Chapter 211
The Marka sailing the last stretch of the Current under a star Oswin's lantern picked out. Ahead, the starlit sea simply ends at a long, low lip of sand-gold stone, the rim, and beyond it is not grey, not the Null, but a deep, clean, endless dark, quiet as the inside of a held breath: the Second Void.
at the bow with his lantern, its star-map wheeling, one lonely star at the very edge of it.
A long ledge of sand-gold rock. Along it, waiting as if they knew, a line of figures in grey robes with long braided hair: the Sign-speakers. At their head, an old woman with a face like a walnut and quick, bright eyes: Sister Tecken. She signs a greeting with both hands.
leaping off the bow onto the rim-stone, opening his mouth to shout hello, and nothing. His balloon is an empty outline. He tries again, louder. Empty. He looks absolutely betrayed.
landing beside him, barking happily at the Sign-speakers, and no sound comes out. He tries again. Nothing. He sits down hard on the stone, deeply confused, ears going in two directions.
stepping onto the rim-stone, closing her eyes, and for the first time since Stilla, smiling, properly, like someone stepping into a warm bath.
Sister Tecken leading them along the rim. The dark of the Second Void on one side. On the other, the starlit Current, silent. Far below the rim's lip, glimpsed: a great cut in something vast and barked, as if the world were a tree and someone had carved it, and standing in the cut, very small and very still, a child-shaped figure keeping guard.
stopping, turning, and signing very seriously to the whole crew before they go on.
At the very end of the rim, on a bench carved from the sand-gold stone, at the edge of an endless dark: a seated mountain in a hood. Two-and-a-half metres sitting, sloped like a hill wearing a robe of grey felt layered like snowdrifts. Inside the hood, only shadow, like looking down a well. No face. No eyes. Only his hands, grey and cracked like dry clay, each the size of a plough blade, raised in mid-sign, violet script banding the backs of them in ten rings.
Beside the bench, carved into the rim-stone: a ring of ten round hollows, every one of them glowing violet. A thousand years of nothing said.
The crew, small before him, silent. Mingus sitting, head tilted.
VIDER · RÖNNKVIST-6 · (and then nothing; the plate is empty, and stays empty)
signing, fast and precise, to Vigolas, with Tecken's caption under:
turning to Smurjan and signing a separate greeting to each voice in his chest, one after another, seventeen small careful signs. Smurjan, overwhelmed, bowing his head. In his shadow, Kali silently mouthing "he's so POLITE".
sitting down on the rim-stone beside the bench, without asking, leaning his back against Vider's huge felt-covered knee. Closing his eyes. Neither of them moves. Bliss.
padding up to the giant, still confused about his missing bark, and sitting at his feet. One enormous grey hand comes down, slowly, and scratches his ears. Mingus's tail thumps the stone in total silence.
kneeling before the bench, opening the satchel, holding up the eleventh shard to the hood: the black room, the window, the grey visitor on the other side.
bending toward the shard. A long, long stillness. The hood doesn't move when he breathes.
stepping forward, writing on the slate fast, hard, chalk snapping.
signing, slow, very clear.
furious, chalk in her fist.
signing, and Tecken's caption, slower now:
stepping up, eyes going gold. He looks at Vider, then at Rougeina. He takes the chalk and writes one word on the slate.
one laid on the back of Vider's enormous grey hand, the other on Rougeina's wrist. Gold light running between them. THE KNOT: a thread tied from the giant at the edge of the world to the assassin, so each feels the other, and Kompis feels both ends.
turning slowly from Kompis to Rougeina. A long, long beat.
Then his great hands sign one word, and a second:
staring at him, her jaw tight. It's the last name on her list, and someone else will say it.
on the rim's edge, ear to the stone, then lifting her head sharply, a beat late, signing in alarm the battle-sign Vider taught her ten minutes ago: two fingers drawn across the palm. Danger. Below.
Up out of the dark of the Second Void, over the rim's lip, rising: figures. Tall, thin, robed in black, their chests hollow: an open cavity where a heart should be, like a bell with no clapper. Their mouths wide open. And out of their mouths, the only sound in the Silence, singing.
RANK PLATE ×30: HOLLOW CHORISTER · K-III TESTED · voices for the Null
mouth open, singing, and the song is drawn as music notes in other people's handwriting: a child's lullaby in crayon, a sailor's shanty in tar, a mother's hum in pencil. Stolen voices.
pale, signing urgently to the crew.
jolted awake against Vider's knee, signing in horror.
The crew forming up round the bench, weapons out, in a silence so complete they can't even hear their own hearts. The Choir rising on every side of the rim, singing stolen songs. Vider on his bench, hands folded, perfectly still.
at the front, rolling his shoulders, signing the one battle-sign he's learned, badly, to his crew: a fist slammed into a palm.
The Hollow Choir pouring over the rim in full stolen voice, the only sound in the world, and the crew charging to meet them in absolute silence, empty balloons over every head. Behind them, a seated mountain with a thousand years in his throat, not making a sound.