1633880583 (F) (79 page)

“Tell her I love her too.”

Katta suggests Skrymir is weakened and might accept a new heart. Haytham says look for an object of significance. It needn’t be magical. It might change his character for the better, whatever it is. Gaunt asks if you still have the
Chart of Tomorrows.

Bone said, “That is lost.”

Steelfox said, “What about that strange artifact over there?”

He followed her gaze to his pallet. With all the disturbances, the Antilektron Mechanism had rolled back into view. Bone, feeling a tingling within him, left Steelfox and hobbled toward it.

“You know, don’t you?”

He looked up, startled to see Malin beside him. “That is it,” she said, “how to beat him. I’ve learned to study faces. I watched him up close until I knew where he was looking. He’s afraid of something about this object.”

“When he stomped my pack . . . he was hoping to crush it too. It’s a relic of a people who got by without magic.”

“Maybe that’s why he fears it. The trolls are undone by the ordinary. Sunlight. Bells. Love.”

“And rationality too?” Bone mused. “Help an old man and bring it to the fight, would you?”

Knowing he was damaging a still-fragile body, but buoyed up by the energies unleashed by the blades, Bone staggered toward Skrymir. Qurca landed on his shoulder.
Gaunt says she thinks you’re on the right track
, came the voice of Northwing.
But she thinks Flint should be the one to get the heart into Skrymir’s body
.

“Yes, I’m feeble! I know!”

It’s not that. Flint is the rationalist of your group. The one who dismisses gods and avoids magic. Gaunt says he’s the champion you want right now.

Malin caught up to him, helped him reach Flint and Snow Pine. They had gotten to their feet, bodies slashed by fragments of the exploding swords but luckily quite alive.

“Bone, what—” Snow Pine said.

“I need help, Flint,” Bone said.

“What?” said Flint.

“Behold Skrymir’s new heart,” Bone said. “A relic of a more scientific age. Gaunt suggests you are the one to place it in his chest. You are the natural philosopher. Perhaps someone should speak a few words.”

“What?” Flint said again, then: “I’m not a lawspeaker or loresinger. All right, I studied for a time, but was cast out—”

“To business, fiancé,” Snow Pine said.

“What?” Bone said. “Congratulations.”

“Shut up, Bone,” Snow Pine said. “I will bless it if you won’t, Flint. ‘The Way that can be spoken is not the true and eternal Way. The name that can be named is not the imperishable name. Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth, but with names we bring forth the ten thousand things.’ Now be a good heart.”

Flint said, “In the name of the Circulation, the Musculature, and the Skeleton, may all things fit together. I witness that the human world is rational, even if the human heart is not.” He took the Antilektron Mechanism. “Snow Pine, Bone, Malin, I’ll need a distraction! Inga! Can you boost me?”

“Busy!” Inga yelled from where she fought with the wounded Skrymir. “Oh, all right—”

“Well,” Bone said to the Mechanism, “whoever made you, I hope they don’t mind how you’re going to be used. Skrymir! Over here!”

He lacked the strength to do anything but throw rocks. But he still had good aim. Malin and Snow Pine joined him.

Inga rolled to Flint’s side. “Get on! If you think you can do something, I’ll get you up there!”

Inga scrambled up her troll-father. Bone remembered Gaunt describing how Innocence would climb her as a little boy, and something in him ached. “Watch out!” he yelled.

Skrymir grabbed Inga and Flint with the same grasp, but Flint was not entirely trapped and wiggled free. He crawled along the arm. The burned hand reached for him, but a peregrine falcon flew at stony eyes.

“I will crush you all! I feel nothing for . . . what is that sound? Is it fiddling?”

“Gaunt,” Bone whispered. Just as Northwing’s voice had emanated from Qurca, now the shaman was somehow conveying Persimmon Gaunt’s music. It held all the long anguish of the winter and the war. Even Skrymir paused when hearing it.

Inga said, “It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to hate each other. There’s plenty of other stuff to smash in the world.”

No sun touched Skrymir. But whatever the music and the conflict had awakened in him all but petrified him. Liron Flint held tight, reached the gap in Skrymir’s chest, and shoved the Mechanism inside. As though some notmagic, some anti-spell had been completed at last, the stone expanded to seal the device tight.

Flint, his energy spent, toppled. Snow Pine caught him, or rather let herself be sprawled by his fall.

Bone and Malin hesitated in their stone-throwing.

“I . . . see,” Skrymir said. “Daughter . . . I see. It’s as though a veil is lifted. I see an interplay of forces giving rise to all things. The fundamental question of my consciousness is not so different from your own, after all.”

“Oh, really?”

“All of us arise from something larger. All of us have changeable natures, until at last we meet that great change which is death. My quest to forge meaning by destroying others . . . pathetic. Unworthy of my majesty.”

