Soldier at the Door (29 page)

Again Perrin grinned. “I know how—they’d gossip about with their friends and bring it up again and again to prolong it even fu
rther. I’ve listened to you and your little friends enough!” he said in response to her insulted look. “I think I know that poor man’s problem. He probably didn’t have a sister or female friends. He actually trusted your assertion that women wouldn’t go to a battle.”

The light hit both of them at the same time.

“He
trusted
me!” Mahrree marveled. “He didn’t even challenge what I said, but accepted it blindly and asked what a different solution would be!”

Perrin nodded. “You surprised him, and he missed the very i
ssue he should have argued. Women
do
battle! In different ways, but just as frequently as men, I dare say. Did he know you before this? Have any reason to trust you?”

Mahrree shook her head. “No, not really.”

“That’s it, Mahrree. He trusted when he shouldn’t have. Maybe if he were a friend or knew about your tactics, he wouldn’t have been caught off guard.” His voice softened. “If you’d known me better, and the way I think, you would have been able to discover my deceits far more quickly as well. I could never pull on you now what I did three years ago.”

“The Creator said there are some things we need to take on faith,” Mahrree said slowly, “but everything else we can test though questioning and examination.”

He nodded. 

“So Perrin,” she said pointedly, “why do the Administrators
not
want us to teach our children how to test for the truth?”

He exhaled. “I’m not sure,” he said heavily. “But I don’t think that’s something you should ask them in a letter. It might even reach the Main Skimmer. And,” he added with a slightly different tone to his voice, “I’m going to pretend the Captain of Edge didn’t hear you ask that.”

She bit her lip as thoughts of her father suddenly filled her mind, along with another idea. She could feel Cephas Peto so closely as if he was standing right next to her, and his message nearly overwhelmed her.

“Then the captain better not hear this, either. Perrin, the Admi
nistrators and Department of Instruction have done this,” she held up the thick document, “on purpose.”

Perrin squinted. “What do you mean?”

“They
deliberately
wrote this to be confusing and difficult. Any parent who happens to read it will feel stupid.
Too
stupid to be
smart enough
to teach their own children. They’ll think that obviously the Administrators know more than they do, in order to write such a highly intelligent document with so many big words and such long sentences. So the Administrators better be in charge of teaching it!”

Perrin released a low whistle. “Good thing the captain’s out on a very long walk so he can’t hear you accusing the Administrators of manipulation. And you said Hegek hadn’t read this yet?”

“This isn’t for him or the teachers!” Mahrree shook the document in fury. “They get something much smaller, about a fourth the size, probably written with words and sentences as small as their minds! But I can see the truth, and I’m not afraid to reveal it. I will
not
let Idumea get away with this!”

She grabbed a clean piece of paper from a shelf and started for a chair.

Mahrree . . . Mahrree—

She knew the source of her name. Her father was still nearby, but she was too full of venom to heed him as she yanked out the chair from under the table.

“What are you doing?!” Perrin demanded.

“I’m going to teach the Administrators a little lesson of my own! I’m going to write to—”

Mahrree, NO! Perrin, stop her—

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Perrin said, grabbing her arm before she could sit down at the table. “The captain is due back any minute, Mahrree. You need to cool down.”

“You said the other day that I needed to get to the bottom of this!” she said fiercely, wrenching her arm from his grip. “Well, here it is: Parents are stupid, Administrators are smart. Hand over your children to the Administrators with no questions debated so they can pour their
own ideas
into the children’s minds, while parents worry about nothing else except getting more gold! Gold which they then hand over to the Administrators in higher taxes. Ooh,
very clever
! The Administrators get richer while families fall apart!”

Perrin’s mouth opened and shut several times, but he knew that when his wife was on a rant, there was no safe way to interrupt her.

“And
then
what happens to the children?” she gestured wildly. “Give Idumea a few years, and I’m sure they’ll be telling the children what jobs they can have, so they make sure
our
children make
them
enough gold and silver!”

Perrin lifted a finger, likely to try to interject that she had an i
ntriguing point, but he pulled it back in a moment later when she began to froth. His contribution could wait.

“Next they’ll dictate where we can live!” Mahrree exclaimed. “And what we can do, and where we can go—Oh,
wait.
They
already
tell us that! Can’t go to Terryp’s land or anywhere else on this vast sphere! Well, I’ve had enough. I’m going to give them a piece of my mind so they can see how intelligent mine really is!”

