Act III — The Split

Page 18 — Morning, the World Is Not Owed

The first real morning.

The night handed the morning over without looking up, without a word. I gave the watch back to the fire, and the fire took it as the fire takes a log. The dawn is here.

The fire was low.

The coals where the coals go, the ash where the ash goes, the smoke where the smoke goes. The smoke was the last of the night standing in the morning. I put the craft back under my ribs where the craft goes. My hands were still, as a watchman's hands go still at the end of the four hours — not loose, not resting.

The camp came out of the night one at a time.

Rumzuck was already up when I came back to the ring. His shield was on his back, his hands folded over the grip where they had been folded through the four hours. The folding was the ogre's way of saying that the night had not moved him. He looked at the seam in the rock where the cold light ran — the scar the ogre had found new, still new at the dawn. He did not look at any of us. The ogre does not look at us for the morning. The ogre looks at the scar.

Smackage came out of the night the way Smackage does everything — from the ground up. He was already where he had been, his palm on the black sand, his head down, and the only change in him between the night and the morning was the color of the light on his hand. The ogre who reads the ground does not get up for the dawn. The dawn comes to the palm.

Wreckreate was at the water before I was back to the fire. He stood at the line where the water comes in, with his hands at his sides, and the water went in and out at his feet — the water Wreckreate had read as a copy of the flowing, and the copy was still the copy at the dawn. He did not read it this morning. He stood and looked at the water the way a reader looks at a letter he has already read. Then he spoke the first word of the morning. The copy is still the copy, he said. The water did not change over the night.

Zahlia came out of the night last. She stood a little back from the fire, with her hands in her lap. The air around her was thin, as it had gone thin on the third morning, and the thinning had not gone away with the night. The Veil was still here — the Veil that reads back.

The four of them came out of the night. I came out of it too — I was at the fire where the craft is, and the fire was still warm when I stood. The kept seat by the fire did not come out of the night. There was no one in it. I did not put a thing in it this morning. The not putting was the courtesy we gave the seat.

The sun — if it is the sun; I have not decided, and I will not decide today — came up over the broken line of the coast. The coming-up was slow. The light came over the broken line without hurry, as light comes over a place that is not owed the light. The black sand took the color of the inside of a shell — the color the coast had on at the end of the watch — and the color went out of the sand when the light decided to be here.

There was no wind off the water this morning.

It was the stillness I have kept fewer watches in. The water went in and out at the line with the sound it has when the wind is not here — not the old world's sound. The old world's water went in and out with the wind in it. This water goes in and out without the wind.

The smell came off the black sand with the light. I have smelled the old world's shores — the kelp of it, the fish of it, the wood of it from the wrecks, the gulls overhead. There are gulls here. The gulls fly the way the gulls fly. But the gulls do not land on the black sand. That is the morning's part in the gulls.

The five of us on the black sand at full morning.

I looked at them. Rumzuck at the seam with his hands folded over the grip. Smackage on the sand with his palm on the ground. Wreckreate at the water with his hands at his sides. Zahlia by the fire with her hands in her lap. And me at the fire where the craft is. The five of us on the black sand — and the black sand was the ground the world gave us that morning. The giving was not a welcome.

The world did not come with the story.

It was already here, running on its own. The world ran on its own while the night ran on its own, and the two runnings did not meet. The story did not come with the world. The story is what I keep, and the world is what does not keep me.

The world does not give the six of us a welcome.

The six of us went through, and the white kept the going for the six. The five of us are on the black sand. The welcome was never the world's part — the welcome is what the old world's shore had given, and the new world does not have it.

I looked at the four of them. The four of them looked at the world.

And the world, which had been running on its own, did not stop, and did not look up, and did not answer. The water went in and out at the edge. The gulls went over the broken line without landing. The smoke went where the smoke goes. The world's part in the morning did not change for the five of us on the black sand. The no-answer was the first morning of the new world — the morning that does not give the six of us a welcome.