Toll the Hounds Page 6

  South of Grey Hill, the street lanterns grew scarcer as Endest Silann made his way into the Andiian district. Typically, there were few Tiste Andii on the streets. Nowhere could be seen figures seated on tenement steps, or in stalls leaning on countertops to call out their wares or simply watch passers-by. Instead, the rare figures crossing Endest’s path were one and all on their way somewhere, probably the home of some friend or relation, there to participate in the few remaining rituals of society. Or returning home from such ordeals, as tenuous as smoke from a dying fire.

  No fellow Tiste Andii met Endest Silann’s eyes as they slipped ghostly past. This, of course, was more than the usual indifference, but he had grown used to it. An old man must needs have a thick skin, and was he not the oldest by far? Excepting Anomander Dragnipurake.

  Yet Endest could recall his youth, a vision of himself vaguely blurred by time, setting foot upon this world on a wild night with storms ravaging the sky. Oh, the storms of that night, the cold water on the face . . . that moment, I see it still.

  They stood facing a new world. His lord’s rage ebbing, but slowly, trickling down like the rain. Blood leaked from a sword wound in Anomander’s left shoulder. And there had been a look in his eyes . . .

  Endest sighed as he worked his way up the street’s slope, but it was an uneven, harsh sigh. Off to his left was the heaped rubble of the old palace. A few jagged walls rose here and there, and crews had carved paths into the mass of wreckage, salvaging stone and the occasional timber that had not burned. The deafening collapse of that edifice still shivered in Endest’s bones, and he slowed in his climb, one hand reaching out to lean against a wall. The pressure was returning, making his jaw creak as he clenched his teeth, and pain shot through his skull.

  Not again, please.

  No, this would not do. That time was done, over with. He had survived. He had done as his lord had commanded and he had not failed. No, this would not do at all.

  Endest Silann stood, sweat now on his face, with his eyes squeezed shut.

  No one ever met his gaze, and this was why. This . . . weakness.

  Anomander Dragnipurake had led his score of surviving followers on to the strand of a new world. Behind the flaring rage in his eyes there had been triumph.

  This, Endest Silann told himself, was worth remembering. Was worth holding on to.

  We assume the burden as we must. We win through. And life goes on.

  A more recent memory, heaving into his mind. The unbearable pressure of the deep, the water pushing in on all sides. ‘You are my last High Mage, Endest Silann. Can you do this for me?’

  The sea, my lord? Beneath the sea?

  ‘Can you do this, old friend?’

  My lord, I shall try.

  But the sea had wanted Moon’s Spawn, oh, yes, wanted it with savage, relentless hunger. It had railed against the stone, it had besieged the sky keep with its crushing embrace, and in the end there was no throwing back its dark swirling legions.

  Oh, Endest Silann had kept them alive for just long enough, but the walls were collapsing even as his lord had summoned the sky keep’s last reserves of power, to raise it up from the depths, raise it up, yes, back into the sky.

  So heavy, the weight, so vast—

  Injured beyond recovery, Moon’s Spawn was already dead, as dead as Endest Silann’s own power. We both drowned that day. We both died.

  Raging falls of black water thundering down, a rain of tears from stone, oh, how Moon’s Spawn wept. Cracks widening, the internal thunder of beauty’s collapse . . .

  I should have gone with Moon’s Spawn when at last he sent it drifting away, yes, I should have. Squatting among the interred dead. My lord honours me for my sacrifice, but his every word is like ashes drifting down on my face. Abyss below, I felt the sundering of every room! The fissures bursting through were sword slashes in my soul, and how we bled, how we groaned, how we fell inward with our mortal wounds!

  The pressure would not relent. It was within him now.

  The sea sought vengeance, and now could assail him no matter where he stood. Hubris had delivered a curse, searing a brand on his soul. A brand that had grown septic. He was too broken to fight it off any more.

  I am Moon’s Spawn, now. Crushed in the deep, unable to reach the surface. I descend, and the pressure builds. How it builds!

