The Giant's Almanac by Andrew Zurcher (black female authors .txt) 📕

him from the void shaft. Pale whiteness soaked her straining face in the gloom. Her eyes searched his.

Somehow, in that instant, they reached an agreement. Maybe he had seen a flick in her eyes, or perhaps her arm had twitched. Fitz stood up. In the moment he had left, he breathed deeply, and set his shoulders.

A second later, the plate came spinning into the air, directly through the gap between Mr Ahmadi’s torso and the end of the tomb. Navy had sent it up turning fast, like a discus, so when it glanced off the edge of the stone, it only skipped, hardly changing direction. But she had sent it high, too high – and it was sailing through the air away from him, towards the far steps, and below them, the foaming sea.

Fitz didn’t hesitate. He felt the compression and power in his thighs before he knew he was going to jump. On another day, it would have been nothing, but here, over that void, under that canopy, with that sea lying on every side – and above all, with this precious, singular disc sailing through the air – his whole body charged for the instant like a thunderbolt. The plate seemed to hang for an instant suspended in the air, and Fitz thought briefly that he would be too late, that his arcing jump over Mr Ahmadi’s prone frame was too shallow. He almost flailed, and would have missed it – but he held his nerve and it sank, dropping as it spun just below its peak, and settled as he passed, directly between his thumb and forefinger. He closed on it just as his foot hit the far side of the stone plinth.

Only, his foot hadn’t hit the stone plinth – instead, he had landed on the corner of the tomb’s heavy stone cover. His weight on the corner was too much, or maybe a flaw lay hidden in the stone; as he landed, and the full pressure of his weight pointed into the touch of his toe, the sandstone cracked and gave way. Fitz caught his balance, stepping lightly on to the plinth, and laid the plate with the others. Behind him, a loud and skin-blanching crack ripped through the air of the cavern, and he lunged, scooping up the second oar. Somehow he angled it, handle first, down the opening in time for Navy to grab hold of it, first with one and then with both hands, while Mr Ahmadi rolled away from the other, broken oar. As he heaved at the wood, holding it firm while Navy hauled herself hand over hand up its length, Fitz watched the splintered wood give way and tumble into the chasm.

If it ever hit the bottom, it never made a sound.

‘I didn’t let go this time,’ said Navy, when she was standing again beside him on the plinth. She gave Fitz a sharp elbow in his side. His body tried to smile and cry at once.

Fitz was putting the sound oar back into the boat when something dark appeared in the foaming water between the landing and the island of the tomb. Everyone had seen it – even the Rack, who though still doubled over and gasping for breath, began to laugh.

She didn’t surface until she had reached the landing on the island of the tomb. There, pushing herself from the water, and climbing easily on to the plinth, she squeezed the water from her long, dark hair while she turned her head very slowly round the chamber. She took it all in before she said a word. Shocked, they allowed her.

‘Dina,’ said Mr Ahmadi at last. He smiled, and the years dropped from him like an old skin.

‘Dad,’ she answered, and fell into his open arms.

19

The diver

‘The Kingdom,’ Dina said. She had pulled away from her father’s arms, and was looking with curiosity at the great golden dome, the stone and gem-work of the chamber, its elaborate tomb, the little boat. She seemed almost delighted. ‘What sort of madman begins a story he doesn’t mean to finish? Who plays a game he knows he can’t win?’

‘Dina,’ said Mr Ahmadi, ‘I have the Almanac.’ He held it up, fanning the four plates against the mater. ‘I will give them to the Heresiarch, and ask to be relieved of my office.’

Dina ignored him. She turned to Phantastes, and called to him across the chamber.

‘Hožir. Let them go. We all want the same thing.’

Phantastes already had his knife in his hand. He cut the cords binding the wrists of Fingal and the Rack. They both stood up, slowly and with difficulty, wary.

‘The knife,’ said Dina.

‘Dina,’ said Mr Ahmadi.

‘Mr Ahmadi,’ tried Fitz.

He doesn’t know. How can he still not know?

‘The knife, Hožir.’

Phantastes drew back his arm over his shoulder, and launched the knife into the air. It sailed across the chamber, end over end, the tip of the blade revolving so close to the dome of the ceiling that Fitz was sure it had nicked the gold. The arc dropped, and it seemed to fall into Dina’s outstretched hand. As if it was meant to be. Her grip tightened on its handle with a finality that might have ended anything.

‘Kneel,’ she said to Fitz.

‘This is madness – Dina, stop.’ Mr Ahmadi tried to take the knife from her arm, which was still raised in a fist, but she turned away, putting it beyond his reach. Her wrist swivelled, and the long, flowing knife seemed suddenly very sharp. Mr Ahmadi backed away.

‘Kneel,’ she said to Fitz. ‘We’re all in this story together, little brother. And you chose me. Your time has come. Kneel.’

Fitz understood. He stood in front of Dina, as close to her face as he had been the night before, when in the frenzy of the Black Wedding she had kissed him. Her eyes hadn’t flinched then; by now they had, if anything,