claiming he had the power to move the earth. Was he telling these people he was responsible for those Rushes? That was absurd.

So was claiming I was the most powerful Shield in my generation. As though there were any way to determine such a thing. Nice piece of rhetoric there, Creol.

“Now, we must respect Dunleavy,” Creol instructed the crowd. “She has, unfortunately, been in the power of the Triple S from the time she was a very young child, and as you can see she is still quite young. She has been trained to see the world through the perspective her academy has imposed on her, and she has not yet been out in the world long enough to throw off her childhood fantasies. Her Source, however . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head, and there were angry mutterings among the crowd.

“Damn them all to the seventh ring!” one man shouted, starting an avalanche of similar sentiments.

Creol put up both hands in a placatory gesture. “I know, I know,” he said with artificial sympathy. “Sources don't have the excuses Shields have. They are let out into the world at a much earlier age. They have plenty of opportunity to see the danger, the evil, even, of the Triple S system. But do they admit it?”

“No!” the crowd shouted in unison.

“No,” he echoed. “And why should they? They are given everything, are they not?” Grumbles of agreement from the crowd. “The best places to live, the best of clothing and food and luxuries. And the servile respect of their Shields and the regulars. Why would they want to change that?”

Someone said something I couldn't catch. There was laughter from a significant section of the crowd.

“Now, I'm a Source,” Creol said in the tone of one revealing a shameful secret. “Some might say I'm a failed Source. I haven't bonded, as all Sources must. And I will admit that for many years it was difficult and painful to be continually rejected. To go to the Matches, year after year, and look in the eyes of so many Shields, who were becoming increasingly younger than I, and come away with nothing. To be standing with new ranks of Sources who wondered why I was still among them. Who would glance at me when they thought I wouldn't notice, and whisper about me.” He smiled, and I doubted if many among the audience could see the weary-looking expression. Not that it mattered. His voice carried the feeling to every corner. “I remember my shock at first hearing my experience being used as a warning among Sources. ‘Look at Creol,' they would say. ‘He's crazy, and he'll never get a Shield.' ” He paused, revealing a perfect silence that demonstrated the complete attention of his audience. “But now I know I am fortunate,” he continued after a moment. “Though many would be appalled and terrorized by my fate, I know I am fortunate. Because I have freedom!”

“Freedom!” everyone screamed.

“Had I been bonded, no doubt I would still be under the heel of the Triple S. Living where they said I should, working with whom they said I should, thinking as they said I should. Instead, I have not bonded, and so I have been cast aside, as are many Shields, and that is good, I tell you. Good! Because it has given me the freedom to see, to learn, to speak. Without the enslaving shackles of the Triple S, I have been able to move among people freely, to learn of them, to see what they see. And I have witnessed the benefits Sources reap at the cost of Shields and regulars.” Another pause. “I am a Source, but I was born of a Shield and a regular. My parents were worthy of respect. All people are worthy of respect. From my failures I have learned this.”

He took a step back on the platform and looked down at his feet. It appeared that he was planning his next line of rhetoric. I thought he just needed to catch his breath.

“But before I could learn from them, my failures brought me very low,” he admitted. “I was a Source with no Shield, and so I was nothing. I had no use, and so I had no respect. Not from others, and eventually not from myself, either. Doing nothing is the worst thing in the world. People like you,” he swept his hand before him, taking in the entire crowd with one long, elegant gesture, “who have had to work so hard all your life, you scoff at me when I say such things, and you have the right. For how dare someone who is given everything complain about anything? But,” he put up one finger, “you cannot know how much better it is to work hard and receive little, than to do nothing and receive any amount. You work. You do something useful. You can feel pride in your skill, in your labor, and know you have contributed to your family and your community. You cannot know what it is like to do nothing, to know you can never do anything, to know you are nothing but a burden on your community, and always have been and always will be.” He put a hand to his chest. “It eats away at the soul,” he said.

Great. And that was the future I was staring in the face. Once Karish took his title, I would be just as useless as Creol.

Didn't think it would make me want to destroy cities, though.

“And then, there is the way people look at you,” Creol continued. “The sneering, the contempt, the pity. Or the scrambling to find you something to do, some make-work project of no value, as a pathetic sop to your vanity. Such a transparent effort. Worse than the jeers.” He shrugged. “And so I reached a point where I just wanted to be left alone. To get away from the looks and the tones of voice and the scraps of honor people tried to toss my way. I just wanted peace, and solitude, and to just not have to think about it anymore. So one night I went out to an empty field. I raised my arms.” He raised his arms high. “I closed my eyes.” He closed his eyes. “And I called the forces to me, to sweep me away so I would never have to see any of it again.”

He'd wanted to kill himself? Was that what he was claiming? And he tried to do it by using the forces?

Well, at least it was a unique way to go.

“And you know what?” he asked, the tone somehow soft even though the volume was still sufficient to be heard by everyone. “The forces came.” He chuckled, opening his eyes and lowering his arms. “Scared the hell out of me, I tell you.”

Laughter sprinkled through the crowd.

