Chapter 378

The last crooked span against the carved lip of the Arena, and beyond it, for the first time seen from its own rim: the Arena. An amphitheatre carved into the side of the world tree, rows upon rows of bark seats curving down to a floor of bare bark, ridged, grey, wide as a harbour, open to the sky. Lanterns from the bridge throwing long shadows down the rows. Across the floor, far off, the facing curve of stands, dark.

looking down into it. Mingus at Kompis's heel. Nobody speaks for a long time.

staring down at the bare floor.

beside him, not looking at the floor. Looking at him.

arriving at the rim up the last stair, out of breath, her staff in her hand, her braid over her shoulder, grey strands all through it. Looking down at the floor with a completely different face: measuring it.

beside her, dripping still, the wooden fist's splinters in his coat.

turning to the bridge, cupping her hands, calling down the long chain of allies still standing on the spans from the planks.

The call running down the chain, span to span, the way "Plank!" ran up it. And back up the chain, hand over hand, coils of rope: tarred hemp, grass cord, chain-wrapped hawser, a lamp-boat's thin painter, a troll's braided cable as thick as a leg.

Sill, on the raft-city, untying Young Pike's mooring line and handing it up, Njord beside her reading her lips, nodding.

A Brygdar troll, diving off a smack into the black water where his longship sank and coming up with her anchor cable in his teeth.

Iskall, untying her lamp-boat's painter with a child holding the lamp for her.

Aska, unknotting the black barge's tow-rope, ash still caught in its weave. Ivo, putting his hand on it a moment first, and the ash going out.

Tihi, in her shift, standing on the rail, staring at a mast-top just showing in the sea beside the root at the trunk's foot, a wet bandaged-fist flag hanging off it.

(She dives.)

The Upp Igen sitting upright on Flisa's root in the dark water, her deck under the first span's foot, fish already nosing at her rail. Tihi swimming down to her mast with a knife in her teeth, cutting the flag halyard below the flag, so the flag stays flying.

(No balloon.)

Tihi hauling herself up, gasping, the halyard coiled over her shoulder, and Roffe lifting her the last foot.

Ropes piling up: hundreds of coils. Emma on her knees among them, knotting end to end, fast, a sailor's knot every few seconds, Daniel and Flexsnus feeding her the ends. Her lips moving: counting ships.

stopping. Looking up from the knots. Down the bridge. Out to sea, where three black-and-silver hulls sit wrecked on the root-shelves at the trunk's foot, their Order crews huddled on the tilted decks, cold, hunterless, abandoned by their fleet.

staring at her.

A lamp-boat rowing out to the wrecked Order hulks: Iskall standing in the bow, lamp up, not threatening. An Order sailor on a tilted deck, a young man in a white coat gone grey with salt, staring at the lamp. Then at the bridge. Then untying a coil of white rope from his ship's rail and throwing it down into the boat.

(No balloon. He doesn't know why he did it. He does it anyway.)

The white Order rope knotted into the line among the brown and black and grey ones, Emma's fingers pulling the knot tight.

feeding the last ends to her, his tin under his arm, frowning at the coils.

running back through the knots: and there, between the Tidekant smack's tarred line and a Lumen boat's painter, a thin white cord, silky, the white of an Order seal-knot, tied in neatly with a knot she didn't tie.

(No balloon.)

At the end of its bench, a man in a long grey-white coat, sitting very straight, a bowl in front of him, not looking up. One of his gloves is off.

(No balloon. Nobody on the rim can see him from there. Only the reader.)

tying the last knot: the Upp Igen's halyard to Young Pike's mooring line. Pulling it tight.

raised in both hands and planted, its butt driving into Ferdinand's bark just inside the line.

And from the staff, along every rope, a gold line lighting, racing away from her in both directions round the great loop, and meeting itself on the far side of the ring, out on the open floor.

Everything inside the ring drawn a shade calmer than everything outside it: the bark a softer grey, the shadows gentler, the air still. The bare centre of the floor beyond it, not calmer at all. The five, at the rim, feeling the ring from there. Smurjan closing his eyes.

kneeling down at the ring's knot on the floor, just below the lowest step of the stands, inside the line, her staff planted beside her. Settling. The way you sit when you're going to be sitting for a long time.

at the line, looking down at her.

turning to the rim, to the allies crowding the top of the bridge, raising his voice.

looking up at him from the step, a little smile.

at the rim, eyes gold, looking at the ring: and seeing that every thread in the Arena that crosses the gold line goes slack as it crosses, loose, unpullable, as if nothing on the other side of it could ever be made to hold anyone.

(Mingus sniffs the gold line. Steps over it. Steps back. Wags.)

The allies coming up the bridge in their hundreds and spreading out along the top rows of the near stands, finding places, lighting small fires. And at the rim, beside the top of the bridge, steam: Mätt, the cartwheel cauldron, hauled up a mile of stairs on a troll's back, bubbling. Roffe at it with Sleven in his hand, ladling for the last of the climbers, bowl after bowl after bowl.

The last bowl handed out. And Roffe, as big as a door, sitting down hard on the upturned lid of his cauldron, grey-faced, Sleven across his knees. The horn spoon in his beard. His hands empty. In the quietest panel of the night, all alone at the rim with everyone fed:

(And across the rim, Tihi, wrapped in a blanket, still wet from the sea, looking at him.)