Toll the Hounds

by Steven Erikson

  ‘They’d see how good you are. They’d see right through to your heart, and see it pure and golden, because all you ever wanted to do was to help out, because you were a burden to them and you didn’t want that, and maybe if you helped enough they’d love you, and want you to be with them, to live with them. And when it didn’t work, well, it just means you have to work harder. Do more, do everything.

  ‘Oh, Bainisk, the city . . . there are mothers . . .’

  He stopped then, for Bainisk had stopped breathing. He was perfectly still, his whole broken-up body folded over the sharp rocks, his head so heavy in Harllo’s lap.

  Leave them there, now.

  The city, ah, the city. As dusk closes in, the blue fires awaken. Figures stand in a cemetery surrounded by squat Daru crypts, and they are silent as they watch the workers sealing the door once more. Starlings flit overhead.

  Down at the harbour a woman steps lithely on to the dock and breathes deep the squalid air, and then sets out to find her sister.

  Scorch and Leff stand nervously at the gate of an estate. They’re not talking much these nights. Within the compound, Torvald Nom paces. He is not sure if he should go home. The night has begun strange, heavy, and his nerves are a mess. Madrun and Lazan Door are throwing knuckles against a wall, while Studious Lock stands on a balcony, watching.

  Challice Vidikas sits in her bedroom, holding a glass globe and staring at the trapped moon within its crystal clear sphere.

  In a room above a bar Blend sits beside the motionless form of her lover, and weeps.

  Below, Duiker slowly looks up as Fisher, cradling a lute, begins a song.

  In the Phoenix Inn, an old, worn-out woman, head pounding, shambles to her small cubicle and sinks down on to the bed. There were loves in the world that never found voice. There were secrets never unveiled, and what would have been the point of that? She was no languid beauty. She was no genius wit. Courage failed her again and again, but not this time, as she drew sharp blades lengthways up her wrists, at precise angles, and watched as life flowed away. In Irilta’s mind, this last gesture was but a formality.

  Passing through Two-Ox Gate, Bellam Nom sets out on the road. From a hovel among the lepers he hears someone softly sobbing. The wind has died, the smell of rotting flesh hangs thick and motionless. He hurries on, as the young are wont to do.

  Much farther down the road, Cutter rides on a horse stolen from Coll’s stable. His chest is filled with ashes, his heart a cold stone buried deep.

  He drew a breath, sometime earlier that day, filled with love.

  And then released it, black with grief.

  Both seem to be gone now, vanished within him, perhaps never to return. And yet, hovering there before his mind’s eye, he sees a woman.

  Ghostly, wrapped in black, dark eyes fixed upon his own.

  Not this path, my love.

  He shakes his head at her words. Shakes his head.

  Not my path, my love. But he rides on.

  I will give you my breath, my love. To hold.

  Hold it for me, as I hold yours. Turn back.

  Cutter shakes his head again. ‘You left me.’

  No, I gave you a choice, and the choice remains. My love, I gave you a place to come to, when you are ready. Find me. Come find me.

  ‘This first.’

  Take my breath. But not this one, not this one.

  ‘Too late, Apsalar. It was always too late.’

  The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief. But there are other anguishes, many others. They unfold as they will, and to dwell within them is to understand nothing.

  Except, perhaps, this. In love, grief is a promise. As sure as Hood’s nod. There will be many gardens, but this last one to visit is so very still. Not meant for lovers. Not meant for dreamers. Meant only for a single figure, there in the dark, standing alone.

  Taking a single breath.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  In hollow grove and steeple chamber

  The vine retreats and moss rolls inside

  The void from whence it came

  In shallow grave and cloven crypt

  The bones shiver and shades flee

  Into the spaces between breaths

  In tilted tower and webslung doorway

  Echoes still and whispers will die

  Men in masks rap knuckles ‘gainst walls

  In dark cabinets and beneath bed slats

  Puppets clack limbs and painted eyes widen

  To the song pouring down from hills

  And the soul starts in its cavern drum

  Battered and blunted to infernal fright

  This is the music of the beast

  The clamour of the world at bay

  Begun its mad savage charge

  The hunt commences my friends

  The Hounds are among us.

