Toll the Hounds Part 27

'I doubt it. I tried to tell him what I am sensing from the Redeemer. Sir, your friend is missed.' missed.' She sighed, turning away. 'If all who wors.h.i.+p did so without need. If all came to their saviour unmindful of that t.i.tle and its burden, if they came as friends-' she glanced back at him, 'what would happen then, do you think? I wonder . . .' She sighed, turning away. 'If all who wors.h.i.+p did so without need. If all came to their saviour unmindful of that t.i.tle and its burden, if they came as friends-' she glanced back at him, 'what would happen then, do you think? I wonder . . .'

He watched her walk away, feeling humbled, too shaken to pursue, to root out the answers the details he needed most. To find out what he could do. For Seerdomin. For her.

For her?

Now, why should she matter? By the Abyss, what has she done to me?

And how in the Mother's name can Seerdomin resist her?

How many women had there been? He had lost count. It would have been better, perhaps, if he'd at least once elected to share his gift of longevity. Better, yes, than watching those few who'd remained with him for any length of time lose all their beauty, surrendering their youth, until there was no choice but for Kallor to discard them, to lock them away, one by one, in some tower on some windswept knoll. What else could he have done? They hobbled into lives of misery, and that misery was an affront to his sensibilities. Too much bitterness, too much malice in those hot, ageing eyes ever fixing upon him. Did he not age as well? True, a year for them was but a heartbeat for Kallor, but see the lines of his face, see the slow wasting of muscle, the iron hue of his hair . . .

It was not just a matter of choosing the slowest burning wood, after all, was it? And with that thought he kicked at the coals of the fire, watched sparks roil nightward. Sometimes, the urgent flames of the quick and the shortlived delivered their own kind of heat. Hard wood and slow burn, soft wood and smouldering reluctance before ashen collapse. Resinous wood and oh how she flared! Blinding, yes, a glory no man could turn from.

Too bad he'd had to kill every child he begat. No doubt that left most of his wives and lovers somewhat disaffected. But he had not been so cruel as to hesitate, had he? No. Why, he'd tear those ghastly babes from their mothers' arms not moments after they'd tumbled free of the womb, and was that not a true sign of mercy? No one grows attached to dead things, not even mothers.

Attachments, yes, now they were indeed a waste of time and, more relevantly, a weakness. To rule an empire to rule a hundred empires one needed a certain objectivity. All was to be used, to be remade howsoever he pleased. Why, he had launched vast construction projects to glorify his rule, but few understood that it was not the completion that mattered, but the work itself and all that it implied his command over their lives, their loyalty, their labour. Why, he could work them for decades, see generations of the fools pa.s.s one by one, all working each and every day of their lives, and still they did not understand what it meant for them to give to him to Kallor so many years of their mortal existence, so much of it, truly, that any rational soul would howl at the cruel injustice of such a life.

This was, as far as he was concerned, the real mystery of civilization and for all that he exploited it he was, by the end, no closer to understanding it. This willingness of otherwise intelligent (well, reasonably intelligent) people to parcel up and then bargain away appalling percentages of their very limited lives, all in service to someone else. And the rewards? Ah, some security, perhaps. The cement that is stability. A sound roof, something on the plate, the beloved offspring each one destined to repeat the whole travail. And was that an even exchange?

It would not have been so, for him. He knew that, had known it from the very first. He would bargain away nothing of his life. He would serve no one, yield none of his labour to the edification and ever-expanding wealth of some fool who imagined that his or her own part of the bargain was profound in its generosity, was indeed the most precious of gifts. That to work for him or her was a privilege privilege G.o.ds! The conceit of that! The lie, so bristling and charged in its brazen display! G.o.ds! The conceit of that! The lie, so bristling and charged in its brazen display!

Just how many rules of civil behaviour were designed to perpetuate such egregious schemes of power and control of the few over the many? Rules defended to the death (usually the death of the many, rarely that of the few) with laws and wars, with threats and brutal repression ah, those were the days, were they not? How he had gloried in that outrage!

He would never be one of the mult.i.tude. And he had proved it, again and again, and again. And he would continue to prove it.

