Chapter 184
Drekk coming up from the hold carrying a long bundle in both arms like a sleeping child: wrapped in old sailcloth, bound with forge-wire, scorch-marks on the cloth. A card tied to it with twine.
in a heavy, careful hand, letters pressed deep as if hammered:
FOR THE BOY. WHEN HE'S READY. — M.
taking it. It's heavy. He holds it the way Drekk did.
on the forge-wire. Shaking. He gets one loop undone. Stops.
sitting down on the deck with the bundle across his knees, not opening it.
very low.
quiet, serious. For once he doesn't have a joke.
holding the bundle tight. Not yet. He ties the loop back.
Bells. Hundreds of tiny bells, out in the mist on every side. Pim's bell-staff answering, ting-ting-ting, frantic. On the ledge, Ögar standing up a beat before anyone else.
Out of the mist, on every side of the Pillar: white barges, twenty of them, closing in a ring. Each crowded with Seers in silver veils. At the front, Silversten's long white shop-barge, the crack in his silver face mended with a seam of new silver.
to Pim.
The lantern-children climbing: a long string of small blind children with lanterns, climbing the spiral stair carved round the Pillar's flank, round and round, up into the mist, like a necklace of stars. Siv among them, holding the hand of the child in front, looking back toward the Marka.
The Pillar of Names, miles high, its thousand thousand names glowing silver. Round its base, a ring of white barges on black water, gangplanks slamming down, a hundred Seers pouring onto the ledge in white and silver, every one of them a beat ahead. Spiralling up the Pillar's flank, a string of lantern-lights climbing into the mist. On the ledge, holding the foot of the stair: the crew, eight of them and a dog, with a blind tall woman in grey standing in their middle like a heron among wolves.
The first wave.
Smurjan, Triple Pulse. The Seers dodge two of the three, and the third catches them anyway: three strikes at once is more future than one coin can hold.
Öde, Scythe-Sweep, grass springing across the black rock under everyone's feet so nobody slips.
Kompis, four guns, fighting one-handed. The other arm stays wrapped round the unopened bundle, which he won't put down.
Isa, at the foot of the stair, eyes clear, holding the stairway's first turn, so any Seer who sets foot on it stops.
raising a white staff over Ögar's head from behind. And Ögar, without turning, speaking:
frozen, staff raised. Then lowering it, slowly, his silver veil trembling.
(He drops the staff and walks back to his barge.)
beside Ögar, yawning, swatting a Seer away with his book.
her hand brushing Smurjan's face as he fights past her. She staggers, and has to sit down hard on a step.
her hand finding Öde's arm, the names under her fingers.
her fingertips touching Isa's cold cheek.
The first wave breaking. Seers falling back to their barges, dragging their wounded, a dozen dropping their staffs and walking away after Ögar spoke their deaths to them. The crew holding the foot of the stair, battered, breathing hard.
wiping a blade, to Ögar.
landing beside them, grinning, bleeding from a cut on his forehead.
at the stair's foot, the bundle under his arm, looking down at it. Then up at the lantern-lights, very high now, a string of stars in the mist.
Silversten's shop-barge drawing up to the ledge. He steps off it alone, robes immaculate, carrying a small silk pouch that clinks heavily.
opening the pouch and tipping it into his silver palm: not one coin. Twenty. A little heap of silver tears, catching the lantern-light.
rising, horror on her face.
tipping the whole handful into his mouth and swallowing.
The silver spreading across his face like frost across a window: the left half, then the right, the grey eye going to silver coin too, his lips, his teeth, his skin, until his whole face is a mask of living silver with two coins for eyes. Round him, not one silver outline but dozens, a beat ahead, two beats, ten beats, every road he'll ever need.