Tell the Wind and Fire(55)

“Don’t you agree, Lucie?” asked Mark Stryker.

He was watching me, and even though all my senses told me he was behaving perfectly normally, I could not manage to crush the rising conviction that he knew everything and was simply biding his time.

I dragged air enough into my dry mouth so that I could speak. I could not draw attention to myself—I never could, and least of all now with a doppelganger among us. “I do agree,” I said, and smiled. It felt as if my smile must be a rictus, so false that it was hideous, but nobody gave it a second glance.

Mark smiled back, genial and fatherly. “And I’m sure you must agree too, Ethan.”

The “my boy” was implied.

“Thanks for checking in, Uncle Mark,” said Carwyn.

His voice was unmistakably the voice of someone enjoying a private joke. I felt him shift beneath me, figured that he was trying to get me to look at him so we could share our secret knowledge, so I could be even more stricken and he even more amused.

I stared straight ahead. Carwyn did not seem disturbed: he appeared to have decided to take his fun where he could get it.

“Actually, I don’t agree at all. Not with you, and not with my little lady, cute though she is.”

I did not let my expression even flicker.

“You don’t think that with your father’s murder we need increased security and protection?” asked Mark smoothly.

“Sure we do,” said Carwyn. “Dear old Dad. What a horrible tragedy, am I right?”

He paused as if listening for a response. When none came, he patted me on the knee and continued blithely onward. I refused to let my skin crawl at his touch or at his callous indifference to murder. I refused to let any part of me react. I was even concentrating on slowing down my heart. I wanted to be made up of parts that would obey me, so I could do what I had to do: I had to pretend this was Ethan. I had to act like I would if this were Ethan.

“The thing is, Uncle Mark,” said Carwyn, sounding even more hugely delighted to be addressing Mark like that than he had the first time, “bringing in even more troops, with their swords and their whips and their uniforms, it’s not going to be a popular move. People have this strange tendency to be scared of armed, dangerous men, and a scared crowd can turn into a mob. It only takes a few guards to overstep, a few people to overreact. Suddenly a riot breaks out and the whole city looks like the front of an ice cream shop where free samples are being given out.”

It would have helped if Carwyn had made the slightest effort to behave anything like Ethan. Mark’s eyebrows drew together.

“If a riot breaks out, we will certainly need more soldiers to control it. I think the people will be glad to see order restored,” said Mark. “Those who will not are not loyal to the Light . . . and they need to be cowed by a show of strength. In fact, I intend to welcome the troops’ relocation to the center of the city with a ball. A display will make sure people are convinced of our power, our willingness to use it, and our absolute lack of concern that this rabble could ever be a true threat.”

His tone brooked no dissent. Even David Brin, who had been arguing for fiscal responsibility during the last meeting, murmured an agreement.

Council elections were coming up. They all wanted to be popular.

“There are far more people in the Dark city than there are guards,” I said, and I could scarcely believe that I was saying it. “You cannot crush them through sheer force of numbers.”

I thought of the ripped-apart cages and the blood in the streets. I knew the fury of the terrorized from the inside out: I had torn apart and rebuilt myself because of it. If enough people felt that anger, they might tear apart the world.

Carwyn said, “Aren’t I a lucky guy? My blonde has brains.”

“There are always more people than there are guards,” Mark said dismissively. “And yet nobody rises. The point is to make these people realize I am the leader.” He paused. “That we are their leaders.”

“They might just think that you’re a coward, a tyrant, and a total jackass,” Carwyn suggested in dulcet tones. “Not us, Uncle Mark. Of course we know you far too well to think such things, Uncle Mark. I am just talking about what other, less well-informed citizens might think about you bringing a ton of guards in and having a feast when people are starving in the gutters of the Dark city.”

Mark looked angrily incredulous that anyone would speak like this to him.

Ethan would not have lit the fuse of his uncle’s fury by insulting him. Ethan had argued sincerely for the good of others. But Carwyn was not really trying to convince anybody. He did not care what resulted from his behavior: he was a doppelganger.