Barnaby Grey's funeral was set for the seventh day after the winter solstice.
In those seven days, the capital carried out its greatest reckoning in three hundred years. More than four hundred "shareholders" were brought up for questioning one after another. No. 9 Weightchain Street was placed under seal, the pledge vault at the Old Mint in the west of the city was shut, and the newspapers ran the story on their front pages for seven days without pause. When ink ran short, the presses sent to Kandelburg for paper overnight.
In every street and alley, people spoke of the same thing: the acting Director-General who had read a ledger aloud before the world and turned an invisible Proprietor's affairs inside out.
And they all spoke of the same man's death.
On the day before the funeral, Director-General Duren issued the second special order since her return to office. It was brief:
"By the Vesper Bureau's three-hundred-year custom, when a Duskwarden falls in the line of duty, sixteen bells shall toll. This custom has gone unobserved for a century. Today it is restored. For Barnaby Grey, Duskwarden of the Seventh Class and Acting Director-General, let the bells toll."
And so, at noon on the seventh day after the winter solstice, the sixteen great bells on the ninth tier of the Grand Belfry opened their mouths in turn.
From the Scarlet Queen to the Lord of Falsehoods, one bell after another, one peal after another. The sound rolled over seven hills, over Parliament's spires and the cluster of black towers on Palace Hill, over the empty doorway of Weightchain Street. Every carriage in the city stopped. Pedestrians stood where they were. Workmen laid down their tools, and newsboys forgot to cry their papers. Sixteen tolls, each deeper than the last, like sixteen old gods unwilling to show their faces, filing past to bow to a mortal man.
Only the seventeenth bell did not ring.
The Blank Bell hung quietly in shadow at the far end of the gallery. Its silence was no discourtesy. Standing among the bells, Sharlo saw it plainly: while the other sixteen thundered, the body of the Blank Bell trembled, very faintly and very steadily, like a man who could not speak using his throat to mourn the dead.
The funeral was held in the Vesper Bureau's old courtyard. Grey's will had stipulated, "No mourning hall. No wreaths. No eulogy longer than one stick of incense."
Yet the mourners filled the courtyard.
All six members of the committee staff attended. Old Pan stood before the coffin with his ebony abacus, raised it high, and shook it three times—the greatest salute of an accountant, performed only once in a lifetime. It meant: this man's accounts are clear. Old Wei and Examiner Hong carried a stone tablet on which no honours were carved, only the words Grey himself had once written in approval: Acknowledged. Carry an umbrella. Archive Rat stood at the very rear of the crowd, counting every person who came. At three hundred, he could count no more.
Two messages of condolence arrived from Mist Gorge. The old knight's telegram contained only one line: "Barrot, Keeper of the Chain at Mist Gorge, mourns with respect: I finished the half packet left from the meal with the wine. When the meal on the tower roof comes, I shall climb in your stead."
Little Tree's letter arrived afterward, its characters crooked and its paper still flecked with wheat chaff: "Director-General, Ma says when a good official passes away, you burn three sticks of incense before the Kitchen God. We haven't got a Kitchen God, so I lit three stalks of straw for you on top of the wheat stack. They burned ever so bright."
No letter came from the direction of Kandelburg's Dawn Tower. An object came instead: a short length of burnt wick, wrapped in plain silk and sent with Selden's brief note. The note read: "The one atop the tower says that keepers do not mourn the dead. Keepers add light. This wick was taken from the First-Kindling flame and is offered before the bier in his stead. He also sends one message—'The fourth fool is the eldest now. Tell him to stand straight.'"
Councillor Saunders came with the old councillor. The old man stood leaning on his cane before the coffin for a long while, then placed Casualty Roll of the Border Conflicts upon the lid.
"Your name has no business in this book," he said hoarsely. "But I have searched every register under heaven, and not one is worthy of you. Make do with this."
Mrs. Porter had travelled from Kandelburg. She carried a food box containing a batch of baked cakes, still warm—she had held them in her lap throughout the coach journey. She did not weep. She merely arranged the cakes neatly before the coffin, then spoke to it in the tone of one discussing household affairs:
"I received your reply. Seven words and one first-class stamp. You old thing. All your life, you could never bring yourself to spend money on one stamp more."
