‘Do you come as conquerors, then?’ Brys Beddict asked.
The Adjunct sighed, then unstrapped and pulled off her helm. She drew her hand from its glove and ran it through her short, sweat-damp hair. ‘Hood forbid,’ she muttered. ‘Find us a way through these people, then, Brys Beddict.’ She paused, cast her gaze to Tehol Beddict, and slowly frowned. ‘You are rather shy for an emperor,’ she observed.
Tehol refuted that with the brightest smile, and it transformed him, and suddenly Lostara forgot all about the man’s martial-looking brother.
Spirits of the sand, those eyes . . .
‘I do apologize, Commander. I admit I have been somewhat taken aback.’
The Adjunct slowly nodded. ‘By this popular acclaim, yes, I imagine—’
‘No, not that. She said I was not half bad in bed. I am crushed by the other half, the “half good” bit—’
‘Oh, Tehol,’ the fat woman said, ‘I was being modest for your sake.’
‘Modesty from you, Rucket? You don’t know the meaning of the word! I mean, I just look at you and it’s hard not to, if you know what I mean.’
‘No.’
‘Anyway!’ Tehol clapped his hands together. ‘We’ve had the fireworks, now let’s get this parade started!’
Sirryn Kanar ran down the corridor, away from the fighting. The damned foreigners were in the Eternal Domicile, delivering slaughter – no calls for surrender, no demands to throw down weapons. Just those deadly quarrels, those chopping shortswords and those devastating grenados. His fellow guards were dying by the score, their blood splashing the once pristine walls.
And Sirryn vowed he was not going to suffer the same fate.
They wouldn’t kill the Chancellor. They needed him, and besides, he was an old man. Obviously unarmed, a peaceful man. Civilized. And the guard they’d find standing at his side, well, even he carried naught but a knife at his belt. No sword, no shield, no helm or even armour.
I can stay alive there, right at the Chancellor’s side.
But where is he?
The throne room had been empty.
The Emperor is in the arena. The mad fool is still fighting his pointless, pathetic fights. And the Chancellor would be there, attending, ironic witness to the last Tiste Edur’s drooling stupidity. The last Tiste Edur in the city. Yes.
He hurried on, leaving the sounds of fighting well behind him.
A day of madness – would it never end?
Chancellor Triban Gnol stepped back. The realization had come suddenly to him, with the force of a hammer blow. Rhulad Sengar will not return. The Emperor of a Thousand Deaths . . . has died his last death.
Toblakai. Karsa Orlong, I do not know what you have done, I do not know how – but you have cleared the path.
You have cleared it and for that I bless you.
He looked about, and saw that the meagre audience had fled – yes, the Eternal Domicile was breached, the enemy was within. He turned to the Finadd standing nearby. ‘Varat Taun.’
‘Sir?’
‘We are done here. Gather your soldiers and escort me to the throne room, where we will await the conquerors.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And we bring that witch with us – I would know what has happened here. I would know why she laid open her hand with that knife. I would know everything.’
‘Yes, Chancellor.’
The captain was surprisingly gentle taking the pale woman into his custody, and indeed, he seemed to whisper something to her that elicited a weary nod. Triban Gnol’s eyes narrowed. No, he did not trust this new Finadd. Would that he had Sirryn with him.
As they made their way from the arena, the Chancellor paused for one look back, one last look at the pathetic figure lying on the bloody sand. Dead. He is truly dead.
I believe I always knew Karsa Orlong would be the one. Yes, I believe I did.
He was almost tempted to head back, down onto the arena floor, to walk across the pitch and stand over the body of Rhulad Sengar. And spit into the Emperor’s face.
No time. Such pleasure will have to wait.
But I vow I will do it yet.
Cuttle waved them to the intersection. Fiddler led the rest of his squad to join the sapper.
‘This is the main approach,’ Cuttle said. ‘It’s got to be.’
Fiddler nodded. The corridor was ornately decorated, impressively wide, with an arched ceiling gleaming with gold leaf. There was no-one about. ‘So where are the guards, and in which direction is the throne room?’
‘No idea,’ Cuttle replied. ‘But I’d guess we go left.’
‘Why?’