  Prelude

  Toll the Hounds

  Fisher

  Faces of stone, and not one would turn Nimander’s way. His grief was too cold for them, too strange. He had not shown enough shock, horror, dismay. He had taken the news of her death as would a commander hearing of the loss of a soldier, and only Aranatha – in the single, brief moment when she acknowledged anyone or anything – had but nodded in his direction, as if in grim approval.

  Skintick’s features were tight with betrayal, once the stunned disbelief wore off, and the closeness he had always felt with Nimander now seemed to have suddenly widened into a chasm no bridge could span. Nenanda had gone so far as to half draw his sword, yet was torn as to who most deserved his blade’s bite: Clip or Nimander. Clip for his shrug, after showing them the crumbled edge of the cliff where she must have lost her footing. Or Nimander, who stood dry-eyed and said nothing. Desra, calculating, selfish Desra, was the first to weep.

  Skintick expressed the desire to climb down into the crevasse, but this was a sentimental gesture he had drawn from his time among humans – the need to observe the dead, perhaps even to bury Kedeviss’s body beneath boulders – and his suggestion was met with silence. The Tiste Andii held no regard for corpses. There would be no return to Mother Dark, after all. The soul was flung away, to wander for ever lost.

  They set out shortly thereafter, Clip in the lead, continuing on through the rough pass. Clouds swept down the flanks of the peaks, as if the mountains were shedding their mantles of white, and before long the air grew cold and damp, thin in their lungs, and all at once the clouds swallowed the world.

  Stumbling on the slick, icy stone, Nimander trudged on in Clip’s wake – although the warrior was no longer even visible, there was only one possible path. He could feel judgement hardening upon his back, an ever thickening succession of layers, from Desra, from Nenanda, and most painfully from Skintick, and it seemed the burdens would never relent. He longed for Aranatha to speak up, to whisper the truth to them all, but she was silent as a ghost.

  They were now all in grave danger. They needed to be warned, but Nimander could guess the consequences of such a revelation. Blood would spill, and he could not be certain that it would be Clip’s. Not now, not when Clip could unleash the wrath of a god – or whatever it was that possessed the warrior.

  Kedeviss had brought to him her suspicions down in the village beside the lakebed, giving firm shape to what he had already begun to believe. Clip had awakened but at a distance, as if behind a veil. Oh, he had always shown his contempt for Nimander and the others, but this was different. Something fundamental had changed. The new contempt now hinted of hunger, avarice, as if Clip saw them as nothing more than raw meat, awaiting the flames of his need.

  Yet Nimander understood that Clip would only turn upon them if cornered, if confronted. As Kedeviss had done – even when Nimander had warned her against such a scene. No, Clip still needed them. His way in. As for what would happen then, not even the gods knew. Lord Anomander Rake did not suffer upstarts. He was never slowed by indecisiveness, and in delivering mercy even the cruelle
st miser could not match his constraint. And as for Clip’s claim to be some sort of emissary from Mother Dark, well, that had become almost irrelevant, unless the god within the warrior was seeking to usurp Mother Dark herself.

  This notion disturbed Nimander. The goddess was, after all, turned away. Her leaving had left a void. Could something as alien as the Dying God assume the Unseen Crown? Who would even kneel before such an entity?

  It was hard to imagine Anomander Rake doing so, or any of the other Tiste Andii that Nimander and his kin had known. Obedience had never been deemed a pure virtue among the Tiste Andii. To follow must be an act born of deliberation, of clear-eyed, cogent recognition that the one to be followed has earned the privilege. So often, after all, formal structures of hierarchy stood in place of such personal traits and judgements. A title or rank did not automatically confer upon the one wearing it any true virtue, or even worthiness to the claim.

  Nimander had seen for himself the flaws inherent in that hierarchy. Among the Malazans, the renegade army known as the Bonehunters, there had been officers Nimander would not follow under any circumstances. Men and women of incompetence – oh, he’d seen how such fools were usually weeded out, through the informal justice system practised by the common soldier, a process often punctuated by a knife in the back, which struck Nimander as a most dangerous habit. But these were human ways, not those of the Tiste Andii.

