Toll the Hounds

‘I’m surprised,’ Spinnock said as he edged past, ‘there’s need to clean these at all. There are all of fifteen people living in this palace.’

‘You’ve that, sir,’ the man replied, nodding.

The Tiste Andii paused and glanced back. ‘Then why are you bothering? I can hardly believe the castellan set you upon this task.’

‘No sir, he never did. We was just, er, bored.’

After a bemused moment, Spinnock resumed his ascent. These short-lived creatures baffled him.

The journey to the chambers where dwelt the Son of Darkness was a lengthy traverse made in solitude. Echoing corridors, unlocked, unguarded doors. The castellan’s modest collection of scribes and sundry bureaucrats worked in offices on the main floor; kitchen staff, clothes-scrubbers and wringers, hearth-keepers and taper-lighters, all lived and worked in the lower levels. Here, on the higher floors, darkness ruled a realm virtually unoccupied.

Reaching the elongated room that faced the Nightwater, Spinnock Durav found his lord.

Facing the crystal window that ran the entire length of the Nightwater wall, his long silver-white hair faintly luminous in the muted, refracted light cast into the room by the faceted quartz. The sword Dragnipur was nowhere in sight.

Three steps into the chamber and Spinnock halted.

Without turning, Anomander Rake said, ‘The game, Spinnock?’

‘You won again, Lord. But it was close.’

‘The Gate?’

Spinnock smiled wryly. ‘When all else seems lost. .’

Perhaps Anomander Rake nodded at that, or his gaze, fixed somewhere out on the waves of Nightwater, shifted downward to something closer by. A fisher boat, or the crest of some leviathan rising momentarily from the abyss. Either way, the sigh that followed was audible. ‘Spinnock, old friend, it is good that you have returned.’

‘Thank you, Lord. I, too, am pleased to see an end to my wandering.’

‘Wandering? Yes, I imagine you might have seen it that way.’

‘You sent me to a continent, Lord. Discovering the myriad truths upon it necessitated. . fair wandering.’

‘I have thought long on the details of your tale, Spinnock Durav.’ Still Rake did not turn round. ‘Yielding a single question. Must I journey there?’

Spinnock frowned. ‘Assail? Lord, the situation there. .’

‘Yes, I understand.’ At last, the Son of Darkness slowly swung about, and it seemed his eyes had stolen something from the crystal window, flaring then dimming like a memory. ‘Soon, then.’

‘Lord, on my last day, a league from the sea. .’

‘Yes?’

‘I lost count of those I killed to reach that desolate strand. Lord, by the time I waded into the deep, enough to vanish beneath the waves, the very bay was crimson. That I lived at all in the face of that is-’

‘Unsurprising,’ Anomander Rake cut in with a faint smile, ‘as far as your Lord is concerned.’ The smile faded. ‘Ah, but I have sorely abused your skills, friend.’

Spinnock could not help but cock his head and say, ‘And so, I am given leave to wield soldiers of wood and stone on a wine-stained table? Day after day, my muscles growing soft, the ambition draining away.’

‘Is this what you call a well-earned rest?’

‘Some nights are worse than others, Lord,’

‘To hear you speak of ambition, Spinnock, recalls to my mind another place, long, long ago. You and I. .’

‘Where I learned, at last,’ Spinnock said, with no bitterness at all, ‘my destiny.’

‘Unseen by anyone. Deeds unwitnessed. Heroic efforts earning naught but one man’s gratitude.’

‘A weapon must be used, Lord, lest it rust.’

‘A weapon overused, Spinnock, grows blunt, notched.’

To that, the burly Tiste Andii bowed. ‘Perhaps, then, Lord, such a weapon must be put away. A new one found.’

‘That time is yet to arrive, Spinnock Durav.’

Spinnock bowed again. ‘There is, in my opinion, Lord, no time in the foreseeable future when you must journey to Assail. The madness there seems quite. . self-contained.’

Anomander Rake studied Spinnock’s face for a time, then nodded. ‘Play on, my friend. See the king through. Until. .’ and he turned once more back to the crystal window.

There was no need to voice the completion of that sentence, Spinnock well knew. He bowed a third time, then walked from the chamber, closing the door behind him.

Endest Silann was slowly hobbling up the corridor. At Spinnock’s appearance the old castellan glanced up. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘is our Lord within?’

‘He is.’

The elder Tiste Andii’s answering smile was no gift to Spinnock, so strained was it, a thing of sorrow and shame. And while perhaps Endest had earned the right to the first sentiment — a once powerful mage now broken — he had not to the second. Yet what could Spinnock say that might ease that burden? Nothing that would not sound trite. Perhaps something more. . acerbic, something to challenge that self-pity-

‘I must speak to him,’ Endest said, reaching for the door.

‘He will welcome that,’ Spinnock managed.

Again the smile. ‘I am sure.’ A pause, a glance up into Spinnock’s eyes. ‘I have great news.’

‘Yes?’

Endest Silann lifted the latch. ‘Yes. I have found a new supplier of cadaver eels.’