Sensing the end of the rant, and possibly the beginning of som
ething even more threatening, Perrin stepped up quickly and took her by the arms.

“Mahrree, breathe slowly and think about this. If you send a le
tter to the Administrators expressing
anything
we just talked about, it might
make it to someone
,” he said darkly. “And if it did, it would not be comfortable for
anyone
with the last name of Shin.”

“Who’s telling me that? My husband, or the captain?” she spat.

“The captain’s at the door, Mahrree. So both of us, because we both love you.”

“And you both
fear
the Administrators?” she accused.

Perrin bristled, his eyes turning stony. “There’s
twenty-three
of them, Mahrree, and significantly fewer Shins. I’m
only
a mere captain in the smallest fort. And you’re
only
my wife. Not only are we powerless, we’re insignificant. I know how Nicko Mal thinks. He’s high-minded and superior, until someone challenges him. Then he focuses all his attention on demeaning and eliminating what he perceives as a threat. Trust me, Mahrree; we do
not
want to draw his attention! I did that too many times as an immature student. And Mal has a very long and spiteful memory.”

Mahrree squinted. “You may think you’re unforgettable, Perrin Shin, but I sincerely doubt the Chairman of the Administrators sits up at night thinking about how much you irritated him when you were twenty!”

The corner of Perrin’s mouth tugged upwards. “You’re probably right. He’s forgotten all about those childish outbursts we shared. But Mahrree,
I’m
also right. What would you hope to accomplish by sending a temper tantrum in another letter to the Department of Instruction?”

Mahrree blinked a few times, slowly coming out of her rage.
“Uh, I’m not entirely sure,” she confessed. “And I was going to address it to Chairman Mal.”

“Ha!” Perrin barked. “Good thing the captain got here to hold you back, Mrs. Shin.”

Good catch, son. Mahrree, listen to your husband. He’s right.

Mahrree sighed hopelessly, at both her husband and her father, who seemed to stand very close to both of them.

“There’s nothing we can do, is there?”

Perrin exhaled. “No, not really. You can give your findings to Hegek, but other than that? Well, at least the Administrators don’t have any eyes or ears in this house. We can say and think whatever we want, as long as we keep it to the house.”

Mahrree’s shoulders fell, completely deflated. “I don’t like the direction of any of this, Perrin.”

“Neither do I, Mahrree. I escaped Idumea for a reason. But now it seems it’s expanding even to Edge. I guess that’s progress for you.”

-
--

Mahrree did send a fourth letter, but to the Department of Instruction, as neutral, direct, and short as she could make it.

As a school teacher, I am wondering if you can give me the reasons why, in the future, all children will no longer learn to debate.

Surely something that short would elicit an original response.

Chapter 9 ~ “There have been some changes . . .”

T
wo men sat in the dark office of an unlit building.

“She did it!” Brisack breathed in a dazed monotone. “Incred
ible!”

“And shockingly insightful in her brevity,” Mal twitched. “The only way she would’ve known about eliminate debating was if she read to the very end. Not even the Administrator of Education has bothered to accomplish that yet.” His voice grew louder and higher. “She’s not a teacher anymore, nor does she have any children in the schools, so
why does she care?!
”

“Well, that’s one intelligent, independent, persistent—”

“Annoying!”

Brisack shrugged in reluctant agreement, “—annoying cat.”

“Always
hated
cats,” Mal mumbled.

“So what kind of response will this receive?”

“Perhaps,” Mal said, holding up a finger, “she should receive a
personal
one this time.”

Brisack’s eyebrows rose. “Are we now finding the north appea
ling again?”

“He hasn’t conquered that forest, although I’m sure he believes he has. They need to learn who is truly in charge of this world.
I am!
”

Brisack nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s the only answer. But . . .”

“But
what
, Doctor?” Mal sliced into his hesitation.

“I can’t stop thinking that all she’s done is send four letters. We’re going to eliminate someone because of
four letters
?”

“We’ve eliminated some after
only
one
letter, Doctor,” Mal said steadily. “Remember the pestering father of that captain in Grasses? The one who blamed the Administrators for losing his cattle herd to the new mandates on production? You’d think the man would’ve been grateful to move to the village and nearer to his son. His son’s quit the army, by the way. You may want to study his descent into depression after having lost all his family. Truly tragic. But
here
,” he gestured to Mrs. Shin’s final note, “here we have a woman who’s sent
four letters
, and we’ve let her go. Not only that, but she’s questioned your research methods, Doctor. She’s mocked the Department of Instruction—”

“Well, if we’re going to target someone because of
that
,” Brisack chuckled nervously, “then
I
should be watching my back—”

“She’s questioning our Administration!” the old man burst out. “The Administrators that discovered the return of the Guarders! That ordered the army to put a fort in Edge. That
gave
her a husband! And
this
is how she thanks us for such attention to an undeserving woman in a meaningless little village?”

