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

‘Godling, if in poring through Clip’s mind you now feel you understand the Tiste Andii, I must tell you, you are wrong. Clip was a barbarian. Ignorant. A fool. He knew nothing.’

‘I am not interested in the Tiste Andii-oh, I will kill Rake, because that is what he deserves. I will feed upon him and take his power into me. No, the one I seek is not in Black Coral, but within a barrow outside the city. Another young god-so young, so helpless, so naive.’ His smile returned. ‘And he knows I am coming for him.’

‘Must we then stop you ourselves?’

‘You? Nimander, Nenanda, all you pups? Now really, Kedeviss.’

‘If you-’

His attack was a blur-one hand closing about her throat, the other covering her mouth. She felt her throat being crushed and scrabbled for the knife at her belt.

He spun her round and flung her down to the ground, so hard that the back of her head crunched on the rocks. Dazed, her struggles weakened, flailed, fell away.

Something was pouring out from his hand where it covered her mouth, some-thing that numbed her lips, her jaws, then forced its way into her mouth and down her throat. Thick as tree sap. She stared up at him, saw the muddy gleam of the Dying God’s eyes-dying no longer, now freed-and thought: what have we done?

He was whispering. ‘I could stop now, and you’d be mine. It’s tempting.’

Instead, whatever oozed from his hand seemed to burgeon, sliding like a fat, sleek serpent down her throat, coiling in her gut.

‘But you might break loose-just a moment’s worth, but enough to warn the others, and I can’t have that.’

Where the poison touched, there was a moment of ecstatic need, sweeping through her, but that was followed almost instantly by numbness, and then something… darker. She could smell her own rot, pooling like vapours in her brain.

he is killing me. Even that knowledge could not awaken any strength within her.

‘I need the rest of them, you see,’ he was saying. ‘So we can walk in, right in, without anyone suspecting anything. I need my way in, that’s all. Look at Nimander.’ He snorted. ‘There is no guile in him, none at all. He will be my shield. My shield.’

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‘Godling, if in poring through Clip’s mind you now feel you understand the Tiste Andii, I must tell you, you are wrong. Clip was a barbarian. Ignorant. A fool. He knew nothing.’

‘I am not interested in the Tiste Andii-oh, I will kill Rake, because that is what he deserves. I will feed upon him and take his power into me. No, the one I seek is not in Black Coral, but within a barrow outside the city. Another young god-so young, so helpless, so naive.’ His smile returned. ‘And he knows I am coming for him.’

‘Must we then stop you ourselves?’

‘You? Nimander, Nenanda, all you pups? Now really, Kedeviss.’

‘If you-’

His attack was a blur-one hand closing about her throat, the other covering her mouth. She felt her throat being crushed and scrabbled for the knife at her belt.

He spun her round and flung her down to the ground, so hard that the back of her head crunched on the rocks. Dazed, her struggles weakened, flailed, fell away.

Something was pouring out from his hand where it covered her mouth, some-thing that numbed her lips, her jaws, then forced its way into her mouth and down her throat. Thick as tree sap. She stared up at him, saw the muddy gleam of the Dying God’s eyes-dying no longer, now freed-and thought: what have we done?

He was whispering. ‘I could stop now, and you’d be mine. It’s tempting.’

Instead, whatever oozed from his hand seemed to burgeon, sliding like a fat, sleek serpent down her throat, coiling in her gut.

‘But you might break loose-just a moment’s worth, but enough to warn the others, and I can’t have that.’

Where the poison touched, there was a moment of ecstatic need, sweeping through her, but that was followed almost instantly by numbness, and then something… darker. She could smell her own rot, pooling like vapours in her brain.

he is killing me. Even that knowledge could not awaken any strength within her.

‘I need the rest of them, you see,’ he was saying. ‘So we can walk in, right in, without anyone suspecting anything. I need my way in, that’s all. Look at Nimander.’ He snorted. ‘There is no guile in him, none at all. He will be my shield. My shield.’

He was no longer gripping her neck. It was no longer necessary.

Kedeviss stared up at him as she died, and her final, fading thought was: Nimander… guileless? Oh, but you don’t… And then there were nothing.

The nothing that no priest dared speak of, that no holy scripture described, that no seer or prophet set forth in ringing proclamation. The nothing, this nothing, it is the soul in waiting.

Comes death, and now the soul waits.

Aranatha opened her eyes, sat up, then reached out to touch Nimander’s shoulder. He awoke, looked at her with a question in his eyes.

‘He has killed Kedeviss,’ she said, the words soft as a breath.

Nimander paled.

‘She was right,’ Aranatha went on, ‘and now we must be careful. Say nothing to anyone else, not yet, or you will see us all die.’

‘Kedeviss.’

‘He has carried her body to a crevasse, and thrown her into it, and now he makes signs on the ground to show her careless steps, the way the edge gave way. He will come to us in shock and grief. Nimander, you must display no suspicion, do you understand?’

And she saw that his own grief would sweep all else aside-at least for now-which was good. Necessary. And that the anger within him, the rage destined to come, would be slow to build, and as it did she would speak to him again, and give him the strength he would need.

Kedeviss had been the first to see the truth-or so it might have seemed. But Aranatha knew that Nimander’s innocence was not some innate flaw, not some fatal weakness. No, his innocence was a choice he had made. The very path of his life. And he had his reasons for that.

Easy to see such a thing and misunderstand it. Easy to see it as a failing, and to then believe him irresolute.

Clip had made this error from the very beginning. And so too this Dying God, who knew only what Clip believed, and thought it truth.

She looked down and saw tears held back, waiting for Clip’s sudden arrival with his tragic news, and Aranatha nodded and turned away, to feign sleep. ‘

Somewhere beyond the camp waited a soul, motionless as a startled hare. This was sad. Aranatha had loved Kedeviss dearly, had admired her cleverness, her per-cipience. Had cherished her loyalty to Nimander-even though Kedeviss had per-haps suspected the strange circumstances surrounding Phaed’s death, and had seen how Phaed and her secrets haunted Nimander still.

When one can possess loyalty oven in the straits of hill, brutal understanding, then that one understands all there is to understand about compassion.