Toll the Hounds Page 39

  There were more weak people than strong ones. The weak were legion. Some just weren’t smart enough to cope with anything beyond meeting immediate needs: the field to sow, the harvest to bring on to the threshing floor, the beasts of burden to feed. The child to raise, the coin for the next jug of ale, the next knuckle bag of d’bayang. They didn’t see beyond the horizon. They didn’t even see the next valley over. The world outside was where things came from, things that caused trouble, that jarred the proper order of life. They weren’t interested in thinking. Depths were frightening, long roads a journey without purpose where one could end up lost, curling up to die in the ditch.

  She had seen so many of the weak ones. They died unjustly in their thousands. Tens of thousands. They died because they worshipped ignorance and believed this blind god could make them safe.

  Among the strong, only a few were worth paying attention to. Most were bullies. Their threats were physical or they were emotional, but the effect was the same – to make the victim feel weak. And it was the self-appointed task of these bullies to convince as many people as possible that they were inherently weak, and their lives ones of pathetic misery. Once this was done, the bully would then say: do as I say and I will keep you safe. I will be your strength . . . unless you anger me. If you anger me I will terrorize you. I might even kill you. There were plenty of these bastards, pig-eyed and blustery little boys in big bodies. Or fish-eyed nasty bitches – although these ones, after proving to their victims how weak they were, would then lap up all the spilled blood. Delicate tongues flicking in and out. You had the physical bullies and the emotional bullies, and they both revelled in destroying lives.

  No, she had no time for them. But there were others whose strength was of a much rarer kind. Not easy to find, because they revealed nothing. They were quiet. They often believed themselves to be much weaker than they were. But when pushed too hard, they surprised themselves, finding that they would not back away another step, that a wall had risen in their souls, unyielding, a barrier that could not be passed. To find one such as this was the most precious of discoveries.

  Desra had played the bully more than once, as much from boredom as from anything else. She’d lapped up her share of blood.

  She might well do the same with this one named Clip – if he ever returned to them, and there was no guarantee of that. Yes, she would use him and people like him, who imagined themselves strong but were, in truth, weak – or so she would prove, eventually. Certainly, their blood didn’t taste any purer, any sweeter.

  She had made her discovery, after all, of one whose strength was absolute. Before whom she herself felt weak but in a most pleasant, most satisfying way – one to whom she might surrender whatever she chose without fearing he would one day use it against her. Not this one.

  Not Nimander Golit.

  Desra saw Kallor emerge from the ruin, his agitation plain to see. Armour rustling, he marched between the scarecrows and up on to the road. Reaching the wagon, he pulled himself up with a worn boot on a wooden spoke, then paused to stare down at Clip. ‘You should throw this fool away,’ he said to Aranatha, who sat holding a thin cloth stretched out over the unconscious figure.

  She smiled in answer and said nothing.

  Desra frowned at Kallor. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied with a sneer, ‘the others.’

  ‘Well?’

  He lifted himself over the slats. ‘The Jaghut decided to use them – unfortunately for them.’

  Use? Nenanda swung round from where he sat on the bench. ‘What Jaghut?’ he demanded.

  But Desra was already turning away, rushing down through the ditch and on to the withered field. Between the toppled scarecrows—

  So who is this Dying God?

  Skintick, who knew himself well, who knew that his imagination was the deadliest weapon he used against himself, who knew how, in any situation, he might laugh – a plunge into the depths of absurdity, a desperate attempt to save his sanity – now found himself awakening on a dusty platform, no more than twelve paces across, of limestone. It was surrounded by olive trees, a grove of ancient twisted boles and dark leathery leaves, the fruit clustered in abundance. A warm wind slid over his naked form, making the sun’s heat – at least to begin with – less oppressive than it should have been. The air smelled of salt.

  The stumps of columns encircled the platform. They had been painted the deep hue of wine, but that had begun to flake away, exposing raw yellow rock.

  Who is this Dying God?

