Nimander looked up, made room for her on the Kolansii workbench they had found in one of the work camps. ‘We were wondering if you would ever return,’ he said.
She drew her cloak about her shoulders. ‘I watched the Bonehunters depart,’ she said.
‘Have ships arrived, then?’
Korlat shook her head. ‘They’re moving to a camp at this end of the Estobanse Valley. The Adjunct spoke to her regulars. She thanked them. That and nothing more. She was the last to leave – she bade the others go ahead, even her brother, and she walked alone. There was something…something…’ She shook her head. ‘It broke my heart.’
A voice spoke from the darkness behind her. ‘She does that, does Tavore.’
They turned to see Fiddler stepping into the firelight, carrying something wrapped in skins. Behind, arrayed but drawing no closer, Korlat saw the rest of Whiskeyjack’s old squad. They seemed to be muttering to each other in low tones, and then Quick Ben pointed up past the road, and in a sharp voice said, ‘There, that hilltop. Not too far, but far enough. Well?’ He looked at his companions, and both men grunted their assent.
Returning her attention to Fiddler, she saw that he had been watching, and now he nodded, faced Korlat. ‘It’s not far – in this air it’ll carry just fine.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Korlat, ‘what are you doing?’
‘See the hill they indicated, other side of the road? Go there, Korlat.’
‘Excuse me?’
Nimander made to rise, but a look from Fiddler stilled him. ‘Just her,’ he said. ‘I’ll take that stump there – mind, sir?’
Silchas Ruin, seated on that stump, rose, shaking his head and then gesturing an invitation.
Fiddler went over and settled down on it. He began unwrapping the object on his lap, and then looked up and met Korlat’s eyes. ‘Why are you still here?’
‘What are you going to do?’ she demanded.
He sighed. ‘Said it was the last time for him. Said it like it was an order. Well, he should know by now, we’re lousy with taking orders.’ He slipped away the final layer of skin, revealing a fiddle and bow. ‘Go on now, Korlat. Oh, and tell him, this one’s called “My Love Waits”. I won’t take credit for it – one of Fisher’s.’ Then he looked round at the gathered Tiste Andii. ‘There’s another one that I can slide into it easily enough, a bit sadder but not too sad. It’s from Anomandaris. You’ll forgive me, please, if I get the title wrong – it’s been a long time. “Gallan’s Hope”? Does that sound right to you all?… Seems it does.’
Korlat backed away, felt a hand touch her shoulder. It was Hedge. ‘Hilltop, Korlat. Fid’s gonna call him back. One more time. But listen, if it’s too much, walk the other way, or stay off the hill. He’ll see you anyway – we’re doing that bit no matter what. For him.’
He would have babbled on, but she moved past him.
Eyes on the hill on the other side of the road.
Behind her, the strings drew a song into the night air.
When she reached the road and saw her beloved standing on the hill before her, Korlat broke into a run.
Epilogue II
FOR ONCE THE SEAS WERE CALM ON THE BEACH BELOW, AND WITH THE tide out many of the Imass had ventured on to the flats to collect shellfish. Off to one side the twins played with Absi, and the sound of the boy’s laughter reached up to the shelf of stone where sat Udinaas.
He heard footsteps coming down the trail nearby and turned to see Onos and Hetan. They were carrying reed baskets to join in the harvest. Udinaas saw Onos pause, look out towards the children.
‘Relax, Onos,’ Udinaas said. ‘I’ll keep an eye on them.’
The warrior smiled. Hetan took his hand to lead him down.
Reclined on a high shelf of limestone above Udinaas, Ryadd said, ‘Stop worrying, Father. It’ll wear you out.’
From one of the caves higher up the climb behind them, there drifted out the sound of a crying baby. Poor Seren. That’s one cranky baby she has there.
‘We’re safe,’ Ryadd said. ‘And if some damned mob of vicious humans shows up, well, they’ll have Kilava, Onrack, Onos Toolan and me to deal with.’
