Toll the Hounds Part 42

Kedeviss saw no need to comment on that.

'She speaks with Gothos why? What could they possibly say to each other?'

Shrugging, Kedeviss turned away. 'I think I will do the cooking tonight,' she said.

Dying, the Captain stared across at the giant warrior with the shattered face. Woven carpets beneath each of them, the one on which sat the Captain now sodden with blood blood that seemed to flow for ever, as if his body was but a valve, broken, jammed open, and out it came, trickling down from wounds that would never close. He was, he realized, back where he began. Opulence surrounded him this time, rather than grit and mud and dust on the edge of a dried riverbed, but did that make any real difference? Clearly it didn't.

Only the dying could laugh at that truth. There were many things, he now understood, to which only the dying could respond with honest mirth. Like this nemesis warrior sitting cross-legged, hunched and glowering opposite him.

A small brazier smouldered between them, perched on three legs. On the coals rested a squat kettle, and the spiced wine within steamed to sweeten the air of the chamber.

'You shall have to knock out some of the inner walls,' the Captain said. 'Have the slaves make you a new bed, one long enough, and other furniture besides.'

'You are not listening,' the giant said. 'I lose my temper when people do not listen.'

'You are my heir-'

'No. I am not. Slavery is an abomination. Slavery is what people who hate do to others. They hate themselves. They hate in order to make themselves different, better. You. You told yourself you had the right to own other people. You told yourself they were less than you, and you thought shackles could prove it.'

'I loved my slaves. I took care of them.'

'There is plenty of room for guilt in the heart of hate,' the warrior replied.

'This is my gift-'

'Everyone seeks to give me gifts. I reject them all. You believe yours is wondrous. Generous. You are nothing. Your empire is pathetic. I knew village dogs who were greater tyrants than you.'

'Why do you torment me with such words? I am dying. You have killed me. And yet I do not despise you for that. No, I make you my heir. I give you my kingdom. My army will take your commands. Everything is yours now.'

'I don't want it.'

'If you do not take it, one of my officers will.'

'This kingdom cannot exist without the slaves. Your army will become nothing more than one more band of raiders, and so someone will hunt them down and destroy them. And all you sought to build will be forgotten.'

'You torment me.'

'I tell you the truth. Let your officers come to kill me. I will destroy them all. And I will scatter your army. Blood to the gra.s.s.'

The Captain stared at this monster, and knew he could do nothing. He was sinking back against his heap of pillows, every breath shallower than the last. Swathed in robes and furs, he was none the less cold. 'You could have lied,' he whispered.

The man's last words. Karsa studied the dead face for a moment longer. Then he thumped against the panel door to his left.

It opened a crack.

'Everyone leave this carriage,' Karsa commanded. 'Take whatever you want but you do not have much time.'

Then he settled back once more. Scanned the remnants of the lavish feast he had devoured while the Captain had simply watched, smug as a rich father even as he died. But Karsa was not his son. Not his heir, no matter what the fool desired. He was Toblakai. A Teblor, and far to the north waited his people.

Was he ready for them?

He was.

Would they be ready for him? Probably not.

A long walk awaited him there was not a single horse in this paltry kingdom that could accommodate him. He thought back to his youth, to those bright days of hard drama, crowded with omens, when every blade of gra.s.s was saturated with significance but it was the young mind that fas.h.i.+oned such things. Not yet bleached by the sun, not yet worn down by the wind. Vistas were to be crossed. Foes were to be vanquished with harsh barks of fierce triumph, blood spraying in the air.

Once, long ago it seemed now, he had set out to find glory, only to discover that it was nothing like what he had imagined it to be. It was a brutal truth that his companions then had understood so much better than he had, despite his being War Leader. Nevertheless, they had let themselves be pulled into his wake, and for this they had died. The power of Karsa's own will had overwhelmed them. What could be learned from that?

Followers will follow, even unto their own deaths. There was a flaw to such people the willingness to override one's own instinct for self-preservation. And this flaw invited exploitation, perhaps even required required it. Confusion and uncertainty surrendered to simplicity, so comforting, so deadly. it. Confusion and uncertainty surrendered to simplicity, so comforting, so deadly.

