Stone-First-Who-Waited (Pandoid, keeper of the margin)

This is told the way things are told below the roof, by the one who was there, and this time there were three on the line and only one of them is telling it, and that is the whole of what there is to say about the other two.

Stone-First-Who-Waited was on the line, and the loud came down.

Here is the shape of a working time now, so that what happened can be set against it. The loud comes down the long passage, all at once and then steadily, and settles at the junction. Then it does not stay settled; one of the up-people comes on, down the third passage, to the squeeze, and lately the light comes through it, low, and the smallest of them behind the light, with a stone. That has been the shape for a year. Stone-First stands on the line for it, in the place, with the whole body still, and is there.

Stone-First was there. The loud settled. And then, before anything came on toward the squeeze, there was someone on the line.

Not in the place; beside it. An arm's length to the side, on the line exactly, facing the squeeze the way Stone-First faced it. Upright. About Stone-First's size. Still, the way Stone-First is still. Stone-First had not seen it come, because Stone-First had been looking at the squeeze, which is what you look at when the loud settles, and when Stone-First looked there it was, as if it had been standing there the whole of a life too.

No stone had moved. The ground had said nothing. Stone-First knew that without checking, the way you know your own feet; the ground at the line is the ground Stone-First has stood on longer than anyone has stood anywhere, and it had said nothing, and then there was somebody beside.

Stone-First did not turn toward it. That was a choice, and Stone-First was aware of making it. You do not turn toward a thing that has not been announced and has not asked; there is no manners for that, because there has never needed to be, and in the absence of manners you do the one thing that is always manners, which is nothing.

Stone-First could not tell whether it was warm. Nobody can, at the line. The warm runs out there. Up on the line there is only the eye, and the eye said: a shape, beside, facing the squeeze. Waiting, if a thing that has not asked can be said to wait.

Then the light came into the squeeze.