They sent an urgent dispatch about the shears first thing that morning.
A relay horse from the curtain coach raced straight for the capital with a letter for old Vane: search the ruins of the Organ Tower for a pair of shears. Sharlo copied the Foldkeeper's words in full and added his own conclusion.
Three hundred years ago, Master Tong had been ordered to travel the world servicing the ancient bells. Ordinary tools could not cut the black iron used in Realmweight. He borrowed the Soulherd's shears to cut stock for bell-casting and promised to return them. The casting was completed, but the shears remained in the Everlight Society's Organ Tower. The tower had burned itself three years ago. Its ruins were confiscated property, sealed by the Vesper Bureau.
"Finding one pair of shears in those ruins will be like fishing a needle out of the sea," Pip said.
"We'll fish it out," Sharlo said. "Casimir is there. After a god's shears have lain in the human world for three hundred years, the paths around them won't look like the paths around ordinary iron. An expert need only glance at those paths to know where the object is hiding."
Once the urgent dispatch was sent, it was time for the true business of their visit.
Descend the hill. Enter the dream. Meet the Soulherd.
"There is no precedent for a living person entering a god's dream." Viola wrote the line into their procedure, paused, then added another. "There is, however, an applicable precedent: this team has entered the dream of a living person. The operation succeeded."
Matilda opened the door.
For ninety-one generations, the Foldkeepers' line had fed incense, but what they truly guarded was a door. The little house at the foot of the hill had its hearth-bed facing the hill and its stove facing the folds. The Foldkeeper slept between them. For three thousand years, he had been the threshold between the Soulherd's dream and the human world. The old Foldkeeper lay on the bed, breathing more air out than in, but when he heard their procedure, he smiled.
"Pass through my dream," he said. "I've dreamed beneath the hill every night of my life. I know the road."
"Master—"
"Help me lie straight," the old man said. "A Foldkeeper spends a lifetime as a threshold. To serve as a door for the Curtainbreaker once at the end—that is honourable work."
The road into the dream was astonishingly short.
There was no fog and no street. Sharlo held Viola by the wrist. Her other hand rested on Matilda, and Matilda's hand lay against the back of her master's. The breaths of four people sank—beneath the old man's long, even respiration, beneath the hearth-bed, beneath the earth at the foot of the hill. Then everything before them opened into light.
A pasture at dusk.
It stretched without end. The grass was the gold-green of twilight, and when the wind crossed it, slope after slope bowed low. A red sun hung on the horizon, seeming about to set but never setting. It was not the sun of the human world, but one made of dream, warm and unmoving for three thousand years, neither rising nor falling, soaking the whole pasture in dusk. Near and far, sheep lay scattered over the grassy slopes like clouds, grazing in silence.
At the pasture's centre sat a figure with his back to them.
He was vast beyond reason, like a mountain draped in a straw rain cape. He had the shape of an old shepherd: cape, broad hat, and a crook polished smooth leaning beside him. He merely sat with his back to them, watching his flocks. They could not see his face. It was not hidden; it was too large for an eye to contain. Wherever their gaze touched it, all they saw was a piece of twilight.
And all around him stood a fold.
A fence encircled the whole pasture, its end beyond sight. It was not made of wood. Seen closely, every stake was a sentence. Words crowded one upon another in layers accumulated over three thousand years. Bless my family's sheepfold with peace. Bless the children's father's leg. Bless the price of wool this year. Bless us, bless us, bless us—countless pleas to "bless us," driven into stakes and woven into rails, binding the shepherd and his pasture inside.
The fence was very old. Stakes from the past three years stood sparse, with almost no fresh layer at all. The old formula had reduced the incense, and the fold had ceased growing. But the old stakes of three thousand years remained, each driven deep.
"You came."
The Soulherd spoke. His voice was not loud, yet it was as though the whole pasture spoke at once. It sounded in the wind, in the grass, and in the sheep bells.
"Sit," he said. "When guests come, a shepherd ought to rise and offer his seat. But I cannot rise. I've been sitting here for three thousand years."
Sharlo sat cross-legged ten-odd paces behind and to one side of the enormous figure. Viola sat beside him and opened her notebook. She tested her pen. Ink took to the page. The god's dream recognised her records.
