Toll the Hounds Part 60

There was a third definition, one specific to Black Coral and to Seerdomin himself. He dwelt in Night, after all, where Darkness was not ignorance, but profound wisdom, ancient knowledge, symbolic of the very beginning of existence, the first womb from which all else was born. He dwelt in Night, then, and for a time had made daily pilgrimages out to the barrow with its forbidden riches, a one-man procession of rebirth that Salind only now comprehended.

Seerdomin was, in truth, the least ignorant of them all. Had he known Itkovian in his life? She thought not. Indeed, it would have been impossible. And so whatever had drawn Seerdomin to the cult arrived later, after Itkovian's death, after his ascension. Thus, a personal crisis, a need that he sought to appease with daily prayers.

But . . . why bother? The Redeemer turned no one away. Blessing and forgiveness was a certainty. The bargaining was a sham. Seerdomin need only have made that procession once, and been done with it.

Had no one confronted him, he would still be making his daily pilgrimage, like an animal pounding its head against the bars of a cage and, disregarded to one side, the door hanging wide open.

Was that significant? Seerdomin did not want the Redeemer's embrace. No, the redemption he sought was of a different nature.

Need drove her from the bed in the temple, out into Night. She felt weak, light-headed, and every step seemed to drain appalling amounts of energy into the hard cobbles underfoot. Wrapped in a blanket, unmindful of those she pa.s.sed, she walked through the city.

There was meaning in the barrow itself, in the treasure that none could touch. There was meaning in Seerdomin's refusal of the easy path. In his prayers that asked either something the Redeemer could not grant, or nothing at all. There was, perhaps, a secret in the Redeemer's very embrace, something hidden, possibly even deceitful. He took in crimes and flaws and held it all in abeyance . . . until when? The redeemed's death? What then? Did some hidden accounting await each soul?

How much desperation hid within each and every prayer uttered? The hope for blessing, for peace, for the sense that something greater than oneself might acknowledge that hapless self, and might indeed alter all of reality to suit the self's desires. Were prayers nothing more than attempted bargains? A pathetic a.s.sertion of some kind of reciprocity?

Well, she would not bargain. No, she had questions, and she wanted answers. She demanded demanded answers. If the faith that was given to a G.o.d came from nothing more than selfish desires, then it was no less sordid than base greed. If to hand over one's soul to a G.o.d was in fact a surrendering of will, then that soul was worthless, a willing slave for whom freedom and all the responsibility that entailed was anathema. answers. If the faith that was given to a G.o.d came from nothing more than selfish desires, then it was no less sordid than base greed. If to hand over one's soul to a G.o.d was in fact a surrendering of will, then that soul was worthless, a willing slave for whom freedom and all the responsibility that entailed was anathema.

She found herself reeling through the gate, on to the road that Seerdomin once walked day after day. It had begun raining, the drops light, cool on her fevered forehead, sweet as tears in her eyes. Not much grew to either side of the road, not even the strange Andiian plants that could be found in the walled and rooftop gardens. The dying moon had showered this place in salt water, a downpour the remnants of which remained as white crust like a cracked skin on the barren earth.

She could smell the sea rising around her as she staggered on.

And then, suddenly, she stumbled into daylight, the sun's shafts slanting in from the east whilst a single grey cloud hung directly overhead, the rain a glittering tracery of angled streaks.

Bare feet slipping on the road's cobbles, Salind continued on. She could see the barrow ahead, glistening and freshly washed, with the mud thick and churned up round its base. There were no pilgrims to be seen perhaps it was too early. Perhaps they have all left. Perhaps they have all left. But no, she could see smoke rising from cookfires in the encampment. But no, she could see smoke rising from cookfires in the encampment. Have they lost their way, then? Is that surprising? Have I not suffered my own crisis of faith? Have they lost their way, then? Is that surprising? Have I not suffered my own crisis of faith?

She drew closer, gaze fixed now on the barrow.

Redeemer! You will hear me. You must hear me!

She fell on to her knees in the mud and its chill rippled up through her. The rain was past and steam now rose on all sides. Water ran in trickles everywhere on the barrow, a hundred thousand tears threading through all the offerings.

Redeemer- A fist closed in the short hair at the back of her neck. She was savagely pulled upright, head yanked round. She stared up into Gradithan's grinning face.

'You should never have come back,' the man said. His breath stank of kelyk, and she saw the brown stains on his lips and mouth. His eyes looked strangely slick, like stones washed by waves. 'I am tempted, Priestess, to give you to my Urdomen not that they'd have you.'

Urdomen. He was an Urdo, a commander of the fanatic elites. Now I begin to underst- 'But Monkrat might.'

She frowned. What had he been saying? 'Leave me,' she said, and was shocked at how thin and weak her voice sounded. 'I want to pray.'

He twisted his grip, forcing her round to face him, close enough to be lovers. 'Monkrat!' Someone came up beside them.

'Get some saemankelyk. I'd like to see how well she dances.'

She could feel his hard knuckles pressing the back of her neck, twisting and ripping hair from its roots, pushing into the bruises he'd already made.

