Sect Year 1 · ninth month · night of day 9 · the fourteenth life: Brack Quay, his sixth year
“Remember who you are.”
Ardon woke on wet planks at the end of the quay with his cheek pressed to the tar. The tide was on the turn. It sucked at the boards under him, drew back, and came again, and each time it drew back the timber gave a small dry groan, like a door nobody has opened in a long while. A gull stood an arm’s length from his hand, working at a fish head with its whole body. It glanced at him sideways, decided he was no concern of its, and went back to the fish.
He didn’t know where he was, and that did not frighten him much. He lay still and let the place come to him in pieces, the way a net comes up out of the water heavy with small things. Tar. River mud. Fish scales stuck to the inside of his wrist. Somewhere above the net-sheds a woman was calling a dog by a name with one hard syllable in it.
He knew his own name. He said it under his breath to be sure. Ardon. It came out short and hard, a bolt pushed home.