"Old master," Sharlo began, using the same respectful address he gave Old Hansen, gave the Old Boatman, and gave craftsmen everywhere. "This junior has come to do three things: hear your story, reconcile your account, and receive your commission."
"A sound procedure," the Soulherd said, a trace of laughter entering the wind. "Then hear the story first. No one has listened to me tell an old tale in three thousand years. The Foldkeepers' children hear only my dreams, and dreams come in pieces. Today I'll tell one whole."
"The night the sky fell, three thousand years ago," he said.
The dusk over the pasture deepened.
"I wasn't a god then. I was an 'Old Shepherd' in the mouths of countless shepherds—a man who spent his whole life tending sheep, kept the fold at night, stood in front when wolves came, and gathered the flock into his arms when snow fell. Shepherds told stories about me for hundreds of years. They told and told, until one day I stood up out of the stories," he said. "All gods made by human tales stand up that way. The first thing I did on the day I rose was look for my sheep. Where were my sheep? Every fold across the continent was mine."
"Then the sky fell. On the night the old sun went out, all the wolves in the world went mad. It was too dark to see a hand before your face, and livestock died in swathes. I looked at my sheep—the sheep of the whole continent, and the people who lived by tending them—and did what every shepherd does at night."
"I built the fold."
"Out of myself," the Soulherd said, as matter-of-factly as though discussing farm work. "I took apart the thing called 'god' that I was and drove it into the earth, stake by stake. The grass around Lambton was richest and its people most honest, so I planted the heart of the fold here. In the years of darkness, the grass within it never withered. The sheep did not die out. And the people inside—survived."
Heat settled heavily in Sharlo's chest. To fall was to keep watch. The Last Ferryman had lain down as a river. The Keeper of the Star Gate had locked himself into the lock. The Dusk Colossus held up the curtain's edge. White Strand Island's old lamp had consumed its keeper. Now this fifth one: the Soulherd had staked himself into a fold.
"But a fold," the Soulherd continued more slowly, "has one failing born into it."
"It cannot tell protection from imprisonment."
"For the first hundred years, the fold protected. People survived inside, I laboured inside, and the account was settled on both sides. Later, the sky grew brighter and life eased. It was time for people to leave the fold. But they had grown used to it, and I... I had grown used to being fed." The wind stopped for half a breath. "Incense is sweet. Every plea to 'bless us' gave me another measure of strength and added another stake. As I drank, I slowly understood: it was not me they were feeding."
"They were feeding the fold. They drove their hopes into it, and their fears, and every 'I dare not bear this myself.' The fold grew thicker, and at its heart I sat heavier and heavier. By the time I wanted to stand, I no longer could."
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"That children's rhyme outside sings cruelly of me, but it is not wrong," the Soulherd said. "Faith devours the Soulherd. Faith fed me to death—fed me for three thousand years, until I had become the very fold that fed me."
"Old master." Viola abruptly raised her head. "One supplementary question, by investigative procedure. In three thousand years, did you ever hate them—the people who drove those stakes into you, sentence by sentence?"
The wind across the pasture stilled for one breath.
"I did." The Soulherd's answer came cleanly, with neither concealment nor excuse. "By the thousandth year, I hated them until my teeth itched. I held back the falling sky for them, and they nailed me to the earth with their hopes. What sort of gratitude is that?"
"And later?"
"Later, I saw something clearly." The old shepherd's voice softened. "The people driving the stakes left things for me outside the fold even as they worked. New grass at the spring graves, the first bowl of milk at the winter solstice, a month-old baby carried out for me to see. They didn't know whether I could see, but every year they brought the children all the same. Ninety-one generations of Foldkeepers gave their whole lives, one after another, merely to listen to my dreams each night, afraid I would be lonely."
"They were the ones who nailed me down, and the ones who kept me warm," he said. "Both accounts stand in the same ledger. If I acknowledge only the first, then I truly become the fold—a fold sees nothing but its stakes. I acknowledged the second as well, and so I remained a shepherd."
"Recorded." Viola's pen descended, steady as ever. "Classification: material point."
"That is one way to keep an account," Sharlo said softly. "There is another."
The figure did not move. But all the wind across the pasture turned an ear toward him.