Then she stepped aside and helped pour tea for the mourners. Her hands did not stop all afternoon.
The Stillwater Society sent two spirit-ferrymen. When the blue-green glass lamp was placed upon the coffin, their leader threw back his hood—and Sharlo froze. It was the Old Boatman, the aged spirit-ferryman who had poled the river bend at Kandelburg in Volume One. His wrinkles were deeper, but his eyes had not changed: two old wells that had watched too much water pass.
"By the river's rules, tickets for great men must be booked in advance." The Old Boatman lit the wick, his voice rasping. "Every hand in our Society was vying to issue this gentleman's ticket. Three hundred years, and never once has a man settled the accounts of 'that side' while still on 'this side' before departing. The river honours such a passenger."
He bent, straightened the lamp, and recited the ferry ticket. When he had finished, he rose and abruptly turned to Sharlo, lowering his voice.
"Young sir. A word apart."
In a corner of the old courtyard, the Old Boatman drew something from inside his robe and held it out. It was an old ship's nail, black iron worn to a shine.
"Last month, we salvaged an empty boat from the river," the Old Boatman said. "A nameless ferryboat, with nails like this driven into its hull. Our boats use no iron nails—iron sinks, and the black river holds grudges. A boat fastened with iron nails is a seagoing vessel."
"How could a seagoing vessel fall into the black river?"
"A good question." The Old Boatman pressed the nail into his hand. "For three hundred years, the river has been the river and the sea the sea. The Stillwater Society guards the mouth, and neither water trespasses upon the other. But since the autumn equinox, more and more of what we dredge from the river has come from the sea—iron nails, rope, and a ship's nameplate." He paused. "No one in the Society could read the writing on the plate. I copied its shape. Take a look."
He spread out a sheet of paper. Several copied characters stood upon it, their strokes askew. But Sharlo needed only one glance for half the warmth to drain from his blood.
He knew those characters. They were the written shape of the tongue most familiar to him across both his lives.
The ship's plate bore three words: White Strand Island.
The following day, Director-General Duren presided over the inventory of Grey's effects from her infirmary command post.
Three people were present: Duren, Sharlo, and Viola. The classified cabinet was opened, and Grey's possessions were brought out one by one and entered into the register.
First came the chess-record book. It was bound in deep-blue cloth and contained more than half a year's weekly games—from their first match in Kandelburg to the drawn game before the winter solstice. Grey had written something in advance upon the flyleaf:
"To be received by the player of White. Every game herein may be replayed, won or lost, save the last. The account of a draw is cleanest."
Second came two oil-paper packets, one new and one old. The new one held the half packet of salted biscuits brought back from Mist Gorge; the old was yellow and brittle as a dead leaf. Duren held the two packets for a long time before she finally said, "This does not enter the register. It is a private account." She pushed them toward Sharlo. "The appointment on the tower roof. Everyone present counts. The old knight is at Mist Gorge. Selden is on the tower. You—carry these. If the war ever truly ends, climb the tower in his place."
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Third came a letter.
It was sealed with wax. Across the envelope, Grey had written: For Sharlo's eyes alone. No one else is to open this—and that includes you, Duren, you old woman. I know your fingers itch.
Duren laughed when she read it. She laughed until her eyes reddened. Then she handed him the letter and turned to look out of the window.
Sharlo broke the seal. The letter was not long, only two pages, and the hand was rougher than usual. It had plainly been written very late at night.
"My boy:
By the time you read this letter, I should have played my last move. Wipe that funeral face away and finish reading first. That is an order—my last order in this life, so I must spend it carefully.
There is an old matter I have kept from you for more than half a year. Not because I wished to hide it, but because I had promised not to speak. Now I have left the table, and by the terms of that promise, it is time you knew.
Thirty years ago, on the night the old Director died, the three of us—Duren, your uncle, and I—made a compact in the bell gallery. The old man lay beneath the Blank Bell and divided the work among us. Duren was to keep the people: she would guard the Vesper Bureau's roll of the living and let no name go unrecorded. I was to keep the game: I would guard the white stone until the player of White arrived, then yield him the board. Your uncle was to keep the door.
The old man said that somewhere in this world stood a door, and that for three hundred years someone had been carrying things through it—all the things in this world that were 'wrong.' Old Vane's task was to find that door and see clearly what had been piled behind it.