‘No reason, except everyone who tried to get away from us was more or less heading that way.’
‘Good point, unless they were all headed out the back door.’ Fiddler wiped sweat from his eyes. Oh, this had been a nasty bloodletting, but he’d let his soldiers go, despite the disapproving looks from Quick Ben. Damned High Mage and his nose in the air – and where in Hood’s name did all that magic come from? Quick had never showed anything like that before. Not even close.
He looked across at Hedge.
Same old Hedge. No older than the last time Fiddler had seen him. Gods, it doesn’t feel real. He’s back. Living, breathing, farting . . . He reached out and cuffed the man in the side of the head.
‘Hey, what’s that for?’
‘No reason, but I’m sure I was owed doing that at least once.’
‘Who saved your skin in the desert? And under the city?’
‘Some ghost up to no good,’ Fiddler replied.
‘Hood, that white beard makes you look ancient, Fid, you know that?’
Oh, be quiet.
‘Crossbows loaded, everyone? Good. Lead on, Cuttle, but slow and careful, right?’
They were five paces into the corridor when a side entrance ahead and to their right was suddenly filled with figures. And mayhem was let loose once more.
Tarr saw the old man first, the one in the lead, or even if he didn’t see him first, he got off his shot before anyone else. And the quarrel sank into the side of the man’s head, dead in the centre of his left temple. And everything sprayed out the other side.
Other quarrels caught him, at least two, spinning his scrawny but nice-robed body round before it toppled.
A handful of guards who had been accompanying the old man reeled back, at least two stuck good, and Tarr was already rushing forward, drawing his shortsword and bringing his shield round. He bumped hard against Corabb who was doing the same and swore as the man got in front of him.
Tarr raised his sword, a sudden, overwhelming urge to hammer the blade down on the bastard’s head – but no, save that for the enemy—
Who were throwing down their weapons as they backed down the corridor.
‘For Hood’s sake!’ Quick Ben shouted, dragging at Tarr to get past, then shoving Corabb to one side. ‘They’re surrendering, damn you! Stop slaughtering everyone!’
And from the Letherii group, a woman’s voice called out in Malazan, ‘We surrender! Don’t kill us!’
That voice was enough to draw everyone up.
Tarr swung round, as did the others, to look at Fiddler.
After a moment, the sergeant nodded. ‘Take ‘em prisoner, then. They can lead us to the damned throne room.’
Smiles ran up to the body of the old man and started pulling at all his gaudy rings.
A Letherii officer stepped forward, hands raised. ‘There’s no-one in the throne room,’ he said. ‘The Emperor is dead – his body’s in the arena—’
‘Take us there, then,’ Quick Ben demanded, with a glare at Fiddler. ‘I want to see for myself.’
The officer nodded. ‘We just came from there, but very well.’
Fiddler waved his squad forward, then scowled over at Smiles. ‘Do that later, soldier—’
She bared her teeth like a dog over a kill, then drew out a large knife and, with two savage chops, took the old man’s pretty hands.
br /> Trull Sengar stepped out onto the sand of the arena, eyes fixed on the body lying near the far end. The gleam of coins, the head tilted back. He slowly walked forward.
There was chaos in the corridors and chambers of the Eternal Palace. He could search for his parents later, but he suspected he would not find them. They had gone with the rest of the Tiste Edur. Back north. Back to their homeland. And so, in the end, they too had abandoned Rhulad, their youngest son.
Why does he lie unmoving? Why has he not returned?
He came to Rhulad’s side and fell to his knees. Set down his spear. A missing arm, a missing sword.
He reached out and lifted his brother’s head. Heavy, the face so scarred, so twisted with pain that it was hardly recognizable. He settled it into his lap.
Twice now, I am made to do this. With a brother whose face, there below me, rests too still. Too emptied of life. They look so . . . wrong.
He would have tried, one last time, a final offering of reason to his young brother, an appeal to all that he had once been. Before all this. Before, in foolish but understandable zeal, he had grasped hold of a sword on a field of ice.
Rhulad would then, in another moment of weakness, pronounce Trull Shorn. Dead in the eyes of all Tiste Edur. And chain him to stone to await a slow, wasting death. Or the rise of water.
