Chapter 247: Two Promises

When Logan woke, Saya was still talking.

Her hands had slowed. They moved in small tired shapes between her and the old man, and Rishin sat cross-legged in front of her and watched every one of them. His closed fist rested on his knee. Between his fingers, the last stone still burned.

Neither of them had moved since Logan fell asleep. He did not think either of them had looked away.

Vina and Nell were awake already. They were sitting on the floor a little apart from the grown-ups, side by side, with their knees drawn up. Nell was talking in a low quick voice. Vina was listening with her mouth open.

"And then he fell in the river," Nell was saying. "All the way in. With his sword."

"Grandpa did?"

"Papa did. Mama laughed so hard she sat down."

Logan sat up.

Alice was awake beside him. She caught his eye and tipped her head at the two girls, and her mouth curved.

"They have been at it since before I woke," she murmured. "Nell has told her about every layer they went down. Vina has told her about every layer we did. I think they are comparing."

"Who is winning?"

"Nell. She has a river."

Logan tried to laugh. It caught in his throat and came out rough, and Alice put her hand on his knee and left it there.

Martha cooked.

Nell watched the stew go into the bowls with her eyes huge. When Martha held one out to her, she glanced at her father first, and Rishin nodded.

She ate it in about six spoonfuls.

"I have not eaten," she said with her mouth full, astonished. "Papa. I have not eaten since the gate. I was not even hungry."

"The kept do not hunger," said Rishin. "You are awake now. Not kept. Not while I am here."

Nell stared at him. Then her eyes went to her mother, kneeling beside him with a bowl untouched in her lap.

Saya’s hands moved once, small and quick.

"She says eat it anyway," said Nell. "She says it is rude not to."

Saya ate it.

Helen came over when the bowls were empty.

She knelt down a little way from Saya. Logan saw her hesitate, unsure what to say to a woman who could not answer her aloud. Then she put her palm flat against her chest.

"Helen," she said. "I am Vina’s mother. And Logan’s."

Saya studied her face. Then she pressed her palm to her chest in the same way, and her hands made a shape Logan had watched her make as he drifted off.

"Saya," said Nell. "She says she is Saya. She says thank you for bringing him."

Saya’s hands moved again, sharper.

Nell hesitated. "And she says she is furious with all of you for letting him come."

Helen laughed. It came out wet and shaky.

"So am I," she said. "Most of the way down."

Garen cleared his throat.

He had been sitting with Isolde a little way off, not intruding. Now he came over and crouched down beside Helen, heavily, with his hands on his knees.

"Senior," he said. "I am sorry to be the one. But somebody has to say it."

Rishin looked up at him.

"You told us on the mountain," said Garen. "Somebody has to reach the very end before the time runs out, or the Abyss comes up into our world. That is how yours was lost." He glanced at Saya, and then back. "This floor is not the end. Is it?"

"No," said Rishin. "It is not."

Saya’s hands moved.

She pointed. This time she pointed the other way, away from the path and the crowd of kept, across the empty dark floor beyond where she had knelt.

Logan looked. He could see nothing out there but dark.

"Mama says it is that way," said Nell. Her voice had gone small. "Far. There is a last gate. She says it asks for one."

"One what?" said Daniel.

Nell looked at her mother’s hands.

"One person," she said. "It asked for Papa. Mama went instead. And then the warden came and would not let him through. Papa was holding my hand, and I..." She stopped. "I let go."

Logan turned to Rishin, who was looking out across the dark toward the place Saya had pointed. His face had gone still and smooth and set, the same face he had worn on the far shore of the Mere when he told them he would tell them why he came back.

Logan understood it then.

He understood it all at once. Daniel’s question on the shingle and the old man’s answer came back to him, every word, along with the burning thread on the Eighth Layer.

’I promised Nell I would come back for her. I am keeping it.’

"You are not coming out," said Logan. "Are you?"

Rishin turned his head and looked at him.

"When we reach the last gate," he said, "it will ask for one of you. It always asks for one. And I will go instead."

"No," said Helen.

"I will go instead," said the old man again. His voice did not rise. "I will be kept here, with them. That is how I keep my promise. I come back, and I stay."

Saya struck him.

She hit him in the chest with her open hand, hard, so that he rocked back where he sat. Then she hit him again. Her mouth was open on a cry that had no sound in it. Her hands were shaking so badly that they could not make a single shape.

Rishin caught her wrists. He held them gently against his chest and let her pull at him.

"Papa, no," said Nell.

She had scrambled up. She stood over him with her fists clenched and her face crumpling.

"I let go so you could live," she said. "Mama went so you could live. You cannot come back and be kept. That is not fair. That makes it not count."

"Nell."

"It is not fair!"

The old man looked up at his daughter. Logan saw that he had expected this, that he had sat through all of Saya’s slow small shapes knowing it was coming. And he saw that it had not changed his mind at all.

"I have lived," Rishin said, low. "I have lived long enough without you. I do not want any more of it."

Vina got up.

She had been sitting where Nell left her, small and white and silent. Now she stood up, and she walked round Nell and stopped in front of the old man, beside his wife.

She did not take out the bark strip this time. She did not need it.

"If you fall down," she said, "I fall down with you."

Rishin’s face changed.

"No," he said. "Little one. No. That is not what that means."

"It is what I said." Vina’s voice shook, but she did not stop. "I said it on the Eighth Layer, and you told me I could not give it back. So I cannot. If you go into that gate and stay, then I go into it with you."

Helen made a sound like she had been stabbed.

Daniel’s hand closed on her shoulder. Logan was on his feet. He did not remember standing, and Alice was beside him with her hand locked round his arm so hard it hurt.

"Vina," he said.

She kept her eyes on the old man.

Rishin let go of Saya’s wrists. He reached out to the girl in front of him, and his hands were shaking worse than his wife’s had.

"You cannot," he said. "Vina. You cannot."

"Then do not go," said Vina.

Saya had gone still.

She looked at the girl standing before her husband, and at the old man’s shaking hands, and at the stone still burning white between his fingers.

Then she reached out and took Vina’s hand in hers.

She held it the way Rishin held Nell’s. She held it firmly, without letting go, and she turned to look at her husband over the top of the girl’s head. Logan did not need Nell to read what was in her face.

’Now you know,’ it said. ’Now you know what it was like for us.’