‘I know,’ Udinaas replied. He rubbed and massaged his hands. The aches were coming back. Maybe it was time to try that foul medicine Lera Epar kept offering him. Ah, it’s just years of cold water. Sinks in. That’s all.
Glancing over, he grunted to his feet.
‘Father?’
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘The twins have buried Absi up to his neck. Those girls need a good whipping.’
‘You’ve never whipped a child in your life.’
‘How would you know? Well. Maybe I haven’t, but the threat still works.’
Ryadd sat up, looked down on Udinaas with his young, sun-darkened face. Squinting, Udinaas said, ‘In the bright sun, I see your mother in your smile.’
‘She smiled?’
‘Once, I think, but I won’t take credit for it.’
Udinaas set off down to the beach.
Absi had clambered free and tackled one of the girls and was now tickling her into a helpless state. Trouble passed, but he continued anyway.
Out in the sea beyond the small bay, whales broached the surface, sending geysers into the air, announcing the coming of summer.
The rider paused on the road, glancing down at the untended turnips growing wild in the ditch, and after a moment he kicked his horse onward. The sun was warm on his face as he rode west along Itko Kan’s coastal track.
In his wake, in the lengthening shadows, two figures took form. Moments later huge hounds appeared. One bent to sniff at the turnips, and then turned away.
The figure with the cane sighed. ‘Satisfied?’
The other one nodded.
‘And you imagine only the best now, don’t you?’
‘I see no reason why not.’
Shadowthrone snorted. ‘You wouldn’t.’
Cotillion glanced over at him. ‘Why not, then?’
‘Old friend, what is this? Do you still hold to a belief in hope?’
‘Do I believe in hope? I do.’
‘And faith?’
‘And faith. Yes. I believe in faith.’
Neither spoke for a time, and then Shadowthrone looked over at the Hounds, and cocked his head. ‘Hungry, are we?’ Bestial heads lifted, eyes fixing on him.
‘Don’t even think it, Ammeanas!’
‘Why not? Remind that fop on the throne who’s really running this game!’
‘Not yet.’
‘Where is your impatience? Your desire for vengeance? What sort of Patron of Assassins are you?’
Cotillion nodded down the road. ‘Leave them alone. Not here, not now.’
Shadowthrone sighed a second time. ‘Misery guts.’
The shadows dissolved, and a moment later were gone, leaving nothing but an empty road.
The sun set, dusk closing in. He’d yet to pass any traffic on this day and that was a little troubling, but he rode on. Having never been this way before, he almost missed the side track leading down to the settlement on the shelf of land above a crescent beach, but he caught the smell of woodsmoke in time to slow up his mount.
The beast carefully picked its way down the narrow path.
Reaching the bottom, now in darkness, he reined in.
Before him was a small fishing village, though it looked mostly abandoned. He saw a cottage nearby, stone-walled and thatch-roofed, with a stone chimney from which smoke drifted in a thin grey stream. An area of land had been cleared above and behind it where vegetables had been planted, and working still in the growing gloom was a lone figure.
Crokus dismounted, hobbled the horse outside an abandoned shack to his left, and made his way forward.
It should not have taken long, yet by the time he reached the verge of the garden the moon overhead was bright, its effervescent light glistening along her limbs, the sheen of her black hair like silk as she bent to gather up her tools.<
br />
He stepped between rows of bushy plants.
And she turned. Watched him walk up to her.
Crokus took her face in his hands, studied her dark eyes. ‘I never liked that story,’ he said.
‘Which one?’ she asked.
‘The lover…lost on the moon, tending her garden alone.’
‘It’s not quite like that, the story I mean.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s what I remember from it. That, and the look in your eyes when you told it to me. I was reminded of that look a moment ago.’
‘And now?’
‘I think,’ he said, ‘the sadness just went away, Apsalar.’