The final term of our compact was this: whoever left the table first, the others would take up his hand and keep playing.
The old man went first, and the three of us divided his hand. Now I have gone as well. My share is easily settled—the white stone is yours, and so is the board. But of your uncle's share, by my fullest accounting, you are now the only one left who can take it up.
Among the files from the closing of the net, one chest contains the accounts of the Dirge Society's maritime branch. Archive Rat will show you. I shall mention only this: on the day your uncle disappeared, he pawned his native accent at the counter in daylight. That evening—someone saw him at Kandelburg harbour. The old proprietor of the chart house gave a statement. It has lain buried beneath the branch accounts for a year and a half, unread. Your uncle bought an old sea chart there and paid twice its price. The proprietor asked where he was going. He answered in three words.
He said: I'm going home.
My boy, after a lifetime of investigating cases, I learned one thing at last: wherever the next page of the file lies, the case must follow. The next page of your uncle's file is not on land.
The remaining game is yours with White. Make your first move upon the sea.
Do not see me off. I have gone home to play chess.
—Grey"
The infirmary was very quiet. Beyond the window, winter sunlight shone upon the spire of the Grand Belfry.
Sharlo read the letter twice, folded it, and slipped it into the inner pocket beside his black notebook. When he raised his head, his eyes were red, but his voice was steady.
"Director-General," he said. "I request leave to go to sea."
At midnight that night, the pocket watch stopped as usual.
When the spotlight rose in the grey-white theatre, Sharlo stood at the apron for a long while before taking the stage. He looked first toward the auditorium.
In the seventh row, Finch's afterimage occupied its accustomed seat: spectacles crooked, manuscript pages upon his knee. The Letter Writer's empty seat remained empty, its playbill laid squarely in place. Layers of grey shadows filled the house, quieter tonight than usual.
Sharlo searched row by row. He could not have said what he sought—no, he could. A new shadow. Broad-shouldered, sitting like a reef, unable to restrain a derisive grunt whenever the play reached a rotten move on the chessboard.
There was none.
Grey was not in the audience.
"You owe me nothing," Sharlo said softly from the apron. "My audience is made up of creditors—people who owed me, people I saved, people who took a performance from me on credit. You owe me nothing at all. You spent your life settling every man's account before you left."
"So you needn't come." His throat caught as he spoke. "But old man, if you do not come, who will I perform my rotten chess for now?"
The spotlight shone on in silence. Then something at the edge of the stage caught the corner of Sharlo's eye—and he wheeled around.
Something had appeared upon the floor of the apron.
A black chess piece.
He had not brought it. His white stone remained close against him in the waking world. This one was black, placed squarely upon the boards facing the audience, like a move just played.
Sharlo crossed to it, crouched, and watched it for a long time without touching it.
He understood the theatre's rules. Anything that appeared onstage was rent, an archived record, an account kept by the theatre in its own fashion. He did not know who had deposited this black stone, when it had been left, or against which performance. He knew only one thing—
From this night onward, one black move would hang forever over the board in his theatre, waiting for his answer.
"Very well," he said at last. He rose and bowed slightly to the black stone, as one saluted the player with first move. "I have recorded this move. I shall think it over slowly. When I have my answer, I will come and play it."
* * *
Two days before departure, Viola visited the medical office to complete the medical formalities for accompanying the expedition.
The old medical officer drew out her case history and turned to the newest page under "Number Seven." He remained there for a long time.
"Going to sea," he said. "Three months at least, perhaps half a year. There is no medical office at sea. No spectrometer. No me."
"There is work for a Letter Writer," Viola said. "Many people aboard, few words among them. Night watches need keeping at sea as well. My prescription says: as before, keep watch more often. There are no fewer people worth watching over at sea than on land."
The old medical officer studied her for a long moment, then asked without warning, "Are you not afraid that the case history someone borrowed will follow you to sea?"
The consulting room fell silent for one instant. Neither of them spoke the title Dreamless Sleep, yet both heard it.
"I am," Viola answered evenly. "But Medical Officer, if they have taken my case history and cast me in their role, then if I stay in the capital, the play opens in the capital. If I board a ship, their stage must drift after me." She paused. "A drifting stage is easier to dismantle than one with roots."
