Viola rose, ledger in her arms, and walked into the space between the fire and the stream.
She came to attention, heels together, and gave the formal Vesper Bureau salute. Then she opened her ledger—not a case file someone else had prepared for her, but her own record. Six years of logs from the station of hours lay within it, page after page.
"Viola Raven. Vesper Bureau agent, Candlebearer rank, kindled the name of the Wakebound." She began her report in the same clipped cadence she had used for six years, every word squarely set, without the faintest tremor. "Name-kindling occurred six years ago. Wakefulness unbroken since. Price: sleep debt. Balance accrued year by year, interest assessed as usual. Medical Office ruling: when accrual ceases, principal shall be settled in full. Method of settlement—"
She paused for half a breath. Only half a breath.
"Sleep without end. Three months remain by the ruling, due this year. Hours reverse upon the river; interest recedes; account temporarily stayed—terms resume upon departure."
"That concludes the case report." She closed the ledger. "I request rulings on three matters. First: who is the creditor in this case? Second: once the principal has been settled, under the regulations—is there a road to waking? Third—"
Her voice dropped one measured degree.
"After I fall asleep, the passage across the bridge for the three guests in my family."
The fire burned quietly. The Last Ferryman sat upon the stone and heard the case through without answering at once. First she lifted a water-hued hand and gestured lightly toward Viola, inviting her to sit. Viola did not. The Last Ferryman did not press her, but let this woman who had spent her life standing watch over the hours remain standing to hear the answer.
"The first matter. The creditor," she said. "Not me."
"Your account is in the Dirge's ledger. The Wakebound sleeps without end—that is His script. You kindled His name and accepted His play. It is not death that collects the account, but the play. So when that day comes, you will not come to my river. My boat will not fetch you."
"You will be caught in the door." She spoke very slowly, letting every word come down upon solid ground. "Asleep, not dead. Your soul in the realm of dreams; your body in a bed in the human world. Neither end will reach the shore. As for what lies within the door—"
For the first time before this boatload of people, she admitted that something lay beyond her power.
"I cannot reach it."
"The stage in the fog." Sharlo's voice tightened. "They built it opposite the bridge because they were waiting for—"
"For her to be caught in the door and fall upon the stage." The Last Ferryman nodded. "The realm of dreams is empty. A soul caught in the door has nothing to hold to in any direction and goes wherever there is light. They built their stage bright and waited. That was their design."
Beside the fire, Mick's fists creaked as they clenched. Half-Ladle's spatula turned half a circle in his hand before he forced it still.
"But you have three things they cannot calculate." The Last Ferryman raised her water-hued fingers and counted them one by one.
"First: your name is written in a ledger that cannot be erased. Where there is a name, there is a road back—you called those words in the Hall of Names, and they are true. However bright the stage, if they cannot alter your name, they cannot determine your play."
"Second: someone is writing you a road home. A book written backward from the first sight upon waking—the method is right. People in dreams do not recognize roads. They recognize tunes. When he has learned it by heart, there will be a road in your dream that you can hear."
"Third." She paused and looked at Viola. "The three in your family have waited fifteen years. Other people's dreams are empty. The moment your dream-door opens, there will be people inside. A dream with people in it cannot collapse."
"The second matter. The road to waking." Her voice sank. "I will not deceive you. In three thousand years, many passengers in endless sleep have crossed my river. Every one of them slept to the end of a mortal span before crossing. There is no precedent for one who woke from sleep."
Viola gave one crisp nod. "Received. No precedent."
"I had not finished," the Last Ferryman said. "No precedent does not mean no road. It means no one has walked it."
"Three thousand years ago, there was no river. Three hundred years ago, no one had ever returned the dreams of an entire city. A year and a half ago, no one had ever set a table at my bridgehead. A few days ago, there was no one called Misheng." She counted each in turn, neither hurrying nor lingering. "All along your journey, this boat has specialized in cases without precedent. I have watched you through dozens of stages."
"If there is no road, a road may be walked into being. That is not comfort—it is knowledge I gained by lying here for three thousand years."
"The third matter." Here her voice softened. "The three in your family."
"On the night you settle into sleep, the bridge will be under my charge," she said. "That night, I will not let it sway by so much as a single step. Three passengers, the first three number tokens. From the bridgehead to your dream-door, my own back will carry them there."
