Chapter 434 The Way They Stand

Dory noticed it at breakfast.

Not the grey ones. Mother's teapot. Mother had taken it down the hill to the interceptor field every morning for months, and every morning she'd come back up with one cup poured and full and gone cold, and put it on the windowsill by the sink. Nobody said anything about the cups. It's Mother.

On the eighth morning after Ostry, she came back up the hill with the cup empty.

She didn't say anything. She rinsed it and put it on the rack and sat down at the long table and took a piece of bread.

Dory was checking everyone. She does it at breakfast. She'd got to Mother, and stopped.

"Gran," said Dory.

"Mm."

"Your cup."

Mother buttered the bread.

"He took it," said Mother. "The second one. The one who turned round." She put the knife down. "He didn't drink it. He held it. Till it was cold. And then he poured it out on the ground, very slowly, all of it, and gave me the cup back."

Nobody said anything.

"I think," said Mother, "that's what you do with tea, where he's from. I think it's for someone else."

I should say where we were with the grey ones, because I haven't written it in a while.

Three on the red glass, at the edge of the interceptor field. The ones who came through behind Ferrin on the twelfth spoke. They'd stood there since, swaying, each a little differently, through rain and Kesh's rain and sun. Tavvan sat with them. Ossel's mother came most days. Mother said Ferrin's names to them every morning, the three words Ferrin had said on the spoke, one to each.

On the hundred and fortieth morning the second had stopped swaying and turned his head toward Mother. Since then he'd watched her come down the hill.

And forty-three in the cave under the ridge on Hyrran, with the queen who's never been taken. The ones Aurelius's dome saved when the Ashen ended the rest. Teel had been one of the forty-four. Her family struck their rhythm on their own anvil and she came back.

Forty-three still waiting.

And the rule, on Okafor's slate, in my hand, under Halloway's: Not without a name. Not without their own people.

I'd turned Ossel back with only a name Tavvan gave him in the hall. I'd asked every atom in him to remember. It nearly killed me. Halloway made me promise, and I did.

Teel was easy. Her family was there. The rhythm was hers, from before. It did most of the work. I only had to help her heart catch it.

That's the difference. Everyone knows it now. It's why there were still forty-six.

"Gran," said Dory. "Can I come down with you tomorrow?"

Mother looked at her.

"To the field?"

"To them."

Mother looked at me. I didn't say anything. It's Mother's field, in the mornings. She decides who comes.

"Bring your boots," said Mother.

I went too. I wasn't asked. Mother didn't send me back.

It was very early. The interceptors were still dark. The three of them stood at the edge of the glass where they always stand, very tall, very grey, the same, except they aren't. Tavvan was already there, on his stool, with his coat round him. He nodded to Dory. Tavvan knows every child by their breathing, and he knew hers from the first night she came into the long ward to check the new ones.

Mother walked up to the first and said his name.

Then the second. He turned his head.

Then the third.

Then she poured. The second took the cup.

Dory didn't do anything.

She stood beside Mother with her hands at her sides and watched them. For most of the morning. The way Wren watches people stand. The way Ferrin, Mother said, knew three of them by the way they stood.

I could feel her net. Not out. Not checking. Just there, very faint, on her arms. Listening.

The first one swayed. The third one swayed. The second held the cup.

"He's walking," said Dory.

Tavvan looked up.

"The first one," said Dory. Very quietly. "He isn't swaying. Not really. Look." She didn't point. You don't point at them. "Left, and then forward a bit. And then the other side. And then a little catch, and back. Over and over. The same every time." She looked at Tavvan. "It's not swaying. It's walking. Standing still."

Tavvan looked at the first grey one for a long time.

Then he got off his stool. Slowly. His knees are bad. And walked round to the other side of the first one, and watched him from there. And then from behind.

He came back and sat down.

"Six," said Tavvan.

"Six what?" said Mother.

"Feet," said Tavvan. "He's walking on six." He put his long-fingered hands on his knees, one, two, three on each side, and moved them. Left, forward, the other side, the catch. "Like that. He stands on two. But he's walking on six." He looked at the grey one. "The way you stand when you've been carried a long way and your legs still think they're moving."

