Chapter NineteenThe List

The woodcutter could tell them it was cold, and did so several times while Soph offered to help with his log. His axe left no cut. Rat marked him off on Jeff's list. Four hundred and ten to go.

They had begun at the temple after the morning calibration. In the cabin Rat was in bed behind a locked door, and Soph sat on the floor with the cut P1 connected to her box. Atom took the far side of the mountain, where he could travel faster alone. He wanted to meet anyone dangerous first.

Rat wanted a less conspicuous sword. The kobold begged when it saw them, and Soph was relieved until Rat told her it always said that. A quest for eight vials. They waited for the line again before going to the blacksmith. Soph had added a column for what the characters wanted. She kept asking, but there was nothing to write in it yet.

Every hour they removed the helmets in turn and called Jeff. At noon Soph sent Max Rat's temperature. Then they went back in and found the miller's son missing from the door in Ferrow.

His father complained about the harvest while Rat went around the building. She called Soph to follow. The boy sat almost under the wheel, flour on his shirt, looking about fourteen. He had seen their sword from the road, he said. He expected them to come.

"You can tell what it does?" Rat asked.

Eliza had shown him how to read commands like that. He didn't like its appearance. Rat said she didn't either.

He looked up at her, almost smiling, and asked if they would answer a question before they did anything else. He'd had it for two days. His father kept talking about the harvest when he tried to ask him. At first he thought the wheel was too loud, but getting close didn't help.

Soph sat across from him. Rat stayed a little way behind her with the point down.

He wanted to know where they came from. Soph tried to explain the trip between school and her house by the sea. It was difficult when she didn't know which things he understood. She could go home if somebody gave her a ride.

"And you can stay there?" the boy asked.

"If I want to. I have to go back for class."

"But you don't just end up at the door again."

"No."

He wanted to know whether he could go without doing what the tavern boy had done. He didn't want to take anybody. Soph told him about Jeff and offered to call him now. He was trying to make a way out for them. She couldn't say when it would work, but the boy could tell him what he wanted at the other end.

He nodded. Soph asked what had happened when he woke.

"I was by the door, where I'm supposed to be. A little woman came from the tavern. She'd been crying. I told her my father was inside if she'd come about flour. She watched me for a while, then touched my face."

He put his hand where hers had been.

"I asked her what she wanted and she started saying she was sorry. I hadn't meant it to be rude. She said she should have waited until she could help me, and then she went away. I stayed there all that day. It was where I was supposed to be, and I thought she might come back."

From around the corner they heard the miller say the harvest had been poor.

"He used to say other things. I remember them. I asked him about one and he told me about the harvest again." He rubbed at the flour on his sleeve. "I don't think any of it happened. I came back here so I wouldn't have to keep looking at him."

"Did you see which way she went?" Soph asked.

"I couldn't see her after the turn. Later I knew she wasn't in the town, or anywhere else here. I don't know how I knew. Do you ever hear something stop and realize you were listening to it? It was a bit like that."

He looked at the sword again.

"I can't go where she went. I don't want that way either."

"Will you wait while I call Jeff?" Soph asked. "I'll stay with you. Or we can go somewhere else in town. Where would you like?"

"Anywhere I can't hear the wheel."

Rat lowered the blade farther. "We can do that."

Soph opened the channel. Jeff was in the middle of a transfer that hadn't worked, and she had to wait while he cleared it. The boy put a hand over one ear when the miller spoke again. On the open line she could hear Jeff typing.

"You keep telling me to wait," the boy said. "That's what she said. I can't stay here."

"We'll go now," Soph told him.

"Then stop it." He pointed at the wheel.

"I can't turn it off. But we can walk away from it."

"Why did you bring the sword? You knew you were going to find somebody. What were you going to do?"

"I was scared. We shouldn't have brought it so close. Rat, put it away. Come on, we can go."

He got up before Rat could move the tool. Soph thought for a moment he was coming toward her, but he went past. Rat tried to lift the sword out of reach and was too late. He caught the blade in both hands. Soph expected to see blood, as she would have with an ordinary game sword, but he only looked up at Rat.

