“Do you?”
His voice was thunder, his voice the tide.
“No,” Alaxic said, which took all the air his lungs still held. He pulled for more, chest aching, but no breath came.
“The gods have let you age, priest. They will let you die.” Temoc’s grip tightened. So close, so close to death. He knew, as Alaxic knew, the precise pressure needed to snap a man’s spine. One twist, and that was all. “They have kept me strong.”
Then it was over.
Alaxic crumpled, panting, on his balcony. Air all around him, and he could breathe none of it. He vomited, and again.
When he recovered, Temoc stood above him, lit still by shadow and stars and divine wrath. “But I have need of you.”
Hot, wet needles jabbed into the corners of Alaxic’s eyes. He tried to speak, but could not.
“I will stop the King in Red. I will fight his people, who crush ours. I will be our sword in the dark. But I need resources. A base of operations. Soulstuff to acquire tools and contacts, and to build. Do you understand?”
Alaxic nodded.
“You will give these things to me. You will help me do the gods’ work, at first. When I am satisfied, you will be free to pursue your own goals. But if you betray me, I will kill you. If any harm comes to my family, no matter the cause, I will kill you. You have been drafted into the gods’ service. Do you understand?”
Again, he nodded. He could do nothing else.
“Good,” Temoc said. “Your tasks will be made clear to you.”
Alaxic did not know how much time passed before he looked up, but when he did, Temoc was gone.
He lay on the balcony for a long while, beside his vomit and spilled tea and the fragments of his mug. Slowly, shivering, he stood.
“Good,” he said in a grinding voice. “Good to have you on the team again, Temoc.”
The sound the old man made on the balcony could not have been called a laugh.
* * *
Elayne helped Caleb into the cab, and sat across from him and Mina as they drove south and west from the hospital into the Skittersill.
The streets seemed larger than before, or emptier. Pedestrians still wandered along the sidewalks, blind men still played three-string fiddles outside bars, carts and cabs wrangled over cobblestones and along paved roads. A child in a dirty gingham dress ran down the center of the street, holding her hand up to passing drivers, hoping for an inkling of soul. Yet the Skittersill had changed—it no longer fit her dream.
Not her dream, of course. Temoc’s. Tay’s. The dreams she’d borrowed for a while, that lived still inside her.
The house was clean, floors swept and linens laundered, wood and glass and silver polished, scoured free by Craft of all physical and spiritual trace of blood. Mina entered, turned a slow circle, and did not quite smile. Elayne did not need thanks. Maid service in D.L. was cheap.
She had planned to leave, thought mother and son might like some time alone, but they did not let her go. Ordered takeout instead, and while they waited, they played gin rummy. They did not talk much at first, but the game built its own space between them, and the room assumed a green tint as the goddess of the cards bound all three together. Caleb won by placing a huge hand down at once, with a smile so wide it seemed his cheeks might burst from holding it.
“If you don’t mind,” Elayne said, “I’ll drop by once in a while. I’m not in Dresediel Lex often, but there is an office here, and my firm expects a lot of business from the Shining Empire in the next decade. I’ll be around.”
“Thanks,” Mina said. “I mean, I don’t need help. But it would be nice to see you more. There aren’t many games you can play with just two.”
“Speed,” Caleb said. “But you don’t like speed.”
“Speed’s fine. I just lose. War’s the one I don’t like.”
“More games with three, though,” he admitted.
“That’s right. More with three.”
“Some forms of poker work with three players,” Elayne said.
“If you don’t mind me stealing your soul.”
She laughed.
A bell rang from the street. “I’ll get it,” Elayne said, and stood, and walked through the tunnel gate to the sidewalk. The delivery man passed down a paper sack, and she passed up a coin with twenty thaums and a tip. He doffed his hat, and the wagon rolled on.
A shadow flickered atop the house across the way. Might have been drifting leaves, but no trees nearby were tall enough.
“Go,” she said, knowing he would hear. “Maybe you need them. But now they need you gone.”
She searched the rooftops with her eyes open and closed, and saw nothing.
She returned to the courtyard walled with cactus and ivy, where Caleb and Mina waited. Caleb had put away the cards.
They ate together, and played until the light was gone, and then they drank wine and slept—Mina in her bedroom, Caleb in his, and Elayne on a cot in the courtyard. She placed a ward upon the house, and another around her cot, and slept without dreams.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Each book is a child, and one of those takes a village, so here we are.
Kind villagers this time around included: Alana Abbott, Chris Ashley, Vladimir Barash, John Chu, Anne Cross, Gillian Daniels, Amy Eastment, Tom Gladstone, Kristen Janz, Siana LaForest, Lauren Marino, and Maggie Ronald. Steve Sunu and Sarah Gillig Sunu demonstrated surprising generosity and forbearance when a long-absent friend spent much of his visit to their home pacing its halls muttering to himself about people who don’t quite exist.
Stef Fisher and Anna Pinkert also contributed in a critical way, by stepping in to help my wife and me win a charity auction for which the prize was a sixty-day unlimited supply of coffee from Three Little Figs in Somerville, Massachusetts. The management of 3LF no doubt expected the coffee to go to an attorney. Its possession by a full-time novelist may have impacted their profit margins slightly during Last First Snow’s completion, for which my apologies.
Thanks also to my editors, David Hartwell and Marco Palmieri, for guidance, hand-holding, and the occasional, ah, let’s say “gentle nudge.” Irene Gallo and Chris McGrath continue to offer up the best covers anyone could ask for. Ardi Alspach, publicist, rocks—as does Patty Garcia, but she knows that already. My agent, Bob Diforio, presides over enormous conceptual battlements I’m relieved I don’t have to defend.
Tom and Burki Gladstone, and Bob and Sally Neely, blood- and law-parents, remain surprisingly supportive of my strange career choices.
And Stephanie is the best. A list of her qualities I value would be the length of this book again, so I’ll save Tor some ink, and sum up with: best.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAX GLADSTONE is a fencer, a fiddler, and a two-time finalist for the John W. Campbell Award. He is fluent in Mandarin and has taught English in China. Max lives and writes in Somerset, Massachusetts. Find him online at maxgladstone.com. You can sign up for email updates here.
ALSO BY MAX GLADSTONE
Three Parts Dead
Two Serpents Rise
Full Fathom Five
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
/>
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Max Gladstone
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
LAST FIRST SNOW
Copyright © 2015 by Max Gladstone
All rights reserved.
Cover illustration by Chris McGrath
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7940-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6840-3 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466868403
First Edition: July 2015
Last First Snow Page 35