"On that night three thousand years ago, you took yourself apart to build the fold. That was not you being fed. You first fed yourself to the flock." Sharlo spoke one word at a time. "The incense of the next three thousand years was merely the flock, unable to bear it, trying to feed you back mouthful by mouthful. Their method was clumsy. They fed the wrong stove. But the heart behind it was the same heart you had on the night you built the fold."
"Faith devours the Soulherd—their reading is that faith ate the god."
"Mine is that the god fed himself to that which he watched over." He paused. "Every shepherd in the world does the same at night. You merely did it on the greatest scale, and for the longest time."
The pasture remained silent for a very long time.
Then the mountainous back trembled, very slowly and faintly. The brim of the broad hat dipped, hiding the face they could not see to begin with. All across the slopes, the flocks stopped eating and raised their heads toward the heart of the fold.
"...Three thousand years," the Soulherd said, his voice hoarse as an old bell. "This is the first time anyone has kept the account in a way that sits easy with me."
"The account is reconciled." He collected himself and returned his tone to the plain directness of an old shepherd. "Now receive the commission. Listen well. Opening the fold is not smashing it. Smash it, and the stakes fly loose and hurt people. What strength I've gathered will explode. A fold must be opened by a shepherd's rules: open the gate first, call the sheep out, wait until the last sheep has left, and let the shepherd leave last and shut the gate behind him."
"The cracked bell is the gate. The shears open its lock. You are seeing to both."
"Calling the sheep out—that is the most important part," he said. "What the fold holds is not sheep, but the hopes of seven thousand people. If they panic when the fold opens, one cry of 'bless us' will drive a new stake into me. A new stake has force. It will twist the fold just as it is coming apart. That night, no one in town may pray to me."
"Not one plea," the Soulherd said. "They must tell me aloud: Shepherd, go. We can manage on our own. Those words are harder than any sacred instrument. But those words—"
"Must be spoken of their own free will," Sharlo finished. "All seven thousand of them."
"Yes," the Soulherd said. "That is a lesson I cannot teach them. After three thousand years of feeding, the people themselves must teach one another how to wean."
"Commission accepted," Sharlo said. "The public board still stands at the town entrance. Three years ago, the account of the wool was settled there. We'll settle this one on the same board."
"One more question." Before they parted, Sharlo laid out the matter that had pressed upon him throughout their journey. "Old master. You have sat within this fold for three thousand years. On that night three thousand years ago, some gods died and some kept watch. You knew them. I want to reconcile a larger account: the play that put the whole world inside it, and the covenant stamped 'Arrived as Promised.' Did you see it then?"
The dusk over the pasture darkened.
"I saw it," the Soulherd said, lowering his voice as though discussing an old plague in the livestock shed. "They delivered the covenant from door to door. When they brought it to me, I was counting my sheep. The one who carried it said, 'Old Shepherd, the play is about to begin. When the Final Curtain is performed, the audience beyond the curtain will grant us true bodies.' I asked him, 'Who is the audience? Have you seen them?' He said, 'The writer has.' So I asked, 'And have you seen the writer?'"
"He had no answer," the Soulherd said. "He could not answer, yet he continued from door to door. Then I understood: the covenant was empty. But an empty covenant is the most frightening sort, child. A real covenant can deceive for a time. An empty one can deceive for three thousand years, because everyone assumes someone else has seen the proof."
"I did not accept the covenant. I accepted my sheep," he said. "Those who accepted what was already in their care did not die completely that night—the one who lay down as a river, the one who locked himself into a lock, the one who held up the sky, and I, who staked myself into a fold. Those who accepted the covenant performed one show after another according to the list until nothing remained of them."
"If you mean to dismantle that play, remember this." The old shepherd spoke one word at a time. "Do not argue whether the covenant is true or false. An empty covenant cannot be refuted. There is no substance in it for your teeth to find. What you must do is make those who accepted it see one thing clearly:"
"The hand that holds sheep has no need of an audience."
As they prepared to leave the dream, the Soulherd called Sharlo back.
"One more thing, free of charge," the old shepherd said. "The bell array you face at the winter solstice—the seventeen ancient bells were cast by my own hands. Three thousand years ago, one for each heart of a fold, made to keep the peace. Three hundred years ago, a craftsman surnamed Tong came to service them. Fine workmanship. Silent man. He left his mark on every bell. When the work was done, he came into my dream and said, 'Old sir, I have tuned the bells. From now on, what they sing is no longer for you or me to decide.'"
