Chapter 378 Terms

Okafor said: not tomorrow, not next week. I'm not a monster.

The houses didn't wait for next week.

It was the ninth day after Abena. A long-table day. The forty-one worlds, round the table in the map room on Avalon, through the arches, with Okafor at the head of it and the slate in front of her and Garnet's drawing of the ring pinned to the wall behind, closer now, every tower drawn.

They'd been talking about ships. Holt had a list. Keir and Aster had a list. Kyria and the Hyrrani smiths had a list of walking engines, which was longer than either of the others and which Kyria read out in a voice that made it very clear she expected it to be the only list that mattered.

Tally was on the floor under the table.

She does that at long tables. Sits on the floor under it, with her back against one of the legs and her hand flat on the stone, because the voice is easier to hear close to the ground. Moon was with her. Nobody minds. Okafor says the voice is a member of the long table whether it has a chair or not.

At the eleventh hour, Tally stood up.

Under the table. So fast she hit her head on the underside of it. And came out from under it on her hands and knees, white, with Moon behind her, and stood up at the end of the long table beside Okafor's chair.

"It's not the voice," she said.

Okafor looked at her.

"It's coming through the voice," said Tally. "But it's not the voice. It's—" She stopped. Put both hands over her ears. Took them away. "It's them. The houses. They're talking. Through it. To us."

Nobody at the long table had ever heard the houses talk.

Not to us. Not to anyone. The houses don't talk. The houses sing the note and send the correctors and take the tithe and teach things to be empty. Konrad says that in thirty years of signing the Accord he never once heard anything from the houses that wasn't a number.

They were talking now.

Through the voice. Through Tally. Into the map room on Avalon, at the long table, in front of forty-one worlds.

"What are they saying?" said Okafor.

Tally shook her head.

"I can't say it," she said. "I don't have the words. It's too—" She looked at me. "Lucas. Can you—"

I put my hand on her shoulder.

And went into the voice. Not far. Not up the thread, not the way I'd gone for the thirty-four towers. Just in. Into the place where the voice was, in Tally's ear, very faint, very far.

And it was full.

Not of the voice. The voice was there, I could feel it, small and frightened in its quiet places, holding very still. But the rest of it, the part the houses taught, the loud part, was full of something else.

Something enormous.

Something very old and very patient and very cold, standing on the teaching the way a foot stands on a floor.

And speaking.

I'll write what it said. As close as I can. Dot heard it too, through me, and put it into everyone at the table, and Genny wrote it down word for word, and I've read Genny's page a great many times since.

It didn't speak in words. It spoke in numbers. The way Konrad said. The way the counting towers count.

But I understood the numbers. And so did Dot. And this is what they said.

You are a fault.

Faults are corrected. That is the way.

But you are a fault that does not correct. We have sent the correctors. We have sent the black. We have sent the Hands. You have taken them apart. You have taught our Hands to stop singing. You have opened the Cradle and the reef and the Barrow. You have taken the children of fifty-three worlds. You have made our towers slow.

This has never happened.

We do not know how to correct you.

The long table was very quiet.

So we offer terms.

Konrad Friese stood up.

At the far end of the long table. In his coat, which Nan Vey irons every Sunday. White to the lips. He didn't say anything. He just stood up. The way you stand up when someone comes into a room that you've been in before.

I don't think he knew he'd done it.

Terms, said the houses. As with the humans. Thirty years ago. The Accord.

Give us the one we call world-breaker.

Give us the four small ones who make doors.

And we will take no more children. From any world. Ever.

No tithe. No sorting. No towers. No note.

Five for all of them. For every world. For every child who will ever be born on every world we hold. Forever.

These are the terms.

I took my hand off Tally's shoulder.

I didn't decide to. It just came off. And the voice went out of me, and the houses went out of me, and I was standing in the map room on Avalon at the end of the long table with forty-one worlds looking at me.

Nobody said anything.

Then Andraste stood up.

She didn't say anything either.

She just stood up. At the end of the table. Where she sits. With Corin and Thessaly in the basket beside her chair, because a First Blade brings her children to the war council so they grow up knowing what one sounds like.

