Chapter 232: The Last Cairn

Chapter 232: The Last Cairn

Logan stayed crouched in front of the old man.

Rishin’s fist was still shut on the two grey stones. He did not open it, and Logan did not ask him to. Behind them, Hob lowered his great head and blew warm air over the pair of them until Vina giggled.

"He wants you back on," she said.

"Then he will have to wait," said Rishin. "I am going to walk."

He got up with Link’s hand under his elbow.

He was still bent, and his fist stayed pressed to his chest. But he stood without swaying, and when Vina tugged at him he came after her.

Logan watched him take the first few steps. They were slow and they were short, but the old man did not stop between them. The third stone had been the one that pinned Hob to the dust, and it was gone.

Logan picked it up from beside Hob’s knee. It weighed no more than a dry leaf.

He carried it over to the long heap where the Keeper had fallen and set it on top. Then he followed the others toward the Last Cairn.

The great heap rose ahead of them until it filled the pale sky.

Up close, Logan could see that the stones were of every kind. There were river stones worn round and flints with sharp edges. There were lumps of red brick and a piece of carved doorstep, and halfway up he saw a blue glass marble wedged between two rocks.

Every one of them had been carried here by someone, and every one had been set down.

The opening at its foot was a low arch of stacked stone. Odile had said that the ones who set their stones down went on to the Last Cairn, and now Logan understood her. They walked into it.

Billy rolled up to the arch and stopped dead.

"Boss," he said. "It is all stones in there. The walls are stones. The roof is stones. If one of them falls out, does the whole thing fall?"

"It has not fallen yet," said Daniel.

"That is not the same as no."

Halden ducked under the arch with his halberd held low. Terry went after him and scraped his shield along the roof. Billy rolled in last of the three, muttering about roofs.

Inside, a passage wound down through the heart of the cairn.

Its walls were set-down stones packed so tightly together that no glow came through between them. Link’s flame turned them red as he walked ahead of Vina, and the floor sloped gently down under their feet.

Some of the stones had marks scratched into them.

Logan stopped beside one at the height of his shoulder. It was a flat grey stone, and somebody had cut a name into it with the point of a knife. The stone beside it had two names, with a line scored between them.

"They wrote on them before they put them down," said Alice.

"Or after." Helen touched the name with one finger. "So they would remember what it had been."

Rishin walked past the written stones behind Vina. He kept his eyes on the girl’s back and never once looked at the walls.

They had gone down three long turns of the passage when the old man spoke.

"Boy."

Logan dropped back until he was walking at Rishin’s shoulder, with Hob’s great plated bulk behind them both.

"The next layer," said Rishin. "I will tell you about it before we reach it."

Logan looked at him.

"I felt that stone come into my hand," the old man said. "I know whose it was. I do not need to hear the words to know what they were." He walked a few more steps. "You were not wrong. I have let you walk into a great deal without telling you."

"You told me when it mattered."

"Not every time." Rishin’s mouth moved under the white beard. "So you will hear this one first. Call them back. They should all hear it."

The passage ended at a line.

It was cut across the floor from wall to wall, straight and deep, in the same way the end of every layer had been marked. Past it, the stones of the cairn stopped. The ground beyond was dark earth, and a soft silver light came in from somewhere ahead.

The family gathered in front of it. The units stood behind them, and Billy squeezed in at the end of the line.

Rishin stood with his back to the line and his fist held against his coat.

"Past this is the Tenth Layer," he said. "When you sleep there, you lose what only you remember. Anything someone who loves you also remembers, you keep."

Garen frowned. "Lose it how?"

"You wake, and it is gone. You do not miss it, because you do not remember that it was there. You only find the hole when you go looking for what used to fill it."

Edda had gone pale. She reached for her father’s arm.

"Grandmother," she said. "I do not want to lose Grandmother."

"You both remember her," said Rishin. "Your father remembers her as well as you do, and he loves you. She stays."

Bram put his big hand over his daughter’s and held it there.

"What about the things only one of us saw?" asked Alice.

Logan thought of the Sump. He had gone down the Sink first, alone with Billy and Terry and Halden and Tinkerbell and Pebble. He had stood on that dry shelf above the Silver and waited for the others, and nobody who loved him had been there to see it.

"Tell them," said Rishin. "Before you sleep, tell the ones who love you. What they can picture, you keep."

"And the units?" asked Logan.

"Your units lose nothing here. The layer does not count them." Rishin glanced at Billy. "But they cannot keep anything for you either."

"I remember everything, Boss," said Billy. "I will remind you."

"You can tell him," said the old man. "It will not come back to him."

Billy’s rim stopped humming. He did not say anything else.

They crossed together, and the panel opened in front of them.

[ You have entered the Tenth Layer. ] [ Blessing of the Tenth Layer: Remembered ] [ Curse of the Tenth Layer: Remembered ] [ What is remembered in love is kept. What is not, is lost. ]

Logan read it twice.

Rishin was the last of the family to cross. His shoulders came up a little as he crossed it, as though a strap had been loosened. His fist stayed closed.

Beyond the line there was a forest. The trees were tall and white, with smooth pale trunks and no branches until far above. Their leaves gave off the silver light, so that the whole forest glowed softly from overhead.

The cairn’s passage opened at the foot of the first trees. They made camp there, close together, under the glowing leaves.

Martha put her pot down on the dark earth. Winsmoke and Baldrun built the fire, and the family sat close around it.

They spent the whole meal telling.

Logan told Alice about the Sump. He described going over the lip with the Silver pulling at his legs, and the long way down the shaft in the dark.

Then he told her about the cave filling and emptying, and the black door on the shelf, and how long he had waited there for her.

Alice listened with her chin on her knees. When he stopped, she closed her eyes.

"I can see it," she said. "Tell me about the door again."

He told her again.

Across the fire, Garen was talking to Isolde.

He was telling her about the Whiteout Drift Leviathan. He described the inside of its mouth and the cold and the white, and how it had felt with the jaws closing round him.

Isolde had her hand on his arm. She did not look away from him once.

"You told me not to look," she said. "So tell me. I want to see all of it."

Garen told her all of it.

Beside them, Bram was telling Edda what he had seen when he went into the white without his rope. He told it slowly and gruffly. Edda listened with her head against his shoulder, and every so often she asked him to say a part again.

Vina sat between Helen and the old man with her bowl in her lap.

"I do not have anything to tell," she said. "I am never by myself. Somebody is always with me."

"That is a good way to be," said Helen.

Vina looked up at Rishin.

"Do you not have anything to tell, Grandpa? You can tell me. I will remember it."

The old man’s fist lay closed on his knee. He looked down at it, and then at the girl.

"Nothing I would lose, little one," he said. "Eat your stew."

Logan heard it from across the fire. He watched Rishin’s hand stay shut, and he did not ask.

[ Time remaining: 317 days ]