‘I think,’ she replied, ‘you are right.’
The boy watched the old man come down to the pier as he did almost every day whenever the boy happened to be lingering along the waterfront at around this time, when the morning was stretching towards noon and all the fish were asleep. Day after day, he’d seen the old man carrying that silly bucket with the rope tied to the handle for the fish he never caught – and the fishing rod in his other hand would most likely snap in half at a crab’s tug.
Bored, as he was every day, the boy ambled down to stand on the edge of the pier, to look out on the few ships that bothered sheltering in the harbour of Malaz City. So he could dream of the worlds beyond, where things exciting and magical happened and heroes won the day and villains bled out in the dirt.
He knew he was nobody yet. Not old enough for anything. Trapped here where nothing ever happened and never would. But one day he would face the whole world and, why, they’d all know his face, they would. He glanced over to where the old man was sitting down, legs over the edge, working bait on to the hook.
‘You won’t never catch nothing,’ the boy said, idly pulling at a rusty mooring ring. ‘You sleep in too late, every day.’
The old man squinted at the hook, adjusted the foul-smelling bait. ‘Late nights,’ he said.
‘Where? Where you go? I know all the taverns and bars in the whole harbour district.’
‘Do you now?’
‘All of them – where d’you drink, then?’
‘Who said anything about drinking, lad? No, what I do is play.’
The boy drew slightly closer. ‘Play what?’
‘Fiddle.’
‘You play at a bar?’
‘I do, aye.’
‘Which one?’
‘Smiley’s.’ The old man ran out the hook on its weighted line and leaned over to watch it plummet into the depths.
The boy studied him suspiciously. ‘I ain’t no fool,’ he said.
The old man glanced over, nodded. ‘I can see that.’
‘Smiley’s doesn’t exist. It’s just a story. A haunting. People hearing things – voices in the air, tankards clunking. Laughing.’
‘That’s all they hear in the night air, lad?’
The boy licked his suddenly dry lips. ‘No. They hear…fiddling. Music. Sad, awful sad.’
‘Hey now, not all of it’s sad. Though maybe that’s what leaks out. But,’ and he grinned at the boy, ‘I wouldn’t know that, would I?’
‘You’re like all the rest,’ the boy said, facing out to sea once again.
‘Who are all the rest, then?’
‘Making up stories and stuff. Lying – it’s all anybody ever does here, ’cause they got nothing else to do. They’re all wasting their lives. Just like you. You won’t catch any fish ever.’ And he waited, to gauge the effect of his words.
‘Who said I was after fish?’ the old man asked, offering up an exaggeratedly sly expression.
‘What, crabs? Wrong pier. It’s too deep here. It just goes down and down and for ever down!’
‘Aye, and what’s down there, at the very bottom? You ever hear that story?’
The boy was incredulous and more than a little offended. ‘Do I look two years old? That demon, the old emperor’s demon! But you can’t fish for it!’
‘Why not?’
‘Well – well, your rod would break! Look at it!’
‘Looks can be deceiving, lad. Remember that.’
The boy snorted. He was always getting advice. ‘I won’t be like you, old man. I’m going to be a soldier when I grow up. I’m going to leave this place. For ever. A soldier, fighting wars and getting rich and fighting and saving people and all that!’
The old man seemed about to say one thing, stopped, and instead said, ‘Well, the world always needs more soldiers.’
The boy counted this as a victory, the first of what he knew would be a lifetime of victories. When he was grown up. And famous. ‘That demon bites and it’ll eat you up. And even if you catch it and drag it up, how will you kill it? Nobody can kill it!’
‘Never said anything about killing it,’ the old man replied. ‘Just been a while since we last talked.’
‘Ha! Hah! Hahaha!’
High above the harbour, the winds were brisk coming in from the sea. They struck and spun the old battered weathervane on its pole, as if the demon knew not where to turn.