She reached down. And picked up the basket. And put it on the table in front of her.

And drew her blade.

And laid it across the top of the basket. Flat. Over both of them.

And looked down the length of the long table at forty-one worlds. One at a time. Every face.

She didn't say a word.

She didn't need to.

Then Konrad spoke.

"I was in the room for one of those," he said.

Very quietly. At the far end of the table. Still standing. With his hands at his sides.

"Thirty years ago. Senator Friese. With Crane holding the pen. And then I signed for it every year after. Every sheet. Every code." He looked down the table. Not at me. At the forty-one worlds. "They said: give us a number. Every six years. And we'll take no more. We'll leave Earth alone. No landings. No correctors. No black. A number, and peace, forever."

Nobody moved.

"And we said yes," said Konrad. "Because the war was very bad. Because people were dying. Because a number seemed so much smaller than everyone." He swallowed. "And it was. For a while. Six years. And then they came back for the number. And it was a little bigger. And then the next time a little bigger than that. And then every two years instead of every six." He looked at his hands. "And in thirty years they never once landed on Earth. They kept that. They never had to. We sent them the children ourselves. In carriers. With the cargo sheets in protective sleeves." He looked at Dane, halfway down the table. Dane didn't look away. "We sent them gladly. Because we'd signed. Because they'd kept their side. Because a number was smaller than everyone."

He looked up.

"They always keep their side," he said. "That's the thing nobody tells you. The houses always keep the terms. Exactly. To the letter. They never lie." He was very white. "They just make sure the terms are ones you'll spend the rest of your life paying."

And then the General stood up.

Beside Konrad. At the far end of the long table. In his old uniform, which he'd put on that morning for no reason anyone could see. Very straight. The way he stands so the cracks don't show.

"He was in the room," said the General. "I signed it." He didn't look at anyone. "Seventh of nine. At twenty-eight. My hand was steadier than Crane's." He was quiet for a moment. "I've thought about that a great deal. That my hand was steady."

Luna, halfway down the table, with Elin, didn't move.

"Konrad's right," said the General. "They kept every word. I watched them keep it. Thirty years." He put his hand on the back of Konrad's chair. "And every word was a door that only opened one way."

He sat down.

Konrad stayed standing a moment longer. Then he sat down too. Beside him. And for a while the two of them sat at the end of the long table, two old men who'd been in the same room thirty years before, and didn't look at each other, and didn't need to.

"Five for all of them," said someone.

Not loudly. From halfway down the table. A grandmother. Very old. Very tall, with a long grey neck and very dark eyes.

Wenna. From Tiel.

Whose nine grandchildren went up the thread on the fifth day, when the tower sang fast.

Everyone looked at her.

"Five," said Wenna. Through Dot. Very quietly. "For every child. On every world. Forever." She looked at the basket on the table in front of Andraste. At the blade across it. "I am not saying yes. I am saying it out loud. Because someone should. Because there are grandmothers on every world at this table who are thinking it." She looked down the table. At the Caddi. At the terrace people. At Oya, from Ammaru, with Rain beside her. "Five. For all of them."

Nobody said anything for a very long time.

Then Mother stood up.

She'd been at the side of the room. Not at the table. She's not on the long table; she says she never wanted to be. She sits by the wall in Father's chair, which somebody carries in for her every time, with the Mom Squad round her. Ingrid and Maura and Kyria and Teshka.

She stood up and walked to the table.

To Wenna.

And knelt down beside her chair. On the stone floor of the map room. The way she knelt on the riverbank on Tiel.

And took Wenna's hands.

"I know," she said. "I know, love. I'd think it too."

Wenna looked at her.

"If it were mine," said Mother. "If it were Lucas's children being asked for, and not mine, and I had nine grandchildren up the thread. I'd think it. I'd think five is so much smaller than everyone." She held Wenna's hands. "And I'd be right. Five is smaller."

Wenna didn't say anything.

"But Konrad's right too," said Mother. "They keep the terms. Exactly. And the General signed one, and Konrad signed for it every year after, and I lived under it for thirty years, and so did Lucas, and so did Genny and Garnet. And I'll tell you what the terms were really for." She looked down the table. At all of them. "They weren't for the number. They were for the signing. So that every year, on Earth, someone had to pick up a pen and choose. And the choosing was the tithe. Not the children. The choosing. Because once you've chosen once, you'll choose again. And again. And then you're not people any more. You're the ones who chose."