Without followers this Captain would have achieved nothing. The same the world over. Wars would disintegrate into the chaos of raids, skirmishes, ma.s.sacres of the innocent, the vendetta of blood-feuds, and little else. Monuments would never be raised. No temples, no streets and roads, no cities. No s.h.i.+ps, no bridges. Every patch of ploughed land would shrink to what a few could manage. Without followers, civilization would never have been born.

He would tell his people all this. He would make them not his followers, but his companions. And together they would bring civilization to ruin, whenever and wherever they found it. Because, for all the good it created, its sole purpose was to breed followers enough to heave into motion forces of destruction, spreading a tide of blood at the whim of those few cynical tyrants born to lead. Lead, yes, with lies, with iron words duty, honour, patriotism, freedom duty, honour, patriotism, freedom that fed the wilfully stupid with grand purpose, with reason for misery and delivering misery in kind. that fed the wilfully stupid with grand purpose, with reason for misery and delivering misery in kind.

He had seen the enemy's face, its twin masks of abject self-sacrifice and cold-eyed command. He had seen leaders feed on the flesh of the bravely fallen. And this is not the Teblor way. It shall not be my way. And this is not the Teblor way. It shall not be my way.

The sounds of looting from the rooms around him were gone now. Silence on all sides. Karsa reached down and used a hook to lift the kettle from the coals and set it down on the small table amidst the foodstuffs, the silver plates and the polished goblets.

Then he kicked the brazier over, scattering coals on to the beautifully woven carpets, into the silks and woollen blankets, the furs. He waited to see flames ignite.

When the first ones began, Karsa Orlong rose and, hunched over to clear the panel door, made his way out.

Darkness in the world beyond the camp's cookfires. A mad profusion of stars overhead. Arrayed in a vast semi-circle facing the enormous carriage was the kingdom of the Captain. Karsa Orlong stood in front of the throne on the balcony.

'The slaves are free,' he said in a loud voice that carried to everyone. 'The officers will divide the loot, the horses and all the rest an equal share for all, slaves and free, soldier and crafter. Cheat anyone and I will kill you.'

Behind him on the carriage, flames licked out from the countless windows and vents. Black smoke rose in a thickening column. He could feel the heat gusting against his back.

'Come the dawn,' he said, 'everyone will leave. Go home. Those without a home go find one. And know that the time I give you now is all that you will ever have. For when next you see me, when you are hiding there in your cities, I will come as a destroyer. Five years or twenty it is what you have, what I give you. Use it well. All of you, live well.' live well.'

And that such a farewell should be received, not as a benediction, but as a threat, marked well how these people understood Karsa Orlong who came from the north, immune to all weapons. Who slew the Captain without even touching him. Who freed the slaves and scattered the knights of the realm with not a single clash of swords.

The G.o.d of the Broken Face came among them, as each would tell others for the years left to them. And, so telling, with eyes wide and licking dry lips, they would reach in haste for the tankard and its nectar of forgetfulness.

Some, you cannot kill. Some are deliverers of death and judgement. Some, in wis.h.i.+ng you a full life, promise you death. There is no lie in that promise, for does not death come to us all? And yet, how rare the one to say so. No sweet euphemism, no quaint colloquialism. No metaphor, no a.n.a.logy. There is but one true poet in the world, and he speaks the truth.

Flee, my friends, but there is nowhere to hide. Nowhere at all.

See your fate, there in his Broken Face.

See it well.

Horses drawn to a halt on a low hilltop, gra.s.ses whispering unseen on all sides.

'I once led armies,' Traveller said. 'I was once the will of the Emperor of Malaz.'

Samar Dev tasted bitterness and leaned to one side and spat.

The man beside her grunted, as if acknowledging the gesture as commentary. 'We served death, of course, in all that we did. For all our claims otherwise. Imposing peace, ending stupid feuds and tribal rivalries. Opening roads to merchants without fear of banditry. Coin flowed like blood in veins, such was the gift of those roads and the peace we enforced. And yet, behind it all, he he waited.' waited.'