A crown was within reach. A kings.h.i.+p waited to be claimed. Mastery not over something as mundane as an empire that game had grown stale long ago but over a realm. An ent.i.ty consisting of all the possible forces of existence. The power of earthly flesh, every element unbound, the coruscating will of belief, the skein of politics, religion, social accord, sensibilities, woven from the usual tragic roots of past ages golden and free of pain and new ages bright with absurd promise. While through it all fell the rains of oblivion, the cascading torrent of failure and death, suffering and misery, a G.o.d broken and for ever doomed to remain so oh, Kallor knew he could usurp such a creature, leave it as powerless as his most abject subject.

All all of it all of it within his reach. within his reach.

He kicked again at the embers, the too-small branches that had made up this shortlived fire, saw countless twigs fall into white ash. A few picked bones were visible amidst the coals, all that remained of the pathetic creature he had devoured earlier this night.

A smear of clouds cut a swath across the face of the stars and the dust-veiled moon had yet to rise. Somewhere out on the plain coyotes bickered with the night. He had found trader tracks this past day, angling northwest-southeast. Well-worn wagon ruts, the tramping of yoked oxen. Garbage strewn to either side. Rather disappointing, all things considered; he had grown used to solitude, where the only sign of human activity had been the occasional gra.s.sfire on the western horizon plains nomads and their mysterious ways something to do with the bhederin herds and the needs for various gra.s.ses, he suspected. If they spied him they wisely kept their distance. His pa.s.sing through places had a way of agitating ancient spirits, a detail he had once found irritating enough to hunt the things down and kill them, but no longer. Let them whine and twitch, thrash and moan in the grip of timorous nightmares, and all that. Let their mortal children cower in the high gra.s.ses until he was well and gone.

The High King had other concerns. And other matters with which he could occupy his mind.

He sat straighter, every sense stung awake by a burgeoning of power to the north. Slowly rising to his feet, Kallor stared into the darkness. Yes, something foaming awake, what might it be? And . . . yes, another another force, and that one he well recognized Tiste Andii. force, and that one he well recognized Tiste Andii.

Breath hissed between worn teeth. Of course, if he continued on this path he would have come full circle, back to that horrid place what was its name? Yes, Coral. The whole mess with the Pannion Domin, oh, the stupidity! The pathetic, squalid idiocy of that day!

Could this be those two accursed hunters? Had they somehow swept round him? Were they now striking south to finally face him? Well, he might welcome that. He'd killed his share of dragons, both pure and Soletaken. One at a time, of course. Two at once . . . that could be a challenge. One at a time, of course. Two at once . . . that could be a challenge.

For all this time, their pursuit had been a clumsy, witless thing. So easily fooled, led astray he could have ambushed them countless times, and perhaps he should have done just that. At the very least, he might have come to understand the source of their persistent yes, pathological relentlessness. Had he truly angered Rake that much? It seemed ridiculous. The Son of Darkness was not one to become so obsessed; indeed, none of the Tiste Andii were, and was that not their fundamental weakness? This failing of will?

How had he so angered Korlat and Orfantal? Was it because he did not stay, did not elect to fight alongside all the doomed fools on that day? Let the Malazans bleed! They were our enemies! Let the T'lan Ima.s.s betray Silverfox she deserved it! Let the Malazans bleed! They were our enemies! Let the T'lan Ima.s.s betray Silverfox she deserved it!

It was not our war, Brood. Not our war, Rake. Why didn't you listen to me?

Bah, come and face me, then, Korlat. Orfantal. Come, let us be done with this rubbis.h.!.+

The twin flaring of powers ebbed suddenly.

Somewhere far to the east the coyotes resumed their frantic cries.

He looked skyward, saw the gleam of the rising moon, its ravaged scowl of reflected sunlight and the blighted dust of its stirred slumber. Look at you. Your face is my face, let us be truthful about that. Beaten and boxed about, yet we climb upright time and again, to resume our trek. Look at you. Your face is my face, let us be truthful about that. Beaten and boxed about, yet we climb upright time and again, to resume our trek.

