Toll the Hounds

Bluerose. But this building seemed rawer, cruder, as if the stone inadvertently mimicked rough-hewn wood. Memories honoured? Or elegance forgotten? No matter.

An instant’s thought shattered the temple doors, and he felt the one within recoil in pain.

He ascended the steps, walked through the smoke and dust.

Rings spinning, kelyk streaming.

The domed roof was latticed with cracks, and the rain poured down in thick black threads. He saw a woman standing at the back, her face a mask of horror. And he saw an old man down on his knees in the centre of the mosaic floor, his head bowed.

Clip halted, frowned. This was his opponent? This useless, broken, feeble thing?

Where was Anomander Rake?

He… he is not here. He is not even here! I am his Mortal Sword! And he is not even here!

He screamed in fury. And power lashed out, rushing in a wall that tore tesserae from the broad floor as it ripped its way out from him, that shattered the pillars ringing the chamber so that they toppled back like felled trees. That engulfed the puny old man-

Endest Silann groaned under the assault. Like talons, the Dying God’s power sank deep into him, shredding his insides. This was too vast to resist. He yielded ground, pace hastening, moments from a rout, a terrified, fatal flight-

But there was nowhere to go. If he fell now, every Tiste Andii in Black Coral would be lost. Saemenkelyk would claim them all, and the city itself would suc-cumb to that dread stain. Kurald Galain would be corrupted, made to feed an alien god’s mad hunger for power.

And so, amidst a broken chorus of snapping bones and splitting flesh, Endest Silann held on.

Desperate, searching for a source of strength-anything, anyone-but Anomander Rake was gone. He had raged with power like a pillar of fire. He had been indomitable, and in reaching out a hand to settle firm on a shoulder, he could make his confidence a gift. He could make the ones who loved him do the impossible.

But now, he was gone.

And Endest Silann was alone.

He felt his soul withering, dying under this blistering assault.

And, from some vast depth, the old man recalled… a river.

Defiant of all light, deep, so deep where ran the currents-currents that no force could contain. He could slip into those sure streams, yes, if he but reached down…

But the pain, it was so fierce. It demanded all of him. He could not claw free of it, even as it devoured him.

The river-if he could but reach it-

The god possessing Clip laughed. Everything was within his grasp. He could led his cherished High Priestess, so lovingly usurped from the Redeemer’s clutches, so thoroughly seduced into the mindless dance of oblivion, the worship of wasted lives she was defeating the Redeemer’s lone guardian-he was falling back step by step, a mass of wounds, a dozen of them clearly fatal, and though somehow he still stood, still fought, he could not last much longer.

The god wanted the Redeemer. A more worthy vessel than the one named Clip, which was so venal in its thoughts, so miserable in its hurts. No better than a child burned by neglect, and now all it dreamed of was lashing out.

It believed it had come to confront its father, but there was no father here. There never had been. It had believed it was chosen to deliver justice, but the one named Clip-who had never seen justice-did not understand its true meaning, which ever belonged solely and exclusively within the cage of one’s own soul.

No, the god’s need for Clip was coming to an end. This vessel would be given over to Saemenkelyk, no different from all the others. To dance, to lie above the High Priestess and gush black semen into her womb-a deed without pleasure, for all pleasure was consumed by the Dying God’s own blood, by the sweet kelyk. And she would swell with the immortal gifts a thousand times, ten thousand times.

The sweetest poison, after all, is the one eagerly shared.

The god advanced on the kneeling old man. Time to kill the fool.

Aranatha’s hand was cool and dry in Nimander’s grasp as she led him through an unknown realm that left him blind, stumbling, like a dog beaten senseless, the leash of that hand tugging him on and on.

‘Please,’ he whispered, ‘where are we going?’

‘To battle,’ she replied, and her voice was almost unrecognizable.

Nimander felt a tremor of fear. Was this even Aranatha? Perhaps some demon had taken her place-yet the hand, yes, he knew it. Unchanged, so familiar in its ethereal touch. Like a glove with nothing in it-but no, he could feel it, firm, solid. Her hand, like everything else about her, was a mystery he had come to love.

The kiss she had given him-what seemed an eternity ago-he could feel it still, as if he had tasted something alien, something so far beyond him that he had no hope of ever understanding, of ever recognizing what it might be. A kiss, sweet as a blessing-but had it been Aranatha who had blessed him?

‘Aranatha-’

‘We are almost there-oh, will you defend me, Nimander? I can but reach through, not far, with little strength. It is all I have ever been able to do. But now… she insists. She commands.’

‘Who?’ he asked, suddenly chilled, suddenly shivering. ‘Who commands you?’

‘Why, Aranatha.’

But then-‘Who-who are you?’

‘Will you defend me, Nimander? I do not deserve it. My errors are legion. My hurt I have made into your curse, a curse upon every one of you. But we are past apologies. We stand in the dust of what’s done.’

‘Please-’

‘I do not think enough of me can reach through-not against him. I am sorry. If you do not stand in his way, I will fall. I will fail. I feel in your blood a whisper of… someone. Someone dear to me. Someone who might have withstood him.

‘But he does not await us. He is not there to defend me. What has happened? Nimander, I have only you.’

The small hand, that had felt dry and cool and so oddly reassuring in its re-moteness, now felt suddenly frail, like thin porcelain.

She does not guide me.

She holds on.

He sought comprehension from all that she had said. The blood of someone dear. She cannot reach through, not enough to make her powerful enough against Clip, against the Dying God. She-she is not Aranatha.

‘Nimander, I have only you.’

We stand in the dust of what’s done.’

‘Nimander, we have arrived.’

Tears streamed down Seerdomin’s ravaged face. Overwhelmed by the helplessness, by the futility of his efforts against such an enemy, he rocked to every blow, staggered in retreat, and if he was laughing-and gods, he was- there was no hu-mour in that terrible sound.

He’d hadn’t much pride to begin with-or so he had made his pose, there be fore the Redeemer, one of such humility-but no soldier with any spine left did not hold to a secret conviction of prowess. And although he had not lied when he’d told himself he was fighting for a god he did not believe in, well, a part of him was unassailed by that particular detail. As if it’d make no difference. And in that was revealed the secret pride he had harboured.

He would surprise her. He would astonish her by resisting far beyond what she could have anticipated. He would fight the bitch to a standstill.

How grim, how noble, how poetic. Yes, they would sing of the battle, all those shining faces in some future temple of white, virgin stone, all those shining eyes so pleased to share heroic Seerdomin’s triumphant glory.

He could not help but laugh.

She was shattering him piece by pathetic piece. It was a wonder any part of his soul was left that could still recognize itself.

See me, Spinnock Durav, old friend. Noble friend. And let us share this laugh.