'All hail civilization,' Samar Dev said. 'Like a beacon in the dark wilderness.'

'With a cold smile,' Traveller continued, as if not hearing her, 'he waits. Where all the roads converge, where every path ends. He waits.'

A dozen heartbeats pa.s.sed, with nothing more said.

To the north something burned, lancing bright orange flames into the sky, lighting the bellies of churning clouds of black smoke. Like a beacon . . . Like a beacon . . .

'What burns?' Traveller wondered.

Samar Dev spat again. She just couldn't get that foul taste out of her mouth. 'Karsa Orlong,' she replied. 'Karsa Orlong burns, Traveller. Because that is what he does.'

'I do not understand you.'

'It's a pyre,' she said. 'And he does not grieve. The Skathandi are no more.'

'When you speak of Karsa Orlong,' Traveller said, 'I am frightened.'

She nodded at that admission a response he probably could not even see. The man beside her was an honest one.

In many ways as honest as Karsa Orlong.

And on the morrow these two would meet.

Samar Dev well understood Traveller's fear.

CHAPTER NINE.

The bulls ever walk alone to the solitude Of their selves Swaggering in their coats of sweaty felt Every vein swollen Defiant and proud in their beastly need Thunderous in step Make way make way the spurting swords Slay damsel hearts Cloven the cut gaping wide so tender an att.i.tude!

And we must swoon Before red-rimmed eyes you'll find no guilt In the self so proven And the fiery charge of most fertile seed Sings like G.o.ds' rain Make way make way another bold word The dancer's sure to misstep In the rus.h.i.+ng drums of the mult.i.tude Dandies of the Promenade Seglora

Expectation is the h.o.a.ry curse of humanity. One can listen to words, and see them as the unfolding of a petal or, indeed, the very opposite: each word bent and pushed tighter, smaller, until the very packet of meaning vanishes with a flip of deft fingers. Poets and tellers of tales can be tugged by either current, into the riotous conflagration of beauteous language or the pithy reduction of the tersely colourless.

As with art, so too with life. See a man without fingers standing at the back of his house. He is grainy with sleep that yields no rest, no relief from a burdensome world (and all that), and his eyes are strangely blank and might be shuttered too as he stares out on the huddled form of his wife as she works some oddity in her vegetable patch.

This one is terse. Existence is a most narrow aperture indeed. His failing is not in being inarticulate through some lack of intellect. No, this mind is most finely honed. But he views his paucity of words in both thought and dialogue as a virtue, sigil of rigid manhood. He has made brevity an obsession, an addiction, and in his endless paring down he strips away all hope of emotion and with it empathy. When language is lifeless what does it serve? When meaning is rendered down what veracity holds to the illusion of depth?

Bah! to such conceits! Such a.n.a.l self-serving affectation! Wax extravagant and let the world swirl thick and pungent about you! Tell the tale of your life as you would live it! to such conceits! Such a.n.a.l self-serving affectation! Wax extravagant and let the world swirl thick and pungent about you! Tell the tale of your life as you would live it!

A delighted waggle of fingers now might signal mocking cruelty when you are observing this fingerless man who stands silent and expressionless as he studies his woman. Decide as you will. His woman. His woman. Yes, the notion belongs to him, artfully whittled from his world view (one of expectation and fury at its perpetual failure). Possession has its rules and she must behave within the limits those rules prescribe. This was, to Gaz, self-evident, a detail that did not survive his own manic editing. Yes, the notion belongs to him, artfully whittled from his world view (one of expectation and fury at its perpetual failure). Possession has its rules and she must behave within the limits those rules prescribe. This was, to Gaz, self-evident, a detail that did not survive his own manic editing.

But what was Thordy doing with all those flat stones? With that peculiar pattern she was building there in the dark loamy soil? One could plant nothing beneath stone, could one? No, she was sacrificing fertile ground, and for what? He didn't know. And he knew that he might never know. As an activity, however, Thordy's diligent pursuit was a clear transgression of the rules, and he might have to do something about that. Soon.

