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“I understand. I shouldn’t feel . . . jealous. It would be strange . . . if you and I . . .”
“We grew up together. I want my friend to remain my friend.”
“Then why do you want to leave, Innocence? Do you think we can’t be friends anymore, if you lack power?”
“Nonsense, Joy! I have all the power I need.”
“You speak of your bad breath?”
“Ha! Joy, we will be friends always. And we will meet again. But I have been driven near to madness. I need to be . . . just me. You know your mother in a way that I do not know mine. And my father is practically an imaginary figure for me, still. I need this time.”
“Promise me you will come back to the monastery, if you hear that I’ve returned.”
“I promise. The uldra-earl may be right; I will always be traveling. We will stick-fight on the heights again. And I promise more. If you do not return, I will come looking for you, all the way to the fairy isles.”
“They would make a good couple,” Gaunt said. “When they’re a little older, of course.”
Bone shook his head. “I’m fond of Joy, but it would all be doom this, empire that. He’s had quite enough of such things.”
“You mean you have.”
“And you haven’t? Aiya, Gaunt! All this time, trying to find Innocence again, and by some astonishing stroke of luck he’s free of this power that’s haunted us—”
“I know, I know . . .” She looked up at the mountain peak, remembering when she’d first seen it, desperate to hide from a then-sinister Walking Stick. “It’s just that, there they all go. Snow Pine to her empire. Flint, Walking Stick, and Joy the Runethane at her side. Northwing to the Vuos to become even more powerful—and believe me, the idea of a more powerful Northwing is frightening. Katta will help train the monks into a fighting force to ensure Joy’s dream of a haven. I think he’s taken a liking to a monk or two, but that’s Katta for you. I don’t know where Haytham is going, but I know he’ll keep inventing. And Eshe, quietly playing her chess game.” She gripped the railing, remembering a much rougher trip aboard a junk of Qiangguo, when they’d first gone East. “All these heroes, legends, queens . . .”
He put his arm around her. “You are wistful, my love.”
She leaned into him. “A little. I know. I shouldn’t envy the lot of champions and rulers. What looks exciting from a distance is probably brutal and sordid up close. But it’s hard not to feel as if the great events are passing me by.”
“You wrote once you felt the Swan had called you to create poetry, but also to be of use to those in need. That the contradiction hurt.”
“You saw that?”
“I had a good excuse.”
“Hm. It’s true. I feel torn at times. Thinking I might do more.”
“It seems to me that if we are not on the road, constantly, you might find this conflict less acute.”
“You might be right.” She sighed. “Let it be. I will leave the grand stage. The spyglass of history will follow Snow Pine to the East.” She laughed. “Well. I hear Oxiland is violent. Perhaps we’ll stumble into a saga or two. Or have a child or two.”
“Sagas. Children. I have been thinking about the Chooser of the Slain, you know.”
“Yes, Cairn. Beinahruga.”
“You know, Persimmon, that name Beinahruga means the same as Cairn, more or less. Or so I’ve learned. ‘Bone-pile.’ So in a sense . . .”
She stared at him. “She told us her name was Bone.”
Riding the Straits of Tid, she who’d called herself Cairn watched Deadfall flee the vengeance of the Karvaks into the Efritstan desert. Suddenly a whirlwind rose up beside it.
“Ah, there you are,” said the whirlwind. “We have had little chance to talk.”
“Who are you?” asked the carpet.
“Did I stay so long in that brazier that people and carpets no longer recognize Haboob of the Hastening Horizon?” The whirlwind assumed the form of an imperious-looking gentleman. “Is that better?”
“Oh, you.”
“Yes, I! We nonorganic intelligences need to stick together! I have found companionship agreeable and find I would like a friend. I have chosen you. Rejoice! There is much I could tell you!”
“I’m sure Haytham ibn Zakwan would be glad to see you. . . .”
“Oh, no! He is a fine person for a mortal, but one wrong move, and bam, I will find myself in a brazier or a lamp or a snuff box. No, it is you, O amazing assassin, I would regale with my tales.”
“It might be interesting at that. I am to gather as much knowledge as possible on the players in the great game.”
“What is that?”
“A pastime of the humans. I think it will be diverting. I have found my calling, efrit. Eshe has given me a long list of powers, creatures, spirits, and demigods to press for information. My next stop is a certain stone monkey.”
“Oho! I have heard of that one. . . .”
The entities passed out of sight. Cairn shifted directions and traveled homeward, many years into the future. She paused beside a troll dwelling underneath what used to be called the Chained Strait.
