Toll the Hounds

  She missed her horse, the one creature on this journey that she had come to feel an affinity with. An average beast, a simple beast, normal, mortal, sweetly dull-eyed and pleased by gestures of care and affection.

  Resuming her climb, she struggled against the crumbled slope, forcing her legs between the sage brushes – too weary to worry about slumbering snakes and scorpions, or hairy spiders among the gnarled, twisted branches.

  The thump of Havok’s hoofs drummed through the ground, halting directly above her at the top of the slope. Scowling, she looked up.

  Karsa’s regard was as unreadable as ever, the shattered tattoo like a web stretching to the thrust of the face behind it. He leaned forward on his mount’s neck and said, ‘Do we not feed you enough?’

  ‘Hood take you.’

  ‘Why will you not accept sharing Havok’s back, witch?’

  Since he showed no inclination to move, she was forced to work to one side as she reached the crest, using the sage branches to pull herself on to the summit. Where she paused, breathing hard, and then she held up her hands to her face, drawing in the sweet scent of the sage. After a moment she glanced up at the Toblakai. A number of responses occurred to her, in a succession of escalating viciousness. Instead of voicing any of them, she sighed and turned away, finding her own standing stone to lean against – noting, with little interest, that Traveller had lowered his head and seemed to be muttering quietly to himself.

  This close to the grey schist, she saw that patterns had been carved into its surface, wending round milky nodules of quartz. With every dawn, she realized, this side of the stone would seem to writhe as the sun climbed higher, the nodes glistening. And the purpose of all that effort? Not even the gods knew, she suspected.

  History, she realized, was mostly lost. No matter how diligent the recorders, the witnesses, the researchers, most of the past simply no longer existed. Would never be known. The notion seemed to empty her out somewhere deep inside, as if the very knowledge of loss somehow released a torrent of extinction within her own memories – moments swirling away, never to be retrieved. She set a finger in one groove etched into the stone, followed its serpentine track downward as far as she could reach, then back up again. The first to do so in how long?

  Repeat the old pattern – ignorance matters not – just repeat it, and so prove continuity.

  Which in turn proves what?

  That in living, one recounts the lives of all those long gone, long dead, even forgotten. Recounts all the demands of necessity – to eat, sleep, make love, sicken, fade into death – and the urges of blessed wonder – a finger tracking the serpent’s path, a breath against stone. Weight and presence and the lure of meaning and pattern.

  By this we prove the existence of the ancestors. That they once were, and that one day we will be the same. I, Samar Dev, once was. And am no more.

  Be patient, stone, another fingertip will come, to follow the track. We mark you and you mark us. Stone and flesh, stone and flesh . . .

  Karsa slid down from Havok, paused to stretch out his back. He had been thinking much of late, mostly about his people, the proud, naïve Teblor. The ever-tightening siege that was the rest of the world, a place of cynicism, a place where virtually every shadow was painted in cruelty, in countless variations on the same colourless hue. Did he truly want to lead his people into such a world? Even to deliver a most poetic summation to all these affairs of civilization?

  He had seen, after all, the poison of such immersion, when observing the Tiste Edur in the city of Letheras. Conquerors wandering bewildered, lost, made useless by success. An emperor who could not rule even himself. And the Crippled God had wanted Karsa to take up that sword. With such a weapon in his hands, he would lead his warriors down from the mountains, to bring to an end all things. To become the living embodiment of the suffering the Fallen One so cherished.

  He had not even been tempted. Again and again, in their disjointed concourse, the Crippled God had revealed his lack of understanding when it came to Karsa Orlong. He made his every gift to Karsa an invitation to be broken in some fashion. But I cannot be broken. The truth, so simple, so direct, seemed to be an invisible force as far as the Crippled God was concerned, and each time he collided with it he was surprised, dumbfounded. Each time, he was sent reeling.