  His head aching, Skintick slowly sat up, shielding his eyes from the glare, but the sun’s light rebounded from the stone and there was no relief. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet, stood tottering. Gods, the pain in his head! Pulsing, exploding in blinding flashes behind his eyes.

  Who is this Dying— There were corpses huddled beneath the trees – mostly bones and rotted cloth, tufts of hair, skin-stretched skulls. Once brightly coloured clothes, strange shoes, the glitter of buttons and jewellery, gold on bared teeth.

  The sun felt . . . evil. As if its heat, its light, was somehow killing him, lancing through his flesh, tearing through his brain. He was growing ever sicker.

  There was, he suddenly understood, no one left alive on this world. Even the trees were dying. The oceans were burning away and death was everywhere. It could not be escaped. The sun had become a murderer.

  Who is this—

  You could dream of the future. You could see it as but a recognizable continuation of what can be seen around you at this moment. See it as progress, a driven force with blinding glory at the very end. Or each moment as the pinnacle, at least until the next higher peak resolved itself. A farmer sows to feed the vision of fruition, of abundance, and the comfort that comes with a predictable universe reduced to this upcoming season. Drip libations to remind the gods that order exists.

  You could dream of, at least, a place for your son, your daughter. Who would wish to deliver a child into a world of mayhem, of inescapable annihilation? And did it matter if death arrived as a force beyond the control of anyone, or as the logical consequence of wilful stupidity? No it did not, when there was no one left to ponder such questions.

  Fury and folly. Someone here had played the ultimate practical joke. Seeded a world with life, witnessed its burgeoning, and then nudged the sun to anger. Into a deadly storm, a momentary cough of poison light, and the season of life ended. Just so.

  Who is—

  The god dies when the last believer dies. Rising up bloated and white, sinking down into unseen depths. Crumbling into dust. Expelled in a gust of hot wind.

  Venomous spears lanced through Skintick’s brain, shearing through every last tether that remained. And suddenly he was free, launching skyward. Free, yes, because nothing mattered any more. The hoarders of wealth, the slayers of children, the rapists of the innocent, all gone. The decriers of injustice, the addicts of victimization, the endlessly offended, gone.

  Nothing was fair. Nothing. And that is why you are dying, dear god. That is why. How can you do anything else? The sun rages!

  Meaningless!

  We all die. Meaningless!

  Who—

  A hard slap and he was jolted awake. A seamed, tusked face hovered over him. Vertical pupils set in grey, the whites barely visible. Like a damned goat.

  ‘You,’ the Jaghut said, ‘are a bad choice for this. Answering despair with laughter like that.’

  Skintick stared up at the creature. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘There is a last moment,’ Gothos continued, ‘when every sentient creature alive realizes that it’s over, that not enough was done, that hindsight doesn’t survive dying. Not enough was done – you Tiste Andii understood that. Anomander Rake did. He realized that to dwell in but one world was madness. To survive, you must spread like vermin. Rake tore his people loose from their complacency. And for this he was cursed.’

  ‘I saw – I saw a world dying.’


  ‘If that is what you saw, then so it is. Somewhere, somewhen. On the paths of the Azath, a distant world slides into oblivion. Potential snuffed out. What did you feel, Skintick?’

  ‘I felt . . . free.’

  The Jaghut straightened. ‘As I said, a bad choice.’

  ‘Where – where is Nimander?’

  Sounds at the doorway—

  Desra rushed into the chamber. She saw Skintick, saw him slowly sitting up. She saw what must be the Jaghut, the hood drawn back to reveal that greenish, unhuman visage, the hairless pate so mottled it might have been a mariner’s map of islands, a tortured coastline, reefs. He stood tall in his woollen robes.

  But nowhere could she find Nimander.

  The Jaghut’s eyes fixed on her for a moment, and then he faced one of the walls of ice.

  She followed that gaze.

  Staggering into darkness he was struck countless times. Fists pounded, fingers raked ragged furrows through his skin. Hands closed about his limbs and pulled.

  ‘This one is mine!’

  ‘No, mine!’

