Chapter 115: A Captive God

We didn't have a cell.

That was the first problem, and nobody had thought of it until we were standing on the quay at dawn with a hollow god holding Iselle's hand and dripping on the steps. Greykeep hasn't had a cell in twenty years. My father had the old ones under the north range bricked up the year after the stream, and Eleanor turned the space into a root cellar, and now it's full of potatoes and Helena's apples in straw.

"We could put it in the root cellar," said Halemar.

"We are not," said Helena, "putting anything in with my apples that hasn't been asked whether it likes apples."

* * *

So in the end Ansel made a room.

He came back from the trough with my father at seven, wet through and gold all down one side, and stood in the inner court looking at the old lesser hall in the west range. The one nobody uses except at midwinter, when there are too many guests for the great hall. It has one door, oak, very old, that sticks in damp weather.

He put his hand flat on it. Then he knocked, three times. Then he took his hand away.

"There," he said.

It looked exactly the same.

"It opens from the inside," said Ansel. "Only from the inside. For anyone who asks to leave. Out loud, in their own voice." He looked at the hollow thing beside Iselle. "When it can ask, it can go. Until then it can stay, and be warm, and nobody will hurt it. That's the only kind of door I'm going to build anymore."

The Castellan, who had come to stand at his elbow, made a note.

West range. Lesser hall. Door turned. Asked.

* * *

The hollow thing went in when Iselle went in. It sat down where she sat down, on the end of a long bench by the cold hearth, and folded its long gray hands in its lap, and bowed its faceless head.

Helena lit the fire. She didn't ask anyone. She just came in with a basket of kindling and knelt down and did it, and then went out, and came back with a cup of tea, and put it down on the bench beside the hollow thing, and went out again.

It didn't drink the tea. It hadn't got a mouth. But after a while it turned its head toward the cup, the way you'd turn toward a window when the sun comes out.

* * *

Then everybody slept.

I don't remember getting to bed. Seraphina says I walked up the east stair with my eyes shut and fell face down across the blanket with my boots on, and she took them off, and little Uriah climbed up and sat on my back and said "Up," and I didn't, and he went to sleep there too.

I woke at four in the afternoon with a small boy's foot in my ear and the light gone gold in the window.

And Loki in the doorway.

* * *

"I've been asked to do something," said Loki.

He was leaning on the doorframe in his crooked coat. The real one. With the hole in the left elbow. He looked as if he hadn't slept at all.

"Your father," he said. "He came and found me at noon. He said, you think like the other side. Go and find out what it knows." He looked at his hands. "He didn't say how. He didn't say anything about how. He just said it, and looked at me, and went away."

I sat up. Little Uriah rolled off my back into the blankets and didn't wake.

"Do you want to?" I said.

"No," said Loki. "Yes. I don't know." He was quiet for a moment. "Do you know what the other side would do, Garrick? To a prisoner? To get it to talk?"

"Yes," I said.

"So do I," said Loki. "I've had it done to me. A long time ago. I know every single way." He looked at me. "I'd like someone in the room. Who'd stop me. If I started to."

"Do you think you would?"

"No," said Loki. "But I'd like it noted that I asked."

* * *

So I went.

And Iselle was already there, on the bench by the fire, with the hollow thing beside her. And Ansel in the chair nearest the door. And Caitlin with the blue book. And Faelan, who had not been asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor by the hearth with his green ledger open on his knees, who looked up when we came in and said "Mother said I could if I was quiet," and then was quiet.

Loki stopped in the doorway and looked at all of us.

"I wanted one person," he said.

"You've got five," said Caitlin. "And a ledger."

Loki opened his mouth. Then he shut it again. And something in his face did a thing I'd only seen it do once before, in the south solar, when Carol knelt on the hearthrug in front of him.

"All right," he said, very quietly. "All right."

* * *

He didn't sit down across from it. I'd expected him to. That's how it's done, in the stories: a table, two chairs, a candle, the questioner on one side and the prisoner on the other.

Loki sat down on the floor. On the hearthrug. Below it. So that the hollow thing, on its bench, was looking down at him.

He took off his coat. He folded it, and put it on the floor beside him.

"My name is Loki," he said. "I lie for a living. Most people here know that, so I'm telling you first, so you know it too. I'm going to ask you some things. I'm not going to lie to you while I ask them. You can believe that or not. I'd believe it, if I were you. It's very rare." He paused. "You can't answer me. I know that. You haven't got a mouth. I'm sorry about that. Somebody took it, and I'd like very much to know who, and when I find out, I'd like to have a long conversation with them about manners."

The hollow thing didn't move.

