Chapter 176
from the last page: the tip of the brass hour hand an inch from the centre of the ice clock-face, in Tövind's trembling old fingers.
on the whale's back, planting. The frost under her soles is melting, beads of water running between her toes from Tövind's thaw spreading across the whale's skin. One slip.
looking at the crew. Eyes going clear as lake ice. Hair lifting.
The world stops: the lake, the whale, the hanging snow, the Thaw-Brothers on the flanks, Grandmother Vinter's cracked song frozen in the air as a visible ripple. Kompis, Öde and Rougeina slap their hands onto her shoulders. Trollmage sits down against her back and shuts his eyes. Smurjan, outside the chain, is frozen mid-swing.
inside the hold, touching his own chest, tick, the hour hand moving a hair closer to the face. Then tick again. Another hair. On his throat the age-line climbs a fraction.
and her thought balloon, frost-edged, and for the first time in the series, steady:
(Thought:) …i know. that's the point.
at her shoulder, eyes gold, seeing it: Tövind's thin, ancient thread, and every tick draining a little more out of it.
tick, the hour hand a hair closer, and his black hair going grey at the temples in one panel.
Rougeina, at the end of the chain, eyes fixed on the brass hour hand in Tövind's fingers.
She Swaps with the hour hand.
1. Where Rougeina stood, in the chain with her hand on Öde's shoulder, is the brass hour hand. Öde's fingers close on it.
2. Where the hour hand was, in Tövind's fist, is Rougeina: wrist caught in his old grip, out of the chain, touching no one, and frozen mid-snarl, eight blades half-drawn. Rougeina hates waiting.
staring at the frozen woman in his fist where the hour hand was, and laughing, genuinely delighted.
Tövind walks toward the chain, tick, tick, tick, each step greying him: crow's feet, a stoop, his hair silver now. He reaches for the hour hand in Öde's fist.
Kompis's eyes flicker gold, his pulse-line fracturing into slivers.
A moment inside a moment: a dozen ghost-Tövinds reaching, a dozen ghost-Kompises turning. In one sliver Tövind's old fingers close on empty air because Öde's hand has moved an inch. That one.
Tövind's grab misses by an inch. He stumbles, old knees, and catches himself.
padding calmly across the frozen whale's back at full speed, and sitting down in front of Isa, between her and Tövind, facing him. Golden. Quiet.
reaching for the dog to thaw him out of the way, tick, palm out, and his hand stops an inch from Mingus's nose. The thaw-light flickers and finds nothing to hold.
(He pulls his hand back.)
The crew stages the battle inside the hold, every move set and waiting:
Kompis, the chain still in one hand, levels Ivar, Lilla Ulv, Fru Gnista and Tyst at Tövind's grip on the clock-face, all four set: the Four-Gun Volley, aimed and not yet fired.
Öde, hour hand tucked in her belt, lowers her scythe in a long, even arc, its blade an inch from the minute hand in Tövind's other fist.
Trollmage, asleep against Isa's back, glowing violet, full.
And in the corner of every panel, Vigolas, crawling through syrup across the whale's back toward Tövind's jaw: an inch a panel, teeth gritted, fist cocked.
holding. Her lips are blue. Frozen tears on her lashes. The frost from her feet is spreading outward across the whale's back in a widening ring, over the Thaw-Brothers' boots on the flanks, over their heat-lances, crawling up the brass. And her heart isn't beating, and it isn't beating, and it isn't beating.
(Thought, frost-edged, very small:) …one minute. …two.
feeling her through his hand on her shoulder, panicking.
The whole lake stopped, blue-white, frost thick on the panel borders. Grandmother Vinter's back an island of ice. A battle set but not happened: Thaw-Brothers frozen on the flanks with frost-white lances; snowflakes hanging; the ripple of the whale's song frozen in the air.
At the centre, a small barefoot girl perfectly still, lips blue, hair suspended, a ring of violet frost spreading from her feet. Hands on her shoulders. A sleeping half-troll glowing violet against her back. A golden dog sitting in front of her like a guard.
And before her, Tövind, old now, white-haired, stooped, the face in one fist, the minute hand in the other, surrounded on every side by blows that are waiting: four gun-barrels an inch from his fingers, a scythe-blade an inch from his wrist, a frozen woman with eight blades half-drawn at his shoulder, and a pirate's emerald fist an inch from his jaw.
Printed across the whole spread, unfinished: …ba—
an old man now, in a young man's coat, looking around at every waiting blow. He understands. He doesn't try to thaw anything else. His hand on his chest, he doesn't tick.
and her lips, barely moving, a breath of a word:
Everything lands in one beat. The Four-Gun Volley tears the ice face out of Tövind's grip, and it spins away into the air. Öde's scythe flicks the minute hand from his fingers. Rougeina unfreezes mid-snarl and catches it before it falls. Vigolas's fist, an inch from Tövind's jaw for two minutes, arrives at full speed: KRAKOOM.
All across the whale's flanks the Thaw-Brothers lunge, and their frost-covered heat-lances shatter like glass in their hands. Frost Ring. The Cult's hook-ropes, frost-brittle, snap. Thaw-Brothers tumble back onto the broken floes.
Trollmage, snapping awake against Isa's back, violet light pouring off him, writing in the air at speed:
MACRO : SLEEP = GRANDMOTHER VINTER
The great whale's song softens to a hum. The grey patch on her skin stops spreading. And Grandmother Vinter sinks, slowly, back under the lake, the black water closing over her vast back and freezing, clear and solid, as if it had never broken. Under the new ice, her great eye closes.
spinning through the air above the lake, flashing, and Öde leaping to catch it in one hand, landing on a floe on her grass.
on his back on the new ice. Old. Seventy, eighty, white-haired, his face lined, his body thin inside the Timekeeper's coat. Only his eyes are young: grey and astonished.
standing over him, shaking out his fist. Not angry any more.
spinning round toward Isa at the sound of the Backlog: not a race of ba-dums but a storm of them.
Isa, on her knees on the whale-ice, both hands clamped over her heart, two minutes of held beats slamming through her at once. The SFX doesn't race across the panel; it fills it, edge to edge, top to bottom: ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum.
Isa tipping sideways onto the ice, lips blue, eyes open and unseeing, and the frozen tears on her lashes finally falling. Mingus is already there, lying down against her.
(She isn't getting up.)