Chapter 321

The lashed ships gliding out of the Witness Wood onto the river of the dead, and the river going on and on: wide, slow, grey, under a low sky the colour of rain. Low grey hills on both banks, and cut into them, row above row like the terraces of an arena, stands, and in the stands, sitting, hands in their laps, eyes closed, the watching dead. On the water, everywhere, hundreds upon hundreds of small grey boats, drifting, turning slowly, each with one sleeper in it. And the two ships among them, lashed together with chalk, much too big, much too loud, much too alive for this place.

both crews and forty-one refugees, all silent. Old Stina with her lantern down at her knee. Hedda holding Vante's hand.

boats drifting close past the Marka's side, close enough to touch.

An old fisherman curled on his side, his pipe held in both folded hands like a flower.

A young woman asleep on her back, a baby asleep on her chest, both breathing the same slow nothing.

A soldier with his boots off and set neatly side by side at his feet, his face younger than his grey hair.

Every face at peace. Every eye closed.

eyes gold. From every sleeper, threads: thin, gold, very long, running away up out of the river, back through the Wood behind them, out toward the world. The fisherman's to a woman somewhere who still sets two cups. The soldier's to a boy who keeps his boots.

leaning out of Smurjan's shoulder over the rail at the young woman's boat, unable to help herself.

(The young woman doesn't stir. The baby doesn't stir.)

on the Marka's hatch, wide awake, crown in his lap, looking out over a whole river of sleepers with the face of a man who knows more about sleep than anyone alive.

on the hill above the left bank as the ships glide past below. Row on row of the watching dead. And one row, near the bottom, of sailors: drowned men in salt-stiff jackets, hair still wet, a few with an old wound or a missing tooth, sitting shoulder to shoulder with their eyes closed.

at the Marka's bow, coat back on, clinking, gripping the rail with both split hands.

(He lifts two fingers to his brow: the salute they gave him once in the Arena. Nobody in the row salutes back. They're asleep.)

on the Marka's yard, going rigid. Looking down at a little boat drifting past below, and in it a tiny, very old woman with a face like a walnut, curled up asleep with a bone whistle on a cord on her chest, the crack in it showing.

Svala already crouching on the yard the way she crouches before a Flight-Line, her whole body leaning toward the boat like a bird about to drop. And Rougeina, beside her on the yard in one silver-rose blink, a hand on her shoulder.

(Svala doesn't fly. Her scarf goes still.)

goggles down, the violet grid in his eyes, sighting across the whole width of the river at the far stands, the way he'd sight along a plank. Stopping. At a figure near the top: a broad old troll-mason asleep in his seat, and on his leather belt, a little brass buckle stamped with a hammer under a crooked crown.

lowering the goggles. Seeing how near the top of the far stands the old troll-mason sits. How near the crest of the far hills.

up off the hatch now, looking along the near stands, then the far, row after row, very slowly. Not finding what he's looking for. Sitting back down.

on the sawn-off shotgun on his bandolier: blued steel with a gold vein, a birch grip, two boys and a dog, running engraved on the stock. And a small gold-edged balloon coming out of the gun, a child's voice:

Krydog on the Upp Igen's side of the join, upright again, Roffe's hand still under his elbow just in case, looking along the stands with everybody else. Not finding anybody. Frowning at nothing, like a man who has walked into a room for something and can't remember what. Kompis, a few feet away, glancing at him and away.

at the Upp Igen's rail, looking not at the stands but across the river, at the far hills. A beat after everyone else, she sees it. She doesn't raise her voice. She never does.

at the edge of the grey on the far side. An old woman asleep in it with her hands folded on a knitted shawl. Her outline going pale, thinning, a soft grey line where her edge was. Then nothing in the boat. Then the boat drifting a moment, empty. Then not the boat.

eyes gold, watching her thread: running up out of the river, through the Wood, out toward the world to someone, somewhere. And ending. Not cut at a bar. Just stopping, the gold going out of it from the far end, like a lamp turned down in a window a long way off.

shoving off Roffe's arm, roaring for the first time since the shingle.

The lashed ships turning, slow and enormous and clumsy, two hulls answering two wheels as one ship, the chalk join groaning, nudging aside little boats of sleepers as gently as Drekk and Daniel can manage, heading out toward the middle of the river.

(Svala opens her mouth. Shuts it.)

The lashed ships in the very middle of the river of the dead, hundreds of boats drifting round them, the near stands behind, the far stands ahead with the grey coming down them row by row. Closer now. Every face on the far slope clear. Going pale, one row at a time.

on the Marka's bow rail, the coat clinking, green lightning crawling up his arms and finding nothing to go to. His hand going, by itself, to his coat pocket, where something small and warm glows through the cloth: Aska's ember. Holding it there.

(Nothing answers. The grey keeps coming.)

Vante, on Hedda's hip, pointing at the far shore with one mittened hand.

(Hedda putting her hand over his eyes.)

at the rail, her ringed ash staff in both hands, a healer looking at a shore full of people she can't heal.

(She stops. She doesn't finish it.)

on the chalk join. Suddenly spinning round, away from the far shore, facing back the way they came. Ears flat. Standing four-square in front of everyone on both ships. A low growl coming out of him, the growl eighty pounds of golden retriever saves for one man in the world.

turning with him.

(And one by one, along both rails, every head turning to look back upriver.)

Far behind them, small at the end of the long grey water, where the river runs out of the Witness Wood: the far arch of the river-gate, two pale trunks leaning together over the water. And sliding across it, from nowhere, slow, level, steady, as neatly as a ruler laid across a page: a black bar.

(No SFX. A soft, dry rustle, like a page being turned in another room.)

at the wheel, a hand on the Keeper's Log, his whole face going grey.

The bar settled across it. The gap beneath it filled with black, like a line of a page inked out. The grey river still running out under it toward the Wood. Nothing else will.

The river of the dead under its rain-coloured sky. The near stands asleep. The far stands going pale under the grey, row by row. And in the very middle of it, small and alone among hundreds of drifting boats, two ships lashed into one, every soul aboard looking back at a door that isn't there any more.

And a voice from everywhere: from the water, the hills, the stands, the sky. A plain balloon with no tail, edged in faint grey, soft as paper tearing.