The old medical officer took off his reading spectacles and polished them for a long while.
"Very well." He signed the travel authorisation, then took a small wooden case from his drawer and pushed it across. "Take this. Seasickness pills, calming powder, and my handwritten copy of Handbook of Maritime Emergencies. I added something on the last page. One sentence. Read it after you reach the sea."
Viola left the medical office, opened the case upon the steps, and turned to the last page.
The old medical officer's hand was hard-edged:
"Where there is a name, there is a road back—the same holds true at sea. Remember: at sea, when you kindle a name, you must shout into the wind."
* * *
The formalities for putting to sea took six days.
Duren's transfer order was headed "Vesper Bureau Overseas Survey Team." It followed precedent set by the old Mist Gorge field-survey team, extending the wartime clauses of Vesper Compact: wherever extraordinary phenomena occurred, on land or sea, the Vesper Bureau held the right of investigation. The Legal Office drafted that interpretation overnight. When it was done, even its own staff laughed. "Three hundred years, and for the first time the Vesper Bureau's regulations reach the sea."
The committee met for half a day when the roster was submitted. Its final establishment comprised five people: Consultant Sharlo Vane, Agent Viola Raven, Examiner Hong, Communications Officer Mick, and one position provisionally vacant—"to be filled at Kandelburg according to the requirements of the route."
Archive Rat remained behind. Bent over the chest of maritime-branch accounts, he did not even look up. "I am not going to sea. I get seasick. Your letters will go by albatross, one flight every ten days, and I will receive them here. If any of you dares miss a ten-day report, I shall settle with you when you return."
When Mick heard his name was on the roster, the whistle between his lips broke into a cracked note.
"To sea!" The boy ran three circles around headquarters courtyard, then stopped abruptly and began counting on his fingers with great solemnity. "Wait, I've three things to do first. Write to Ma—no, answer Mrs. Porter first. There was a note in that batch of cakes asking whether the agency windows ought to be repainted while it's winter. Then write to Little Tree. He said last month that the Wheat Country's seed was in the ground, and asked whether those grand officials in the capital had new wheat to eat through the winter. I've got to tell him I'm going on a ship. A great big ship!"
At his third finger he stopped, and his voice abruptly fell.
"Third... Brother, before we sail, I want to visit the Director-General's office one more time," Mick said. "I promised the Director-General that every job with four legs was mine. Someone else is on duty in his room now, but I want to run one last errand for him—finish watering the plant on his desk."
Sharlo laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"Go," he said. "Count this errand as official business."
After the meeting adjourned, Sharlo climbed alone to the bell gallery.
In the dusk, the seventeen great bells hung in a line. He walked to the gallery's end and stopped before the Blank Bell. Three feet away, the three-hundred-year-old mute bell hung in silence. Not one inscription marked its body. Light fell upon it and returned nothing.
"I am going on a long journey," he told the bell.
The bell trembled, very faintly.
"Selden sent word. The one atop the tower says that you recognise words, not people. He told me to think carefully about what I wished to say." Sharlo gazed into the bottomless darkness of its body and spoke slowly. "I have thought for a long time. I still do not know. I fear that whatever I say now will be wrong—and after waiting three hundred years, you should not have to hear a sentence I have not understood myself."
He stepped half a pace closer.
"So wait for me a little longer," he said. "I shall go to sea and learn where I myself came from. Once I understand, I shall return, stand here, and say those words to you."
The Blank Bell remained silent. A long time passed. Just as Sharlo turned to go, its body trembled, very slowly, very slowly, and gave a hum almost too faint to hear—not an answer, but rather a sigh. A quiet Go.
By the time Sharlo left the bell gallery, night had fully fallen.
The lamp in the infirmary command post still burned. Beneath it, Duren finished approving the last official paper and drew out a sheet delivered that afternoon by the headquarters gatehouse. It had no envelope and no signature. It was a playbill.
Grey paper, lettered in gold.
"Final Curtain Season · First Production
Never Homeward
A Magnificent New Production by the Floating Island Theatre
Leading Role: Awaiting Its Star
Opening in Kandelburg"
Duren read the playbill three times. Then she took up her pen and wrote one line across the head of the document before summoning someone to carry it to Sharlo through the night.
She had written:
"They have built their stage in your home town."