Trull had come, yes, to forgive him. It was the cry in his heart, a cry he had lived with for what seemed for ever. You were wounded, brother. So wounded. He had cut you down, laid you low but not dead. He had done what he needed to do, to end your nightmare. But you did not see it that way. You could not.
Instead, you saw your brothers abandon you.
So now, my brother, as I forgive you, will you now forgive me?
Of course, there would be no answer. Not from that ever still, ever empty face. Trull was too late. Too late to forgive and too late to be forgiven.
He wondered if Seren had known, had perhaps guessed what he would find here.
The thought of her made his breath catch in his throat.
Oh, he had not known such love could exist. And now, even in the ashes surrounding him here, the future was unfolding like a flower, its scent sweet beyond belief.
This is what love means. I finally see—
The knife thrust went in under his left shoulder blade, tore through into his heart.
Eyes wide in sudden pain, sudden astonishment, Trull felt Rhulad’s head tilt to one side on his lap, then slide down from hands that had lost all strength.
Oh, Seren, my love.
Oh, forgive me.
Teeth bared, Sirryn Kanar stepped back, tugging his weapon free. One last Tiste Edur. Now dead, by his own hand. Pure justice still existed in this world. He had cleansed the Lether Empire with this knife, and look, see the thick blood dripping down, welling round the hilt.
A thrust to the heart, the conclusion of his silent stalk across the sands, his breath held overlong for the last three steps. And his blessed shadow, directly beneath his feet – no risk of its advancing ahead to warn the bastard. There was that one moment when a shadow had flitted across the sand – a damned owl, of all things – but the fool had not noticed.
No indeed: the sun stood at its highest point.
And every shadow huddled, trembling beneath that fierce ruler in the sky.
He could taste iron in his mouth, a gift so bitter he exulted in its cold bite. Stepping back, as the body fell to one side, fell right over that pathetic savage’s spear.
The barbarian dies. As he must, for mine is the hand of civilization.
He heard a commotion at the far end and spun round.
The quarrel pounded into his left shoulder, flung him back, where he tripped over the two corpses then twisted in his fall, landing on his wounded side.
Pain flared, stunning him.
‘No,’ Hedge moaned, pushing past Koryk who turned with a chagrined expression on his face.
‘Damn you, Koryk,’ Fiddler started.
‘No,’ said Quick Ben, ‘You don’t understand, Fid.’
Koryk shrugged. ‘Sorry, Sergeant. Habit.’
Fiddler watched the wizard follow Hedge over to where the three bodies were lying on the sand. But the sapper was paying no attention to the skewered Letherii, instead landing hard on his knees beside one of the Tiste Edur.
‘See the coins on that one?’ Cuttle asked. ‘Burned right in—’
‘That was the Emperor,’ said the captain who had brought them here. ‘Rhulad Sengar. The other Edur . . . I don’t know. But,’ he then added, ‘your friends do.’
Yes, Fiddler could see that, and it seemed all at once that there was nothing but pain in this place. Trapped in the last breaths, given voice by Hedge’s alarmingly uncharacteristic, almost animal cries of grief. Shaken, Fiddler turned to his soldiers. ‘Take defensive positions, all of you. Captain, you and the other prisoners over there, by that wall, and don’t move if you want to stay alive. Koryk, rest easy with that damned crossbow, all right?’
Fiddler then headed over to his friends.
And almost retreated again when he saw Hedge’s face, so raw with anguish, so . . . exposed.
Quick Ben turned and glanced back at Fiddler, a warning of some sort, and then the wizard walked over to the fallen Letherii.
Trembling, confused, Fiddler followed Quick Ben. Stood beside him, looking down at the man.
‘He’ll live,’ he said.
Behind them, Hedge rasped, ‘No he won’t.’
That voice did not even sound human. Fiddler turned in alarm, and saw Hedge staring up at Quick Ben, as if silent communication was passing between the two men.
Then Hedge asked, ‘Can you do it, Quick? Some place with . . . with eternal torment. Can you do that, wizard? I asked if you can do that! ‘
Quick Ben faced Fiddler, a question in his eyes.
Oh no, Quick, this one isn’t for me to say—
‘Fiddler, help me decide. Please.’
