Chapter 179
The Pillar rising out of a flat black sea: a column of black stone miles high, its top lost in mist. From base to tip it is carved with names, thousands upon thousands, in every hand and script, faint silver light glowing in the grooves.
A name crawling down the stone, letter by letter, freshly cut by no hand, silver-bright, settling into its place among the others. Then another. Then another.
Round the base of the Pillar, on the still black water: small grey boats, dozens of them, each with one quiet passenger. The gentle dead: grey, calm, faintly see-through, reading the Pillar with their heads tilted back. An old fisherman pointing at a name and nodding. A woman finding one and smiling.
at the wheel, beard down to his chest, very quiet.
A ledge of black rock. Lanterns: a dozen small lantern-children sitting on the steps cut into the stone, each holding a lantern on a pole. Their eyes are milky white. Blind, and calm. The eldest, a solemn boy of twelve, stands with a bell-staff, listening.
turning his blind face toward the Marka before anyone has called out.
rising from the ledge where she'd been sitting. Very tall (two metres and more) and thin, long-necked, standing like a heron in still water. Layered mourning-linen in four shades of grey. A mantle of stripped cypress bark over her shoulders. Soft grey felt boots. A blindfold of black-green thread across her eyes. Her ash-white hair falls to her hips in dozens of thin braids, each tied with a tiny tag of grey lead stamped with a name. A pouch at her hip clinks.
ÖGAR · RÖNNKVIST-2 · not ranked (no examiner will meet her eyes)
facing the Marka a beat before it slides out of the mist into view. Her voice is soft and certain.
The crew stepping off onto the ledge. Ögar walks straight toward them without hesitating, without stumbling, stepping over a coil of rope a beat before Drekk throws it down.
stopping before Kompis and raising her long fingers to his face. She touches it: brow, nose, beard, mouth, gently, like someone reading.
touching Rougeina's face, then stopping. Her blind face turns slowly to look past Rougeina, at the empty air behind her. She bows her head, once, then again, and again, as if greeting a crowd.
very still, understanding: her dead.
kneeling, her hand finding Mingus's head, then his ears, his muzzle, his wagging tail. And she goes completely still.
and from under the blindfold, two silver coins of tears, rolling down her cheeks and falling, clink, onto the black rock. She's smiling.
behind them, clearing his throat.
Bells. Tiny bells, many of them, out in the mist. The lantern-children's heads all turn at once. Ögar stands, a beat before anyone else hears it.
Out of the mist, fast and silent, a dozen white skiffs. In each, three or four figures in long white robes, their faces hidden behind veils of fine silver mesh. At every belt, a coin-pouch. As the skiffs close, each figure puts something small and silver in their mouth and swallows.
RANK PLATE ×30: SEER · K-III TESTED · the Guild of Thanatos
her mouth thin.
A fight against people who are always a beat ahead.
Smurjan's Triple Pulse: three strikes, three Seers, and all three lean aside before his fists arrive.
Kompis fires Ivar. The Seer he aimed at was already ducking when he pulled the trigger.
Öde's Scythe-Sweep, a long arc, and a Seer steps over the blade like a skipping-rope.
Isa plants her feet and holds, …ba—, and the Seers are not in front of her. Every one of them stepped out of her sight-line a beat before she looked.
Vigolas charges a Seer, and the Seer's veiled head twitches, confused, flicking left, then right, then left. Vigolas's fist lands. The Seer goes flying.
The ledge at the base of the Pillar, a battle raging in lantern-light: Seers in white and silver flowing round the crew's attacks like water round stones, always a beat ahead. The names on the Pillar glowing silver behind them, new names crawling down.
In the centre, Ögar, perfectly still in the eye of it, blindfolded, one long hand lightly on Rougeina's shoulder, speaking softly into her ear.
And Rougeina, a silver-rose blur, moving exactly where Ögar tells her a beat before the Seers expect it: four Seers falling in four directions.
landing in a crouch among four groaning Seers, breathing hard, staring back at the blind woman.
scrambling back to his skiff, pulling his silver veil aside to spit out a half-dissolved coin, panicking.
The white skiffs pull back into the mist, fast. The ledge is quiet again. The gentle dead in their grey boats go back to reading the Pillar, as if nothing happened.
sitting down heavily on the ledge's edge, one hand pressed over the blindfold. The lantern-children gather round her. Pim puts his hand on her shoulder.
crouching in front of her, grinning, out of breath.
rising to Vigolas's face. Touching his brow, his scar, his grin.
and the faint rose script round her eye-sockets, under the blindfold, glowing. She's frowning.
her hand on his face. Her voice drops, as if she's afraid someone is listening.