Toll the Hounds

‘We need to walk, I think.’



‘I’m not in the mood-’



‘But I am and Barathol is gone and your partners are upstairs chewing on conspiracies. Chaur is in the kitchen eating everything in sight and Blend’s fallen in love with me and sure, that’s amusing and even enjoyable for a time, but for me it’s not the real thing. Only she’s not listening. Anyway, I want an escort and you’re elected.’



‘Really, Scillara-’



‘Being old doesn’t mean you can be rude. I want you to take me to the Phoenix Inn.’



He stared at her for a long moment.



She drew hard on her pipe, swelled her lungs to thrust her ample breasts out and saw how his gaze dropped a fraction or two. ‘I’m looking to embarrass a friend, you see,’ she said, then released the lungful of smoke towards the black-stained rafters.



‘Well,’ he sourly drawled, ‘in that case…’



‘Rallick’s furious,’ Cutter said as he sat down, reaching for the brick of cheese to break off a sizeable chunk which he held in his left hand, an apple in his right. A bite from the apple was quickly followed by one from the cheese.



‘Kruppe commiserates. Tragedy of destiny, when destiny is that which one chooses given what one is given. Dear Cutter might have retained original name had he elected a life in, say, Murillio’s shadow. Alas, Cutter in name is cutter in deed.’



Cutter swallowed and said, ‘Hold on. I wasn’t making a point of walking in Rallick’s shadow. Not anybody’s shadow-in fact, the whole idea of “shadow” makes me sick. If one god out there has truly cursed me, it’s Shadowthrone.’



‘Shifty Shadowthrone, he of the sourceless shade, a most conniving, dastardly god indeed! Chill is his shadow, cruel and uncomfortable is his throne, horrid his Hounds, tangled his Rope, sweet and seductive his innocent servants! But!’ And Kruppe held aloft one plump finger. ‘Cutter would not speak of walking in shadows, why, not anyone’s! Even one which sways most swayingly, that cleaves most cleavingly, that flutters in fluttering eyelashes framing depthless dark eyes that are not eyes at all, but pools of unfathomable depth-and is she sorry? By Ap-salar she is not!’



‘I hate you sometimes,’ Cutter said in a grumble, eyes on the table, cheese and apple temporarily forgotten in his hands.



‘Poor Cutter. See his heart carved loose from yon chest, flopping down like so much bloodied meat on this tabletop. Kruppe sighs and sighs again in the deep of sympathy and extends, yes, this warm cloak of companionship against the cold harsh light of truth this day and on every other day! Now, kindly pour us more of this herbal concoction which, whilst tasting somewhat reminiscent of the straw and mud used to make bricks, is assured by Meese to aid in all matters of digestion, including bad news.’



Cutter poured, and then took another two bites, apple and cheese. He chewed for a time, then scowled. ‘What bad news?’



‘That which Is yet to arrive, of course, Will honey aid this digestive aid? Pro-. ably not. It will, one suspects, curdle and recoil. Why in it, Kruppe wonders, that those who claim all healthy amends via rank brews, gritty grey repast of the raw and unrefined, and unpalatable potions, and this amidst a regime of activities in-vented solely to erode bone and wear out muscle-all these purveyors of the pure and good life are revealed one and all as wan, parched well nigh bloodless, with vast fists bobbing up and down in the throat and watery eyes savage in righteous smugitude, walking like energized storks and urinating water pure enough to drink all over again? And pass if you please to dear beatific Kruppe, then, that last pastry squatting forlorn and alone on yon pewter plate.’



Cutter blinked. ‘Sorry. Pass what?’



‘Pastry, dear lad! Sweet pleasures to confound the pious worshippers of suffer-ing! How many lives do each of us have, Kruppe wonders rhetorically, to so constrain this one with desultory disciplines so efficacious that Hood himself must bend over convulsed in laughter? This evening, dear friend of Kruppe, you and I will walk the cemetery and wager which buried bones belong to the healthy ones and which to the wild cavorting headlong maniacs who danced bright with smiles each and every day!’



‘The healthy bones would be the ones left by old people, I’d wager.’



‘No doubt no doubt, friend Cutter, a most stolid truth. Why, Kruppe daily encounters ancient folk and delights in their wide smiles and cheery well-mets.’



‘They’re not all miserable, Kruppe.’



‘True, here and there totters a wide-eyed one, wide-eyed because a life of raucous abandon is behind one and the fool went and survived it all! Now what, this creature wonders? Why am I not dead? And you, with your three paltry decades of pristine boredom, why don’t you just go somewhere and die!’