Chapter 158
the tallest counting-house on Skatt. The great iron interest-bell hangs in its frame against a sky full of Current-stars. On the parapet, legs dangling over a hundred-storey drop to the glittering market, sit two figures: Vigolas and Levla. Behind them, by the stair door, Kompis sits with his back against the bell-frame, and Mingus is asleep across his boots.
in what's left of his coat, the coin spinning above his hand. He jerks his chin up at the bell.
not looking at him.
looking out over the market, the river of credit winding through it like a gold thread.
The coin comes down. And for the first time since we've known him, he catches it and looks at how it landed. We don't see which side.
the grin coming back for the first time in two chapters.
by the bell, eyes half-closed and gold. KOMPIS POV: among Levla's receipt-threads, the thick grey cable that runs to the Ränta is pulled taut, thrumming like a plucked string, as if someone far below is hauling on it hard.
The Marka at her berth, wrapped in ledger-chains from keel to masthead like a fly in a web. A hundred Ränta haul on them in a long grey line, dragging her up the coin-quay out of the river of credit like a beached whale. Nailed to her mast, a grey notice the size of a sail: SEIZED FOR DEBT.
standing up on the parapet.
Vigolas jumps. Straight off the Bell-House into the night air over Skatt, coat flaring, shards clinking. Behind him Kompis is on his feet, Mingus awake: WOOF!
Vigolas rooftop to rooftop: a slate roof, a brass scale-pan the size of a pond (BWANNG), a crane arm, a hanging chain, and down onto the quay in a crouch that cracks the coins.
The crew is already fighting on the quay around the hauled ship:
Drekk on the tilting bow, both hands wrapped round the Kettle's bell, the deck slanting under him. "Not her. Not again."
Smurjan, the Triple Pulse: Sightline, sickle and bite in one heartbeat, three chains cut from three sides. ka-CHING ka-CHING ka-CHING.
Rougeina Swapping chain-pins out of the hull one by one, silver-rose trails all over the deck.
Kali, her bowl tucked into her belt, sickle flashing: "I just got this BACK!"
Vigolas lands among them, lightning first. ka-CHING.
Kompis arrives at a run, Mingus at his heel, the golden pulse line coming on along the panel's edge.
on the mast. Its number rolling upward with every blow. The harder they fight for her, the more she costs. Below it, in the old salt-fire scar on the hull, Grandmother Ulla's living golden hands seem to grip the planks.
on his stool at the end of the quay, writing.
The Marka groans another yard up the quay, keel grinding on coins. The Kettle's bell clangs by itself.
Down the middle of the quay, through the battle, walking (not running), in a coat of rags with a ring on every finger: Levla. Collectors step aside out of long habit. He walks straight up to the Marka's hauled hull and lays his palm flat on her bark, right over Grandmother Ulla's golden hands.
One heartbeat. PAID IN FULL. A ring of emerald light pulses out from his palm through the whole ship. The grey notice on the mast curls and burns to ash. Every ledger-chain on her hull goes slack at once and falls away in a rain of grey links. The Marka slides back down the quay into the river of liquid credit with a great golden SPLASH, and rocks, free.
And high above the market, on Skatt's enormous price-board where lots are posted, a new line flickers up and is bought the same instant: LOT: ONE AFTERNOON · LEVLA'S OWN · SOLD.
palm still on the hull, swaying slightly. Paler. Something gone from him that he'll never know the shape of.
taking his hand off the bark, flexing his fingers.
closing the ledger with both hands.
The Ränta coil their slack chains and withdraw into the dark streets in grey order. Ölund last, stool under his arm, unhurried, the torn place in his ledger showing where a page is missing. The crew on the quay, panting. The Marka afloat at her berth again, the Kettle's bell still swinging.
walking up to Levla.
considering this.
lanterns lit, the crew packing to sail at dawn. At the foot of the gangplank, Levla stands and doesn't come up. He has never been invited onto anyone's anything. Kompis, coiling a line, sees him and waves him up. He climbs the gangplank like a man walking onto ice.
holding out to Vigolas a small glass jar. It's empty. Tied to its neck, a tag in his own neat receipt-handwriting: A FRIEND (price: none).
Vigolas reaches for it. And in Levla's hand, an inch from Vigolas's fingers, the jar turns to light, like sugar in rain, and is gone. The tag flutters down and dissolves before it reaches the deck.
staring at his empty palm.
He closes his hand round the empty air where the jar was, carefully, the way you'd catch a moth, and tucks his fist into the sash pocket where he keeps his cubes.
Levla on the deck of somebody else's ship, ten rings, coat in rags, looking from his own empty hand to the pirate's closed fist, with a face that has absolutely no idea what to do with itself.