Page 73 of The Malevolent Eight

‘Ah, I believe the dialect to which you are referring is the one employed by humans from my native land in my own plane of reality. You must have picked up snatches of it when you cast the spell that brought me to your realm.’Then, for reasons passing understanding, he added, ‘Mate.’

‘Fine,’ I said, resuming my march towards the settlement in the distance. ‘You have until I reach the town gates to help me figure it out.’

‘There’s really nothing to figure out. The Horse and Cart problem is a simple one: you find yourself on a dirt road descending from a mountain when you see a driverless horse-cart rumbling by. You jump atop the driver’s bench in an attempt to stop the cart’s progress, but the horses have been spooked and are rushing headlong towards five unwitting travellers. You shout to the travellers, but they don’t hear you, and even if they did, there’s nowhere for them to flee because on one side of them is a steep rise and the other a cliff’s edge. No matter how hard you pull on the reins, you can’t get the horses to stop, but there’s a slight fork in the road to the right. If you pull with all your might, you’ll make the horses turn in that direction– but alas, there stands an innocent child who, unlike the oblivious travellers, sees you coming and knows her fate is in your hands.’

‘I kill the child,’ I said without hesitation.

‘Because five lives are worth more than one, no matter that it makes you a murderer?’

‘Because I don’t like kids.’

The spectral kangaroo humoured me with a sympathetic chuckle, then ruined it by saying, ‘Have you tried any? They’re quite tasty.’

I stopped again. From this distance, I could already hear some of the sounds of people near the town gates doing whatever people do as they return home from their labours.

‘You’re saying Ishouldn’tkill the kid but should let the five travellers die?’ I asked Temper.

‘Not at all. The Horse and Cart problem has no correct answer. It’s merely a mental experiment forcing one to contend with competing philosophical premises. Either the act of allowing five to die is better because it requires no evil act on your part, or choosing to intentionally murder the child is better because it saves the most lives.’

I knelt down and set Eliva’ren on the road, wishing a runaway horse-cart were coming this way with somebody else holding the reins. ‘So which choice am I supposed to make?’

I hadn’t expected an answer. Temper was a kangaroo, after all, and incapable of speech other than repeating “motherfucker” relentlessly because Corrigan kept encouraging him. Also, Temper wasn’t really here. That’s why I was so surprised by what he said next.

‘Neither.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t choose either path.’

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You just told me the whole point of this mental puzzle is that the horses are going to either run down the five travellers or crush the innocent child!’

‘Who are you?’

‘What?’

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Cade Ombra, you idiot. The guy who’s imagining you, remember?’

‘And what is Cade Ombra?’ My imaginary kangaroo ethics professor held up a paw to forestall my answer. ‘I phrased that poorly. Tell me instead, what does it mean to be Cade Ombra?’

‘Unlucky, possibly insane, and sick of imaginary vampire kangaroos.’

‘What does it mean to be Cade Ombra?’ he repeated. ‘Not your name or lineage or profession or even your personality. If it’s simpler for you to understand, what would it mean that you were no longer Cade Ombra?’

It took me a moment to untangle those two questions in my head, but eventually I realised what Temper– or whatI, in fact– had been trying to get myself to understand.

‘Cade Ombra is a fool,’ I said quietly, kneeling to place my ear close to the Spellslinger’s chest. Her breathing was less ragged now, her heartbeat increasing. She would wake any moment. I lifted her back up in my arms and headed for the town gates. ‘Cade Ombra is an idiot who can’t stop himself from believing that no matter how bad the odds, he can figure out a way to save the travellers without killing the child. And the moment he stops believing that? That’s the moment he stops being Cade Ombra.’

‘Here endeth the lesson,’said the imaginary vampire kangaroo, who promptly hopped away, presumably to drink the blood of the five dead travellers, saving the child for dessert.

Chapter 41

Romantic Inclinations

The two of us sat either side of the small table with enough food to feed a platoon of soldiers heaped high on our plates. Neither of us had reached for cutlery, and for once it wasn’t out of a concern that doing so might lead to accidental bloodshed.

‘There need to be a few ground rules,’ the Spellslinger said.

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