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.
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, 1 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. 1 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.