Chapter 171
The crew, stopped at the edge of the hanging volley: fifty Cult fire-arrows frozen in the air at head height, their flames like flames in a painting. Beyond them, the tiny girl in white, perfectly upright, her silver hair hanging mid-swing.
The panel borders are frosted. The colour is drained to blue-white.
flickering over her and stuck halfway, the number half-drawn, as if the board is still updating her:
ISA · K-I UNMARKED (assigned) · Scalelist #4…
eyes gold, staring.
stepping forward into the line of the hanging arrows to look closer, and finding that the moment he crosses into her line of sight he slows: his foot coming down like a man walking through syrup, his voice dragged out.
very interested, from behind a dune, eyes open for once.
pointing past the girl, at the dunes behind her.
Behind the girl, where she isn't looking, moving normally: a Thaw landing-party, a dozen Thaw-Brothers creeping up the dunes from a hidden boat, heat-lances glowing, a brazier carried between two of them on poles. They're heading straight for her unprotected back.
already moving.
The crew circles wide round the edge of her sight-line, sprinting for the dunes behind her. But Mingus doesn't go round. He trots straight into the hold, straight through the hanging arrows, tail wagging, nose down, moving at full, normal, golden-retriever speed in a world where nothing else moves.
clear as lake ice, as a large golden dog trots right up to her, sniffs her bare frozen feet, and wags at her. Her face can't move. But behind the ice of her eyes, something is terrified.
(Thought balloon, small, frost-edged:) …what are you. nothing moves. nothing moves in here. WHAT ARE YOU.
sitting down in front of her, head tilted, tongue out. He licks her frozen hand.
A single frozen tear on her lashes. She can't blink it away. If she flinches, it all ends, and the arrows fly.
(Thought, smaller:) …don't. please don't make me laugh.
Behind her, the landing-party crests the dune and raises its heat-lances toward her back. And the crew hits them: Smurjan's Triple Pulse, Öde's Scythe-Sweep, Kompis's Lilla Ulv bouncing off the brazier-poles. A scrambling fight in the snow behind her, out of her sight, at normal speed.
One Thaw-Brother breaks through and lunges at Isa's back with a glowing lance. Rougeina, flying in from the side, grabs Isa's shoulder to swing herself between them…
and the instant she touches her, Rougeina is inside the hold. The world goes blue-white round her. The Thaw-Brother behind her freezes mid-lunge, lance-tip an inch from Isa's back. The snow she kicked up hangs in the air.
looking around at a perfectly still world, moving freely, her hand on the girl's shoulder.
A whole beach stopped: blue-white, frost creeping in from the panel borders. Fifty fire-arrows hanging in the air in a long arc, flames frozen. A dozen Thaw-Brothers frozen mid-charge on the dunes, snow hanging round their boots. A gull pinned over the sea.
And in the middle of it all, moving: a chain of people, each with one hand on the next, the first on the shoulder of a tiny girl standing perfectly still with her silver hair hanging in mid-air. Rougeina, Kompis, Öde, linked, walking calmly through a frozen battle, plucking fire-arrows out of the air one by one like flowers and snuffing them in the snow. Pulling the lances out of the frozen Thaw-Brothers' hands.
Mingus trotting round them all, sniffing the frozen Cult men's boots. And Vigolas, outside the chain, crawling through the syrup-slow hold, inch by inch, determinedly carrying one arrow.
Across the whole spread, printed huge and unfinished: …ba—
hand on Rougeina's shoulder, Öde's hand on his, looking at Isa's face, then down at her feet.
HIS THREAD-SIGHT, slowed: a thin violet line round her ankles, climbing. And on her bare soles against the ice, invisible until he looks for it, violet frost-script, sentences of frost climbing up her ankles like frost up a window.
and the thought balloon, frost-edged:
(Thought:) …hurry. i can't breathe in here.
The crew finishes it: every arrow snuffed and heaped on the sand, every heat-lance stacked, every frozen Thaw-Brother turned round to face the sea, and the brazier tipped over in the snow. Mingus lies down at Isa's feet.
leaning to whisper into Isa's ear.
and for the first time, she moves: her lips part, and she breathes out. Her hair falls. The icicles on her mantle's hem chime like glass.
The world restarts. A dozen Thaw-Brothers lunge at nothing, finding themselves facing the sea with empty hands, and fall over each other in the snow. The brazier hisses out. The arrows lie in a neat heap, out.
dropping to one knee, both hands clamped over her heart, gasping. Across the panel, a frantic race of SFX: ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum. Every heartbeat she held, coming due at once. Her face is flushed and her eyes are streaming.
kneeling, one hand hovering, not sure where to touch.
looking up as her heart slows, at the crew standing round her. A pirate. A soldier with four guns. A woman with eight blades. A farm girl with a scythe. A huge man with three shadows. Then down at the golden dog lying on her feet. She stares at him for a long time.
thumping his tail, very pleased with himself.
standing, small, brushing snow off her mantle. Her voice is soft and slightly breathless, always one beat behind.
Far out on the frozen sea, the Thaw Cult's fleet parts, and through the gap glides a seventh ship: larger, its hull sheathed in tarnished brass, its sails painted with one great clock-face with no numbers at all, just the word NOW. At its bow stands a tall, thin figure in a long Timekeeper's coat.
reaching down from the bow and resting, gently, on the crest of a frozen wave. It's an old man's hand, liver-spotted, knuckles swollen, shaking. But the wrist above it is young.
The wave unfreezes, a thousand years late, and falls: one enormous glassy crest crashing down and rolling, roaring, all the way across the still sea toward the beach, the first wave to fall on Stilla in a thousand years. The crew turning. Isa's eyes going wide.