The sky cares nothing for you, dear one. The stars don't even see you.

But you will march on, because it is what you do.

A final kick at the coals. Let the gra.s.ses burn to scar his wake, he cared not. No, he would not come full circle he never did, which was what had kept him alive for this long. No point in changing anything, was there?

Kallor set out. Northward. There were, if he recalled, settlements, and roads, and a main trader track skirling west and north, out across the Cinnamon Wastes, all the way to Darujhistan.

Where he had an appointment to keep. A destiny to claim by right of sword and indomitable will.

The moon's light took hold of his shadow and made a mess of it. Kallor walked on, oblivious of such details.

Three scrawny horses, one neglected ox and a wagon with a bent axle and a cracked brake: the ama.s.sed inherited wealth of the village of Morsko comprised only these. Bodies left to rot on the tavern floor they should have set fire to the place, Nimander realized. Too late now, too hard the shove away from that horrid scene. And what of the victims on their crosses, wrapped and leaking black ichors into the muddy earth? They had left them as well.

Motionless beneath a blanket in the bed of the wagon, Clip stared sightlessly at the sideboards. Flecks of the porridge they had forced down his throat that morning studded his chin. Flies crawled and buzzed round his mouth. Every now and then, faint trembling rippled through his body.

Stolen away.

Noon, the third day now on this well-made cobbled, guttered road. They had just pa.s.sed south of the town of Heath, which had once been a larger settlement, perhaps a city, and might well return to such past glory, this time on the riches of kelyk, a dilute form of saemankelyk, the Blood of the Dying G.o.d. These details and more they had learned from the merchant trains rolling up and down this road, scores of wagons setting out virtually empty to villages and towns east of Bastion to Outlook itself then returning loaded with amphorae of the foul drink, wagons groaning beneath the weight, back to some form of central distribution hub in Bastion.

The road itself ran south of these settlements all of which nested above the sh.o.r.eline of Pilgrim Lake. When it came opposite a village there would be a junction, with a track or wend leading north. A more substantial crossroads marked the intersection of levelled roads to the reviving cities of Heath, Kel Tor and, somewhere still ahead, Sarn.

Nimander and his group did not travel disguised, did not pretend to be other than what they were, and it was clear that the priests, fleeing ahead of them, had delivered word to all their kin on the road and, from there, presumably into the towns and villages. At the junctions, in the ramshackle waystations and storage sheds, food and water and forage for the animals awaited them.

The Dying G.o.d or his priests had blessed them, apparently, and now awaited their pleasure in Bastion. The one who had sacrificed his soul to the Dying G.o.d was doubly blessed, and some final consummation was antic.i.p.ated, probably leading to Clip's soul's being thoroughly devoured by an ent.i.ty who was cursed to suffer for eternity. Thus accursed, it was little wonder the creature welcomed company.

All things considered, it was well that their journey had been one of ease and accommodation. Nimander suspected that his troupe would have been rather more pleased to carve their way through hordes of frenzied fanatics, a.s.suming they could manage such a thing.

Having confirmed that Clip's comatose condition was unchanged, he climbed down from the wagon and returned to the scruffy mare he had been riding since Morsko. The poor beast's ribs had been like the bars of a cage under tattered vellum, its eyes listless and its tan coat patchy and dull. In the three days since, despite the steady riding, the animal had recovered somewhat under Nimander's ministrations. He was not particularly enamoured of horses in general, but no creature deserved to suffer.

As he climbed into the worn saddle he saw Skintick standing, stepping up on to the wagon's bench where Nenanda sat holding the reins, and shading his eyes to look southward across the empty plain.

'See something?'

A moment, then, 'Yes. Someone . . . walking.'

Up from the south? 'But there's nothing out there.'

Kedeviss and Aranatha rose in their stirrups.

'Let's get going,' Desra said from the wagon bed. 'It's too hot to be just sitting here.'

Nimander could see the figure now, tall for a human. Unkempt straggly grey hair fanned out round his head like an aura. He seemed to be wearing a long coat of chain, down to halfway between his knees and ankles, slitted in front. The hand-and-a-half grip of a greatsword rose above his left shoulder.