"There was guilt in his voice when he said it," the Soulherd went on. "I've remembered that guilt for three hundred years. A guilty craftsman always leaves a back door in his work. When you search for the bell array's weakness, don't search the bodies of the bells. Search his marks. Each mark is a service record—and in those records he hid what he did not dare say aloud."
"As for my bells," he said at last, "I will teach you their old lullaby now. Learn it, and on the night of the winter solstice, no matter what killing instrument they make of the array—if you can make one bell remember its own old measure—"
"Every bell in the array will remember with it."
The wind rose. Sheep bells across the pasture suddenly sounded together, softly, forming a tune—slow, swaying, sinking on every third beat, like a cradle, like the homeward walk at dusk, like a hillside full of sheep ambling home through the twilight, three steps to each sway.
Sharlo closed his eyes and carved the tune into his bones, note by note.
The final official act Viola performed inside the dream was to open a register for the stakes in the fold.
She walked beside the fence for a time. It could never be walked in full, a three-thousand-year enclosure whose end lay beyond sight. Still, she walked a portion and copied the nearest stakes into her notebook one by one. Year and month so-and-so, household so-and-so: for peace in the sheepfold. Year so-and-so, household so-and-so: for a child's leg. Year so-and-so, household so-and-so: for the price of wool. After the thirty-somethingth stake, she stopped writing.
"I can't copy them all," she said. "But I understand what they are."
"What?"
"The parts of three thousand years of life that seven thousand people did not dare bear themselves." She closed the notebook and looked at the fence whose end lay beyond sight. "When the fold opens, these things won't vanish. They must return to each household. Every family must reclaim the stake it drove out of itself and bear the weight on its own."
"So the question on the public board isn't 'Do we let the Soulherd go?'" she said. "It's 'Do we dare take back our own lives?' That question is harder than letting go."
When they emerged from the dream, dawn was greying the sky.
The old Foldkeeper lay on the hearth-bed with his eyes still open. When he saw them return, amusement shone through the clouding. "Saw him?"
"We saw him. Heard the whole story, reconciled the account, and accepted the commission."
"Good." The old man released a long, contented breath. "Then it's time I set out."
Matilda's slate pencil struck the floor with a clack.
She crouched to retrieve it. It took her two attempts. When she finally held it again, the Foldkeeper-designate who had not let anyone see her lose composure in three years wrote one line on the slate and held it up. Her hand shook so badly that every character leaned awry.
"Master. You did not consult me about this."
"What is there to consult?" The old man smiled at her. "The first rule of the Foldkeepers is the one I taught you: hear his dreams and answer his commissions. For the first time, he called me by name himself. How could I refuse to answer?"
"Besides." He softened his voice. "Silly girl. My years had come due in any case. Either way, I leave. Leaving with a commission and leaving for nothing are two different kinds of departure. Your master is fortunate."
"The dream he sent last night..." The old man looked at the roof beams, his voice light enough to drift. "He said that on the day the fold opens, someone has to guide him on the other side. Once the fold is gone, he'll be setting out on his first long journey. He doesn't know the road. He asked me, 'Old Eighty-Four, go on ahead. Prepare the way on that side and serve as my guide—'"
"I accepted," the old man said, smiling like a young man given a great commission. "Of ninety-one generations of Foldkeepers, I'll be the first to guide the Soulherd. I won't yield that honour."
Sharlo sat beside the bed and clasped the old man's wasted hand.
"Master," he said, "I know the road along the river. Let me tell you how it works. Once you enter the river, state your number. At every lamp, there will be a message. At the bridgehead stands a hall, and the old gentleman who keeps the register is surnamed Vane—he's my uncle. Tell him the Curtainbreaker's master is travelling under a guide's commission. He'll issue you a first-class number."
"Recorded." The old man committed it to memory word by word, with greater care than anything else. "Bridgehead Hall. Vane. First-class number." Then he laughed again. "For three thousand years, the Foldkeepers have seen ninety generations off. Now, when it's finally my turn, someone even gives me directions—"
"This world truly is getting better."