The well in the Town of Sea Charts was not a mere hole in the earth. At the center of the cobblestone plaza sat a massive stone basin.
It measured nearly twenty feet across. Its rim was crafted from smooth black stone, and the surface of the water was sealed beneath a thin pane of ice.
But it was not names that could be seen beneath the ice. It was lines. Countless slender lines webbed beneath the frozen surface.
Some were straight; others traced gentle arcs. Lines intersected, branched, and merged.
"It’s a map."
Kuon knelt by the rim of the basin. As the azure glow of his artificial eye illuminated the ice, the lines reacted, shimmering with a faint light.
"Not names. Paths. A record of the ways the gods once walked is frozen here."
Koyoi peered into the basin. One of the lines held a faint trace of color. A glimmer of gold, a pale blue, a dim streak of red.
Every color was different.
"Each line... is a path for a single god."
Kuon traced a line with his finger. Wherever his fingertip brushed the ice, the line beneath brightened.
"Many of these lines come from the south. From three different directions, scattered... but—"
Kuon’s finger stopped.
"They converge in the north. Almost every single line gathers at a single point to the north."
Koyoi squinted, focusing his eyes.
Indeed, while the lines began from various points in the south, they bunched together at the northern edge of the basin. That bundle became a thick ribbon of light, stretching past the rim and extending toward the north.
"There must be hundreds of them. No, even more."
Asahi looked down from the opposite side of the basin.
"They're all heading north."
Kuon opened his catalog. He looked down at the restored page from the Scripture House, at the passage just before the "Freezing Order."
"In the records of the Scripture House, there was one word I couldn't read. A verb. Before the order to freeze, there was another command."
The azure light illuminated the page. Amidst the greyed-out text, a single character remained barely legible.
"集 (Gather). It says, 'Gather them.'"
Koyoi looked up.
"Gather them?"
"Before the freezing, the First God gathered the others. Before their names were frozen, they were first brought to the north. The paths in this basin are the proof. Hundreds of gods were summoned and moved northward."
Kuon placed his hand upon the ice. The lines ignited all at once.
A vibration, like the echo of countless footsteps, surged through his palm.
"Kamiatsume—The Gathering of the Gods," Kuon whispered.
Koyoi pressed his hand against the pouch at his waist. The droplets within were pulsing.
They were warm.
But within that warmth, there was a faint pull. A gravity. Toward the north. As if the droplets, too, remembered this path, they were being drawn northward.
"Did these little ones walk this path, too?"
"It’s possible. They traveled this road to the north before they were frozen. And there, at the end of it, they surrendered their names."
Asahi struck the rim of the basin. The black stone let out a low, heavy ring.
"Gathered and then frozen. So the First God brought everyone together before putting them on ice?"
"Either at the same time he froze his own name, or—"
Kuon cut himself off.
"We don't know the sequence. We don't know if the gathering came first, or his own freezing. But it’s certain they met at a single point in the north. That point is where the First God was."
The ice in the basin gave a faint creak.
The light of the lines intensified, the northern ribbon pulsing with a thick, rhythmic glow.
Koyoi followed the ribbon with his eyes. It climbed over the rim and stretched across the cobblestones, vanishing into the mist to the north. His pouch felt warm. He felt as if the droplets were telling him: Let's go.
The path those children once walked, once more. From the depths of the town, the low sound of the tide began to echo.