Fitz wished he could shake his own head in puzzlement. Instead it shook with cold.
‘What about it?’ he asked.
‘The stone that couldn’t be moved,’ said Navy.
‘At least someone pays attention in lessons,’ said Mr Ahmadi, drawing in the sheet again, and shifting the tiller hard to port, in order to put them back on a bearing that would come just short of the island.
‘It’s an important idea in the sorts of work we do – we used to do – with the Sweeper,’ said Navy. ‘Payne never stops going on about it. The basic point is that sometimes when you’re solving a problem you have freedom to change your parameters, your materials, your methods, or the outcome. But, more often, you don’t. Most of the time, there is some aspect of the situation that has to be accepted and incorporated, somehow, into your solution, whatever the problem is and whatever the solution. In a way, then, your response to the stone that can’t be moved is always really the problem, the one at the centre of all the other problems. And in some sense, that problem, and the stone itself, is symbolic of –’
‘Let me guess,’ said Fitz. ‘The stone that can’t be moved represents your own death.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Navy. ‘Obviously. Because your inability to do something, or change it, the necessity of accepting the world the way it is and recognizing, and acknowledging, your powerlessness within it – that’s just a version of your own death, isn’t it?’
Fitz thought about this for a minute as the water slipped past his hand.
‘What does the stone that can’t be moved have to do with the Kingdom?’ he asked.
‘It’s the foundation of the Heresy,’ said Mr Ahmadi. ‘Obviously. At the centre of any life is death, the stone that can’t be moved. We build our existence like a tomb around it, and when we die it becomes the door through which we pass.’
‘So that stone, up there – is that an entrance to a tomb?’
‘I certainly hope so,’ answered Mr Ahmadi. He hauled on the mainsheet, pointing their course higher into the wind.
He steered for a point just to windward of the tip of the island. From about half a kilometre they could see the swells crashing against broken rocks at the foot of sheer cliffs. Letting out the sails again, they ran round the island’s north side before jibing and drawing again to windward – now knifing directly into the current – to draw along the island’s west coast. Here the landing was more straightforward, beyond a small breakwater against a low shore. They tacked, turning, and rode in on the swell.
Leaving the boat tied loosely to a spur of rock, the three of them climbed on to a low shelf of slick wet stone that rose gradually towards the north of the island. Mr Ahmadi tried to find footholds to climb across it, on to the higher ledges above, but it was too steep and the face of it too slippery.
‘We’ll have to go round,’ said Navy’s eyes. She and Fitz set out.
He was eager to get to the high ground as quickly as possible, and from there to search the water on every side. Had Phantastes seen them, when they hadn’t seen him? Did he hold his bearings well enough in the murk of the storm, to be able to find the island when it had cleared? Mr Ahmadi seemed almost frighteningly single-minded, focused on locating the Kingdom, and on that alone; the loss – the death? – of Clare, of Ned, of Phantastes, meant nothing to him.
Almost running, Fitz came round a narrow part of the ledge to a vantage from which he could see the sea stretching north from the island. It lay empty, calm and blue under the late afternoon sunlight. Fitz’s heart sank.
Here the ledge crumbled away, and they would have no choice but to climb. He and Navy were scrutinizing it when Mr Ahmadi finally caught up with them. He spent a few seconds looking down at the sheer drop where the ledge tumbled into the sea, and kicked a few loose stones over the side. They made no sound as they fell through the uninterrupted air, straight into the churning water below.
‘That’s a strong tidal current,’ he said, and looked up.
There were footholds, and he found them.
Navy studied him carefully as he ascended, then turned to Fitz.
‘I’ll follow him. I’m better at this than you. Watch where I put my hands and feet, and do exactly what I do. You’re stronger than I am, so you can definitely do whatever I show you.’
She climbed slowly, adjusting Mr Ahmadi’s route for her smaller frame. Fitz studied her movements carefully, and memorized the places where she jammed her feet, the angles at which she held her legs, the curl of her fingers on the stone’s jagged protrusions, and the places where the footholds were stable, as well as those where they were loose.
When she was safely out of the way, Fitz followed the others. He climbed easily and securely, and covered the distance in half the time it had taken Navy. As he reached the next ledge, she put out her hand and hauled him effortlessly up the last few feet, to stand beside her. Fitz hadn’t expected her grip to be so firm, or her arm to lift him so easily.
‘I’m not stronger than you,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Navy. ‘But saying so got you up the wall. Fast, too.’ She smiled, but she was already moving on, back towards the east face of the cliffs, where Mr Ahmadi had already disappeared. The dark
