Chapter 110
Silence but for the rain. Tyngd on both knees on the cracked floor. Vigolas standing over him in the coat that weighs a world. The crew behind him, swaying, bleeding, upright.
his huge hands flat on the floor, breathing like a bellows.
lifting slowly. The coat on Vigolas's shoulders gets lighter, back to a coat, clinking, thirty-six shards in the lining. Vigolas staggers at the sudden lightness.
hugging the coat around himself, nose buried in the collar.
trying to get up. His knees won't take him. His whole body shakes with the ghost-weight of everything he carried in that fight.
stepping forward to help him, reaching down, and his knees won't bend. He tries to crouch. They lock. The Minus One holds.
Vigolas tries to help without kneeling: he bends at the waist, way over, like a crane, arms dangling, and grabs Tyngd's huge hand upside-down.
Tyngd, despite himself, a huff of breath that might be a laugh. He makes himself light, just a little, and Vigolas hauls the Heavy King up onto his feet.
Two men standing face to face: one a giant in a crown of lead, one a pirate who can't kneel.
a hand on his own chest. The beat that stopped and didn't come back.
eyes gold, looking at Tyngd's threads, the dark lead cables running down into the planet. Among them, one thread runs up: thin, silver, pointing straight at the sky, through the one window.
very still.
who has climbed the whole way here on her own two feet, standing in the doorway, eighty years old, soaked.
looking at her, the old woman who stood up anyway.
stepping into the hall.
closing his eyes. He places both huge hands flat on the floor of his hall, on his world.
and he lifts. Not one thing. Everything. The weight of his whole world, off. His face twists. Cracks of light run along his skin like a cracked dam. It's tearing him, and he holds.
Tyngden, without its weight.
Across the whole crushed-flat planet, everyone stands up. The Risers in their canyon rise straight-backed, weeping, laughing. The Ballast, crawling soldiers for twenty years, push up off their bellies onto their feet, staring at their own legs. Children jump, jump high, for the first time. The sideways trees lift their branches. And the birds, the birds that walked, spread their wings and fly, thousands of them, all at once, a storm of wings rising into a sky that is suddenly open.
In the canyon the golden Cave-Bear lowers its paws. The clouds float away, light as clouds again. It shakes itself like a wet dog, shrinks, and trots out of the canyon as a golden retriever, tail going.
And at the centre, on the roof of the Leaden Hall, Tyngd stands with his arms spread under the open sky, cracks of light all over his body, tearing, and on his face the happiest look a giant has ever worn.
bounding into the Leaden Hall, soaking wet, and launching himself at Kompis. Kompis goes over backwards, laughing.
rubbing Mingus's ears, quietly.
For one day, Tyngden is light. Risers and Ballast dance together in the open. Mor Lyft sits on a rock, stands up, sits down, stands up, for the joy of it. Children throw stones that fly forever.
lying on the grass, asleep again. (Of course.) A Riser child has placed a crown of flowers on his head.
Tyngd sits on the edge, legs dangling, glowing cracks fading slowly from his skin, watching birds fly. Vigolas sits beside him in his coat, swinging his legs.
quiet.
and the giant laughs, a rockslide of a laugh that shakes the hall.
holding out his huge hand.
hauled upright by the Risers and Ballast together, lighter than she's ever been. The brass clock-hand still stands in her deck. The Kettle's bell is pried out of the planks and rehung at her bow. The crew climbs aboard, all on their feet, all a little stronger, all a little more broken.
Vigolas, a hand on his chest: one heartbeat gone.
Kompis, a cloth to his nose, still bleeding from the Shared Beats.
Rougeina, ribs bound tight, wincing as she climbs the rigging.
Smurjan with his stomach growling, all three souls hungry together, Kali gnawing a loaf.
Lilla Ulv in her holster, and her soul-text explodes out of the steel, frantic and joyful:
as the Marka rises from the planet's light surface back up into the Current. On the far horizon of the starlight sea, small and very bright, a red volcano glows. From it, very faintly, carried on the wind like a voice from a long way off, a grumpy old man is shouting: