Toll the Hounds Part 25

Nimander glanced over at Aranatha. 'Can we make it to the tavern?'

She shook her head.

'We should never have left him,' announced Nenanda.

'Don't be an idiot,' Kedeviss snapped.

Skintick still sat on the floor, clawing periodically at his face, wracked with shivers. 'What manner of sorcery afflicts this place? How can a G.o.d's blood do this?'

Nimander shook his head. 'I have never heard of anything like what is happening here, Skintick. The Dying G.o.d. It bleeds poison poison.' He struggled to keep from weeping. Everything seemed stretched thin, moments from tearing to pieces, a reality all at once in tatters, whipped away on mad winds.

Skintick's sigh was ragged. 'Poison. Then why do I thirst for more?'

There was no answer for that. Is this a truth made manifest? Do we all feed on the pain of others? Do we laugh and dance upon suffering, simply because it is not our own? Can such a thing become addictive? An insatiable need? Is this a truth made manifest? Do we all feed on the pain of others? Do we laugh and dance upon suffering, simply because it is not our own? Can such a thing become addictive? An insatiable need?

All at once the distant moaning changed pitch, became screams. Terrible, raw the sounds of slaughter. Nenanda was suddenly at the door, his sword out.

'Wait!' cried Kedeviss. 'Listen! That's not him. him. That's That's them them! He's murdering them all do you want to help, Nenanda? Do you?'

Nenanda seemed to slump. He stepped back, shaken, lost.

The shrieks did not last long. And when the last one wavered, sank into silence, even the Dying G.o.d's cries had stilled. Beyond the door of the inn, there was nothing, as if the village the entire outside world had been torn away.

Inside, none slept. Each had pulled away from the others, coveting naught but their own thoughts, listening only to the all too familiar voice that was a soul's conversation with itself. On the faces of his kin, Nimander saw, there was dull shock, a bleakness to the staring, unseeing eyes. He felt the surrender of Aranatha's will, her power, as the threat pa.s.sed, as she withdrew once more so far inward that her expression grew slack, almost lifeless, the shy, skittering look not ready to awaken once more.

Desra stood at the window, the inside shutters pulled to either side, staring out upon an empty main street as the night crawled on, leaving Nimander to wonder at the nature of her internal dialogue if such a thing existed, if she was not just a creature of sensation, riding currents of instinct, every choice re-framed into simple demands of necessity.

'There is cruelty in your thoughts.'

Phaed. Leave me alone, ghost. Leave me alone, ghost.

'Don't get me wrong. I approve. Desra is a s.l.u.t. She has a s.l.u.t's brain, the kind that confuses giving with taking, gift with loss, invitation with surrender. She is power's wh.o.r.e, Nimander, and so she stands there, waiting to see him, waiting to see this strutting murderer that she would take to her bed. Confusions, yes. Death with life. Desperation with celebration. Fear with need and l.u.s.t with love.'

Go away.

'But you don't really want that that, because then it would leave you vulnerable to that other voice in your head. The sweet woman murmuring all those endearing words do I recall ever hearing such when she was alive?'

Stop.

'In the cage of your imagination, blissfully immune to all that was real the cruel indifferences, yes you make so much of so little, Nimander. A chance smile. A look. In your cage she lies in your arms, and this is the purest love, isn't it? Unsullied, eternal-'

Stop, Phaed. You know nothing. You were too young, too self-obsessed, to see anything of anyone else, unless it threatened you.

'And she was not a threat?'

You never wanted me that way don't be absurd, ghost. Don't invent- 'I invent nothing! You were just too blinded to see what was right in front of you! And did she die at the spear of a Tiste Edur? Did she truly? Where was I at that moment, Nimander? Do you recall seeing me at all?'

No, this was too much.

But she would not relent. 'Why do you think the idea of killing Sandalath was so easy for me? My hands were already stained-' 'Why do you think the idea of killing Sandalath was so easy for me? My hands were already stained-'

Stop!

Laughter, ringing through his head.

He willed himself to say nothing, waited for those chilling peals of mirth to dwindle, grow ever fainter.