  All at once voices cried out on all sides and a hand closed about Nimander’s waist, plucked him into the air. The giant figure carrying him ran, feet thumping like thunder, up a steep slope, rocks scurrying down, first a trickle, then a roar of cascading stones, with screams in their wake.

  Choking dust blinded him.

  A sharp-edged crest crunching underfoot, and then a sudden even steeper descent, down into a caldera. Grey clouds rising in plumes, sudden coruscating heat foul with gases that stung his eyes, burned in his throat.

  He was flung on to hot ash.

  The giant creature loomed over him.

  Through tears Nimander looked up, saw a strangely child-like face peering down. The forehead sloped back behind an undulating brow-ridge from which the eyebrows streamed down in thick snarls of pale, almost white hair. Round, smooth cheeks, thick lips, a pug nose, a pale bulging wattle beneath the rounded chin. Its skin was bright yellow, its eyes emerald green.

  It spoke in the language of the Tiste Andii. ‘I am like you. I too do not belong here.’

  The voice was soft, a child’s voice. The giant slowly blinked, and then smiled, revealing a row of dagger-like fangs.

  Nimander struggled to speak. ‘Where – who – all those people . . .’

  ‘Spirits. Trapped like ants in amber. But it is not amber. It is the blood of dragons.’

  ‘Are you a spirit?’

  The huge head shook in a negative. ‘I am an Elder, and I am lost.’

  ‘Elder.’ Nimander frowned. ‘You call yourself that. Why?’

  A shrug like hills in motion. ‘The spirits have so named me.’

  ‘How did you come to be here?’

  ‘I don’t know. I am lost, you see.’

  ‘And before this place?’

  ‘Somewhere else. I built things. Of stone. But each house I built then vanished – I know not where. It was most . . . frustrating.’

  ‘Do you have a name?’

  ‘Elder?’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Sometimes, I would carve the stone. To make it look like wood. Or bone. I remember . . . sunsets. Different suns, each night, different suns. Sometimes two. Sometimes three, one fierce, the others like children. I would build another house, if I could. I think, if I could do that, I would stop being lost.’

  Nimander sat up. He was covered in volcanic dust, so fine it shed from him like liquid. ‘Build your house, then.’

  ‘Whenever I begin, the spirits attack me. Hundreds, then thousands. Too many.’

  ‘I stepped through a wall of ice.’ The memory was suddenly strong. ‘Omtose Phellack—’

  ‘Oh, ice is like blood and blood is like ice. There are many ways in. None out. You do not belong here because you are not yet dead. You are lost, like me. We should be friends, I think.’

  ‘I can’t stay—’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  Panic seethed to life in Nimander. He stood, sinking to his shins in the hot ash. ‘I can’t – Gothos. Find me. Gothos!’

  ‘I remember Gothos.’ A terrible frown lowered the Elder’s brows. ‘He would appear, just before the last stone was set. He would look upon my house and pronounce it adequate. Adequate! Oh, how I hated that word! My sweat, my blood, and he called them adequate! And then he would walk inside and close the door, and I would place the last stone, and the house would vanish! I don’t think I like Gothos.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Nimander said, unwilling to voice his suspicion that Gothos’s arrival and the vanishing of the houses were in fact connected; that indeed the Jaghut came to collect them. This Elder builds the Houses of the Azath. And he is lost.

  ‘Tell me,’ Nimander said, ‘do you think there are others like you? Others, out there, building houses?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Nimander looked round. The jagged walls of the cone enclosed the space. Enormous chunks of pumice and obsidian lay half buried in the grey dust. ‘Elder, do the spirits ever assail you here?’

  ‘In my pit? No, they cannot climb the sides.’

  ‘Build your house here.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Use the rim as your foundation.’

  ‘But houses have corners!’

  ‘Make it a tower.’

  ‘A house . . . within the blood of dragons? But there are no sunsets.’

  A house within the blood of dragons. What would happen? What would change? Why do the spirits deny him this? ‘If you are tired of being lost,’ Nimander said, ‘build a house. But before you are done, before you set that last stone, walk into it.’ He paused and looked round, then grunted a laugh. ‘You won’t have any choice; you will be building the thing from the inside out.’

