Chapter 5: A Place on the Rail
Tavi's fish did not turn.
Shin tried not to look pleased.
The lantern stood on the bakery counter between a tray of cooling rolls and a bowl of flour. Five orange fish hung around its upper ring, each with a black eye and a carefully cut tail. They were larger than Shin's birds. They were also completely still.
Tavi gave the ring a push.
It made half a turn and stopped.
"It needs wind," he said.
Shin held his own lantern by its handle. The lamp inside was switched off for the walk to the canal.
"Mine doesn't."
"Yours has fewer."
"They go around."
Tavi pushed his fish again, harder this time.
From behind the counter, his mother said, "If you break it, I am not making another before supper."
Selka had flour on one cheek and a burn across the inside of her wrist. She slid a tray onto the shelf and reached for the next one. The kitchen behind her breathed heat into the shop.
"It's the string," Tavi told her.
"Then look at the string."
"I did."
"Look again."
She passed them each a small roll without looking up. Tavi took his as though it were ordinary. Shin thanked her twice, which made her smile.
At six, Tavi knew how to climb the wall behind the bakery without using the loose brick. He could whistle through his teeth and identify every boatman who would give away a bruised apple. Shin followed him with the uneasy devotion of someone who suspected he was being instructed badly but did not want the lessons to stop.
Now Tavi bent over the lantern, chewing with determination.
One string had looped around the spindle.
Shin pointed.
"There."
"That's meant to be there."
Shin looked at it.
Tavi looked at it too.
"Unless it isn't," he added.
He loosened the knot. The fish turned once, struck one another, and stopped again.
Selka wiped her hands on her apron. "The two sides aren't balanced. We talked about this."
Tavi stared at the lantern for a long time.
Then he removed two fish.
Shin decided not to mention the number.
By afternoon, the lower canal had disappeared beneath the celebration.
Shin could still see the water through gaps between grown people, but everything else had changed. Streamers crossed from the warehouses to the rootwalk. Stalls occupied the spaces where crates usually stood. Someone had tied blue ribbons around the stone lions beside the bridge, giving them an expression of reluctant participation.
Above the market, the eastern root curved across the sky. Its flowers had closed during the rain that morning. Now a few were beginning to open again, small bright points against bark darkened with water.
Ren held Shin's hand. Tavi walked on her other side while Selka finished the last of her deliveries.
"We find our place first," Ren said. "Then we look at things."
There were already too many things to look at.
A woman shaped water above a shallow basin, drawing it into a clear twisting ribbon. Children leaned close while tiny bubbles traveled through it. Beside her, another woman dried the puddles beneath the basin with a mop.
Shin watched the water fold back into itself.
"Again," someone called.
The woman let it fall with a splash.
"After I've had my tea."
Her assistant handed her a cup. The children groaned with theatrical disappointment, and she bowed to them from her stool.
Farther along, a man heated sugar in a flat pan with one palm beneath the metal. His other hand turned a wooden paddle. Pale threads gathered around the stick until he lifted a cloud of sweetness and passed it to a girl.
Shin tugged Ren's hand.
"Later."
He tugged again.
"I saw it."
She was smiling, which seemed promising.
At the bend, a wooden rail had been built above the water. Families were hanging lanterns from hooks along it, leaving room for the turning figures at the top. Vin waited there with Anet, holding two places beside a post.
He was wearing the good coat.
Shin knew it by the brass clasp and by the way people looked at his father before looking at anything else.
"There you are," Vin said.
Tavi immediately showed him the fish.
Vin took the lantern, inspected its knot, and made no comment about the two empty strings tucked beneath the handle.
"Good work."
Tavi tried to look as though he had expected nothing less.
Shin held up his birds.
Vin fastened the two lanterns side by side. Tavi's hung slightly higher. Before Shin could object, his father lifted him so he could turn the little collar on his lamp himself.
Amber light warmed the glass. After a moment, the birds began to move.
Tavi's fish followed.
Shin leaned against his father's shoulder and watched the crooked wing pass the post.
It had survived the walk.
A bell rang from the square behind them.
Tavi caught Shin's sleeve. "The puppets."
Ren took both boys to a low platform hung with green cloth. Children had gathered on benches in front of it. Shin found a place beside Tavi while his mother stood close enough to touch his shoulder.
Four painted figures appeared above the cloth.
One carried a flame cut from red silk. One stood upon blue ribbons. A third held a stone hammer, and the fourth wore a cloak that fluttered whenever the puppeteer blew through a pipe.
The children shouted their names. Shin knew only two and shouted those twice.
A painted tree rose behind them. Its roots were gold thread, its leaves scraps of green glass that caught the afternoon light. The puppeteer tipped a wooden sun over its crown.
"Before the Four," he said, "before our walls, Mendacira planted the First Tree. It drank the sunlight and the warmth beneath the earth, and through its roots her gift passed into the living world."
