Toll the Hounds Part 95

'Yes, Pearl?'

'Do you hear drums? I hear drums.'

'The thunder-' and then he stopped, and turned round, to look back at that fulminating, crazed horizon.

'G.o.ds below.'

Chaos had found a new way to mock them. With legions in ranks, weapons and armour blazing, with standards spitting lightning into the sky. Emerging in an endless row, an army of something vaguely human, shaped solely by intent, in numbers unimaginable they did not march so much as flow, like a frothing surge devouring the ground and no more than a league away. Lances and pike heads flashing, round shields spinning like vortices. Drums like rattling bones, rushing to swarm like maddened wasps.

So close . . . has the hunger caught fresh our scent does the hunger now rush to us, faster than ever before?

Is there something in that storm . . . that knows what it wants?

'I do not understand,' said Pearl. 'How can chaos take shapes?'

'Perhaps, friend, what we are seeing is the manifestation of what exists in all of us. Our secret love of destruction, the pleasure of annihilation, our darkest glee. Perhaps when at last they reach us, we shall realize that they are us and we are them.' That Dragnipur has but cut us in two, and all chaos seeks is to draw us whole once more. That Dragnipur has but cut us in two, and all chaos seeks is to draw us whole once more.

Oh, really now, Draconus, have you lost your mind?

'If they are the evil in our souls, Pearl, then there can be no doubt as to their desire.'

'Perhaps not just our souls,' mused Pearl, wiping blood from his eyes. 'Perhaps every soul, since the beginning of creation. Perhaps, Draconus, when each of us dies, the evil within us is torn free and rushes into the realm of Chaos. Or the evil is that which survives the longest . . .'

Draconus said nothing. The demon's suggestions horrified him, and he thought oh, he was thinking, yes that Pearl had found a terrible truth. Somewhere among those possibilities.

Somewhere among them . . . I think . . . there is a secret. An important secret.

Somewhere . . .

'I do not want to meet my evil self,' said Pearl.

Draconus glanced across at him. 'Who does?'

Ditch was dreaming, for dreaming was his last road to freedom. He could stride, reaching out to the sides, reshaping everything. He could make the world as he wanted it, as it should be, a place of justice, a place where he could be a G.o.d and look upon humanity as it truly was: a mob of unruly, faintly ridiculous children. Watch them grasp things when they think no one's looking. Watch them break things, hurt things, steal. Listen to their expostulations of innocence, their breathless list of excuses, listen to how they repent and repent and repent and then go and do the same d.a.m.ned things all over again. Children.

With all his G.o.dly powers, he would teach them about consequences, that most terrible of lessons, the one resisted the longest. He would teach them because he had learned in the only way possible with scars and broken bones, with sickness in the soul tasting of fear, with all the irreparable damage resulting from all his own thoughtless decisions.

There could be wonder and joy among children, too. Too easy to see naught but gloom, wasn't it? Wonder and joy. Naive creations of beauty. He was not blind to such things, and, like any G.o.d, he understood that such gifts were pleas for mercy. An invitation to indulge that reprehensible host of flaws. Art and genius, compa.s.sion and pa.s.sion, they were as islands a.s.sailed on all sides. But no island lived for ever. The black, writhing, worm-filled seas ever rose higher. And sooner or later, the hungry storms ate their fill.

Nature might well struggle for balance. And perhaps the egregious imbalance Ditch thought he perceived in his kind was but an illusion, and redress waited, stretched out to match the extremity. A fall as sudden and ferocious as the rise.

In his state of dreaming, it did not occur to him that his dreams were not his own, that this harsh cant of judgement belonged to a tyrant or even a G.o.d, or to one such as himself if madness had taken hold. But he was not mad, and nor was he a tyrant, and for all his natural inclination (natural to almost everyone) to wish for true justice he was, after all, wise enough to know the vulnerability of moral notions, the ease with which they were corrupted. Was he dreaming, then, the dreams of a G.o.d?

Blind as Kadaspala was, he could sense far too much of Ditch's visions he could feel the incandescent rage in the flicker of the man's eyelids, the heat of his breath, the ripples of tautness washing over his face. Oh, this unconscious wizard stalked an unseen world, filled with outrage and fury, with the hunger for retribution.

