Toll the Hounds

‘Yes?’

‘Answer me one question. I beg you.’

‘Ask.’

And he faced the god. ‘Are you worth it?’

‘Am I worth the sacrifice you must make? No, I do not think so.’

‘You will not beg to be saved?’ Itkovian smiled. ‘Will you?’

No. I never have. He rose to his feet, found that the tulwar remained in his hand. He hefted the weapon and eyed Salind. Can I defy her need! Can I truly stand against that! ‘If not for your humility, Redeemer, I would walk away. If not for your… uncertainty, your doubts, your humanity.’

And, awaiting no reply from the god, he set out into her path.

The sudden hush within the Scour Tavern finally penetrated Spinnock Durav’s drunken haze. Blinking, he tilted his head, and found himself looking up at his Lord.

Who said, ‘It is time, my friend.’

‘You now send me away?’ Spinnock asked.

‘Yes. I now send you away.’

Spinnock Dura? reeled upright. His face was numb. The world seemed a sickly place, and it wanted in. He drew a deep breath. ‘My request pains you-why?’

He could have told him then. He could have spoken of this extraordinary blessing of love. For a human woman. He could have told Anomander Rake of his failure, and in so doing he would have awakened the Son of Darkness to his sordid plight.

Had he done all of this, Anomander Rake would have reached a hand to rest light on his shoulder, and he would have said, Then you must stay, my friend. For love, you must stay-go to her, now. Now, Spinnock Durav. It is the last gift within our reach. The last-did you truly believe I would stand in the way of that! That I would decide that my need was greater?

Did you think I could do such a thing, when I come to you here and now be-cause of my own love? For you? For our people?

Go to her, Spinnock Durav. Go.

But Spinnock Durav said nothing. Instead, he bowed before his Lord. ‘I shall do as you ask.’

And Anomander Rake said, ‘It is all right to fail, friend. I do not demand the impossible of you. Do not weep at that moment. For me, Spinnock Durav, find a smile to announce the end. Fare well.’

The killing seemed without end. Skintick’s sword arm ached, the muscles lifeless and heavy, and still they kept coming on-faces twisted eager and desperate, ex-pressions folding round mortal wounds as if sharp iron was a blessing touch, an exquisite gift. He stood between Kedeviss and Nenanda, and the three had been driven back to the second set of doors. Bodies were piled in heaps, filling every space of the chamber’s floor, where blood and fluids formed thick pools. The walls on all sides were splashed high.

He could see daylight through the outer doors-the morning was dragging on. Yet from the passage at their backs there had been… nothing. Were they all dead in there? Bleeding out on the altar stone? Or had they found themselves somehow trapped, or lost with no answers-was Clip now dead, or had he been delivered into the Dying God’s hands?

The attackers were running out of space-too many corpses-and most now crawled or even slithered into weapon range.

‘Something’s wrong,’ gasped Kedeviss. ‘Skintick-go-we can hold them off now. Go-find out if…’

If we’re wasting our time. I understand. He pulled back, one shoulder cracking into the frame of the entranceway. Whirling, he set off along the corridor. When horror stalked the world, it seemed that every grisly truth was laid bare. Life’s struggle ever ended in failure. No victory was pure, or clean. Triumph was a com-forting lie and always revealed itself to be ephemeral, hollow and short- lived. This is what assailed the spirit when coming face to face with horror.

And so few understood that. So few…

He clawed through foul smoke, heard his own heartbeat slowing, dragging even as his breaths faded. What-what is happening! Blindness. Silence, an end to all motion. Skintick sought to push forward, only to find that desire was empty when without will, and when there was no strength, will itself was a conceit. Glyphs flowed down like black rain, on his face, his neck and his hands, stream-ing hot as blood.

Somehow, he fought onward, his entire body dragging behind him as if half dead, an impediment, a thing worth forgetting. He wanted to pull free of it, even as he understood that his flesh was all that kept him alive yet he yearned for dis-solution, and that yearning was growing desperate.

Wait, This is not how I see the world. This is not the game I choose to play-1 will not believe in this abject… surrender.

It is what kelyk offers. The blood of the Dying God delivers escape-from everything that matters. The invitation is so alluring, the promise so entrancing.

Dance! All around you the world rots. Dance! Poison into your mouths and poison out from your mouths. Dance, damn you, in the dust of your dreams. I have looked into your eyes and I have seen that you are nothing. Empty.

Gods, such seductive invitation!

The recognition sobered him, abrupt as a punch in the face. He found himself lying on the tiles of the corridor, the inner doors almost within reach. In the chamber beyond darkness swirled like thick smoke, like a storm trapped beneath the domed ceiling. He heard singing, soft, the voice of a child.

He could not see Nimander, or Desra or Aranatha. The body of Clip was sprawled not five paces in, face upturned, eyes opened, fixed and seemingly sight-less.

Trembling with weakness, Skintick pulled himself forward.

The moment he had bulled his way into the altar chamber, Nimander had felt something tear, as if he had plunged through gauze-thin cloth. From the seething storm he had plunged into, he emerged to sudden calm, to soft light and gentle currents of warm air. His first step landed on something lumpy that twisted be-neath his weight. Looking down, he saw a small doll of woven grasses and twigs. And, scattered on the floor all round, there were more such figures. Some of strips of cloth, others of twine, polished wood and fired clay. Most were broken-missing limbs, or headless. Others hung down from the plain, low ceiling, twisted beneath nooses of leather string, knotted heads tilted over, dark liquid dripping.

The wordless singing was louder here, seeming to emanate from all directions. Nimander could see no walls- just floor and ceiling, both stretching off into formless white.

And dolls, thousands of dolls. On the floor, dangling from the ceiling.

‘Show yourself,’ said Nimander.

The singing stopped.

‘Show yourself to me.’

‘If you squeeze them,’ said the voice-a woman’s or a young boy’s-‘they leak. I squeezed them all. Until they broke.’ There was a pause, and then a soft sigh. ‘None worked.’

Nimander did not know where to look-the mangled apparitions hanging be-fore him filled him with horror now, as he saw their similarity to the scarecrows of the fields outside Bastion. They are the same. They weren’t planted rows, nothing made to deliver a yield. They were… versions.

‘Yes. Failing one by one-it’s not fair. How did he do it?’

‘What are you?’ Nimander asked.

The voice grew sly, ‘On the floor of the Abyss-yes, there is a floor-there are the fallen. Gods and goddesses, spirits and prophets, disciples and seers, heroes and queens and kings-the junk of existence. You can play there, I did. Do you want to? Do you want to play there, too?’

‘No.’

‘All broken, more broken than me.’

‘They call you the Dying God.’

‘All gods are dying.’

‘But you are no god, are you?’

‘Down on the floor, you never go hungry. Am I a god now? I must be. Don’t you see? I ate so many of them. So many parts, pieces. Oh, their power, I mean. My body didn’t need food. Doesn’t need it, I mean, yes, that is fair to