She held Wenna's hands.

"They're not asking for five children," she said. "They're asking for forty-one worlds to pick up the pen. Together. Here. At this table." She looked at Wenna. "And if we do, we'll be the ones who chose. Forever. Every one of us. And they'll have won the war without landing anywhere."

Wenna looked at her for a long time.

Then she looked at the basket on the table. At Andraste's blade across it.

At Corin, who was awake, and looking at her. Carefully. With Father's eyes. Working out how she was made.

And at Thessaly, beside him, who was looking at her too. Quietly. Grey eyes. And who, very slowly, without seeming to, was giving her brother something.

And Corin leaned toward Wenna.

And asked her for something.

Wenna felt it. I saw her feel it. Every grandmother at the long table who's ever had a baby look at them and want something felt it.

She didn't know what it was.

Nobody ever does.

She looked at Corin for a long time.

And then she said, very quietly, through Dot:

"No."

She stood up.

Very slowly. Very old. Very tall. With Mother's hand still in hers.

"No," she said again. To the whole table. "I will not pick up the pen. Not for my nine. Not for anyone's." She looked at Okafor. "You said you would go and get them."

"Yes," said Okafor.

"Then go and get them," said Wenna. "And do not give these four to anyone." She looked at the basket. "I held nine. Every one. I held them all night when the tower sang. And they let go of my hands and walked." Her voice went. She waited for it to come back. "I will not be the one who lets go of anyone else's."

One at a time, they stood up.

The grandmothers first. The ones from the four. From Tiel and the other three. Who'd come with bags. Then the Caddi. The terrace people. Oya, from Ammaru, with Rain beside her. Iselle, for the Lir. Teshka and her Vaeli captains. Kyria and the Hyrrani.

Forty-one worlds.

Standing.

Round the long table in the map room on Avalon. With Andraste at the end of it with her blade across a basket.

Nobody said anything.

Nobody picked up a pen.

Okafor looked at all of them for a long time.

Then she looked at Tally.

"Can they hear us?" she said.

Tally put her hand flat on the stone. Listened.

"Yes," she said. "Through the voice. They're waiting. For the answer."

Okafor nodded.

She didn't stand up. She didn't need to; everyone else was standing. She sat at the head of the long table with her hands flat on it, either side of the slate, and looked at the drawing of the ring on the wall for a long time.

"Lucas," she said. "Give them the answer."

I put my hand back on Tally's shoulder.

And went in.

Into the voice. Into the loud part. Where the houses were standing on the teaching like a foot on a floor. Enormous. Very old. Very patient. Very cold.

Waiting.

And I didn't say anything.

That's what I want to write. Because I'd thought, all the way down the long table, what I'd say. I'd thought of a great many things. Some of them were very angry. Some of them were things Andraste would have said, and some were things Konrad would have said, and one of them was something Mother said to me once when I was eight and a boy took my lunch.

I didn't say any of them.

I did what I do.

I said hello.

Hello.

The way I said it to the Scarecrow queen. The first time. The way I said it to every queen since. The way I say it on the porch every night, in order, to everyone, in a different way.

Not no. Not never. Not we'll come for you.

Hello.

The houses didn't understand it.

I felt that. Very clearly. The enormous cold patient thing standing on the teaching went very still. It had offered terms. It was waiting for a number. A yes or a no, which are numbers too; Konrad says the houses count those.

It got hello.

And it didn't have anything to put it in.

And under the loud part, very deep, in the nine quiet places, the voice heard me.

And the voice said hello back.

I came out.

I took my hand off Tally's shoulder and I was standing in the map room at the end of the long table with forty-one worlds on their feet round it.

"What did you say?" said Okafor.

"Hello," I said.

Okafor looked at me for a long time.

Then she laughed.

Not much. Not loudly. Okafor almost never laughs. A short sound, very surprised, the way you laugh when someone you've known for years does exactly the thing you'd never have thought of and it's exactly right.