Nobody said anything for a while.

Then Mother said it. The way she says the obvious thing at the end of a meeting, after everyone's been clever.

"The walkers."

On the plain in the east, where I made nothing.

No walls. Water and grass and shelter every few miles, the length of the plain and back. Six-legged, tall at the shoulder, with long patient faces, in herds, with the small ones riding on their backs and waving at the train. They'd come out of a line on One with collars on. Seventy-four million came out of those lines. The walkers were one people of hundreds.

They'd been on One's stock lines for longer than anyone. Tavvan says so. He says there were walkers in the lines when he first came to the hall.

He says there were walker children in the hall.

"Sixty years," said Tavvan. "Ferrin said she named him sixty years ago. Sweeping." He looked at the first grey one. "She'd have swept round a walker child. In the hall. Very small. Six legs folded under, the way they sleep." He was quiet. "Then one day he wasn't in his place. And she never saw him again. Until the spoke."

The first grey one swayed. Left. Forward. The other side. The catch.

Walking.

I went to Halloway that afternoon.

She was in the long ward with a chart. She doesn't look up for anything less than bleeding. She looked up for me, which meant she already knew what I was going to say, because everyone hears everything.

"Not without their own people," she said.

"They're on the plain in the east."

"All of them?"

"Sixty years," I said. "His mother's gone, Tavvan thinks. Probably his father. But the walkers live in herds. Families. Very long ones." I didn't sit down. "Somebody on that plain is his."

Halloway put the chart down.

"Then find them," she said. "First." She looked at me over her glasses, the way Konrad does. "Not you. Somebody who can ask without frightening them."

Dory went.

With Mother. Because Mother said a girl doesn't go to ask a family about their lost child without someone's grandmother. And Kwame Osei, because he'd taken the hollows to the furred ones and the walkers had seen him do it and trusted him. And Tavvan, who said he hadn't been on a train yet and was too old to keep not doing things.

Crane put them on his board. Enna drove.

I stayed. Halloway said so. Hana said so. Mother said so loudest.

I'll write it the way Dory told me.

The walkers don't stop for people. They're always walking. The length of the plain and back, every day, in their herds, very slowly, with the small ones riding. So Dory and Mother and Kwame and Tavvan got off at the station Keir built in the middle of the plain, and walked out to the nearest herd, and fell in beside it.

And walked.

All morning. Not saying anything. Dot with them, very quiet, in case.

In the afternoon, an old walker dropped back.

Very old. Grey round the long face, with a small one on her back who wasn't hers either, Dory said, but was her great-great-something. She dropped back out of the herd until she was walking beside Mother, and looked down at her with one large dark eye, and said something through her nose. Long and low.

"She says," said Dot, "you walk well, for two legs."

"Thank you," said Mother.

"She says you've been walking beside us all day, and you want something, and you haven't asked." A pause. "She says that's good manners. She says ask now."

Mother looked at Dory.

Dory took a breath.

She'd thought about how to say it all the way out on the train. She told me she had about nine ways and threw them all away.

She said: "Did your herd lose a child? A long time ago? On the lines?"

The old walker stopped walking.

Dory said the whole herd stopped. Two hundred of them, all at once, very slowly, the way a big thing stops. And turned their long faces.

The old walker looked down at her for a long time.

"She says," said Dot. Very carefully. "Every herd lost a child. On the lines. Every one. Some lost ten." A pause. "She says why do you ask."

So Dory told her.

About the grey one on the red glass, who stands on two legs and walks on six. Left, forward, the other side, the catch. Over and over. Who an old sweeper named in the hall sixty years ago and never saw again. Who came through behind that sweeper on the twelfth spoke because she said his name.

She showed her. She stood on the grass and did it with her hands, the way Tavvan had. Left. Forward. The other side. The catch.

The old walker went very still.

And then she did it back.

Not with her hands. With her legs. All six. Standing still in the middle of the plain, in front of the whole herd. Left. Forward. The other side.

And a catch.

"She says," said Dot, and stopped. Dot doesn't stop. "She says the catch is the hind left. She says it's always been the hind left. In her line. Her mother had it. Her mother's mother. She has it. Her brother had it, who went on the lines before her."