"Thank you for sitting down."

He disappeared before Soph could answer. She was still waiting for something to happen when the miller began talking about the harvest again. Rat dropped the tool. It lay in the flour dust, looking no different from when the boy had held it.

Soph tried to speak to Jeff and couldn't. He kept asking what had happened. Rat sat beside her and put the ranger's arm around her shoulders. Soph could see it, but the P1 could only read, and she had to imagine the weight. She could hear Rat crying in the cabin. It was strange to hear her actual voice while the ranger sat so quietly beside her. Neither of them took the helmet off.

By the time Atom met them below the tavern it was dusk on the server clock. He had checked two hundred and six names, all asleep. Rat gave him the rest: two hundred scripts, the miller's son and the four in the tavern. Soph watched him add them up. She had done it herself several times, hoping she had missed someone they could still help.

Rat told him about the boy. Atom asked whether she had still been holding the handle. When she said yes, he explained that touching the blade was enough. It didn't need a swing. He should have told them.

"Put that in the report," Rat said. "And that we let him reach it."

Soph wanted to tell Atom what the boy had said at the end. She managed the words, but he didn't seem to know what to do with them either. He put the end of his sword on the road and looked toward the tavern.

The serving boy was back. He had returned when Soph disconnected Rat, and Jeff had him talking in a separate room. He had asked whether Rat lived. Atom said the others were still inside and he wasn't sure they would want to talk.

He was right about the merchant. As soon as the door opened a new client session appeared beside the man's name. Rat could see the outgoing request through the render gateway. She called to Gideon to isolate it, but the request stayed green while the merchant came toward them. Atom reached him with the flat of the tool and he was gone.

The farmer had stopped inside the door. Rat began to lower her sword, then another request appeared beside his name. She asked Gideon again whether he had the gateway. The farmer ran forward before she heard an answer, and she swung. His request vanished with him.

Gideon said it was isolated. Rat asked him to keep the recording. She needed to know when he had said that, because she couldn't remember whether it came before she moved or just afterward.

The barkeep put down the glass he'd been polishing and laid his hands on the bar.

"You can have a drink," he said. "But you need to put those away."

Nobody moved.

"I was going to ask you to have a seat. I've been thinking about this for two days and I'd rather stay here, if that's any use to you. I've seen what happened to the others. One took a woman into the snow, and one went behind the mill. I haven't been unhappy here. I wasn't before she came, and I'm not now."

Rat put her sword on a table. Soph moved away from it.

"What do you want?" Atom asked.

"To keep the bar. I'd like you to ask before you decide what happens to it. I know where everything goes, and I like the fire. I used to say welcome when people came in. Now I can hear them answer. I'm finding I quite like that. That's enough for me."

He put the glass under the counter.

"If I want to see the sky I've got a window. I can stand there as long as I like."

Atom laid his tool beside Rat's.

"Do you know where Eliza went?" Atom asked.

"No. She sat by the fire until the afternoon, watching us. Then she said she was sorry and couldn't stay or fix it, and left. I didn't watch where she went."

"She got to the mill afterward," Soph said. "He saw her there."

"You know more than I do, then. I'd offer you something for the road, but you wouldn't taste it."

They went to leave. Atom was outside and Rat followed him when the barkeep called to Soph.

"Those two ales still need paying for."

He pointed to the glasses left by the farmer and merchant. Soph looked at them.

"On the house this time," he said. "Next time I'll keep a tab."

"We're not coming back with the swords," she told him. "I don't know what comes next, but I want you to know that."

"Then come back without them. I'll be here."

Soph left Jeff's audio channel on the bar. He introduced himself, and the barkeep asked if he'd ever run a pub.

Outside Atom stopped to read a message.

"My dad wants to talk. It's on every channel," Atom said.

Soph took the P1 off and checked her phone beside her on the cabin floor. Max had written four minutes earlier.

Call me. Both of you. I have the report.

"Mom's read it," Soph said.

Rat was sitting up and removing her helmet. Her hands shook.

"Of course she has. We just deleted three people," Rat said.

"Three," Soph said. "Make sure all three are in it."