He pulled a cord. Gold threads lifted beneath the heroes' feet.
"Elemental Life Force!"
"ELF," Tavi whispered importantly.
Shin watched the threads. "Inside us?"
Ren crouched behind their bench. "A little, yes. The roots carry it through the land. Our bodies take it in as we live."
"Even him?" Shin pointed toward a sleeping dog beneath the next bench.
"Even him."
The dog scratched an ear without opening its eyes.
"But in the dark days," the puppeteer continued, "the gift needed hands! Four were chosen to wield it. Brannic lifted earth. Eshel called water. Veyra bore fire. Olan commanded air. From their keeping came the arts that shelter us today!"
He bowed each figure in turn. Tavi corrected Shin's pointing finger when he confused Olan with Eshel.
"Can the dog do fire?"
"No," Ren said.
"Why?"
"Having ELF isn't the same as being able to send it out. You need channels in your body for that."
Shin examined his wrist. He could find only the crease where his sleeve had pressed.
"You won't see them there." She touched the little gutter carved along the bench's back. "Like this carries rain. Some bodies have a way for ELF to flow outward. Some don't."
Tavi traced the gutter to its end.
"What if it's blocked?"
"Sometimes channels are hurt, and sometimes they haven't learned to work yet. That's why examiners have to be careful. Not doing something today doesn't always mean you can't."
Shin spread his fingers. Nothing happened.
Ren folded his cold hand between hers.
"You're four."
"Tavi's six."
"Which is also rather young."
Tavi stopped studying his palm.
Onstage, Brannic bent beneath an enormous painted stone. His hammer knocked against his wooden head.
"Too much!" the puppeteer cried in a second, squeaking voice.
Children shouted for him to try again. Instead, Brannic set down the stone and lifted a smaller one.
"First a pebble," the deep voice told them. "Then another. A wall is not built by wishing."
Ren smiled. "Most children who can awaken do it much later. Ten, twelve, sometimes sixteen. First you learn to feel what you're doing. Then make something small happen, and stop it when you mean to."
"Like putting your tongue there to whistle?" Tavi asked.
"A little. Except forcing this can hurt you."
"Do you get scared?"
"You might. But getting frightened isn't a lesson, and being hurt doesn't make you ready."
Olan's cloak fluttered above the painted wall. Shin looked from it to his mother.
"Will I have yours?"
"Perhaps. Or something closer to your father's. Families make some kinds more likely."
"Both?"
"Very few people can manage two. Most learn one kind well. We call that an affinity."
Shin tried the word silently.
"And even with two," she added, "you still have the same body to tire out."
Tavi leaned sideways. "I'd pick water."
"You don't get to order it," Ren said.
He considered this injustice while Eshel's blue ribbons spilled into a painted pool.
The puppet dipped her hands into it before raising them again.
"She needs water there," Ren murmured. "Real work needs things to work with. I can move the air around us. I can't make your wooden bench into a breeze."
"Dad makes fire."
"And it takes something out of him. A little flame costs less than a great one. Too much at once can hurt his channels, even before he's used everything he has."
Shin remembered the woman at the basin sitting down with her tea.
"Does tea put it back?"
"Rest helps. Food helps. Sleep. It takes time." Ren brushed a crumb from his coat. "More at the roots doesn't mean your body can take it all at once."
"But the roots are big."
"They still need water and good soil. They can be damaged, too."
Shin looked up at the great dark curve beyond the rooftops. He had never thought of something that large needing anything.
Onstage, the painted sun disappeared. A drum sounded behind the cloth.
Ren straightened, resting a hand lightly on each boy's shoulder.
Tavi tucked his feet beneath the bench. Shin forgot his next question as black fingers rose behind the golden roots.
The puppeteer told them about the first root sanctuary. He made the earth figure hold up a collapsing arch while the others fought shapes made of black rags. The water ribbons tangled around the hammer. For a moment, all four heroes leaned dangerously sideways.
Behind the cloth, someone whispered a word Ren did not let Shin use.
Tavi heard it too. They looked at each other, delighted.
The heroes recovered. A fifth puppet appeared briefly, a small woman carrying a basket of stones to the broken wall. Then she vanished while the four received their painted crowns.
Shin frowned.
When the performance ended, he waited until the other children had left before approaching the stage.
"Where did the other one go?"
The puppeteer was a thin man with a silver ring in one ear. He looked at the figures in his lap.
"Which other one?"
"The basket lady."
"Ah. She helped rebuild the sanctuary."
"Did she get a crown?"
"She wasn't one of the Four."
Shin considered this.
"She could have a little one."
The man looked toward Ren, then back at him.
"I suppose she could."
He lifted the small puppet and let her bow.
Shin bowed back.
On the way to the rail, Tavi said, "My mother can't do the water thing."
"Mine does wind."
