Toll the Hounds

CHAPTER TWENTY

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 lake bed, 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 cruellest 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 whom 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 punctu shy;ated 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 saemenkelyk. 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 de shy;scribed. 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 any shy;thing 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 cannot — 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.’

‘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 jour shy;neys. 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.

And then Anomander Rake himself would arrive, striding through the wreckage with black sword in his hands, to take the life of a god — whatever life happened to be left.

Shivering in the damp, he rose, pulling his tattered raincape about himself. Gradithan was probably looking for him, wanting to know what Monkrat’s countless sets of eyes in the city might have seen — not that there was much to re shy;port. The Tiste Andii weren’t up to much, but then they never were, until such time as necessity stirred them awake. Besides, he’d woken up with a headache, a dull throb just behind the eyes — it was the weather, pressure building in his sinuses. And even the rats in the camp were proving elusive, strangely nervous, skittish when he sought to snare them to his will.

He wasn’t interested in seeing Gradithan. The man had moved from opportunist to fanatic alarmingly fast, and while Monkrat had no problem understanding the former, he was baffled by the latter. And frightened.

The best way to avoid Gradithan was to wander down into Black Coral. The blessing of darkness was far too bitter for the worshippers of Saemenkelyk.

He worked his way into the ankle-deep river of mud that was the trail leading into Night.

From somewhere nearby a cat suddenly yowled and Monkrat started as he sensed a wave of panic sweep through every rat within hearing. Shaking himself, he continued on.

A moment later he realized someone was walking behind him — a pilgrim, per shy;haps, smart enough to elect to avoid the camp, someone now looking for an inn, all thoughts of salvation riding the tide out in waves, of revulsion.

‘No believer should arrive willing.’ So said that High Priestess, Salind, before Gradithan destroyed her. Monkrat recalled being confused by that statement back then. Now, he wasn’t. Now, he understood precisely what she’d meant. Worship born of need could not but be suspect, fashioned from self-serving motives as it was. ‘Someone wanting their bowl filled will take whatever is poured into it.’ No, revelation could not be sought, not through willing deprivation or meditation. It needed to arrive unexpected, even undesired. ‘Do not trust an easy believer.’ Aye, she’d been a strange High Priestess, all right.

He remembered one night, when-

A knife edge pressed cold against his throat.

‘Not a move,’ hissed a voice behind him, and it was a moment before Monkrat realized that the words had been spoken in Malazan.

‘Figured I wouldn’t recognize you, soldier?’

Cold sweat cut through the steamy heat beneath his woollen clothes. His breath came in gasps. ‘Hood’s breath, if you’re gonna kill me just get it done with!’

‘I’m sore tempted, I am.’

‘Fine, do it then — I’ve got a curse ready for you-’

The Malazan snorted, and dogs started barking. ‘That’d be a real mistake.’

Monkrat’s headache had redoubled. He felt something trickling down from his nostrils. The air was rank with a stench he struggled to identity. Bestial, like an animal’s soaked pelt. ‘Gods below,’ he groaned. ‘Spindle.’

‘Aye, my fame precedes me. Sorry I can’t recall your name, or your squad, even. But you were a Bridgeburner — that much I do remember. Vanished up north, listed as dead — but no, you deserted, ran out on your squadmates.’

‘What squadmates? They were all killed. My friends, all killed. I’d had enough, Spindle. We were getting chewed to pieces in that swamp. Aye, I walked. Would it have been better if I’d stayed, only to die here in Black Coral?’

‘Not everyone died here, soldier-’

‘That’s not what I heard. The Bridgeburners are done, finished.’

After a moment the knife fell away.

Monkrat spun round, stared at the short, bald man, wearing that infamous hairshirt — and Hood’s breath, it stank. ‘Which has me wondering — what are you doing here? Alive? Out of uniform?’

‘Dujek looked at us — a handful left — and just went and added our names to the list. He sent us on our way.’

