PAGE 1
P1WIDE, the office.
The tall, stooped figure standing just inside the wall-page, black bars drifting across his body like the shadows of birds. The crew in a half-circle round the desk. Hjalmar leaning on Isa. Mingus in front of Kompis and Vigolas. Nobody breathing.
P2CLOSE, Ysel
behind Drekk, her whole face pale, her voice small.
THE FIGUREthe voice from the shard, but fuller, gentle, old, the paper-tearing softness gone almost to warmth
…Hello, little shadow. · You look whole. · It suits you.
PAGE 2
P3ACTION.
Rougeina doesn't wait for introductions. A Moth-Swap off a fluttering page, landing beside him, eight silver-rose blades sweeping across his chest.
P4CLOSE, the blades
passing through the grey of his coat, where the black bars drift, like through smoke. And then, where the bars part, catching on something real: a sleeve, and an arm under it. A thin line of red, very human, opening on an old man's forearm.
PAGE 3
P5CLOSE, the figure
looking down at the cut on his arm with mild interest. He doesn't retaliate. He doesn't even step back.
THE FIGURE
…Ah. · Yes. · There's still some of me that can be cut. · Thank you for checking.
P6CLOSE, Rougeina
poised for a second strike, staring.
THE FIGURE
…Where I'm still a person. · Less every year.
PAGE 4
P7CLOSE, Vigolas
stepping forward, past Mingus, to the edge of the desk. Looking up at the man.
VIGOLAS
The bars. · You've been talking to me for a week. · Let me see your face.
P8CLOSE, the figure
a long pause. Then, gently, sadly:
THE FIGURE
…Seven lifetimes I've wanted you to ask me that.
PAGES 5–6 — SPLASH
P9SPLASH (double page). JORVAND.
The tall stooped figure lifting both hands, slowly, like a man taking off a pair of spectacles he's worn for centuries, and the black censor-bars across his body falling away one by one: drifting off his chest, his arms, his throat, peeling up into the air and dissolving like black snow.
And under them: an old man. Tall, thin, a little stooped, in a long grey coat that was once fine. A kind, tired, lined face, a short white beard, grey eyes that look as if they've been reading for a very long time. Ink stains on the fingers of his right hand, the same as Hjalmar's.
Over his head, the Twelfth's Signet, lit. And under his feet, the crew's faces, every one of them looking up at the man who made their captain.
JORVAND KESTRAAL · K-V ARCHITECT · Architect Twelve, Keeper of ████████
PAGE 7
P10CLOSE, Hjalmar
his blind face turned toward the voice, tears running into his beard.
HJALMARa whisper
…Jorvand.
JORVANDgently, turning to him
…Hello, Hjalmar. · You never told anyone. · I always knew you wouldn't.
JORVAND
…Yes. · But you loved me. · That was always the trouble with you.
PAGE 8
P11CLOSE, Vigolas
staring up at the old face.
VIGOLAS
…You did it. · The seven edits. · That's your hand.
P12CLOSE, Jorvand
looking down at the young man with something almost like pride, almost like grief.
JORVAND
…I made you, boy. · One rank a life. · Until there was nothing left on the line to take, and I took one more, and the count went round the bottom and came up the other side. · ∞−1. · The only soul in the world the Order can't number. Can't own. Can't route.
PAGE 9
P13CLOSE, Vigolas
his voice very quiet.
P14FLASHBACK, a small panel, sepia.
A long time ago. A younger Jorvand, tall and straight, at the window of this very office, looking out, and on the far horizon, the faintest grey smudge where the stars had begun to go out.
JORVANDnarrating
…I saw it first. · Before Solvig. Before anyone. · The grey at the edge. · Something that doesn't fight the count. It ends it.
PAGE 10
P15FLASHBACK, sepia.
Young Jorvand in the Council Hall, standing among the Twelve, speaking, and eleven faces looking at him with polite disbelief.
