Chapter 243: Already Given

Logan was halfway up the path before he knew he had moved.

He grabbed Billy’s rim with both hands and hauled, and the wheel did not come. Billy had locked his blades into the rock. He sat before the dark curtain as solid as the arch itself, humming his low uneven hum.

"Take it back," Logan said. "Billy. Take it back. That is an order."

"I cannot, Boss. I already gave it."

The humming behind the curtain went on, soft and slow. Logan stared at the panel and waited for the next line to come, and for Billy’s voice to go out of him like the curtain had gone out at the first gate.

The next line came.

[ Refused. ] [ One voice is already kept here for Rishin. ]

Logan read it twice. Then he read it again, because the words would not settle.

Beside him, the old man had gone completely still.

"Kept," said Rishin. "For me."

He said it as if he did not understand the word. Logan had never once heard him sound like that, not on the rim and not in the Sink and not on the pit ledge of the Eighth Layer.

The curtain thinned.

It did not go out all at once, the way the first one had. It drew back from the middle like smoke from an opened door, and the dark behind it turned grey, and then the path showed through it going on down.

The humming did not stop. It only grew a little clearer.

Billy unlocked his blades. He rolled back from the arch inch by inch, until his rim touched Logan’s knees.

"Boss," he said. "It is still mine. My voice."

"I know."

"I did not want to give it." The wheel’s voice wobbled. "I only did not want you to give anything."

Logan crouched down and put his forehead against the cold rim, and held on.

Rishin went forward to the arch.

He did not step through it. He stood under it with his free hand flat against the black rock, and he listened.

"Senior?" said Daniel.

"She gave it for me," said the old man. His voice was rough. "So I would not have to give mine. And it is still here. It is still kept, and it is still mine."

He turned his head toward the family.

"Days are spent," he said. "You give them and they are gone. That is why the first gate asked us again. But a voice is not spent. A voice is kept. And what Saya gave here, she gave for me, and the gate remembers who she gave it for."

Garen whistled softly.

"So it opened for you," he said slowly. "Because she already paid. And the rest of us come through with you."

"I did not know." Rishin’s hand stayed on the rock. "I never came back down. Nobody ever comes back down. I did not know her gift would still hold."

Isolde had her hand over her mouth.

"Why did it ask, then?" said Alice. Her voice was sharp. "If it was already given. Why did it ask at all?"

The old man was quiet. Then he took his hand off the rock.

"Because the Abyss longs for love," he said. "It wanted to see who would offer."

Logan looked at Billy.

He thought of the wheel rolling up the path past all of them, alone, with nobody telling him to. He thought of Pebble facing the first gate, calm, with his sling on his shoulder.

’It wanted to see,’ he thought. ’And it saw.’

He felt cold right through.

"Billy," he said. "Never again."

"Boss."

"Never again. You do not offer. Not your voice, not anything. If it asks, you let me decide."

Billy’s rim hummed on and off, the way it did when he was thinking.

"I will try, Boss," he said finally. "I am bad at not talking. I might be bad at this too."

Alice had come up behind Logan. She did not look at Billy. She looked at Logan, and her face was white and furious and frightened all at once.

"That goes for you too," she said. "You heard it. It wanted to see who would offer."

"I did not offer."

"You ran at the gate." Her hand closed on his arm. "You were at that gate before you knew you were moving. I saw your face."

Logan opened his mouth to argue with her and found he could not. She was right, and they both knew it.

’If that panel had asked for Billy,’ he thought, ’I would have offered myself instead. I would not even have thought about it.’

"Never again," Alice said. "For either of us. Say it."

"Never again," said Logan.

Vina went to the arch.

She stood under it beside Rishin and tipped her head back, listening to the humming. Her face was still wet.

"Is that her?" she whispered.

"Yes, little one."

"She is singing it to you now." Vina wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Instead of Nell. Because you are the one who came."

Rishin looked down at her. His face worked, and he could not speak.

Then he put his hand on top of her head.

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe she is."

They went through the gate together.

Link led the way through, with Vina behind him and Rishin close at her back. The family followed them.

Logan came last of the family with Alice at his side. The units filed through behind them, and Billy rolled in close against Logan’s heel the whole way and did not say a word.

Past the arch, the humming faded behind them.

It did not stop. Logan could still hear it for three more turns of the path, faint and patient, following them down.

They made camp on a broad ledge when the old man’s steps slowed.

He had not slept since the ledge. Helen took one look at his face and sat him down against the rock wall by both shoulders, and he did not argue with her.

"You will sleep," she said. "I do not care how close they are."

"I will sleep," he agreed.

He did not close his eyes, though. He sat with his fist open on his knee, and the two stones glowed on his palm like coals.

Vina lay down with her head against his leg.

"What was she like?" she asked. "Saya."

Rishin looked at the stones.

"She could not sing in tune," he said. "Not a single note of it. So she hummed instead, because humming does not have to be right."

Vina giggled sleepily.

"She was braver than me," Rishin went on. "Every layer, she went first. She laughed at things that frightened her. She called me a stubborn stone."

"You are a stubborn stone," said Vina.

"Yes."

He told her more.

Logan lay a little way off with Alice against his side and listened. He did not catch all of it. He heard the old man talk about a house on a hill. He heard him talk about Nell learning to walk, falling over and laughing every time.

Vina fell asleep in the middle of it.

Rishin went on talking after that, low, to nobody. Then his voice stopped, and when Logan looked over, the old man’s eyes were closed.

[ Time remaining: 312 days ]