"Hello," she said.

"They didn't know what to do with it."

"No," said Okafor. "I don't suppose they did." She looked at the ring on the wall. "Thirty years of terms. Konrad signing. A number every six years, then every two. And nobody, in all that time, in all those worlds, ever once said hello to them." She shook her head. "I'd have said something much worse."

"I know," I said.

"So would I," said Andraste. From the end of the table. With her blade still across the basket. "I had a speech."

"I know," I said.

"It was a very good speech."

"I know."

Andraste looked at me for a long time. Crooked. With the scar.

"Hello was better," she said.

Tally sat down very suddenly on the floor.

Under the table. Where she'd been. With her back against the leg.

"They're gone," she said. "Out of the voice. They went out of it all at once." She put her hand flat on the stone. "The voice says they've never done that before. Gone quiet without a number."

"What does the voice say now?" said Okafor.

Tally listened.

Then she smiled. Very slightly. For the first time since she'd hit her head on the underside of the table.

"It says hello," she said. "It says it's been waiting a long time to hear someone say it to them."

That was the morning.

I went up on the roof that afternoon.

Between the morning and the evening. Before the houses answered. I didn't tell anyone. I just went up the ladder from the children's room, past the heap in Rory's cot, onto the flat roof of the house on the rise where Andraste sits at night, and sat with my back against the chimney and looked at the seventh lake.

And thought about it.

I'm going to be honest. Because the notebook's no good if I'm not.

I thought about the first half of the terms. Not the four. Never the four. Not for one breath. But the first half. The one we call world-breaker.

Just me.

Five for all of them, Wenna said. But what if it was one? What if I went up the thread on my own, and asked them, and they said yes? One for every child on every world forever. One was so much smaller than five. One was so much smaller than everyone.

I sat on the roof and thought about that for a long time.

Andraste came up the ladder.

Of course she did. With Corin on her hip, because he'd woken when I went past the cot and looked at the ladder and asked her for something, she said, very loudly, and she'd understood it for once.

She sat down beside me against the chimney.

She didn't say anything.

She put Corin in my lap.

He looked at me.

Carefully. With Father's eyes. Working out how I was made. The way he looks at everything.

And then he looked past me. At the seventh lake. At the house on the rise below us, with all its porches. At the town under the garden wall, in the distance, with its windows. At the red glass and the arch on it and the long road.

And then back at me.

And asked me for something.

"You were thinking it," said Andraste. Not looking at me. Looking at the lake.

"Yes."

"Just you. Not the four."

"Yes."

"I know," said Andraste. "I could see it on your face at the long table. When Wenna said five." She was quiet for a while. "On Hyrran a First Blade thinks it too. Every First Blade. Once. When the houses come down on the mountains and she sees how many will die. She thinks: if I went to them alone. If I gave them me." She looked at me. "My mother thought it. Her mother thought it. I thought it the first year, when I was seventeen."

"What stopped you?"

"My mother," said Andraste. "She came up on the wall where I was sitting. She put her blade down on the stone beside mine. And she said: the houses do not want you, child. They want you to choose. If you give them yourself, you have chosen. And then every First Blade after you will know it can be done." She looked back at the lake. "And then they will ask the next one."

I didn't say anything.

"Your mother said it at the table," said Andraste. "To Wenna. The same thing. In different words." She put her scarred hand flat on Corin's back, in my lap. "They don't want the world-breaker. They want the one who'd go. And once there's been one who'd go, there will always be one more."

Corin was still looking at me.

Still asking.

I still didn't know what for.

"What is he asking for?" I said. "Every time. I never know."

Andraste looked at her son for a long time.

"I think I know," she said. "Now. Up here." She took her hand away. "I think he's asking you to stay."

I looked at her.

"Not up here," she said. "Not on the roof. Stay. All of you. In one piece. Here." She looked at the house below us. "He asked you on the ridge, when he was three breaths old. He asked my mother. He asked Konrad. He asked Wenna this morning, and she said no to the houses." She looked at me. "He asks everyone he loves to stay. That's what he's asking for. That's all he's ever asking for."

I looked down at Corin.

He was still looking at me.