  ‘But then who will finish it?’

  Nimander looked away. He was trapped here, possibly for ever. If he did as Gothos did, if he remained inside the house to await its completion, he might find a way out. He might walk those hidden pathways. And in so doing, he would doom this creature to eternity here. This child, this mason.

  And that I cannot do. I am not like Gothos. I am not that cruel.

  He heard laughter in his head. Phaed, shrieking with laughter. Then she said, ‘Don’t be an idiot. Take the way out. Leave this fool to his building blocks! He’s pathetic!’

  ‘I will set the last stone,’ Nimander said. ‘Just make sure it’s small enough for me to lift and push into place.’ And he looked up, and he saw that the giant was smiling, and no, it no longer looked like a child, and in its eyes something shone and its light flowed down, bathed Nimander.

  ‘I am different,’ the Elder said in a deep, warm voice, ‘when I build.’

  ‘Get him out,’ Desra said.

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Why?’

  The Jaghut blinked like a lizard. ‘I don’t know how. The gate is Omtose Phellack, but the realm beyond is something else, something I want nothing to do with.’

  ‘But you made this gate – and gates open from both sides.’

  ‘I doubt he could ever find it,’ the Jaghut said. ‘Even assuming anyone lets him get close.’

  ‘Anyone? Who’s in there with him?’

  ‘A few million miserable wretches.’

  Desra glared at Skintick. ‘How could you let this happen?’

  He was weeping and could only shake his head.

  ‘Do not blame this one,’ the Jaghut said. ‘Do not blame anyone. Accidents happen.’

  ‘You drugged us,’ Skintick suddenly accused him, his voice harsh with grief.

  ‘Alas, I did. And I had my reasons for doing so . . . which seem to have failed. Therefore I must be more . . . direct, and oh how I dislike being direct. When next you see Anomander, tell him this from me: he chose wisely. Each time, he chose wisely. Tell him, then, that of all whom I ever met, there is but one who has earned my respect, and he is that one.’

  A sudden sob from Skintick.

&nbs
p; Desra felt strangely shaken by the Jaghut’s words.

  ‘And,’ the Jaghut then added, ‘for you. Do not trust Kallor.’

  Feeling helpless, useless, she stepped closer to the wall of ice, squinted into its dark depths.

  ‘Careful, woman. That blood pulls hard on you Tiste.’

  And yes, she could feel that, but it was nothing to trust, nothing to even pay attention to – it was the lie she had always known, the lie of something better just ahead, of all the questions answered, just ahead. Another step, one more. One more. Time’s dialogue with the living, and time was a deceitful creature, a liar. Time promised everything and delivered nothing.

  She stared into the darkness, and thought she saw movement, deep, deep within.

  ‘No Jaghut is to be trusted,’ Kallor said, glaring at the lowering sun. ‘Especially not Gothos.’

  Aranatha studied the ancient warrior with an unwavering gaze, and though he would not meet her sister’s eyes, it was clear to Kedeviss that Kallor felt himself under siege. A woman’s attention, devastating barrage of inexorable calculation – even a warrior flinched back.

  But these were momentary distractions, she knew. Something had happened. Desra had rushed into the ruin and not returned. Nenanda stood fidgeting, eyes on the crumbled edifice.

  ‘Some gods are born to suffer,’ Kallor said. ‘You’d be better off heading straight to Coral. Unleash Anomander Rake against that Dying God, if getting this Clip back is so important to you. At the very least you’ll have your vengeance.’

  ‘And is vengeance so important?’ Kedeviss asked.

  ‘Often it’s all there is,’ Kallor replied, still squinting westward.

  ‘Is that why they’re after you?’

  He turned, studied her. ‘And who would be after me?’

  ‘Someone. That much seems obvious. Am I wrong?’

  Aranatha spoke from the wagon, ‘You are not, sister. But then, he has always been hunted. You can see it in his eyes.’