Chapter 285

Black wind, hail, rain like thrown gravel. And in the middle of it, Old Pike, stretched between a silver line running into the heart of the storm and a hawser running out of it, her keel split, her planks opening like the fingers of a hand.

standing in her, water to his shins, the rod bent double, the line in his torn fists.

cracking at the step, leaning, the patched sail tearing off it into the wind.

the plank Njord has sat on every dawn for forty years, its middle worn pale by his weight, splitting in two under his boots.

behind Njord, seeing the stern-post where the hawser is tied tearing loose from the transom, the iron bolts pulling out of the old wood one by one.

The stern-post ripping free, the hawser whipping away toward the black wall, and Vigolas lunging after it over the transom, one hand catching the hawser's eye as it flies, his other arm locked round Njord's waist. A human chain: the ships on the hawser, Vigolas on the ships, Njord on Vigolas, the line on Njord, and the Admiral on the line.

Planks floating. The worn thwart. A strip of patched sail. Njord's tobacco tin. The name-board from her bow, OLD PI—, turning slowly, going under.

in the water, chin up, watching the name-board go. Not letting go of the rod.

The Marka and the Upp Igen, anchors dragging furrows in the lake bed, both crews hauling on the hawser, which runs taut into the black wall. And suddenly the hawser going slack for one heartbeat as the stern-post tears, and then jerking taut again, harder, as Vigolas catches it.

hauling, eyes gold on the storm wall, seeing two threads still in it: Vigolas's, green and warm and tied to his own; Njord's, iron.

The hauling: Krydog, Smurjan, Roffe, Flexsnus soaked under his little raincloud and a storm's worth of rain, Jeppson with his shaking hands wrapped in rag, Tihi, Daniel, Öde, Levla, Ysel, Trollmage pulling for once in his life. Mingus with the rope in his teeth, braced, growling. Rougeina, Swapping herself into the line wherever a hand slips.

inching in over the windlass, wet, one turn, another.

Vigolas and Njord being dragged backward through the black water toward the wall by the hawser, and the silver line in Njord's hands pulling taut behind them, and on the end of it, coming out of the heart of the storm, Hagel: hooked between the shoulders, dragged off his wheel, his hands clawing back toward the wheel of cloud as it dwindles behind him.

left alone in the middle of the eye with no hands on it. Slowing. Stopping. And the whole storm losing its shape round it, the walls sagging, the sails of thunderhead going slack and grey and formless.

in the water, being dragged, the rod held high, his eyes going flat and silver-calm one last time.

dipping into the lake as they're dragged. One slow stir. And ahead of them, between the dying storm and the two ships, the swells that haven't risen yet untwisting, a broad patch of the lake going glass-flat.

Out of the black wall of the storm, dragged backward through the rain onto the glass-flat patch of lake: Vigolas with his arm round Njord, Njord with the rod, and on the end of the line, pulled clean out of his own storm into the still air and the flat water: Hagel.

landing on his knees on the still water. And the moment he's still, the moment there's nothing turning under his hands, he begins to rain: water pouring off his coat faster, off his hair, his face, his hands, as if he were made of it, and he is.

Behind them, the flagship storm, captainless, coming apart over the lake: the black walls unravelling, the sails dissolving, the hail turning to ordinary rain, the whole island of weather just weather now, falling, harmless, everywhere, a long soft grey downpour over Heartbeat's great lake.

crews on deck, soaked, still holding the hawser, looking up into a sky that's just rain now. Sun breaking through it at the edges.

in the water, sagging, finally, against Vigolas's arm, the silver gone out of his eyes. Deaf. Exhausted. The rod still in his hand.

(Njord can't hear him. He nods anyway.)

Among the floating wreckage of Old Pike drifting out of the rain, one plank, whole: not split, not cracked, floating flat and steady. And on its underside, as it turns in the water, a small violet tick.

reaching out without thinking and catching hold of the plank. It holds him up. Easily. Like a good plank should.

Jeppson at the rail, soaked, his rag-wrapped hands on the wood, seeing the plank in the old man's grip from fifty metres. One eye shut.

Svala, a streak of white scarf on a Flight-Line from the Marka's bow straight across the flat water, and Rougeina behind her blinking from floating barrel to floating barrel, reaching the two men in the water together, getting arms under them.

paddling out into the flat water from the Marka, swimming hard, reaching Njord, and pressing his wet golden head under the old man's free hand.

The rain thinning to nothing. Sun on the lake. And on the glass-flat patch, still kneeling, still hooked, Hagel: smaller now, raining steadily off himself onto the flat water, a puddle widening round his knees. The admiral's coat hanging off thinning shoulders. The dead lantern at his throat.

looking up at them: at Njord holding a plank, at Vigolas, at the two ships, at the sun. Not a storm any more. An old man, very wet, running out.

on Svala's arm and Rougeina's shoulder, the plank under him, the line still in his fist, still hooked into the man who drowned his sons. Looking at him across the flat water. Not moving.

half rain, kneeling on still water, lifting his chin with the last of an admiral's pride.