“Why did you give them the maps, show them the way!” Luz said, impatiently and hotly. “That was stupid. You could have just gone.”
“We are a community,” Lev said, “the City and the Town.” And left it at that.
Andre rather spoiled his point by adding, “Anyhow, we couldn’t just sneak off. A big lot of people migrating leave a very easy trail to follow.”
“So if they did follow you all the way north there to your mountains—you’re there already, and you say, Too bad, this is ours, go find yourselves another valley, there’s plenty of room!”
“And they would use force. The principle of equality and free choice must be established first. Here.”
“But they use force here! Vera’s already a prisoner, and the others in the Jail, and the old man lost his eye, and the bullies are coming to beat you up or shoot you—all to establish a ‘principle,’ when you could have gone, got out, gone free!”
“Freedom’s won by sacrifice,” Southwind said. Lev looked at her, then quickly at Luz; he was not sure if Luz knew of Timmo’s death on the journey to the north. Probably, here alone with Southwind the last three nights, she did. In any case, the quietness of Southwind’s voice quieted her. “I know,” Luz said. “You have to take risks. But sacrifice … . I hate that idea, sacrifice!”
Lev grinned in spite of himself. “And what have you done?”
“Not sacrificed myself for any idea! I just ran away —don’t you understand? And that’s what you all ought to do!” Luz spoke in challenge, defiance, self-defense, not conviction; but Southwind’s response startled Lev. “You may be right,” she said. “So long as we stand and fight, even though we fight with our weapons, we fight their war.”
Luz Falco was an outsider, a stranger, she did not know how the People of the Peace thought and felt, but to hear Southwind say something irresponsible was shocking, an affront to their perfect unity.
“To run away and hide in the forest—that’s a choice?” Lev said. “For coneys, yes. Not for human beings. Standing upright and having two hands doesn’t make us human. Standing up and having ideas and ideals does! And holding fast to those ideals. Together. We can’t live alone. Or we die alone—like animals.”
Southwind nodded sadly, but Luz frowned straight back at him. “Death is death, does it matter whether it’s in bed in the house or outside in the forest? We are animals. That’s why we die at all.”
“But to live and die for—for the sake of the spirit —that’s different, that’s different from running and hiding, all separate, selfish, scratching for food, cowering, hating, each alone—” Lev stammered, he felt his face hot. He met Luz’s eyes, and stammered again, and was silent. Praise was in her look, praise such as he had never earned, never dreamed of earning, praise and rejoicing, so that he knew himself confirmed, in that same moment of anger and argument, confirmed totally, in his words, his life, his being.
This is the true center, he thought. The words went quick and clear across his mind. He did not think of them again, but nothing, on the far side of those words, was the same; nothing would ever be the same. He had come up into the mountains.
His right hand was half held out toward Luz in a gesture of urgent pleading. He saw it, she saw it, that unfinished gesture. Suddenly self-conscious, he dropped his hand; the gesture was unfinished. She moved abruptly, turning away, and said with anger and despair, “Oh, I don’t understand, it’s all so strange, I’ll never understand, you know everything and I’ve never even thought about anything … .” She looked physically smaller as she spoke, small, furious, surrendering. “I just wish—” She stopped short.
“It will come, Luz,” he said. “You don’t have to run to it. It comes, it will come—I promise—”
She did not ask what he promised. Nor could he have said.
When he left the house the rainy wind struck him in the face, taking his breath away. He gasped; tears filled his eyes, but not from the wind. He thought of that bright morning, the silver sunrise and his great happiness, only three days ago. Today it was gray, no sky, little light, a lot of rain and mud. Mud, the world’s name is Mud, he thought, and wanted to laugh, but his eyes were still full of tears. She had renamed the world. That morning on the road, he thought, that was happiness, but this is—and he had no word for it, only her name, Luz. Everything was contained in that, the silver sunrise, the great burning sunset over the City years ago, all the past, and all that was to come, even their work now, the talking and the planning, the confrontation, and their certain victory, the victory of the light. “I promise, I promise,” he whispered into the wind. “All my life, all the years of my life.”
He wanted to walk slower, to stop, to hold the moment. But the very wind that blew in his face forced him forward. There was so much to do, so little time now. Later, later! Tonight might be the night Macmilan’s gang came; there was no knowing. Evidently, guessing that Luz had betrayed their plan, they had changed it. There was nothing to do, until their own plans were complete, but wait and be ready. Readiness was all. There would be no panic. No matter whether City or Town made the first move, the People of the Peace would know what to do, how to act. He strode on, almost running, into Shantih. The taste of the rain was sweet on his lips.
He was at home, late in the dark afternoon, when the message came. His father brought it from the Meeting House. “A scar-faced fellow, a guard,” Sasha said in his soft ironic voice. “Came strolling up, asked for Shults. I think he meant you, not me.”
It was a note on the thick, coarse paper they made in the City. For a moment Lev thought Luz had written the stiff black words—
Shults: I will be at the smelting ring at sundown today. Bring as many as you like.
I will be alone.
A trick, an obvious trick. Too obvious? There was just time to get back to Southwind’s house and show Luz the note.
“If he says he’ll be there alone, he’ll be alone,” she said.
“You heard him planning to trick us, with Macmilan,” Andre said.
She glanced past Andre with contempt. “This is his name,” she said. “He wouldn’t put his name to a lie. He’ll be there alone.”
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“I’m going,” Lev said. “Yes! With you, Andre! And as many as you think necessary. But you’ll have to round them up pretty quick. There’s only an hour or so of daylight left.”
“You know they want you as a hostage,” Andre said. “Are you going to walk right into their hands?”
Lev nodded energetically. “Like a wotsit,” he said, and laughed. “In—and out! Come on, let’s get a bunch together, Andre. Luz—do you want to come?”
She stood indecisive.
“No,” she said; she winced. “I can’t. I’m afraid.”
“You’re wise.”
“I should go. To tell him myself that you’re not keeping me here, that I chose. He doesn’t believe it.”
“What you choose, and whether he believes it, doesn’t really matter,” Andre said. “You’re still a pretext: their property. Better not come, Luz. If you’re there they’ll probably use force to get you back.”
She nodded, but still hesitated. Finally she said, “I should come.” She said it with such desperate resolution that Lev broke in, “No—” but she went on: “I have to. I won’t stand aside and be talked about, fought over, handed back and forth.”
“You will not be handed back,” Lev said. “You belong to yourself. Come with us if you choose.”
She nodded.
The smelting ring was an ancient ringtree site, south of the Road halfway between Town and City, and centuries older than either; the trees had long ago fallen and decayed, leaving only the round central pond. The City’s first iron-smelting works had been set up there; it too had decayed, when richer ore was found in the South Hills forty years ago. The chimneys and machinery were gone, the old sheds, rotten-planked and crazy, overgrown with bindweed and poison rose, crouched abandoned by the flat shore of the pond.