"Yes," I said. Out loud. To him. "I'm staying."

And he stopped asking.

For the first time. Not because Abena taught him to wait. Because he'd been answered.

He closed his eyes. In my lap. On the roof. And went to sleep.

The others came up the ladder one at a time after that.

Luna. Sera. Risa. Hana with Abena. Mother last, very slowly, because she doesn't like ladders, and Andraste reached down and pulled her up the last rung by both hands.

They sat on the roof with me.

Nobody said anything about the terms. Nobody needed to.

Risa put her chin on my shoulder.

"You were going to do something stupid," she said.

"I was thinking about it."

"I could tell," said Risa. "There was a cloud over the whole house." She looked at the sky. "It's gone now."

It was.

The houses answered in the evening.

I won't make it more than it was. It was bad. It wasn't the worst. It was the houses keeping their side, Konrad said afterward, exactly, to the letter; there'd been terms, and terms have a second half, and the second half is what happens if you don't sign.

They took Snow.

The way they took Bell. The way they took Wind. Out of the voice. One of the nine quiet places. A piece of a queen of snow, very old, very deep, who'd been hiding in the voice since before the Accord, singing the note slowly.

They reached in at dusk and took her.

Tally felt it. She was in the long ward, with Genny, at Bell's tray, and she put both hands over her ears and didn't scream this time; she'd learned not to; she just went very white and very still and said, "Snow."

And Genny wrote it down.

And they sent something.

Not to us. Not to Avalon. To Tiel.

Wenna's world. The river world. The first of the four. Where the washing was still on the lines, because the grandmothers who'd stayed had promised to keep it there for when the children came home.

The houses sent one Hand.

Not to take anything. There wasn't anything left on Tiel to take. Just grandmothers. Six hundred of them. Who'd stayed. To keep the houses and the washing.

The Hand came down over the largest town on Tiel at dusk and went over it once. Very slowly. Very low. And didn't stop. And didn't take anything.

And where it had been, the washing was grey.

All of it. Every small shirt. Every small pair of trousers. On every line. Along the whole of the brown river. Grey. Taught to be empty.

And then the Hand went up the thread again.

That was all.

It didn't hurt anyone. It didn't touch the grandmothers. Not one. They stood in their doorways along the river and watched it go over and nothing happened to any of them.

Only the washing.

Konrad explained it.

On the porch. That night. Very quietly. With Ingrid's hand in his.

"It's a number," he said. "That's all. It's how they say things. They don't say we're angry. They don't say we'll come for you. They say a number." He looked at his hands. "The washing on Tiel was a number. It means: we know what you care about. We know exactly what you care about. We know that the shirts on the line on Tiel matter more to you than anything we could take." He swallowed. "It means: we can count that too."

Nobody said anything.

"They're learning," said Konrad. "That's the thing that frightens me. Thirty years, and they never once learned anything about us. They didn't need to. We signed. And now—" He stopped. "Now they're learning what we are. From the outside. By watching what we pick up."

Wenna went home.

The next morning. Through the arch on the riverbank of Tiel that the Hyrrani had cut there on the second day, after the grandmothers came. With Mother. And Nan Vey. And her iron.

They walked along the brown river together. The three of them. Very slowly. Looking at the grey washing on the lines.

And Nan Vey stopped at the first line. And took down the first shirt. Small. Grey. Taught to be empty.

And knelt down on the riverbank, on a Hyrrani shield Kyria had sent through the arch for a board. And ironed it.

It didn't come back. The grey. Nan Vey's iron can't teach anything to be full again; it's only an iron.

But she ironed it flat. And folded it. And gave it to Wenna.

"There," she said. "That's one thing right."

Wenna held it.

And then the six hundred grandmothers who'd stayed on Tiel came out of their houses along the river. And went to the lines. And took down the grey washing. Every shirt. Every small pair of trousers.

And brought it to Nan Vey.

She ironed for three days.

On the riverbank on Tiel. On a Hyrrani shield. With Mother beside her folding and Wenna beside Mother handing her the next one. And six hundred grandmothers sitting on the bank behind them in rows. Waiting their turn.

Every shirt.