There were so many paths to G.o.dhood. Kadaspala was certain of that. So many paths, so many paths. Refuse to die, refuse to surrender, refuse to die and refuse to surrender and that was one path, stumbled on to without true intent, without even wanting it, and these G.o.ds were the bemused ones, the reluctant ones. They were best left alone, for to prod them awake was to risk apocalypse. Reluctant power was the deadliest power of them all, for the anger behind it was long stoked. Long stoked and stoked long and long, so best leave them leave them leave them alone.

Other G.o.ds were called into being and the nature of that call took countless forms. A convulsion of natural forces, until the very sludge awakens. Wherever discordant elements clashed, the possibility was born. Life. Intent. Desire and need. But these too were accidental things, in as much as anything could be accidental when all the particles necessary for creation abounded, as they surely did. There were other ways of calling a G.o.d into being.

Gather a host of words, a host of words. Gather a host of words. Make them, make them, make them what? Physical, yes, make them physical, from the empty ether to the incision in clay, the stain on stone, the ink on skin. Physical, because the physical created by its very nature before the eye (or the inner eye) created and created patterns patterns. And they could be played with played with played with. In numbers and sigils, in astral proportions. They could be coded inside codes inside codes until something is rendered, something both beautiful and absolute. Beautiful in its absoluteness. In its absolution, in its absolved essence, a thing of beauty.

Understand, won't you, the truth of patterns, how pattern finds truth in the tension of juxtaposition, in the game of meaning meaning the game which is the perfect pattern of language in the guise of imperfection but what value any of this any of this any of this?

The value is the body of text (hah, the body the bodies bodies) that in its absoluteness becomes sacred, and in sacredness becomes all that it portrays in its convivial ordering of the essentially meaningless. Patterns where none existed before. Creation from nothing. Awakening from absence of self. And what is the word the beautiful word the precious word and the perfect word that starts the game starts everything everything everything?

Why, the word is birth. birth.

Bodies of text, all these bodies, all this flesh and the ink and the words and the words oh the words. Bodies and bodies, patterns inside patterns, lives and lives and lives all dreaming . . . all dreaming one dream.

One dream. One dream one dream one one one dream.

One.

A dream of justice.

'Let the cosmos quake,' Kadaspala whispered as he etched sigil inside sigil inside sigil, as he wove language and meaning, as the ink rode the piercing and flowed beneath skin pocket by pocket. 'Quake and quiver, whimper and quaver. A G.o.d oh a G.o.d yes a G.o.d now a G.o.d soon a G.o.d a G.o.d awakens. Lives and lives cut down one and all, cut down, yes, by judgement's sharp edge did we deserve it? Did we earn the punishment? Are any of us innocent, any of us at all? Not likely not likely not likely. So, lives and lives and none none none of us did not receive precisely what we deserved.

'Do you understand? G.o.dling, to you I speak. Listen listen listen well. We are what you come from. The punished, the punished, the victims of justice, the victims of our own stupidity, yes, and who could say that none of us has learned our lesson? Who can say that? Look oh look oh look where we are! G.o.dling, here is your soul, writ in flesh, in flesh, writ here by Kadaspala, who was once blind though he could see and now can see though he is blind. And am I not the very definition of sentience? Blind in life, I can see in death the definition of mortality, my darling child, heed it and heed it come the moment you must act and decide and stand and sit in judgement. Heed and heed, G.o.dling, this eternal flaw.

'And what, you will wonder, is written upon your soul? What is written here? Here upon the flesh of your soul? Ah, but that is the journey of your life, G.o.dling, to learn the language of your soul, to learn it to learn it even as you live it.

'Soon, birth arrives. Soon, life awakens.

'Soon, I make a G.o.d.' I make a G.o.d.'

And even now, the G.o.d dreams of justice. For, unlike Ditch, Kadaspala is indeed mad. His code struck to flesh is a code of laws. The laws from which the G.o.d shall be born. Consider that, consider that well.

In the context of, say, mercy . . .

