Chapter 24
Motherless Boy
“Something doesn’t feel right to me,” said Square to Umbo.
Umbo looked at the young man but said nothing. It wasn’t Umbo’s job to draw him out. Square would say what he had to say, when he was ready to say it. If Umbo spoke now, it would become Umbo’s conversation, and since he had no idea what the conversation would be about, it didn’t seem likely to be productive.
“I’m trying to think through everything that everybody has taught me about what’s right and wrong,” said Square. “I know it doesn’t mean legal or illegal—it’s usually right to obey the law, because that’s how civilization works best, but not always. I mean, over in Ramfold, either you’re King-in-the-Tent because you’re married to Param Sessamin and her mother is Sessaminiak, the rightfully deposed queen, or you’re a traitor and a rebel because you and Param make that claim but Hagia is still Sessamin, and Haddamander is King-in-the-Tent and all his actions are right.”
“Is that what you’re trying to make up your mind about?”
“Oh, not at all,” said Square. “I was just showing my thinking about right and wrong versus legal and illegal.”
“I’m not Rigg, and he only demands that from you because that’s how he was raised, one long oral examination.”
“But it’s a good education. I know so much now that I finally understand how little I know.”
“Very wise. But I was born knowing that.”
“Having your supposed father tell you that you’re stupid every hour of the day is not the same thing,” said Square.
“He swore he was teaching me a lesson,” said Umbo. “I was defrauded.”
“The thing that doesn’t feel right,” said Square, “is having Rigg at the head of your army of traitorous rebels.”
“He isn’t, actually,” said Umbo. “Olivenko is the overall commander.”
“But it’s actually worse the way it is, having Rigg lead every raiding party. He hates fighting.”
“No,” said Umbo. “He hates killing.”
“You can’t keep this up forever. Having each of his raids take place before all the others, so each one becomes the first one. Always taking the enemy completely by surprise. Eventually you’re going to go back so far that nobody will want to join the rebellion because it’ll be before Haddamander and Hagia did anything bad. Back when the People’s Revolutionary Council ruled and nobody really hated them all that much, except the royalists.”
“Good grasp of history,” said Umbo.
“Well, it’s not really history, is it? Since at this moment, here in Vadeshfold, those events are still a few centuries ahead. You aren’t even born yet.”
“Nor are you,” said Umbo. “And on the timeline that exists now in Ramfold, you never will be.”
“It was kind of you to save me from temporal oblivion,” said Square.
“Sometimes you talk way too much like Rigg.”
“He’s your best friend,” said Square.
“Maybe you are, now,” said Umbo.
“Well, maybe I’m his best friend, too. Because he sees the end of these raids coming. And then it’ll be time for real war, against prepared enemies, and a lot of people will die.”
“They all volunteered,” said Umbo.
“That doesn’t mean dying isn’t just as dead,” said Square. “And when they kill Haddamander’s soldiers, won’t it be even worse, because they volunteered to do it?”
“No, Haddamander’s soldiers won’t be any deader because they were slain by volunteers,” said Umbo.
“Morally worse,” said Square. “Wronger. I think that’s how it feels to Rigg.”
Umbo knew he was right, and so said nothing.
“Why can’t you admit when you’re wrong?” said Square.
“You were right,” said Umbo, “but I wasn’t wrong, because I didn’t disagree with you.”
“But you can’t say it.”
It was time to prod him back onto the topic. “What is it that doesn’t feel right to you, Square?”
“For Rigg to have to keep leading raids as Captain Toad.”
Now Umbo understood what Square was getting at. “We’re not bringing any more facemasks into Ramfold.”
“You won’t be,” said Square. “I’m not talking about bringing any more of my people there.”
“Your people!” said Umbo. “There are only six of you who got the masks as babies, and you’re the oldest.”
“I’m not the one who decided when they should arrive here. But you know I’m talking about my future people. The ones who got facemasks as adults, because they wanted to be like Loaf. What are they training for, if not to fight in Ramfold?”
“If we need them,” said Umbo. “If we can’t win any other way.”
“Because what’s wrong becomes right when the need is great,” said Square.
“Because what’s perilous becomes worth the risk when alternatives reduce to zero,” said Umbo. “Not every decision can be framed as right and wrong.”
“Well, actually, every decision can be framed as right or wrong, including the decision whether to frame the decision as right versus wrong.”
“Please, please stop trying to be just like Rigg,” said Umbo. “We had two of him for a while, and we couldn’t stand it so we kicked one of them off the planet.”
“Not even close to true. Rigg told me what really happened.”
“You can’t take Rigg’s place, Square. He may not like war, but Loaf trained him for it and he’s very good.”
“The facemask makes him good,” said Square. “And I have—”
“No training whatsoever,” said Umbo.
“Loaf has trained me a lot.”
“Loaf has trained you how to fight like a child.”
“I’m older than you are,” said Square.
“You know there’s no way to prove that,” said Umbo.
“Not my fault you skip around in time so much you have no idea how old you are. But I’m taller than you.”
“That’s heredity. I’m not overly tall and I was slow to grow. You must have had tall parents.”
“I think you know who my parents are.”
“I know they must have been annoying and stubborn, which is probably why they got killed.”
“ ‘Stubborn’ just means you don’t want to do something somebody else wants you to do, and ‘annoying’ just means somebody else is frustrated that you won’t obey them.”
“Excellent on vocabulary, failing grade on getting the point,” said Umbo.
“Before you try to change the subject,” said Square.
“Too late.”
“Look at this.”
“At what?”
Square didn’t show him anything. Umbo checked both hands, glanced around the meadow where they were sitting. When he turned back to Square, the young man was pointing at his own face.
Except it wasn’t his own face. It was Rigg’s face. Not Rigg’s real face, not his original face. It looked exactly like Rigg’s face with the mask on. It had grown a lot more normal looking in the past year, but he still deserved the moniker “Captain Toad,” and Square’s facemask was shaped exactly like Rigg’s.
This was especially surprising because Square didn’t have that abnormal facemask look. The facemasks that were applied to babies didn’t look toadlike and deformed. By age three, they looked like perfectly normal children. There was no way to guess whether they looked the way the child would have appeared if no facemask had ever been applied, but they didn’t look strange, and they didn’t all look like each other, either.