Chapter 236
Hallbard at the lens, wiping it, as he has every morning for four hundred years. Below, the Wreckers are gone. The crews resting on the rocks. And Kompis coming up the last of the 212 steps, slowly, breathing hard, Mingus at his heels.
not turning round.
standing beside the giant at the lens, both of them looking out at the Mouth's wall of mist.
on the lens-rag, going still.
turning to look up at the old man's narrowed eyes.
His face, craggy, storm-red, four hundred years old. Doing absolutely nothing. For a long, long panel.
letting go of the lens-rag. It drifts down onto the quicksilver bed and turns slowly round with the lamp.
The foot of the lighthouse, morning. The small white cottage with its door open to the sea. And on its doorstep, a giant old man in an amber oilskin, sitting down: his huge legs folded under him, his back against the white wall, his hands loose in his lap, his beard blowing. For the first time in four hundred years. His narrowed eyes closed.
Through the open door behind him, a sleeping girl and a small steady lamp.
Round the doorstep, the whole of both crews standing very quietly, nobody saying anything. Mingus lying across the old man's boots.
at the back of the crowd, staring at the old man sitting down, his own sleepless eyes very bright. He knows exactly what it costs to stay standing.
eyes still closed, talking to nobody and everybody.
sitting down on the step beside him without asking, the way she does.
crouching in front of him.
stepping forward, unable to stop himself.
Hallbard back at the lens, standing again, wiping. The Beam sweeping out over the darkening sea. Below on the jetty, both crews round a fire: Roffe cooking, Tihi juggling stolen Wrecker hats, Jeppson chalking the Upp Igen's bow-gash for tomorrow.
at the glass, looking out at the far dark water, and talking, quietly, across it, to someone.
On the surface, very faint, the shape of a shadow-horse breathing frost, and on it, a thin grey woman with floating hair, the other person in the Current who never sleeps. Her voice drifting back across the sea, soft and smoky.
almost smiling.
at the foot of the tower, barking up at the moths again, the big pale moths drifting out of the lantern room in a stream, each one carrying a little scrap of the Beam's light in its wings, flying off into the dark coves round the rocks.
sitting down, sulking, accepting a biscuit dropped from 212 steps up.
The moths drifting into the black rocks, little lights in the dark. And in one cove, among the wreck-yard's broken hulls, waiting: the thin woman in black sailcloth. Hollow glow in her eyes. Watching the moths come.
reaching up one long thin hand as a moth drifts past her face, the scrap of Beam glowing in its wings.
closing on the moth.
opening, the moth going in, light and all, and the glow sliding down her throat. A tiny, satisfied sound.
(Somewhere above, in the lantern room, a moth's worth of the Beam goes out.)
More moths drifting in. Natta catching them, one after another, eating them, every one a little scrap of the Beam, the coves going darker and darker behind her.
on the jetty, eyes gold, suddenly looking up. One of the Beam's silver threads, running from the jetty out toward a ship far away in the dark, thinning.
in the lantern room, his hand freezing on the lens-rag, his narrowed eyes widening.
The Beam, sweeping out over the night sea from Fyren, a hundred leagues of white-gold, and flickering: once, twice, like a candle in a draught, its far end going dark for a heartbeat. Out on the Current, tiny lights of distant ships wavering, their silver threads thinning to nothing.