Chapter 286

Sun on Heartbeat's great lake. The rain gone. The flat patch, glass-calm, and on it: Hagel on his knees, raining off himself into a widening puddle; Njord facing him, held up by Jeppson's plank and Svala's arm, the line still in his fist; Vigolas treading water beside them. The two ships coming slowly in, anchors up.

smaller than an hour ago, his coat hanging loose, water running steadily from his fingertips, his hair, his chin.

reading his lips. Saying nothing. A long, long look.

looking out across the lake, to where the storm-wall still stands at the horizon, smaller now, a dozen storms left in it, captains without an admiral, milling, lightning flickering uncertainly.

a thin, wet smile.

lifting his chin.

A rowboat coming across the flat water from the Upp Igen: Krydog rowing, and in the stern, leaning back at an impossible angle under his own tiny raincloud, soaked to the skin, the tin in his hand, Flexsnus.

as the rowboat bumps alongside, leaning over the gunwale toward the drowned admiral, raincloud and all, polite as a shopkeeper.

staring at the man under the raincloud.

quieter now, to Njord, and then to Vigolas.

the thin smile going thinner. Caught.

reading it all off their lips, nodding slowly at Flexsnus.

raining faster, looking from one to the other. Running out of time and knowing it.

And the tiniest movement of his lips. Before Njord can answer, before Hagel can finish closing his mouth on the last word, right in the half-heartbeat between the offer and the shake.

staring at the glowing sentence. At the extra word in it. Trying to unsay it, and the words holding like a hook.

a hand going to his chest, wincing, a little grey.

a long silence. Then, slowly, the outrage going out of his face. Something like a laugh. Rain running off his chin.

answering his own question, looking out past the storm-wall, toward the dark.

wading closer on his plank. Taking the line in both hands. Looking into the drowned admiral's face, very close.

looking at him. A long time. The lightning gone quiet in his eyes.

quiet, almost gentle, the last of the admiral in his voice.

his huge face crumpling, holding on to the plank and the line, weeping on the flat water like a child. Mingus pressing against him. Svala's arm tight round him.

reaching up the line to Hagel's back, finding the barbed bone hook in the sodden coat, and working it free, carefully, the way you'd free a fish you meant to let go.

Hagel rising off the still water, lifted as soon as he moves, the rain round him gathering instead of falling, a coat of cloud, a beard of hail coming back, smaller than before, and drifting away across the lake toward the storm-wall, slowly, not looking back.

The storm-wall moving: a dozen storms falling in behind their admiral, sails of thunderhead filling, and the whole remnant of the Storm Fleet sailing out, through the gap in the wall, into the dark of the Deep. And behind them, the wall itself thinning, breaking up, until there's nothing on the horizon at all but open sky.

on the dock, both hands on her mouth, staring at a horizon she's never seen without the wall on it.

Both crews and the whole village, soaked, battered, alive, a bonfire on the beach, Roffe cooking salt-cod in mjölksta (it's surprisingly good). Njord wrapped in three blankets on a barrel, Jeppson's plank leaning against his knee. Flexsnus under his raincloud, a little grey, a cup in his hand, Levla sitting right next to him inside the rain, getting soaked on purpose.

digging in his waistcoat, pulling out a folded slip of paper, and holding it out across the fire to Vigolas.

unfolded in Vigolas's hands by firelight, in a neat merchant's script with a ruled line under it:

Vigolas, a man with a sash full of cubes and pockets full of bottle caps, reading the bill again, slowly grinning, folding it, and tucking it into his coat instead of paying it.

(Over Flexsnus's head, the tiny raincloud keeps raining. Day two of seven.)