Three days later, they learned the full weight of the word present.
Orders came from the two capitals on nearly the same day: battle on the autumn equinox.
Alden's order was magnificent: at dawn on the equinox, a general assault along the entire front, seizing control of the valley floor in one stroke and washing away past humiliation in blood. The Flamecrown order—as interpreted by one of the old knight's soldiers who knew the language and listened to proclamations shouted across the lines—was identical: at dawn on the equinox, a general assault along the entire front.
Commands three hundred miles apart had each ordered a "general assault" in the same valley on the same day and at the same hour. At this point, they discarded even the modesty of "rehearsal." On the equinox, twenty thousand against twenty thousand, forty thousand living people would pour simultaneously into the valley floor above Sunken Chain Valley—
Present. All of them present.
"Now we see the whole script." In the safehouse, Sharlo pinned a copy of the order to the wooden wall, his voice dry. "Song, hatred, one frequency—all of those were safeguards. Better if they succeeded, no matter if they failed. There is only one main course: forty thousand people stepping onto the string on equinox morning. Forty thousand pairs of military boots striking directly above the ash-wick web. Forty thousand hearts—uniform or not—beating above the chain at the same time."
"If the bells won't tune, batter them with numbers." The old knight stared at the order and spoke each word separately. "Forty years of war, and this is the first time I've understood that 'general assault' could be used this way."
Before the order reached the front, an honoured observer arrived.
Ten days before the equinox, a "troop-comfort mission" from the Patriarchal Society entered the northern camp, properly charged with consoling the war dead and tending the wounded. When the mission's carriages passed through the camp gate, Sharlo watched from a distant slope. At the sight of the silver-bearded old man in white robes at their head, he felt no surprise.
Elder Ebner.
On its first afternoon, the mission performed its first duty. It did not receive the officers or inspect the hospital. It went to the graves.
The northern cemetery occupied gentle ground on the southeastern slope. More than three hundred new graves stood in rows, wooden markers rising through the mist. The entire mission attended. White-robed deacons carried an incense table, wool blankets, and a small handbell. Elder Ebner walked foremost, his shepherd's crook striking the earth at every step.
The Patriarchal Society called its funeral observance the Rite of Returning to the Fold. Sharlo followed at a distance. He had expected pomp of scripture and incense. Halfway through, he realized the rite contained not one line of scripture.
Ebner held no sacred text, but a roll of names. Within two hours of entering camp, the deacons had copied the name, age, and home of every one of the three hundred dead. Leaning on his crook, the old man began at the first grave. At each marker, he bowed and read out the person upon it in his mild, warm voice.
"Shunzi of Wheat Country, twenty-one. The stray returns to the fold. The lost returns home."
"Shuanzhu of Stone River, nineteen. The stray returns to the fold. The lost returns home."
One grave, one sentence. More than three hundred graves, none omitted. Soldiers gathered in growing numbers. At first they whispered among themselves. After several dozen names, the entire slope fell silent. Later, sobs could no longer be suppressed. When the name of a man from their own village sounded, whole rows of soldiers dropped to their knees. Even the old knight removed his cap and clenched it in one hand.
The elder stopped longest before Millstone's grave.
It differed from the others. At its head sat a stone mill the size of a palm, carved roughly from blue valley stone by the dead man's villagers. The central eye truly turned. Ebner regarded the little mill for a long time, extended one withered hand, and gently pushed its handle through half a circle. Then he said something.
Sharlo was too far away to hear. A veteran in the front later repeated it to the old knight. The elder had said:
"How good. Someone remembers. While someone remembers him, he remains inside the fold."
On the road back to the safehouse, Viola said nothing for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice held something rare, almost bewildered.
"I watched him through the entire rite. Three hours, more than three hundred sentences. Sharlo, not one lie. Among all the thousands in camp today, he lied least."
"I know." Sharlo looked toward the cemetery. He had read throughout the rite too. The orderly ledger above the old man's head lay open, today's page filled edge to edge. Beneath it, an old sentence worn nearly away had brightened each time Ebner read a name.