  Of course, Karsa understood all about being stubborn. He also knew how such a trait could be fashioned into worthy armour, while at other times it did little more than reveal a consummate stupidity. Now, he wanted to reshape the world, and he knew it would resist him, yet he would hold to his desire. Samar Dev would call that ‘stubborn’, and in saying that she would mean ‘stupid’. Like the Crippled God, the witch did not truly understand Karsa.

  On the other hand, he understood her very well. ‘You will not ride with me,’ he said now as she rested against one of the stones, ‘because you see it as a kind of surrender. If you must rush down this torrent, you will decide your own pace, as best you can.’

  ‘Is that how it is?’ she asked.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know anything. I had some long forgotten god of war track me down. Why? What meaning was I supposed to take from that?’

  ‘You are a witch. You awaken spirits. They scent you as easily as you do them.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’ she demanded.

  ‘Why, Samar Dev, did you choose to become a witch?’

  ‘That’s – oh, what difference does that make?’

  He waited.

  ‘I was . . . curious. Besides, once you see that the world is filled with forces – most of which few people ever see, or even think about – then how can you not want to explore? Tracing all the patterns, discovering the webs of existence – it’s no different from building a mechanism, the pleasure in working things out.’

  He grunted. ‘So you were curious. Tell me, when you speak with spirits, when you summon them and they come to you without coercion – why do you think they do that? Because, like you, they are curious.’

  She crossed her arms. ‘You’re saying I’m trying to find significance in something that was actually pretty much meaningless. The bear sniffed me out and came for a closer look.’

  He shrugged. ‘These things happen.’

  ‘I’m not convinced.’

  ‘Yes,’ he smiled, ‘you are truly of this world, Samar Dev.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He turned back to Havok and stroked the beast’s dusty neck. ‘The Tiste Edur failed. They were not thorough enough. They left the cynicism in place, and thought that through the strength of their own honour, they could defeat it. But the cynicism made their honour a hollow thing.’ He glanced back at her. ‘What was once a strength became an affectation.’

  She shook her head, as if baffled.

  Traveller moved to join them, and there was something haggard in his face. Seeing this odd, inexplicable transformation, Karsa narrowed his gaze on the man for a moment. Then he casually looked away.

  ‘Perhaps the bear came to warn you,’ he said to Samar Dev.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What else? War.’

  ‘What war?’

  The shout made Havok shift under his hand, and he reached up to grasp the beast’s wiry mane. Calming the horse, he then vaulted on to its back. ‘Why, the one to come, I would think.’

  She glared across at Traveller, and seemed to note for the first time the change that had come over him.

  Karsa watched her take a step closer to Traveller. ‘What is it? What has happened? What war is he talking about?’

  ‘We should get moving,’ he said, and then he set out.

  She might weep. She might scream. But she did neither, and Karsa nodded to himself and then reached down one arm. ‘This torrent,’ he muttered, ‘belongs to him, not us. Ride it with me, witch – you surrender nothing of value.’

  ‘
I don’t?’

  ‘No.’

  She hesitated, and then stepped up and grasped hold of his arm.

  When she was settled in behind him, Karsa tilted to one side and twisted round slightly to grin at her. ‘Don’t lie. It feels better already, does it not?’

  ‘Karsa – what has happened to Traveller?’

  He collected the lone rein and faced forward once more. ‘Shadows,’ he said, ‘are cruel.’

  Ditch forced open what he thought of as an eye. His eye. Draconus stood above the blind Tiste Andii, Kadaspala, reaching down and dragging the squealing creature up with both hands round the man’s scrawny neck.

  ‘You damned fool! It won’t work that way, don’t you see that?’

  Kadaspala could only choke in reply.

  Draconus glowered for a moment longer, and then flung the man back down on to the heap of bodies.

  Ditch managed a croaking laugh.

  Turning to skewer Ditch with his glare, Draconus said, ‘He sought to fashion a damned god here!’

  ‘And it shall speak,’ Ditch said, ‘in my voice.’

  ‘No, it shall not. Do not fall into this trap, Wizard. Nothing must be fashioned of this place—’

  ‘What difference? We all are about to die. Let the god open its eyes. Blink once or twice, and then give voice . . .’ he laughed again, ‘the first cry also the last. Birth and death with nothing in between. Is there anything more tragic, Draconus? Anything at all?’

