Chapter 258
Six towers lit, the seventh guttering. On the seventh hill, in the grey light, a big man lying flat on his back in the grass where he fell last night. His crew sitting round him. They haven't moved either.
eyes open, looking at the sky. A thousand and five patches on his coat. Not one of them new.
curled up against his side, hand over her mouth, not laughing, not crying, very small.
a little way off, writing nothing in his notebook. Just holding it.
scattered round the hill, each of them missing something.
Vigolas, sitting on a rock, no fury, frowning at his own fists as if they belonged to someone else.
Rougeina, blades on her knees, turning one over and over, unable to decide whether to sheathe it.
Smurjan, beside a very quiet shadow. Bakasura not hungry, for the first time in three hundred years. Roffe, horrified, offering stew, and the great jaws turning away. "…No… thank you."
sitting very still with Bror across his knees, his hands shaking. No courage. Every sound making him flinch. Mingus pressed against him.
the soul in the gun, a small gold face in the steel, looking up at him.
a wet, shaky laugh.
walking among them with her lamp, holding it up to each face. Their joys blooming again over their heads, the Marka's deck, the rain, the potato. Each of them remembering what it's for. And none of them getting back what was taken.
looking at his joy over his head, the sleeping crew round the fire, and nodding slowly, without fury.
A village of small round houses with lamps in every window, every door: the Lamp-bearers' village. Children and very old people carrying lamps, trimming wicks, loading little boats with lamps for islands going dark.
bent nearly double, a lamp in each hand, peering up the hill at Iskall.
Clinking. Glass. Grey shapes moving between the village houses: Dimmers, two dozen of them, going door to door, holding up jars to the window-lamps, and the lamps draining, house after house going dark.
eight years old, clutching her lamp to her chest, backing away, terrified.
on the hill, seeing it, his whole body flinching at the sight of a frightened child. Every instinct in him, without courage, screaming run, hide, it's not your fight.
on his back on the grass beside him, staring at the sky, and saying, flatly, without wanting to, as if the words were just lying around in him:
staring down at the man who said it, who isn't getting up. Then at the village. At the child with the lamp.
Kompis getting up. Shaking. Terrified. Every step down the hill like walking into cold water. Mingus at his heel. Bror in his trembling hands.
The Lamp-bearers' village at dawn, half its windows dark, grey-masked Dimmers going door to door with glowing jars. And in the middle of the village square, standing in front of a small girl with a lamp, a broad man in a hoodie, shaking from head to foot, face white with terror, a sawn-off shotgun held out in front of him in hands that won't keep still, and a golden dog planted at his side, hackles up.
He is so afraid. He is standing there anyway.
Behind him, coming down the hill one by one, the rest of them: a pirate without his fury, an assassin without her resolve, a big man with a shadow that isn't hungry. Following him.
staring at the shaking man, almost laughing.
Bror: BRA-DOOM, a warm gold shove, wild and imprecise from shaking hands, but wide, sweeping three Dimmers off their feet across the square, their jars flying.
A crew fighting with half their insides missing.
Vigolas, without fury, calmly punching a Dimmer in the face. "Sorry. I'm not even cross."
Rougeina, without resolve, unable to decide which Dimmer to hit, and Svala diving past her: "THAT one!" And she does.
Iskall, at the square's centre, pulling wicks from her pinafore pockets, lighting them at the lamp, and throwing them: Wick-Throw. Wherever they land a small white flame springs up, and every Dimmer who sees it remembers, falters, drops his jar.
Gammel-Ljus, a hundred and four, whacking a Dimmer across the shins with a lamp-pole. "Out of my village, you grey streak!"
The Dimmers fleeing the village, jars broken, the window-lamps flickering back to life one by one as their stolen light streams home.
in the square, still shaking, sitting down hard on the cobbles with the little girl's lamp safe behind him, Mingus licking his face.
Krydog lying on his back. He's turned his head. He watched the whole thing. Something moving in his flat face, faint, very faint, like a fish under ice.
beside him, seeing that flicker, holding her breath.
The Dimmers' great barge, moored off Lumen's far shore: a long floating warehouse of grey timber, every window shuttered, every shelf inside clinking. On its deck, Skymning, with the silver-gold vial in his fingers, turning it in the light.
uncorking a different vial, someone's joy, drinking it, smiling for one panel, then glass again.
high above the island, its lamp, already guttering. Dimmers on its stair at night with the biggest jar yet, a great glass carboy held up to the flame, drinking, drinking.
The seventh lamp, at the top of its tower, dimming, dimming, until there is nothing left of it but a single red ember, glowing in the dark like an eye closing.