The Forest at the Edge of the World (11 page)

“Before or after the Great War?” asked Sareen.

“After. Right after. Remember, King Querul the First and Guide Pax were trying to find a way to bring an end to the fighting. For five years our world was in complete upheaval. All seventeen villages and the city of Idumea were entangled in the war. No one is sure of the population, but we were well over one million people, and the land was struggling to sustain that many people. Couple that with farms lying fallow because of the fighting, and herds being slaughtered for meat, meant people were dying. According to some estimates, we may have lost up to 200,000 people to fighting and famine during those five years.”

The girls dutifully took notes on their slate boards as Mahrree spoke.

“Famine that King Querul vowed would never happen under his ‘supreme guidance’,” Teeria grumbled in disgust.

“Exactly. When he took power at the beginning of the war, he said he would unite the world and bring peace. But he tried to
force
that peace.”

“That was the problem with all the kings, right?” Teeria asked.

These were the times Mahrree loved teaching. “Right again. The kings imposed changes upon us, without our consent. A leader may believe he’s successful in forcing his will, but he rarely sees how his subjects are quietly plotting against him until it’s too late.”

“Like the Administrators,” Teeria said. “Plotting to depose King Oren, and surprising him two years ago. And the Administrators have promised to be here for the people to listen to what they want.”

Mahrree recognized that phrase: “Be here for the people.”

That’s what Chairman Mal had posted on the notice boards two years ago, had shouted by his representatives in red jackets as they came to the amphitheater, and had emphasized repeatedly as he took over the government of the world. She’d always believed he was sincere. But since last night, that little bit of guilty cynicism had been tainting every thought of the Administrators. Where her doubt came from, or why it persisted, Mahrree didn’t know.

“Yes,” Mahrree said, hoping the girls didn’t hear her hesitation.

Hitty wrinkled her nose. “But I thought it was the king that made the Guarders angry in the first place. Since the kings are gone, why are the Guarders coming back again?”

“No one’s sure,” Mahrree shrugged. “Maybe they don’t know the kings are gone, or they don’t care. Maybe their anger is with everyone in the world. Remember, in 200 Guide Pax came up with a plan. He and King Querul had realized those prolonging the war were only a small minority of the world. Pax suggested that they try to find a new land for those people to live.
Divide
the world to have peace.”

“But we can’t do that,” another girl pointed out. “There’s n
owhere else people can live that’s not poisoned.”

Mahrree scratched her head. “Yes, that’s what we’ve been told for over three hundred years. This plain where our seventeen villages and Idumea exist are the only habitable stretches of land anywhere.”

Teeria squinted. “As usual, Miss Mahrree, you don’t sound completely sure of that.”

Mahrree shrugged again. “You know me and Terryp.” 

She loved nothing more than tales of Terryp. He was a historian who served the first king and went on an expedition with Querul’s soldiers looking for new lands near the end of the Great War. In the west he discovered vast regions of farmable land and enormous ruins of a massive civilization. But he came back from the expedition so crazed that the king vowed never to allow anyone else to suffer as much as Terryp did in the “poisoned” lands. Then all of Terryp’s findings and writings were accidentally destroyed in a fire over one hundred years ago. Mahrree was always suspicious of just how honest King Querul was about the lands Terryp discovered.

Mahrree’s students knew their teacher didn’t have much faith in anything the kings had claimed, but they didn’t know
all
the reasons why. She’d been told by her father years ago that King Querul the First took in several servants during the Great War, and held them in his secured compound. By the time Querul the Fourth took over the mansion, the servants, who still believed the war continued and that the only place of refuge was in the king’s service, had multiplied to nearly three dozen. After eighty years those servants were finally released, and they were shocked to discover the world was something completely different.

Cephas Peto had a friend who helped those people, secretly r
elocated to the eastern village of Winds, learn to read and write and adapt to life in the real world. And Cephas had told the story to his daughter, years later, in confidence.

In rare, bleak moments Mahrree wondered if the world wasn’t itself imprisoned in a compound and fed lies to keep them there. But such thoughts were so dispiriting it did no good to ponder them.

Besides, the Administrators were different, she loyally tried to remind herself. Maybe they might send another expedition to the west . . .

“Back to Guarders,” Mahrree reluctantly continued her lecture. “Guide Pax travelled north from Idumea until he reached Moorland. About ten miles west of here he bravely entered the treacherous fo
rest. He was hoping to find a way through it and up into the mountains. Maybe he could find a valley or another plain where the people who loved violence could live. He left with a dozen of the king’s soldiers—his elite guards—and was never heard from again,” she recounted sadly.

“The Creator’s last guide, the last man worthy to add to The Writings and receive guidance from the Creator for us, was gone. Several of the guards with him were found later with blood on their hands and uniforms. That’s when the awful reality was known—Querul’s guards had betrayed the man they were to be guarding. I
nstead of helping Pax find a peaceful solution, they butchered him. We’ve called the tallest mountain where that occurred ‘Mt. Deceit’ ever since. The guards were captured by Querul and executed for their treachery, but that didn’t convince their associates to stop their rebellion. Over 2,000 people during the next few weeks made mad dashes to the forests north of us, to escape Querul’s fury. It would have been one thing to let the men—Guarders, as someone decided to call them—leave and finally end the battles, but no. Husbands and fathers forced their wives and children into the forests as well. The families had to abandon their homes, farms and shops, and flee to the wild north. Some of those men were even assistants to the guide. That’s likely how he was betrayed—by his deceitful friends. They entered the forests between and near the villages of Sands, Scrub, Moorland, and even Edge.”

