Toll the Hounds Part 107

'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 consideration 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 G.o.d known as the Redeemer can say nothing of redemption.' 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 G.o.d does she now serve? Is this the Fallen One? The Crippled G.o.d?'

'No, although certain themes are intertwined. For followers of the Crippled G.o.d, 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 partake 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 G.o.d, after all.'

'They celebrate the act of dying?'

'In a manner, yes, a.s.suming 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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, disconnected from his body, from any real flesh and bone, it was his spirit that was exhausted, battered down. And yet . . . and yet, I will stand. And do all I can. To defend a G.o.d 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. and yet, I will stand. And do all I can. To defend a G.o.d 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. 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.

G.o.ds 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 d.a.m.ned plain, to this pointless sweep of gra.s.ses. 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 G.o.d, 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 worshippers. There was no real need. The G.o.ds were already a.s.sembling 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, f.u.c.k 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 G.o.d. There would be conditions, some of them unpalatable, enough to make the h.o.a.ry b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 overlooking 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 ma.s.sive 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 scorpions, 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 Toblakai. A number of responses occurred to her, in a succession of escalating viciousness. 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 G.o.ds knew, she suspected.

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 all 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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. But I cannot be broken. The truth, so simple, so direct, seemed to be an invisible force as far as the Crippled G.o.d was concerned, and each time he collided with it he was surprised, dumbfounded. Each time, he was sent reeling. The truth, so simple, so direct, seemed to be an invisible force as far as the Crippled G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 happened? 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 d.a.m.ned 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 d.a.m.ned G.o.d here!'

'And it shall speak,' Ditch said, 'in my voice.'

'No, it shall not. it shall not. Do not fall into this trap, Wizard. Nothing must be fashioned of this place-' Do not fall into this trap, Wizard. Nothing must be fashioned of this place-'