THE NIGHTS THE BELLS SANG

The House of the Last Lantern had never been so loud.
It had known quiet for forty-one years. It had known the soft sweep of a broom, the faint click of wooden swords, the tick of a stone lantern cooling on its table. It had never known this: sixteen voices shouting at once, boots on the black boards, the rattle of packs and the clash of steel half drawn, and over everything, through the walls and the roof and the stones of the floor, the vast, tolling, tumbling thunder of a hundred bells.
"*Pairs!*" Daigo roared. "Pairs, now! Fushiku, with Ember! Rouka with Imakirawa! Move!"
"We're *moving!*" Zeika shouted back.
"Then move *faster!*"
"Hoshikawa! Ushiro!" said Shion, in a clear carrying voice. "You will stay with the girl and the master's students. Take them to the cellar. Bar the door. Nobody comes in who does not know the word."
"What's the word?" said Rin, wildly.
"*Lantern,*" said Toku.
He had come back into the hall from the corner where he kept his things. He was no longer stooped. It was the first thing Godori noticed. He walked up the middle of the black boards with his wooden leg ringing on the floor, and his back was as straight as a spear, and in his hands he carried a long, narrow, plain sword in a scabbard of worn black lacquer. His broom was nowhere to be seen.
"Master Toku," said Daigo, quietly.
"Yes?"
"You do not have to..."
"It is my house," said Toku.
He said it simply. He stopped beside the little stone lantern, and looked at it for a long moment. The tiny orange flame trembled in its heart. The bells hammered. Dust rained from the rafters.
"It has never gone out," he said. "In two hundred years. I do not intend to be the one."
He drew the sword.
It came out of the scabbard with a long, soft, silvery whisper, and Godori felt the hair rise on his arms. It was a blade like the ones the masters had carried, narrow and plain and rippled like water, and it caught the light of the lantern and held it, quite steadily, like a still pool.
"*A blade is drawn once,*" said Toku. His voice was gentle and level and entirely without fear. "I have not drawn this in thirty years. I think I shall find that I remember."
---
They came over the wall before the bells had finished.
Godori heard them first, a soft, scraping, scrabbling sound on the other side of the courtyard gate, as if a great many people were climbing a ladder at once. He ran to the window. He pushed back the shutter and looked out.
The night was black. There was no moon. There were no lamps. The whole of the city lay in perfect darkness, under a sky like spilled ink, and in the dark, against the pale stone of the courtyard wall, grey shapes were pouring over the top like water over a weir.
They came silently.
They were boys and girls. They were young. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. They wore plain grey cloaks and plain grey tunics, and each one carried a narrow sword in a black scabbard. They dropped to the swept earth of the yard one by one, light as cats, and stood in a long, neat, perfectly spaced row, with their hands at their sides.
Not one of them spoke.
Not one of them looked at another.
"Tempered," breathed Irel, at his shoulder.
He had never been so cold in his life.
They stood in the starlight like a row of statues, thirty of them, forty, every face smooth and pale and blank. Each had a thin black ribbon at the wrist. Their eyes were open. They were fixed on the door of the hall, quite steadily, like a row of hunting dogs waiting for the whistle.
*They're children,* he thought. *They're just children.*
*And somebody put out the light behind their eyes.*
"Godori," said Irel.
"I know."
"We cannot..."
"I *know.*"
"There are too many."
"I know."
"We have to *stop* them."
"I know." His voice cracked. "But I don't want to *hurt* them."
She looked at him. In the dark, her face was very white. Her eyes were very large.
"Then we won't," said Irel.
"What?"
"We will not hurt them." She said it quite calmly. "We will not kill a single child. If it can be done, it will be done another way." She drew her sword. "That is what *we* do."
He stared at her.
Then, slowly, he smiled.
"Thank you," he said.
"Do not thank me. It will be very hard."
"I know."
"*Daigo,*" said Irel. "Permission to use our elements."
A pause.
"It is *granted,*" said Daigo, in a deep voice. "All of you. *Everything.* We are done with quiet."
A sound ran through the hall. It was a long, low, shuddering sigh, like a breath held for three weeks and finally let go. And along the whole length of the black boards, in the flickering lantern light, sixteen young people straightened, one by one, and the air around them began to *change.*
---
The gate burst at the third peal of the great bell.
It did not break. It *bowed.* The old oak planks shuddered inward on their hinges, and in the same instant, a figure stepped out of the dark of the courtyard and walked straight through the gap.
