Act IV — The Sleeping Water

Page 22 — Uaellaen's Decision

I said it at the water's edge, alone.

The water's edge is where I say the thing we are owed before we hear it. I went to the water's edge as I go to the water's edge — the water in front of me, the coast behind me, the craft under the ribs. The morning was the morning of the fourth day, and the fourth day was the day for the decision: the argument we had kept at the fire the evening before had not given us the decision. The four answers were still in the fire — Rumzuck's go, Wreckreate's go-but-east, Zahlia's stay, Smackage's not yet.

The water took the morning as the water takes everything on this coast — without looking up.

I stood at the line where the water comes in. The water went in and out at the line with the sound it has when the wind is not here — the sound it has made since the second morning, the sound of the copy of the flowing. I put the shape of the argument in the craft, the shape with the place in it that did not fit, and I held it with the craft under the ribs.

I said it to the water first.

The water did not answer. The water is not a god: we had found the gods here and not answering. But the water took the words as the water takes everything — without looking up. The words went out over the black sand, the nameless part of it, the part that was not yet ours.

And I will tell you what I said, which was the same thing in the plain voice:

We stay. We build. And we send, in turn, two of us east, by the water, on the fourth day and the ninth and the fourteenth, and the sending is the finding, and the finding is the keeping.

The decision was short — three parts: the stay, the build, and the send. We stay, and the staying was what Zahlia's stay kept for us — the thing that does not move, the thing the Veil does not read. We build, and the building was what we kept for ourselves — the walls, the hearth, the ground that is ours. And we send, in turn, two of us east, by the water — the sending was what Rumzuck's go and Wreckreate's east kept for us. On the fourth day and the ninth and the fourteenth: the turn, and the turn was what we owed the lost — the sending that does not stop.

I said it to the fire first, before I said it to the others.

The fire is what does not answer back in the wrong world. I said it to the fire in the plain voice. The smoke took it. The fire does not read — the Veil reads back, and the water reads, but the fire does not read. The fire is the place I can say a thing and keep it.

Then I said it with the four of them around the fire.

The five of us were around the fire, as we were around it on the evening of the argument — Rumzuck at the place the ogre keeps, Smackage on the ground, Wreckreate at the water's line, Zahlia a little back from the fire, and me at the fire where the craft is. I said it in the plain voice — not louder, not softer. The kept place was where the kept place goes — by the fire, set a little back from the light — and we had not moved it since the white.

The four of them took the decision as the fire takes wood.

Rumzuck's hands were folded over the grip — the ogre who said go had the go in the decision. Wreckreate stood at the water's line with his hands at his sides — the east was in the decision, and the water had not let the east go since the third morning. Zahlia's hands were a little raised — the stay was in the decision. Smackage's palm was flat on the ground — the not yet was past, and the past was the ground's part in us. The four of them took it, and the fire held the taking while we did.

A camp that does not look for its lost is not a camp.

That is the whole of the decision. The staying and the finding are the same thing: one that stops looking stops staying, and one that stops looking is one the world has finished with. The looking is the staying.

The decision is what I have kept since the water's edge.

The decision was not heavy. The heaviness was what the old world's decisions carried, and the old world's decisions were the ones we did not get to make. This decision was ours to make, and the making was what the water kept for us — the taking in of the shape, the putting of it into words, the keeping of it. I will keep the decision as I keep everything: as a thing the water took and the fire kept.

The fourth day came, and the two of us who went went east, by the water, as the water and the ground gave the east. We went, and the going was what the decision kept for the lost. We did not find him on the fourth day, and the empty return was what the sending kept for us — the sending that does not stop. The ninth and the fourteenth will come, and the coming will be what the keeping keeps for the keeping.

The fourth day is the first sending — two of us east, by the water, the east the water and the ground gave us on the third morning. The ninth and the fourteenth follow it. The decision is in the fire — the fire that does not answer back, the fire that keeps the words as the fire keeps everything.