‘How . . . how was it?’ I asked the dead girl who’d just been to see her long-dead father.
She smiled. ‘Strange. Wonderful. Confusing. He’s a bit like you.’ She turned to look down at the Tailor who was still seated on the ground. ‘A little like you, as well, though that only makes sense, I suppose. He’s rather silly for a King, isn’t he?’
I chuckled, although if I’m honest, it was more of a sob. ‘Far too silly for a proper King.’
Aline reached out a hand towards me then stopped herself. ‘Go to him, Falcio. He’s asking for you.’
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
The Dead
I walked like a man asleep, keeping my eyes on King Paelis as I stumbled up the winding little path, fearful that he would disappear if I blinked.
‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Are you really going to keep your King waiting?’
His voice was a bit less reedy than I remembered it. All the way up the hill I’d convinced myself this would be just some illusion of him, another hallucination conjured from memory and grief. It wasn’t. I knew, I knew this was the real Paelis. My King. My friend.
He looked a little different than he had in my imaginings. His hair was scragglier, he wasn’t quite as tall, but he wasn’t quite so skinny, either. His smile was exactly the same. ‘Death seems to agree with you,’ I said.
‘Death agrees with no man, Falcio. Don’t let the clerics tell you otherwise.’
‘I’ve learned to take everything the clerics say with a grain of salt, your Majesty.’
‘Good fellow.’ He sat down on a large flat rock and pointed to a similar – though slightly less grand one – for me. ‘Don’t stand there with your mouth hanging open like a boy brought to his first brothel. Your King commands you to sit down.’
I complied, though I wasn’t entirely sure he had the right to command anything.
‘You have questions,’ he said.
‘I . . . yes, it’s safe to say I have a few, your Majesty.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Very well, but you may ask only one before I am called away.’
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘It actually works that way?’
He grinned. ‘Nah. Well, actually I don’t know. Death doesn’t make you smarter, that much I’ll tell you for free. Just ask what you want.’
It might be hard to imagine but I swear that at that precise moment I couldn’t think of a single question. Perhaps that’s because I wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him so badly. ‘You left us with nothing,’ I said at last. ‘No plan. No resources. No—’
He leaned his head back and started laughing and went on for far too long before he paused enough to get out, ‘Only you, Falcio, would choose to use our brief time together to launch into a speech about the unfairness of the world.’
‘I don’t suppose death is any fairer?’ I asked.
‘Not really. Worse in some ways.’ He looked at me and the smile went away. ‘Come on, Falcio, say what you really want to say.’
It took a moment to get the words out. ‘I failed you,’ I said simply.
‘Is that so?’
‘In every way imaginable.’
He ran a hand through his rather feeble attempt at a short beard. ‘Well then, I suppose you should dedicate yourself to a life of agonising penitence.’ He stood up and raised one hand in the air. ‘Despise yourself, Falcio van Mond! Blame yourself for every bad thing in this world! Shun every solace! Push away those who love you! Suffer in glorious, unmatched self-flagellation . . .’ He paused for a moment, then looked down at me. ‘Oh, wait. You’ve already been doing that, haven’t you?’
‘You know, you still have a shitty sense of humour, your Majesty.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s still a shitty world, Falcio. And if you’re waiting for the afterlife to be better, well’ – he waved a hand at the Gods at the bottom of the hill – ‘you’ve got a taste of the kinds of morons who govern that domain.’
‘You mean the kinds of morons who give people enigmatic quests that make no sense?’ A thought occurred to me then, and I finally understood which question I most wanted to ask. ‘Was Aline really the Charoite, or was it Filian all along?’
‘I’m sorry?’
I rose to my feet to stand before him. ‘The Charoite, damn you! Your final command to me, the thing you told me I had to seek out: the reason I found Aline in the first place and fought every damned assassin, tyrant and God who tried to take over your damned country in the meantime! Once and for all, your Majesty, who was the true Charoite?’
Paelis looked at me then, and said nothing. After a few seconds his head tilted a little, and just as he faded away into nothingness, he asked, ‘What’s a “charoite”?’
*
I wound my way back down the little hill expecting to see only the Tailor there, but nothing had changed. Love, Death, and Valour stood next to Aline. The Tailor still sat on the ground.
‘Well?’ the Tailor asked. ‘How was he?’
I thought about my answer for a moment. ‘If he weren’t already dead, I’m fairly sure I’d kill him myself.’
She chuckled. ‘That’s my boy.’
‘Falcio?’
I looked down to see Aline staring up at me. ‘I . . . I think I have to go now, Falcio.’ She looked back at the Gods standing behind her. ‘I want to say goodbye properly but they say I can’t touch you.’
The infinite grey sadness that had been filling me drop by drop turned all at once to a deep, burning red. I was so sick of the -arbitrariness of death, the unfairness of life. I knelt down and opened my arms. ‘Come here, sweetheart.’
She looked uncertain for a moment then rushed to me.
The Tailor shouted, ‘Aline, no!’
It was too late. Aline wrapped her arms around me and I did the same to her. Her skin wasn’t cold as I’d expected it, but warm and alive. Her hair tickled at my nose and her cheek pressed into mine. I held onto her like that, waiting for the end to come.
When it didn’t, I opened my eyes and looked past her shoulder. There, down on one knee, was Death, his arms spread as if in supplication.
When Valour spoke, his voice was full of awe. ‘Death kneels for you . . .’
‘You’re damned right he does,’ I said.
Aline let go of me and stood back, looking at me. I suppose I must have been looking at her, too, because she asked, ‘What are you staring at?’
‘A dishevelled young woman with messy hair and a nose entirely too pointy to be a proper Queen. What are you staring at?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘A smelly man who hasn’t bathed in a month with a scratchy beard who is entirely too insolent for such grand company.’
‘We make a fine pair then, don’t we?’
‘The finest.’ She yawned then, and brought a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m very tired now, Falcio. Is it all right if I go back to sleep on the cart?’
‘Of course, sweetheart,’ I said, managing to keep the heartache out of my voice. ‘I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.’
She smiled. ‘Okay, then.’ She turned and went back to the cart. When I turned to follow, she was under the black shroud, every fold in the fabric exactly as it had been before.
‘Thank you,’ I said to Valour.
The young God shrugged. ‘For what? I told you the gift wasn’t for you.’