Chapter 165: Sixteen Names

Logan watched the place until he was sure the ridge would not rise again.

The Silver lay four steps below the hedge, and it made no sound at all. Up close it was not flat. It curled and folded slowly against the bright rock, like breath on a cold window.

"It is in," Rishin said.

He had come to stand at the hedge. He looked across the camp to where Vina was still asleep between her parents, with Solveig kneeling over her.

"When she wakes, she does not come past the fire rings," he said. "Not until that stone is around her neck. Do it now, boy, while you are fresh."

Logan went to wake Garen.

Isolde raised the roof over the Summoning Circle.

It was a smaller dome this time, twenty paces across and clouded like frosted glass. From outside, nobody could have told who stood within it or what they did there.

Garen put a wall around it, as he had promised in the gallery. The harpy in dull steel took one side with her wire instrument across her chest.

The figure in black armor took the other. Logan sent Terry and Halden to fill the gaps between them.

Inside the dome, the whole family stood around the circle. Helen had carried Vina in half awake. Billy had got in before anybody thought to stop him.

Pebble stood beside Daniel with his sling looped through his belt.

"Pebble," Logan said. "Come here."

Pebble came. He stood the way he always stood, loose and a little crooked.

"Sixteen units are about to come out of that circle," Logan told him. "When they have been named, I am going to merge them. All of them go into one unit. I want that unit to be you."

Pebble’s easy slouch went out of him.

"Me, boss?"

"The one I choose first stays himself. He keeps his face and everything he remembers. The rest become part of him." Logan kept his voice steady.

"Behind that black door is a stone, and it is for my sister. Whoever carries sixteen years in there can afford it. She named you. I would like it to be you who pays."

Pebble looked over his shoulder. Vina was sitting on the ground with Lisbell in her lap, watching the circle and yawning.

"That is a lot of people to carry, boss," he said. His eyes were still on her.

"Yes."

"Do I get a say?"

"You get the whole say. If you tell me no, I pick somebody out of the sixteen instead."

Pebble took the sling out of his belt. He wound it once around his fist and unwound it again.

"I would have said yes if you had only told me to," he said. "I am saying it anyway. Yes, boss."

Logan pressed his palm to the circle.

[ Summon: Combat Unit x8 ] [ Cost: 800 Tower Points ] [ Remaining Tower Points: 10 ]

Eight columns of light rose out of the ring and spread.

A spearman in patched leather planted the butt of his weapon on the rock. A squat man thumped a round iron shield with his fist. A third held a torch that was already burning, and a fourth could not keep his feet still.

Behind them stood a figure built like a boulder with legs, and a lean archer wrapped in briars.

The last two lights took longer to settle. One became a wolf with silver-white fur and frost curling off its breath. The other became a long cat the color of banked coals, and the tips of its claws were smoking.

[ Pull result: 4x Normal | 2x Uncommon | 2x Rare ]

"Two Rares in eight," Alice murmured. "It likes you today."

Logan had the sum done before the light finished fading.

’Four and two and two, and Pebble makes nine,’ he thought. ’That is a Legendary with one to spare. He would carry four days short of nine years, at sixteen points a day.’

It came to a little over fifty-two thousand.

"Garen," he said. "Keep your points. These eight will pay for it."

"And what do they leave him afterward?"

"Two years. A little more."

"Two years," Garen repeated. "After he has bought your sister’s life." He stepped up to the ring and cracked his knuckles. "I did not walk down eleven ribs to be thrifty, boy. Give the lad seventeen."

"Let him," Rishin said, before Logan could argue. "Years are the one thing in this place that nobody has ever had too many of."

[ Summon: Combat Unit x8 ] [ Cost: 800 Tower Points ] [ Remaining Tower Points: 0 ]

His eight rose beside Logan’s. There was a second spearman, a man with a shield he had plainly built himself, and a thin fellow with a sling and a pouch of flints.

There was a skirmisher in blackened chain with an axe in each hand, and a squat thing that had put down roots before the light left it. A pale falcon shot up to the top of the dome and began to circle.

A jackal slid out of the seventh column, more shadow than animal.

The eighth light did not stand up at all. It dropped onto the rock with a clatter, and it rolled twice.

[ Pull result: 3x Normal | 3x Uncommon | 2x Rare ]

It was a wheel of dark iron about the size of a large melon. Six curved blades stood out from its rim.

