The Voice That Pulled

Pell had bound Tarrow to a rib of Istren’s sternum, with his fire-marked arm pinned across his chest. The silver restraint ran from his waist to a bone spike driven into the floor. Pell had added a second line around his legs. He’d tied the knots the way he tied a splint: tight enough to keep a bad choice from getting worse.

Tarrow watched me inspect them. “You have a plan?”

“I have a question.”

“That usually means a plan with a worse name.”

The second hand-sized impression in Istren’s sternum sat a few feet from his bound shoulder. The first had opened the narrow crack in the god’s chest when Tarrow pressed his Saltified arm into it. We had left the other two alone. The inner silver strand came through that crack and lay slack between the body and our tether.

Pell stood over Tarrow with a knife in his hand. He was prepared to cut the inner line. “We already know the fire answers her voice.”

“We know it brightened when she described the voice,” I said. “I want to know what happens when the voice speaks.”

“And if it pulls him out of those bindings?”

“I stop.”

Pell looked at Tarrow. “You can stop her.”

Tarrow flexed his good hand against the floor. “I can stop myself first.”

That was the part I found difficult to argue with. I kept it to myself and checked the anchor on his waist line again.

Venn knelt beside the crew’s silver tether. He had learned to speak down it without touching the inner strand, and he kept his hands clear now. “Oda, can you hear me?”

Her answer came faintly through the line. “Yes.”

“Can you let the voice reach us without opening the door?” I asked.

A pause followed. Somewhere beyond Istren’s chest, Oda was still holding shut the three-notched door. The shore beyond it was rising black salt. We had no way to see what the voice could do through the line, and no reason to pretend our ropes counted as a plan.

“I can let it speak at the door,” Oda said. “I won’t open it.”

“Then we stop if you tell us to.”

“I’ll tell you.”

The inner strand lifted from the floor. It did not reach for Vera’s palm or Venn’s hand. It bent toward Tarrow, still bound, its silver length tightening between the crack in Istren’s chest and the crew’s line.

Pell raised his knife. I shook my head once. He kept it ready.

Tarrow looked at me. “Do it.”