  ‘Dragnipur,’ said Draconus, ‘is nobody’s womb. Kadaspala, this was to be a cage. To keep Darkness in and Chaos out. One last, desperate barrier – the only gift we could offer. A gate that is denied its wandering must find a home, a refuge – a fortress, even one fashioned from flesh and bone. The pattern, Kadaspala, was meant to defy Chaos – two antithetical forces, as we discussed—’

  ‘That will fail!’ The blind Tiste Andii was twisting about at Draconus’s feet, like an impaled worm. ‘Fail, Draconus – we were fools, idiots. We were mad to think mad to think mad to think – give me this child, this wondrous creation – give me—’

  ‘Kadaspala! The pattern – nothing more! Just the pattern, damn you!’

  ‘Fails. Shatters. Shatters and fails shattering into failure. Failure failure failure. We die and we die and we die and we die!’

  Ditch could hear the army marching in pursuit, steps like broken thunder, spears and standards clattering like a continent of reeds, the wind whistling through them. War chants erupting from countless mouths, no two the same, creating instead a war of discordance, a clamour of ferocious madness. The sound was more horrible than anything he had ever heard before – no mortal army could start such terror in a soul as this one did. And above it all, the sky raged, actinic and argent, seething, wrought through with blinding flashes from some descending devastation, ever closer descending – and when at last it struck, the army will charge. Will sweep over us.

  Ditch looked about with his one eye – only to realize that it was still shut, gummed solid, that maybe he had no eye left at all, and that what he was seeing through was the pattern etched in black ink on his eyelid. The god’s eye? The pattern’s eye? How is it I can see at all? Draconus stood facing their wake, the convulsing figure at his feet forgotten for the moment.

  Such studied belligerence, such a heroic pose, the kind that should be sculpted in immortal bronze. Heroism that needed the green stains of verdigris, the proof of centuries passed since last such noble forces existed in the world – any world, whatever world; no matter, details unimportant. The statue proclaims the great age now lost, the virtues left behind.

  Civilizations made sure their heroes were dead before they honoured them. Virtue belonged to the dead, not the living. Everyone knew this. Lived with this, this permanent fall from grace that was the present age. The legacy squandered, because this was what people did with things they themselves have not earned.

  He studied Draconus, and the man seemed to darken, blur, become strangely indistinct. Ditch gasped, and in the next instant Draconus was once more as he had always been.

  So little of his mind was left, so little of what could be called his self, and these moments of clarity were fast diminishing. Was there irony to be found, should the chaos reach him only to find him already gone? Draconus was suddenly crouched down beside him.

  ‘Ditch, listen to me. He’s made you the nexus – you were meant to be the god’s eyes – no, its brain – your pattern, the one upon your skin . . .’

  Ditch grunted, amused. ‘Each soul begins with a single word. He’s written that word – on me. Identity is only a pattern. The beginning form. The world – life and experience – is Kadaspala, etching and etching the fine details. By life’s end, who can even make out that first word?’

  ‘It is within you,’ said Draconus, ‘to break that pattern, Ditch. Hold on to a part of yourself, hold tight to it – you may need it—’

  ‘No, you may need it, Draconus.’

  ‘There can be no child-god. Not fashioned of this nightmare – can’t you understand that? It would be a horrid, terrible thing. Kadaspala is mad—’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Ditch, ‘most unfortunate. Mad. Not a good beginning, no.’

  ‘Hold on, Ditch.’

  ‘It’s just a word.’

  Draconus stared down into that painted eye. Then he rose, gathering up his chains, and moved out of Ditch’s limited range of vision.

  Kadaspala crawled close. ‘He only wants to escape escape escape. But you but you but you are the knot the knot. Snapping tight! No one gets away. No one gets away. No one gets away. Hold still hold still and hold still until he awakens and he will awaken and so he will. Awaken. My child. The word, you see, the word is the word is the word. The word is kill.’

