Toll the Hounds

No fellow Tiste Andii met Endest Silann’s eyes as they slipped ghostly past. This, of course, was more than the usual indifference, but he had grown used to it. An old man must need a thick skin, and was he not the oldest by far? Excepting Anomander Dragnipurake.



Yet Endest could recall his youth, a vision of himself vaguely blurred by time, setting foot upon this world on a wild night with storms ravaging the sky. Oh, the storms of that night, the cold water on the face… that moment, I see it still.



They stood facing a new world. His lord’s rage ebbing, but slowly, trickling down like the rain. Blood leaked from a sword wound in Anomander’s left shoul¬der. And there had been a look in his eyes…,



Endest sighed as he worked his way up the street’s slope, but it was an uneven, harsh sigh. Off to his left was the heaped rubble of the old palace. A few jagged walls rose here and there, and crews had carved paths into the mass of wreckage, salvaging stone and the occasional timber that had not burned. The deafening col¬lapse of that edifice still shivered in Endest’s bones, and he slowed in his climb, one hand reaching Out to lean against a wall. The pressure was returning, making his jaw creak as he clenched his teeth, and pain shot through his skull.



Not again, please.



No, this would not do. That time was done, over with. He had survived. He had done as his lord had commanded and he had not failed. No, this would not do at all.



Endest Silann stood, sweat now on his face, with his eyes squeezed shut.



No one ever met his gaze, and this was why. This… weakness.



Anomander Dragnipurake had led his score of surviving followers on to the strand of a new world. Behind the flaring rage in his eyes there had been triumph.



This, Endest Silann told himself, was worth remembering. Was worth holding on to.



We assume the burden as we must. We win through. And life goes on.



A more recent memory, heaving into his mind. The unbearable pressure of the deep, the water pushing in on all sides. ‘You are my last High Mage, Endest Silann. Can you do this for me?’



The sea, my lord? Beneath the sea?



‘Can you do this, old friend?’



My lord, I shall try.



But the sea had wanted Moon’s Spawn, oh, yes, wanted it with savage, relentless hunger. It had railed against the stone, it had besieged the sky keep with its crushing embrace, and in the end there was no throwing back its dark swirling legions.



Oh, Endest Silann had kept them alive for just long enough, but the walls were collapsing even as his lord had summoned the sky keep’s last reserves of power, to raise it up from the depths, raise it up, yes, back into the sky.



So heavy, the weight, so vast injured beyond recovery, Moon’s Spawn was already dead, undead as Endcst Silann’s own power. We both drawned that day. We both died.



Raging falls’ black water thudering down, a rain of tears from stone, oh, how Moon’s Spawn wept. Cracks widening, the internal thunder of beauty’s collapse…



I should have gone with Moon’s Spawn when at last he sent it drifting away, yes, I should have. Squatting among the interred dead. My lord honours me for His sacrifice, but his every word is like ashes drifting down on my face. Abyss below, I fell the sundering of every room! The fissures bursting through were sword ‘dashes in my soul, and how we bled, how we groaned, how we fell inward with our mortal wounds!



The pressure would not relent. It was within him now. The sea sought vengeance, and now could assail him no matter where he stood. Hubris had delivered a curse, searing a brand on his soul. A brand that had grown septic. He was too broken to fight it off any more.



I am Moon’s Spawn, now. Crushed in the deep, unable to reach the surface. I descend, and the pressure builds. How it builds!



No, this would not do. Breath hissing, he pushed himself from the wall, staggered onward. He was a High Mage no longer. He was nothing. A mere castellan, fretting over kitchen supplies and foodstuffs, watch schedules and cords of wood lor the hearths. Wax for the yellow-eyed candlemakers. Squid ink for the stained scribes…



Now, when he stood before his lord, he spoke of paltry things, and this was his legacy, all that remained.



Yet did I not stand with him on that strand! Am I not the last one left to share with my lord that memory!



The pressure slowly eased. And once again, he had survived the embrace. And the next time? There was no telling, but he did not believe he could last much longer. The pain clutching his chest, the thunder in his skull.



We have found a new supply of cadaver eels. That is what I will tell him. And he will smile and nod, and perhaps settle one hand on my shoulder. A gentle, cautious squeeze, light enough to ensure that nothing breaks. He will speak his gratitude.