‘And you-’

‘I decided on the pilgrimage. The Redeemer — I saw Itkovian myself, you see. And I saw Capustan. I was here when the barrow went up — there’s a sharper of mine in that heap, in fact.’

‘A sharper?’

Spindle scowled. ‘You had to have been there, soldier.’

‘Monkrat. That’s my name now.’

‘Wipe the blood from your nose, Monkrat.’

‘Listen, Spindle — hear me well — you want nothing to do with the Redeemer. Not now. You didn’t kill me, so I give you that — my warning. Run, run fast. As far away from here as you can.’ He paused. ‘Where’d you come from anyway?’

‘Darujhistan. It’s where we settled. Me and Antsy, Bluepearl, Picker, Blend, Captain Paran. Oh, and Duiker.’

‘Duiker?’

‘The Imperial Historian-’

‘I know who he is — was — whatever. It’s just, that don’t fit, him being there, I mean.’

‘Aye, he didn’t fit well at all. He was on the Chain of Dogs.’

Monkrat made a gesture. Fener’s blessing.

Spindle’s eyes widened. He sheathed his knife. ‘I’ve worked up a thirst, Monkrat.’

‘Not for kelyk, I hope.’

‘That shit they tried to force on me back there? Smelled like puke. No, I want beer. Ale. Wine.’

‘We can find that in Black Coral.’

‘And you can tell me what’s happened — to the Redeemer.’

Monkrat rubbed at the bristle on his chin, and then nodded. ‘Aye, I will.’ He paused. ‘Hey, you remember the red dragon? From Blackdog?’

‘Aye.’

‘She’s here — and when it gets bad enough with the Redeemer, well, she’ll spread her wings.’

‘No wonder I got so edgy when I arrived. Where’s she hiding, then?’

Monkrat grimaced. ‘In plain sight. Come on, see for yourself.’

The two ex-soldiers set out for Black Coral.

The clouds closed in, thick as curtains of sodden sand. In the camp, new dancers spun and whirled through the detritus, while a handful of terrified pilgrims fled back up the trail.

Rain arrived in a torrent, the water rushing down the flanks of the barrow, making it glisten and gleam until it seemed it was in motion. Shivering, moments from splitting wide open. From the clouds, thunder rattled like iron-shod spears, a strange, startling sound that drew denizens of Black Coral out into the streets, to stare upward in wonder.

The water in the black bowls surrounding the High Priestess trembled in answer to that reverberation. She frowned as a wave of trepidation rolled through her. The time was coming, she realized. She was not ready, but then, for some things, one could never be ready. The mind worked possibilities, countless variations, in a procession that did nothing but measure the time wasted in waiting. And leave one exhausted, even less prepared than would have been the case if, for example, she had spent that period in an orgy of hedonistic abandon.

Well, too late for regrets — she shook her head. Oh, it’s never too late for re shy;grets. That’s what regrets are all about, you silly woman. She rose from the cush shy;ion and spent a moment shaking out the creases in her robe. Should she track down Endest Silann?

Another heavy clatter of thunder.

Of course he felt it, too, that old priest, the deathly charge growing ever tauter — he didn’t need her to remind him, rushing in all hysterical foam to gush round the poor man’s ankles. The absurd image made her smile, but it was a wry smile, almost bitter. She had worked hard at affecting the cool repose so essential to the role of High Priestess, a repose easily mistaken for wisdom. But how could a woman in her position truly possess wisdom, when the very goddess she served had rejected her and all that she stood for? Not wisdom, but futility. Persistent, stubborn futility. If anything, what she represented was a failure of the intellect, and an even graver one of the spirit. Her worship was founded on denial, and in the absence of a true relationship with her goddess, she — like all those who had come before her — was free to invent every detail of that mock relationship.

The lie of wisdom is best hidden in monologue. Dialogue exposes it. Most people purporting to wisdom dare not engage in dialogue, lest they reveal the paucity of their assumptions and the frailty of their convictions. Better to say nothing, to nod and look thoughtful.