"That is why he is the most difficult adversary we have faced. Bassoon was a liar. The Grand Organist was a madman. Liars and madmen are simple enough. This man is sincere. He sincerely cares for soldiers, sincerely visits the dead, and sincerely intends, on the equinox, to nail all three hundred people whom he personally 'returned to the fold' into his teacher's composition."
"Raven, remember today," Sharlo said softly. "You and I have tools enough for a lie. To oppose sincerity, we need a sincerity harder still."
Before dinner, the old knight returned from the main camp with news that supplied a gloss on this "sincerity." After the funeral rite, headquarters had meant to use its momentum for an "oath-taking sacrifice," asking Ebner to preside and inspire the general assault. Ebner refused. The aides repeated his words exactly:
"A sacrifice is for the dead. An oath is for the living. Combine them, and one is insincere to both. This old man attends only to the first."
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"Listen to that." The old knight struck his canteen onto the table. "Even his refusals leave no handle for criticism. Mr. Vane, all my life I've fought by seeing through the other man's falsehood. This one carries no falsehood anywhere. What weapon will you use?"
"Something absent from his list," Sharlo said. "All afternoon, he repeated 'while someone remembers him, he remains inside the fold.' Old Captain, he believes in remembrance. That is the seam."
That evening, an invitation from the elder arrived at the survey team's safehouse. The calling card read: "The honoured guests of the Grand Belfry are respectfully invited to share tea and renew acquaintance."
"Will you go?" Viola asked.
"Yes." Sharlo put away the card. "If he sends an invitation, he wants to speak. When a man like this consents to speak, every sentence is intelligence—even when every sentence is poison."
Tea was served inside the mission's pavilion. A charcoal brazier, a copper kettle, two rough earthenware bowls. The elder had stripped away every capital affectation and arranged the simplicity of a travelling country monk. The two men were alone. Viola had been "invited" to take tea in a side alcove beyond one curtain.
"I have admired our honoured guest's work throughout my journey." Ebner poured the tea himself, his smile warm as ever. "Excellent words for the song. Still better work with the three hundred letters. When reports reached the capital, I wondered what extraordinary figure had appeared at the front. I arrived and found it was indeed you."
"The Elder flatters me. Beside your craftsmanship, mine is an apprentice's attempt."
"No. You and I practice different crafts." Ebner shook his head with strange earnestness. "I tune the 'many'—ten thousand hearts as one, producing a mighty sound. You dismantle tuning through the 'each'—each heart its own, producing a multitude of notes. Honoured guest, I have studied this discipline for forty years. Tonight, I concede one point: the resilience of 'each' exceeds my expectation. The human heart is indeed the least governable instrument under heaven."
He set down the kettle and lifted his eyes.
"That is why I invited you tonight. Not to exchange techniques. To tell you one thing—out of respect for a fellow practitioner, and out of..." He selected the phrase. "...the fellow feeling of one creature for another."
"Every contest you won—the song, the verses, the letters—appears on my 'list.' I do not mean that I predicted your every move. I mean whether each move won or lost, it could not obstruct the equinox." Ebner's voice was calm as recited scripture. "I will show you something."
From his sleeve, he took a sheet, unfolded it, and pushed it across.
It was a page of music, copied by hand in ancient ink. Sharlo recognized the notation. The old musician had shown it to him: the lost form of the old Church dirges. At the head stood a title of three words:
THE RAISING
Beneath the title, before the score proper, one small line gave the composer's performance instructions. As Sharlo read it, the blood in his body froze inch by inch:
This work requires no audience. Its instruments are: forty thousand footfalls, forty thousand heartbeats, three hundred pegs of the dead, one chain.
Performer: one. At the Organ Tower.
* * *
Sparks cracked from the charcoal brazier.
Sharlo studied the page of The Raising for a long time before looking up. "One performer, at the Organ Tower. The instrument with three thousand six hundred pipes—the one you have tended for your teacher for twenty years."