“As you just pointed out, Nicko,” Brisack said in his best cal
ming voice, “she’s small and insignificant.”

Mal jabbed his finger at him. “Everything big began as som
ething small, Doctor! Perrin started that way, too, as a boy with an over-sized ego. Then you should have seen him when he was thirteen and already taller than Relf. Strutting around the garrison with girls trailing behind him.” His shoulder twitched more violently. “By the time he was sixteen he practically had a horde of women. Then he came to the university and started Command School.”

Mal stared off into the distance, his head nodding, then shifting into bobbling and shaking. “Suddenly he was all seriousness, all f
ocus, all study. But I knew what he was up to. He was plotting, even then, as a nineteen-year-old. He analyzed and thought and argued about everything!” Mal began to massage his hands, not realizing that he was frothing around the corners of his mouth.

The good doctor noticed, but wisely didn’t point that out.

“He’s been
plotting
, that one has,” Mal continued. “I had him his second year, and beginning Day One he challenged something I said, countering it out of The Writings of all things! I promptly shut him down, but I saw something in the eyes of his fellow students. They
admired
him,” he said as if uttering the filthiest word in the world. “The next week he took me on again, with even more irrational and unproven arguments, and for even longer. And his fellow students? They were
smiling
.” Mal’s eyes squinted so severely he probably lost all sight.

Brisack swallowed and calmly said, “He was an arrogant boy, Nicko. I heard the stories about him. Those students, they mistook his bravado for genuine bravery. They probably admired him b
ecause they—”

“Saw him opposing authority?!” Mal spewed. “Saw him fluster me on more than one occasion in front of all of them?!”

Brisack’s mouth formed a small o. “He
embarrassed
you? Nicko, he was only a boy—”

“He hadn’t looked like a boy since he was thirteen!” Mal pr
otested. “And he was never
only a boy
. He’s been a plotting egomaniac long before he ever came to Command School!”

Brisack exhaled. He knew he’d regret asking, but curiosity was pushing him. “Nicko, plotting
what?
”

Mal leaned closer. “To take over the world,” he whispered dar
kly.

The good doctor would have snorted if it hadn’t been for the deadly serious look in his companion’s eyes that terrified him.

“Nicko, you can’t really believe—”

That was a stupid thing to say, and Mal’s glare made that very clear.

Brisack swallowed again. “What evidence do you have that he’s trying to take over the world?”

Mal scoffed. “Look what he’s done in the forests! Look how he’s defied the laws! Oh, there’s so much more to it . . . You never heard his arguments, but I did. He fully believes in the old proph
ecies that an end of some kind will come, that the wicked will be destroyed, that the followers of the Creator alone will be saved! He had entire passages memorized, and recited them in class! I’d go back to my office and look them up in a borrowed copy of The Writings to see how correct he was, and he never deviated. He acted as if he really believed that nonsense, and I promise you, my good doctor: only a man intending to
be the one
to save the world would pay such close attention to so-called prophecies telling him how! The weak minded of the world believe that twaddle, and they’ll throw their support behind the man that claims he believes it too!”

Mal stood up abruptly and marched to a bookshelf, violently shifting pages and dropping a few on the floor in a frantic effort to find something in the dim light.

“I’ll prove it to you,” he mumbled as Brisack remained in his chair, taking mental notes about Chairman Nicko Mal’s stability. “I’ve kept it, to remember, just to be sure that . . . ah!” He held up a snippet of parchment and waved it around like a small banner. “Allow me to read to you, my good doctor.”

Mal stepped closer to a gap in the curtained window, where faint torchlight from the stables reached him.

Brisack bit his tongue and continued to evaluate his companion, his current situation, and the level of his own involvement.

He immediately went back to evaluating only the chairman.

Mal squinted as he held the parchment he held close to his eyes. “‘Before the Last Day even the aged of my people will strike terror in the deadened hearts of the fiercest soldiers. On the Last Day those who have no power shall discover the greatest power is all around them. On the Last Day those who stayed true to The Plan will be delivered as the destroyer comes.’ Ha! There you have it!”