  Ditch smiled. Yes, he’d known that. He had.

  ‘Wait, sweet knot, and wait wait wait. Everything will make sense. Everything. Promise promise I promise and I do promise – for I have seen into the future. I know what’s coming. I know all the plans. Her brother died and he should not have had to do that, no. No, he shouldn’t have had to do that. I do this for her for her for her. Only for her.

  ‘Knot, I do this for her.’

  Kill, thought Ditch, nodding, kill, yes, I understand. I do. Kill, for her. Kill. And he found that the word itself, yes, the word itself, knew how to smile.

  Even as the ashes rained down.

  Beneath a sprawl of stars, Precious Thimble stood by the side of the track, watching the carriage approach. The repairs looked makeshift even in the gloom and the entire contraption rocked and wobbled. She saw Glanno Tarp perched on the high bench, his splinted legs splayed wide, and the horses tossed their heads, ears flattened and eyes rolling.

  Figures walked to either side. Mappo and Gruntle on the left, Reccanto Ilk, the Boles and that wretched Cartographer on the right. Master Quell, presumably, was inside.

  Beside Precious, Faint muttered something under her breath and then climbed to her feet. ‘Wake up, Sweetest, they’re finally here.’

  From the town known as Reach of Woe, half a league distant, not a single glimmer of light showed.

  Precious approached Gruntle. ‘What happened back there?’

  He shook his head. ‘You truly do not want to know, Witch.’

  ‘Why do Jaghut bother getting married at all?’ Reccanto asked, his face pale as the moon. ‘Gods below, like Glanno might say, that was the most petty-tracted nefoaminous argument I ever seen! ‘Twas still in full swing when we blaggered it outa there.’

  ‘Blaggered?’ said Faint. ‘The carriage can barely crawl, Ilk.’

  ‘Ain’t nothing so tensifying as running for your life at a snail’s pace, let me tell you, but if it wasn’t for Master’s protecterives we’d be nothing but flops of hairy skin and chunks of meat like everyone else back there.’

  Precious Thimble shivered and made a warding gesture.

  Master Quell emerged from the carriage after forcing open an ill-hung door. He was sheath
ed in sweat. ‘What a damned world this is,’ he said raggedly.

  ‘I thought we were on an island,’ Jula said, frowning.

  ‘We heading back to sea?’ Precious asked Quell.

  ‘Not a chance – the carriage wouldn’t hold. We need to find a more civil place to hole up.’

  She watched him walk off the track to find a private place where he could groan and sigh as he emptied his bladder, or at least tried to – he never wandered far enough. ‘You need a practitioner of High Denul,’ she called after him.

  ‘As you say, Witch, as you say . . .’

  Cartographer had found a stick from somewhere and was scraping out patterns on the dirt of the road a dozen paces ahead. Precious Thimble squinted at him. ‘What’s that thing doing?’

  No one seemed to have an answer.

  After a long pause, Sweetest Sufferance spoke. ‘Either of you other girls feeling a tad bloodthirsty?’

  Well, that woke everyone else up fast enough, Precious Thimble observed a short while later, still struggling with her own panic. That damned lardball was still half convulsed in laughter, and Precious was of a mind to stick a knife in one of those teary eyes, and she doubted anyone would try to stop her.

  Master Quell reappeared. ‘What’s so funny, Sweetest? Oh, never mind.’ He surveyed everyone else with a pinched, uncomfortable expression, like a man who’d sat on a cork. ‘The night stinks – anybody else noticed that? I was thinking of Rashan, but now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘You need only take me as far as a port,’ said Mappo. ‘I can find my own way from there.’

  Quell squinted at him. ‘We’ll deliver you as agreed, Trell—’

  ‘The risks—’

  ‘Are why we charge as much as we do. Now, no more about that, and don’t even think of just cancelling the contract – we’d take that as a grievous insult, a slur on our good name. We’ll get you there, Trell, even if it’s on one wheel behind a three-legged horse.’