When she spoke again in his mind there was no humour at all in her tone. 'Nenanda wants to replace you. He wants the command you possess, the respect the others hold for you. He will take it, when he sees his chance. Do not trust him, Nimander. Strike first. A knife in the back just as you acted to stop me, so you must do again, and this time you cannot fail. There will be no Withal there to finish the task. You will have to do it yourself.' 'Nenanda wants to replace you. He wants the command you possess, the respect the others hold for you. He will take it, when he sees his chance. Do not trust him, Nimander. Strike first. A knife in the back just as you acted to stop me, so you must do again, and this time you cannot fail. There will be no Withal there to finish the task. You will have to do it yourself.'

Nimander lifted his gaze, looked upon Nenanda, the straight back, the hand resting on pommel. No, you are lying. No, you are lying.

'Delude yourself if you must but not for much longer. The luxury must be short-lived. You will need to show your . . . decisiveness, and soon.'

And how many more kin do you want to see dead, Phaed?

'My games are done with. You ended them once and for all. You and the swordsmith. Hate me if you will, but I have talents, and I gift them to you, Nimander you were the only one to ever listen to me, the only one to whom I opened my heart-'

Heart? That vile pool of spite you so loved to swim in that was your heart?

'You need me. I give strength where you are weakest. Oh, make the b.i.t.c.h murmur of love, fill her mouth with all the right words. If it helps. But she cannot help you with the hard choices a leader must make. Nenanda believes he can do better see it in his eyes, so quick to challenge.'

'It's growing light,' Desra said from the window. She turned. 'I think we should go out. To the tavern. It may be he is wounded. It may be he needs our help.'

'I recall him not asking for it,' growled Nenanda.

'He is not all-powerful,' said Desra, 'though he might affect such it comes with being so young.'

Nimander stared across at her. Where did that insight come from?

'Clip is vulnerable?' Kedeviss asked in mock surprise. 'Be quick to take advantage of that, Desra.'

'The endless siege that is your envy grows wearisome, Kedeviss.'

Kedeviss paled at that and said nothing.

Oh, we are a vicious bunch, are we not? Nimander rubbed at his face, then said, 'Let's go, then, and see for ourselves what has become of him.' Nimander rubbed at his face, then said, 'Let's go, then, and see for ourselves what has become of him.'

Desra was first through the door.

Out into pale silvery light, a cerulean sky devoid of clouds, looking somehow speckled with grit. The harvested plants drooped in their racks, sodden with dew, the bulbs like swollen heads lined up in rows above the latticework. Nimander saw, as he paused out on the street, that the temple's doors were ajar.

Clip was lying on the wooden sidewalk in front of the tavern, curled up, so covered in dried blood that he might have been a figure moulded in black mud.

They set out towards him.

Clip's eyes were open, staring Nimander wondered if he was dead, until he saw the slow rise and fall of his chest but showing no awareness of anything, even as they closed round him, even as Nimander knelt in front of him.

Skintick moved up to the tavern doors, pushed them open and stepped inside. He staggered out a moment later, both hands covering his face as he stumbled out into the middle of the street and stood there, back to the others.

Slaughter. He slaughtered them all. Clip's sword was lying nearby, thick with gore, as if the entire weapon had been dragged through some enormous beast. Clip's sword was lying nearby, thick with gore, as if the entire weapon had been dragged through some enormous beast.

'They took something from him,' Aranatha said. 'Gone. Gone away.'

Nenanda broke into a jog, straight for the temple opposite.

'Gone for good?' Nimander asked Aranatha.

'I don't know.'

'How long can he live this way?'

She shook her head. 'Force food and water into him, keep his wounds clean . . .'

Long moments when no one spoke, when it seemed not a single question could be found, could be cleaned off and uttered in the name of normality.

Nenanda returned. 'They've fled, the priests, all fled. Where was the Dying G.o.d supposed to be?'

'A place named Bastion,' said Kedeviss. 'West of here, I think.'

'We need to go there,' Nimander said, straightening to face the others.

Nenanda bared his teeth. 'To avenge him.'

'To get him back,' Nimander retorted. 'To get back to him whatever they took.'

Aranatha sighed. 'Nimander . . .'

'No, we go to Bastion. Nenanda, see if there're any horses, or better yet, an ox and wagon there was a large stable behind the inn.' He looked down at Clip. 'I don't think we have the time to walk.'

As the three women set out to collect the party's gear, followed for the moment by Nenanda, Nimander turned to study the tavern's entrance. He hesitated even from here he could see something: dark sprawled shapes, toppled chairs; and now the buzz of flies spun out from the gloom within.

'Don't,' said Skintick behind him. 'Nimander. Don't.'