“There I have it,” Brisack nodded once. “I’m not exactly versed in The Writings. What, precisely, do I have?”

Mal stepped closer to his friend and breathed heavily. “He quoted this to me on more than one occasion. Some people read The Writings for comfort, but others read for anarchy!”

Brisack glanced dubiously at the parchment clutched in Mal’s fist. “This is anarchy?”

“Or so he’ll convince the world. He’ll convince them there’s trouble, such great trouble that even the soldiers are afraid! But then he’ll swoop down, as High General or something, and save the world before they’re destroyed.”

“I’m . . . not entirely sure that’s what the passage means—”

“
Who cares what it means!”
Mal ranted. “There is no ‘meaning’ except what we place on it! And the meaning he will construe is to make himself king and take away my power!”

It made sense, really, Brisack considered. What’s the most po
werful man in the world worried about? Another man becoming more powerful than him. People probably thought that having all power meant a life of security, but it’s exactly the opposite. You never know when that security will be compromised. Every man needs something to fight against, or he withers away. Even insanity is better than indifference.

“You see it, don’t you?” Mal nodded at Brisack’s silence.

“I’m beginning to see a
few things
,” Brisack said vaguely. “So this is what motivates you? The fear of losing your hold on the world?”

Mal scoffed at the obvious and plopped down in his chair with impatient aplomb. “But it’s
my world
, not Perrin’s. He thinks that prophecy will be fulfilled, and it will be fulfilled—by me! Listen again. ‘Before the Last Day even the aged of my people will strike terror in the deadened hearts of the fiercest soldiers.’ Well, my friend, when Perrin meets his last day that fierce soldier
will
be terrified, because I will be the aged striking that terror! He won’t know it was me, but
I will!
Perrin Shin will face his destroyer and whimper like a whipped dog begging for mercy, but he won’t get it. He WILL die, and all of his plans with him, because Nicko Mal is in charge of the world!”

Brisack sat as far back in his chair as possible to avoid the infe
ctious spewing that flowed from Nicko Mal. There comes a moment in a man’s life when he realizes his course is set, his future cast in stone and that there’s no way to escape it, but to hope he can still duck at the right moments.

Right now he was ducking so low he could inspect the wearing down of his boot’s heel.

“I see,” was all he could think to say.

Mal nodded once in satisfaction, his tight face relaxing ever so slightly. “I’m glad that you do. And now you see why anything that touches Shin is just as affected as he is. Including, obviously, his wife!”

Brisack felt his mouth go dry. There was tragedy, and then there was outrage. But they were now somewhere so beyond that he couldn’t even recognize the terrain. When he got back home, he’d refocus his own research by observing one very determined, very paranoid, subject.

The doctor was lost in his thoughts for too long.

“Oh, I see what it is,” Mal sneered when he received no response. “You’re still intrigued by her, aren’t you?”

Brisack could only shrug as his mind came back to the darkened room. “Never encountered a woman quite like her,” he admitted as
he looked at the letter still in his grip, rereading the one sentence.

Mahrree Shin was remarkable. Remarkable enough for Perrin Shin.

Mal clasped his hands in front of him. “I think you’re failing to see exactly what’s happening here, my good doctor. But Gadiman even noticed this one when he brought me that letter this morning. That letter that you are now
ogling
as if you were holding Mrs. Shin
herself
—”

Brisack blushed and set the letter down on his lap guiltily. “She’s
only a small voice.”

“As Gadiman pointed out, the most violent of thunderstorms begin as a quiet rumble
in the north
,” Mal snarled. “The world’s attention must not be drawn to such rumbling, or it may begin to
listen
. Small things, Doctor, grow larger under the right conditions. We must change the conditions. As long as the world believes the sky is blue, it will disregard signs of approaching storms and even ignore the thunder that skirts the edges of their villages.”

Brisack was already shaking his head. “They can’t ignore
every
storm, Nicko. Especially the ones hailing down on them!”

“Oh, but that’s the fascinating part, my good doctor: they
will
. As long as the hail isn’t hitting
them
, they’ll go on about with their dull lives. Why run for cover when it’s the other village getting wet? The sky is blue above
them
, and if it’s not, it
will
be blue again, very soon. We can divert storms, Doctor.”

Brisack remained back up against his plush armchair, but the cushioning behind him felt hard and cold. “Nicko, you can’t control everything!”