He was tall. He was lean and grey and utterly still, in a plain dark coat with a high collar, and his long hair was bound at the nape with a black silk cord. In his right hand he held a narrow sword, drawn, pointing at the ground. In his left, he held nothing.
He stopped in the middle of the swept yard, and bowed.
It was a long, slow, formal, perfect bow. Left hand over right. His head dipped to the exact angle that Godori had practised for twelve days, and it held for the count of five. When it ended, the tall man straightened, and looked up at the open doorway of the hall, where a small, stiff, old figure stood with a drawn sword in his hand.
"Master Toku," said the grey man.
His voice was low and pleasant. It carried quite clearly over the roar of the bells.
"Hello, Ryu," said Toku.
"You know me."
"I taught you to hold a broom."
"It was a very long time ago."
"Thirty-one years." Toku's voice was mild. "You were eleven. You cried when you broke a window."
"I did."
"You said it was an accident."
"It was *not.*" The grey man smiled, very faintly. "I wanted to see what it sounded like."
"That was always the trouble with you."
"Yes." The man in the high collar tilted his head. His eyes, in the dark, were very pale. "I am sorry that it is you who is here, Master. I had hoped it would not be."
"So did I."
"We are not here for you. We are here for the boy." He bowed again, slightly. "If you give him up, no one in this house will be harmed. I give you my word."
"The word of a man who is helping to burn my city."
"The city is not burning."
"Not yet."
"It will be spared," said the grey man, gently. "If you are *sensible.*"
Toku looked at him for a long moment.
"No," he said.
"No?"
"There is a thing I tell all my students," said the old man, and his voice was steady and clear. "It is the Seventh Rule. *The road feeds the blade. The blade feeds no one.* It means that a sword is not a thing you *use.* It is a thing you *serve.* And I do not serve you, Ryu. I never did." He lifted the blade, slowly, to the guard. "Come in. Wipe your feet."
The grey man sighed.
"Very well," he said. "Then I shall bow, and we shall begin."
He bowed.
And the ranks of silent children in the yard, as one, drew their swords.
---
It was the strangest battle Godori had ever fought.
It was not like the gnomes, which had swarmed and shrieked and tumbled over one another in a frenzy. It was not like the ravine, which had been a chaos of fire and wind and shouted names. It was *quiet.* The tempered apprentices came through the gate in perfect silence, in perfect order, row after row of them, their narrow blades singing in the dark. They did not cry out. They did not curse. They did not even seem to breathe. They moved in a smooth, flowing, relentless tide, like the sea coming in.
And the House of the Last Lantern met them with everything it had.
Zeika went first. She stood at the head of the steps with her head thrown back and her arms spread wide, and *lightning* poured out of her, wild and white and joyous, a great crackling spiral that filled the whole doorway. It leapt from sword to sword. It ran along the line of grey cloaks like a spark through dry grass. Eight apprentices dropped, twitching, their blades ringing on the stones.
"*Alive!*" shouted Zeika. "They're *alive!* I've only *stunned* them, I swear!"
"*Good!*" Daigo shouted back.
"I *hate* it!"
"*Good!*"
Beside her, Amana whirled her arms, and a vast silver wave of water swept down the steps and across the courtyard, knee deep. It took forty apprentices off their feet. They went down in a heap, spluttering, and Kataugi stepped lightly over the threshold, with a lazy, dangerous grin, and snapped his fingers.
Heat rushed out of the doorway.
It did not burn. It was not meant to. It was a flat, hard, roaring pressure of warmth, that fell on the wet earth like a hammer, and the water *boiled.* Steam rose in a great white cloud. The apprentices staggered back, blinded, choking. And out of the steam, two by two, came Kenzo and Mio, with a flicker of blue-white lightning and a sweep of cool water, and *tied* them. It was the only word for it. They bound the wrists of each, gently, with ropes of water that hardened to ice, and set them down on the steps in neat, shivering rows.
"That is *very* efficient," said Haruka, from the roof.
"Thank you!" said Mio.
"You have a talent for it."
"I know!"
Haruka's laugh came out sharp and clear. She stood on the ridge of the hall with her spear in her hands, tall and cool against the stars, and the whole slope of the roof glittered with a skin of frost. Anyone who set foot on it slid. She sent them down the tiles like children on a sledge, and Sakuya, laughing, caught them at the bottom with a rope of flame that was only warm, and lowered them, one by one, into the arms of Nagi, who tied them neatly to the pine tree.
"Seven!" Sakuya shouted.
"Eight!"
"Nine!"