'I have seen dead people before.'

'Not like these.'

'Why?'

'They are all smiling.'

Nimander faced his closest friend, studied his ravaged face, and then nodded. After a moment he asked, 'What made the priests flee?'

'Aranatha, I think,' answered Skintick.

Nimander nodded, believing the same. They had taken Clip even with all the dead villagers, the priests had taken Clip, perhaps his very soul, as a gift to the Dying G.o.d. But they could do nothing against the rest of them not while Aranatha resisted. Fearing retribution, they fled in the night away, probably to Bastion, to the protection of their G.o.d.

'Nimander,' said Skintick in a low, hollow voice, 'we are forced.'

'Yes.'

'Awakened once more.'

'Yes.'

'I had hoped . . . never again.'

I know, Skintick. You would rather smile and jest, as befits your blessed nature. Instead, the face you will turn towards what is to come . . . it will be no different from ours, and have we not all looked upon one another in those times? Have we not seen the mirrors we became to each other? Have we not recoiled?

Awakened.

What lay in the tavern was only the beginning. Merely Clip and his momentary, failing frenzy.

From this point on, what comes belongs to us.

To that, even Phaed was silent. While somewhere in the mists of his mind, so faint as to be almost lost, a woman wept.

It was a quirk of blind optimism that held that someone broken could, in time, heal, could rea.s.semble all the pieces and emerge whole, perhaps even stronger for the ordeal. Certainly wiser, for what else could be the reward for suffering? The notion that did not sit well, with anyone, was that one so broken might remain that way neither dying (and so removing the egregious example of failure from all mortal eyes) nor improving. A ruined soul should not be stubborn, should not cling to what was clearly a miserable existence.

Friends recoil. Acquaintances drift away. And the one who fell finds a solitary world, a place where no refuge could be found from loneliness when loneliness was the true reward of surviving for ever maimed, for ever weakened. Yet who would not choose that fate, when the alternative was pity?

Of course, pity was a virtually extinct sentiment among the Tiste Andii, and this Endest Silann saw as a rare blessing among his kind. He could not have suffered such regard for very long. As for the torment of his memories, well, it was truly extraordinary how long one could weather that a.s.sault. Yet he knew he was not unique in this matter it was the burden of his entire people, after all. Sufficient to mitigate his loneliness? Perhaps.

Darkness had been silent for so long now, his dreams of hearing the whisper of his realm of his birthplace were less than ashes. It was no wonder, then, was it, that he now sat in the gloom of his chamber, sheathed in sweat, each trickle seeming to drink all warmth from his flesh. Yes, they had manifested Kurald Galain here in this city, an act of collective will. Yet it was a faceless power Mother Dark had left them, and no amount of desire on their part could change that.

So, then, what is this?

Who speaks with such power?

Not a whisper but a shout, a cry that bristled with . . . what? With affront. Indignation. Outrage. Who is this? With affront. Indignation. Outrage. Who is this?

He knew that he was not alone in sensing this a.s.sault others must be feeling it, throughout Black Coral. Every Tiste Andii probably sat or stood motionless at this moment, heart pounding, eyes wide with fear and wonder. And, perhaps, hope hope.

Could it be?

He thought to visit the temple, to hear from the High Priestess herself . . . something, a p.r.o.nouncement, a recognition proclaimed. Instead, he found himself staggering out of his room, hurrying up the corridor, and then ascending the stairs, round and round as if caught in a swirling fever. Out into his Lord's south-facing demesne stumbling in to find Anomander Rake seated in his high-backed chair, facing the elongated window and, far below, crashing seas painted black and silver as deep, unknown currents thrashed.

'My Lord,' Endest gasped.

'Did I have a choice?' Anomander Rake asked, gaze still on the distant tumult.

'My Lord?'

'Kharkanas. Did you agree with her . . . a.s.sessment? Endest Silann? Did I not see true what was to come? Before Light's arrival, we were in a civil war. Vulnerable to the forces soon to be born. Without the blood of Tiamatha, I could never have enforced . . . peace. Unification.'

'Sire,' said Endest Silann, then found he could not go on.

Rake seemed to understand, for he sighed and said, 'Yes, a most dubious peace. For so many, the peace of death. As for unification, well, that proved woefully shortlived, did it not? Still, I wonder, if I had succeeded truly succeeded would that have changed her mind?'