Chapter 252: Kept

The hands closed round the old man.

They did not grip him. They folded round his shoulders and his back and his arms the way a blanket folds round someone asleep, and a pale light came up out of them and rose around him.

Rishin paid the hands no heed. His eyes were on his daughter.

"Come here, little one," he said.

Nell came. She came round her mother and stood in front of him, a pace away, with her face wet. Her hand came up at her side, low, with the fingers curled.

It was the way she had stood in the dark on the empty floor, waiting.

Rishin took her hand.

Saya knelt behind him.

She put her hand on his shoulder, among the grey hands of the warden, as if she belonged there more than they did. The light was rising round all three of them now. Logan could see it on Saya’s face and in Nell’s dark hair.

Then he saw the thread.

It sank out of the dark overhead, thin and pale, the way the memory lights had sunk through the Mere.

It came from far above, from the wall of the abyss and the long path cut into it. Logan saw it through Sword Intent without trying, and he knew what it was before it reached her.

It was the humming from the second gate.

It touched Saya’s throat and went in.

Saya’s lips parted.

"Rishin," she said.

Her voice was low and a little hoarse, as if it had gone unused for a lifetime. The old man’s head came up. He turned it slowly to look at his wife over his shoulder, and his face broke open.

"There you are," he said.

"Here I am." Saya was crying. "You stubborn stone. You stubborn, stubborn stone."

"Yes."

"I forgive you," she said. "I forgive you for all of it. For living, and for not living. For coming back." She pressed her forehead against the back of his head. "I would have come back for you too."

She lifted her head and looked at the family.

Her eyes went over all of them. They went to Helen, kneeling on the floor with Vina in her arms. They went to Logan with the sword in his hand, and to Garen and Isolde, and to the units standing silent behind them.

"Thank you," she said. "For bringing him to us. For not letting him come alone."

Then she looked at Vina.

"Little one," she said. "Keep the other half."

Vina lifted her face out of her mother’s coat. She could not speak. She nodded.

The light had nearly closed.

It rose round the three of them, pale and steady, until Logan could barely see their faces through it. Nell’s hand was in her father’s. Saya’s hand was on his shoulder. Rishin knelt between them with his head bowed.

Saya hummed.

It was the same slow tune from the gate. It rose and fell and came back round to where it had started, and she could not keep it in tune. She went flat on the high part and sharp on the low part, and she did not care.

’She could not sing in tune,’ Logan thought. ’Not a single note of it.’

Nell’s eyes closed. Then the old man’s did.

The light closed over them all.

The humming stopped.

They were still. All three of them were as still inside the pale light as the kept on the floor behind them.

Rishin knelt calm-faced, his daughter’s hand in his. Saya stayed at his back with her lips parted, stopped halfway through a note.

Nell’s other hand hung at her side. It was not held out any more. It hung loose and open, with nothing to wait for.

Logan stood over them with Stay in his hand, and he could not move.

[ The asking is answered. ] [ The Last Gate is open. ]

The warden moved.

The rest of its arms sank from the air. They did not reach for anyone else. They gathered round the three still figures and lifted them, light and all, as gently as if they were made of glass.

Logan’s hand tightened on the sword.

"No," he said. "Leave them."

Daniel gripped his shoulder. His voice was hoarse. "Logan. It is taking them to the others. That is where they go. He told us."

Logan looked at his father.

Then he looked back at the three figures in their light, held up in a cradle of grey hands. The warden had turned. It was moving away from the gate, back across the empty floor the way they had come, slow as a procession.

’It is carrying them home,’ he thought. ’To the floor. To the kept.’

He lowered Stay.

They followed it.

Nobody said they would. They walked behind the warden across the dark, the whole family together, and the units after them. Link went first, with his flame raised. Vina walked behind Link.

She walked with her chin up and her face streaked, and she did not stop and did not look back. She walked in front of her brother, the way she had promised.

Helen walked at her side. Logan walked behind them both with Alice’s hand in his. He kept his eyes on the light ahead and the three people being carried through the dark.

Billy rolled at his heel and did not hum.

The walk back was long.

It was longer than the walk out had been. Logan did not know whether that was true or whether it only felt that way. The warden moved at the same slow pace the whole way, and none of them tried to make it go faster.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Edda sang.

It was the walking song, low and rough, the one for the mine bridges. She sang it alone for the first verse. Then Bram joined her, and then Helen, and then Garen in his deep tuneless voice. Then all of them were singing it.

It was not a song for this. Logan sang it anyway.

The kept rose up out of the dark ahead of them, standing in their great lit well.

The warden carried the three of them to the edge of the crowd, to the empty place where the family had first found Saya and Nell. It laid them on the stone there as carefully as it had picked them up, and then its arms drew back.

They sank into the floor one by one. They went down into the dark stone exactly as they had risen from the scratched ground at the gate, until there were none of them left.

The warden was gone.

Three figures knelt in their pale light on the floor of the Abyss, with nothing around them but the dark.

Pebble went forward.

He knelt down beside the light, a little way from Nell’s loose open hand, and he took three stones out of his pocket. He set them carefully one on top of another on the dark floor.

"So we know where he is," he said.

No one replied. Logan sat down on the floor beside the cairn, with Stay across his knees. One by one, the others sat down too, around the three of them. Vina sat closest of all, with her back against her mother and her eyes on the old man’s face.

Sleep was slow to come for any of them.

When they did, Link stood guard over them all, with his flame burning low and red over the kept and the living alike.

[ Time remaining: 309 days ]