Chapter 379

The near stands full of small fires and sleeping allies, wrapped in sails and coats. Below, the gold line of the Great Ring round the bare floor, and Emma on the lowest step inside it, awake, her staff beside her. Krydog standing at the line with one boot over it, arms folded, awake.

at the top of the bridge, still sitting on the upturned lid of Mätt, grey-faced, Sleven across his knees, the horn spoon in his beard, staring at nothing.

on a bench a few rows up, wrapped in a blanket, her hair still damp from the sea, watching him. Turning to shake Flexsnus awake beside her.

throwing the blanket off, eyes huge, the giggle starting.

Krydog, not leaving the line, holding a slice of bread over a candle-stub on a stick at arm's length, the bread instantly black. "…It's toast."

Daniel, by lantern, writing out a recipe in his neat legal hand, three pages long, numbered clauses, and then looking at the ingredients in front of him (one onion) with deep professional disappointment.

Perne, at the rim with Fjärran, spotting a bush of wild bark-berries on a ridge two hundred metres down the trunk, a crimson tear running, "There.", and climbing down for them.

Jeppson, his fists open again at last, flexing his fingers, carving: a little bowl, out of a scrap of the Bridge's cork that Flisa handed him, his first steady work in a day.

finished, small, smooth, perfectly round, and on its underside, a violet tick and tiny numerals:

1,052

The whisper spreading, the way "Plank!" and "Rope!" spread: bench to bench, fire to fire, in the dark.

waking up on a bench with his crow on his chest, hearing it. Sitting up. Reaching for his pot.

on the bench beside him, bursting open, and up out of it, mid-sentence, a one-armed woman with a red braid, already talking:

(She's already slapping dough on her own thigh.)

in the dark at the edge of the stands, walking back from the top of the bridge with a large wet fish under his arm, looking innocent. Behind him, far below on the raft-city, a tiny Sill on Young Pike's deck, signing furiously up the mile at him.

sitting very still on his bench, a hand on his chest, the seventeen voices inside him murmuring, and his shadow stirring at his feet, a second time. Something huge, gaunt, slow, rising out of the shadow behind Kali: a great hunched shape all ribs and jaw, eyes like empty bowls. Bakasura.

opening slowly. In the palm: a stone. Smooth, grey, round, the size of an egg, polished by three hundred years of turning in a hand.

staring at all of it. At the bowl in Jeppson's hands. His big face doing something it has never had to do.

his eyes wet. Then, very gravely, because he is a cook and this is a meal and a meal deserves respect: taking the cork bowl from Jeppson. Holding it out.

The troll-coffee, poured first, black as tar and steaming; Roffe drinking it, his eyes watering, his whole face clenching. "…That's awful." Drinking all of it.

Kali's ash-bread, grey and hard; Roffe breaking it, chewing, chewing. "…Mostly ash." / "IN THE NAME!"

Vigolas's fish, which Krydog has somehow already burnt on the candle-stick, black on one side and raw on the other; Roffe eating it anyway, bones and all.

The toast. The berries. A pickled herring. Iskall's honey-cake. A child's crust, handed up solemnly and eaten solemnly.

as he eats: a warm amber light coming up in them, like a hearth catching. But not the light of the Full Table going out from him. The other way. Coming in.

the vast gaunt shape bending down over the cook, holding out the smooth stone between two enormous fingers. Placing it in Roffe's hand.

looking at the stone in his palm. At the demon who has been hungry for three hundred years, giving away the one thing he never ate. Closing his hand round it. Putting it in his apron pocket, very carefully, over his heart.

sitting back on his cauldron lid. His hand on his stomach. Stillness. Something happening in him that he doesn't have a word for, because he's never needed one. And then he finds the word, the one he painted on his cauldron, the one he never was.

bursting into tears and into giggles at the same time, flinging herself at him, and Roffe catching her one-handed, laughing, crying, the horn spoon falling out of his beard.

at Roffe's feet, his head resting on the cook's knee. Roffe's big hand on the dog's head.

The rim quiet again. The fires low. People drifting back to their benches, fed and smiling. Roffe asleep sitting up on his cauldron lid, the stone in his pocket, Tihi asleep against his side, Mingus across his boots.

alone on a bench, awake, his tin open on his knee. Taking out from under the lid a bottle cap: gold-painted, very old, polished till it shines, a tiny winged figure stamped in it. The Camilla cap. Turning it over in his fingers. Over. Over.

(He doesn't say anything.)

a few benches away, watching him do it. Not saying anything either. Then looking away, so Flexsnus can have it to himself.

at the gold line, one boot over it, standing, arms folded. Vigolas coming down the steps and standing beside him, on the outside of the line. The two captains looking out over the dark floor.

not looking at him. The old grin, small.

a long silence. Then Krydog putting out a bandaged fist, not looking. And Vigolas bumping it with his own.

a little way up the stands, awake, his back against a bench, Mingus come back to lie across his legs. Looking up at the stars over the open Arena. Not sleeping. He can't dream the cabin any more. He doesn't need to.

The near stands asleep. The floor bare inside its gold line. And across the floor, the far curve of stands, a thousand rows, still dark, first light just touching their highest seats.

in the first grey light. Rows of bark seats that were empty all night. And in them now, faint, still, sitting: shapes. Dozens. Hundreds. Here and there, a face turned toward the near stands.