"Our honoured guest found it, as expected." Ebner showed no surprise. He even inclined his head, as though Sharlo had answered correctly. "Yes. Mist Gorge's forty thousand are the work's 'instruments.' The organ stands in the capital. When battle begins on equinox morning and forty thousand footfalls strike the chain-string, my tradition's art requires 'wind from afar.' The Organ Tower's bellows open. Three hundred miles of silver candles form the conduits. The weight-chain is the principal reed."
He raised a withered finger and gently pressed an invisible key in the air.
"The Raising."
"Why tell me?" Sharlo kept his voice very steady. "Showing an adversary your final card isn't your order's custom."
"Because you can no longer stop it, honoured guest. That is not contempt, merely fact. Battle proceeds by royal command in both nations; you cannot turn it. The Organ Tower stands in the capital, a thousand miles away. I reveal the account tonight for one private request."
The white-robed, silver-bearded old man solemnly bowed very deeply to Sharlo.
"I ask one favour of our honoured guest."
Sharlo went rigid.
"When the Realmweight rises on the equinox, a great disturbance will pass through heaven and earth. By my calculations, the floor of Mist Gorge will receive its first force." Ebner straightened. Something Sharlo could not interpret lay in his lens-like gaze. "Forty thousand soldiers are the instruments. The score does not state whether its instruments live after the piece. My teacher did not care. My 'Proprietor' cares still less. But I..."
The old man paused. Outside the pavilion, song drifted faintly from the northern camp at dusk—through the mist runs the road home. The soldiers still sang, off-key and earnest.
"I have listened to that song for ten days," Ebner said softly. "I have tuned voices for forty years. For the first time, inside the sounding box I built, I heard strings sing by themselves. One line in your song says, 'One more bun, one less year from home.' Twenty years ago, when I carried my teacher's meals, I always slipped an extra bun into the box. He never ate it. Complained it had gone cold. But he never let me take it away either."
Silence held the pavilion for a long time.
"This is what I ask: on the equinox, since you cannot stop the music, do not try. Use your skill upon the 'instruments.'" Ebner spoke word by word. "Find a way for more of the forty thousand on the valley floor to remain alive when the composition ends. Is that not what you do best—when you cannot save the play, save the people inside it?"
"That is everything I may tell you. One more word would betray the Proprietor—and I still have an organ to repair. I cannot die."
Sharlo stared at the white-haired elder, at the orderly ledger above his head and the sentence worn nearly away beneath it—【He will finish repairing the organ for his teacher】. Then he asked a question belonging to no strategy.
"Ebner. When the organ is repaired, the music played, the Realmweight raised—what then? Will your teacher return?"
The hand pouring tea stopped in the air.
"...I don't know," he said at last. For the first time in forty years, the elder who acted by his list spoke outside it. "The Proprietor promised me only, 'At that time, all shall be revealed.' At my age, I no longer believe promises, honoured guest. I merely—"
He filled the bowl, pushed it across, and lowered his voice almost into the brazier.
"I have tended the organ for twenty years. I must hear what sound it makes at least once. Otherwise, what difference is there between my forty years and that box of cold buns?"
* * *
On the road back, Viola asked through the night, "I heard everything behind the curtain. How much of it was true?"
"Every sentence." Sharlo said. "That is what makes him so difficult. Raven, our adversary isn't an evil man. He is a devoted pupil who simmered the words 'I arrived too late' for forty years, an executioner who wants even enemy soldiers to live. Truth is a hundred times harder to dismantle than a lie."
"Will you grant his request?"
Sharlo walked a long way, watching the linked campfires on the northern slope and the off-key song flowing among them.
"Half," he said at last. "I agree to save people. I refuse 'do not stop the music.'" He turned, and his eyes shone frighteningly in the dark. "One sentence betrayed him: one performer, at the Organ Tower. Raven, the organ is in the capital. The organist is in the capital. The bellows switch is in the capital. And Grey, Archive Rat, and the Committee are in the capital."
"We cannot reach the Organ Tower. They can."
"Send a sealed report." Sharlo quickened his pace. "Fastest channel. Tell Grey: on equinox morning, someone plans to play a composition inside the old Organ Tower of the Royal Academy of Sacred Music."
"Break up the solo recital."