“There you are,” said Skrymir. “I have been thinking, and listening to the whispers along the Straits of Tid. Tell me. Innocence Gaunt was bait for us, wasn’t he? Me and Jewelwolf, and the rest of our cabal, hiding in shadows. The Heavenwalls and the Great Chain, they consulted together and realized the Karvak Realm would threaten both lands. They came to a wordless conclusion to unite East and West against the nomads. Even though their plan was ultimately the death of the Chain. And thus an exchange of champions came into being. Innocence and Joy. We thought we were tangling them in our web, but we became caught in theirs.”
“There is that,” said Cairn. “Though who can be sure about the thinking of such powers? But consider also . . . they chose children of humble—even criminal—origin, and outsiders to the lands they might champion. Two lands that both could be called isolated. In an age when it will be dangerous to be so.”
“Every age is dangerous. I know this, having done my share to make this one such. Be careful out there. For I know all this had a bit to do with you, too. And I almost care.”
“I will. I have ridden the Straits of Tid enough. It is time to return home.”
She passed unseen by airships and galleons and junks to find a green farm in Oxiland, well-tended young trees growing around it. Her parents and her brother were calling to her, worried that she hadn’t yet woken up. It was time she told them the story they thought they already knew.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my wife Becky, as always, for her love and support. For giving Gaunt and Bone a chance to tie up loose ends, huge thanks to editor Rene Sears, to my agent, Barry Goldblatt, and to Lou Anders and Joe Monti for making the series possible. I’m grateful for the careful copyediting of Julia DeGraf and for the advice of Carla Campbell, Andrew McCool, William Rucklidge, Subrata Sircar, Scott Stanton, Becky Willrich, Sarah Willrich, and Michael Wolfson. For inspiration for Vindir, foamreavers, trolls, dragons, and hidden folk, I owe a great debt to Snorri Sturluson, H. Rider Haggard, Henrik Ibsen, Lucius Shepard, and Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. Gaunt’s rendition of the story of Wiglaf is inspired by Beowulf, which I know mainly from the translation by Seamus Heaney. Her satirical song is adapted from a praise-poem in Egil’s Saga by Snorri Sturluson, as translated by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards. Katta’s song by the waterfall is inspired by works of the Tibetan poet Milarepa (eleventh to twelfth century), which I’m fortunate to have encountered in Sixty Songs of Milarepa by Garma C. C. Chang and Tibetan Civilization by R. A. Stein. Other books consulted include Nancy Marie Brown’s Song of the Vikings, Jason Roberts’s A Sense of the World, Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, and Anders Winroth’s The Conversion of Scandinavia. Any foolishness in how I’ve used these sources is entirely my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Richard Mc
Cowen, Maritime City Photography
Chris Willrich is a science fiction and fantasy writer best known for his sword-and-sorcery tales of Persimmon Gaunt and Imago Bone. He is the author of The Silk Map, The Dagger of Trust, and The Scroll of Years. Until recently he was a children’s librarian for the Santa Clara County Library System in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Black Gate, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Flashing Swords, The Mythic Circle, and Strange Horizons. Find the author at his website, http://www.chriswillrich.com, on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chris-Willrich/407088872710511, or on Twitter @WillrichChris.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Imago Bone’s Notes on People, Places, and Things
Prologue: Ash-Lad
Chapter 1: Mechanisms
Chapter 2: Otherfolk
Chapter 3: Runemark
Chapter 4: Storm
Chapter 5: Huginn
Chapter 6: Rubblewrack
Chapter 7: Muninn
Chapter 8: Jokull
Chapter 9: A Journey to Kantenjord
Chapter 10: Skalagrim
Chapter 11: Chroniclers
Chapter 12: Escape
Chapter 13: Torfa
Chapter 14: Changelings
Chapter 15: A Journey to Kantenjord, Continued
Chapter 16: Straits
Chapter 17: Ruin
Chapter 18: Skrymir
Chapter 19: Draug
Chapter 20: Wolves
Chapter 21: A Journey to Kantenjord, Continued
Chapter 22: Pyres
Chapter 23: Chooser
Chapter 24: Seter
Chapter 25: Council
Chapter 26: War
Chapter 27: Fossegrim
Chapter 28: Siege
Chapter 29: Sisterhood
Chapter 30: Larderland
Chapter 31: A Journey to Kantenjord, Continued
Chapter 32: Champions
Chapter 33: Fates
Chapter 34: Reunion
Chapter 35: Portals
Chapter 36: Queens
Chapter 37: Hearts
Chapter 38: A Journey to Kantenjord, Continued
Chapter 39: Gambit
Chapter 40: Yesterday
Chapter 41: Tomorrow
Chapter 42: Today
Chapter 43: Chosen
Chapter 44: The Middle
Chapter 45: Peace
Chapter 46: Summit
Acknowledgments
About the Author