Was that notion worth a treatise? Yet another self-indulgent meander for the hall of scrolls? How many thoughts could one explore? Discuss, weigh, cast and count? All indulgences. The woman looking for the next meal for her child has no time for such things. The warrior shoulder to shoulder in a line facing an enemy can only curse the so-called wisdom that led him to that place. The flurry of kings and their avaricious terrors. The brutal solidity of slights and insults, grievances and disputes. Does it come down to who will eat and who will not? Or does it come down to who will control the option? The king’s privilege in deciding who eats and who starves, privilege that is the taste of power, its very essence, in fact?

Are gods and goddesses any different?

To that question, she knew Anomander Rake would but smile. He would speak of Mother Dark and the necessity of every decision she made — even down to the last one of turning away from her children. And he would not even blink when stating that his betrayal had forced upon her that final necessity.

She would walk away then, troubled, until some stretch of time later, when, in the solitude of her thoughts, she would realize that, in describing the necessities binding Mother Dark, he was also describing his very own necessities — all that had bound him to his own choices.

His betrayal of Mother Dark, she would comprehend — with deathly chill — had been necessary.

In Rake’s mind, at any rate. And everything had simply followed on from there, inevitably, inexorably.

She could hear the rain lashing down on the temple’s domed roof, harsh as ar shy;rows on upraised shields. The sky was locked in convulsions, a convergence of in shy;imical elements. A narrow door to her left opened and one of her priestesses hurried in, then abruptly halted to bow. ‘High Priestess.’

‘Such haste,’ she murmured in reply, ‘so unusual for the temple historian.’

The woman glanced up, and her eyes were impressively steady. ‘A question, if I may.’

‘Of course.’

‘High Priestess, are we now at war?’

‘My sweetness — old friend — you have no idea.’

The eyes widened slightly, and then she bowed a second time. ‘Will you sum shy;mon Feral, High Priestess?’

‘That dour creature? No, let the assassin stay in her tower. Leave her to lurk or whatever it is she does to occupy her time.’

‘Spinnock Durav-’

‘Is not here, I know that. I know that.’ The High Priestess hesitated, and then said, ‘We are now at war, as you have surmised. On countless fronts, only one of which — the one here — concerns us, at least for the moment. I do not think weapons need be drawn, however.’

‘High Priestess, shall we prevail?’

‘How should I know?’ Those words snapped out, to her instant regret as she saw her old friend’s gaze harden. ‘The risk,’ she said, in a quieter tone, ‘is the gravest we have faced since. . well, since Kharkanas.’

That shocked the temple historian — when nothing else had, thus far. But she recovered and, drawing a deep breath, said, ‘Then I must invoke my role, High Priestess. Tell me what must be told. All of it.’

‘For posterity?’

‘Is that not my responsibility?’

‘And if there will be no posterity? None to consider it, naught but ashes in the present and oblivion in place of a future? Will you sit scribbling until your last moment of existence?’

She was truly shaken now. ‘What else would you have me do?’

‘I don’t know. Go find a man. Make fearful love.’

‘I must know what has befallen us. I must know why our Lord sent away our greatest warrior, and then himself left us.’

‘Countless fronts, this war. As I have said. I can tell you intent — as I understand it, and let me be plain, I may well not understand it at all — but not result, for each outcome is unknown. And each must succeed.’

‘No room for failure?’

‘None.’

‘And if one should fail?’

‘Then all shall fail.’

‘And if that happens. . ashes, oblivion — that will be our fate.’

The High Priestess turned away. ‘Not just ours, alas.’

Behind her, the historian gasped.

On all sides, water trembled in bowls, and the time for the luxurious consider shy;ation of possibilities was fast fading. Probably just as well.

‘Tell me of redemption.’

‘There is little that I can say, Segda Travos.’

