“Not going to happen,” Cary said, stepping between Kit and the two swordsmen. The others moved forward too, slow as the Drowned. Yardem flicked a jingling ear.
Kit put a hand on Cary’s shoulder. “Please,” he said.
The moment balanced on the edge of a blade. He felt Cary deflate under his palm. She walked forward, making her way between Marcus and Yardem without looking back. Charlit Soon followed her, and then the others together. When they were alone with only the horses, Yardem leaned against the wall. Marcus sat on Sandr’s abandoned stool.
“Are you still working for the bank?” Kit asked with a casualness he didn’t feel.
“Hard to say, exactly,” Marcus said. “Now that we’ve hunted you down, I think the next thing’s Inys. There’s been talk coming up from Lyoneia of him. Sightings. Something about a tower rising up out of the sea. But it’s going to mean going south until it starts getting cold again, and by the time we get there…”
“Dragon hunting. What a romantic and adventurous life you lead, Captain.”
Marcus chuckled, recognizing the humor. He leaned back on the stool. “I don’t do any of this because I want to, Kit. I do it because it needs to get done.”
It didn’t sound like a threat, though Kit knew it could be interpreted that way. Whatever meaning the captain intended, Kit knew he believed it to be true. Whatever happened between them now, it would only be from necessity. There was some comfort in that.
“May I ask how you knew I was alive? What did I do wrong?”
“Hm? Oh, that. You made it a theater piece. A grand sacrifice with everyone looking on, right to the moment that Cary pulled their eyes off you. You talked about doing more or less the same thing in the transformation scene in… ah damn it.”
“The Tragedy of Crellia and Somon,” Yardem said.
“Yeah, that one,” Marcus agreed. “Shifting attention to the far side of the stage while you switch out the actor for the puppet? Only this time, I figure it was more hiding behind a rock or some such.”
“I had a servant’s robe too, under my own,” Kit said. “The tower’s collapse complicated things. In the first version, I was going to cast myself into the Division.”
“That would have been good too,” Marcus said.
They were silent. There was no more hammering from the yard. Kit imagined the troupe standing together, waiting to see how this ended. Whether they would need to cast a new Orcus. As long as I am in the world, the danger is as well. He’d written the line for its single performance, and he’d believed it then as well. Only there had seemed a way out. A chance to see a bit more of the humanity. Taste a few new dishes, hear a few more songs, perform on stages he had not yet tried. Kit didn’t think it had been cowardice on his part, though perhaps the fear of death had been part of it.
At least, he thought, I can have a bit of dignity now.
“Did you tell Cithrin?” he asked.
“That you’d fooled her? No. Wasn’t sure it was truth until we tracked you all down, after all. And now that we’ve found you…” Marcus shrugged. “I don’t know. What would the advantage be for anyone? Girl’s got enough on her plate as it stands, trying to remake all of civilization or whatever it is she does.”
“Thank you,” Kit said. “I would rather she remember me as I appeared, rather than as I was.”
“That’s not just you,” Marcus said. He rose, taking the poisoned sword off his shoulder. The scabbard shone green as a beetle’s shell even in the dim light. The nearest of the horses blew out her breath as if she sensed something malign without knowing quite what it was. Marcus held it out. “If you want my advice, keep this under the beds when you aren’t sleeping. Turns out the other thing it’s useful for is keeping the lice down. All the time I carried it, never had so much as a nit. That’s the only thing I’m going to miss about the damned thing.”
Kit reached out, confused but understanding in a general sense what seemed expected of him. Then he took the sword, and Marcus nodded.
“I don’t believe I understand,” Kit said, holding the blade. “I thought you’d come to finish me.”
“Can’t see it’s come to that, yet.” Marcus said. “Understand the confusion, though. I did offer to kill you once, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Kit said. “And I appreciated it at the time.”
“Offer still stands,” Marcus said. “If once this Inys thing’s done, I start hearing about some actor who’s turned Far Syramys into his own massive stage for the honor of the god of taproom dramas or some such, I can still track you down. Only you did save the world and everyone in it. Seems rude to kill you for the effort.”
“I’m surprised you feel I saved the world,” Kit said, hanging the scabbard from a nail beside his little tin mirror. The two aspects of his life on a single splintered pole. “I’d have called that more a group effort.”
“Can’t put on the play unless you’ve got the players,” Marcus agreed. “But you’ve lived a lot of years in the world without letting those eight-legged bastards spread. There’s still the risk, though, so you should have the blade with you. I won’t need it anymore.”
Kit swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Thank you, my friend. I don’t know how to tell you how grateful I am for this. For all of this.”
“No need. Look, I know you and this one”—Marcus nodded at Yardem—“think the world means something. I don’t. As far as I can tell, life’s just one flaming piece of shit after another, except when it’s a bunch of them all at once. But I do believe in justice. Not the world’s, but the one we make—”
“Technically, you are a part of the world, sir,” Yardem said.
Confusion crossed through Wester’s expression. “Your point?”
“Your justice is the world’s. You were its path of justice unfolding itself.”
“I’m the justice of the world?”
“Well,” Yardem said. “Say you’re a justice of the world.”
“You’re going to hold by that hairwash?”
“Just pointing it out, sir.”
“Now I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. No, wait. I have it. I did what I did because I think it’s the right thing. There’s risk in it, but there’s risk in everything. Keeping you in the world seems worth the chance.”
The things in Kit’s blood told him that it was true, and that if anything made it deeper. “I want you to know that traveling in your company, even during the worst of this, has been an honor.”
“Yes, well,” Marcus said. “Let’s not get sentimental about it. We aren’t twelve.”
“Of course,” Kit said, bowing.
“Until next time, then,” Marcus said, turning. Once he’d left, Yardem returned the bow.
“You’ll take care of him?” Kit asked.
“As much as he allows.”
“I can still hear you,” Marcus called from the yard. Yardem’s wide, canine smile warmed Kit’s heart. For the last time, the Tralgu man clasped his hand, and then he was gone as well. The players came back in, Cary first and then the others. The relief on their faces echoed his own.
“We’re all right?” Mikel asked.
“I think we’re fine,” Kit said. “Except possibly that we have a performance and the stage half-together.”
“Costume’s not finished either,” Sandr said.
In the event, Lak, Hornet, and Cary finished putting together the boards well before sundown. Charlit Soon’s costume, while not of the most flattering cut, was done. And the Orcus costume was decent as well. In the last hour, the stable became a well-practiced chaos as each of them went through their lines again another time, Sandr and Hornet walked through the staging of the battle scene, and Cary and Lak marked out their places among the crowd to lead the reactions.