Toll the Hounds

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-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 themselvea 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-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-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 Holes 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-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 are 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