Seerdomin snorted. ‘The god known as the Redeemer can say nothing of re shy;demption.’ He gestured to that distant quiescent figure kneeling in the basin. ‘She gathers power — I can smell it. Like the rot of ten thousand souls. What manner of god does she now serve? Is this the Fallen One? The Crippled God?’

‘No, although certain themes are intertwined. For followers of the Crippled God, the flaw is the virtue. Salvation arrives with death, and it is purchased through mortal suffering. There is no perfection of the spirit to strive towards, no true blessing to be gained as a reward for faith.’

‘And this one?’

‘As murky as the kelyk itself. The blessing is surrender, the casting away of all thought. The self vanishes within the dance. The dream is shared by all who par shy;take of pain’s nectar, but it is a dream of oblivion. In a sense, the faith is anti-life. Not in the manner of death, however. If one views life as a struggle doomed to fail, then it is the failing that becomes the essence of worship. He is the Dying God, after all.’

‘They celebrate the act of dying?’

‘In a manner, yes, assuming you can call it celebration. More like enslavement. Worship as self-destruction, perhaps, in which all choice is lost.’

‘And how can such a thing salve the mortal soul, Redeemer?’

‘That I cannot answer. But it may be that we shall soon find out.’

‘You do not believe I can protect you — at least in that we’re in agreement. So, when I fall — when I fail — the Dying God shall embrace me as it will you.’ He shook his head. ‘I am not unduly worried about me. I fear more the notion of what eternal dying can do to redemption — that seems a most unholy union.’

The Redeemer simply nodded and it occurred to Seerdomin that the god had probably been thinking of little else. A future that seemed sealed into fate, an end to what was, and nothing glorious in what would follow.

He rubbed at his face, vaguely dismayed at the weariness he felt. Here, discon shy;nected from his body, from any real flesh and bone, it was his spirit that was ex shy;hausted, battered down. And yet. . and yet, I will stand. And do all I can. To defend a god I have chosen not to worship, against a woman who dreamt once of his embrace, and dreams of the same now — with far deadlier intent. He squinted down at her, a form almost shapeless in the gathering gloom beneath gravid, leaden clouds.

After a moment raindrops splashed against his helm, stained his forearms and his hands. He lifted one hand, and saw that the rain was black, thick, wending like slime.

The sky was raining kelyk.

She raised her head, and the distance between them seemed to vanish. Her eyes shone with fire, a slow, terrible pulse.

Gods below. .

Like the worn ridge of a toothless jaw, the Gadrobi Hills rose into view, spanning the north horizon. Kallor halted to study them. An end to this damned plain, to this pointless sweep of grasses. And there, to the northwest, where the hills sank back down, there was a city.

He could not yet see it. Soon.

The temple would be nondescript, the throne within it a paltry thing, poorly made, an icon of insipid flaws. A broken fool once named Munug would writhe before it, in obeisance, the High Priest of Pathos, the Prophet of Failure — enough thematic unity, in fact, to give any king pause. Kallor allowed himself a faint smirk. Yes, he was worthy of such worship, and if in the end he wrested it body and soul from the Crippled God, so be it.

The temple his domain, the score of bent and maimed priests and priestesses his court, the milling mob outside, sharing nothing but chronic ill luck, his subjects. This, he decided, had the makings of an immortal empire.

Patience — it would not do, he realized, to seek to steal the Fallen One’s wor shy;shippers. There was no real need. The gods were already assembling to crush the Crippled fool once and for all. Kallor did not think they would fail this time.’ Though no doubt the Fallen One had a few more tricks up his rotted sleeve, not least the inherent power of the cult itself, feeding as it did on misery and suffering — two conditions of humanity that would persist for as long as humans existed.

Kallor grunted. ‘Ah, fuck patience. The High King will take this throne. Then we can begin the. . negotiations.’

He was no diplomat and had no interest in acquiring a diplomat’s skills, not even when facing a god. There would be conditions, some of them unpalatable, enough to make the hoary bastard choke on his smoke. Well, too bad.