She was out there, down in the basin, on her knees, head hanging, her torso weaving back and forth to some inner rhythm. After studying her yet again, Seerdomin, with a faint gasp, tore his gaze away something it was getting ever harder to manage, for she was mesmerizing, this childwoman, this fount of corruption, and the notion that a woman's fall could be so alluring, so perfectly s.e.xual, left him horrified. By this language of invitation. By his own darkness.

Behind him, the Redeemer murmured, 'Her power grows. Her power over you, Segda Travos.'

'I do not want to be where she is.'

'Don't you?'

Seerdomin turned and eyed the G.o.d. 'Self-awareness can be a curse.'

'A necessary one.'

'I suppose so,' he conceded.

'Will you still fight her, Segda Travos?'

'I think so, yes.'

'Why?'

Seerdomin bared his teeth. 'Don't you start with me, Redeemer. The enemy never questions motivations the enemy doesn't chew the ground out beneath its own feet.' He jabbed a finger back at the woman kneeling in the basin. 'She has no questions. No doubts. What she has instead is strength. Power.'

'That is true,' said the Redeemer. 'All of it. It is why those haunted by uncertainty must ever retreat. They cannot stand before the self-righteous. Instead, they must slink away, they must hide, they must slip behind the enemy's lines-' 'Where every d.a.m.ned one of them is hunted down and silenced no, Redeemer, you forget, I lived lived in a tyranny. I kicked in doors. I dragged people away. Do you truly believe unbelievers will be tolerated? Scepticism is a criminal act. in a tyranny. I kicked in doors. I dragged people away. Do you truly believe unbelievers will be tolerated? Scepticism is a criminal act.

Wave the standard or someone else will, and they'll be coming for you. Redeemer, I have looked in the eyes of my enemy, and they are hard, cold, emptied of everything but hate. I have, yes, seen my own reflection it haunts me still.'

No further words were exchanged then. Seerdomin looked back down to that woman, the High Priestess who had once been Salind. She was naught but a tool, now, a weapon of some greater force's will, its hunger. The same force, he now suspected, that drove nations to war, that drove husbands to kill wives and wives to kill husbands. That could take even the soul of a G.o.d and crush it into subservience.

When will you rise, Salind? When will you come for me?

This was not the afterlife he had imagined. My fighting should be over. My every need made meaningless, the pain of thoughts for ever silenced. My fighting should be over. My every need made meaningless, the pain of thoughts for ever silenced.

Is not death's gift indifference? Blissful, perfect indifference?

She swayed back and forth, gathering strength as only the surrendered could do.

Monkrat walked through the pilgrim camp. Dishevelled as it had once been, now it looked as if a tornado had ripped through it. Tents had sagged; shacks leaned perilously close to collapse. There was rubbish everywhere. The few children still alive after being so long abandoned watched him walk past with haunted eyes peering out from filth-streaked faces. Sores ate into their drawn lips. Their bellies were swollen under the rags. There was nothing to be done for them, and even if there was, Monkrat was not the man to do it. In his mind he had left humanity behind long ago. There was no kinship to nip at his heart. Every fool the world over was on his or her own, or they were slaves. These were the only two states of being every other one was a lie. And Monkrat had no desire to become a slave, as much as Gradithan or saemankelyk might want that.

No, he would remain his own world. It was easier that way. Ease was important. Ease was all that mattered.

Soon, he knew, he would have to escape this madness. Gradithan's ambitions had lost all perspective the curse of kelyk. He talked now incessantly of the coming of the Dying G.o.d, the imminent end of all things and the glorious rebirth to follow. People talking like that disgusted Monkrat. They repeated themselves so often it soon became grossly obvious that their words were wishes and the wish was that their words might prove true. Round and round, all that wasted breath. The mind so liked to go round and round, so liked that familiar track, the familiarity of it. Round and round, and each time round the mind was just that much stupider. Increment by increment, the range of thoughts narrower, the path underfoot more deeply trenched he had even noted how the vocabulary diminished, as uneasy notions were cast away and all the words a.s.sociated with them, too. The circular track became a mantra, the mantra a proclamation of stupid wishes that things could be as they wanted them, that in fact they were were as they wanted them. as they wanted them.