The old walker said something else. Very long and low.

"She says her brother had a son," said Dot. "Who was taken out of the lines when he was very small. Before she ever saw him. Into the building." A pause. "She says she never knew his name. She says nobody ever got to give him one."

Mother said it.

The word Ferrin gave him. The one she's said every morning for months, on the red glass, with the teapot.

The old walker looked at her for a long time.

"She says," said Dot, "it isn't a walker word."

"No," said Mother. "It's a sweeper's. The woman who swept round him when he was small, and kept his place in the row, and knew him sixty years later by the way he stood." She looked up at the old walker. "She died bringing him out. On the spoke. That word's all she had to give him. I've been keeping it for her."

The old walker didn't say anything for a long time.

Then she lowered her head. All the way down. Until her long face was level with Mother's.

"She says," said Dot, "then it's his. She says a name someone kept for sixty years is better than one nobody had time to give." A pause. "She says she'd like to walk with him. If he'll come."

They brought him on the train.

Not the herd. The old walker and four of her family, very carefully, with the small ones off their backs and walking beside, into the long carriage Enna had emptied for them. Crane cleared the line. Nine hours.

And the first grey one on the red glass, standing at the edge of the interceptor field the way he had for months, swaying, saw them come down off the platform at dusk and across the glass toward him on six legs each, walking.

Left. Forward. The other side. The catch.

He stopped swaying.

I was there. Halloway was there. Hana. Mother, and Dory, and Tavvan on his stool, and Ossel's mother, who'd come down from Hyrran through Kyria's arch the moment she heard.

The old walker went up to him. And stood beside him. Close. The way the walkers stand at night, Dory said, in the herd, flank to flank.

And walked.

On the spot. Not going anywhere. Left, forward, the other side, the catch. And her four family round him in a ring, doing it too. All of them. In time.

And the grey one, very slowly, on his two legs, began to do it with them.

That was when Halloway looked at me.

I put my hand on his back.

It was easy. Easier than Teel. I want to write that. The old walker and her family had done all of it. They'd walked his body into remembering. Every atom in him knew the step. They knew it the way your hand knows a door it's opened every morning for years. All I did was help his heart find the catch on the hind left, and keep it.

The grey went off him like water off a walker's back in Suri's valley.

He's old.

That's what nobody had thought of. Ferrin named him sixty years ago, when he was very small. And then he was in the building, and then on the spokes in the grey. And all that time he was getting older under it.

He stood on the red glass on six legs, with his long face grey round the edges like the old walker's, and looked down at himself. At his legs. All six. As if he'd been told about them and never seen them.

Then he looked at the old walker.

She said something through her nose. Long and low.

He said something back. Very hoarse. The first sound he'd made in sixty years.

"She says," said Dot, "hello, nephew."

A pause.

"He says," said Dot, "hello, aunt." Dot's voice went very small. "He says he dreamed there was an aunt. He says that's all he dreamed. For the whole time. Somebody walking beside him with a catch in the hind left."

Then he turned round. On the glass. Slowly, the way a big thing turns.

And looked at Mother.

He said something. Dot didn't need to translate it. It was the word. Ferrin's word. His.

Mother said it back.

He put his long face down, all the way, the way the old walker had. Until it was level with hers. And stayed there.

He went back to the plain with his aunt the next morning. He walks with the herd now. He's slow, Dory says. He gets tired. The small ones ride on him anyway, and he lets them.

He still answers to Ferrin's word. The walkers have a name for him now too, a walker one, that his aunt gave him on the train. Dot says it means the one who came back walking. He answers to both.

Dory came up to the porch that night and sat on the step.

"The second one isn't anyone here," she said.

I looked at her.

"I checked," said Dory. "All day. While they were walking." She had her hands round her knees. "His sway. The cup. Pouring it out. I took it out on the net and I went through everyone. Every city. The whole billion." She looked at the dark. "Nobody stands like that. Nobody pours tea out for someone else."

"The whole billion," I said.

"It's not as hard as it sounds," said Dory. "Most people aren't standing like that. You only have to check the ones who are."

I didn't say anything.

My daughter went through a billion hearts in an afternoon, looking for the shape of one old habit, and said it was easy because most of them didn't match.