In the middle sat a small face like a fox’s, and it blinked up at the people around it one eye at a time.

Billy made a noise like a kettle coming to the boil.

"Boss," he said. "Boss. That is my wheel."

Garen held out his hand, and his eight folded down into eight cards. He put the whole stack into Logan’s palm.

"Yours," he said. "I never had them long enough to miss them."

Logan called them out again. Sixteen strangers stood inside the dome and looked at him, and he looked at Rishin.

"Every one," the old man said.

So the family named them.

Daniel named the first spearman Post, because of how he stood. Vina said the man with the round shield looked like the lid of a pot, and he became Lid before he could object.

The torch was Wick. The one who could not stand still was Dart.

The boulder with legs cracked knuckles the size of fists, and Vina called him Knuckle. Alice named the briar archer Bramble. Across the dome, Burr inclined his head to him as one inclines it to a cousin.

Helen knelt down in front of the wolf. It yawned in her face, and ice drifted off its fangs.

"Rime," she decided. She looked at the smoking cat. "And you are Cinder."

Then it was Garen’s turn. He pointed at the second spearman.

"Second Post," he said.

"Garen," said Isolde, without lowering her hands.

"It is accurate."

"He is called Rail," Vina said firmly, and Garen bowed to her.

After that he asked before he spoke. The shield maker became Rivet, and the flint slinger became Spark. The one with the two axes was Soot. Daniel looked at the rooted one and said Stump, and it seemed pleased.

Isolde named the jackal Dusk. Garen looked down at the wheel, which was spinning a slow happy circle around his boots.

"Spoke," he said.

"Spoke is acceptable," said Billy. His voice was not quite steady.

That left the falcon. It had come down onto the rim of the circle, and it was preening one sharp-edged wing.

"I do not have any more bird names," Vina said. "Whistle took the good one."

"Reed," said Rishin.

She turned around. "Why Reed?"

"Because that is what you make a whistle from."

Vina thought about it and nodded. On Burr’s wrist, the briar falcon gave his one thin note. The pale bird on the rim lifted his head and answered.

Logan said all sixteen names aloud, once, so that he would have them.

"Post. Lid. Wick. Dart. Knuckle and Bramble. Rime and Cinder." He turned to the second eight. "Rail. Rivet. Spark. Soot and Stump. Reed. Dusk. Spoke."

Then he told them.

He told them about the year, and about the door, and about what a unit’s days could buy behind it. He told them about a thing with a lantern on its head that had sung a mother’s song under a ledge.

"There is a stone that stops that," he said. "It costs more days than any one of you will ever have. All of you together have enough, with years to spare. So I am asking you to go into him."

He put his hand on Pebble’s shoulder.

"You will not be gone. Ask that falcon." He nodded at Burr’s wrist. "He went into an archer three days ago. He has been complaining about it ever since."

Whistle whistled. Several of the sixteen laughed.

Knuckle raised one enormous hand.

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Pity," said Knuckle, and he lowered it.

Post looked along the line to his left and then to his right. Nobody had stepped back. He planted his spear.

"Then where do you want us, boss?" he said.

Logan opened Boundless Genesis.

He began with the Normals. There were eight of them, counting Pebble, and he set them in four pairs. In the first pair he chose Pebble, and then Post.

Five hundred MP left him in one cold pull. He had merged them all at a stroke, the way he had learned to in Star Hunters.

Four seams of gold light hung in the air and cracked open. Pebble stepped out of the nearest. He stood straighter than he had, and his sling was a hand longer.

There were nine Uncommons on the rock now. Logan paired eight, with Pebble chosen first in his pair once again. The ninth was Reed, who had no partner, and he flew up under the roof to wait.

"Boss." Billy had rolled up against Logan’s leg. "Boss, the wheel. Put the wheel in him next. That is how it is done. That is how I was done."

Logan looked at Pebble.

"Do you want a wheel?"

Pebble looked at Billy, at the great dark rim and the blades as long as swords. Then he looked down at his boots.

"I like walking, boss," he said apologetically.

Billy’s blades drooped.

"He gets to be himself," Logan reminded him. "You agreed."

"I agreed before there was a wheel."

Logan set his will on it all the same. He had done as much for the three he brought out of Star Hunters. Whatever went in, Pebble would stay on two feet.

