Chương 199: CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE: THE STUDY, THAT NIGHT

They came in over the space of an hour. Vance first because she was upstairs. Hargrove last because he had been in the south district and rode back in the dark. Marcus read the message out. Then he read it out again because Hargrove had missed the first half. Nobody spoke for a while after the second reading.

"Four hundred yards," Hargrove said.

"Yes."

"That's not a door. That's a gate for an army."

"They didn't send an army through it," Vance said.

"They sent a rock."

"They sent a rock through a gate for an army."

"Both of those are facts," Okafor said.

"Only one of them is what happened." Hargrove sat back. Mensah had the message in his hands and had read it four times.

"Blank," he said.

"Confluix examined it for four hours," Marcus said.

"No — I heard. I'm saying the word." Mensah put it down.

"In the clan tongue there is no word for a blank stone. There's a word for a stone that hasn't been carved yet, which is a stone, and there's a word for a stone that has been carved and worn smooth, which is grieving stone." He paused.

"And there's a third one for a stone that was dressed and set and deliberately left empty, and I have only ever heard it once, from Old Stone, in the before-memory. It means the question." The room went quiet in a different way.

"What's the rest of the phrase?" Danny said.

"There isn't one. It's a noun." Mensah shook his head.

"I asked him about it in the second year and he said it was a thing from the oldest layer and he didn't have a story for it, only the word." Vance said: "Can we ask him?" If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"He'll be at the boundary by the day after tomorrow if the relay reached him."

"Then we ask him," Marcus said.

"Nobody writes anything on that stone until Old Stone has looked at it."

"Agreed," said four people at once. Hargrove waited until the others had gone. He usually did.

"You know what I have to say," he said.

"Say it anyway."

"Four hundred yards, held open twelve hours, by people who have never once in eight hundred years done anything except keep it shut." Hargrove stood at the window with his back to the room.

"That is not an invitation. That is a demonstration of capability."

"It might be both."

"It's always both. That's what a demonstration is." He turned round.

"I'm not saying refuse. I'm saying somebody in that clearing needs to be counting, and it shouldn't be you, because you'll be doing the other thing."

"What other thing?"

"Answering the question," Hargrove said.

"You'll be standing in front of a blank stone with eight hundred years looking at you and you will be entirely occupied. Somebody should be behind you with a headcount and a road out." Marcus thought about it.

"Take Sera and eleven," he said.

"Not at the opening. Back at the third ridge."

"Twelve's nothing against four hundred yards."

"Twelve is nothing and twelve is not a threat," Marcus said.

"If I bring sixty I've answered the question before I get there, and the answer is we came armed." Hargrove picked up his gloves.

"Nine years," he said, "and you have never once let me bring enough people."

"You've never once needed them."

"That's not an argument, that's a run of luck." He went to the door.

"Third ridge. Twelve. And if it goes wrong I am coming over that ridge whatever you've told me."

"I know," Marcus said.

"I'm saying it so it's on the record."

"It's on the record." Hargrove went out. Danny had not gone. He was on the bench by the fire and had been there through the whole of it without speaking, which was not like him. Marcus said, "You've had an idea and you don't like it."

"I've had an idea and I don't know if it's an idea or a thing I want to be true."

"Say it and we'll find out." Danny looked at the fire.

"He wrote a blank stone," he said.

"Alaric. Three weeks ago. Nineteen pages of demolition and the whole of it comes down to: you haven't got a story about a refusal that cost you, and until you do, the argument isn't finished."

"That's a coincidence."

"I know it's a coincidence. That's why I said I don't know if it's an idea." Danny sat forward.

"But listen. Eight hundred years of stones and every one is a record of a thing that came through. Names of things observed. That's what Old Stone said — the sky tears, something passes, they write down what it was."

"Yes."

"So the blank one isn't a question about who we are." Danny was speaking faster now.

"It's the same stone as all the others. It's a record. They've dressed it and set it and left it empty because the record isn't finished. They've been watching for nine years and they can't write down what came through in the last transition yet." Marcus did not say anything.

"They're not asking us who we are," Danny said.

"They're asking us what to write. On a stone that stands there for eight hundred years after we're dead." He stopped.

"That's not better," he said.

"I thought it was going to be better when I got to the end of it and it isn't."

"No," Marcus said.

"It isn't."