I keep writing that she's twelve and a half. I'm going to keep writing it.

"His people aren't on Avalon," said Dory. "Not one of them. Not anywhere I can find." She swallowed. "So they're still out there. On one of Ithel's worlds. In a line."

"Or they're gone."

"Or they're gone," said Dory. She didn't look away from it. She doesn't, now. "But he poured the tea out. For someone else. So someone was there, once, to pour it for."

"And the third?"

Dory shook her head.

"I can't read him yet," she said. "He doesn't stand like anything. He just sways. Very small. As if he doesn't know what he's walking toward." She was quiet. "Gran keeps saying his name. I'll keep listening."

Then she said the thing I'd known she was going to say since breakfast.

"There are forty-three in the cave on Hyrran."

She went the next week.

Kyria cut the arch. Odra met her at the bottom of the long stair under the ridge with a lamp, and Ossel beside her with Odra's first tongs in his belt, and Teel. Mother went. Tavvan. Halloway, because Halloway said if Dory was going to stand in a cave full of grey ones for a week she was going to have someone counting at her wrist.

I went as far as the stair. Hana and I sat at the top of it on the cold stone with a blanket. That was the agreement. I'd be there. I wouldn't go down.

The queen under the ridge was awake when they came in. She's always awake. She's never been taken. She sang to the forty-three every day, Odra says, the way she's sung since the Ashen ended the others. To what is underneath.

She stopped singing when Dory came in. And then started again. Different.

Odra says it sounded like a welcome. Odra doesn't say things like that.

Ossel stayed with Dory the whole six days.

He doesn't talk much. He came back out of the grey not knowing how, and he's learning it the way he learned the tongs, by doing it slowly in front of people who don't hurry him. But he stood at Dory's shoulder in the cave every morning with Odra's tongs in his belt, and when she looked at a grey one too long, he said one thing about it.

"That one hums," he said, on the second day. "At night. Very low. When the queen stops."

"That one leans on the left foot," he said, on the third. "I used to. Before the forge. Smiths lean on the left."

He was right both times. The one who hummed was from the furred ones under the hill. The one who leaned wasn't a smith; she was from the forest city, where everyone leans on the left foot on the branches, because the trees on their world grew round to the right.

Teel brought them all lunch. Bread from the Kiln ovens under the ridge. She put it down in front of Dory and struck the edge of the plate with her thumbnail before she went. Three short, one long.

Dory asked her why.

"So you know someone's thinking about you," said Teel. "That's what it's for. It's not for the anvil. The anvil's just where we do it loudest."

Dory stood in the cave for six days.

Watching them. The way she watched the walker. One at a time. From the front, and the side, and behind, with Tavvan on his stool beside her saying what he knew, which was a great deal, because some of them he'd swept round in the hall, and some of them he hadn't but he knew their peoples from the lines.

And then she took each one out on the net. All the way back to Avalon. Through every city. Looking for anyone who stood the same.

It was eleven.

Eleven of the forty-three, Dory found. On the sixth day, with Halloway's hand on her wrist and the net so bright up both arms Mother made her sit down.

Eleven grey ones in the cave who stood like somebody on Avalon. Who swayed in a rhythm someone in one of the forty cities still walked in, or hummed in, or tapped on a table without thinking about it.

The tall ones by the river. Two of them. They'd stood at the water at dawn on their world, and they stood that way still, under the ridge, leaning very slightly toward a river that wasn't there.

The furred ones under the hill. Three. They held their arms close and curled their long fingers, as if round someone else's fur.

A people from the third spoke who live in trees in the forest city. One. She swayed the way a branch does.

The ones who hold the rain. One. Suri found him. Dory asked her to come and stand in the cave, and the water on Suri's wrist went off it, very slowly, across the air, toward the fifth grey one from the left. And stayed there, on his.

And four others, from four other peoples, from four other cities. Dory found them all.

Thirty-two she couldn't find.

She told Odra. At the bottom of the stair. Odra listened without saying anything, with her scarred arms folded.

"Then they wait," said Odra.

"Yes."