"They have stood in line for fifteen years," the Last Ferryman said. "I have borne a queue three hundred years long upon my back. I have seen every way there is to wait. The way those three in your family have waited is the best of them: without resentment, without urging, without dispersing. Sleep without fear. The instant you open your eyes in the dream—"
"They will be there."
Viola stood in the firelight, her spine unbent from beginning to end. When the answer was complete, she brought her feet together and saluted once more. "Three rulings received. Entered into the archive." Then she turned, went back to the fire, sat down, and opened her ledger to record them. Halfway through, her pen stopped.
Everyone aboard saw a drop of water fall upon the page, feathering one corner of the words "entered into the archive."
She did not wipe it away. Beside that blurred corner, in a small and perfectly precise hand, she added a note:
"Paper damp. Content valid."
When night descended—the night at the Source was the vast black shadow lowering another inch—Sharlo made his proposal.
It began with something the Last Ferryman herself said. Looking downstream, she remarked without warning, "I have heard the rules of Bridgehead Hall. I know what happened with Misheng. I heard the stir of the storytelling circle as well. But all I know of those things is their weight. I cannot see what the days I bear upon my back look like."
"For three thousand years," she said, "I have carried a bridge without ever seeing the bridge."
The fireside was still for a moment. Then Sharlo stood.
"Then we will tell You about it."
He swept his gaze around the circle, and everyone aboard understood at once. They had long since mastered the rules of a storytelling circle. Only tonight, their listener was a river.
Mick went first. He spoke of the queue, of how the thirty-mile line had come alive beneath his feet one section at a time: the old sailor in the second section who taught them to tie knots; the reed marsh where hundreds of pairs of hands made flower-knots at once; the old woman in the fourth section who told of a village three hundred years gone; the passenger in the fifth who rehearsed his message—"Kept rehearsing till he laughed. Laughed because he knew he'd still be tongue-tied when he finally saw them." He told her how, four times each day, he carried the two words "Nearly here" into the thirty-mile queue.
Half-Ladle spoke of fragrances. He told her how, on the day his pot first went over a fire at the bridgehead, the whole queue had turned its head as one. He told of the hour when the evening ladleful of soup went into the water, when "the passengers by the stove all stood a little easier." He told of an old passenger gesturing to him from a great distance. It took three repetitions before he understood—the man was teaching him a recipe: add a handful of green plums when stewing fish. "I tried it," the cook told the stream in perfect earnest. "Tasted good. That old brother on Your back knew his trade."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Cole spoke of lamps: the line of ancient characters no one could read upon the old lampstand at the bridgehead, and the three thousand years of ash he had wiped away layer by layer. "At the very bottom of the shade, the ash lay in rings, like the growth rings of a tree. However many years that lamp had been dark, that many rings it had gathered. On the night I lit it, before the first ring of new ash had fallen, the flame warmed three thousand years of old ash."
Pip spoke of number tokens, of the fingerprints he had pressed into every one by hand—"the clumsiest counterfeit-proofing under heaven." He told how a passenger receiving a token would first feel for that print; once its roughness met the fingers, the face settled. Casimir spoke of the tide, of how the bridge's fog opened and closed with the sleeping hours of ten thousand homes in the human world. "What Your back bears is not one bridge. It is the timetable of every bed in the human world."
Viola spoke of the archive. She told how Volume Eight of Register of Homecomings thickened night after night; how Granny Zheng's sugar cakes had to be turned three times over a low fire; how Mr. Meng's schoolmaster's cane had passed through three generations. When she reached the thirty-one names now cleared from the No-Door Ledger, she closed her book. "All cases aforementioned were conducted upon Your back. This agent hereby extends her thanks to the site of operations."
Old Vane went last. The old man did not speak of a case. He told of the smallest thing.
"Last winter—there are no winters to speak of on the river, but reckoning backward from No. 03, that night ought to have been winter in the human world," he said. "One night, a faint commotion suddenly ran through the queue. I came out of the shed to look. The bridge itself—Your back—had shifted, ever so slightly, for some reason."
"The passengers in the queue panicked and thought something had gone wrong. I panicked too. Then a passenger who had waited three hundred years told me: no need for fear. The bridge was shifting its shoulder."