'An old b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' muttered Skintick, 'to be walking like that.'

'Could be he lost his horse,' said Nenanda disinterestedly. 'Desra is right we should be going.'

Striding like one fevered under the sun, the stranger came ever closer. Something about him compelled Nimander's attention, a kind of dark fascination for what, he couldn't quite name. A cascade of images tumbled through his mind. As if he was watching an apparition bludgeoning its way out from some h.o.a.ry legend, from a time when G.o.ds struggled, hands about each other's throats, when blood fell as rain and the sky itself rolled and crashed against the sh.o.r.es of the Abyss. All this, riding across the dusty air between them as the old man came up to the road. All this, written in the deep lines of his gaunt visage, in the bleak wastelands of his grey eyes.

'He is as winter,' murmured Skintick.

Yes, and something . . . colder.

'What city lies beyond?' the man asked.

A startled moment when Nimander realized that the stranger had spoken Tiste Andii. 'Heath.'

The man turned, faced west. 'This way, then, lies Bastion and the Cinnamon Track.'

Nimander shrugged.

'You are from Coral?' the stranger asked, scanning the group. 'Is he still camped there, then? But no, I recognize none of you, and that would not be possible. Even so, tell me why I should not kill you all.'

That got Nenanda's attention, and he twisted in his seat to sneer down at the old man.

But Nimander's blood had turned to ice. 'Because, sir, you do not know us.'

Pale eyes settled on him. 'You have a point, actually. Very well, instead, I would travel with you. Ride, yes, in your wagon I have worn my boots through crossing this wretched plain. Tell me, have you water, decent food?'

Nenanda twisted further to glare at Nimander. 'Turn this fool away. He can drink our dust.'

The old man regarded Nenanda for a moment, then turned back to Nimander. 'Tie a leash on this one and we should be fine.' And he stepped up to the wagon and, setting a foot on a spoke of the rear wheel, pulled himself up. Where he paused, frowning as he studied the prostrate form of Clip. 'Is he ill?' he asked Desra. 'Are you caught with plague? No, not that your kind rarely succ.u.mb to such things. Stop staring, child, and tell me what is wrong with this one.'

'None of your business,' she snapped, as Nimander had known she would. 'If you're going to crowd in then sit there, to give him some shade.'

Thin brows lifted, then a faint smile flickered across his withered, cracked lips. And without another word he moved to where Desra had indicated and settled down, stretching out his legs. 'Some water, darling, if you please.'

She stared at him for a moment, then pulled loose a skin and slid it over. 'That one's not water,' she said with a sweet smile. 'It's called kelyk. A local brew. Very popular.'

Nimander sat motionless, watching all this. He saw that Skintick and Nenanda were both doing the same.

At Desra's words, the old man grimaced. 'I'd rather water,' he said, but reached for the skin anyway. Tugged free the stopper, then sniffed.

And recoiled. 'Imperial dust!' he said in a growl. He replaced the stopper and flung the skin to the back of the wagon. 'If you won't spare water then never mind, b.i.t.c.h. We can settle your inhospitality later.'

'Desra,' said Nimander as he gathered his reins, 'give the man some water.'

'After he called me a b.i.t.c.h?'

'After you tried poisoning him with kelyk, yes.'

They set out on the road, westward. Two more days, said the last trader they had pa.s.sed that morning. Past Sarn and the lesser lake. To Bastion, the city by the inland sea, a sea so filled with salt no sailor or fisher could drown in it, and where no fish could be found barring an enormous eel with the jaws of a wolf. Salt that had not been there a generation ago, but the world will change, amen.

The Abject Temple of Saemenkelyk awaited them in Bastion.

Two days, then, to meet the Dying G.o.d. And, one way or another, to wrest from it Clip's soul. Nimander did not think the priests would just step aside for that.

Riding his mount alongside the wagon, Nimander spoke to the old man. 'If you are going to Bastion, sir, you might want to reconsider staying with us.'

'And why is that.' There was little in that tone even remotely interrogative.

