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

New world, young world. So unexpected, so premature, this rain of death.

Endest Silann could feel every breach as he knelt on the cold mosaic floor of the temple’s Grand Vestry. He had once held the waters back from Moon’s Spawn. He had once, long, long ago, guided his Lord to the fateful, final encounter with Mother Dark herself. He had clasped the hand of a dying High Priestess, sharing with her the bleak knowledge that nothing awaited her, nothing at all. He had stood, gods, so long ago now, staring down at his blood-covered hands, above the body of a sweet, gentle woman, Andarist’s wife. While through the high window, the flames of dying Kharkanas flickered crimson and gold.

The Saelen Gara of the lost Kharkanan forestlands had believed that the moon was Father Light’s sweet seduction, innocent maiden gift to Mother Dark. To re-mind her of his love, there in the sky of night. But then, they had also believed the moon was but the backside of Father Light’s baleful eye, and could one rise up and wing the vast distance to that moon, they would discover that it was but a lens, and to look through was to see other worlds for whom the moon was not the moon at all, but the sun. The Saelen Gara talespinner would grin then, and make odd motions with his hands. ‘Perspective,’ he’d say. ‘You see? The world changes according to where you stand. So choose, my children, choose and choose again, where you will make your stand…’

Where you will make your stand. The world changes.

The world changes.

Yes, he had held back the sea. He had made Moon’s Spawn into a single held breath that had lasted months.

But now, ah, now, his Lord bad asked him to hold back Light itself.

To save not a fortress, but a city. Not a single breath to hold, but the breath of Kurald Galain, an Elder Warren.

But he was old, and he did not know… he did not know…

Standing twenty paces away, in a niche of the wall, the High Priestess watched. Seeing him struggle, seeing him call upon whatever reserves he had left. Seeing him slowly, inexorably, fail.

And she could do nothing.

Light besieged Dark in the sky overhead. A god in love With dying besieged a child of redemption, and would use that child’s innocence to usurp this weakened island of Kurald Galain-to claim for itself the very Throne of Darkness.

For she has turned away.

Against all this, a lone, ancient, broken warlock.

It was not fair…

Time was the enemy. But then, she told herself with wry bitterness, time was always the enemy.

Endest Silann could not drive back every breach. She had begun to feel the damage being wrought upon Night, upon the Tiste Andii in this city. It arrived like a sickness, a failing of internal balances. She was weakening.

We are all weakening.

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New world, young world. So unexpected, so premature, this rain of death.

Endest Silann could feel every breach as he knelt on the cold mosaic floor of the temple’s Grand Vestry. He had once held the waters back from Moon’s Spawn. He had once, long, long ago, guided his Lord to the fateful, final encounter with Mother Dark herself. He had clasped the hand of a dying High Priestess, sharing with her the bleak knowledge that nothing awaited her, nothing at all. He had stood, gods, so long ago now, staring down at his blood-covered hands, above the body of a sweet, gentle woman, Andarist’s wife. While through the high window, the flames of dying Kharkanas flickered crimson and gold.

The Saelen Gara of the lost Kharkanan forestlands had believed that the moon was Father Light’s sweet seduction, innocent maiden gift to Mother Dark. To re-mind her of his love, there in the sky of night. But then, they had also believed the moon was but the backside of Father Light’s baleful eye, and could one rise up and wing the vast distance to that moon, they would discover that it was but a lens, and to look through was to see other worlds for whom the moon was not the moon at all, but the sun. The Saelen Gara talespinner would grin then, and make odd motions with his hands. ‘Perspective,’ he’d say. ‘You see? The world changes according to where you stand. So choose, my children, choose and choose again, where you will make your stand…’

Where you will make your stand. The world changes.

The world changes.

Yes, he had held back the sea. He had made Moon’s Spawn into a single held breath that had lasted months.

But now, ah, now, his Lord bad asked him to hold back Light itself.

To save not a fortress, but a city. Not a single breath to hold, but the breath of Kurald Galain, an Elder Warren.

But he was old, and he did not know… he did not know…

Standing twenty paces away, in a niche of the wall, the High Priestess watched. Seeing him struggle, seeing him call upon whatever reserves he had left. Seeing him slowly, inexorably, fail.

And she could do nothing.

Light besieged Dark in the sky overhead. A god in love With dying besieged a child of redemption, and would use that child’s innocence to usurp this weakened island of Kurald Galain-to claim for itself the very Throne of Darkness.

For she has turned away.

Against all this, a lone, ancient, broken warlock.

It was not fair…

Time was the enemy. But then, she told herself with wry bitterness, time was always the enemy.

Endest Silann could not drive back every breach. She had begun to feel the damage being wrought upon Night, upon the Tiste Andii in this city. It arrived like a sickness, a failing of internal balances. She was weakening.

We are all weakening.

An old, broken man. He was not enough, and they had all known-everyone except the one who mattered the most. Lord Rake, your faith blinded you. See him, kneeling there-there, my Lord, is your fatal error in judgement.

And without him-without the power here and now to keep everything away-without that, your grand design will collapse into ruin.

Taking us with it. ’

By the Abyss, taking us all.

It seemed so obvious now. To stand in Rake’s presence was to feel a vast, unas-sailable confidence. That he could gauge all things with such precision as to leave one in awe, in disbelief and in wonder.

The plans of the Son of Darkness never went awry. Hold to faith in him, and all shall settle into place.

But how many plans worked out precisely because of our faith in him! How many times did we-did people like Endest Silann and Spinnock Durav-do things beyond their capability, simply to ensure that Rake’s vision would prove true? And how many times can he ask that of them, of us!

Anomander Rake wasn’t here.

No, he was gone.

For ever gone.

Where then was that solid core of confidence, which they might now grasp tight? In desperation, in pathetic need?

You should never have left this to us. To him.

The sickness in her soul was spreading. And when she succumbed, the last bulwark protecting every Tiste Andii in Black Coral would give way.

And they would all die. For they were the flesh of Kurald Galain.

Our enemies feed on flesh.

Lord Anomander Rake, you have abandoned us.

She stood in the niche as if it was a sarcophagus. Fevered, watching Endest Silann slowly crumple there in the centre of that proud, diffident mosaic spanning the floor.

You failed us.

And now we fail you.

With a gasp of agony, Apsal’ara lunged backward along the beam. The skin of her hands and forearms had blackened. She kicked in desperate need, pushing herself still farther from that swirling vortex of darkness. Sliding on her back, over the grease of sweat, bile and blood. Steam rose from her arms. Her fingers were twisted like roots-