"We are *winning!*" cried Ragna, who was standing in the middle of the courtyard with his bandaged hands held out in front of him, quite helpless. "We're winning! I'm not doing anything and we're *winning!*"
"Then do *something!*" Shion shouted.
"What?"
"*Sit on one!*"
Ragna considered this. Then, with great dignity, he walked across the yard and sat down on the nearest unconscious apprentice. "There," he said, with enormous satisfaction. "Contribution."
---
It was Godori who found the boy.
He was standing at the very edge of the fighting, in the lee of the old pine, with his sword hanging at his side. He was perhaps sixteen. His face was thin and pale. His hair was cut very short. He was not fighting. He was not even moving. He only stood there, in the dark, quite still, looking at the noise and the fire and the flashing steel with a blank, patient, unseeing gaze.
A thin black ribbon lay across his wrist.
Godori stopped.
He did not know why. He only knew that there was something about the quiet, still, upright figure that made his chest hurt. He stood twenty feet away, with the battle roaring behind him, and he looked.
*He's not tempered,* he thought. *Not all the way.*
*I can feel it.*
It was very faint. It was a flicker in the dark. A tiny, trembling, fragile spark, at the very bottom of the boy's blank grey eyes, like a coal in the ashes of a long-dead fire.
"Hello," said Godori.
The boy did not move.
"I'm Goro." He took a step. Another. He held out his hands, empty, palms open. "I know you can't talk. It's all right. You don't have to. I only wanted to say hello."
The blank grey eyes flickered.
"Can you hear me?"
Nothing.
"I think you can." He took another step. His voice was very low and very steady. "I think there's a bit of you still there. I think you're very tired. And I think you'd like to sit down."
The boy's lips moved.
It was a tiny motion. Godori almost missed it. But he saw it. He saw the grey lips part, just a fraction, and a single word come out, so faint and cracked and breathless that it was less a sound than the memory of one.
"*Cold,*" said the boy.
Godori's heart stopped.
"I know," he whispered. "I know. I'm sorry. Here."
He tore the grey scarf from his throat.
He did not think about it. He only stepped forward, quickly and gently, and wound it round the boy's neck, twice, the way Irel had done for him on the plateau. It was warm. It was still warm from his own skin. The boy stood perfectly still, with his arms hanging, and his eyes grew very wide.
"There," said Godori. "It's practical."
The sword fell from the boy's hand.
It rang on the flagstones. For a moment he stood quite motionless, swaying slightly, like a person who has just woken from a very long sleep. Then his knees folded, and he sat down on the ground, hard, with the scarf wound round his neck and his hands pressed against his face. His whole thin body began to shake.
"*Goro!*" shouted Irel.
"I'm fine!"
"What are you *doing?*"
"I'm making a friend!"
"*In the middle of a battle?*"
"It's what I do!" said Godori, and, quite suddenly, he was laughing.
---
The master fell at the fifth peal.
It was Toku. It was always going to be Toku. He had stood in the doorway of his hall for twenty minutes, motionless as a statue, with the long narrow sword held low and the little stone lantern burning steadily at his back. Round him, the battle swirled. Round him, the fire and the lightning and the roar of the waters crashed and died. And in front of him, in the cleared space at the foot of the steps, the tall grey man in the high collar stood waiting, with his own blade lowered, and his head tilted, and a faint, courteous, patient smile.
"Shall we?" said Ryu.
"If you like."
"I think I should warn you that I have improved."
"I would be disappointed if you had not."
They bowed.
It was the finest bow Godori had ever seen. It was two old friends, meeting at a doorway, and every angle of it was exact. Then the two men straightened. The blades rose. And for a long, endless, breathless moment, nothing moved at all.
It was over in a single stroke.
Godori never saw it. Nobody did. There was a thin, bright, rippling flash in the dark, like sunlight on water, and a faint sound like the tearing of paper. When the world came back, the tall grey man was standing exactly where he had stood before, and the old man with the wooden leg was standing exactly where *he* had stood. Neither had moved. Neither had spoken.
Then Ryu looked down.
A thin, clean, perfect line ran across the front of his coat, from shoulder to hip. A single dark bead welled out of it, and ran down, and fell.
"Ah," he said, softly.
"I am sorry," said Toku.
"Don't be." The grey man swayed. A faint, wondering smile touched his face. "It is... it is the Third Rule. *Look first at what is whole.* I did not. I looked at the seam."
"Yes."
"You never taught me that."
"I tried," said Toku. "You were not listening."
"No." Ryu sank to his knees, slowly, with a long breath. His sword fell from his hand. "I thought I knew everything."
