Chapter 245: Nell

Vina ran, and the old man ran behind her.

Logan ran after them both. He did not think about it. Alice was at his side, and then his father was there with Hob pounding along beside him, and then all of them were running across the dark floor in a long ragged line.

The kept stood all around them. They went past a man with his hands cupped as if he were holding water, and a pair of women leaning shoulder to shoulder with their eyes shut. Nobody stirred. The soft far sound of the lights went on without a break.

Link ran in front of Vina with his staff held high. Its red flame tore through the pale glow like a torch through fog.

The crowd thinned.

There were fewer kept the farther they went, and then fewer still. At last the floor opened out in front of them, flat and smooth and empty, and the two lights stood alone in the middle of it.

Vina slowed. Then she stopped.

She stood a dozen paces from them, breathing hard, with the old man’s hand still in both of hers. Rishin stopped behind her because she had stopped. His whole body leaned forward past her.

"Go on, Grandpa," said Vina. She did not let go. "I am still in front. Go on."

They walked the last of it together.

The tall light held a woman.

She was kneeling on the dark floor with her back straight. Her hair was long and dark and fell loose down her back, and her hands lay open in her lap. Her eyes were shut, and nothing troubled her face. She looked younger than Logan’s mother.

Her mouth was a little open, as if she had been about to speak.

The small light held a girl.

She was standing a pace beyond the woman, facing away from them, out across the empty floor. She was thin and straight-backed, with dark hair cut short and blunt at her jaw.

She held one hand out low at her side with the fingers curled. It was the way a child holds her hand out when she is waiting for someone to take it.

Nobody had taken it.

Rishin let go of Vina’s hand.

He went round her and down on his knees in front of the girl. He did it slowly, as if his knees had forgotten how. Then he knelt there with his face level with hers, and he did not touch her.

Logan had stopped a few paces back. The others gathered at his back and stopped too. Garen was breathing hard. Isolde gripped his arm. Helen came up on Logan’s other side and put her hand on his back, and he could feel it trembling.

Nobody went any closer.

’This is his,’ Logan thought. ’Whatever happens now, it is his.’

"Nell," said the old man.

He spoke low and rough. It was not the voice he used on the rim, or the one he used to give orders on the stairs. Logan had never heard it before.

"Nell. I am here. I came back."

The girl did not move.

Rishin lifted his hand. He held it in the air before his daughter’s outstretched hand, with a finger’s width between them, and he did not close the gap.

"I am sorry," he said. "I am sorry it took so long. I am sorry I went on. I am sorry for all of it."

His hand was shaking.

Vina had come up beside him.

She stood at his shoulder with her fists clenched. She looked at the girl in the light, and then at the old man’s shaking hand, and then at the girl again.

"She is waiting for you to hold it," she said. "Grandpa. Look at her hand. She is waiting."

Rishin looked at the hand.

Then he closed the gap, and he took it.

The light went into her.

It did not flare or burst. It drew inward like smoke into a chimney until none of it was left in the air around her. The girl stood on the floor in her plain grey clothes with her hand in her father’s.

Her chest rose.

Her eyes opened.

They were dark and clear, the same as his. They looked at the old man kneeling in front of her, and they did not understand him. They moved over the white hair and the white beard and the lines in his face. Then they came back to his eyes, and stayed there.

"Papa?"

Rishin could not answer her.

He tried. Logan saw his mouth open and nothing come out of it. The old man knelt on the floor with his daughter’s small hand in his, and his face crumpled, and he bowed his head over their joined hands.

The girl stared down at the top of his head.

"Papa," she said again. Her voice was thin and puzzled. "You are old. Why are you old?"

"Because I took so long," said Rishin into their hands. "Because I took so long, little one. I am sorry."

The girl’s face went still.

Then she pulled her hand out of his, and she put both her arms round his neck and held on.

Logan looked away.

He did not mean to. He could not watch it any more. His eyes stung. He looked down at Alice’s boots beside his, and he heard the old man make the low broken sound again, the one from the foot of the path.

Alice’s arm came round his waist. She was crying too.

Behind them, Garen had sat down on the floor. Isolde had sat down with him. Helen had her face pressed into Daniel’s shoulder, and Daniel stood with his arm round her and his jaw clenched hard.

Bram had taken off his helmet and was holding it against his chest.

The units stood behind the family in a silent half circle. Link had lowered his staff. Its red flame burned dim and steady over all of them.

It was Nell who let go first.

She sat back on her heels and wiped her face with the heel of her hand. She looked at her father properly now, at all of him. Then she looked over her shoulder at the strangers, the units and the great plated aurochs, and at Link with his iron staff.

Last, she looked at Vina.

Vina was standing right beside the old man. She had not moved since he took the hand. Her face was wet and blotchy, and she stared back at the girl with her chin up.

"Who are you?" said Nell.

"I am Vina." Vina lifted her chin higher. "He is my grandpa."

Nell’s eyes narrowed.

"He is my papa," she said.

Rishin lifted his head.

He looked from one girl to the other. For the first time since the ledge, Logan saw the corner of his mouth lift.

"Nell," he said. "This is Vina. She brought me down."

"I promised," said Vina. "On the Eighth Layer. If he falls down, I fall down with him."

Nell studied her. Her small face was grave.

"I promised that too," she said. "On the stair. Before I..." She stopped and frowned. She was reaching for the rest of it, and it was not there.

Then she turned round.

She turned round, still on her knees, to the tall light kneeling behind her with its eyes closed. She stared at it, and her hand went out toward it and stopped.

"Mama," said Nell. "Papa. Why is Mama still asleep?"