Fanaticism was so popular. There had to be a reason for that, didn't there? Some vast reward to the end of thinking, some great bliss to the blessing of idiocy. Well, Monkrat trusted none of that. He knew how to think for himself and that was all he knew so why give it up? He'd yet to hear an argument that could convince him but of course, fanatics didn't use arguments, did they? No, just that fixed gaze, the threat, the reason to fear.

Aye, he'd had enough. G.o.ds below, he was actually longing for the city where he had been born. There in the shadow of Mock's Hold, and that blackwater bay of the harbour where slept a demon, half buried in mud and tumbled ballast stones. And who knew, maybe there was no one left there to recognize him and why would they in any case? His old name was on the toll of the fallen, after all, and beside it was Blackdog Wood, 1159 Burn's Sleep. Blackdog Wood, 1159 Burn's Sleep. The Bridgeburners were gone, dead, destroyed in Pale with the remnants mopped up here at Black Coral. But he'd been a casualty long before then, and the years since then had been d.a.m.ned hard no, it wasn't likely that he'd be recognized. The Bridgeburners were gone, dead, destroyed in Pale with the remnants mopped up here at Black Coral. But he'd been a casualty long before then, and the years since then had been d.a.m.ned hard no, it wasn't likely that he'd be recognized.

Yes, Malaz City sounded sweet now, as he walked this wretched camp's main street, the squalling of gulls loud in his ears.

Gradithan, you've lost it.

There won't be any vengeance on the Tiste Andii. Not for me, not for you. It was a stupid idea and now it's gone too far.

History wasn't worth reliving. He understood that now. But people never learned that they never f.u.c.king learned that, did they? Round and round.

A fallen pilgrim stumbled out from between two hovels, brown-smeared chin and murky eyes swimming in some dubious rapture painting its lie behind them. He wanted to kick the brainless idiot between the legs. He wanted to stomp on the fool's skull and see the s.h.i.t-coloured sludge spill out. He wanted every child to watch him do it, too, so they'd realize, so they'd run for their lives.

Not that he cared.

'High Priestess.'

She looked up, then rose from behind her desk, came round with a gathering of her robes, and then bowed. 'Son of Darkness, welcome. Did we have anything arranged?'

His smile was wry. 'Do we ever?'

'Please,' she said, 'do come in. I will send for wine and-'

'No need on my account, High Priestess.' Anomander Rake walked into the small office, eyed the two chairs and then selected the least ornate one to sit down in. He stretched out his legs, fingers lacing together on his lap, and eyed her speculatively.

She raised her arms, 'Shall I dance?'

'Shall I sing?'

'Abyss take me, no. Please.'

'Do sit down,' said Rake, indicating the other chair.

She did so, keeping her back straight, a silent question lifting her eyebrows.

He continued watching her.

She let out a breath and slumped back. 'All right, then.

I'm relaxing. See?'

'You have ever been my favourite,' he said, looking away.

'Your favourite what?'

'High Priestess, of course. What else might I be thinking?'

'Well, that is the eternal question, isn't it?'

'One too many people spend too much time worrying about.'

'You cannot be serious, Anomander.'

He seemed to be studying her desk not the things scattered on its surface, but the desk itself. 'That's too small for you,' he p.r.o.nounced.

She glanced at it. 'You are deceived, alas. It's my disorganization that's too big. Give me a desk the size of a concourse and I'll still fill it up with junk.'

'Then it must be your mind that is too big, High Priestess.'

'Well,' she said, 'there is so little to think about and so much time.' She fluttered a hand. 'If my thoughts have become oversized it's only out of indolence.' Her gaze sharpened. 'And we have become so indolent, haven't we?'

'She has been turned away for a long time,' Anomander Rake said. 'That I allowed all of you to turn instead to me was ever a dubious enterprise.'

'You made no effort to muster worship, Son of Darkness, and that is what made it dubious.'

One brow lifted. 'Not my obvious flaws?'

'And Mother Dark is without flaws? No, the Tiste Andii were never foolish enough to force upon our icons the impossibility of perfection.'

'"Icons",' said Anomander Rake, frowning as he continued studying the desk.

'Is that the wrong word? I think not.'

'And that is why I rejected the notion of worship.'

'Why?'