Chapter 283
The flagship storm bearing down on Old Pike, filling the sky. Hail churning the water white for a mile around. Grey-white lightning in its belly. And under it, small, Njord standing in his skiff with the rod in both hands.
going flat and silver-calm. Over the panel, faint as a watermark, the storm as it will be in a heartbeat, in two, in ten: every gust, every hailstone, every turn of the wheel at its heart. And in the middle of it all, one still point.
drawn with a heartbeat-ring. Inside one beat, the watermarks multiplying: three days of sea at once, every swell that will ever rise from this one, layered over each other, a thousand pale lines.
Inside the same beat, Njord's wrist flicking: one sudden, perfect movement, the line leaving the rod's tip and flying, a thin silver arc straight into the storm, through the hail, through the wall of black cloud, into the heart of it.
drawn as a tunnel of cloud and hail: the silver line threading through it, past lightning, past wind, into the eye, and at the end of it a barbed bone hook catching, deep, in something.
The whole flagship storm jerking, like a hooked fish. Sails of thunderhead snapping. And from the heart of it, a roar of hail.
leaning back against the line, the rod bending double, his huge hands white on it, boots braced against Old Pike's thwart.
The storm pulling back: the line going rigid, singing, and Old Pike dragged across the lake toward the storm, her bow lifting, a wake ripping out behind her.
Vigolas at the waterline, seeing it.
in the skiff, being dragged, Sill's voice nowhere (she's on the dock), Rougeina swimming hard after him in the wake. Njord not looking at the line. Looking at the storm.
on the beach, turning to the Marka, moored off the dock, and shouting.
Svala on a Flight-Line from the Marka's bow to Old Pike's stern, a hawser's end in her fist, flying faster than any heartbeat across the lake: the first thing in her path is a sheet of falling hail, and she cuts through it, and slaps the hawser's eye over Old Pike's stern-post as she streaks past and keeps going, crashing into the lake beyond.
treading water beside the dragged skiff, looking back at Vigolas on the beach. At his face.
Rougeina's eyes on Vigolas across the water: blink. She's standing on the beach, dripping; and Vigolas is in the lake, beside Old Pike, where she was. He grabs the gunwale and hauls himself in.
Heartbeat's great lake, drawn as one long line. On the left, the island-sized flagship storm, black, hailing, its sails straining away. A silver fishing line running from its heart to Old Pike, a tiny skiff with an old man leaning back against a bent rod and a pirate beside him with his arms round the old man's waist. From the skiff's stern, a hawser, thick as a man's arm, running taut across the water to the Marka, her anchor down and dragging, Drekk at the windlass, and from the Marka a second hawser to the Upp Igen, her anchor down too. And on both ships, every crew member who can hold a rope, hauling: Krydog, Smurjan, Kali, Roffe, Flexsnus under his raincloud, Jeppson, Tihi, Daniel, Levla, Kompis, Öde, Ysel, Trollmage (actually pulling, for once), Perne, Emma. And Mingus on the Marka's deck with the rope's end in his teeth.
The storm pulling harder: both ships' anchors dragging, ploughing the lake bed, the Marka and the Upp Igen sliding stern-first across the water after the skiff, the hawsers groaning.
his arms shaking, the rod creaking, the line cutting into his palms. Vigolas behind him, arms locked round his middle, heels jammed against the thwart.
from the storm, everywhere, hail rattling on the skiff.
flinching as if struck. And then setting his jaw. Not letting go.
Old Pike reaching the edge of the storm: the hail wall, the black cloud rising out of the lake like a cliff of smoke. The skiff's bow touching it. The hawser behind going taut as iron.
looking up at the black wall rearing over them, lightning crawling grey-white through it. His own green lightning flickering in answer, wanting to go in.
Kompis hauling with everyone, his eyes gold on the skiff, seeing two threads going into the storm: Njord's, iron-hard on the line; and Vigolas's, warm and green, and tied to Kompis's own.
in the skiff at the storm's edge, looking back over his shoulder at the ship. Grinning. Two-finger salute.
Old Pike pulled into the wall: the black cloud closing over her bow, her mast, Njord's back, Vigolas's grinning face.
running from the Marka's bow across the lake and straight into the black wall of the storm, taut, vibrating, the only proof that there's anything on the other end.
Both ships, anchors dragging, both crews hauling on a rope that disappears into a storm. Hail on everything. Nobody letting go.
Sill, standing at the very end in Rougeina's dripping place, both hands pressed over her mouth. Then lifting them, slowly, and signing, at the storm, as if Njord could see her through it.
drawn as pure black, hail and wind roaring, two figures in a small boat barely visible, Njord's silver line glinting ahead of them like a thread through a maze, leading in.
eyes silver-calm, the line in his bleeding hands, following it in hand over hand.
The blackness tearing open ahead of the skiff like a curtain, and light: soft, grey, still light.
Old Pike gliding out of the black wall into the eye of the storm: a great round space of perfectly still air, the wall of cloud rising on every side like the inside of a well, a disc of blue sky high above. And in the middle of the eye, on nothing, standing on the calm water: a wheel. A ship's wheel made of cloud. And at it, his back to them, a man.
(No balloon.)