'I don't think I can adequately explain why,' Nimander replied. 'You'll just have to take me at my word.'

Instead the old man unslung his weapon and set it between him and Clip, then he laced his long-fingered hands behind his head and settled back, closing his eyes. 'Wake me when it's time to eat,' he said.

The worn grip and nicked pommel of the greatsword, the broad cross-hilt and the scarred wooden scabbard all drew Nimander's attention. He can still use that d.a.m.ned weapon, ancient as he is. He can still use that d.a.m.ned weapon, ancient as he is.

Grim legends, the clangour of warring G.o.ds, yes, this gaunt warrior belonged to such things.

He collected his reins. 'As you like, stranger.' Nudging the mare into a trot, he glanced up to meet Skintick's gaze as he rode past. And saw none of the usual mocking pleasure. Instead, something wan, distraught.

True, there was not much to laugh about, was there?

My unhappy kin.

Onward, then, to Bastion.

A succession of ridges stepped down towards the basin of the valley, each marking a time when the river had been wider, its cold waters churning away from dying glaciers and melt.w.a.ter lakes. Now, a narrow twisting gully threaded along the distant floor, fringed by cottonwoods. Standing upon the highest ridge, Traveller looked down to the next level, where a half-dozen tipis rose, not quite breaking the high ground skyline. Figures moving about, clothed in tanned hides and skins, a few dogs, the latter now padding out to the camp's edge closest to the slope, sharp ears and lifted noses alerted to his presence although not one barked.

A herd of horses foraged further down, a small, stocky steppe breed that Traveller had never seen before. Ochre flanks deepening to brown on the haunches, manes and tails almost black.

Down on the valley floor, some distance to the right, carrion birds were on the ground, perched on islands of dead flesh beneath the branches of cottonwoods. Other horses wandered there, these ones more familiar, trailing reins as they cropped the high gra.s.ses.

Two men walked out to the base of the slope. Traveller set out down towards them. His own escort of Hounds had left him this morning, either off on a hunt or gone for good there was no telling which.

Sun-burnished faces watched him approach. Eyes nestled in wind-stretched epicanthic folds. Midnight-black hair in loosely bound manes, through which were threaded rather sweetly white blossoms. Long, narrow-bladed curved knives in beaded belts, the iron black except along the honed edges. Their clothing was beautifully sewn with red-dyed gut thread, studded here and there with bronze rivets.

The elder one, on the right, now held up both hands, palms outward, and said in archaic Daru, 'Master of the Wolf-Horses, welcome. Do not kill us. Do not rape our women. Do not steal our children. Leave us with no diseases. Leave us our g'athend horses-of-the-rock, our mute dogs, our food and our shelters, our weapons and our tools. Eat what we give you. Drink what we give you. Smoke what we give you. Thank us for all three. Grant your seed if a woman comes to you in the night, kill all vermin you find. Kiss with pa.s.sion, caress with tenderness, gift us with the wisdom of your years but none of their bitterness. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not hate, do not fear, and neither will we hate or fear you. Do not invite your wolf-horses into our camp, lest they devour us and all our beasts. Welcome, then, wanderer, and we will tell you of matters, and show you other matters. We are the Kindaru, keepers of the horses-of-the-rock, the last clan left in all Lama Teth Andath the gra.s.ses we have made so that trees do not reach high to steal the sky. Welcome. You need a bath.'

To such a greeting, Traveller could only stand, silent, bemused, torn between laughter and weeping.

The younger of the two men perhaps in his mid-twenties smiled wryly and said, 'The more strangers we meet, the more we add to our words of welcome. This is born of experience, most of it sad, unpleasant. If you mean us harm, we ask that you heed the words given you, and so turn away. Of course, if you mean to betray us, then there is nothing we can do. Deceit is not our way.'

Traveller grimaced. 'Deceit is everyone's way.'

Twin expressions of dismay, so similar that it was made clear they were father and son. 'Yes,' said the son, 'that is true. If we saw that you would enter our camp and be with us, yet plan betrayal, why, we would plan the same, and seek to deliver unto you first what you thought to deliver unto us.'

'You are truly the last camp left?'