When she'd finished, the grandmothers of Tiel took the grey washing, ironed and folded, and put it in their houses. In drawers. In chests. On shelves. Very carefully.

"For when they come home," said Wenna. Through Dot. "They'll need something to wear."

"It's grey," said Mother. Very gently.

"Yes," said Wenna. "They'll be grey too. When they come home. From the ring." She put the last shirt in the drawer and closed it. "Children who've been away should come home to something that's like them." She looked at Mother. "And then we'll wash it. Together. And see if it comes back."

Nan Vey came home on the fourth day with her iron.

She went straight to the bakery. And sat down at the counter where Taveth sits. And Rory put a loaf in front of her without being asked.

She didn't eat it for a long time.

"Six hundred and eleven shirts," she said. Eventually. To nobody. "And four hundred and two pairs of trousers. And a great many socks." She picked up the loaf. "My hands are very tired."

"I know," said Rory.

"They're going to bring them all home," said Nan Vey. "Aren't they. Okafor and the boy."

"Yes," said Rory.

Nan Vey ate the loaf.

"Good," she said. "I'd hate to have done all that ironing for nothing."

Okafor wrote the slate that night.

Not the black one. The long-table one. At the head of it, above the forty-one worlds, above Three, she wrote:

Hello.

And under it:

Tiel. 611 shirts.

And under that, in her square hand, underlined twice, the way Genny taught Tally:

Now.

She called the long table the morning after Nan Vey came home.

Not forty-one worlds this time. Forty-two. The Sheln came, and the Lir, and the Caddi, and every world that had been there the day before. And a new one. The grandmothers of Tiel, who'd never sent anyone to the long table, who said they didn't have anyone to send; they sent Wenna. With a grey shirt, ironed and folded, which she put on the table in front of her and didn't explain.

Okafor stood at the head of the table.

"The houses said terms," she said. "We said hello. They answered with Snow, and the washing on Tiel." She put her hand flat on the slate. "They're learning what we are. Konrad's right. They're watching what we pick up." She looked down the table. "So we're going to stop waiting for them to finish learning."

Nobody said anything.

"I said after the three were born," said Okafor. "They're born. I said when we're ready." She looked at the drawing of the ring on the wall. "We're not ready. We won't be ready. Nobody is ever ready for a place like that." She took her hand off the slate. "But every day we wait, they learn a little more. And the children in the ring get a little greyer. And somewhere a queen in pieces sings a little slower."

She looked at Kyria. At Teshka. At Andraste, with the basket beside her chair.

"Thirty days," said Okafor. "To get ready. Every ship. Every arch. Every engine. Every one of you who's coming." She looked at me. "And then we go."

Kyria stood up first.

"The engines will be ready in twenty," she said.

"Thirty," said Okafor. "I want them ready twice."

Kyria looked at her for a long time.

Then she sat down. And didn't argue. Which Andraste said afterward was the first time in her life she'd seen her mother not argue with anyone about anything.

I said it that night.

On the porch. In order. Which took until after midnight. Because every grandmother from the four had come up the hill to the house on the rise, all sixteen hundred of them, and sat on the grass below the long porch in the dark, and nobody had told them to.

When I got to them, I didn't say it one at a time. There were too many.

I said it to all of them.

And then Wenna, at the front, said something in her language.

And Dot translated it.

Hello.

And sixteen hundred grandmothers on the grass said it back.

Days 4111–4127. Terms.

Tally hit her head on the long table: the houses are talking, through the voice. You are a fault we cannot correct. So: terms. The world-breaker and the four who make doors, for every child on every world, forever. Andraste put her blade across the basket. Konrad: they always keep the terms; the terms are the pen. Wenna said five out loud, because someone should. Mother knelt: they're asking forty-one worlds to choose. Corin asked Wenna for something; she said no. Forty-one stood. I went in and said hello. They didn't know what to put it in. That evening they took Snow, and a Hand greyed the washing on Tiel. On the roof I thought: just me. Andraste: they don't want you, they want the one who'd go. Corin asks everyone he loves to stay; I said yes, and he stopped asking. Nan Vey ironed six hundred and eleven shirts. Okafor wrote: Now. Thirty days.