"So here's what we'll do," said Loki. "I'll ask. And if the answer's yes, you nod. Like this." He nodded, slowly. "And if it's no, you don't. That's all. Can you nod?"

Nothing.

Then, very slowly, the faceless head dipped. Once. And came up again.

Caitlin wrote: Nod. 1.

* * *

"Good," said Loki. "That's very good. Thank you." He looked at it for a while. "Let's start with an easy one. That coat you're wearing. It isn't yours. Is it?"

The head dipped.

"No," said Loki. "I didn't think so. I know about coats. It smells of river. And lamp oil. And rope. A lock-keeper's coat." He held out his hand, not touching. "May I?"

The hollow thing sat very still. And then, slowly, it lifted one arm, and held it out toward him. Sleeve first.

Loki leaned forward and smelled the cuff.

"Corvel's," he said quietly. "From Brannock Falls. The one whose horn-call they tore out." He sat back. "They took his call. And they took his coat. And they put both of them on you, so that you'd sound like him and smell like him, and anybody on the river at night would trust you." He shook his head. "That's very clever. I'd like it noted that I'm furious."

* * *

"Were you a god?" said Loki. "Once?"

The head dipped.

"Before. Before somebody tore you along a seam and took out whatever was inside."

It dipped again.

"Did somebody ask you first? Before they did it? Did they ask you to be held?"

A long pause. Then the head dipped. Once.

"And you said no."

It dipped.

"And then they asked you again. Smaller. Reasonably. In your own words."

The hollow thing didn't move for a long time. Its long gray hands, in its lap, began to shake.

And then it dipped its head. Twice.

"Twice," said Loki softly. "You said no twice."

The head dipped. Twice.

Beside it, Iselle shut her eyes.

* * *

"And after the second no," said Loki, "they stopped asking."

It didn't nod. It didn't need to.

Caitlin wrote it down. I watched her hand. It was very steady and very slow, and when she finished, she pressed the pen down at the end of the line so hard that the nib bent.

* * *

"Who tore you?" said Loki. "I'm going to say a name, and you nod if it's right. You don't have to. You can just sit. Kessavel."

The hollow thing went rigid.

Not a nod. Not a refusal. Its whole body went stiff, all at once, like a hare in a field when a shadow goes over. The long gray fingers in its lap knotted together.

And it made the sound. The thin small sound from the bottom of the well.

"Yes," said Loki. Very gently. "Yes. All right. You don't have to nod. I saw." He let out a breath. "Kessavel tore you. And Kessavel sends you out. Carrying."

The fingers slowly unknotted.

* * *

"Here's a harder one," said Loki. "And I want you to know before I ask it that you can just sit. You don't owe me anything. Not one nod." He looked at it steadily. "Does Kessavel decide? What gets carried. What gets built. Or does somebody tell Kessavel?"

The hollow thing sat very still.

"Is there somebody behind Kessavel?"

Nothing. No nod. No movement at all.

And then Ansel, in the chair by the door, said quietly, "Show it the lamp."

* * *

Loki looked at him.

Ansel stood up. He came across the room in his brown coat, and knelt down on the hearthrug beside Loki, so that there were two of them below the hollow thing now, looking up.

"At the trough," he said to it. "The first night. I asked you who was offering me my doors. You said: someone who remembers you. From before. From the night you stood outside a window and didn't know how to knock." He swallowed. "Someone who showed you the lamp."

The hollow thing's head turned toward him.

"You didn't make that up," said Ansel. "You couldn't have. Nobody knows that. Only me, and the woman whose window it was, and the one who stood behind me in the dark and reached past me toward the lamp with his hand closed." He held up his own right hand. And closed it. Slowly. Into a fist, knuckles white. "Like this. Is that the one? Is that who's behind Kessavel?"

* * *

The hollow thing looked at the closed hand.

And then it did something nobody had told it how to do.

It lifted its own long gray hand off its lap. And closed it. Finger by finger. Into a fist. Knuckles white.

And held it up beside Ansel's. The two closed hands side by side in the firelight.

And its whole body began to shake.

* * *

"Yes," said Ansel. Not a question. "Yes. That's him."

He opened his own hand. And reached out, very slowly, and laid his open palm over the hollow thing's fist. The way Iselle had laid hers over his, on the rock.

"It's all right," he said. "He isn't here. He can't hear you. You're in a room with a door that only opens from the inside, and there's a fire, and there's tea, even if you can't drink it. And nobody in this house closes their hand on anyone." He looked up at it. "Do you know his name?"

The fist, under his palm, shook.

And the hollow thing nodded. Once.

* * *

The room was absolutely silent.

