Toll the Hounds

The music ends my friends, my vile, despicable friends, and see me-



see me slam the door slam it hard-in all your faces!



The Music Ends Fisher Kel Tath



His boots crunched on waterworn stones slick with mist as he made his way to the water’s edge. The steep slopes of the surrounding mountainsides were verdant, thick rainforest, crimson-barked trees towering high, beards of moss hanging from toppled trunks.



Endest Silann leaned on his stolid walking stick, the muscles of his legs trembling. He looked round as he slowly regained his breath. It was chilly, the sun’s arc just slipping past the western peaks, and shadow swallowed the river valley.



Black water rushed by and he felt its cold-no need to squat down, no need to slide a hand into the tugging current. This dark river was, he could see now, nothing like Dorssan Ryl. How could he have expected otherwise? The new is ever but a mangled echo of the old and whatever whispers of similarity one imagined do naught but sting with pain, leaving one blistered with loss. Oh, he had been a fool, to have journeyed all this way. Seeking what? Even that he could not answer.



No, perhaps he could. Escape. Brief, yes, but escape none the less. The coward flees, knowing he must return, wishing that the return journey might kill him, take his life as it did the old everywhere. But listen! You can shape your soul-make it a bucket, a leaking one that you carry about. Or your soul can be a rope, thick and twisted, refusing to break even as it buckles to one knot after another. Choose your image, Endest Silann. You are here, you’ve made it this far, haven’t you? And as he told you… not much farther to go. Not much farther at all. He smelled woodsmoke.



Startled, alarmed, he turned away from the rush of the river. Faced upstream whence came the late afternoon breeze. There, in distant gloom, the muted glow of a campfire.



Ah, no escape after all. He’d wanted solitude, face to face with intractable, in-different nature. He’d wanted to feel… irrelevant. He’d wanted the wildness to punch him senseless, leave him humiliated, reduced to a wretch. Oh, he had wanted plenty, hadn’t he?



With a sour grunt, Endest Silann began walking upstream. At the very least, the fire would warm his hands.



Thirty paces away, he could see the lone figure facing the smoky flames. Huge, round-shouldered, seated on a fallen log. And Endest Silann smiled in recognition.



Two trout speared on skewers cooked above the fire. A pot of simmering tea sat with one blackened shoulder banked in coals. Two tin cups warmed on the flat rock making up one side of the hearth. Another log waited opposite the one on which sat the warlord, Caladan Brood, who slowly twisted round to watch Endest Silann approach, The broad, oddly bestial face split into a wry smile. ‘Of all the guests I imagined this night, old friend, you did not come to mind. Forgive me. You took your time since begin-ning your descent into this valley, but for that 1 will happily make allowances-but do not complain if the fish is overcooked.’



‘Complaints are far away and will remain so, Caladan. You have awakened my appetite-for food, drink and, most of all, company.’



‘Then sit, make yourself comfortable.’



‘So you did indeed disband your army after the siege,’ said Endest Silann, making his way over to settle himself down. ‘There were rumours. Of course, my master said nothing.’



‘See me now,’ said the warlord, ‘commanding an army of wet stones, and yes, it proves far less troublesome than the last one. Finally, I can sleep soundly at night. Although, matching wits with these trout has challenged me mightily. There, take one of those plates, and here-beware the bones, though,’ he added as he set a fish on the plate.



‘Alone here, Caladan Brood-it makes me wonder if you are hiding.’



‘It may be that I am, Endest Silann. Unfortunately, hiding never works.’



‘No, it never does.’



Neither spoke for a time as they ate their supper. The trout was indeed over-done but Endest Silann said nothing, for it was delicious none the less.



If Anomander Rake was a mystery shrouded in darkness, then Caladan Brood was one clothed in geniality. Spare with words, he nevertheless could make virtually anyone feel welcome and, indeed, appreciated. Or rather, he could when the pressures of command weren’t crouched on his shoulders like a damned mountain. This night, then, Endest Silann well understood, was a gift, all the more precious in that it was wholly unexpected.



When the meal was done, night’s arrival closed out the world beyond the fire’s light. The rush of the river was a voice, a presence: Water flowed indifferent to the heave and plunge of the sun, the shrouded moon and the slow spin of the stars. The sound reached them in a song without words, and all effort to grasp its meaning was hopeless, for, like the water itself, one could not grasp hold of sound. The flow was ceaseless and immeasurable and just as stillness did not in fact exist, so too true, absolute silence.