Chapter 25
Vigolas walks down the long aisle between cliffs of glowing slates toward the white lectern at the centre. His footsteps echo. Behind him, in the open doors, Drekk stands guard with a frying pan and a sleeping half-troll.
glowing on both sides as he passes:
INGA ÅSK · K-I · FISHWIFE, GATE CITY · LISTEN AT THE HARBOUR · ACTIVE
BJORN HALLE · K-II · BAKER, HAY STAIR · WATCH THE NEIGHBOURS · ACTIVE
PIM · K-I · AGE NINE · TRAIN · ACTIVE
ORM · K-IV · REASSIGN AS DIRECTED · ACTIVE
SELA · K-III · HANDLER · ACTIVE
KOMPIS · K-II · RECALL — TERMINATE IF RESISTING
VIGOLAS · ∞−1 · DELIVER THE SATCHEL · HALF-HELD
And one dark slate, with no name on it at all.
both hands flat on it.
He expects the Hall to glow slate by slate, by value. Instead the whole Hall glows gold, every pane, floor to ceiling, blinding.
Kompis, Rougeina and Smurjan run along it through the snow, Mingus at Kompis's heels. Kompis fires Ivar once out of a bridge window into the night sky.
Drekk hears the shot and spins around.
Green lightning crawls up his arm. He knows the price now. He doesn't hesitate, and he doesn't pretend it's free.
lightning blooming inside it.
From the lectern outward, in a storm of green lightning, a million glowing slates, the long gallery, the vaulted ceiling and the whole spire of the tower above it crush inward from every direction at once, slates streaming toward the centre like a galaxy draining away, into one humming cube the size of a house hanging in the air where the Hall used to be. Beside it, standing on nothing, is one small man in a green coat with his hand still open.
Along the bottom of the spread, a strip of small insets, all at the same moment, all over the world:
in the ashes of Gate City, a fishwife takes a listening-shell out of her ear and blinks;
in a dormitory under Glasheim, a nine-year-old boy sits up in bed and touches the back of his neck;
in a barracks, a Grey Mask slowly takes off his mask;
in a ruined schoolroom, Mother Sela lifts her white head;
on a rooftop far away, Orm stares at his stitched gloves, which are holding nothing.
Across the world, a million people feel the leash fall away.
standing on air. He wiggles his toes. They answer to him.
A sunny deck on his very first ship. A gangly, laughing young sailor tosses him the end of a rope and shouts something. A younger Vigolas catches it and shouts back a name. The name's balloon is empty.
touching his temple, frowning. He can feel the hole. He can't feel its shape.
Nothing answers.
The house-sized cube hangs in the air for one heartbeat. Then it drops. So does Vigolas.
Below where the Hall was, the rest of the Protocol Tower cracks from top to bottom like an icicle. The shock runs out along the bridges, and two neighbouring towers sway and split.
Its far end was fixed to the Hall. The Hall is gone. The whole bridge lurches, sags and snaps in the middle.
The terrace before the Hall doors crumbles. Drekk, Trollmage asleep on his back, goes over the edge.
Everyone falling: Vigolas tumbling past the falling cube; Drekk clutching a snoring Trollmage; Smurjan falling straight and calm with Kali clinging to his back; Rougeina searching for anything to Swap with; the panther twisting in the air; the crow flapping alongside, perfectly fine. And Kompis, reaching for the golden dog falling just beyond his fingertips.
Rougeina Swaps with a falling stone, then another, then another, silver-rose ghosts strung down the sky. It does nothing. Everything she can see is falling too.
reaching. The golden pulse line along the panel border stretches thin as Mingus tumbles away from him.
ears flying. His eyes are calm. Kind. Brown. He looks at Kompis. Then he looks at all of them, every one of his people, falling.
In mid-air, the golden dog blooms into a colossal golden griffin: the body of a great lion in warm retriever gold, the head and wings of an eagle, every feather gold, wings so wide they blot out the falling towers behind him. His eyes are exactly the same: kind, brown, Mingus's eyes.
He sweeps under all of them in one long golden curve.
One by one they land on him: Kompis on his neck; Drekk and the sleeping Trollmage across his back; Smurjan on one wing, with Kali clinging to Smurjan; Rougeina on the other wing, the panther landing beside her like a cat on a wall. Vigolas, last, caught by the coat collar in one great golden talon, very gently, the way a mother cat carries a kitten.
The griffin glides down through a city coming apart: towers falling around them in slow motion, chunks of white stone, sheets of snow, the glitter of a thousand broken windows tumbling past in the dark. He banks between two collapsing spires and folds one wing over his riders as a shower of stone breaks harmlessly across his feathers.
laughing and crying at once, fists full of golden feathers.
on the griffin's back, as white as the snow.
The crow flies alongside, glaring at the griffin with deep professional resentment.
Far below, the house-sized cube smashes down into Glasheim's lowest terrace, straight through the wall of a great yard stacked with grey-gold bark, in an explosion of snow.
The griffin lands, soft as a cat, in deep snow on the terrace in front of the warm house. Towers are still settling behind them. Every bell in Glasheim is ringing.
The griffin bends his great golden head and folds: light rolling in on itself, wings into shoulders, beak into muzzle, until a golden retriever stands in the snow. He sneezes. He wags. He licks Kompis's entire face.
arms around the dog, forehead pressed into his neck.
Vigolas sits up in the snow. His legs are his own. He looks at them. Then he touches his temple again.
one hand on the back of his own neck. With soul-sight he looks for the leash that has run from there up to the Hall since he was eight years old. It isn't there.
a slow, crooked grin coming back.
Smurjan gets up, brushing snow off his robes, and turns toward the house.
Behind them, a gap in the sky where the tower was. In front of them, warm windows. In one of them a lamp is lit, and through it a silhouette: an old man in a cardigan bent over his desk, searching it, a jar of pens tipped on its side.
rising out of the snow and drawing one blade, the one that shines silver.
Where she stood, a silver-rose ghost fades in the snow. Far ahead, the study window swings softly open.