Chapter 248: Across the Empty Floor

Rishin looked at his wife’s hand wrapped round Vina’s.

He looked at it until Logan thought he would not answer at all. The stone between his fingers burned white. Nell stood beside her mother with her fists clenched, and nobody on the dark floor moved.

Then the old man bowed his head.

"I will not go into the gate," he said. "Little one. I will not."

Vina searched his face. "Promise?"

Rishin did not promise.

"I will find another way," he said instead. "There will be another way. I did not look for one the last time, because I did not know to. This time I will."

Vina kept her eyes on him. Then she nodded, slowly, and let Saya keep holding her hand.

Logan did not believe him.

He did not know exactly why. It was the way the old man had said it, low and even, the same way he had said "Nothing I would lose" in the white forest. It was the way his eyes had gone past Vina to the dark beyond her while he spoke.

Logan glanced at Saya.

She was watching her husband too. Her face had not softened, and the stone in his fist had not dimmed at all.

’She does not believe him either,’ Logan thought.

They packed the camp.

There was little to pack. Martha scraped out the pot, and Synthia checked Terry’s straps, and Hob heaved himself up off the floor beside Daniel. Pebble walked back to his cairn by the last step and added one more stone to it, and then he came back.

"In case," he said, to nobody.

Nell watched all of it with wide eyes. She watched Billy roll in circles round the camp and Thessaris unfold her long green limbs. When Sonic dropped out of the dark and landed on Halden’s shoulder, she took a step backward into her father.

"Papa," she whispered. "What are they?"

"They are Logan’s," said Rishin. "And his family’s. They are friends."

Billy rolled up to her and stopped.

"Hello," he said. "I am Billy. I am a wheel. I talk too much, but I am trying to stop."

Nell stared at him.

"You talk," she said.

"Yes. Too much. I said that."

Nell looked up at her father, and then back at the wheel. For the first time since she woke, the corner of her mouth twitched.

"Can you go fast?" she asked.

"Faster than anybody," said Billy. "Ask Boss."

They set out across the empty floor.

Link went first with his staff raised. Vina walked behind him, and Saya walked beside her with Vina’s hand still in hers. Rishin came behind them both. Nell walked at her father’s side with her fist knotted in his coat.

The family came after, and the units after them.

Behind them, the crowd of the kept stood silent under the lit walls. Logan looked back at it once. Then he looked ahead at the dark, and he did not look back again.

They had not gone far when Nell let go of the coat.

She did not mean to. She had dropped back half a dozen paces to look at Hob, and she was walking beside the great aurochs with her hand out to touch his plates, and her father had gone on ahead.

Alice saw it first.

"Rishin!" she called. "Nell!"

The girl had slowed. She was still walking, but her feet were dragging on the stone. Her face had gone soft and blank. A faint pale glow had come up around her shoulders, like frost on a window.

Rishin turned round and ran back.

He caught her hand.

The glow went out at once. Nell stumbled and blinked up at him, and then she looked down at her shoulders in fright.

"I was going to sleep," she said. "Papa. I was going back to sleep."

"Yes." Rishin’s voice was rough. "You were."

He looked at Saya. Saya had stopped as well. She stood rigid with Vina’s hand in hers, and Logan saw her measure the distance between herself and her husband with her eyes.

It was four paces. Maybe five.

"You stay by me," Rishin told his daughter. "Both of you. Wherever I am, you stay close. If you go too far, the Abyss takes you back."

Nell’s fist closed in his coat again, tight enough to whiten her knuckles. She kept hold of it after that.

The empty floor went on.

There were no walls in sight now. The kept lights rose behind them in their great lit well, and ahead there was only the dark and the floor going on through it. Link’s flame lit a circle of stone around them, and the rest was blackness.

Sonic flew ahead and came back.

"Nothing, Boss," he said. "The floor goes on. There is no wall I can see. There is no edge."

"Keep looking."

"I am always looking," said Sonic. He sounded offended, and he flew out again.

Helen walked beside Saya across a wide stretch of the floor.

She did not try to talk to her. She walked at her side, and when Saya looked at her, she looked back. At last Logan saw Saya’s free hand move in a small shape.

Helen looked at Nell.

"She asks how old you are," Nell said to Helen. "Your children. Both of them."

"Logan is eighteen," said Helen. "Vina is eleven."

Saya looked at Vina, walking at her side. Then she looked at Nell. Her mouth tightened, and she turned her face away.

Helen did not ask her anything else. She put her hand on Saya’s shoulder as they walked, and Saya let it stay.

Bram walked at the back of the family with Edda.

He had been looking at the kept as they left the crowd behind, and Logan knew he was still looking for a short woman with a white plait and an axe. He did not say so. Edda did not mention it either.

"Rishin," Edda said at last. "Can I ask you?"

The old man did not turn round. "Ask."

"The kept. If the one they gave themselves for comes and takes their hand, they wake." Edda swallowed. "Does it have to be that one? Could it be someone else who loves them?"

Rishin walked on for a few steps.

"I do not know, girl," he said. "I only know about mine."

Edda nodded. She did not ask again. But Logan saw her look back over her shoulder at the far-off crowd of the kept, and then at her father, and he saw Bram draw her close against his side.

They walked until Hob’s head drooped and Vina was stumbling.

They made camp in the middle of nothing, in the circle of Link’s light. The family sat close together, closer than they had on any layer above. Rishin sat with Nell asleep against one side of him and Saya awake at the other, and nobody tried to tell him to sleep.

Logan lay beside Alice and looked at the dark.

"He lied to her," he whispered. "To Vina. Did he not?"

Alice took her time answering.

"He did not promise," she said. "He made sure he did not promise. I watched him not do it."

"So did Saya."

"I know." Alice’s hand found his in the dark. "So we watch him. All the way to the gate. And if he goes for it, we stop him."

"He is stronger than all of us."

"Not in here," said Alice. "Not with them watching."

[ Time remaining: 310 days ]