The Crippled God

cottage nearby, stone-walled and thatch-roofed, with a stone chimney from which smoke drifted in a thin grey stream. An area of land had been cleared above and behind it where vegetables had been planted, and working still in the growing gloom was a lone figure.
    Crokus dismounted, hobbled the horse outside an abandoned shack to his left, and made his way forward.
    It should not have taken long, yet by the time he reached the verge of the garden the moon overhead was bright, its effervescent light glistening along her limbs, the sheen of her black hair like silk as she bent to gather up her tools.
    He stepped between rows of bushy plants.
    And she turned. Watched him walk up to her.
    Crokus took her face in his hands, studied her dark eyes. ‘I never liked that story,’ he said.
    ‘Which one?’ she asked.
    ‘The lover … lost on the moon, tending her garden alone.’
    ‘It’s not quite like that, the story I mean.’
    He shrugged. ‘It’s what I remember from it. That, and the look in your eyes when you told it to me. I was reminded of that look a moment ago.’
    ‘And now?’
    ‘I think,’ he said, ‘the sadness just went away, Apsalar.’
    ‘I think,’ she replied, ‘you are right.’
    The boy watched the old man come down to the pier as he did almost every day whenever the boy happened to be lingering along the waterfront at around this time, when the morning was stretching towards noon and all the fish were asleep. Day after day, he’d seen the old man carrying that silly bucket with the rope tied to the handle for the fish he never caught – and the fishing rod in his other hand would most likely snap in half at a crab’s tug.
    Bored, as he was every day, the boy ambled down to stand on the edge of the pier, to look out on the few ships that bothered sheltering in the harbour of Malaz City. So he could dream of the worlds beyond,where things exciting and magical happened and heroes won the day and villains bled out in the dirt.
    He knew he was nobody yet. Not old enough for anything. Trapped here where nothing ever happened and never would. But one day he would face the whole world and, why, they’d all know his face, they would. He glanced over to where the old man was sitting down, legs over the edge, working bait on to the hook.
    ‘You won’t never catch nothing,’ the boy said, idly pulling at a rusty mooring ring. ‘You sleep in too late, every day.’
    The old man squinted at the hook, adjusted the foul-smelling bait. ‘Late nights,’ he said.
    ‘Where? Where you go? I know all the taverns and bars in the whole harbour district.’
    ‘Do you now?’
    ‘All of them – where d’you drink, then?’
    ‘Who said anything about drinking, lad? No, what I do is play .’
    The boy drew slightly closer. ‘Play what?’
    ‘Fiddle.’
    ‘You play at a bar?’
    ‘I do, aye.’
    ‘Which one?’
    ‘Smiley’s.’ The old man ran out the hook on its weighted line and leaned over to watch it plummet into the depths.
    The boy studied him suspiciously. ‘I ain’t no fool,’ he said.
    The old man glanced over, nodded. ‘I can see that.’
    ‘Smiley’s doesn’t exist. It’s just a story. A haunting. People hearing things – voices in the air, tankards clunking. Laughing.’
    ‘That’s all they hear in the night air, lad?’
    The boy licked his suddenly dry lips. ‘No. They hear … fiddling. Music. Sad, awful sad.’
    ‘Hey now, not all of it’s sad. Though maybe that’s what leaks out. But,’ and he grinned at the boy, ‘I wouldn’t know that, would I?’
    ‘You’re like all the rest,’ the boy said, facing out to sea once again.
    ‘Who are all the rest, then?’
    ‘Making up stories and stuff. Lying – it’s all anybody ever does here, ’cause they got nothing else to do. They’re all wasting their lives. Just like you. You won’t catch any fish ever.’ And he waited, to gauge the effect of his words.
    ‘Who said I was after fish?’ the old man asked, offering up an exaggeratedly sly expression.
    ‘What, crabs? Wrong pier. It’s too deep here. It just goes down and down and for ever down!’
    ‘Aye, and what’s down there, at the very bottom? You ever hear that story?’
    The boy was incredulous and more than a little offended. ‘Do I look two years old? That demon, the old emperor’s demon! But you can’t fish for it!’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Well – well, your rod would break! Look at it!’
    ‘Looks can be deceiving, lad. Remember that.’
    The