'I can give you nothing,' she said.

'Oh, but you will,' he replied. 'You'll give us a path,' and he turned her back to face the barrow, 'straight to him.'

She did not understand, and yet fear gripped her, and as she heard someone hurrying up, bottle swishing, her fear burgeoned into terror.

Gradithan tugged her head further back. 'You are going to drink, woman. Waste a drop and you'll pay.'

Monkrat came close, lifting the bottle with its stained mouth to her lips.

She sought to twist her face away but the Urdo's grip denied that. He reached up with his other hand and closed her nostrils.

'Drink, and then you can breathe again.'

Salind drank.

Finding her gone from her room, Spinnock Durav stood for a long moment, staring down at the rumpled mattress of the cot, noting the missing blanket, seeing that she'd left most of her clothes behind, including her moccasins. He told himself he should not be surprised. She had not much welcomed his attentions.

Still, he felt as if some cold, grinning b.a.s.t.a.r.d had carved a gaping hole in his chest. It was absurd, that he should have been careless enough, complacent enough, to find himself this vulnerable. A human woman of so few years he was worse than some old man sitting on the temple steps and drooling at every young thing sauntering past. Love could be such a squalid emotion: burning bright in the midst of pathos, the subject of pity and contempt, it blazed with brilliant stupidity all the same.

Furious with himself, he wheeled about and strode from the room.

In a city of unending Night, no bell was too early for a drink. He left the temple and the keep, made his way down ghostly streets to the Scour.

Inside, Resto was behind the bar, red-eyed and scratching at his beard and saying nothing as Spinnock walked to the table at the back. Tavern-keepers knew well the myriad faces of misery, and unbidden he drew a tall tankard of ale, bringing it over with gaze averted.

Glaring at the other tables all empty; he was the only customer Spinnock collected the tankard and swallowed down half its foamy contents.

Moments after Resto delivered the third such tankard the door opened and in walked Seerdomin.

Spinnock felt a sudden apprehension. Even from there the man smelled of blood, and his face was a ravaged thing, aged and pallid, the eyes so haunted that the Tiste Andii had to look away.

As if unaware of his reaction, Seerdomin came to Spinnock's table and sat down opposite him. Resto arrived with a jug and a second tankard.

'She doesn't want my help,' Spinnock said.

Seerdomin said nothing as he poured ale into his tankard, setting the jug back down with a thump. 'What are you talking about?'

Spinnock looked away. 'I couldn't find you. I searched everywhere.'

'That desperate for a game?'

A game? Oh. Kef Tanar. 'You are looking at a pathetic old man, Seerdomin. I feel I must sacrifice the last of my dignity, here and now, and tell you everything.' 'You are looking at a pathetic old man, Seerdomin. I feel I must sacrifice the last of my dignity, here and now, and tell you everything.'

'I don't know if I'm ready for that,' the man replied. 'Your dignity is important to me.'

Spinnock flinched, and still would not meet Seerdomin's eyes. 'I have surrendered my heart.'

'Well. You can't marry her, though, can you?'

'Who?'

'The High Priestess although it's about time you realized that she loves you in return, probably always has. You d.a.m.ned Andii you live so long it's as if you're incapable of grasping on to things in the here and now. If I had your endless years . . . no, scratch out the eyes of that thought. I don't want them. I've lived too long as it is.'

Spinnock's mind was spinning. The High Priestess? 'No, she doesn't. Love me, I mean. I didn't mean her, anyway.'

'G.o.ds below, Spinnock Durav, you're a d.a.m.ned fool.'

'I know that. I've as much as confessed it, for Hood's sake.'

'So you're not interested in making the High Priestess happier than she's been in a thousand years. Fine. That's your business. Some other woman, then. Careful, someone might up and murder her. Jealousy is deadly.'

This was too off-hand for Seerdomin, too loose, too careless. It had the sound of a man who had surrendered to despair, no longer caring about anything. Loosing every arrow in his quiver, eager to see it suddenly, fatally empty. This Seerdomin frightened Spinnock. 'What have you been up to?' he asked.

'I have been murdering people.' He poured another round, then settled back in his chair. 'Eleven so far. They saw themselves as liberators. Scheming the downfall of their Tiste Andii oppressors. I answered their prayers and liberated every one of them. This is my penance, Spinnock Durav. My singular apology for the madness of humanity. Forgive them, please, because I cannot.'

Spinnock found a tightness in his throat that started tears in his eyes. He could not so much as look at this man, dared not, lest he see all that should never be revealed, never be exposed. Not in his closest friend. Not in anyone. 'That,' he said, hating his own words, 'was not necessary.'

'Strictly speaking, you are right, friend. They would have failed I lack no faith in your efficacy, especially that of your Lord. Understand, I did this out of a desire to prove that, on occasion, we are capable of policing our own. Checks and balances. This way the blood stains my hands, not yours. Giving no one else cause for hating you.'

'Those who hate need little cause, Seerdomin.'

The man nodded Spinnock caught the motion peripherally.

