Chapter 251: The Other Half

The hand rested on Rishin’s shoulder and did not close.

It lay there, grey and long-fingered, the way a hand rests on the shoulder of someone sleeping. More of them came after it. They came slowly from every side of the scarred floor, and Rishin knelt among them with Stay’s point on the stone and blood drying on his face, and he let them come.

Logan moved before he could stop himself.

[ Broken Chain ]

The first hand fell away from the old man’s shoulder. Two more took its place.

He cut again. Three fell. Five came.

"Boy," said Rishin.

Logan cut again.

"Boy. Stop."

Logan stopped.

He did not mean to. His arms stopped of themselves, with the blade raised, because the old man had told them to. He had been told to stop by that voice on a mountain, over and over, until his body knew it better than his head did.

He stood there with his sword up and his chest heaving.

"No," he said.

"You let it go once," said Rishin. He did not raise his voice. "On the Ninth Layer. I felt it go. Let it go again."

"That was a question. This is you."

"Yes," Rishin answered. "It is me. That is why it is mine to give."

Logan’s arms were shaking.

Behind him, he could hear the fight still going on. Halden’s halberd rang against the arms that still reached for the family, and Garen’s pistols cracked and cracked. But fewer of the hands were reaching for anyone else now. Nearly all of them had turned toward the kneeling man.

’He did this on purpose,’ Logan thought. ’He cut them off Vina and turned them onto himself. That was the other way he said he would find.’

He lowered his sword.

His arms had never felt so heavy.

Vina tore loose from Saya’s arms.

She was across the floor before anyone could catch her. She ran between the reaching hands and threw herself down beside the old man and grabbed his free hand in both of hers.

"If you fall down," she sobbed, "I fall down with you. I said it. You said I could not give it back."

The hands paused. Logan saw them hover.

The panel flickered.

[ Asked: Rishin ] [ Asked: Vina Wolf ]

Helen screamed her daughter’s name.

"Little one," said Rishin. "Listen to me."

He let go of Stay. It fell flat on the stone with a clang. He took Vina’s face in his freed hand and turned it up toward his.

"That promise has two halves," he said. "I only ever told you one. I am going to tell you the other now, and you are going to keep it."

Vina was crying too hard to answer.

"If I fall down and you cannot lift me," said the old man, "you get up. You get up, and you walk on in front of your brother, all the way out. That is the other half." He looked past her shoulder. "Nell knows it. I told it to her at this gate."

Nell was standing behind her mother with both fists pressed to her mouth.

She took them away.

"He told me," she said. Her voice was thin and wet. "Papa told me. That is why I let go. So I could keep the other half."

Vina turned her head and stared at her.

"You let go," she said.

"I let go," said Nell. "It was the hardest thing. It is supposed to be."

Vina turned back to Rishin.

He was still holding her face. His thumb moved once over her wet cheek.

"Promise me," he said. "The other half."

Vina shook her head. She shook it and shook it, and then her face crumpled, and she nodded.

"I promise," she whispered.

The second line on the panel went out.

[ Asked: Rishin ]

Rishin let go of her face.

"Helen," he said.

Helen was there. She had come across the floor behind her daughter, and now she knelt down and wrapped both arms round Vina from behind. She held her the way Saya had held her.

Vina did not fight. She hung onto the old man’s hand until Helen gently opened her fingers, one by one, and then she turned round and buried her face in her mother’s coat.

Rishin bent down and picked up Stay.

He held it out to Logan, hilt first.

"Take it," he said.

Logan stared at the sword.

He had trained under it for three days on a mountain. He had seen it drawn on every layer of the Abyss. It was plain and grey and old, and it had never once left Rishin’s grip.

"I cannot," he said.

"You can. It is a name and an order both." Rishin’s arm did not waver. "Stay. Stay with them. Stay alive. That is what it is for now."

Logan took it.

The hilt was worn smooth where the old man’s fingers had held it. It was lighter than he had expected, and warm.

’He has been planning this,’ Logan thought. ’Since the far shore. Maybe since the mountain. He was always going to give it to me here.’

Alice had come up at his side. She did not say anything. She put her hand flat between his shoulder blades and kept it there, and he felt it shaking.

Across the floor, Garen had stopped firing. He stood with both pistols hanging at his sides, and Isolde stood with her face pressed against his arm. Daniel had gone down on one knee beside Hob with his hand on the aurochs’s neck.

None of them came closer. They had all heard the old man on the far shore, and they understood that this was his.

Link had come to stand over them.

The iron staff was in his hand. The red flame burned low in its cage. He looked down at Rishin, and his face was the face of a grieving grandson.

"Grandfather," he said.

"Link." Rishin looked up at him. "In front of her. All the way up. You know the way."

Link bowed. He bowed low, over the staff, and held it there.

Then he straightened, and he went and stood in front of Vina and Helen. He turned his back on the old man and faced outward with his flame raised.

He did not look round again.

Saya knelt down in front of her husband.

She had not spoken through Nell since the hands came. Now she reached out and took his closed fist in both her hands, and she opened it, one finger at a time.

The last stone lay on his palm. It was burning so brightly that Logan could barely look at it.

Saya picked it up.

She held it between her fingers and looked at it. Then her eyes went to her husband, and her mouth moved in a shape Logan could read without any help.

’Stubborn stone.’

Her fingers parted. The stone dropped.

It went out before it touched the floor. It landed between them small and grey and dead, and rolled once, and lay still.

Rishin made no sound at all.

He looked at his wife. He looked at his daughter behind her, and at Vina in her mother’s arms, and at Logan standing over him with Stay in his hand. He looked at all of them slowly, one after another, the way a man looks round a house he is leaving.

Then he turned to the gate.

"Yes," he said.

[ Given: Rishin ]