Toll the Hounds

by Steven Erikson

  Skintick’s smile faded upon seeing this detail. Dead maggots ringed the well. ‘Let’s hope,’ he said to Nimander, ‘there’s another pump inside . . . drawing from a different source.’

  Nenanda had set the brake and he now dropped down, eyeing the bodies. ‘Previous guests?’

  ‘It’s what happens when you don’t pay up.’

  Nimander dismounted and shot Skintick a warning look, but his cousin did not notice – or chose not to, for he then continued, ‘Or all the beds were taken. Or some prohibition against drinking anything but kelyk – it clearly doesn’t pay to complain.’

  ‘Enough,’ said Nimander. ‘Nenanda, can you check the stables – see if there’s feed and clean water. Skintick, let’s you and I head inside.’

  A spacious, well-furnished foyer greeted them, with a booth immediately to the right, bridged by a polished counter. The narrow panel door set in its back wall was shut. To the left was a two-sided cloakroom and beside that the sunken entranceway into the taproom. A corridor was directly ahead, leading to rooms, and a steep staircase climbed to the next level where, presumably, more rooms could be found. Heaped on the floor at the foot of the stairs was bedding, most of it rather darkly stained.

  ‘They stripped the rooms,’ observed Skintick. ‘That was considerate.’

  ‘You suspect they’ve prepared this place for us?’

  ‘With bodies in the well and ichor-stained sheets? Probably. It’s reasonable that we would stay on the main street leading in, and this was the first inn we’d reach.’ He paused, looking round. ‘Obviously, there are many ways of readying for guests. Who can fathom human cultures, anyway?’

  Outside, Nenanda and the others were unpacking the wagon.

  Nimander walked to the taproom entrance and ducked to look inside. Dark, the air thick with the pungent, bittersweet scent of kelyk. He could hear Skintick making his way up the stairs, decided to leave him to it. One step down, on to the sawdust floor. The tables and chairs had all been pushed to one side in a haphazard pile. In the open space left behind the floor was thick with stains and coagulated clumps that reminded Nimander of dung in a stall. Not dung, however; he knew that.

  He explored behind the bar and found rows of dusty clay bottles and jugs, wine and ale. The beakers that had contained kelyk were scattered on the floor, some of them broken, others still weeping dark fluid.

  The outer door swung open and Nenanda stepped inside, one hand on the grip of his sword. A quick look round, then he met Nimander’s gaze and shrugged. ‘Was you I heard, I guess.’

  ‘The stables?’

  ‘Well enough supplied, for a few days at least. There’s a hand pump and spout over the troughs. The water smelled sour but otherwise fine – the horses didn’t hesitate, at any rate.’ He strode in. ‘I think those bodies in the well, Nimander – dead of too much kelyk. I suspect that well was in fact dry. They just used it to dump the ones that died, as they died.’

  Nimander walked back to the doorway leading into the foyer.

  Desra and Kedeviss had carried Clip inside, setting him on the floor. Skintick was on the stairs, a few steps up from the mound of soiled bedding. He was leaning on one rail, watching as the two women attended to Clip. Seeing Nimander, he said, ‘Nothing but cockroaches and bedbugs in the rooms. Still, I don’t think we should use them – there’s an odd smell up there, not at all pleasant.’

  ‘This room should do,’ Nimander said as he went over to look down at Clip. ‘Any change?’ he asked.

  Desra glanced up. ‘No. The same slight fever, the same shallow breathing.’

  Aranatha entered, looked round, then went to the booth, lifted the hinged counter and stepped through. She tried the latch on the panel door and when it opened, she disappeared into the back room.

  A grunt from Skintick. ‘In need of the water closet?’

  Nimander rubbed at his face, flexed his fingers to ease the ache, and then, as Nenanda arrived, he said, ‘Skintick and I will head out now. The rest of you . . . well, we could run into trouble at any time. And if we do one of us will try to get back here—’

  ‘If you run into trouble,’ Aranatha said from the booth, ‘we will know it.’