There was a silence. The tale had been told, Spinnock recalled, more than once. How the Bridgeburner named Whiskeyjack a man Anomander Rake called friend had intervened in the slaughter of the Pannion witches, the mad mothers of Children of the Dead Seed. Whiskeyjack, a human, had sought to grant the Son of Darkness a gift, taking away the burden of the act. A gesture that had shaken his Lord to the core. It is not in our nature to permit others to share our burden. It is not in our nature to permit others to share our burden.

Yet we will, unhesitatingly, take on theirs.

'I wonder if we blazed his trail.'

'What?'

Spinnock rubbed at his face, feeling slightly drunk.

'Itkovian's.'

'Of course you didn't. The Grey Swords-' 'Possessed a Shield Anvil, yes, but they were not unique in that. It's an ancient t.i.tle. Are we the dark mirror to such people?' Then he shook his head. 'Probably not. That would be a grand conceit.'

'I agree,' Seerdomin said in a slurred growl.

'I love her.'

'So you claimed. And presumably she will not have you.'

'Very true.'

'So here you sit, getting drunk.'

'Yes.'

'Once I myself am drunk enough, Spinnock Durav, I will do what's needed.'

'What's needed?'

'Why, I will go and tell her she's a d.a.m.ned fool.'

'You'd fail.'

'I would?'

Spinnock nodded. 'She's faced you down before. Unflinchingly.'

Another stretch of silence. That stretched on, and on.

He was drunk enough now to finally shift his gaze, to fix his attention on Seerdomin's face.

It was a death mask, white as dust. 'Where is she?' the man asked in a raw, strained voice.

'On her way back out to the barrow, I should think. Seerdomin, I am sorry. I did not lie when I said I was a fool-'

'You were,' and he rose, weaving slightly before steadying himself with both hands on the back of his chair. 'But not in the way you think.'

'She didn't want my help,' Spinnock Durav said.

'And I would not give her mine.'

'Your choice-'

'You should not have listened, my friend. To her. You should not have listened to her!' You should not have listened to her!'

Spinnock stood as Seerdomin spun round and marched for the door. He was suddenly without words, numbed, stunned into confusion. What have I done? What have I done?

What have I not done?

But his friend was gone.

In her irritation, Samar Dev discovered traits in herself that did not please. There was no reason to resent the manner in which her two companions found so much pleasure in each other's company. The way they spoke freely, unconstrained by decorum, unaffected even by the fact that they barely knew one another, and the way the subjects flowed in any and every direction, flung on whims of mood, swirling round heady topics like eddies round jagged rocks. Most infuriating of all, they struck on moments of laughter, and she well knew d.a.m.n the G.o.ds, she was certain d.a.m.n the G.o.ds, she was certain that neither man possessed such ease of humour, that they were so far removed from that characterization that she could only look on in stunned disbelief. that neither man possessed such ease of humour, that they were so far removed from that characterization that she could only look on in stunned disbelief.

They spoke of their respective tribes, traded tales of s.e.xual conquests. They spoke of weapons and neither hesitated in handing over his sword for the other to examine and, indeed, try a few experimental swings and pa.s.ses with. Traveller told of a friend of old named Ereko, a Tartheno of such pure, ancient blood that he would have towered over Karsa Orlong had the two been standing side by side. And in that story Samar Dev sensed deep sorrow, wounds of such severity that it was soon apparent that Traveller himself could not venture too close, and so his tale of Ereko reached no conclusion. And Karsa Orlong did not press, revealing his clear understanding that a soul could bleed from unseen places and often all that kept a mortal going depended on avoiding such places.

He reciprocated in his speaking of the two companions who had accompanied him on an ill-fated raid into the settled lands of humans, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. Whose souls, Karsa blithely explained, now dwelt within the stone of his sword.

Traveller simply grunted at that detail, and then said, 'That is a worthy place.'

By the second day of this, Samar Dev was ready to scream. Tear her hair from her head, spit blood and curses and teeth and maybe her entire stomach by the time she was done. And so she held her silence, and held on to her fury, like a rabid beast chained to the ground. It was absurd. Pathetic and ridiculous, this cra.s.s envy she was feeling. Besides, had she not learned more about both men since their fateful meeting than she had ever known before? Like a tickbird flitting between two bull bhederin, her attention was drawn to first one, then the other. While the peace lasted it would do to say nothing, to make no commotion no matter how infuriated she happened to be.

They rode on, across the vast plain, along a worn caravan track angling into the Cinnamon Wastes. Those few merchant trains they met or overtook were singularly taciturn, the guards edgy, the traders unwelcoming. Just before dusk last night, four hors.e.m.e.n had pa.s.sed close by their camp, and, after a long look, had ridden on without a word ventured.

Karsa had sneered and said, 'See that, Samar Dev? As my grandfather used to say, "The wolf does not smell the bear's a.n.u.s."'

'Your grandfather,' Traveller had replied, 'was an observant man.'

'Mostly he was a fool, but even fools could spout tribal wisdom.' And he turned to Samar Dev again. 'You are safe, witch.'