“We are leading her to her little gathering as you call it,” Mr. Repair Man stated and sighed. “Come on, we might as well head out.” His voice sounded tired.
He turned and headed out of the entry room with the two other Wall people following.
“Goodbye.” I said to Daniel, forcing myself to smile in his direction.
“See you on the other side.” He responded gravely.
The other side. We both knew where that was. “The other side.” I whispered back, unable to say the words louder before running out of the room to follow my Wall guides. This time it was my choice to die, but my heart was pounding in my ribs, beating out its denial. I didn’t want to die. Not really. But Dan was waiting for me.
Our silent death parade reminded me of the day of the Execution, but this time there was no Dan to support me. There was no one following me. Just me willingly walking to my own sacrifice.
Ah how silly all this was. Emotionless walls passing by. The same halls I roamed in the Wall. I’d done so many silly things just for a chance to live. I was doing this for Dan. Why was I having second thoughts now?
I couldn’t throw my life away like this! Dan wouldn’t want it.
Dan had called for me. He’d asked me to join him. I was walking to the logical place where this all ended. I couldn’t turn back now.
Not like this. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would break my ribs and escape from the cage that was my body. I was afraid to die. There. It was the truth. I could pretend to be some noble revolutionary, but underneath I was still just a scared Dishonored girl.
“Exile.” The word cut through my rambling worries. One of the Wall people had spoken.
“We will be at the stack entrance soon. Do you need anything else?” Mr. Repair Man asked.
“No, I have everything I need.” My heart came back under my control. Yes. I had everything I needed.
He pulled open a door to a round room similar to the one we had just come from that lead into the Undesirable area. “This is the stack entrance,” He told me in his emotionless voice.
In front of me stood warriors lined up, dressed up in their nicest uniforms crisp and laundered. We were about to be the best dressed suicidal soldiers you ever did see. But I had to get to the top of the stacks without the City guards noticing.
“Do they have a disguise?” I ask Mr. Repair Man.
One of the men thrust a cloak he was holding forward. “We have cloaks, Ma’am.”
Ma’am. What a strange thing to be called.
“As you can see, we were already asked to supply these. When you reach the stairs to the top, take them off. Have one of your men drop the cloaks over the edge at the top, and we will pick them up before the guards find them.” Mr. Repair Man informed me.
I stepped forward and pulled up the screen of my cloak so that they could see me. “It is time to make our demands heard and to attempt to end this war. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Ma’am!” Their voices thundered in the small room and I worried if people above us would feel their voices shaking the ground.
“Then cloaks on.” I pulled my screen down and started for the stairs that mirrored the stairs Daniel and Henry had come down so long ago. At the base of the stairs I turned back to see the soldiers pulling on their own Wall cloaks, and the Wall repair people watching me from the door we had entered.
“Goodbye. Thanks for everything.” I called out to them.
Cat’s short figure waved back at me, “I’ll see you again when you finish your mission! I want to give you a proper makeover later!”
A makeover? What the heck was that? It didn’t matter anyway. I wouldn’t see her after this. “Sure!” I called back and walked up the stairs. It didn’t hurt to agree to something that would never happen.
At the top of the stairs, I found myself hitting a roof above my head. This must be a trap door thing similar to the one at the Undesirable house. I felt around till I found a latch, and the mechanism opened up. We were in what looked like some sort of large tool shed. It was probably equipment storage for the stacks.
There didn’t seem to be anyone here; we were probably here before the stack workers got here. Behind me the volunteers in their Wall cloaks silently came up the stairs and formed ranks as if they’d practiced this maneuver. Maybe they had. The last one closed the trap door so that it looked like it was just part of the floor again.
That one stepped forward, “Ma’am, I used to work the stacks. I can lead you to the closest one.”
It didn’t seem like it would be that difficult to find the closest stack with how large they were, but it didn’t hurt to have a guide, “Lead on.”
He gestured for me to follow and walked toward the door. Behind us the caped figures formed into a double file.
The door opened to a quiet and dark city with just a touch of light shining in through the dome. It was probably dawn outside this city. With first light peeking in on us, we crept forward toward the stack like sheep.
There was no specified entrance. The whole first floor of the stack that he led us to was open and filled with a tall plant that looked like corn growing up under the bright Wall like lights. There didn’t look like there was an easy way up to the next level of the stack.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The cloaked man leading us took us around the edge until a small path was revealed amidst the tall green stalks.
He turned toward me, “This leads to the maintenance shaft at the center. We will need to move single file from here on out.”
I heard quiet shuffling and looked back to see the double file line shuffling into a single file line.
I nodded but he made no movement forward, as if waiting for me to say something or move. “Lead on.” I told him.
He shook his head and made a point of stepping to the side and gesturing for me to move forward, “It is self explanatory from here on for where to go. I would recommend you leading as the top layer has no paths and will be up to you to make a path to where you want to stand.”
It would be easier if he made a path at the top toward the best vantage point, but I was the leader of this little expedition. I sighed and walked forward. No point in arguing here as the light filtering in from the dome grew slowly brighter.
I moved forward through the narrow path with the sharp leaves from the stalky plant slashing against my cloak and making me grateful for the Wall cloak. Sure enough a column rose up in the middle of the stack. The column seemed to be made of multiple pieps, one in the middle of a spiral staircase, and the others surrounding the staircase.
The metal stairs looked flimsy and quite daunting as we approached. The only confidence I had for stepping onto them was that stack workers stepped on them regularly to work crops and animals in the stacks. The metal gave a quiet muffled clang as I stepped on it. As I walked forward and more men followed me forward, it sounded like muffled bells mourning.
