Chapter 201: Spoken

The stair went down and down beside the falls.

The roar of the water filled it. It came up through the soles of Logan’s boots and into his teeth, and after a few turns he stopped trying to talk over it.

The others had stopped too. They went down in pairs with the spray on their faces, and they let the falls have the stair.

Vina walked with her hand in the old man’s. Twice Logan saw her look back up the stair, toward the turn where the gold had been.

The third time, Rishin stopped and waited until she was done looking. Then they went on.

The light changed as they went down.

The gold of the Fourth Layer thinned behind them turn by turn, until it was only a warm stain on the wet rock far overhead. A different light came up from below to meet it.

It was pale and blue, and it was cold. It lay on the spray and turned it to mist. It lay on Alice’s face beside him and made her look like a stranger carved out of ice.

’Every layer brings a different light,’ Logan thought. ’Silver, then black and gold, then the gold of the fields. And now this.’

He held her hand a little tighter. She looked round at him, and she was Alice again.

They slept on a landing behind the falls.

It was a wide shelf cut back into the rock, with the water pouring past its open side in a white wall. The roar was softer there, and the spray did not reach the back of it.

Martha set her pot on the stone. They fed each other out of habit, though they had left the Fourth Layer behind. The stew was only stew again, good and hot. It tasted the way it had always tasted, before the fields.

Vina fell asleep with her head on Rishin’s knee before she had finished her bowl. The old man did not move his leg until he was sure she would not wake.

[ Time remaining: 337 days ]

The stair ended at a pool.

The falls came down into it from far overhead in a long white rope, and the pool spread out from the foot of the rock, wide and black.

On its far side, the water slipped away between two banks of stone and ran on as a river.

Beyond the banks, there was a forest of stone.

There were columns of it, thousands of them. They were dark grey and smooth, and every one was cut on six faces as cleanly as a pencil.

They stood close together in their thousands, some no taller than a man and some so tall that their tops were lost in the mist.

A pale blue moss grew on the crown of every column. That was where the cold light came from.

The river ran away into them. So did a narrow path along its bank.

They had taken a dozen steps along that path when the panel opened.

[ You have entered the Fifth Layer. ] [ Blessing of the Fifth Layer: Spoken ] [ Curse of the Fifth Layer: Spoken ] [ Words spoken in love are heard. All other words fall silent. ]

Garen read it aloud. Logan saw him do it.

He saw Garen’s lips move and his jaw work, and he saw the slight frown he always wore when he read a panel twice. Not one sound came out of him.

Garen stopped. He looked at Isolde. He opened his mouth again and spoke, clearly and slowly, the way a man speaks to a foreigner.

Nothing came out. The river ran past them and the falls roared behind, and Garen Rezvolt’s mouth moved, and not a word of it reached anyone.

Isolde stared at him.

"Garen," she said sharply. "Dear. Speak to me."

Her voice came out as clearly as it always did. Every one of them heard it.

Garen’s eyes went wide. He tried a third time, with his hands this time as well. His mouth shaped the words, and the air did not carry them.

"Garen?" said Logan.

He heard himself say it. He heard the worry in it too.

Alice had already worked it out. Logan saw her get there. Her eyes went from the panel to Garen and back.

"Dad," she said. "Say it to Mom. Say it to her because you love her. Not because you are reading."

Garen turned to his wife. He took both her hands.

"Isolde," he said. "Can you hear me?"

Every word came out. It was his ordinary voice, a little rough from the spray.

Isolde shut her eyes. Then she laughed, short and shaky, and she pressed his hands against her chest.

"Yes," she said. "I can hear you."

Garen let go of her hands and turned to the rest of them. He beamed at them and said a whole sentence, cheerfully and with feeling.

None of it made a sound.

He stopped. He looked offended. Behind him, Helen started to laugh and could not stop.

They tried it carefully after that, one at a time, on the path beside the river.

Loudness made no difference, and neither did language. Daniel asked which way the river went, and his mouth moved and the question vanished.

Then he looked at Helen and asked her if she was cold. That came out as plainly as if they had been sitting at their kitchen table.

Laughing made a sound, and so did crying. When Vina sneezed, everybody heard it. Only words were taken.

"It is not about who it is said to," said Alice slowly. She was working it out as she spoke. "Papa said it to all of us, and it went. It is about why. If you say it because you love somebody, it is heard."

"And if you say it because you want the bread passed," said Daniel to Helen, "it is not."

Helen smiled at him. "You said that to me."

"I did."

"So it was heard."

"So it was," said Daniel. He looked pleased with himself.

Billy had been watching all of this from the edge of the path. Now he rolled forward into the middle of them.

His mouth moved. Logan could see him talking very fast. He knew that look on Billy’s face. It was the look that came before at least five complaints, one after another.

Not one of them made a sound.

Billy stopped. He tried again, louder, with his whole rim shaking. Then he spun once in a complete circle on the spot, out of pure fury, and threw up a shower of grit.

Logan laughed before he could stop himself.

"Billy," he said. "I cannot hear you. I am sorry."

He heard that come out of him clearly. Billy heard it too. The wheel stopped spinning and stood looking at him, and the fury went out of him.

He did not try to speak again. He rolled up against Logan’s leg and stayed there.

’They cannot speak here,’ Logan thought. ’Not one of them. It is the same as the candles and the light and the bread. This place does not count them.’

He looked at the units standing along the path. Halden. Terry. Solveig with his wings folded. Martha with her pot. All of them silent, and all of them listening.

’But they can hear us,’ he thought. ’If I give them an order because I want them safe, they will hear it.’

Rishin had not spoken yet.

He was standing a little apart from them at the edge of the river, with Vina’s hand in his. He was looking into the forest of columns, at the place where the path went in among them.

Vina tugged his hand.

"Grandpa," she said. "Can you talk?"

The old man looked down at her.

"Yes, little one," he said. His voice was very low. "I can talk to you."

All of them heard it. Then he lifted his eyes to the rest of them.

"Listen to me now, all of you," he said in the same low voice. Every word of it came out clearly. Logan saw Isolde’s head come up at that.

"On this layer, say only what you mean in love. And say it softly. Whatever you say here is heard," said Rishin. "By everything."

He did not explain what he meant. He turned and walked into the columns, and Vina went with him.

The path wound between the columns beside the river.

The stone stood close on either side, and the mist hung between it. The blue moss lit everything from above with a light that cast no warmth.

It was very quiet. The falls had faded behind them, and there was only the river running over its stones.

They passed the first people of the Fifth Layer a little way in.

It was a man and a woman walking toward them along the path, carrying a bundle of sticks between them. They were thin and grey-faced, and they walked very close together.

When they saw the family, they stopped.

The woman’s eyes went to Garen, who was just turning his head to speak to Isolde. Her face filled with fear. She put her finger hard against her lips and shook her head at him, again and again.

Then the two of them stepped off the path between the columns and were gone into the mist. They had not made a single sound.

"Why were they so afraid?" whispered Vina.

Rishin did not answer her.

He had stopped on the path. He stood with his head turned to one side, listening.

Logan heard it a beat after he did.

It came from far off among the columns, from somewhere deep in the mist on their left. It was a voice. It was a young woman’s voice, raw and hoarse, as if she had been using it for a very long time.

"Papa!" it called. "Papa, answer me! Please!"

Alice’s hand closed on Logan’s arm.

"I know that voice," she said. "That is Edda."

Before anyone could answer her, another noise rose out of the mist from the same direction.

It was quieter than the voice. It was a dry rustling, like a great many bare feet moving over stone. All of it was moving toward the place where Edda was calling.