“And all of them were part of the secret groups,” Teeria said as she wrote on her slate.

“That’s right. And the name ‘Guarders’ took on a somewhat ironic meaning. Now the only thing they guard is whatever they steal from us. King Querul—indeed,
no one
—understood that there was a secret society living among us. This society had their own oaths, connections, and even methods of communication. Every village was affected with these spies and traitors to the king and the world. It was these people Guide Pax was hoping to find a new home for, who prolonged the war and were to be divided away from the rest of the world. But it seems they initially didn’t want to go. They enjoyed aggravating the magistrates of the villages, tiring the law enforcers with their mischief, and taunting the Army of Idumea to continue the war.

“But when Guide Pax was lost, King Querul was enraged,” she told them as she slowly paced the class room. “He demanded all the traitors in each village be discovered and brought to Idumea for trial. That’s when houses turned up empty, store shops abandoned, and farms left alone. In the middle of the night for weeks on end, people darted in and out of trees in a race for the north, thieving as they went and damaging property wherever they could. There was even one family captured by law enforcers just outside of Edge. They had travelled all the way from Flax at the other end of the world, on the coast of the southern sea, just to escape.”

The girls’ mouths dropped open.

“That’s an incredible distance!” Sareen said with a sad giggle. “Don’t people
die
travelling that far?”

Mahrree shrugged. “One hundred thirty miles is a long way to go, but apparently not life-threatening.”

“What happened to the family?” Hitty asked warily.

“The travel didn’t kill them, but their treachery did,” Mahrree said softly. “They were brought to Idumea, tried, found guilty, and executed.”

The girls looked at each other, aghast.

“Children, too?” asked Teeria.

Mahrree pressed her lips together. She skimmed over these details when she taught the history to her younger group, but the teenage girls were ready to know the terrible truths. While Querul the first wasn’t the greatest leader the world could have desired, his intention
was
to bring peace to the land. “King Querul felt the children were under the poisonous influence of their parents, so naturally they would grow up to be traitors too.”

“Was that really necessary?”
Teeria’s voice was almost a whisper.

“Excellent question,” Mahrree told her. “What do you think?”

Teeria glanced around the room at the other girls, likely hoping to see an answer on one of their faces.

Hitty tried. “If children are taught one thing by their parents, then . . . they usually stay with what they were taught. So . . . those children might have continued their parents’ rebellion when they got
older. I mean, if your parents are dead, wouldn’t you be mad about who killed them?”

Mahrree was tempted to nod, but instead looked around for a
nother opinion.

Teeria fingered her dark braid, thinking.

Another girl piped up. “But you could retrain those children, couldn’t you? Teach them that their parents’ stealing and fights they kept starting with the army were wrong. Then they’d change their ways!”

Teeria turned to her, “Yes, but who would do that retraining to—”

Mahrree began to smile. That was the point she loved in teaching, when the girls turned from facing her and expecting to get the answers from the “authority,” to probing the difficult questions among themselves. It was when they debated each other that the lessons were remembered.

This
was why the what-color-is-the-sky debate was so crucial: people tend to trust whoever sets themselves up as the authorities, but at some point each person needs to look at what’s claimed and test it. Is the sunset really pink, or is it more of an orange? What do
you
see?

Now none of the girls were facing Mahrree, who was leaning smugly against the large slate board at the front of the room, but they were instead arguing heatedly as to whether children could be forced to think differently than they’d been taught. If she were alone, Mahrree would have whopped for joy. She would, later, in celebr
ation of another successful day.

But right now, she had a growing shouting match she had to gently calm. She learned years ago how to do so: with another que
stion.

“Teeria,” she said in a quiet but firm voice that cut through the arguing of the girls.

Eight heads turned to look at her, as if surprised she was still there.

“Teeria, if a group of Guarders were to steal you away from your home today and try to tell you that everything your parents, government, and even your teacher has been telling you is a lie, what would it take for you to believe them?”

Mahrree looked at all of the girls silenced by her query. “Any of you? What would they have to do to convince you that the truths you’ve been taught are distortions?”

After a thoughtful moment, Teeria sighed loudly. “I really don’t know, Miss Mahrree. Depending on how convincing they were, I might not be able to figure out what the truth is about anything. I might end up not believing
anyone
anymore.”

Several of the girls nodded in agreement.

“So
that
would be worse?” Hitty wondered. “People who can’t figure out what to believe?”

“Maybe the real question, Hitty,” Mahrree said, “is what would it take to make
you
change your mind about everything you’re sure to know to be true? That’s the question for all of you, isn’t it? Who do you trust?”

The girls thoughtfully stared at their desks.

“Parents? Friends?” Teeria suggested. “Neighbors? Teachers? Certainly the government could—”

Mahrree couldn’t listen anymore, because her ears were stuck on the words “the government.” Cynical thoughts once again flooded her mind. Did the Chairman and Administrators deserve her trust? They acted as if they already had it. As if they could just
take
it, not
earn
it. And no one was questioning that, were they? They collect our trust as easily as they collect our slips of silver twice a year. We wanted them to succeed so we trust them blindly. Foolishly. And they’re
using
that, taking it to the next step. If people stop arguing, stop thinking, and are just willing to take—
to trust
—whatever the authority dishes out, they’ll accept just about anything—