  Oh? How? ‘All right. We shouldn’t be long.’

  They had brought all their gear into the room and Nimander now watched as first Desra and then the other women began unpacking their weapons, their fine chain hauberks and mail gauntlets. He watched as they readied for battle, and said nothing as anguish filled him. None of this was right. It had never been right. And he could do nothing about it.

  Skintick edged his way round the bedding and, with a tug on Nimander’s arm, led him back outside. ‘They will be all right,’ he said. ‘It’s us I’m worried about.’

  ‘Us? Why?’

  Skintick only smiled.

  They passed through the gate and came out on to the main street once more. The mid-afternoon heat made the air sluggish, enervating. The faint singing seemed to invite them into the city’s heart. An exchanged glance; then, with a shrug from Skintick, they set out.

  ‘That machine.’

  ‘What about it, Skin?’

  ‘Where do you think it came from? It looked as if it just . . . appeared, just above one of the buildings, and then dropped, smashing everything in its path, ending with itself. Do you recall those old pumps, the ones beneath Dreth Street in Malaz City? Withal found them in those tunnels he explored? Well, he took us on a tour—’

  ‘I remember, Skin.’

  ‘I’m reminded of those machines – all the gears and rods, the way the metal components all meshed so cleverly, ingeniously – I cannot imagine the mind that could think up such constructs.’

  ‘What is all this about, Skin?’

  ‘Nothing much. I just wonder if that thing is somehow connected with the arrival of the Dying God.’

  ‘Connected how?’

  ‘What if it was like a skykeep? A smaller version, obviously. What if the Dying God was inside it? Some accident brought it down, the locals pulled him out. What if that machine was a kind of throne?’

  Nimander thought about that. A curious idea. Andarist had once explained that skykeeps – such as the one Anomander Rake claimed as his own – were not a creation of sorcery, and indeed the floating fortresses were held aloft through arcane manipulations of technology.

  K’Chain Che’Malle, Kallor had said. Clearly, he had made the same connection as had Skintick.

  ‘Why would a god need a machine?’ Nimander asked.

  ‘How should I know? Anyway, it’s broken now.’

  They came to a broad intersection. Public buildings commanded each corner, the architecture peculiarly utilitarian, as if the culture that had bred it was singularly devoid of creative flair. Glyphs made a mad scrawl on otherwise unadorned walls, some of the symbols now striking Nimander as resembling that destroyed mechanism.

  The main thoroughfare continued on another two hundred paces, they could see, opening out on to an expansive round. At the far end rose the most imposing structure they had seen yet.

  ‘There it is,’ Skintick said. ‘The Abject . . . altar. It’s where the singing is coming from, I think.’

  Nimander nodded.

  ‘Should we take a closer look?’

  He nodded again. ‘Until something happens.’

  ‘Does being attacked by a raving mob count?’ Skintick asked.

  Figures were racing into the round, threadbare but with weapons in their hands that they waved about over their heads, their song suddenly ferocious, as they began marching towards the two Tiste Andii.

  ‘Here was I thinking we were going to be left alone,’ Nimander said. ‘If we run, we’ll just lead them back to the inn.’

  ‘True, but holding the gate should be manageable, two of us at a time, spelling each other.’

  Nimander was the first to hear a sound behind him and he spun round, sword hissing from the scabbard.

  Kallor.

  The old warrior
walked towards them. ‘You kicked them awake,’ he said.

  ‘We were sightseeing,’ said Skintick, ‘and though this place is miserable we kept our opinions to ourselves. In any case, we were just discussing what to do now.’

  ‘You could stand and fight.’

  ‘We could,’ agreed Nimander, glancing back at the mob. Now fifty paces away and closing fast. ‘Or we could beat a retreat.’