“I stopped, of course. A Source can't channel without a Shield. And I realized I didn't want to die so badly, after all. But it was a revelation. For I discovered I have skills the Triple S didn't want me to know I had. For make no mistake, my friends, the Triple S controls Sources as thoroughly as they do everyone else. They robbed us of the knowledge that some of us could do more than merely channel forces when they are imposed upon us. Some of us can call them and have them do our bidding. The Triple S would deny us this power. But I was fortunate enough to throw off their yoke of ignorance, and now I am free!”

“Free!” the audience shouted back.

“I have power!”

“Power!”

“I can move the earth! I can call water! And with these powers I will lay waste the city that took the prosperity and prestige that should have been yours! I will destroy High Scape, I will bring back the waters to Middle Reach, and in doing so bring back the wealth, the people, the life!”

The crowd cheered uproariously. Creol's eyes were glittering with excitement. The shouting and the applause rang through the building. I could feel it on my skin. I suppressed a shudder.

It was hard to think through all that. He was honestly claiming he could cause disasters, not just subdue them. And everyone believed him. He, I thought, was suggesting he had caused the Rushes in High Scape, which had been admittedly bizarre and painful, unlike anything I'd ever heard of. But even if he could do these things, why would anyone want to destroy High Scape? What was his connection to Middle Reach that he would try to save it in this way? If it would even work. No one thought much of Middle Reach, and bringing the waterways back to it—was that his plan?—wouldn't be enough to restore it to the glory it had once promised.

And what the hell was Aiden doing there?

I looked at him. He wasn't caught up in the rhetoric as the others were. He was looking at me, and for the life of me I couldn't read his expression.

I was such a fool. I had believed every word he had ever said to me, not a doubt in my mind. Whatever was going on, he was a part of it, and I'd had no notion.

How could I have been so incredibly, naively, dangerously blind? He'd been lying to me from the day we'd met. I'd bought everything. When did I get so stupid?

I swallowed bitter bile. I had to calm down. There would be plenty of time to berate myself for my ineptitude later. I hoped.

“But I can't do it alone,” Creol said once it was finally quiet again. “I need you.” Another long sweep of the hand taking in the entire audience. “I need the Shields.” He waved a hand at the cage, and the occupants cheered and shook the bars. “I need you to believe in me. I need you to trust me. And I need you to help me with this poor girl.” He looked down at me.

“Her Source,” he began, and then he trailed off, shaking his head, as though what he had to say next was a terrible burden to him. “Her Source is the notorious Shintaro Karish. That's right, my friends,” as the audience hissed and booed, “this poor girl is chained, for life, to a wastrel. A corrupter of innocence who abuses his Source privileges to their fullest extent, wallowing in wine and games of chance and whores, stealing from hardworking folk like yourselves, taking for granted the luxuries that most of us will never see in our lifetimes. Now I know what you're thinking.” He put out both palms in an almost pleading gesture. “How, you are saying, could any self-respecting woman serve a man like Karish as our Dunleavy has?”

I shot him a look.
Our Dunleavy?

“But please remember, this Karish, he is handsome, he is charming, he is aristocratic, he is talented, he is experienced. He has all the advantages. And our poor Dunleavy has never heard anything of him that the Triple S didn't want her to hear.” He looked down at me again, right in the eye. “She knows nothing of his true character,” he said, basically to me. “She was taken straight from her academy, young and innocent and naive and thoroughly trained, and given to this immoral, philandering parasite. She had no choice in the matter, no choice but to obey her Source in every instance. We can only imagine in what manner he has used her, all under the euphemism of Triple S duty.”

“Believe me, friends, Dunleavy is as much a prisoner as any of us. Will you help me free her?”

“Yes!” everyone shouted.

Thanks.
If only I could be sure their definition of freedom and mine belonged in the same dictionary.

“Dunleavy is the perfect candidate to test my little theory,” Creol crowed. “She is the strongest Shield of her generation. If anyone can survive, she can.”

“Will you help me?”

“Yes!”

“Shall we do it now?”

“Yes!”

“Tonight, Dunleavy will be free. Tomorrow, High Scape will be gone. And soon, soon, the world will be ours!”

The following roar hurt my ears. It raged on as the Shields left their cage and followed Creol out of the civic center. Only Ryan wandered close enough to speak to me. He stared at me with eyes gone eerily dead and said, “It's been fun.” He paused, trying to communicate some message I was failing to pick up. Then he grinned and walked out.

My two thugs picked me up by the arms—sometimes I hated being so small—and placed me in the cage. “What is going on?” I demanded. “Why are you doing this?”

I hadn't really expected an answer, but one of the thugs said, “We're working to get back what's ours.” He slammed the door shut and locked it.

“What do you hope to get back?”

“All of it,” he said. “The money, the respect. Everything High Scape took from us.”

I didn't get it. If he envied what High Scape had, why didn't he just move there?

“We were supposed to be what High Scape is now,” he said. “Everyone had big plans for Middle Reach. Libraries, theaters, universities. This was going to be the center of the world. But we lost it all when we lost the rivers in the earthquakes our Source was too incompetent to stop. And that was the end of it. No major trade routes, no money, no university, no business. No interest. No respect. The Triple S sends the worst of the Pairs here. No one thinks this place is worth having Runners. The healers and teachers and whatnot come here only because they're too incompetent to get work anywhere else. And anyone born here who has any real talent leaves as soon as their two feet can carry them, lying about where they came from. Because we're the hole of the world, something to be ashamed of. But that's going to change.”