"They've waited before," said Odra. "In the hall. In the building. On the ice." She looked into the cave, at the queen, at the forty-three. "They can wait here. With her. And with me. It's warm, and nobody's going to cut anything." She looked back at Dory. "And you'll come back when you've found where their people are."

"Yes."

"Good," said Odra. "Then go home and sleep. You look terrible."

Dory came up the stair.

I was at the top of it. With Hana and the blanket. She sat down next to me on the cold stone and put her head on my shoulder, the way she did when she was five, which she hasn't done in years either.

"Eleven," she said.

"I heard."

"Thirty-two," she said.

"I heard that too."

She didn't say anything for a while.

"I wanted it to be all of them," said Dory.

"I know."

"It's never all of them," said Dory. "Is it?"

I thought about the twelfth hill. And Tarrow's Reach. And Ferrin on the twelfth spoke, and the hall, and Imber, and every number Wren has ever said with of in the middle of it.

"No," I said. "Not yet."

Kyria was waiting for us at the top of the stair.

She'd cut the arch home and then not gone through it. She was sitting on the step with her first blade across her knees and Vessa asleep on her shoulder, because Andraste was away with the Hyrrani on the front, and Kyria says a grandmother's shoulder is the second-best place in the world to sleep.

She looked at Dory with her head on my shoulder.

"Eleven," said Kyria. She'd heard. Everyone under the ridge had heard.

"Thirty-two left," said Dory.

"Hm," said Kyria. She shifted Vessa. "When I was first blade, before Andraste, a wall fell on the eastern pass. We lost the pass, and four hundred on it. And the next morning my mother came to me with tea and asked how many we'd held." She looked at Dory. "Not lost. Held."

Dory didn't say anything.

"Nine thousand," said Kyria. "Behind the pass. In the city. Nine thousand we'd held." She stood up, with Vessa, carefully. "You don't forget the four hundred. You'd be no good if you did. But you count the nine thousand first, out loud, every time. Or one day you can't get up."

She put her free hand on Dory's hair. The same way Mother does. I don't know which of them learned it from the other.

"Eleven," said Kyria. "Say it."

"Eleven," said Dory.

"Good," said Kyria. "Now come home and eat something. Your grandfather's made soup, and he's very bad at it, and you're going to tell him it's wonderful."

She meant her husband who's good at nothing. It's always terrible. Every child in the heap tells him it's wonderful. None of them are blood of his but Andraste's, and he makes it for all of them.

The families came through over the next month.

One at a time. Through Kyria's arch, down the long stair, with Dory beside them and Halloway counting and Tavvan on his stool. The tall ones stood at the edge of the cave with their faces toward a river and waited until the grey ones leaned with them. The furred ones curled close round the three and hummed the sideways warm. Suri's people brought the rain into the cave, very gently, so that it fell on the queen and she sang louder.

And each time, when the grey one had started to move with them, Halloway looked up the stair, and I came down. Just for that. Just for the last part.

Hand on the back. Help the heart catch it.

Eleven times.

I'll write one of them. The first. Because Dory asked me to, and because I think about it.

The two tall ones by the river.

Wren found who they belonged to, once Dory had found their people. It was the woman who rode the first train. The very tall one, grey-blue, with the face like a mask, who got on on the fourth day and sat on the floor and rode to the red glass and back without a word, and the next day brought her family.

She came down the long stair under the ridge on her own. It took her most of the morning; the stair's built for Hyrrani and she's twice their height. She had to stoop the whole way. She stood at the edge of the cave and looked at the two grey ones Dory showed her, leaning very slightly toward a river that wasn't there.

Her people don't say much. She didn't say anything at all.

She walked across the cave to the nearer one. And stood beside her. Facing the same way, toward the wall where the river would have been. And leaned.

The grey one leaned with her.

Dot told me afterward what the tall ones do, at dawn, on their world. They stand at the water with the people they love and lean toward it together. Not touching. Never touching. Just leaning the same way, at the same moment, so that the other one knows you're there without having to look.

They stood like that a long time. The cave was very quiet. Even the queen was.

Then the tall woman said one word. Very low. The first word Dory ever heard her say.

Dot didn't translate it. She didn't need to. Some words are the same in every language. Dory says it's the one you say to a child at the water, at dawn, when they're small, to tell them it's time to lean.

