Act I — The Crossing

Page 7 — The Crossing continues

There is a moment in a tearing where the two sides are still one. I have seen it in cloth, in ice, and in the face of a man who has held a word too long, and I will not pretend the white gave me any of those three, because it did not. It gave me a happening. A tearing, when it is finished tearing, is a place — a wound in the world with edges you can look at and name. But in the middle of the tearing, while it is still happening, it is not a place at all. It is an event, and an event is the one thing a body can be inside of without being on either side of it. I am the archmage, and I have spent a hundred years on words, and the word is still the wrong one, because the happening has no noun and I refuse to give it one.

We were in the happening.

I want that plain, and I want it short, because the short is the only true part of the record. The six of us — all six, and I will count them later, and the counting is the part of the record I owe — the white behind us, the black ahead of us, and the happening around us like a breath held in a throat that does not know it is holding one. I have been held in things I will not name, and the happening was the one that held us with both hands. Not the white. The white had let us go at the last of the old world; I felt it let go, and the letting-go was the one thing I have kept longest of the white, because a thing that lets go of you is a thing that has done with you, and I did not want to be done. But the happening had not finished with us. The happening was still in the middle of what it was doing, and we were still in it, and the in-it was the one part of the crossing I was not willing to give up on.

What it was doing, I will say as plainly as I can, and the plain is the whole of the record: it was taking us apart.

Not killing. I want that careful. There was no pain in it. I have felt pain the way a mason feels a wall come down — all at once, and all of it, and the body does most of the screaming — and this was not that. This was the other thing, the thing the body does not know how to do: it was the way a word comes apart in a mouth. Not a breaking. An un-saying. I felt the six of us the way a sentence is felt before it is spoken — six words in a line, each one still the right word, but the line no longer true. Rumzuck's shield was still in his hands, and his hands were still his, and the hands were still attached to the arms that were still attached to the ogre, and every single one of those stills was true, and the true was the one that did not add up. I felt it in the counting, the way a man counts a purse of coins that was a full purse a moment ago and is one coin light, and the light is the one coin he cannot find, and he counts again, and the light is the same light, and the counting is the whole of the happening as far as my body was concerned.

The ward was gone by then. Uuaellaen's ward. It went at the last of the white — not broken, I want the record to be careful about the not-broken, because a broken ward is a ward that failed and this one did not fail; it finished. A ward, like a word, has an end. It is spoken, it holds, and the holding ends the way a held note ends: not with a stop, with a giving-out, and the giving-out is the part you feel in your own throat. I felt it go the way you feel a voice leave a room. There was a sound in the six of us that had not been the white, and the sound was his, and I knew it was his the way I know my own ward, because I have stood in it for a hundred years and the standing has put a shape of it in my ribs. When the shape came out of the ribs, the six of us were the only line there was.

I want that plain again, because the plain is owed the record: no ward, no line, no held, and the six of us were the line.

And that is when I did what I did, and I will tell you what I did, because the doing is the one part of the seventh page I have not yet been allowed to forget. I am the archmage. I hold the shape of the story. It is what I do — I will say it once more on the seventh page, because the saying is the record, and the record is owed the saying — and in the happening there was nothing to hold the five of them except the shape of me holding it. So I held it.

I held the five of them the way Uuaellaen had held us. I will not give you the shape of that ward, because I did not make it the shape of anything I have made before, and a ward that has a name I have not yet given it is a ward I do not yet understand, and the not-understanding is the one I owe the record. I will say only this: it was low, it was even, and it had no color I could name. I know what that sounds like, and I will not dress it up, because the dressing-up is the one thing I will not do on the seventh page of a story that is about to lose a man. I held the five of them in the happening the way the mill holds the water — not the way a man holds a thing, the way a place holds a thing that passes through it — and I did not let go.

I did not let go.

I have held things in my life that I will not write down. I will say that plainly, because the plainly is the record, and the record does not owe me the hiding. I held the last of the old world through a night I will not name, and I held a door in the deep that I will not name, and the holding is the work, and the work does not lie, and I am holding this one on the seventh page. The five of them were in it. Rumzuck with his hands still on the shield and the shield still the shape of the shield. Uuaellaen with his hands still open after the ward went, and I felt him in the holding the way you feel a man beside you in the dark — not with the hand, with the knowing — and he did not make a sound, and the not-sounding was the one thing I have kept longest of the crossing, because my blood brother does not make a sound, and the not-making was the whole of the line. Zahlia with her face still turned up, though there was no sky in the happening to turn up at, and the turning was the one thing she did that I did not ask her to do, and I did not ask, because an asking of her in the happening would have been a word that was not the right word, and the not-asking was the whole of the page I owe her. Wreckreate counting, and I will tell you what he was counting, because the counting is the record: he was counting the six. He was counting the six of us the way a man counts his own heartbeats before he dives into a river he has not tested, one, two, three, four, five, six, and the six was the one he did not lose, and the not-losing was the one the happening did not do. Smackage with his palm flat, and there was no ground in the happening to read, and he read the not-ground, and the reading was the one part of the happening that behaved like the old world, and I kept that part, because a man who can read the not-ground can read the ground that is coming, and the coming is the matter of the next page.

And me, holding.

The six of us were the line, and the line was the six, and the six were the only thing in the happening that held the shape of the six. I want the record to be exact about that, because the exact is the whole of the seventh page: the happening took the world apart around us, and it could not take the six apart, and the not-taking was the one thing I did. Not the happening. Not the white. Not the ward that was already finished. The six of us, in the middle of a happening that had no name, holding the shape of the six, and the holding was the one the record does not let go of.

And then the happening finished.

I will not describe the finishing, because the finishing is the next page, and the next page is owed the finishing whole. I will say only this, and I will say it once, because the saying once is the whole of it: we came out of the happening the way a word comes out of a mouth — all at once, and all of it, and no longer in the middle.

What happened after the crossing is another matter. It is the matter of the next page, and the next page is the Shattered Coast, and the coast is the one the old world does not have.