  No, this would not do. Breath hissing, he pushed himself from the wall, staggered onward. He was a High Mage no longer. He was nothing. A mere castellan, fretting over kitchen supplies and foodstuffs, watch schedules and cords of wood for the hearths. Wax for the yellow-eyed candlemakers. Squid ink for the stained scribes . . .

  Now, when he stood before his lord, he spoke of paltry things, and this was his legacy, all that remained.

  Yet did I not stand with him on that strand? Am I not the last one left to share with my lord that memory?

  The pressure slowly eased. And once again, he had survived the embrace. And the next time? There was no telling, but he did not believe he could last much longer.

  The pain clutching his chest, the thunder in his skull.

  We have found a new supply of cadaver eels. That is what I will tell him. And he will smile and nod, and perhaps settle one hand on my shoulder. A gentle, cautious squeeze, light enough to ensure that nothing breaks. He will speak his gratitude.

  For the eels.

  It was a measure of his courage and fortitude that the man had never once denied that he had been a Seerdomin of the Pannion Domin; that, indeed, he had served the mad tyrant in the very keep now reduced to rubble barely a stone’s throw behind the Scour Tavern. That he held on to the title was not evidence of some misplaced sense of manic loyalty. The man with the expressive eyes understood irony, and if on occasion some fellow human in the city took umbrage upon hearing him identify himself thus, well, the Seerdomin could take care of himself and that was one legacy that was no cause for shame.

  This much and little more was what Spinnock Durav knew of the man, beyond his impressive talent in the game they now played: an ancient game of the Tiste Andii, known as Kef Tanar, that had spread throughout the population of Black Coral and indeed, so he had heard, to cities far beyond – even Darujhistan itself.

  As many kings or queens as there were players. A field of battle that expanded with each round and was never twice the same. Soldiers and mercenaries and mages, assassins, spies. Spinnock Durav knew that the original inspiration for Kef Tanar could be found in the succession wars among the First Children of Mother Dark, and indeed one of the king figures bore a slash of silver paint on its mane, whilst another was of bleached bonewood. There was a queen of white fire, opal-crowned; and others Spinnock could, if he bothered, have named, assuming anyone was remotely interested, which he suspected they were not.

  Most held that the white mane was a recent affectation, like some mocking salute to Black Coral’s remote ruler. The tiles of the field themselves were all flavoured in aspects of Dark, Light and Shadow. The Grand City and Keep tiles were seen as corresponding to Black Coral, although Spinnock Durav knew that the field’s ever-expanding Grand City (there were over fifty tiles for the City alone and a player could make more, if desired) was in fact Kharkanas, the First City of Dark.

  But no matter. It was the game that counted.

  The lone Tiste Andii in all of the Scour, Spinnock Durav sat with four other players, with a crowd now gathered round to watch this titanic battle which had gone on for five bells. Smoke hung in wreaths just overhead, obscuring the low rafters of the tavern’s main room, blunting the light of the torches and candles. Rough pillars here and there held up the ceiling, constructed from fragments of the old palace and Moon’s Spawn itself, all inexpertly fitted together, some leaning ominously and displaying cracks in the mortar. Spilled ale puddled the uneven flagstones of the floor, where hard-backed salamanders slithered about, drunkenly attempting to mate with people’s feet and needing to be kicked off again and again.

  The Seerdomin sat acros
s the table from Spinnock. Two of the other players had succumbed to vassal roles, both now subject to Seerdomin’s opal-crowned queen. The third player’s forces had been backed into one corner of the field, and he was contemplating throwing in his lot with either Seerdomin or Spinnock Durav.

  If the former, then Spinnock was in trouble, although by no means finished. He was, after all, a veteran player whose experience spanned nearly twenty thousand years.

  Spinnock was large for a Tiste Andii, wide-shouldered and strangely bearish. There was a faint reddish tinge to his long, unbound hair. His eyes were set wide apart on a broad, somewhat flat face, the cheekbones prominent and flaring. The slash that was his mouth was fixed in a grin, an expression that rarely wavered.

  ‘Seerdomin,’ he now said, whilst the cornered player prevaricated, besieged by advice from friends crowded behind his chair, ‘you have a singular talent for Kef Tanar.’

  The man simply smiled.