  If Clip and the Dying God that possessed him truly believed they could usurp Mother Dark, and indeed her chosen son, Anomander Rake, as ruler of the Tiste Andii, then that conceit was doomed. And yet, he could not but recall the poisonous lure of saemankelyk. There could be other paths to willing obedience.

  And that is why I can say nothing. Why Aranatha is right. We must lull Clip into disregarding us, so that he continues believing we are fools. Because there is the chance, when the moment arrives, that I alone will be standing close enough. To strike. To catch him – them – unawares.

  It may be that Anomander Rake and the others in Black Coral will have nothing to fear from Clip, from the Dying God. It may be that they will swat them down with ease.

  But we cannot be sure of that.

  In truth, I am afraid . . .

  ‘I can see water.’

  Startled, Nimander glanced back at Skintick, but his cousin would not meet his eyes.

  ‘Where the valley dips down, eastward – I think that is the Cut that Clip described. And along the north shore of it, we will find Black Coral.’

  Clip had halted on an outcropping and was staring down into the misty valley. They had left most of the cloud in their wake, descending beneath its ceiling. Most of the range was now on their left, westward, the nearest cliff-face grey and black and broken only by a dozen or so mountain sheep wending their way along a seam.

  Skintick called out to the warrior, ‘That looks to be a long swim across, Clip.’

  The man turned, rings spinning on their chain. ‘We will find a way,’ he said. ‘Now, we should continue on, before it gets too dark.’

  ‘What is your hurry?’ Skintick asked. ‘The entire trail down is bound to be treacherous, especially in this half-light. What would be the point in taking a tumble and . . .’ Skintick went no further.

  And breaking a neck.

  In the uncomfortable silence that followed, only the clack of the rings carried on, like a man chewing stones.

  After a moment, Clip stepped back from the ledge and set out down the path once more.

  Nimander made to follow but Skintick grasped his arm, forcing him round.

  ‘Enough,’ Skintick growled, and Nenanda moved up beside him, Desra joining them. ‘We want to know what’s going on, Nimander.’

  Nenanda spoke. ‘She didn’t just fall – do you think we’re fools, Nimander?’

  ‘Not fools,’ he replied, and then hesitated, ‘but you must play at being fools . . . for a little longer.’

  ‘He killed her, didn’t he?’

  At Skintick’s question Nimander forced himself to lock gazes with his cousin, but he said nothing.

  Nenanda gave a sudden hiss and whirled to glare at Aranatha, who stood nearby. ‘You must have sensed something!’

  Her brows arched. ‘Why do you say that?’

  He seemed moments from closing on her with a hand upraised, but she too did not flinch, and after a moment a look of sheer helplessness crumpled Nenanda’s face and he turned from them all.

  ‘He’s not what he was,’ said Desra. ‘I’ve felt it – he’s . . . uninterested.’

  Of course she was speaking of Clip. Indeed they were not fools, none of them. Still Nimander said nothing. Still he waited.

  Skintick could no longer hold Nimander’s gaze. He glanced briefly at Desra and then stepped back. ‘Fools, you said. We must play at being fools.’

  Nenanda faced them once more. ‘What does he want with us? What did he ever want? Dragging us along as if we were but his pets.’ His eyes fixed on Desra. ‘Flinging you on your back every now and then to keep the boredom away – and now you’re saying what? Only that he’s become bored by the distraction. Well.’

  She gave no sign that his words wounded her. ‘Ever since he awakened,’ she said. ‘I don’t think boredom is a problem for him, not any more. And that doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Because,’ added Skintick, ‘he’s still contemptuous of us. Yes, I see your point, Desra.’

  ‘Then what does he want with us?’ Nenanda demanded again. ‘Why does he still need us at all?’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t,’ said Skintick.

  Silence.

  Nimander finally spoke. ‘She made a mistake.’

  ‘Confronted him.’