JORVANDnarrating
…I told the Council. · They ranked my warning. · Filed it. · Assigned it to a committee that met once a century.
P16CLOSE, Jorvand
present day.
JORVAND
…The Order can't fight something it can't count, boy. · So I needed one thing in the world that the Order couldn't count either. · Something that could walk where the Null walks. Stand where nothing stands. · Something nobody could own.
PAGE 11
P17CLOSE, Jorvand
his ink-stained hand lifting, almost touching Vigolas's face, and stopping an inch away.
JORVAND
…And then I walked into the Null myself. · To understand it. · You can't fight what you don't understand. · I went in, and I understood it.
JORVAND
…And it understood me.
P18CLOSE, Ysel
very quietly, from behind Drekk.
YSEL
…And you came back grey.
JORVANDnot looking away from Vigolas
…I came back with its voice. · And my face. · Mostly.
PAGE 12
P19CLOSE, Trollmage
stepping forward, his book clamped shut in both arms, his voice shaking but clear.
TROLLMAGE
…The Twelfth's office. · It's the only one nobody knows. · The Twelve built the Ledger, Routing, the ranks. · And the Arena. · Nobody keeps the Arena. · Nobody's ever kept the Arena.
P20CLOSE, Jorvand
smiling at the half-troll, a teacher's smile.
JORVAND
…Clever boy. · Nobody keeps it now. · I did. · I was the Keeper of the Arena.
PAGE 13
P21CLOSE, Jorvand
the black bars drifting back across his face for a moment, then away again.
JORVAND
…When I left, the Arena kept itself. · And every outcome it ever decided, every ending, every verdict, gathered in the empty place where I used to sit. · It grew a hand of its own. · Black square letters. · It wants everything finished.
KOMPISwhispering
…The Arbiter.
JORVAND
…What I left behind in my chair. · Yes.
PAGE 14
P22CLOSE, Vigolas
white, holding on to the desk.
VIGOLAS
…So you made me. · And you made that. · And then you went into the grey. · What for? What do you want?
P23CLOSE, Jorvand
very simply, very gently.
JORVAND
…The same thing you want, boy. · Seven lifetimes you've wanted it. · Nobody ranked by anybody. Ever again.
PAGE 15
P24CLOSE, Vigolas.
JORVAND
…I am. · There are two ways to end the ranks, boy. · Yours: everyone free. · Mine: everyone gone. · No ranks, because no one. · No half, no whole. No lost. No forgotten. No pain.
P25CLOSE, Öde
her arm with 110 names and the places in dark ink on it, stepping forward.
JORVANDkindly
…Solvig said that to you, I think. In reverse. · She was wrong too. · It isn't mercy. It's rest.
PAGE 16
P26CLOSE, Jorvand
turning back to Vigolas, and his voice dropping, honest, almost frightened of himself.
JORVAND
…An unrankable soul is the only thing the Order can't stop. · It's also the only door the Null can't be denied. · If the Null walks through you, it walks into everything.
JORVAND
…I made you a key. · And I made you a door. · And I've never been able to decide which one I wanted.
PAGE 17
P27CLOSE, Vigolas
staring up at him.
VIGOLAS
…Seven lifetimes, and you couldn't decide?
JORVANDwith the ghost of a smile
…You keep surprising me, boy. · Every life. · That was always the trouble with you.
P28CLOSE, Jorvand's eyes
and in them something genuinely loving, and genuinely terrible.
JORVAND
…I made you, boy. · Key or door. · I never decided.
PAGE 18 — THE HOOK
P29CLOSE, Jorvand's hand
the ink-stained right hand, held out, open, palm up, to the young man across the desk. The way you'd offer it to a child at the edge of a road.
P30FINAL PANEL, wide.
The lamplit office of redacted pages, the old man holding out his hand, the captain looking at it, the whole crew frozen round them, Mingus pressed against Vigolas's leg.
JORVANDgently
…So come and decide with me.