He set Inga down. “Now, perhaps, I will find meaning in creation. I will be constructive, as you were, Inga, and maybe that will let me keep my autonomy, as you have yours.”

“But I don’t build things,” Inga said. “I like to smash them.”

“Indeed. But have you not built friendships? Farewell, daughter, and assorted fools.”

Skrymir strode toward the waters.

“Wait!” Inga called out, and Skrymir paused. “Your army! You have to call it off!”

“They will no longer listen to me, changeling,” rumbled Skrymir, “for I have changed. No longer can I say, ‘To myself be enough.’ Now I know I have a real self—as real, or as hollow, as anything else—to which I must be true. You must cope with trolldom as best you can. One way or another, our age changes.”

So saying, Skrymir surged into the sea.

“One down,” sighed Bone. “Ten thousand to go.”

Screams descended from the Svardmark promontory.

“Let’s go,” Flint said, supported by Snow Pine. “It’s time we found Snow Pine’s daughter. And your son.”

Bone nodded.

“Here we are,” said Haytham. He’d helped Katta carry Northwing to another frozen waterfall. Gaunt walked ahead, fiddling.

They confronted a wall of icicles, glistening like bright pillars, ingots, fangs.

Gaunt played on.

“This seems a somewhat futile gesture,” Haytham said. “This is not truly a waterfall. More of a water-fell.”

Katta said, “It is the middle of summer. The sun is bright. The enchanted winter is broken.”

Gaunt paused in her playing. They heard a single droplet fall with a
plink
.

“It’s a waterfall,” she said. “Aren’t you? And things are changing for your land. Awaken.”

She played.

The trolls were ripping Walking Stick’s army apart. His beautiful instrument, forged out of frightened refugees and transformed into a force to topple even Karvaks . . . it was now like a collection of porcelain sculptures under falling rocks.

Walking Stick leapt from one troll to another, his focused chi knocking heads from bodies. But many of the trolls had multiple heads. Others were not discomfited at lacking any. He could escape, but he would not abandon his people.

It was time.

He leapt once, twice, thrice, before reaching the Great Chain. He knew others had descended it, and he tried the trick himself. He was by no means immune to its energies. He hopped from link to link, despite the pain it caused. Some would think he’d fled, and indeed he heard triumphant guffaws from the trolls. But he was implementing his most desperate plan.

Even as he moved, he pulled forth
A Tumult of Trees on Peculiar Peaks
.

In his mind’s eye he hovered over misty spires and saw the tiny figure of the self portrait of the Sage Painter, he who was often called Meteor-Plum, after the original.

Meteor-Plum said, “You do not look as if you bear good news.”

“I must implement the last contingency,” said Walking Stick.

“I still do not advise it.”

“Nonetheless. Gaunt, Bone, Snow Pine, and my experience at Penglai proved that a young Western dragon could awaken a sleeping Eastern elder. It is time to test the reverse.”

“She is ready.”

Bone, Snow Pine, and Flint reached Innocence and A-Girl-Is-A-Joy. Innocence had his arm around Joy, but it was clear to Bone that Joy was the one whose power was at work.

“Daughter?” Snow Pine said.

“Mother,” Joy said. “Innocence gave me the power of the Heavenwalls.”

“He what?” Bone said.

“I’m not certain that was a good idea,” Joy said. “Because I’m still the Runethane. I’m having difficulty reconciling the powers. Let alone quieting the arkendrakes.”

“I did what I had to do,” Innocence said.

Bone put his hand on his shoulder. “I know, son.”

Snow Pine took up the side opposite Innocence. “I believe in you, daughter.”

There came a blast of cold wind, and raindrops hit their faces. They all looked up, even Joy.

Walking Stick was descending the Great Chain.

“At this rate,” Bone said, “they should really add a rope bridge—”

“Look,” Flint said.

Insubstantial at first, but gaining solidity as it flowed forth, an Eastern dragon coiled up from Walking Stick’s location. She was a thing of beauty and majesty, green and blue, scales like river stones, wings like clouds. Her eyes were wise and bright, like pools of moonlit mountain water.

And she had doomed them all, Bone thought.

A renewed rumbling commenced beneath their feet.

“What?” Snow Pine said.

“You should know,” Bone said. “We’ve seen this before. A young dragon awakening an arkendrake of the opposite sex.”

“Oh,” Snow Pine said. “We’re dead, aren’t we?”

But the Eastern dragon spoke, its voice falling like soft rain, and it was not speaking to them.
You who are called Staraxe, I am Yewan Long, and I have come to stir you. For many centuries, little beings have warred over your broken isles, and even your younger brothers Sunsword and Moonspear still hope to claim your energies. It is time to end their conflict. Rise a little and join me in the sky.