Toll the Hounds

‘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-grets. That’s what regrets are all about, you silly woman. She rose from the cush-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 cats 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-rows on upraised shields. The sky was locked in convulsions, a convergence of in-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, ii 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-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-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-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-take of pain’s nectar, but it is a dream of oblivion. In a sense, the faith is antilife. Not in the manner of death, however. If one views life as a struggle doomed to fail, then it is the