He holds out an arm toward the woods. "I’ll tell you what those men and women want. They want every last Drac in the universe dead. I’ll tell you what those Dracs in the Mavedah, Tean Sindie, Sitarmeda, and Thuyo Koradar want. They want every last human in the universe dead. And you want a truce. Tell me, Aydan, what can be gained from truce talks?"
Davidge smiles and shakes his head. "Perhaps what the Dracs say is true: to get a human’s attention takes a mirror, a loud voice, and a sharp stick." He takes a deep breath and nods. "I guess it’s not as obvious as I thought. The point of the truce, Paul Ruche, is the truce itself."
"What does that mean?"
"If the Front and the Mavedah, and all of the human and Drac splinter groups do make it to the table, they will talk, and swear, and bellow, and curse, and threaten, and will reach no agreement, but the truce will hold. Then, in time, children will grow and your replacements will come to the table. Perhaps they too will talk, swear, bellow, curse, and threaten and reach no agreement, but the noise level will be lower and the truce will hold. All this time humans and Dracs will be venturing farther and farther from their weapons. They will be rebuilding their lives, their towns and cities, their schools, farms, and businesses. The young, not burdened with memories, will see where money might be made by selling to the other side. Money might be saved by employing them, putting them through the same schools that ours attend, and the truce will hold. Eventually, the ones who show up at the talks will be men, women, and Dracs who really don’t understand why so many old ones are so insanely attached to the past. The talks will be populated by those who no longer want to waste time on talks that don’t do anything or go anywhere. They will sign the peace."
"For me, then," says Ruche, "it is a pointless gesture. I get nothing I want. Black October gets nothing it has fought and sacrificed for all these years."
"You asked me what would be gained from truce talks. I answered."
"And this is all you want: the truce to hold so that at some point in the future there will be a signed peace?"
Paul Ruche turns away, looks at Akilah Hareef, and she nods in return. "Willis Davidge," she says, "the only Drac I ever heard about who wanted only peace was Aydan, who, if the story is to be believed, killed millions of its enemies before it adopted its noble goal."
"Say what you will," remarks Ruche’s bodyguard with the scanner, "we and the Dracs have at least accomplished that."
After dosing him with a withering glance, Akilah Hareef looks back at Davidge. "In the story of Aydan, Niagat is told how to pass the test for a warmaster’s blade."
Davidge quotes, Return when your goal is peace alone and you hold a willing knife at your own throat to achieve it. That is the price of a warmaster’s blade.
As I hear Akilah Hareef make her offer, the talma is clear to me from beginning to end. I am stunned by it: its simplicity, its beauty, its horror. "We will put down our weapons and come to the talks if we see the Navi Di earn its Aydan’s blade."
The world turns so slowly, the figures about me moving like insects through resin. Davidge does not ask what the woman means, or if she is serious, or argue that the goal of Aydan’s test was peace not the dubious agreement of a fraction of one side, or point out that it is probably nothing more than a meaningless bluff.
Davidge does none of these.
In one liquid movement the old human bends down, pulls the knife from my boot, and stands holding the knife above his head. I reach to stop him, but Kita throws her arms around me, immobilizing my arms with a strength I did not know she possessed. When I break free and can see, Davidge’s hand is at his side, the blood is flowing down the front of his jacket, and he is sinking to his knees, his eyes open, his gaze fixed on Akilah Hareef. His words, other words, parade before me.
"How many bodies more will it take before we are considered for real?"
"All my children. All my children."
I rush to his side, and am there only in time to lower him gently to the ground. Peace? Can any peace be worth this?
Yes. Of course. Only one life.
Only one.
I look at Akilah Hareef. Her mouth is open in a parody of astonishment. Paul Ruche is studying Davidge, waiting still for a trick. The Octoberist with the scanner takes a hesitant step forward. As he squats down next to Davidge, he looks at me and I see the confusion, the tears in his eyes. Reaper rushes up, pushes Ruche out of the way, and drops to his knees next to me.
"What in the hell happened?" He glares at me, then Ruche, then Hareef. "Who―"
I point at Davidge’s hand, my knife still clutched in his fingers. I pry the knife from his hand and hold it. Kita stands there next to Davidge, her eyes closed, the tears on her cheeks. I want to rip the blade across Hareef’s guts, cut off Ruche’s suspicious face, gouge out all the crying eyes around me.
I do none of it. Instead I thrust the blade into the ground, leave it, and pick Davidge up in my arms. As I stand I face Kita. "You knew."
Her lips form the word "yes," but there is no sound.
The Ovjetah, Zenak Abi, Kita Yamagata, Davidge. Aside from myself, who did not know this talma? There is so much anger I need to throw at someone, but the only one who deserves it is dead in my arms. It was his hand. I swing Davidge’s body around and look at Paul Ruche, the head of Black October, All I do is look and keep looking until he turns and begins walking toward the tree line, followed a moment later by Akilah Hareef. The remaining Octoberist looks from my face to Davidge’s body. He shakes his head, turns slowly and follows the others to the tree line.
"Let’s go, Ro." Reaper is standing there, his arms out, offering to help carry Davidge. I turn away from him and, holding Davidge close to me, I walk toward the platform. "You were to be my parent," I whisper to the still shape in my arms. "I am alone once more." I lower him and place his body next to his dead comrades.
When all of us are aboard, the platform lifts off, I face into the wind, and try to believe that I am in a dream in which I know I am in a dream, which means I can change it at will. But I can will no changes, for I am not in a dream, and the pain will never end.
FORTY-FOUR
The truce still holds.
As I stand in the shadows looking down at the night mists, the truce still holds.
Thuyo Koradar and The Fives make some noise and some plans. The noise is just noise and the plans―well, if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan. Bombers, suicide attackers, nutball war chiefs, and everyone else begin seeing twenty-nines wherever they go. There are more twenty-nines than The Peace has either time or personnel to inscribe. The Mavedah’s own people, the Front’s own people, are marking the sign of The Peace everywhere.
Many saw on their monitors what happened when Hareef made her offer and Davidge earned his Aydan’s blade. The story spreads. Through Black October, through the Front, The Fives, The Rose, and Greenfire. Through the Mavedah, the Tean Sindie, Sitarmeda, and Thuyo Koradar. Through all of the peoples of Amadeen.
The truce holds. Black October comes to the table to talk. Tean Sindie comes the next day. By the end of the dry season, the last of the splinter groups, The Rose, sits at the table. They talk, and swear, and bellow, and curse, and threaten, and they reach no agreements, but the truce holds.