The Scorpion Rules (22 page)

Absolute silence. For the moment the only movement came from Tolliver Burr, who was leaning in a handheld camera.

“Shut that thing off!” Armenteros ordered. “Elián, get up.”

“Why?” snapped Elián. “You said I should learn to sacrifice for my country.”

Armenteros pressed her thumb between her eyebrows. “Buckle, please take my grandson inside and get him a shirt.”

“You'll have to drag me,” said Elián. “And how's that going to look, huh?”

Buckle looked at Armenteros, who gave a great sigh, then nodded.

“You're a torturer,” Elián snarled at his grandmother. “A monster!”

Buckle gathered up a couple of men, and they dragged Elián off. He was still screaming my name.

“You'll have to do without your reaction shots, Burr,” Armenteros said. “I want them all locked up.”

The soldiers closed in on my friends. A generalized shouting; swearing in several languages. Over the din I heard for a moment another voice—Da-Xia. “Greta!” she shouted. “There's a plume, Greta! A plume!”

A plume of dust.

A Swan Rider. They were coming.

My friends—the passive and obedient Children of Peace—my friends fought like lions.

They took bruises and left scratches.

They were delaying. And not with a noble lack of plan, as Elián had done. A lifetime of watching for that plume—they had all seen it. A lifetime of watching for it, and for the first time we were eager.
What could one Rider do?
asked my sensible self. But my sensible self was overridden. A Rider. The Riders changed everything.

The delay was short—too short—less than five minutes. How long did I need? It had just rained; the plume would not be too high. Not hours. Twenty minutes? Thirty?

Too long, too long.

The Precepture hall swallowed the noise of my friends. The Cumberland soldiers were unnaturally quiet. The nearest one to me was shifting from foot to foot like a child called before the Abbot's desk. A pair of mourning doves flew past me, whirring and whirling, and perched on the roof of the toolshed.

“Well,” said Burr. “Hmmm. A wide shot and some chokers cut in, I guess. Unless I can use one of your boys for a reaction, Wilma?” He jerked a thumb at one of the soldiers, a gawky white boy whose wide green eyes seemed to match his skin. He looked as if he might throw up.

“No, you cannot,” she said. “Get on with it, Burr.”

Tolliver Burr paced the camera line, checking the view from each angle. Then stepped in behind a monitor. He rubbed his hands together. “All right, Greta. Let's have some action.”

Lights twinkled as the gantry spiders manning the cranks came to life. There was the barest pause as they set their articulated legs around the pegs meant for human hands. And then the whole mechanism shuddered, and the crushing block began to descend.

The block began a few inches above my head, a good two feet from my hands. Each wheel turn dropped it the barest fraction. It was so slow that one could ordinarily hardly see it moving.

In that moment, I could see nothing else.

Tolliver Burr had moved to the tripod directly in front of me. As if I had left my body, I could picture what he saw. The iron-bound oak block, the stone pan, the screws on each side—the press made a dark frame. Inside that frame knelt a princess in white, her hands bound in front of her. I saw the single eye of the camera, and I saw what it saw. I knew what Burr wanted: for me to meet that eye with helpless, pleading terror.

And, God help me, I gave him what he wanted.

“That's lovely, dear,” he murmured, squinting into the eyepiece. “That's perfect.” He held up a hand. “Let's have quiet; I want a good capture on the sound.”

Oh, the sound. The heaviness of each
clock
of the master gear. The sound was an arrow entering me, again and again and again. The tick-clocks came a little faster than I could breathe to, and my breath sped up to meet them. There were red spots in my vision, and the camera's eye was like a gaping hole.

“Good,” said Burr. “Very good. We can all hear you, Greta, you're a star.”

The spiders were turning the cranks slowly. The mechanism was geared six to one. It went: Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

The stone shuddered under my hands.

The camera's eye, and beyond it the ridge, the whirligig generators, the pure blue sky. I saw no plume in it.

“I'm dropping a mute bubble on everything else,” said Burr. “You can speak freely, General. The audience can't hear you.”

“. . . confirmation. The cabinet is in session.” Buckle was pressing her hand to her earpiece.

Armenteros pushed her lips together and shook her head. “Not the cabinet. The privy council. Tell them I want the privy council; I want the queen.”

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.
The top of the press brushed against a stray loop of hair. I reared back from it, jerking at my arms. The plastic might as well have been steel.