  ‘They’re brave right now,’ Kallor observed, stepping past and drawing his two-handed sword. As he walked he looped the plain, battered weapon over his head, a few passes, as if loosening up his shoulders. Suddenly he did not seem very old at all.

  Skintick asked, ‘Should we help him?’

  ‘Did he ask for help, Skin?’

  ‘No, you’re right, he didn’t.’

  They watched as Kallor marched directly into the face of the mob.

  And all at once that mob blew apart, people scattering, crowding out to the sides as the singing broke up into wails of dismay. Kallor hesitated for but a moment, before resuming his march. In the centre of a corridor now that had opened up to let him pass.

  ‘He just wants to see that altar,’ Skintick said, ‘and he’s not the one they’re bothered with. Too bad,’ he added, ‘it might have been interesting to see the old badger fight.’

  ‘Let’s head back,’ Nimander said, ‘while they’re distracted.’

  ‘If they let us.’

  They turned and set off, at an even, unhurried pace. After a dozen or so strides Skintick half turned. He grunted, then said, ‘They’ve left us to it. Nimander, the message seems clear. To get to that altar, we will have to go through them.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Things will get messy yet.’

  Yes, they would.

  ‘So, do you think Kallor and the Dying God will have a nice conversation? Observations on the weather. Reminiscing on the old tyrannical days when everything was all fun and games. Back when the blood was redder, its taste sweeter. Do you think?’

  Nimander said nothing, thinking instead of those faces in that mob, the black stains smeared round their mouths, the pits of their eyes. Clothed in rags, caked with filth, few children among them, as if the kelyk made them all equal, regardless of age, regardless of any sort of readiness to manage the world and the demands of living. They drank and they starved and the present was the future, until death stole away that future. A simple trajectory. No worries, no ambitions, no dreams.

  Would any of that make killing them easier? No.

  ‘I do not want to do this,’ Nimander said.

  ‘No,’ Skintick agreed. ‘But what of Clip?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘This kelyk is worse than a plague, because its victims invite it into their lives, and then are indifferent to their own suffering. It forces the question – have we any right to seek to put an end to it, to destroy it?’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Nimander conceded.

  ‘But there is another issue, and that is mercy.’

  He shot his cousin a hard look. ‘We kill them all for their own good? Abyss take us, Skin—’

  ‘Not them – of course not. I was thinking of the Dying God.’

  Ah . . . well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to the Dying God without the need to slaughter hundreds of worshippers. ‘Thank you, Skin.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘We will sneak past them.’

  ‘Carrying Clip?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That won’t be easy – it might be impossible, in fact. If this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying God grants gifts to the priests, then they will sense our approach no matter what we do.’

  ‘We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that still means something.’

  Desra pulled her hand from Clip’s brow. ‘I was wrong. He’s getting worse.’ And she straightened and looked across to Aranatha. ‘How are they?’

  A languid blink. ‘Coming back, unharmed.’

  Something was wrong with Aranatha. Too calm, too . . . empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid – oh, she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded – but there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha. Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon her senseless.

  Making her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned. She studied Aranatha for a moment longer, their eyes meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with a scowl and turned to Nenanda. ‘Did you find anything to eat in the taproom? Or drink?’

  The warrior was standing by the front door, which he held open with one hand. At Desra’s questions he glanced back. ‘Plenty, as if they’d just left – or maybe it was a delivery, like the kind we got on the road.’

  ‘Someone must be growing proper food, then,’ said Kedeviss. ‘Or arranging its purchase from other towns and the like.’

  ‘They’ve gone to a lot of trouble for us,’ Nenanda observed. ‘And that makes me uneasy.’

  ‘Clip is dying, Aranatha,’ Desra said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They’re back,’ Nenanda announced.

  ‘Nimander will know what to do,’ Desra pronounced.

  ‘Yes,’ said Aranatha.