One more throne. The last he’d ever need.

He resumed walking. Boots worn through. Dust wind-driven into every crease of his face, the pores of his nose and brow, his eyes thinned to slits. The world clawed at him, but he pushed through. Always did. Always would.

One more throne. Darujhistan.

Long ago, in some long-lost epoch, people had gathered on this blasted ridge over shy;looking the flattened valley floor, and had raised the enormous standing stones that now leaned in an uneven line spanning a thousand paces or more. A few had toppled here and there, but among the others Samar Dev sensed a belligerent vitality. As if the stones were determined to stand sentinel for ever, even as the bones of those who’d raised them now speckled the dust that periodically scoured their faces.

She paused to wipe sweat from her forehead, watching as Traveller reached the crest, and then moved off into the shade of the nearest stone, a massive phallic menhir looming tall, where he leaned against it with crossed arms. To await her, of course — she was clearly slowing them down, and this detail irritated her. What she lacked, she understood, was manic obsession, while her companions were driven and this lent them the vigour common to madmen. Which, she had long since decided, was precisely what they were.

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 scor shy;pions, 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 To shy;blakai. A number of responses occurred to her, in a succession of escalating vi shy;ciousness. 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 sus shy;pected.

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 in 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, naive 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 hap shy;pened? 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 pat shy;tern’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 under shy;stand 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, watch shy;ing 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 glim shy;mer 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, that was the most pettytracted nefoaminous argument I ever seen! ’Twas still in full swing when we hightailed 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 sheathed 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.’

Cartographer tottered back to them. ‘If it pleases,’ he said, attempting a smile that Precious decided was too ghoulish to describe without descending into insanity, ‘I have outlined a solution.’

‘Sorry I missed it,’ said Quell.

‘He meant that literally,’ said Precious, pointing up the road.

Quell in the lead, they walked up to observe the faint scouring on the pale dust of the track.

‘What in Hood’s name is that?’

‘A map, of course.’,

‘ What kind of map?’

‘Our journey to come.’

Reccanto Ilk squatted to study the effort, and then shook his head. ‘I can’t even make out the island we’re on. This is a stupid map, Cartogoplier.’ He straightened and nodded to the others. ‘That’s what you get tryin’ to work with a dead man. I swear, common sense is the first to go when you turn into the walking dead — why is that?’

The Bole brothers looked thoughtful, as if working on possible answers. Then, noticing each other’s frown, both broke into smiles. Amby snorted then had to wipe goo from his upper lip with the back of one hand.

‘I must be mad,’ Precious whispered.

Quell asked, ‘This is some kind of gate you’ve drawn here, Cartographer?’

‘Absent of investiture, but yes. I have no power to give it. But then, you do.’

‘Maybe,’ Quell mused, ‘but I don’t recognize anything you’ve drawn, and that makes me nervous.’

Cartographer walked along one side and pointed a withered finger down at the far end of the map. ‘Do you see this straight, wide groove? All the rest funnels into this path, the path we need to take. The best maps show you the right direction. The best maps are the ones that lead you to a specific destination.’

Reccanto Ilk scratched at his head, looking bewildered. ‘But that’s what maps are for — what’s he glommering on about?’

‘Not all maps,’ corrected Cartographer, with a shake of his head — and nothing, Precious concluded, could ever be as solemn as a dead man’s shake of the head. ‘Objective rendition is but one form in the art of cartography, and not even the most useful one.’

‘If you say so,’ said Master Quell. ‘I’m still uneasy.’

‘You have few other options, Wizard. The carriage is damaged. The marital ar shy;gument is even now extending beyond the town’s limits and will soon engulf this entire island in a conflagration of disputing versions of who-said-what.’

‘He’s smarter than he was before,’ observed Faint.

‘That’s true,’ said Reccanto.

‘I gather more of myself, yes,’ said Cartographer, giving them all another ghastly smile.

