Honor among thieves

Epilogue

He’d made his decision. He’d been forced to pick between responsibility and death. Like a good thief, he picked the third option no one else had seen: he picked freedom.

A little boat awaited him at the Ditchside Stair. It was, in point of fact, the same boat Velmont had intended to use to escape from the city. Malden had not been able to ascertain what happened to the Helstrovian thief-but he had it on good authority that Velmont didn’t need the boat anymore. Cutbill had seen to that.

Slag was already aboard. The dwarf had fitted himself with a new wooden arm to replace the one he’d lost. He waved merrily as Malden approached, his real hand grasping the painter that held the boat to the dock. Balint sat at the rudder, looking bored and anxious to be gone. Malden had one more stop to make before he left, however.

Cutbill sat on a stool in a tiny cookshop nearby, little more than a stall with a counter where fishermen could sit and eat fish stew before they set out for their catch. The guildmaster of thieves had a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes.

“Half the city is looking for you,” Cutbill said. “It seems you left a bit of business unresolved.”

“Hardly. I did what I set out to do-I kept the city safe from the barbarians.”

“Ah, but responsibility never actually ends,” Cutbill said. “I should know. A problem solved is simply the first step toward discovering the next problem. Still, I imagine our wise and just rulers will handle things just fine without you. Tell me, was it difficult to give up all that power?”

Malden shrugged. “You should know that, too.”

Cutbill nodded. “Yet now here you are, running away like a thief again.”

“Croy will kill me the very first second he gets the chance,” Malden admitted. “He knows I’ve been swiving his betrothed. How she might have felt about things makes no difference to him.”

“The Burgrave might have protected you,” Cutbill suggested.

“Tarness? From the second he was forced to acknowledge my existence he’s always wanted to kill me for one reason or another. Now he’s got even more cause-I stole his city.”

“So you’re running because your life is in danger.”

Yes, Malden thought. Isn’t that reason enough?

Except it wasn’t.

Malden looked up at the ruins of Castle Hill. “If I stayed it would mean more trouble for Ness, and she’s been through enough lately. If I gave preference to one army, the other wouldn’t just go away. The one who lost out would besiege the city-again-and only further this misery. If they both take the city, they’ll have to work together to put it back together again. For a while, at least, they’ll have to pretend to like each other. And as long as that fragile peace lasts, the people of Ness won’t suffer and die for ideals they never understood, much less believed in.”

Cutbill nodded. “Well played.”

Malden sighed. “The people won’t see it that way. Some of them will call me a coward. Some of the same people who called me a hero yesterday. I admit it will bother me.”

“I never thought the love of the people was what you desired,” Cutbill said. “It’s too fickle a commodity to be relied on anyway.”

“Is that why you always work in the shadows?” Malden asked.

“Power must often be its own reward.”

“Power,” Malden repeated. “Power. I thought if I had power it would make me free. It’s completely the opposite though, isn’t it? The more power you have, the more chains there are that bind you. To have power over others, you must at the same time give them power over you. Freedom and power are incompatible.”

Cutbill shook his head. “I’ll miss you, Malden. It was nice having someone so devious around. Someone whose brain ran along the same tracks as mine.” He held out one hand. “Do me the honor of taking this, will you? It will mark you as a friend of mine, to anyone who knows what it means.”

Malden took the badge that Cutbill offered. It was a small enamel pin, painted to show a heart transfixed by a key. Cutbill’s personal symbol, in essence his coat of arms.

“No offense meant, but I intend to go somewhere they’ve never heard of you,” Malden said. “And then go a bit farther still.”

Cutbill smiled. “You’ll have to go very, very far away, then. I have friends in many places. You’ll know them when you meet them. If you ever need their help on your travels, show that badge to them.”

Malden sighed. “I thank you. You know, I never did get my revenge on you for trying to have me killed.”

“Do you expect an apology now?”

“I suppose not,” Malden said.

He headed down to the boat then. Between himself and the dwarves it was easy enough to get it under way. Eastpool was frozen over, but everywhere the boat went, the ice broke up before its prow and then refroze just behind its stern.

“Malden, ask your witchy slut if she can unfreeze my arse, too,” Balint said. “It feels like a block of ice from sitting so long on this leaky tub.”

Malden made no reply. Balint’s barbs could not touch him now.

They passed the Isle of Horses on their way toward the sea. A figure dressed in a black robe stood on the shore, watching them. Cythera wore a veil now, too, whether she needed it or not. She’d made her choices.

Yet Malden did not want to accept it was truly over. He waved to her, beckoned her to join him. To come with him, wherever he went. He knew she would not. It would mean giving up all her magic, both witchcraft and sorcery. It would mean leaving her mother behind, Coruth, who was still in the shape of a tree as she recovered from her exertions.

“Come anyway. I promise it won’t be boring,” he whispered to the wind.

She only watched him go, and did not so much as lift a hand in farewell.

By the time she dwindled behind him until he could no longer see her, the boat was running fast on open water that was kept liquid by the current rather than by her spells. Malden felt saltwater on his cheeks.

“You’re not fucking weeping, are you lad?” Slag asked. Balint looked up with hungry eyes, hunting fodder for her mockery.

“It’s just the spray from the sea,” Malden replied.

And thus it was, that Malden the Thief, Malden the Lord Mayor, left the Free City of Ness. And how it was he came to wear at his belt the sword called Acidtongue, very last of the Ancient Blades.