Chapter 246
There's no dawn in the Deep, only lanterns, and the ring of Fowler lanterns round the island at a distance. On the stone platform, Svala and Rougeina sparring: Svala launching short straight lines across the platform from post to post, tsip, tsip, and Rougeina Swapping out of each one, blink, a silver-rose trail where she was.
landing on a post, perched, gasping, heart racing.
sheathing the blade.
For one rare panel, not bouncing at all. Looking at Rougeina. Then springing up again.
perched, head on one side like a bird.
Rougeina, one beat of stillness. Then she Swaps, straight at Svala, no feint, no decoy trail, and taps Svala on the chest with a blade's pommel before Svala can twitch.
(On a nest-house roof below, Tihi, chin in her hands, watching Rougeina's face like a hawk: "…Nearly…")
bouncing down the stair, stopping by Flexsnus, who is leaning on a nest-house at an angle that shouldn't hold, tin in hand.
the tin in his long fingers. Not tapping it.
(Svala's grin falls, just a little, just for a panel. Then she's gone up the next roof.)
Lanterns on poles. Tihi, hiccups long gone, juggling painted leather balls (eight faces of her crew and one of a golden dog) for a ring of Flock children. Svala perched on a fence post beside her. The children chanting a skipping-rhyme and falling down laughing at the end of it.
She drops a ball. Doesn't pick it up.
(Flashback.)
A painted show-boat moored at a Shallows quay at night, bunting and lanterns strung from her masts, a crowd packed along the quay. On the stage on her deck, a clown with copper hair and a harness of six brass bells, juggling fish and laughing; on her shoulders, a tiny freckled girl of four, laughing harder than anyone. At the bow, the boat's figurehead: a brass laughing gull, beak open, a little bell at its throat.
Through the keyhole of a costume trunk: a woman with copper hair marched past in chains, toward a prison-barge. As she passes the keyhole she turns and makes a clown's face at it. Behind the keyhole, a six-year-old eye crinkling shut.
A small girl inside it, hands over her mouth, laughing silently. Nobody finding her.
Her face going completely still. Her bells silent for a panel. Svala, who hasn't stopped moving all chapter, stops.
forcing it back up through her chest like a bucket out of a well: a giggle, too bright, the rose marks on her cheeks flickering as she pushes it out.
Kite-lines hissing in the dark. No lanterns. On the Upp Igen's Perch below the rim, two short blasts on a brass whistle: danger.
Out of the black, gliding down on dark kites with no lanterns, Fowler riders, nets ready, every one of them looking for one thing.
The night-raid.
Krydog, throwing himself on the net meant for Tihi. It closes on him, standing. Lime. Held. "NOT AGAIN—"
Roffe, Sleven sweeping three riders off the meadow and into the Drinking Lake. "Late for supper!"
Flexsnus, tk tk tk, flicking one finger at a falling net: a thin emerald line across the panel kinks one notch, knk, and the net's draw-knot comes undone in mid-air, the net opening like a hand. He pulls a pin and scratches a new line in his tin lid.
Emma, chalk circle round the smallest Flock children, tk.
Isa, holding three riders frozen in mid-drop, …ba—, while Rougeina, a hand on her shoulder, cuts their lines and lets them down onto the grass like washing.
Svala, on a fence post, the line on her arm dark, gasping: "Can't— I'm out— I flew all morning—"
backed against a nest-house wall by four net-captains with throw-nets spread. Hands clamped over her mouth, because the woman who sent them wants her laugh.
taking her hands off her mouth. Opening it. And out comes, soft and pleasant and perfect, edged with a fine net-mesh like the real thing, the Netmaster's voice:
freezing. Looking at each other. Then reeling up their nets, obeying, backing off toward their kite-lines, one glancing over his shoulder, uncertain, as the kites lift them into the dark.
delighted, trying to shout "It WORKED!", and it comes out of her mouth in Grip's soft, pleasant voice.
bursting up out of Smurjan's shadow, recoiling.
on the rim, legs over the dark. Tihi still stuck in the Netmaster's voice, which makes everything she says sound kind and terrible.
slowly, in someone else's voice, the hardest thing she's said all night.
by lantern-light: the old lines (ROPE, 1 NOTCH, DUE: A KNOT SLIPS · WIND, 1 NOTCH, DUE: A HAT BLOWS OFF · MOUTH, 1 NOTCH. DUE: ?) and a fresh one scratched under them: NET-KNOT, 1 NOTCH. DUE: A BOOTLACE.
Tärna asleep upright on her stool, Mingus across her feet. Svala perched on the rail beside her, legs swinging, talking down to Rougeina on the stair.
BOOM. One heartbeat, enormous, drowning the page. Only Svala hears it. Her eyes going wide. The crimson flight-line on her arm burning white, shoulder to fingertip.
Empty. Gone mid-sentence. And where she was perched, her rank plate, hanging in the air on its own, pulsing with her heartbeat.
SVALA · DRIFTING-5 · K-III TESTED · Scalelist #9,211
Rougeina at the top of the stair, staring at the hanging plate. Tärna awake, very still. And Mingus, padding out from under the old woman's feet to sit down directly beneath the plate, looking up at it, ears down, and whining.
On the deck of the Gilded Cage, among her net-captains, a space where a tall woman stood a moment ago. And over it, hanging in the air, pulsing, a second plate.
GRIP · K-IV SHAPED · Scalelist #1,197 · Netmaster of the House of Grip