"So do all the young."
"I am sorry about the window."
"I know."
"I did not mean..."
"I know," said Toku, and knelt in front of him, and put his hand on the man's shoulder. His voice cracked. "It's all right, boy. It was only a window."
Ryu smiled.
He bent forward, very gently, until his forehead touched the swept earth. It was a bow. It was the last one. And when Toku, with his eyes shut, laid the long grey hands one across the other, on the dead man's chest, the courtyard was quite silent.
Not even the bells rang.
---
"*Everyone!*" said Daigo.
He stood on the steps with his scarred face streaked with soot and his uniform torn and his chest heaving. He had never looked so tired, or so alive. "*We have a quarter of an hour.* Perhaps less. Every one of those bells is calling the Order of the Grey Lance. It will take them minutes to reach us." He drew a ragged breath. "The Ark knows where we are. They will send more. We cannot hold this house."
"What do we do?" said Kenzo.
"We *leave.*"
"Leave?"
"We go into the city. All of us." His eyes were bright and hard. "I have been a fool. I sat in a storeroom and argued about torture while the Ark built a *wall.* I will not do it again." He looked round the circle of faces. "The empire is burning. There are civilians in the streets. Children, old men, women. They are on their knees, in the dark, and they have been forbidden to draw a sword."
"The Night of the First Frost," whispered Mio.
"Yes. They cannot fight back. They are bowing." His voice cracked. "They are *bowing,* and the Ark is walking through them with its swords drawn."
Nobody spoke.
"I am not asking," said Daigo. "I am telling you what I mean to do. I mean to go out there, and stand between the Ark and those people, and keep standing until I am dead. Any of you who wishes to remain in this house may do so. No one will think the less of you."
"We're coming," said Zeika.
"Rouka..."
"We're *coming.*"
"We all are," said Haruka, quietly.
Daigo looked at them.
For a moment he did not say anything. His eyes moved slowly from face to face, from the shining ones to the haggard ones, from the proud ones to the afraid. They came to rest, last of all, on a thin, tousled, grey-cloaked boy with a bare throat and a stubborn mouth.
"Fushiku," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"They want *you.*"
"I know."
"If you leave this house, they will find you."
"I know."
"You are the one thing in this city that the Ark cannot afford to lose." His voice was very low. "And I am asking you to walk into the middle of it."
"I'll stay with the others."
"It is not safe."
"It's not safe anywhere." Godori's chin came up. "I'd rather be out there, doing something, than here, waiting for them to come to me."
"That is exactly what they want."
"I know," said Godori. "But I'll have Ire. And Zeika. And Kat. And all of you." He smiled, a little crookedly. "That's a lot of people to get past."
Daigo closed his eyes.
"You are the greatest fool I ever commanded," he said, hoarsely.
"Yes, sir."
"I am very proud of you."
Godori's face went hot. "Thank you, sir."
"Do not make me regret it."
"No, sir."
---
They went out into the dark.
It was not dark for long. As they passed through the broken gate, into the wide, empty, silent street, the whole sky seemed to catch fire. A great red glow rose in the north, flickering and monstrous, and a pall of black smoke boiled up into the stars. The air stank of burning oil. From every side came the clash of steel, the thin high screaming of the bells, and the deep, wordless, terrible roar of ten thousand voices.
Godori stopped dead.
The city was a sea of fire.
It lay below them, spread out down the long slope of the terraces, a vast black mass studded with a thousand points of crimson. Houses were burning. Whole streets were burning. The great grey academies stood out against the glare like black cliffs, and over them the thin towers swayed, ringing. On the broad paved avenues, long ranks of tiny grey figures were pouring through the dark, in perfect, silent order, with their swords drawn and their ribbons fluttering.
And everywhere, in every doorway and yard and alley, people were kneeling.
They knelt in thousands. They knelt in the streets, in the gutters, on the steps of the schools. Old men and women. Mothers with babies. Boys and girls in grey, with their foreheads pressed to the cobbles and their hands folded, in total silence, saying the names of the dead.
It was the holiest night of the year. They had been told, all their lives, that on this night no sword might be drawn.
And through them, quite calmly, with the red glow on their blank pale faces, walked the Ark.
"Oh," said Rin, in a tiny voice. "Oh, *no.*"
"Do not look," said Shion, gently.
"They're just *kneeling.* They're not even *fighting back.*"
"I know."
"They're going to *die.*"
"Not if we are quick," said Shion.
She stepped forward. She stood at the head of the steps.