Chapter 224
its tip touching the ninth line of the Ledger page. A thin stroke of grey beginning, like a crack spreading across ice.
gasping, a hand flying to his chest. Where his heart is, under the coat, something opening: a thin vertical line of grey light, like the edge of a door left ajar.
writing slowly, carefully, an old man writing the last line of something long.
in Vigolas's chest widening: a doorway now, the width of a hand, and through it, the Null. Flat. Soft. Endless. Looking out.
Rougeina going for Jorvand's left hand, the one with the grey pen, and her blades passing through the grey pen without touching it, as through smoke. Phase One. Nothing touches it.
Kompis firing Bror at the pen, a gold shove that goes in and isn't.
on his knees, the Gluttony Codex burning amber against his chest, struggling to get at the grey pen, hungry.
the grey doorway two hands wide now. His outline beginning to go white at the edges, not grey, white, like a door's frame being painted out.
watching his outline go white, and understanding. Her face going very hard.
stopping. Looking at each other. And at their captain, swaying, with a door opening in his chest.
first, stepping in front of Vigolas, between him and the old man, and shouting it:
on the Ledger page, under Jorvand's pen, stalling. The pen pressing. The ink not taking.
beside Kompis, blades down, shouting, for once, at the top of her voice:
his hand on his chest, the voices back in it, all of them, and Kali and Bakasura beside him.
still on his knees holding the starving book, looking up.
her arm raised, the names on it readable again.
a beat late, very clear, in the smallest, most certain voice.
his bell-rope mask in his hand, voice cracking.
The office of redacted pages, and in its centre, the captain with a door of grey opening in his chest, swaying. Round him, his whole crew, every one of them shouting, mouths wide, balloons overlapping, full of what he's worth to them. And from every one of them, through the air, emerald light pouring into him: Greed's colour, value, the colour of something being decided. The light is filling the grey doorway at its edges, closing it from the outside in.
Across the desk, an old man with a grey pen that won't write, the ninth line still empty under its tip.
And at the captain's feet, a golden retriever, barking, one bark, the loudest sound in the room:
leaning on the doorframe, his blind face turned toward Vigolas, adding his dry old voice to the noise.
The grey doorway narrowing, emerald light pressing it shut from the edges, until it's a line again, a hairline crack, a door closed on the Null.
The grey stroke on the ninth line fading, flaking off the paper like dried mud. The line empty again.
looking down at the page, then up at the crew, at the emerald light, at the dog. His face very strange: disappointment, and under it, unmistakably, relief.
folding the Ledger page with the grey pen inside it, slowly, and tucking it back into his coat.
a long, long look at the young man he made. And then, very sadly:
stepping back toward the far wall, the great redacted page of the wall, the black bars on it stirring, opening like a slit in a curtain.
white, knowing exactly what he means.
Jorvand's struck right hand, ink and blood on the knuckles, shooting out, faster than an old man should move, and closing round Vigolas's wrist.
And pulling. Backwards. Into the wall-page. Black bars swallowing the old man's arm, his shoulder, and Vigolas's hand after it, and Vigolas's arm.
(Mingus lunging for Vigolas's coat-tail with his teeth.)
closing on the hem of the midnight-green coat, holding, and the coat tearing: a strip of green cloth left in the dog's jaws as the rest of it goes through.
The wall of redacted page closing like water over a stone, black bars settling back into neat lines, the lamp flickering. Where the captain stood a heartbeat ago: nothing. The crew frozen. A golden retriever standing at the wall with a strip of green coat in his mouth, whining, pawing at the paper.
(No balloon. No SFX.)