And he disappears in a wall of flame–
{VIOLA}
The horses leap forward as the wall of flame WHOOSHES up the riverbed behind us–
And there’s hardly anywhere to get away from it, the trees in front of us are ablaze and the rocks on the hillside above are somehow burning, too, even the snowflakes are evaporating in mid-air, leaving little wisps of steam where they were hanging, and we’re away from the first attack but if he comes back, there’s nowhere to go, there’s nowhere at all to go–
“Viola!” Bradley yells, bumping Angharrad into Acorn and they greet each other with terrified whinnies–
“How do we get out of here?!” I say, coughing in the smoke, and I turn to see a ten-metre wall of fire burning down the dry riverbed where we were just standing–
“Where’s the Sky?” Bradley says.
We turn to look at Ben and I realize for the first time that we can’t hear his Noise, that’s it’s focused away from us, that all the Spackle nearby have stopped as well, as if frozen, a sight beyond eerie in the middle of an inferno, even though there’s nowhere to run–
“Ben?” I say–
But he’s staring at the wall of flame down the riverbed–
And then we hear it–
A tearing sound, like the air being ripped in two, approaching from behind us–
1017–
Off his battlemore and on foot–
Racing towards the flames, which are already decreasing on the bare rocks–
Leaving burning piles of ash–
Like on the battlefield before when the Spackle shot the fire bolts–
Except this time it’s just two–
1017 races for them, his Noise making a sound more horrible, more full of rage and grief than anything I’ve ever heard in my entire life-
As he rushes towards the blackened corpses of the Sky and his battlemore-
(THE RETURN)
I run–
No thought in my head–
No sound in my voice except a wail I can barely hear myself–
A wail demanding that it be taken back–
A wail refusing to believe what I have seen, refusing to accept what has happened–
I am only vaguely aware of the Clearing and the Source as I run by them–
Vaguely aware of the roar forming in my ears, in my head, in my heart–
In my voice–
The rocks in the riverbed still burn but the fire is lifting off them even as I approach, so this attack was a waste in terms of setting more things ablaze–
But not a waste because it clearly had a single target–
I plunge into the flames, feeling them blister my skin, some of the rocks blazing red as coals–
But I do not care–
I reach where the Sky was riding his beast–
Reach where he has fallen to the stones–
Where he and the beast still burn–
And I am beating at the flames, trying to put them out with my bare hands, the wail getting louder, reaching beyond me, out of me, out into the world, out into the Land, trying to erase everything that has happened–
And I grab under the Sky’s burning arms and pull him from his burning steed–
And I show it out loud, No!
And my skin is burning on the rocks, my own lichen smouldering from the heat–
NO!
But he is a dead weight in my hands–
And–
And–
And then I hear him–
And I freeze–
I cannot move at all–
The Sky’s body is in my hands–
But his voice–
Removed from his body–
Hanging in the air as he leaves his body behind–
But pointed at me–
Showing–
The Sky–
He shows to me, The Sky–
And then he is gone–
And in the next instant, I hear them–
I hear the voices of all the Land–
Every one of them frozen–
Frozen though some of us burn–
Frozen though some of us die–
Frozen like I am, holding the body of the Sky–
Except it is no longer the body of the Sky–
The Sky, I hear–
And it is the Land speaking now–
The Land’s voice, twining together as one–
The Sky is the voice of the Land and for a moment it was cut off, freed from itself, lost and out in the world, without a mouth to speak it–
But only for a moment–
The Sky, I hear–
And it is the Land–
Speaking to me–
Their voice entering me–
Their knowledge entering me, the knowledge of all the Land, of all the Skies that have ever been–
Their language entering me in a rush, too, in a way I see now that I have always resisted, always wanting to keep myself apart, but in an instant I know it all–
I know them all–
I know us all–
And I know it was him–
He passed it on to me–
The Sky is chosen by the Land–
But in times of war, there must be no delay–
The Sky, he told the Land as he died–
And The Sky, the Land says into me–
And I answer back–
I answer back, The Land–
And I rise, leaving the old Sky behind, leaving my grief to wait–
Because the burden falls to me immediately–
The Land is in peril–
And the good of the Land must be the thing that comes first–
And so there is only one thing to do–
I turn back to the Land, back to the Source, who is calling me The Sky, too, back to the man from the Clearing and the Knife’s one in particular, all eyes on me, all voices on me–
And I am the Sky–
And I speak the language of the Land–
(but my own voice is there, too–)
(my own voice, full of rage–)
And I tell the Land to release the river–
All of it at once–
{VIOLA}
“It’ll destroy the town!” Bradley says, before Ben even tells us what’s happening–
Because we could see it in the Noise all around us, see 1017 telling them to release the river–
“There are still innocent people down there,” Bradley says. “The force of a river pent up this long will wipe them off the planet!”
It’s already done, Ben says. The Sky has spoken and it’s already started–
“The Sky?” I say–
The new Sky, he says and looks behind us–
We turn. 1017 is walking forward out of the shimmering haze over the hot rocks of the riverbed, a look in his eye different than before.
“He’s the new Sky?” Bradley asks.