Toll the Hounds (The Malazan Book of the Fallen 8)

But leave that now-truly, imagination suffices to wax eloquent all the clumsy shifting about and strange sounds and the fumbling for this and that, and then that-no more! Out into the true darkness, yes, to the fingerless man stalking his next victim.

To a new estate and Captain Torvald Nom of the House Guard, moments from leaving for the night with all security in the so-capable hands of Scorch and Leff (yes, he Worked hard on that), who pauses to watch a black two-person carriagetrundle into the courtyard, and whose eyes thin to verymost slits of suspicion and curiosity and a niggling feeling of… something, as a cloaked, hooded figure steps into view and slides like a bad thought up the stairs and into the main house. Who… ponder no longer, Torvald Nom! On your way, yes, back home to your loving and suitably impressed wife. Think of nothing but that and that alone and be on your way!

A guard with occasional chest pains is questioning patrons of a bar, seeking witnesses who might have seen someone set out to follow that local man into the alley in order to beat him to death and would no one step forward on behalf of that hapless victim? Might do, aye, jfn any of us liked him, y’see…

In a crypt (irrationally well lit, of course) sits a man plotting the downfall of the city, starting with a handful of Malazans, and he sits most contented in the absence of shadows or any other ambivalence imposed upon reality.

Out in Chuffs, as moles sleep in their tiny cots, Bainisk sits down beside Harllo’s bed to hear more stories about Darujhistan, for Bainisk was born in Chuffs and has never left it, you see, and his eyes glow as Harllo whispers about riches and all sorts of wonderful foods and great monuments and statues and blue fire everywhere and before long both are asleep, Harllo in his lumpy bed and Bainisk on the floor beside it, and across the way Venaz sees this and sneers to display his hatred of both Bainisk and Bainisk’s new favourite when Venaz used to be his best, but Bainisk was a betrayer, a liar and worse and someday Harllo would pay for that-

Because Harllo was right. He was a boy who drew bullies like a lodestone and this was a cruel fact and his kind were legion and it was a godly blessing how so many survived and grew up to wreak vengeance upon all those people not as smart as they were, but even that is a bitter reward and never quite as satisfying as it might be.

Back to Darujhistan, with relief, as a Great Raven launches herself skyward from the tower of Baruk’s estate, watched with evil satisfaction by a squat, over-weight demon staring out from a spark-spitting chimney mouth.

And this was a night like any other, a skein of expectations and anticipations, revelations and perturbations. Look around. Look around! On all sides, day and night, light and dark! Every step taken with the firm resolve to believe in the solid ground awaiting it. Every step, one after another, again and again, and no perilous ledge yawns ahead, oh no.

Step and step, now, step and step-

Chapter Ten

Will you come and tell me when the music ends When the musicians are swallowed in flames Every instrument blackening and crumbling to ash When the dancers stumble and sprawl their diseased limbs rotting off and twitching the skin sloughing away

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But leave that now-truly, imagination suffices to wax eloquent all the clumsy shifting about and strange sounds and the fumbling for this and that, and then that-no more! Out into the true darkness, yes, to the fingerless man stalking his next victim.

To a new estate and Captain Torvald Nom of the House Guard, moments from leaving for the night with all security in the so-capable hands of Scorch and Leff (yes, he Worked hard on that), who pauses to watch a black two-person carriagetrundle into the courtyard, and whose eyes thin to verymost slits of suspicion and curiosity and a niggling feeling of… something, as a cloaked, hooded figure steps into view and slides like a bad thought up the stairs and into the main house. Who… ponder no longer, Torvald Nom! On your way, yes, back home to your loving and suitably impressed wife. Think of nothing but that and that alone and be on your way!

A guard with occasional chest pains is questioning patrons of a bar, seeking witnesses who might have seen someone set out to follow that local man into the alley in order to beat him to death and would no one step forward on behalf of that hapless victim? Might do, aye, jfn any of us liked him, y’see…

In a crypt (irrationally well lit, of course) sits a man plotting the downfall of the city, starting with a handful of Malazans, and he sits most contented in the absence of shadows or any other ambivalence imposed upon reality.

Out in Chuffs, as moles sleep in their tiny cots, Bainisk sits down beside Harllo’s bed to hear more stories about Darujhistan, for Bainisk was born in Chuffs and has never left it, you see, and his eyes glow as Harllo whispers about riches and all sorts of wonderful foods and great monuments and statues and blue fire everywhere and before long both are asleep, Harllo in his lumpy bed and Bainisk on the floor beside it, and across the way Venaz sees this and sneers to display his hatred of both Bainisk and Bainisk’s new favourite when Venaz used to be his best, but Bainisk was a betrayer, a liar and worse and someday Harllo would pay for that-

Because Harllo was right. He was a boy who drew bullies like a lodestone and this was a cruel fact and his kind were legion and it was a godly blessing how so many survived and grew up to wreak vengeance upon all those people not as smart as they were, but even that is a bitter reward and never quite as satisfying as it might be.

Back to Darujhistan, with relief, as a Great Raven launches herself skyward from the tower of Baruk’s estate, watched with evil satisfaction by a squat, over-weight demon staring out from a spark-spitting chimney mouth.

And this was a night like any other, a skein of expectations and anticipations, revelations and perturbations. Look around. Look around! On all sides, day and night, light and dark! Every step taken with the firm resolve to believe in the solid ground awaiting it. Every step, one after another, again and again, and no perilous ledge yawns ahead, oh no.

Step and step, now, step and step-

Chapter Ten

Will you come and tell me when the music ends When the musicians are swallowed in flames Every instrument blackening and crumbling to ash When the dancers stumble and sprawl their diseased limbs rotting off and twitching the skin sloughing away

Will you come and tell me when the music ends

When the stars we pushed into the sky loose their roars

And the clouds we built into visible rage do now explode

When the bright princes of privilege march past with dead smiles falling from their faces a host of deceiving masks

Will you come and tell me when the music ends When reason sinks into the morass of superstition Waging a war of ten thousand armies stung to the lash When we stop looking up even as we begin our mad running into stupidity’s nothingness with heavenly choirs screaming

Will you come and tell me when the music ends When the musicians are no more than black grinning sticks Every instrument wailing its frantic death cry down the road When the ones left standing have had their mouths cut off leaving holes from which a charnel wind eternally blows

Will you come and tell me when the music ends The fire is eating my breath and agony fills this song When my fingers crack on the strings and fall from my hands And this dance twists every muscle like burning rope while your laughter follows down my crumpling corpse

Won’t you come and tell me when the music ends

When I can leap away and face one god or a thousand

Or nothing at all into this blessed bliss of oblivion

When I can prise open this box and release cruel and bitter fury at all the mad fools crowding the door in panicked flight

Watch me and watch me with eyes wide and shocked

With disbelief with horror with indignant umbrage to upbraidAnd the shouted Nays are like drumbeats announcing a truth