Chapter 324

The river of the dead silent. Not one voice on either ship. The thirty-one boats on the far shore that Vigolas held, unholding, the gold going out of them one by one, the grey pouring over them. And then the grey crossing the river: a slow fog with edges, flowing over the water toward two lashed ships.

where the grey's edge meets it: the water going colourless, the little boats in it fading as it passes, the river itself turning from grey to no colour at all.

(No SFX. Nothing.)

Both crews on the decks, barred, black bars across their mouths and plates, standing or sitting or kneeling, looking at each other without recognition. Kompis staring at Vigolas like a stranger. Krydog frozen halfway up. Nobody calling. Nobody able to.

The grey reaching her hull. The bark of the ship (Ferdinand's own fallen bark, half of it Jeppson's) greying where it touches, the name on her bow fading under a black bar.

on his knees on the Marka's deck, a hand flat on the planks, barred, his eyes wide. The planks he fitted by hand, one by one, eleven days. Going grey under his palm. He can't say a word. He holds the plank anyway.

The two ships sinking, not under water: under grey. Settling into the colourless shallows of Thanatos as the river forgets them, their keels grounding on nothing, their masts tilting, the lashings creaking.

One after another, the crews going down into the grey shallows as the decks tilt: not dying. Lying down. Barred, colourless, their outlines thinning, like sleepers in the boats of the dead.

Roffe, sitting down on Mätt, and then sliding off it into the grey, his hand still round Sleven.

Kali and Smurjan together, his arm round her one-armed shoulders.

Tihi, curled up small, silent.

Isa, falling perfectly still, the way she always stands.

Levla, rings dull, on his back, looking at the grey sky.

still frozen halfway up, kneeling in the shallows, the grey rising round him to his waist, his chest. Not lying down. Not able to get up either. His silver ring flickering in one eye. The other gone.

lying in the grey on her side, her blades beside her, her mouth still moving silently: eight names nobody can hear.

on his back on the tilted deck where the rail used to be, the black bar across his mouth, his chest rising and falling, his eyes open on the grey sky. His hand reaching across the planks. For his coat pocket. Not getting there.

gliding up alongside the grounded ships through the colourless river. Jorvand standing in it at last, closing his book on his thumb, looking down at them all in the grey. The tall thin stooped shape of him, half of it gone grey too.

very gently, very sad. Not triumph. Grief.

opening the book once more, to check. Running his pen down the column: every name barred. Every one.

below the column, where the pen stops. One more line, in someone else's hand, older, in ink that isn't his: a word that isn't barred, because there's no line in any ledger to bar it on.

(It's too small to read.)

From the grounded Marka. Small. Wet. Steady.

(A tail. Hitting a plank.)

looking up from his book. Frowning, for the first time, as if at a typing error.

In the middle of the fallen crew, one shape standing. Golden. Wet. Four legs planted on the grey-washed planks. A golden retriever, standing over a boy-who-is-a-man lying barred on his back: Mingus, standing over Kompis.

on the deck, in the grey. And the grey stopping there. Pooling round his four paws like water round stones, and not one hair of him going pale.

(No balloon.)

staring at the dog. Lifting his pen. Writing, carefully, at the bottom of the column: M—

The ink of the M beading. Rolling off the paper like water off wax. Refusing. He tries again. It beads again. There is no line for this one in any book.

looking down at Kompis under him. At the bar across his best friend's mouth. Licking it. The bar not coming off. Licking it again. Whining, very softly.

barred, colourless, his eyes half open, looking up at the golden face over him. Not recognising it. Not remembering its name. And his hand, on its own, lifting off the grey and finding the dog's ear. The way it has every night of his life.

in golden fur. And for one panel, at his fingertips where they touch the dog, colour. A tiny warm spot. His own skin-colour back, the size of a fingerprint.

(No balloon.)

seeing it. Going still in his boat.

Jorvand stepping out of the black boat onto the grey water, walking toward the grounded Marka, one slow stooped step at a time, the book under his arm. The first time he has ever walked toward anything in a fight.

lifting his head. Looking at the man walking toward him across the grey. Ears back. Not growling. Just standing. Over Kompis. Over all of them.

Drawn through the golden fur: one heartbeat. Steady. The one every heart in this series has been measured in. The beat that never overflows.

And round the grounded ships, for one heartbeat, the grey shudders. All of it. Shore to shore. As if something it can't count had just counted.

stopping on the grey water ten paces from the ship. His book under his arm. His face, for the first time in two sagas, afraid.

The river of the dead, colourless. Two grounded ships. Twenty fallen. A kind tired man stopped on the water. And on the tilted deck, alone on its feet in the whole grey world, a golden retriever standing over his boy, the grey pooling at his paws and going no further, and in his warm brown eyes, deep down, very faint, a gold light starting.

(No balloon.)