Faelan's pencil had stopped. Caitlin's pen had stopped. Iselle, on the bench, had her hand over her mouth.

"Can you tell us?" said Loki. Very softly.

The hollow thing lifted its faceless head. There was nothing there. No mouth. No lips. Just smooth gray, like a stone worn down by water.

It made the sound from the bottom of the well. Thin and hoarse and straining. Trying.

And nothing came.

* * *

"It can't," said Iselle.

We all looked at her.

She'd taken her hand away from her mouth. She was looking at the hollow thing beside her with an expression I'd never seen on her face before. Not frightened. Something much older than frightened.

"It's held," she said. "The name. Inside it. I can feel it. Like a stone in a closed hand." She held out her own hand, open, toward its chest. Not touching. "Somebody put it there and closed a hand around it, so that it couldn't ever be said. Not by this one. Not by any of them." She swallowed. "That's how he hides. My brother holds things. This one holds names."

"Can you open it?" said Loki.

Iselle looked at her open hand for a long time.

"Not by itself," she said. "There's nothing to open it into. It hasn't got a mouth. If I let the name go, it'll just fall out. Into nothing. And be gone." She looked at the hollow thing. "It needs a mouth first. Somebody has to give it back its own voice before I can give it back the name."

* * *

And Faelan, on the floor by the hearth, said in a very small voice:

"Can I ask my questions?"

* * *

Loki looked at him. So did Ansel. So did all of us.

"I'm sorry," said Faelan. "I was being quiet. I know I said I would." He held up the green ledger. "But it's in the book. It's on a page. I put it on a page this morning, when you came up the river, because it was new and I didn't have it. And the page doesn't balance." He looked at the hollow thing. "There's nothing on either side. Not even a name. It's the first page that's ever been empty on both sides."

Loki moved over on the hearthrug. Without a word. Making room.

Faelan came and knelt between him and Ansel. Three of them, now, below the hollow thing. He opened the ledger on his knees.

"What's your name?" he said.

Nothing. Of course.

"That's all right," said Faelan. "I'll come back to that one." He looked up at it. "What do you do?"

The hollow thing sat still for a moment. Then its head turned, very slightly, toward Loki. Toward Corvel's coat. Toward the canvas bag in the corner, where Halemar had left it.

"Carry," said Loki quietly. "It carries."

Faelan frowned.

"No," he said. "That's not what it does. That's what they make it do." He looked at the hollow thing very seriously. "What did you do before? When you were yours?"

* * *

It didn't nod. It didn't shake its head. It didn't make the sound.

It reached out one long gray hand, slowly, toward the corner of the room.

Toward the canvas bag.

* * *

Caitlin was on her feet first. She brought the bag over and knelt and opened it, very carefully, on the hearthrug. And inside, in the dark of the canvas, there were three small lights.

One silver, like candles in a chapel when everyone's gone home. Meriel's.

One clear and cold, like an echo coming up out of a well. Tessel's.

And one very faint, a sort of dusty gold. That nobody had known.

The hollow thing's hand hovered over the bag. Shaking.

It touched the third one.

* * *

"Oh," said Iselle.

"It's yours," said Ansel. "Isn't it."

The head dipped. Once. And the long gray hand stayed where it was, on the dusty gold light, very lightly, the way you'd touch something you'd lost so long ago you'd stopped believing it was real.

"They tore it out of you," said Loki slowly, "and then they put it in her. In that thing on the rock. And sent you to bring Ansel to build its door." His voice had gone very flat. "They made you carry yourself. Into a thing that wasn't anyone."

* * *

I was kneeling down before I'd thought about it.

The others moved over. All of them. Without a word. And there was room on the hearthrug, between Faelan and Iselle's feet, and I knelt in it, and looked at the dusty gold light under the hollow thing's hand.

I know what torn pieces feel like now. I've regrown one. I know the edges. And this one was ragged all around, and faint, and very old, and it had been somewhere it didn't belong for a long time.

But it was whole. Every bit of it. Nothing worn away.

It would fit.

"Iselle," I said. "It doesn't need a new voice. It needs its own back. That's the voice. Isn't it? That piece." I looked at her. "If it goes back in, it'll have a mouth. And then you can let the name go. Into something."

Iselle looked at me.

"Can you put it back?" she said. "Without a seed? Without falling down for two days?"

"I don't know," I said. "I've never put anything back that was already whole. Only regrown things that weren't." I looked up at the hollow thing. "But I think I'd only have to hold the door. Not build anything. It knows its own way home."

* * *

"Ask," said a voice behind me.

Seraphina was in the doorway. With little Uriah on her hip, half asleep, and her hair down, and a look on her face that I knew very well.

