Chapter 281
The village awake: lamps in every window, fisher-folk hauling boats up the beach, children being carried up to the hill. Out on the lake, under the stars, the storm-wall, and in front of it, a black mass turning in on itself, slowly coiling, like a fist closing.
Both crews round Njord, who sits on a barrel with his rod across his knees, staring at it.
fists crackling.
a beat late.
Silence on the dock. Everyone looking at the coiling black thing on the lake. Nobody with an answer. Levla, Kompis, Rougeina, Krydog, all of them.
coming down the dock at an easy stroll. And a voice, slow, amused, slightly thick on one side.
leaning against a piling at an angle that shouldn't hold, the battered tin in one hand, the lazy half-smile.
flicking the tin open. Inside the lid, scratched with a pin, nine little lines. Four struck through (paid). One still open: MOUTH, 1 NOTCH. DUE: ?. Four empty.
stepping up beside him, very quiet.
beside them, looking at Flexsnus the way he looked at him on Lumen's beach. Softly.
The sky over the hills going grey. On the lake, the black mass almost closed: coiled tight, sails of cloud filling, lightning beginning to crawl in its belly. Njord in Old Pike, already rowing out toward it, Sill in the bow, the rod across his knees.
Flexsnus walking out to the very end of it. And then doing something nobody on either crew has ever seen him do: standing up straight. No lean. Feet planted. The tin in his left hand.
an emerald glint catching at the corner of one, like light finding a notch.
Dawn over Heartbeat's great lake. The sun's rim about to clear the hills. Over the lake, the colossal coiled black storm, filling, lightning in its belly, on the very edge of breaking.
And across the whole sky, from horizon to horizon, a thin emerald ruled line, straight as a ledger rule, drawn right along the edge of the dawn. Made visible.
At the end of the dock, a long thin man standing straight for once, his right hand raised, finger and thumb pinching the line where it crosses the sun's rim, and kinking it one notch.
The sun, rising behind the hills, pausing. A little. The storm, a breath from bursting, stalling, as if somebody had told it it was early.
still coiled, still unformed, sails full and not filling, lightning crawling and not striking. Waiting. A weather-front that has just been told, very politely, that its appointment has been moved.
right under it now, staring up, his eyes moving like water, and the faint watermark over the storm changing: first light sliding one notch along to an hour after.
Njord on his feet in the skiff, the rod raised high, his big fingers on the cord, and tying: a fisherman's knot, slow, careful, the best knot of his life, while the biggest storm he has ever heard hangs over his head.
The whole coiled storm pouring down out of the sky into the cord, a black funnel twisting down onto the rod, smaller and smaller, squeezed into one hard dark knot that whines like a kettle.
Empty sky. Clear. The sun clearing the hills, an hour late, gold across the lake. No storm. And far out, the storm-wall, and one small skiff with an old man holding up a rod with one very dark knot on it.
Both crews and the whole village erupting: cheering, Tihi screaming, Krydog throwing Roffe in the lake, Sill standing up in Old Pike waving both arms.
at the end of the dock, letting out a long breath, and leaning again, against nothing, at his usual impossible angle. Lazy half-smile back.
A tiny emerald notch-icon appearing.
Directly over his head, about a metre up, a tiny raincloud the size of a hat, appearing out of nowhere. Grey. Grumpy. And raining on him. Only on him.
soaked in two seconds, slick hair plastered down, the pinch in his lip going soggy, looking up at it with deep, resigned affection.
scratching a new line inside the tin lid with a pin, under his little raincloud: STORM, 1 NOTCH. DUE: 7 DAYS RAIN (paid in advance).
wading out onto the dock to him, wet from Krydog's celebrations, holding out a hand.
Old Pike coming back in, Njord at the oars, the rod across the thwart with its very dark knot whining softly. Mingus swimming out to meet them. Njord pulling the dog aboard one-handed.
climbing up onto the dock, stopping in front of Flexsnus under his raincloud. Looking at him a long time. Then holding out his huge hand.
And out at the storm-wall, the whole wall moving. Breaking open. Storm after storm after storm pouring out of it, sails of thunderhead filling the horizon: the whole Storm Fleet. And at its head, bigger than all of them, black as tar, hail falling in a white curtain: the flagship.
forming in the front of the flagship storm, lightning eyes blazing, hail-beard streaming, enraged.