  ‘Yes.’ He stepped away from Skintick, setting his gaze upon the descent awaiting them. ‘My authority holds no weight,’ he said. ‘I told her to stay away – to leave it alone.’

  ‘Leave it to Anomander Rake, you mean.’

  He faced Skintick again. ‘No. That is too much of an unknown. We – we don’t know the situation in Black Coral. If they’re . . . vulnerable. We don’t know anything of that. It’d be dangerous to assume someone else can fix all this.’

  They were all watching him now.

  ‘Nothing has changed,’ he said. ‘If he gets even so much as a hint – it must be us to act first. We choose the ground, the right moment. Nothing has changed – do you all understand me?’

  Nods. And odd, disquieting expressions on every face but Aranatha’s – he could not read them. ‘Am I not clear enough?’

  Skintick blinked, as if surprised. ‘You are perfectly clear, Nimander. We should get moving, don’t you think?’

  What – what has just happened here? But he had no answers. Uneasy, he moved out on to the trail.

  The rest fell in behind him.

  Nenanda drew Skintick back, slowing their progress, and hissed, ‘How, Skin? How did he do that? We were there, about to – I don’t know – and then, all of a sudden, he just, he just—’

  ‘Took us into his hands once more, yes.’

  ‘How?’

  Skintick simply shook his head. He did not think he could find the right words – not for Nenanda, not for the others. He leads. In the ways of leading, the ways the rest of us do not – and can never – understand.

  I looked into his eyes, and I saw such resolve that I could not speak.

  Absence of doubt? No, nothing so egotistic as that. Nimander has plenty of doubts, so many that he’s lost his fear of them. He accepts them as easily as anything else. Is that the secret? Is that the very definition of greatness?

  He leads. We follow – he took us into his hands, again, and each one of us stood, silent, finding in ourselves what he had just given us – that resolve, the will to go on – and it left us humbled.

  Oh, do I make too much of this? Are we all no more than children, and these the silly, meaningless games of children?

  ‘He killed Kedeviss,’ muttered Nenanda.

  ‘Yes.’

&nbs
p; ‘And Nimander will give answer to that.’

  Yes.

  Monkrat squatted in the mud and watched the line of new pilgrims edge closer to the camp. Most of their attention, at least to begin with, had been on the barrow itself – on that emperor’s ransom of wasted wealth – but now, as they approached the decrepit ruin, he could see how they hesitated, as something of the wrongness whispered through. Most were rain-soaked, senses dulled by long, miserable journeys. It would take a lot to stir their unease.

  He watched the sharpening of their attention, as details resolved from the gloom, the mists and the woodsmoke. The corpse of the child in the ditch, the rotting swaths of clothes, the broken cradle with four crows crowding the rail, looming over the motionless, swaddled bundle. The weeds now growing up on the path leading to and from the barrow. Things were not as they should be.

  Some might beat a quick retreat. Those with a healthy fear of corruption. But so many pilgrims came with the desperate hunger that was spiritual need – it was what made them pilgrims in the first place. They were lost and they wanted to be found. How many would resist that first cup of kelyk, the drink that welcomed, the nectar that stole . . . everything?

  Perhaps more than among those who had come before – as they saw the growing signs of degradation, of abandonment of all those qualities of humanity the Redeemer himself honoured. Monkrat watched them hesitate, even as the least broken of the kelykan shuffled into their midst, each offering up a jug of the foul poison.

  ‘The Redeemer has drunk deep!’ they murmured again and again.

  Well, not yet. But that time was coming, of that Monkrat had little doubt. At which point . . . he shifted about slightly and lifted his gaze to the tall, narrow tower rising into the dark mists above the city. No, he couldn’t make her out from here, not with this sullen weather sinking down, but he could feel her eyes – eternally open. Oh, he knew that damned dragon of old, could well recall his terror as the creature sailed above the treetops in Blackdog and Mott Wood, the devastation of her attacks. If the Redeemer fell, she would assail the camp, the barrow, everything and everyone. There would be fire, a fire that needed no fuel, yet devoured all.