"Ask," she said again. "Beside. Not in the door."

So I asked.

* * *

"May I?" I said to the hollow thing. "Help put it back. You can say no. You've said no to everyone. You can say it to me too."

The faceless head turned toward me.

It looked at me for a long time. If something with no eyes can look.

And then it nodded.

* * *

I won't make it sound like more than it was.

I didn't reach. Aurelia would have had words. I didn't take anything or borrow anything. I just did what Ansel did on the rock, and what Iselle does every time: I held something open. I put my hands on either side of the dusty gold light, not touching it, like the posts of a gate. And the hollow thing picked it up, in its own long gray fingers. And held it to its own chest.

And I held the gate.

And the piece went home.

* * *

It didn't flare. Nothing blazed. There was no gold light filling the room, no rushing sound, no wind. It was very small. The way a key going into a lock is small.

The smooth gray where a face should be went, very slightly, less smooth.

A line appeared. Low down. Where a mouth would be. Thin and faint, like a crack in ice.

And the line opened.

* * *

The first sound it made with its own mouth wasn't a name.

It wasn't a word at all. It was a breath. In. And out. Long and slow and shaking, the way you breathe when you come up from very deep water.

And the second sound was a word. Hoarse and thin and cracked, in a voice nobody in that room had ever heard, because nobody in the world had heard it in a very long time.

"Thank," it said. And stopped. And tried again. "Thank. You."

* * *

Faelan wrote it down.

He wrote it on the right side of the empty page, under favorite thing, because it was the only thing it had said, and he said afterward that it seemed like the right column.

And then he looked at the left side, where the name should go. Still empty.

"Tomorrow?" he said to it. "Can I ask the first question again tomorrow? When you've had a rest?"

The new thin mouth moved. Very slowly. Like someone remembering how a door handle works.

"Yes," it said.

And this time it was an answer. Not the other kind.

* * *

Iselle didn't let the name go that night. She said it wasn't ready. She said you don't open a hand on a frightened thing the minute it's got a mouth; you let it practice breathing first. She sat beside it on the bench until midnight with her hands open in her lap, palms up, and it sat beside her, breathing, in and out, in and out, with its new mouth, as if it was the most extraordinary thing in the world.

Which I suppose it was.

* * *

Loki stayed on the hearthrug for a long time after the rest of us got up.

I went back for him at eleven. He was sitting with his back against the bench, near the hollow god's feet, with his crooked coat over his knees, staring into the fire.

"Nobody hit anybody," he said, without looking around.

"No."

"I've been asked to find things out four times in my life," said Loki. "By four different people. Three of them meant hurt it until it talks. One of them was your father." He looked at the fire. "I didn't know you could do it like that. I didn't know you could just sit on the floor and ask, and let it say no, and wait." He laughed, a little. "That's horrible. It took all afternoon."

"It worked."

"I know," said Loki. "That's the horrible part."

* * *

Carol took Meriel's piece to the chapel that night. She didn't put it back; Meriel's grown a new one, the one I regrew, and it's hers now, and holds. But Carol put the old silver piece in a small glass dish on the plain stone table, among the two hundred candles. And Meriel stood and looked at it for a long time. And then lit a candle beside it. Just one more. Two hundred and one.

Tessel's piece went into Halemar's coat pocket, for the morning, and the long walk to the well at Hallowmere.

And Corvel's coat, Loki took off the hollow god's shoulders himself, very gently, with permission, and folded it, and put it on the chair by the door for Ansel to carry to Brannock Falls. And then he put his own crooked coat around its shoulders instead. With the hole in the left elbow.

"Lending it," he said. "Not giving it. I'd like that clear. I'll want it back." He looked at the hollow god. "When you've got your own."

The thin new mouth moved.

"Yes," it said.

* * *

Mary's book. That night.

The day after Blackstack.

No cell. Helena would not have it in with the apples.

Ansel turned the lesser hall door around. It opens from the inside, for anyone who asks to leave.

Loki asked. He sat on the floor. He told it he lies for a living. He did not lie.

It was a god. It said no twice. Kessavel tore it.

Behind Kessavel: a closed hand. Knuckles white. It knows his name. The name is held inside it.

The third piece from the rock was its own. They made it carry itself.

Garrick asked. It said yes. He held the gate. It put its own piece back.

It has a mouth. It said: Thank you.

Faelan will ask its name tomorrow.

Two hundred and one candles.

And under that, in a thin, slanting, very fast hand, the second time in his life he's ever written in it:

Loki. Nobody hit anybody. I'd like it noted. It took all afternoon.