Halloway looked up the stair.

I came down.

It was her daughter. Taken off the lines at nine and into the building, and then the grey, and then the spoke on Hyrran. She's thirty-one now. She doesn't remember most of it. She remembers the leaning. She says she was doing it the whole time, in the dark, toward somewhere.

The second one was her cousin. They stood at the river together on their first morning home, three of them, leaning.

My nose didn't bleed once. Hana checked every time.

Konrad wrote them on the sheet.

Not the front. Not the back. In the margin, beside Hyrran. Very small. One line each, with the name their people gave them, and under it, smaller, the name a sweeper gave them in the hall, if there was one. Tavvan told him every name he knew.

Thirty-two lines under that, with nothing on them yet.

Konrad left the space. He says you always leave the space.

Mother still goes down to the red glass every morning with the teapot.

There are two there now. The second one and the third.

She says Ferrin's words to them. One each. The second one takes the cup and holds it till it's cold and pours it out on the ground for someone else. Then gives it back. Every morning, the same. The third sways, very small, as if he doesn't know what he's walking toward.

And Dory goes with her now. Most mornings. In her boots, with the knife on her belt and two knots on the strap. She stands beside her grandmother and watches them, and says nothing, and listens.

Every morning she takes the second one's pouring out on the net. Through the whole billion, and then a little further, out past the edge of Avalon. Toward Ithel's worlds. As far as the net goes.

She still hasn't found the end of it.

On the last morning of the month, Ilka came down off the Meridian very white.

She didn't knock. She stood in the kitchen doorway in her flight jacket until somebody noticed her.

It was Dory. Of course it was. She'd been checking.

"Ilka," said Dory. "There you are."

Ilka looked at her. And then at me. And then at Okafor, coming in from the map room behind her with the chalk still in her hand.

"The calls," said Ilka. "From past the Watch. Toward where the arm went after Hearth."

"What about them?"

"Four hundred," said Ilka, "last night. At dusk."

She swallowed.

"This morning, none."

Nobody in the kitchen said anything.

Mother put the teapot down.

Okafor didn't go to the slate. She went to the window. And looked out at the north field, where the line for the Standing was already forming in the half-dark, longer than yesterday, all the way down past the interceptors toward the river.

"None at all?" said Okafor.

"None," said Ilka. "Not one of the four hundred. They didn't stop one at a time. They stopped together. All in the same hour." She put the slate on the table. Her hands weren't steady. "I've been listening past the Watch since Root. I've never heard it go quiet like that. Not once. Not even when the Hands burn a world. Something always keeps calling."

Okafor didn't turn round.

"Tiamat," she said. "And Aurelius. And Kyria, from Hyrran. And Varra. In the map room. Now."

Dot went.

Dory was still standing in the middle of the kitchen with her hand out, the way she holds it when she's checking. Her net was up both arms. I watched it go out. Not to the house. Not to the town. Out. Past Avalon. Past the Watch. Toward where four hundred voices had been at dusk.

She stood there a long time.

Then she closed her hand.

"It's not empty," said Dory. Very quietly. "Where they were."

Okafor turned round.

"Something's there," said Dory. "Where they were. A lot of something." She looked at me. "It isn't reaching. It doesn't reach."

She swallowed.

"It's coming this way."

Days 5215–5262. The Way They Stand.

Mother's cup came back empty: the second one poured it out for someone else. Dory watched the first: he's not swaying, he's walking, on six. Tavvan: the catch is the hind left. The walkers on the eastern plain; an old walker dropped back and did the catch with her own legs; her brother's son, taken into the building before anyone named him. Mother gave her Ferrin's word: then it's his. The walkers walked him back; I only helped his heart catch it. He's old. Hello, aunt. Dory went through the whole billion for the second one's pouring; nobody pours tea like that here. Forty-three in the cave on Hyrran: Dory found eleven peoples; Suri's water went to the fifth from the left. Eleven came back, one family at a time. Thirty-two wait with Odra and the queen. Konrad left the space. Four hundred calls past the Watch at dusk. None this morning. Dory: it's not empty where they were. It's coming this way.