  She circled once, high above the city, and even her preternatural sight struggled against the eternal darkness below. Kurald Galain was a most alien warren, even in this diffused, weakened state. Passing directly over the slumbering mass of Silanah, Crone cackled out an ironic greeting. Of course there was no visible response from the crimson dragon, yet the Great Raven well knew that Silanah sensed her wheeling overhead. And no doubt permitted, in a flash of imagery, the vision of jaws snapping, bones and feathers crunching as delicious fluids spurted – Crone cackled again, louder this time, and was rewarded with a twitch of that long, serpentine tail.

  She slid on to an updraught from the cliff’s edge, then angled down through it on a steep dive towards the low-walled balcony of the keep.

  He stood alone, something she had come to expect of late. The Son of Darkness was closing in, like an onyx flower as the bells of midnight rang on, chime by chime to the twelfth and last, and then there would be naught but echoes, until even these faded, leaving silence. She crooked her wings to slow her plummet, the keep still rushing up to meet her. A flurry of beating wings and she settled atop the stone wall, talons crunching into the granite.

  ‘And does the view ever change?’ Crone asked.

  Anomander Rake looked down, regarded her for a time.

  She opened her beak to laugh in silence for a few heartbeats. ‘The Tiste Andii are not a people prone to sudden attacks of joy, are they? Dancing into darkness? The wild cheerful cavort into the future? Do you imagine that our flight from his rotting flesh was not one of rapturous glee? Pleasure at being born, delight at being alive? Oh, I have run out of questions for you – it is indeed now a sad time.’

  ‘Does Baruk understand, Crone?’

  ‘He does. More or less. Perhaps. We’ll see.’

  ‘Something is happening to the south.’

  She bobbed her head in agreement. ‘Something, oh yes, something all right. Are the priestesses in a wild orgy yet? The plunge that answers everything! Or, rather, postpones the need for answers for a time, a time of corresponding bliss, no doubt. But then . . . reality returns. Damn reality, damn it to the Abyss! Time for another plunge!’ ‘Travel has soured your mood, Crone.’

  ‘It is not in my nature to grieve. I despise it, in fact. I rail against it! My sphincter explodes upon it! And yet, what is it you force upon me, your old companion, your beloved servant?’

  ‘I have no such intention,’ he replied. ‘Clearly, you fear the worst. Tell me, what have your kin seen?’

  ‘Oh, they are scattered about, here and there, ever high above the petty machinations of the surface crawlers.
We watch as they crawl this way and that. We watch, we laugh, we sing their tales to our sisters, our brothers.’

  ‘And?’

  She ducked her head, fixed one eye upon the tumultuous black seas below. ‘This darkness of yours, Master, breeds fierce storms.’

  ‘So it does.’

  ‘I will fly high above the twisting clouds, into air clear and cold.’

  ‘And so you shall, Crone, so you shall.’

  ‘I dislike it when you are generous, Master. When that soft regard steals into your eyes. It is not for you to reveal compassion. Stand here, yes, unseen, unknowable, that I might hold this in my mind. Let me think of the ice of true justice, the kind that never shatters – listen, I hear the bells below! How sure that music, how true the cry of iron.’

  ‘You are most poetic this day, Crone.’

  ‘It is how Great Ravens rail at grief, Master. Now, what would you have me do?’

  ‘Endest Silann is at the deep river.’

  ‘Hardly alone, I should think.’

  ‘He must return.’

  She was silent for a moment, head cocked. Then she said, ‘Ten bells have sounded.’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘I shall be on my way, then.’

  ‘Fly true, Crone.’

  ‘I pray you tell your beloved the same, Master, when the time is nigh.’

  He smiled. ‘There is no need for that.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Who are you to judge whether she is old

  or young, and if she is lifting the bucket

  or lowering it down into this well?

  And is she pretty or plain as undyed linen,

  is she a sail riding the summer wind

  bright as a maiden’s eye above waves of blue?

  Does her walk sway in pleasure and promise

  of bracing dreams as if the earth could sing