Chapter 49
Kompis lies in the heap of sails where he fell asleep. He hasn't woken. Mingus lies pressed along his side.
His eyes move under the lids, fast. His fingers twitch. A new cut opens across his cheek as we watch, thin and red.
pressing a cloth to it. Her hands are steady. Her face isn't.
Vigolas has been shaking him: shoulders, face, a bucket of water.
shaking his head.
hands in his hair.
at the wheel, who hasn't said a word all morning. He lets go of the spokes.
Everyone turns to look at him.
the smallest smile, gone at once.
flipping through his Codex.
asleep and bleeding. The metronome is the one who's lost.
He lifts his head off Kompis's chest and looks at them, ears up. What?
a slow grin.
the warm golden fur. A faint golden pulse line runs along the bottom of the panel. ba-dum. ba-dum.
Smurjan steps forward, three shadows behind him. One of them steps out: Kali, her one good arm on her hip, the other a burned stump.
already sitting on the rail, legs swinging.
Kompis sits bolt upright, eyes open and grey. His hands go for Rougeina's throat.
Rougeina Swaps with a coil of rope; Kompis's hands close on hemp. He's up, ridden, moving like smoke. Vigolas tackles him from behind, and they roll across the deck. Kompis's elbow cracks Vigolas's nose.
Drekk and Smurjan pin his arms. Trollmage sits on his legs. Mingus licks his face frantically, whining.
staring at nothing. His mouth moves in the slow, wrong voice:
nose bleeding, kneeling on his friend's chest.
They lie down in a circle around Kompis, heads together like the spokes of a wheel, drawn exactly like the night they broke into the Archive, a lifetime ago, with one huge gap in the circle where Marka used to lie. Kompis is at the hub. Mingus is curled across his chest. Every crew member has one hand resting on the dog.
on the rail, watching over them, her one arm resting on her knee.
eyes closed, whispering.
eyes closed, her hand on Mingus's flank. ba-dum.
eyes closed. Behind his lids, the crimson script dims. ba-dum.
lying on his back, staring up at the sky.
beside him, eyes closed, smiling a little.
His eyes are wet. He closes them.
(He doesn't finish. His breathing slows.)
ba-dum. Trollmage's breath slows.
ba-dum. Rougeina's fingers go slack in the gold fur.
ba-dum. Smurjan's three shadows lie down together.
ba-DUM. Vigolas, last, grins into the dark. "Coming, buddy."
The only one still awake in the circle. He looks at all of them, at their hands on him, at his person under him. He lets out a long, heavy dog-sigh and closes his eyes.
They wake up inside.
A frozen northern country built out of one man's sleep: snow falling upward from the ground into a violet sky, pine forests hanging upside down from the clouds like icicles, a river of black ice cracking with old voices. Far away, a single burning village, the only warm light in the world. Further still, a lone cabin with one lit window.
And across the whole horizon, from one end of the world to the other, lies a sleeping golden dog the size of a mountain range, his flank rising and falling, every breath a warm wind that blows the falling snow sideways. His snout rests on the edge of the world. His tail is lost in the clouds.
The crew stands in the snow at the bottom of the splash, small as ants, staring up.
staring at the horizon.
very quietly, almost to herself.
On the ridge above them, against the violet sky, shapes rise out of the snow one after another, black, glistening, too many fingers. Hundreds. Their heads turn toward the crew in perfect unison, like dogs hearing a whistle.
hand on his axe, seeing them.