  In the previous round a cast of the knuckles had delivered a mercenary’s coin into the Seerdomin’s royal vaults. Spinnock was expecting a flanking foray with the four remaining mercenary figures, either to bring pressure on the third king if he elected to remain independent or threw in his lot with Spinnock, or to drive them deep into Spinnock’s own territory. However, with but a handful of field tiles remaining and the Gate not yet selected, Seerdomin would be wiser to hold back.

  Breaths were held as the third player reached into the pouch to collect a field tile. He drew out his hand closed in a fist, then met Spinnock’s eyes.

  Nerves and avarice. ‘Three coins, Tiste, and I’m your vassal.’

  Spinnock’s grin hardened, and he shook his head. ‘I don’t buy vassals, Garsten.’

  ‘Then you will lose.’

  ‘I doubt Seerdomin will buy your allegiance either.’

  ‘Come to me now,’ Seerdomin said to the man, ‘and do so on your hands and knees.’

  Garsten’s eyes flicked back and forth, gauging which viper was likely to carry the least painful bite. After a moment he snarled under his breath and revealed the tile.

  ‘Gate!’

  ‘Delighted to find you sitting on my right,’ Spinnock said.

  ‘I retreat through!’

  Cowardly, but predictable. This was the only path left to Garsten that allowed him to hold on to the coins in his vault. Spinnock and Seerdomin watched as Garsten marched his pieces from the field.

  And then it was Spinnock’s turn. With the Gate in play he could summon the five dragons he had amassed. They sailed high over Seerdomin’s elaborate ground defences, weathering them with but the loss of one from the frantic sorcery of the two High Mages atop the towers of Seerdomin’s High Keep.

  The assault struck down two-thirds of Seerdomin’s Inner Court, virtually isolating his queen.

  With the ground defences in sudden disarray on the collapse of command, Spinnock advanced a spearhead of his own mercenaries as well as his regiment of Elite Cavalry, neatly bisecting the enemy forces. Both vassals subsequently broke in uprising, each remaining on the field long enough to further savage Seerdomin’s beleaguered forces before retreating through the Gate. By the time the game’s round reached him, Seerdomin had no choice but to reach out one hand and topple his queen.

  Voices rose on all sides, as wagers were settled.

  Spinnock Durav leaned forward to collect his winnings. ‘Resto! A pitcher of ale for the table here!’

  ‘You are ever generous with my money,’ Seerdomin said in sour amusement.

  ‘The secret of generosity, friend.’

  ‘I appreciate the salve.’

  ‘I know.’

  As was customary, the other three players, having retreated, could not partake of any gesture of celebration by the game’s victor. Accordingly, Spinnock and Seerdomin were free to share the pitcher of ale between them, and this seemed a most satisfying conclusion to such a skilfully waged campaign. The crowd had moved off, fragmenting on all sides, and the servers were suddenly busy once more.

  ‘The problem with us night-owls . . .’ said Seerdomin, hunching down over his flagon. When it seemed he would say no more he added, ‘Not once does a glance to yon smudged pane over there reveal the poppy-kiss of dawn.’

  ‘Dawn? Ah, to announce night’s closure,’ Spinnock said, nodding. ‘It is a constant source of surprise among us Tiste Andii that so many humans have remained. Such unrelieved darkness is a weight upon your souls, or so I have heard.’

  ‘If there is no escape, aye, it can twist a mind into madness. But a short ride beyond the north gate, out to the Barrow, and bright day beckons. Same for the fishers sailing Outwater. Without such options, Spinnock, you Andii would indeed be alone in Black Coral. Moon’s Spawn casts a shadow long after its death, or so the poets sing. But I tell you this,’ Seerdomin leaned forward to refill his flagon, ‘I welcome this eternal darkness.’

  Spinnock knew as much, for the man seated opposite him carried a sorrow heavier than any shadow, and far darker; and in this he was perhaps more Tiste Andii than human, but for one thing, and it was this one thing that made it easy for Spinnock Durav to call the man friend. Seerdomin, for all his grief, was somehow holding despair back, defying the siege that had long ago defeated the Tiste Andii. A human trait, to be sure. More than a trait, a quality profound in its resilience, a virtue that, although Spinnock could not find it within himself – nor, it was true, among any fellow Tiste Andii – he could draw a kind of sustenance from none the less. At times, he felt like a parasite, so vital had this vicarious feeding become, and he sometimes feared that it was the only thing keeping him alive.