"Anyone who carries a shoulder pole understands," old Vane said. "When a load is heavy and one shoulder has borne it too long, you have to shift. The load sways in that instant, but it does not fall. A person shifting shoulders means to keep carrying."
"That night I entered a line in the ledger: Bridge shifted its shoulder once. Queue secure." The old man bowed deeply toward the stream filled from bank to bank. "Now that we have reached the Source, I would add the closing words to that entry in Your presence—"
"You have carried it for three thousand years. Shift shoulders when You need to. Let no one panic. We are all here now."
The waters filling the stream, the bay, and the dozens of stages along the road behind them remained still for a very, very long time.
Then the surface slowly rose by an inch. It was neither tide nor wave. It simply rose by an inch, then slowly sank again, like someone who had lain there for three thousand years drawing a deep, deep breath and letting it go.
"Three thousand years." Her voice emerged from the water-hued figure, just a little hoarse. "This is the first time anyone has told me what the days I carry upon my back are like."
"So this is what they are like," she said. "Worth it."
When the tale of the bridge was done, Sharlo took something thin from the pocket against his breast.
A ticket stub, grey-white, with fine serrations along its edges—the kind from the grey-white theatre, condensed from applause. In the lamp room at Starport, he had left one for the barefoot youth in white, saying that someone who kept the night deserved to have a play told for him too. Later the youth had gone to the theatre by way of dream, watched the entire performance from the new seating section, and left a mote of silver-white fire as an archive.
"Your younger brother has one." He laid the ticket stub on a stone beside the fire. "You should have one too."
"My theatre lies at midnight, in dreams. You do not sleep—but neither does Your brother, and he has his way of coming." Sharlo said, "A seat will be waiting for You. Choose any row. Whenever You can make time, the play can begin."
The Last Ferryman looked at the tiny ticket stub for a long time.
"For three thousand years, the human world has burned incense to me, knocked its forehead before me, raised temples, cursed me, feared me, and made up lies about me," she said. "You are the first to invite me to a play."
She raised her water-hued hand. The ticket stub floated lightly from the stone and settled upon the stream. It neither sank nor grew wet, but lay quietly on the surface as if in an open palm.
"Accepted," she said. "I want a seat by the water. With this long body of mine, I shall need somewhere to put it while I watch."
The whole circle beside the fire laughed. A river three thousand years old had chosen her own seat, and chosen one "by the water."
The fourth matter of official business was conducted beneath a sky filled with silence.
Old Vane approached the low arch. The stream flowed out beneath it. Beyond the arch lay absolute black, a place even the river's memory could not enter—beneath the pillow. He had investigated the account for twenty years. Its root lay one step beyond him.
He stood there for a long while. Sharlo joined him and stood shoulder to shoulder.
"The third account," the old man said. "I have changed the questions. We will not enter. We will not look. I ask only two things. Whether You answer or not, the account will be considered clear."
"Ask," said the Last Ferryman.
"This river flows from beneath the pillow," old Vane said. "When You lay down and took over the watch—who held it before You?"
"There was no one before me." Her answer was utterly calm. "When I lay down, it was already flowing. A thread-thin stream emerged from beneath this arch. I merely lay down along its course and, with my body, made that thread into a river."
"As to where the water comes from," she said, "I have lain here for three thousand years without once looking back. Those who keep the night do not look beneath the bed. Once they do, they can no longer keep the night."
Old Vane nodded and wrote in his ledger: "Water at the Source predates the Last Ferryman. Provenance unknown. Unresolved." When he finished, he looked at the line and gave a barely audible laugh. A man who had investigated cold cases all his life had entered the word "unresolved" against the greatest cold case of his own life, and done so with perfect equanimity.
"The second question." He closed the ledger but turned to Sharlo. "He should ask this one."
Sharlo looked at the black arch, then at her. For twenty years, one question had rolled inside his chest: Why me? Now it had rolled all the way here, to the threshold of its answer, and he suddenly discovered that it was no longer what he wished to ask.
"The lullaby You hummed for me," he said. "Moonlight, Bright. Where did You... learn it?"
The water-hued features stilled for a moment.
"In the river," she said. "For three thousand years, water has passed through the human world. Women wash clothes beside rivers and soothe their children, and their melodies fall into the water. I keep them all. Whoever a song belongs to, I keep it for them."
