Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen 8)
Page 18
‘… stalwart ally, broken and with blood on his face…’
Chapter Two
Anomander would tell no lie, nor live one, and would that deafness could bless him in the days and nights beyond the black rains of Black Coral. Alas, this was not to be.
And so we choose to hear nothing ‘
Of the dreaded creak, the slip and snap
Of wooden wheels, the shudder on stone
And the chiding rattle of chains, as if
Upon some other world is where darkness
Beats out from a cursedly ethereal forge
And no sun rises above horizon’s rippled
Cant-some other world not ours indeed-
Yes bless us so, Anomander, with this
Sanctimony, this lie and soft comfort,
And the slaves are not us, this weight
But an illusion, these shackles could break
With a thought, and all these cries and
Moans are less than the murmurs
br />
‘… stalwart ally, broken and with blood on his face…’
Chapter Two
Anomander would tell no lie, nor live one, and would that deafness could bless him in the days and nights beyond the black rains of Black Coral. Alas, this was not to be.
And so we choose to hear nothing ‘
Of the dreaded creak, the slip and snap
Of wooden wheels, the shudder on stone
And the chiding rattle of chains, as if
Upon some other world is where darkness
Beats out from a cursedly ethereal forge
And no sun rises above horizon’s rippled
Cant-some other world not ours indeed-
Yes bless us so, Anomander, with this
Sanctimony, this lie and soft comfort,
And the slaves are not us, this weight
But an illusion, these shackles could break
With a thought, and all these cries and
Moans are less than the murmurs
Of a quiescent heart-it’s all but a tale,
My friends, this tall denier of worship
And the sword he carries holds nothing,
No memory at all, and if there be a place
In the cosy scheme for lost souls
Pulling onward an uprooted temple
It but resides in an imagination flawed
And unaligned with sober intricacy-
Nothing is as messy as that messy world
And that comfort leaves us abiding
Deaf and blind and senseless in peace
Within our imagined place, this precious order…
– Anomandaris , Book IV, Soliloquy, Fisher Kel That
Dragon Tower stood like a torch above Black Coral. The spire, rising from the northwest corner of the New Andiian Palace, was solid black basalt, dressed in fractured,faceted obsidian that glistened in the eter-tlrtl gloom enshrouding the eily. Atop its flat roof crouched a crimson-scaled dragon, wings folded, its wedge bead banging over one side so that it seemed to stare down on the crazed shadowy patchwork of buildings, alleys and streets far below,
There were citizens still in Black Coral-among the humans-who believed thai the ferocious sentinel was the stone creation of some master artisan among the ruling Tiste Andii, and this notion left Endest Silann sourly amused. True, he understood how wilful such ignorance could be. The thought of a real, live dragon cast ing its baleful regard down on the city and its multitude of scurrying lives was to most truly terrifying, and indeed, had they been close enough to see the gleaming hunger in Silannah’s multifaceted eyes, they would have long fled Black Coral in blind panic.
For the Eleint to remain so, virtually motionless, day and night, weeks into months and now very nearly an entire year, was not unusual. And Endest Silann knew this better than most.
The Tiste Andii, once a formidable, if aged, sorcerer in Moon’s Spawn, now a barely competent castellan to the New Andiian Palace, slowly walked Sword Street as it bent south of the treeless park known as Grey Hill. He had left the fiercely lit district of Fish, where the Outwater Market so crowded every avenue and lane that those who brought two-wheeled carts in which to load purchases were forced to leave them in a square just north of Grey Hill. The endless streams of porters for hire-who gathered every dawn near the Cart Square-always added to the chaos between the stalls, pushing through with wrapped bundles towards the carts and slipping, dodging and sliding like eels back into the press. Although the Outwater Market acquired its name because the preponderance of fish sold there came from the seas beyond Night-the perpetual darkness cloaking the city and the surround¬ing area for almost a third of a league-there could also be found the pale, gem-eyed creatures of Coral Bay’s Nightwater.
Endest Silann had arranged the next week’s order of cadaver eels from a new supplier, since the last one’s trawler had been pulled down by something too big for its net, with the loss of all hands. Nightwater was not simply an unlit span of sea in the bay, unfortunately. It was Kurald Galain, a true manifestation of the warren, quite possibly depthless, and on occasion untoward beasts loomed into the waters of Coral Bay. Something was down there now, forcing the fishers to use hooks and lines rather than nets, a method possible only because the eels foamed just beneath the surface in the tens of thousands, driven there by terror. Most of the eels pulled aboard were snags.
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 lean¬ing 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 re¬maining rituals of society. Or returning home from such ordeals, as tenuous us smoke from a dying fire.