Chapter 280

Old Pike far out on glassy water, Njord at the oars, Vigolas in the bow with his sleeves rolled up. Mingus swimming after them with his head up, Njord slowing to pull him aboard and hand him a strip of cod.

shipping the oars, lifting the tide-rod, picking at the first knot with a thick fingernail.

The knot untying, SNIK, and out of the rod, pouring up into the clear dawn sky, a squall: a little black storm the size of a barn, rain under it, wind round it, grumbling, no captain in it. Just weather.

grinning, cracking his knuckles, lightning blazing up his arms.

Vigolas throwing an Emerald Knuckle straight up at the middle of the squall. The lightning swallowed, turning grey, and the squall swelling, bigger, louder, raining harder on Old Pike.

soaked, staring up.

Vigolas throwing at the squall's edge. Swallowed. Bigger.

Vigolas throwing at the water under it. The lake sizzles. The squall laughs (it doesn't, but it looks like it).

Vigolas throwing harder. Swallowed. Much bigger.

Vigolas sitting down in the bottom of Old Pike, soaked, sulking, Mingus licking rain off his face.

untouched by any of it, pipe lit somehow under the rain, fishing.

Krydog drilling the Up-Again crew on the beach in the rain: getting up, getting up, getting up. And Flexsnus, leaning against a net-rack under a tarp, not drilling, watching Old Pike far out on the lake. Listening to the fisher-folk.

tapping the tin lid thoughtfully against his teeth.

Old Pike rowing back in. Kompis on the dock, waiting, Ivar on his hip.

looking at Vigolas with his eyes going gold, at the grey-white thread running from his friend's heart out across the lake toward the storm-wall.

explaining, his fingers hovering at the thread only he can see.

looking at the two of them, nodding slowly.

Old Pike out on the lake again, three in her now: Njord at the oars, Vigolas in the bow, Kompis behind him with two fingers resting on something in the air. The second knot untying, SNIK, a fresh squall pouring up into the sky.

closing on the grey-white thread, and pulling.

the green lightning gathering, but not wound up, not aimed: just held. Waiting. His eyes still closed.

Vigolas opening his hand toward the cairn, and the green lightning leaving it, not thrown, released, and in the same instant the squall's own grey-white bolt dropping out of the cloud toward the same rock, the two meeting on the path that was already there: grey and green braiding into one bolt.

The bolt hitting the cairn, and the rock splitting clean in two from top to waterline, stones flying a hundred metres, the lake round it boiling white. Twice as hard as anything he has ever thrown.

empty: its lightning spent, raining itself out gently over the lake, smaller and smaller, until it's just a shower. Gone.

opening his eyes, staring at the split rock smoking at the lake's edge. His hand still open.

wiping a nosebleed on his sleeve, letting go of the thread, grinning.

Where the second knot was, the cord frayed: limp, split, the fibres sticking out like hair. Not a knot any more, and never going to be.

sobering, looking at the frayed cord.

Both crews cheering Old Pike in: word has got round. The split rock still smoking on the far shore. Tihi doing cartwheels. Krydog shouting "TWICE AS HARD!" as if he did it himself. Sill signing furiously at Vigolas: [SHOW ME AGAIN].

still under his tarp, watching Njord climb out of the boat. Turning the tin over in his long fingers.

halfway up the dock, mid-sentence to Sill, his pipe in his hand. And stopping. His head turning toward the lake, toward the storm-wall. His eyes starting to move like water.

tonight's stars, and over them, faint as a watermark, not three days off: one night off. The flagship storm, enormous, already starting to turn in on itself, coiling, its sails filling. Forming.

going grey under his salt beard, the pipe dropping from his fingers onto the dock.

an old man with six knots on his rod and nothing he can do with them.