  Seerdomin had enough burdens, and Spinnock was determined that his friend should never comprehend the necessity he had become – these games, these nights among the eternal Night, this squalid tavern and the pitchers of cheap, gassy ale.

  ‘This one has worn me out,’ the man now said, setting down his empty flagon. ‘I thought I had you – aye, I knew the Gate tile was still unplayed. Two tiles to get past you, though, and everything would have been mine.’

  There wasn’t much to say to that. Both understood how that single gamble had decided the game. What was unusual was Seerdomin’s uncharacteristic need to explain himself. ‘Get some sleep,’ Spinnock said.

  Seerdomin’s smile was wry. He hesitated, as if undecided whether or not to say something, or simply follow Spinnock’s advice and stumble off to his home.

  Speak not to me of weakness. Please.

  ‘I have acquired the habit,’ the man said, squinting as he followed some minor ruckus near the bar, ‘of ascending the ruins. To look out over the Nightwater. Remembering the old cat-men and their families – aye, it seems they are breeding anew, but of course it will not be the same, not at all the same.’ He fell silent for a moment, then shot Spinnock a quick, uneasy glance. ‘I see your lord.’

  The Tiste Andii’s brows lifted. ‘Anomander Rake?’

  A nod. ‘First time was a couple of weeks ago. And now . . . every time, at about the twelfth bell. He stands on the wall of the new keep. And, like me, he stares out to sea.’

  ‘He favours . . . solitude,’ Spinnock said.

  ‘I am always suspicious of that statement,’ Seerdomin said.

  Yes, I can see how you might be. ‘It is what comes from lordship, from rule. Most of his original court is gone. Korlat, Orfantal, Sorrit, Pra’iran. Vanished or dead. That doesn’t make it any easier. Still, there are some who remain. Endest Silann, for one.’

  ‘When I see him, standing alone like that . . .’ Seerdomin looked away. ‘It unnerves me.’

  ‘It is my understanding,’ observed Spinnock, ‘that we all manage to do that, for you humans. The way we seem to haunt this city.’

  ‘Sentinels with nothing to guard.’

  Spinnock thought about that, then asked, ‘And so too the Son of Darkness? Do you people chafe under his indifferent rule?’

  Seerdomin grimaced. ‘Would that all rulers were as indiffere
nt. No, “indifferent” is not quite the right word. He is there where it matters. The administration and the authority – neither can be challenged, nor is there any reason to do so. The Son of Darkness is . . . benign.’

  Spinnock thought of the sword strapped to his lord’s back, adding the tart flavour of inadvertent irony to his friend’s words. And then he thought of the dead cities to the north. Maurik, Setta, Lest. ‘It’s not as if any neighbouring kingdoms are eyeing the prize that is Black Coral. They’re either dead or, as in the south, in complete disarray. Thus, the threat of war is absent. Accordingly, what’s left for a ruler? As you say, administration and authority.’

  ‘You do not convince me, friend,’ Seerdomin said, his eyes narrowing. ‘The Son of Darkness, now is that a title for a bureaucrat? Hardly. Knight of Darkness to keep the thugs off the streets?’

  ‘It is the curse of a long life,’ Spinnock said, ‘that in eminence one both rises and falls, again and again. Before this, there was a vast and costly war against the Pannion Domin. Before that, an even deadlier and far longer feud with the Malazan Empire. Before that, Jacuruku. Seerdomin, Anomander Rake has earned his rest. This peace.’

  ‘Then perhaps he is the one who chafes. Staring out upon the harsh waters of the Cut, the twelfth bell tolling like a dirge in the gloom.’

  ‘Poetic,’ Spinnock said, smiling, but there was something cold in his heart, as if the image conjured by his friend’s words was somehow too poignant. The notion sobered him. ‘I do not know if my lord chafes. I have never been that important; little more than one warrior among thousands. I do not think we have spoken in centuries.’