"Mine does bread."
Shin remembered the warm roll and the smell of the bakery.
"That's good."
"I know."
Tavi gave a little skip to clear a puddle. Shin tried to copy him, landed in the middle, and splashed both their legs.
Ren looked down at them.
Neither boy offered an explanation.
Vin had meant to spend the entire afternoon beside the rail.
Captain Serren found him there just as Shin began attempting to eat spun sugar without touching it with his hands.
"Nobohide."
Vin knew the voice well enough to sigh before turning.
Serren wore no ceremonial sash. Rain had stained one shoulder of her coat, and there was a strip of wet reed caught in her boot buckle.
Ren saw it too.
"What happened?" she asked.
"A barge caught the lower gate."
Vin looked toward the canal bend, where two uniformed workers stood beside a winch housing.
"Caught it how?"
"Bad turn. The left hinge is binding. We've stopped traffic, but I'd like another pair of hands before the evening water comes down."
She spoke quietly, away from the boys. Vin appreciated that until he noticed Shin watching them through a beard of sugar.
"How long?" Ren asked.
"If it's what I think, half an hour."
"And if it isn't?"
Serren's expression changed slightly.
"Then we close the lower walk early."
Vin unfastened his good coat. Beneath it he wore the plain shirt Ren had insisted was too worn at the collar for a celebration.
"I'll be at the gate," he told Shin.
His son looked toward the bend.
"Can I come?"
"Not this time."
"I can watch."
"From here."
Vin crouched so they were level.
"Stay with your mother. I'll come back before we light the rail for the evening."
Shin looked at the boots beneath Serren's coat, then at his father's.
"You already said that."
Vin glanced at Ren.
"I said I'd stay all afternoon," he admitted. "You're right."
Serren waited without speaking.
"I need to help with something," Vin said. "I'm sorry."
Shin's mouth tightened. He did not cry. Somehow that was worse.
Vin wiped sugar from his chin with a corner of the cloth Ren offered.
"Keep my place."
"I can't be two people."
"No. You can't."
He squeezed the small shoulder once, then stood.
Ren caught his wrist before he went.
"Tell me if you'll be longer."
"I will."
From the rail, Shin could see his father remove a wooden cover from the winch housing. Serren held it while another worker climbed down a ladder toward the gate.
The water looked higher from here.
A leaf slid along the surface, caught against a post, then vanished beneath it. Shin leaned forward to see where it had gone.
Ren's hand settled across his chest.
"Behind the rail."
"I was looking."
"You can look from behind it."
Tavi returned with his mother and a paper packet of biscuits. He offered Shin the broken one first, reconsidered, and exchanged it for a whole one.
They ate while the lanterns turned.
Below them, something pale bumped against the retaining mesh that protected the narrow water passage beneath the walk.
"Fish," Tavi said.
It was longer than Shin's arm, with a silver flank and a dark mouth. One gill opened. The other did not.
Around its head, short black threads moved in the current.
Shin stopped chewing.
"It's stuck."
Tavi looked around for something long enough to reach it.
Ren followed their gaze.
"Don't touch the water."
There was something in her voice that made both boys step back.
She called to the nearest rootward worker. He came over, carrying a hooked pole, and looked down through the boards.
His expression lost its patience.
"How long has that been there?"
"We've only just seen it."
He signaled another worker, who brought a covered tub. Together they lifted the fish without letting it touch the walkway.
As it came out of the water, the black threads drew tight against its gill.
"Is it sick?" Shin asked.
"Yes," Ren said.
"Can they fix it?"
She watched the worker secure the lid.
"They're going to find out."
One worker remained by the mesh. The other carried the tub directly toward Serren.
The announcement came before sunset.
The lower walk would close. Lanterns were to be taken home. The upper square would remain open unless the weather worsened.
A man beside the tea stall complained that the weather had been worse last year. The rootward worker repeated the instruction without arguing. Behind him, two others began roping off the stairs to the lower landing.
Shin watched Vin speak to Serren. His father looked toward them, raised one hand, then crossed the walk quickly.
"We'll have the lanterns at home," he said.
Tavi kicked the bottom of the rail.
"It's not the same."
"No," Vin said. "It isn't."
He took down the fish, then the birds, turning each lamp's collar until its light went out. By the time he handed Shin his lantern, the first heavy drops had begun to strike the canal.
Ren pulled up Shin's hood.
Beyond the root, water darkened the roofs one by one.
"Are you coming?" she asked Vin.
"I have to stay until the gate's secured."
Shin tightened his grip on the handle.
His father touched the crooked yellow wing with a careful finger.
"You know the way home?"
Shin nodded.
"Bridge. Dyers. Baker. Our door."
"Good. Stay with your mother."
Vin waited until they had joined the people leaving the walk. When Shin looked back, his father was still there.
Then the crowd closed between them.