We walked up and up. The stacks felt like a never ending climb. We passed a layer with a grassy looking plant, and then a layer of sheep, and a layer of chickens stacked in layers of cages. Another layer of a different grassy plant. The layers went on and I focused on the steps. My thighs protested. My calves wanted no more. Up we went. Step after step. Focus on climbing.
A purple glow of full light enveloped me as I stepped out onto the landing on the top layer. The top of the dome was so close here that I felt like I could touch it, and I could see the sprinkler heads and the mesh network of pipes running along it for the sprinkler system. In front of me was the grass-like plant I had seen on multiple other layers. It was quite a tall grass, almost as tall as me, and it completely surrounded the center column.
I stepped forward into the grass and felt it gently brushing against my cloak. I pulled off the cloak and turned to the soldiers making their way up onto the landing and spilling out into the field we were standing on. “Take off your cloaks and give them all to the man who led us here. He will drop them over the edge as requested. Then move to be spaced out around the stacks. Be prepared to Fire at any guards who approach, but don’t shoot unless they shoot first. We cannot be seen shooting first.”
The soldiers gave an awkward silent salute and began to take off their own cloaks. The man who led us to the stack and had been standing behind me pulled off his own cloak. He was an older man with graying brown hair and deep wrinkles and sunken eyes. He took my cloak from me and moved on to grab cloaks off the others as they pulled them off.
One of the men made hand signals, and the men formed a circle around the column and then moved out from it toward the edges of the stack.
I pulled out the black box, pushed the button, and started speaking, “Good morning citizens of the city.” My voice crackled back at me from the dome. I had never heard my own voice before, and it sounded so tinny and fake. I wanted to not say another word, but I had to keep going. I couldn’t quit now.
“This is the exile speaking to you, “ I started moving toward the edge of the stack as I talked. “I was exiled, and accepted this punishment, heading out from the Wall into the world outside. Beyond the Wall I found a village where I lived for years before coming back to the Wall and the City to fulfill my role as an exile. With me came a man who lived in the village. He came with me so that I could prove there was a place beyond these Walls. He was killed by the City guard.”
I paused, letting my voice finish on the speakers overhead. I could see what looked like the city through the grass, so I paused walking wanting to finish the first part of my speech before reaching the edge.
“I didn’t come back to bring more death. I didn’t want to fight the city guard. I just wanted everyone to be free to leave this city if they wanted to. I just wanted to bring back the news as was my duty as an exile. I wanted..” My voice choked on the words I wanted to say as I thought of Dan dead in the Walls of this city because he came with me.
I had to continue. I pushed my voice forward and it sounded raspy to my ears, “But what I wanted didn’t matter when the King ordered my execution for being honorable and coming back. Honor doesn’t seem to matter to the King or the guard, and yet, I would ask one more time that they act honorably. I don’t want anyone else to die. This fighting needs to end. Today I make a couple simple requests for the King to bring peace back to the city. I will state my requests to this city, and I would ask that the city guard come to the stacks and escort my squad and I to see the King so that we can broker peace for this city.”
I stepped forward, waving my white flag and looking out over the edge of the stack. There was no railing wall at the edge, just empty space. Out beyond I could see the castle and people of the city milling in the streets looking up at the dome. At the edge of my vision I could see the Dishonored prison and the Dishonored lined up and moving like ants to head out to their work in the city. The most noticeable thing though was all the guards moving toward the stacks. Their bright uniforms stuck out from among the citizens as they all swarmed for the stacks. I had their attention now.
I waved my flag, inviting everyone to see me, “I have two terms. The first one is quite simple. One, I would see everyone who wants to be allowed to leave to be free. No one should be trapped in this city when it is already overpopulated. Allowing people who want to leave to leave is a simple thing and it boggles my mind that exile has been outlawed. “
I paused, letting the easy request resonate and settle with people. Letting the Dishonored feel a moment of hope at the thought of living a life as someone other than a Dishonored person. Then I pressed the button on the black box again, “My second term for this peace treaty is a bit more difficult, and I am willing to negotiate with the King a bit for this one. I request that the King step down as well as all of the Most-Honored families. These positions should be filled by people elected to them with votes from citizens of all castes. Even the Dishonored should have a say in the people running the city. In fact, I would see the caste system done away with, and everyone become Honored. No more would I see children born into despair and death, especially not when there is a world out there beyond these Walls.”
There were city guards in the stacks, and I could see some pointing up toward me. No one was firing at me, though a couple looked to have weapons out and trained on me.
“I understand that the second term is quite drastic, which is why I would have it brought to the negotiating table.”
Right now all eyes of the city were on me, and the castle workers should be making their way into the castle to begin their day.
Below me, I could hear the guards shouting up at me, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Looking down off the edge was making me feel unstable, so I sat down, still waving my white flag. I didn’t feel as likely to fall off the edge sitting near it as I felt standing near it.
I could see the guards had completely surrounded my stack with what looked like every guardsman in the city. I saw a person running from the castle toward the stacks. Probably the messenger with orders for my fate from the King. He gave his message to someone down there, and no one fired on me. That had to be a good thing.
The stalemate continued, and I could see the regular people of the city starting to go about their daily business. Maybe I should remind them that I was still here waiting for an answer?
“Drop your flag and raise your hands up where I can see them!” A voice proclaimed behind me. Finally someone was here to capture me!