Chapter 367: 367: The Net That Smiles part two
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He tasted a mouthful of dust that was not his dust. He heard the tiny click of a peg set into damp sand. He felt faint and stubborn, the way Miryam held her breath and let it go on a count she had learned at home.
He clenched his jaw only once. He did not let the feeling leak into the thread. He sent the picture of his hand again, steady, open, very calm. He added a new picture. A small fire. A pot that does not boil even if the wood pops. He came up with the idea of sitting on a step and waiting for someone who has not yet come around the corner, not because they are lost, but because the street is long.
Her answer came as a faint buzz like a bee under a cup. It was not a word. It was the shape of a nod. He let the road open, and the ripple went flat. What he saw or what Miryam sent her was very blurry. Nothing was clear.
Luna was at his side. He did not start. He had known she was coming by the way the air moved. "Do you have her," she asked.
"I have a whisper," he said.
"She is alright," Luna said.
"She is alright for now," he agreed.
"Then we will do what we must with clear heads," she said.
He looked at her and felt the heat in his chest move into place like a block in a wall. He nodded.
"Alka," he called up the shaft. "At last light you fly out and ride the high edge of the wind. You do not dive. You do not strike. You count heads and look for heads that do not belong to rows. You look for a man who smiles in places where men do not smile."
Alka’s voice rolled down like a soft drum. "I will count and return."
"Silvershadow," Kai said without turning. The man was already there because that is what he did. "Take one line east after dusk. No banners. No marks. You will not break a net that you did not see set. You will mark the place where the sand forgets itself. Then you will return without a hero song." Silvershadow bowed his head.
"Yes." "Shadeclaw," Kai said. "If a hand knocks with a blade, answer with a door. If a foot tests a stair with a spear, answer with a hole. I want scrapes, not graves, until I step outside."
Shadeclaw’s mouth twitched. "The scrapes are ready."
He pointed at the inner rings with two fingers. "Luna is off patrol," he said. He did not need to add because she carries two more than herself.
The men and women near enough to hear did not let the words reach their faces. They held them like a secret they were proud to keep.
The sun walked toward the far ridge. The shadows on the mountain stretched long and thin and then grew fat again as the light moved sideways. The drums were steady. They did not change speed when the day cooled. They counted themselves the way a good wall counts stones.
Kai stood at the high lip as the light turned the dunes to gold. From there the desert looked gentle. It was not. He did not let his eyes look for a small shape in white. He kept his gaze wide. He used the sense that tells a hunter the path of a deer without seeing the deer at all.
He remembered Vorak’s description when he was talking to Mia about everything. He remembered a promise. He remembered the way a young fool’s smile does not reach his eyes when his mind is hungry. He tasted reed and old leather again and did not show it. He did not think of how his spear would feel in the air. He thought of how his hand had looked when he sent it down the road. Open. Calm. A promise made small so a child could carry it.
The mountain hummed under his feet. It felt like a heart that knows how to run and has chosen not to yet. At last the first runners of the evening came up the ramps with reports tied under their tongue like a prayer.
"From the outer rise," one said. "Green line on the north edge. Quiet scouts. They do not argue with birds. They count stones when they walk so they will know how many to count on the way back."
"From the lower flats," another said. "Reed line to the east. Spades. Mats. They put the wall on the ground and carry it with them."
"From the old road," said a third. "Shields like roofs. Water carried like a promise. Holes are set in their camp where they want thieves to walk."
"From the dunes," said the last, and his eyes were a little bright with respect he did not like to feel. "A thin line that makes itself thick when you do not look. A grin you can hear."
Kai nodded once after each. He said one word after all four. "Good." He turned to his people. "We hold the mountain," he said. "We do not run. We do not spend lives to win shadows. We keep the eggs safe. We keep the inner water clean. We keep our home a place where a child can sleep and wake to a lamp and not a drum." They answered with work, not with cheers.
The last light slid away. The first lamps on the ledges lit. The stone changed color like a lizard. The air grew thin and cool. Far to the east the drums did not stop. They learned a new pattern that meant night and counted in a different way.
On the sand under a small awning, Mardek sat with his hands behind his head and watched the stars come out. He said to the net in a friendly voice, "Do you like stories?"
Miryam did not answer. She watched the stars too. She wished Kai would look at the same star and think of the same wish and send it to her. She did not know he was on the lip of the mountain doing exactly that. The mountain hummed. It did not sing yet. It kept breath. It kept time. It kept watch.
The lamps blooming along the inner ring, with Alka ready to rise on the dark wind, with Silvershadow a shadow among other shadows on the east slope, and with Kai’s hand still steady in his mind, open and calm, a promise the size of a palm.