Chapter 42
The few stars that came out after ERASE begin to go out, one by one, as if someone is snuffing candles.
THE MATCH HAS NO CLEAR WINNER.
THE CALLED WILL BE HELD UNTIL ONE APPEARS.
The horizon is moving closer, curling up at the edges like the rim of a bowl. The Arena is closing in.
back to back on the water, watching the world fold up around them.
very large and very calm:
THE LONGEST HOLDING LASTED FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.
Speechless for once.
In the rows of the dead, faint and far, the walls of the bowl show other figures: grey, frozen, standing inside the curve of the Arena like flies in amber. Two people mid-swing, locked in a duel, their clothes centuries out of fashion.
staring at the frozen duellists in the wall.
Lärka is back on her feet, furious and afraid, the Hush roaring back over the ship. She has picked her blade out of the broken rifle. Rougeina is on one knee, her heart still sluggish from Lärka's touch. Drekk's axe arm hangs, numb.
Trollmage writes in the air, the letters fainter now:
SHE'S BACK. I NEED 3 MORE HOURS.
on the deck among the pieces of his rifle, one hand on Mingus. Grey. Still breathing, barely.
Vigolas tries to punch his way out. He hammers green lightning at the curving wall of the Arena and the lightning splashes off it like water off glass.
panting, fist bleeding, forehead against the wall.
the crimson script still writing slowly across his throat. He can feel it too.
turning.
The Arena wall becomes a window for one moment, a gift or a cruelty from the Arbiter, and through it, small and silent and far away, Vigolas and Smurjan see the Marka's deck:
Kompis on his knees among broken wood.
Mingus pressed against him.
Rougeina down.
Drekk swinging an axe one-handed.
Trollmage flat on his back, writing words in the air.
A slight grey woman walking toward Kompis with a pale blade.
Hard square letters are stamped across the window, like a caption on a museum case:
THE CALLED CANNOT INTERFERE.
palms flat against the window, screaming soundlessly at his crew.
beside him, hands on the glass too, his three shadows stretched against it.
They step back from the window and look at each other.
He understands.
Quietly.
looking at Smurjan's arms. The crimson script is still writing, the Codex that took his whole life to open. Then he looks at Kali's burned arm, which won't grow back in here.
looking down at his own hands.
standing over Kompis again, blade raised. Behind her, Rougeina claws her way up the mast, too slow. Drekk is too far.
standing up in front of Kompis, just a dog, all eighty pounds of him between the blade and his person. He doesn't bark. He just stands there.
watching that through the fading window: his friend's dog, standing between a blade and a dying man.
Something in his face settles, the way it settled in front of the wave.
The bowl of the world is closing fast now, the sky a shrinking circle overhead. The dead in their rows stand perfectly still, watching the two men in the middle of the sea.
turning to face Smurjan.