A sudden gust took it then, wrenched it hard around, and with a solid squeal the weathervane jammed. The wind buffeted it, but decades of decay and rust seemed proof to its will, and the weathervane but quivered.
Like a thing in chains.
This ends the Tenth and Final Tale of The
Malazan Book of the Fallen
And now the page before us blurs.
An age is done. The book must close.
We are abandoned to history.
Raise high one more time the tattered standard of the Fallen. See through the drifting smoke to the dark stains upon the fabric.
This is the blood of our lives, this is the payment of our deeds, all soon to be
forgotten.
We were never what people could be.
We were only what we were.
Remember us.
Appendix
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
(Characters appearing in both Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God)
The Malazans
Adjunct Tavore Paran
High Mage Quick Ben
Fist Keneb
Fist Blistig
Captain Lostara Yil
Banaschar
Fist Kindly
Captain Skanarow
Fist Faradan Sort
Captain Ruthan Gudd
Lieutenant Pores
Captain Raband
Sinn
Grub
The Squads
Captain Fiddler
Sergeant Tarr
Koryk
Smiles
Bottle
Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas
Cuttle
Sergeant Gesler
Corporal Stormy
Shortnose
Flashwit
Mayfly
Sergeant Cord
Corporal Shard
Limp
Ebron
Crump
Sergeant Hellian
Corporal Touchy
Corporal Brethless
Maybe
Sergeant Balm
Corporal Deadsmell
Throatslitter
Widdershins
Sergeant Urb
Corporal Clasp
Masan Gilani
Saltlick
Burnt Rope
Lap Twirl
Sad
Sergeant Sinter
Corporal Pravalak Rim
Honey
Lookback
Sergeant Badan Gruk
Corporal Ruffle
Nep Furrow
Reliko
Vastly Blank
Corporal Kisswhere
Skulldeath
Drawfirst
Sergeant Gaunt-Eye
Corporal Rib
Wimble Thrup
Dead Hedge
Alchemist Bavedict
Sergeant Sweetlard
Sergeant Rumjugs
The Host
Ganoes Paran, High
Fist and Master of the Deck
High Mage Noto Boil
Fist Rythe Bude
Imperial Artist Ormulogun
Warleader Mathok
Bodyguard T’morol
Gumble
Skintick
Desra
Nemanda
Kalam Mekhar
The Khundryl
Warleader Gall
Hanavat (Gall’s wife)
Shelemasa
Jastara
The Perish Grey Helms
Mortal Sword Krughava
Shield Anvil Tanakalian
Destriant Run’Thurvian
Commander Erekala
The Letherii
King Tehol
Queen Janath
Brys Beddict
Atri-Ceda Aranict
Henar Vygulf
Shurq Elalle
Skorgen Kaban
Ublala Pung
The Bolkando
Queen Abrastal
Spultatha
Felash, Fourteenth Daughter
Handmaid
Silk Warchief-Spax
The Barghast
Hetan
Stavi
Storii
Absi
Skincut Ralata
Awl Torrent
Setoc of the Wolves
The Snake
Rutt
Held
Badalle
Saddic
Yan Tovis (Twilight)
Yedan Derryg (the Watch)
Witch Pully
Witch Skwish
Brevity
Pithy
Sharl
Corporal Nithe
Sergeant Cellows
Withal
The Imass
Onrack T’emlava
Kilava Onass
Ulshun Pral
The T’Lan Imass
Warleader Onos T’oolan
Bitterspring (Lera Epar)
Kalt Urmanal
Rystalle Ev
Ulag Togtil
Nom Kala
Urugal the Woven
Thenik the Shattered
Beroke Soft Voice
Kahlb the Silent Hunter
Halad the Giant
The K’Chain Che’Malle
J’an Sentinel Bre’nigan
K’ell Hunter Sag’Churok
Matron Gunth Mach
Shi’gal Assassin Gu’Rull
Destriant Kalyth (Elan)
The Tiste Andii
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 1059