“Perfect,” Burr purred.

My head was thrown back, and my shoulders wrenched. My arms began to shake like overloaded cables.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

“. . . in session,” said Buckle, to the earpiece. She kept talking. I couldn't listen.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

The press was at forehead level now. My shoulders were screaming with pain.

The gears turned and ticked.

The press dropped.

And dropped.

Burr swung one of his handheld cameras in for a view of my hands.

I looked at my hands. The fingers were clenched and raised up. I could see all four tendons across the back of the palm, clear as dowels. I could see the knuckles: white and lumpy like tiny potatoes.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

“We're on-screen in the Halifax chambers, General.”

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

Calm down, Greta. Calm down.

My hands didn't look like hands at all. They looked like the Abbot's hands, like machines.

Calm down, Greta. A Rider. A Rider is coming.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

Calm down.

Calm down.

I took a deep breath and leaned forward, releasing the tension in my shoulders. It had become a huge pain; easy as that, it was gone. I felt the blood pounding in the swollen skin under the plastic straps.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

Calm down. I let go of my fists.

A Rider was coming.

Cameras were on me. Watching me. To see how well I did.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

Tick. Tock. Clock. Tick. Tock.
Drop.

I could do this part. This part. The waiting.

All my life, the waiting.

This part, I could do.

And so. Slowly the press closed. The crushing block came in front of my face. There were some moments when I could see nothing but its ancient grey-brown wood. An iron band brushed by my nose. And then it was farther down, and I could see over it.

Tolliver Burr was bobbing heel to toe like an expectant father. Buckle had her head tilted, conversing with the voice in her ear. Armenteros just stood.

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

Sometimes the panic flew up in me and my hands shuddered and clenched. But I did well enough.

The press was at my shoulders now. I could no longer see my hands.

I twisted around to try to see the Precepture hall, but its windows were blank.

On my left, the pens of milk goats, the ripening pumpkins.

On my right, the garden terrace.

Straight ahead, the hole of the camera. The blue flaregun sky.

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

What would it feel like when—

My arms jerked against the straps. I could feel the blood trickling under plastic.

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

The press was under my collarbone, now. How thick was it? Was the bottom of it nine inches from my hands? Six?

Stay calm, Greta. Stay calm. A Rider is coming.

The plume. Finally I could see the plume. I grabbed hold of it with my eyes.

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

“Confirm that?” said Buckle, nodding to herself. She tilted her head. She looked up. “General. There's a single horseback rider, incoming.”

“The UN,” growled Armenteros.

Talis.

There was a pause. The press dropped again.

“The Swan Riders aren't armed,” said Buckle. “Crossbows only.”

“Traditionally,” said Armenteros.

What was happening here was far from traditional.

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

I bent my wrists, letting the straps dig into the backs of my hands. I raised my fingers as far as I could. The tips brushed wood.

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.

I missed a breath, that time, as the press dropped.

Armenteros shuffled over behind Burr, looking at the monitor.

Inches. I had inches.

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

“No word from Halifax?”

“Lots of words,” said Burr, tapping his own earbud. “Not the ones you want.”

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

“Could they have seen the Rider?”

Burr shook his head. “No chance. We've got transmissions snowed under for a hundred miles around.”

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

“Should I talk to the queen?” Even Armenteros had uncertainty in her voice now.

Tolliver Burr laughed. “This is what we're saying to the queen,” he said. I saw the iris flex as the camera fixed on my face. “Look at that; she's perfect.”

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

Even knowing the camera was there did not keep me from reacting when the press brushed the top of my fists. A wild howl came from somewhere, and I pulled backward on the straps with all my strength.

“See?” said Burr. “The queen will break; I'd stake my next project on it.”

Armenteros shuddered, watching me, watching the press. “You stake more than that, Burr.”

Tick. Tock. Clock.

Tick. Tock.
Drop.

I pushed my hands against the stone, making them as flat as I could. I felt the air whistling around them, the wind compressed in the tiny space between press and stone.

“General,” said Buckle. “The Rider is here.”

My head whipped around. My breath was fast and shuddering, out of time, out of time. It was three more drops before the horse topped the ridge.

The Rider came pounding down the slope from the whirligig generators and pulled the horse to a rearing, prancing stop near the cameras. The creature's ribs were heaving; foam flew from its mouth as it tossed its head.