Gods, even Quick Ben’s grieving. Who was this warrior? ‘You’re High Mage, Quick Ben. Do what needs doing.’
The wizard turned back to Hedge. ‘Hood owes me, Hedge.’
‘What kind of answer is that?’
But Quick Ben turned, gestured, and a dark blur rose round the Letherii, closed entirely about the man’s body, then shrank, as if down into the sand, until nothing remained. There was a faint scream as whatever awaited the Letherii had reached out to take hold of him.
Then the wizard snapped out a hand and pulled Fiddler close, and his face was pale with rage. ‘Don’t you pity him, Fid. You understand me? Don’t you pity him! ‘
Fiddler shook his head. ‘I – I won’t, Quick. Not for a moment. Let him scream, for all eternity. Let him scream.’
A grim nod, then Quick Ben pushed him back.
Hedge wept over the Tiste Edur, wept like a man for whom all light in the world has been lost, and would never return.
And Fiddler did not know what to do.
Watching from an unseen place, the Errant stepped back, pulled away as if he would hurl himself from a cliff.
He was what he was.
A tipper of balances.
And now, this day – may the Abyss devour him whole – a maker of widows.
Ascending the beach’s gentle slope, Karsa Orlong halted. He reached down to the sword impaling his leg, and closed a hand about the blade itself, just above the hilt. Unmindful of how the notched edges sliced into his flesh, he dragged the weapon free.
Blood bloomed from the puncture wounds, but only for a moment. The leg was growing numb, but he would have use of it for a while yet.
Still holding the cursed sword by its blade, he pushed himself forward, limped onto the sward. And saw, a short distance to his right, a small hut from which smoke gusted out.
The Toblakai warrior headed over.
Coming opposite it, he dropped the iron sword, took another step closer, bent down and pushed one hand under the edge of the hut. With an upward h
eave, he lifted the entire structure clear, sent it toppling onto its back like an upended turtle.
Smoke billowed, caught the breeze, and was swept away.
Before him, seated cross-legged, was an ancient, bent and broken creature.
A man. A god.
Who looked up with narrowed eyes filled with pain. Then those eyes shifted, to behind Karsa, and the warrior turned.
The spirit of the Emperor had arrived, he saw. Young – younger than Karsa had imagined Rhulad Sengar to be – and, with his clear, unmarred flesh, a man not unhandsome. Lying on the ground as if in gentle sleep.
Then his eyes snapped open and he shrieked.
A short-lived cry.
Rhulad pushed himself onto his side, up onto his hands and knees – and saw, lying close by, his sword.
‘Take it!’ the Crippled God cried. ‘My dear young champion, Rhulad Sengar of the Tiste Edur. Take up your sword!’
‘Do not,’ Karsa said. ‘Your spirit is here – it is all you have, all you are. When I kill it, oblivion will take you.’
‘Look at his leg! He is almost as crippled as I am! Take the sword, Rhulad, and cut him down!’
But Rhulad still hesitated, there on his hands and knees, his breaths coming in rapid gasps.
The Crippled God wheezed, coughed, then said in a low, crooning voice, ‘You can return, Rhulad. To your world. You can make it right. This time, you can make everything right. Listen to me, Rhulad. Trull is alive! Your brother, he is alive, and he walks to the Eternal Domicile! He walks to find you! Kill this Toblakai and you can return to him, you can say all that needs to be said!
‘Rhulad Sengar, you can ask his forgiveness.’
At that the Tiste Edur’s head lifted. Eyes suddenly alight, making him look . . . so young.
And Karsa Orlong felt, in his heart, a moment of regret.
Rhulad Sengar reached for the sword.
And the flint sword swung down, decapitating him.
The head rolled, settled atop the sword. The body pitched sideways, legs kicking spasmodically, then growing still as blood poured from the open neck. In a moment, that blood slowed.
Behind Karsa, the Crippled God hacked laughter, then said, ‘I have waited a long time for you, Karsa Orlong. I have worked so hard . . . to bring you to this sword. For it is yours, Toblakai. No other can wield it as you can. No other can withstand its curse, can remain sane, can remain its master. This weapon, my Chosen One, is for you.’