Flinches all around.

‘How come,’ asked Quell, ‘you never showed this talent before?’

The corpse straightened. ‘I have displayed numerous talents on this journey, each one appropriate to the situation at the time. Have you forgotten the coconuts?’

Faint rolled her eyes and said, ‘How could we forget the coconuts?’

‘Besides,’ resumed Cartographer, ‘as an uninvited guest, I feel a pressing need to contribute to the enterprise.’ One ragged hand gestured at the scribbles on the track. ‘Invest power into this, Master Quell, and we can be on our way.’

‘To somewhere we can stop for a time?’

Cartographer shrugged. ‘I am not able to predict the situations awaiting us, only that in general they are not particularly threatening.’

Quell looked as if he needed to piss again. Instead, he turned back to the car shy;riage. ‘Everyone on board. Precious, you’re with me again. Same for you, Mappo.’ He paused. ‘The rest of you, get ready.’

‘For what?’ Gruntle asked.

‘For anything, of course.’

Reccanto, still strutting after his extraordinary on-the-knees skewering lunge, slapped one hand on the huge warrior’s back. ‘Don’t fret, friend, you’ll get used to all this eventually. Unless,’ he added, ‘it kills you first.’

Cartographer held up some ropes. ‘Who will kindly tie me to a wheel?’

Night sweeps across the Dwelling Plain. Along the vast vault of the sky the stars are faint, smudged, as if reluctant to sharpen to knife points amidst the strangely heavy darkness. The coyotes mute their cries for this night. Wolves flee half blind in formless terror, and some will run until their hearts burst.

South of the western tail of the Gadrobi Hills, a lone chain-clad figure pauses in his journey, seeing at last the faint bluish glow that is the ever-beating heart of the great, legendary city.

Darujhistan.

Three leagues west of him, three more strangers gaze upon that selfsame glow, and in the eyes of one of them — unseen by the others — there is such dread, such an shy;guish, as would crush the soul of a lesser man. His gauntleted hand steals again and again to the leather-wrapped grip of his sword.

He tells himself that vengeance answered is peace won, but even he does not quite believe that. Beyond the city awaiting him, the future is a vast absence, a void he now believes he will never see, much less stride into.

Yet, for all the tumultuous, seething forces of will within these arrayed strangers, none among them is the cause for the night’s thick, palpable silence.

Less than a league north of the three strangers, seven Hounds are arrayed along a ridge, baleful eyes fixed upon the glow of the city.

The beasts possess the capacity to detect a rabbit’s rapid heartbeat half a league away, so they hear well the tolling of the twelfth bell, announcing the ar shy;rival of midnight in the city of Darujhistan.

And as one, the seven Hounds lift their massive heads, and give voice to a howl.

The stars are struck into blazing sparks overhead. The High King halts in mid-stride, and the ancient, stubborn blood in his veins and arteries suddenly floods cold as ice. For the first time in this journey, Kallor knows a moment of fear.

Havok’s long head snaps up and the beast skitters to one side. Astride the animal, Samar Dev makes a desperate grab for Karsa, lest she be thrown to the ground, and she can feel the sudden tautness of every muscle in the huge warrior.

Ahead of them, Traveller pauses, his shoulders hunching as if those all too close howls even now lash at his back. Then he shakes himself, and marches on.

Atop a cornice of a gate facing the south plain, a squat toad-like demon lifts its head, pointed ears suddenly alert.

Then, as the howls slowly fade, the demon settles once more.

Although now, at last, it can feel, rising up from the very earth, rising up to shiver along its bones, the rumble of heavy paws on distant ground.

Drawing closer, ever closer.

In the city behind Chillbais, the twelfth bell clangs its sonorous note. Another season’s grand fete is almost gone. One more day in the name of Gedderone. One more night to close the riot of senseless celebration.

Dance, and dance on.

Because, as everyone knows, all that you see about you will last, well. . forever!