"That song of yours—"
She paused. This pause was longer than all the silences before it.
"That song of yours was the first I gathered," she said. "So long ago that I cannot name the age. When I lay down, it was already in the water—like this current, older than I am."
Sharlo stood before the arch as all the blood in his body rushed into his ears. Older than the river. Older than the Last Ferryman. Flowing with the water of the Source from beneath that black arch no one had ever seen—a lullaby in his native accent.
He gazed at the arch for a long, long time. Then, following his uncle's example, he entered his conclusion upon the account within his heart: Unresolved. Do not disturb. Go home.
"Account clear?" asked the Last Ferryman.
"Clear," uncle and nephew answered in one voice.
"Good," she said. "You have all had a tiring day—"
She rose and made the most ordinary of household gestures toward the fire and toward this boatload of people, the first living souls in three thousand years to reach her bedside.
"Sleep. Tonight, sleep at my bedside. Guest lodging, no charge."
"Up and down this river, across three thousand years," the Last Ferryman said, "there has never been sounder sleep than here. I will keep watch."
Bedrolls opened around the fire. Before retiring, Half-Ladle set the rice for morning's porridge to soak. Mick fell asleep the instant his head touched the ground, laughter threaded even through his dreaming words. One after another, their breathing evened.
Before Sharlo lay down, the Last Ferryman called him back.
"Curtainbreaker. Walk with me a moment."
He followed the water-hued figure to the stream. The Source lay utterly still at night. Behind them, the fire without fuel burned on, throwing their two shadows upon the water—one belonging to a man, the other to a river.
"The three answers I gave the Wakebound by daylight were official business," she said. "What I say now is private."
"The day she is caught within the door, you will walk the bridge against its course." It was not a question. "You will cross from my bridge alive, moving against the direction of the passengers, and enter the realm of dreams. I have watched you through dozens of stages. There is no stopping a man like you."
"No stopping me," Sharlo admitted honestly.
"In three thousand years, no living person has crossed the bridge in that direction," she said. "The bridge knows passengers, not the living. It knows those who cross for a glimpse, not those who enter to retrieve someone. Once you are upon it, the fog will bar you. The door will bar you. Every layer of the realm of dreams will bar you."
"But—"
She bent down, bringing her water-hued features closer. Her voice dropped very low, as though she were placing something into his keeping with her own hands.
"The bridge is my back."
"On the day you must walk it against the course, speak my name," she said. "When the fog bars you, speak my name. When the door bars you, speak my name. When you reach a place where you no longer know the road, speak my name."
"The bridge knows."
Sharlo stood beside the stream, his chest rising and falling. He bowed deeply to her. "Your name—which one should I speak? The name of the Last Ferryman has never been recorded in any ledger of the human world."
"It was never recorded because they all wrote it in the wrong direction," she said, that faint amusement surfacing again. "My name is not in their ledgers. It is in the account of this journey you have made."
"When you reach the bridge, say—"
"I am a traveler who journeyed all the way in her embrace."
"That is my name," the Last Ferryman said. "For three thousand years, that is what I have been called."
When Sharlo returned to the fire to lie down, he found Viola still seated.
The station of hours remained erected, her ledger open upon her knees. He had just opened his mouth when she spoke first. "Keep the hours. Regulation One. Even if the sky falls, Regulation One remains."
Across the stream, the water-hued figure remained standing in the night, likewise unsleeping. The one who had lain down and become a river had not slept in three thousand years.
Sharlo woke once in the night. He saw this: beside the fire, a boatload of people slept deeply. Beyond the fire, one sleepless woman and one wakeful god kept watch, one over the hours and one over the night. Across a fire without fuel, neither spoke. They were like two watches at the deepest place under heaven, quietly shifting the burden from shoulder to shoulder.
He entered the scene into Someone Keeps Watch—lying down, writing it in his heart. After setting down the final stroke, he fell asleep.
That night, everyone who slept had a dream, and every dream was good. They established it afterward by balancing accounts: seven sleepers, seven good dreams, and not one laggard who refused to rise. The one keeping the hours was excluded from the account—she staffed her own watch. But she later said that listening to a whole camp breathe that night had rested her better than any dream.
There was no sounder sleep anywhere under heaven. She had kept her word.