Eight Rares went into four Epics, and Spoke went with them. Four Epics went into two Legendaries. Each time the light closed and opened, Pebble came out of it a little taller, and a little harder to look away from.

Then there were only two Legendaries standing in the dome, and Reed circling overhead.

"Last pair," Logan said, and he chose Pebble first.

[ 8x Normal merged into 4x Uncommon ] [ 9x Uncommon merged into 4x Rare, 1x Uncommon remaining ] [ 8x Rare merged into 4x Epic ] [ 4x Epic merged into 2x Legendary ] [ 2x Legendary merged into 1x Mythic ]

Reed folded his wings and dropped straight down into the light.

[ 1x Mythic + 1x Uncommon merged into 1x Mythic ] [ Longroad Cairn Slinger (Mythic) Created. ]

The gold faded, and one figure stood on the rock.

It was Pebble. Nobody in the dome could have mistaken him. He had the same sandy hair and the same narrow, good-humored face, and he was standing with his weight on one leg.

He was a hand taller than Logan now. His patched brown leather had grown into a long travelling coat with a collar of pale wolf fur, and frost glittered at its tips. A small round shield was strapped to his left forearm.

The sling in his right hand was braided from briar cord, and it hung nearly to his knee.

The pouch at his hip no longer clicked. It bulged. When he reached in and took out a stone, it was the size of a hen’s egg, and it glowed dull red at the heart like a coal.

A pale feather was tucked behind his ear. He did not seem to know that it was there.

"Boss," Pebble said. His voice was the same. "It is crowded in here."

Vina had got up off the ground. She walked all the way around him, as she had in the gallery, and she studied him from his boots to his hair.

"You are still Pebble," she informed him.

"Still Pebble, miss." He crouched so that she did not have to look up. "Post says I have to stand up straight. Knuckle says I do not. They are arguing about it."

"Who is winning?"

"Reed," said Pebble. "He just wants them both to be quiet."

Logan opened the panel. His fingers were clumsy on it.

[ Longroad Cairn Slinger ] [ Name: Pebble ] [ Rank: Mythic ] [ Lifespan: 6,201 days ] [ Lifespan may be exchanged for Abyss Points at any Relic Shop. ]

"Mythic," Alice said. "You told me a Legendary. You stood at that counter in Tarry and promised me one."

"I told you what sixteen Normals would make. That was the worst the circle could do to me." Logan could not stop looking at the fourth line. "It did not do its worst. It gave us nine that were better than Normal."

He ran the sum twice.

’Pebble had three hundred and sixty-one days when he woke. Sixteen fresh years on top of that is six thousand two hundred and one. It is seventeen years, less four days.’

Then he ran the other sum, the one that mattered at the black door.

’A Mythic pays thirty-two points for a day. That is a hundred and ninety-eight thousand points standing in a travelling coat. The stone costs forty.’

"He can pay for it nearly five times over," Logan said.

"BOSS," said Billy.

"I know, Billy."

"He is a Mythic! He was a Normal when we went to sleep!"

"I was there."

Garen was laughing without any sound, with one hand over his eyes. Helen had both arms around Daniel’s arm. Daniel was looking at the tall young man in the fur collar who had held onto his belt in a gale.

"Well," Daniel said. "That works."

Rishin had not laughed.

He stood at the edge of the circle with his hands in his sleeves, and he took a slow look at Pebble, feather and all. Then he looked through the clouded wall of the dome, toward the back of the shelf.

"A Mythic with one year on it was the dearest thing I ever saw walk through that door," he said. "You have made one with seventeen."

"It has already seen Burr," said Logan.

"It saw two years on a Rare. It dipped its lamps, and it let you leave." The old man’s voice was low.

"I do not know what it does for this. The instant his hand touches that counter, it will know that somebody down here is doing sums it did not set."

Alice had stopped smiling. "Are you telling us not to go in?"

Rishin looked at Vina. She had found the feather behind Pebble’s ear, and she was telling him all about it.

"No," he said. "We go in. I only want you to know what you are carrying when you do. To that door, he is not a customer anymore. He is a question."

Pebble stood up. He looked over the heads of the family at the place where the amber lantern burned, and he settled the long sling over his shoulder.

"Then I had better go and be asked, boss," he said.