Chapter 185
Silversten standing among a hundred Seers, his whole face a mask of living silver, dozens of faint silver outlines branching out round him like the roots of a tree: every road he'll ever need. The crew facing him at the foot of the stair.
cracking his knuckles.
Vigolas charges, and Smurjan is suddenly in the way, because a Seer, a beat earlier, shoved him exactly there. Vigolas crashes into him. The two of them go down in a heap.
strolling on, not even looking at them.
Certainty, at twenty coins.
Silversten steps between Rougeina's eight blades without being touched, and taps her wrist so her own Swap carries her into the water.
Öde's Scythe-Sweep meets nothing. He's already on the far side of it, and Kompis's volley meets Öde's scythe-shaft instead of him.
Isa holds the stair, and he walks a perfect arc round her sight-line and sends a Seer up behind her.
Trollmage, awake, casts MACRO : WALL = STONE, and Silversten walks round the wall a beat before it exists.
Every time Vigolas gets clear, a Seer, a crewmate, a falling plank is exactly in his path.
standing among it all, blindfolded, hands at her temples, her lips moving very fast. Eight thousand blinks in a beat. Searching.
reaching out and closing on Rougeina's wrist as she drags herself out of the water.
Rougeina Swaps, not where Silversten is, but onto the second step, three beats ahead of him, a moth's-width from where he's going to put his left foot.
And for the first time, Silversten's outline flickers.
Eight silver-rose blades cut across his white robes. A line of red on the silver. He steps back.
his silver face turning toward Ögar, coin-eyes narrowing.
Silversten moves for Ögar, and Ögar has to let go of Rougeina's wrist to step aside herself. The moment she does, Rougeina is blind to the future again, and a Seer's staff catches her across the ribs.
torn between them, her hands out, reaching for one, then another.
Smoke. Crackling. Every head turning. At the base of the Pillar, under the stair, cut into the black stone: an arched doorway with a carved lintel of lanterns, the Lantern Hall, where the children live. Two Seers backing away from it with empty oil-jars and torches. Flames pouring out of its windows.
high on the spiral stair, looking down, counting lanterns, his blind face going white.
Pim already running down the stair. Ögar starting toward the hall, and Silversten stepping into her path, smiling his silver smile.
the parcel under his arm, eyes gold, seeing the hall: three tiny threads in the smoke, small and frightened. And a fourth, Pim's, running in.
(He runs.)
The arched doorway at the foot of the Pillar of Names burning: flames roaring from its carved windows, smoke pouring up the Pillar's flank past ten thousand names, the string of lanterns on the stair above blurring in the heat. Seers in white standing back to watch, torches lowered. The crew pinned on the ledge by Silversten's certain roads.
And through the smoke, running straight into the doorway, a broad man in a hoodie with a long wrapped bundle under one arm and a golden dog at his heels.
Smoke and orange light. Small cots carved into the rock. And three tiny blind children, four and five years old, huddled in a corner, lanterns out, coughing. Pim reaching them from the other side.
Kompis scooping up two at once under his free arm, the bundle crushed against his chest. Pim carrying the third. Mingus barking, low, steady, showing the way out through the smoke.
Out through the doorway: Kompis passing two children out into the arms of Öde, who's fought her way to the door. Then turning back for Pim, who's stumbling with the third child, coughing, blind in the smoke.
Pim staggering out of the smoke into Kompis's arms. Kompis shoving him and the last little one through the doorway into the air. Pim outside now. Kompis still inside.
above the doorway, burning through, cracking.
on his knees in the burning doorway, turning to look up at it. And the image is exactly the silver line of ch. 182: smoke, flame, the beam already coming down.
held out of the doorway, into the air. Exactly like the vision. Exactly like the memory. And on the other side, a small blind boy's hand grabbing it, Pim, outside, pulling, pulling.
across the ledge, pinned behind Silversten, her blind face turned toward the doorway. She has seen this already. She knows exactly what this is.
in the doorway, holding Pim's hand with one hand and the wrapped bundle in the other, crushed against his chest. The beam groaning overhead. Fire on all sides.
at his side in the doorway, hackles up, not leaving.
The forge-wire. The scorched sailcloth. The card: WHEN HE'S READY.
The burning doorway at the foot of the Pillar of Names. A child's hand holding a man's hand out of the fire. The beam coming down. And the man looking down at the long wrapped bundle in his other arm.
(No balloon.)