Tonight he would beat a man to death. Exultation, yes, but a cold kind. Flies buzzing in his head, the sound rising like a wave, filling his skull with a hundred thousand icy legs. He would do that, yes, and this meant he didn't have to beat his wife not yet, anyway; a few more days, maybe a week or so he would have to see how things went.

Keep things simple, give the flies not much to land on, that was the secret. The secret to staying sane.

The wedges of his battered fingerless hands burned with eager fire.

But he wasn't thinking much of anything at all, was he? Nothing to reach his face, his eyes, the flat line of his mouth. Sigil of manhood, this blank facade, and when a man has nothing else at least he could have that. And he would prove it to himself again and again. Night after night.

Because this is what artists did.

Thordy was thinking of many things, none of them particularly relevant or so she would have judged if pressed to examination, although of course there was no one who might voice such a challenge, which was just as well. Here in her garden she could float, as aimless as a leaf blown down on to a slow, lazy river.

She was thinking about freedom. She was thinking about how a mind could turn to stone, the patterns solid and immovable in the face of seemingly unbearable pressures, and the way dust trickled down faint as whispers, unnoticed by any. And she was thinking of the cool, polished surface of these slate slabs, the waxy feel of them, and the way the sun reflected soft, milky white and not at all painful to rest eyes upon. And she was remembering the way her husband talked in his sleep, a pouring forth of words as if whatever dam held them back in his wakefulness was kicked down and out gushed tales of G.o.ds and promises, invitations and bloodl.u.s.t, the pain of maimed hands and the pain of maiming that those hands delivered.

And she noted the b.u.t.terflies dancing above the row of greens just off to her left, almost within reach if she stretched out a dirt-stained hand, but then those orange-winged sprites would wing away though she posed them no threat. Because life was uncertain and danger waited in the guise of peaceful repose.

And her knees ached and nowhere in her thoughts could be found expectation nowhere could be found such hard-edged proof of reality as the framework of what waited somewhere ahead. No hint at all, even as she laid down stone after stone. It was all outside, you see, all outside.

The clerk at the office of the Guild of Blacksmiths had never once in his life wielded hammer and tongs. What he did wield demanded no muscles, no weight of impetus atop oaken legs, no sweat streaming down to sting the eyes, no gusts of scalding heat to singe the hairs on the forearms. And so, in the face of a true blacksmith, the clerk gloried in his power.

That pleasure could be seen in his small pursed lips turned well down at each end, could be caught in his watery eyes that rested everywhere and nowhere; in his pale hands holding a wooden stylus like an a.s.sa.s.sin's dagger, the tip stained blue by ink and wax. He sat on his stool behind the broad counter that divided the front room as if guarding the world's wealth and every promise of paradise that members.h.i.+p in this most n.o.ble Guild offered its hallowed, upright members (and the fat man winks).

So he sat, and so Barathol Mekhar wanted to reach over the counter, pluck the clerk into the air, and break him in half. Over and over again, until little more than a pile of brittle tailings remained heaped on the scarred counter, with the stylus thrust into it like a warrior's sword stabbing a barrow.

Dark was the amus.e.m.e.nt in Barathol's thoughts as the clerk shook his head yet again.

'It is simple even for you, I'm sure. The Guild demands credentials, specifically the sponsors.h.i.+p of an accredited Guild member. Without this, your coin is so much dross.' And he smiled at this clever pun voiced to a smith.

'I am new to Darujhistan,' Barathol said, again, 'and so such sponsors.h.i.+p is impossible.'

'Yes it is.'

'As for apprentices.h.i.+p-'

'Also impossible. You say you have been a blacksmith for many years now and I do not doubt such a claim the evidence is plain before me. This of course makes you overqualified as an apprentice and too old besides.'

'If I cannot be apprenticed how can I get a sponsor?'

A smile of the lips and shake of the head. A holding up of the palms. 'I don't make the rules, you understand.'

'Can I speak to anyone who might have been involved in devising these rules?'

'A blacksmith? No, alas, they are all off doing smithy things, as befits their profession.'