Toll the Hounds

Would such percipience have changed things? All that was to come?



Death and murder, seeds in the ashes, one does as one does. Sarcophagi gaped. Urns echoed hollow and dark. Stone faces awaited names, grief crouching at the gate.



Such was this night in the city of Darujhistan. Such is this night, everywhere. Where will I stand When the walls come down East to the sun’s rise North to winter’s face South to where stars are born West to the road of death



Where will I stand When the winds wage war Fleeing the dawn Howling the breath of ice Blistered with desert’s smile Dusty from crypts



Where will I stand



When the world crashes down



And on all sides



I am left exposed



To weapons illimitable



From the vented host



Will I stand at all Against such forces unbarred Reeling to every blow Blinded by storms of pain As all is taken from me So cruelly taken away



Let us not talk of courage Nor steel fortitude The gifts of wisdom Burn too hot to touch The hunger for peace Breaks the heart



Where will I stand



In the dust of a done life



Face bared to regretsThat flail the known visage Until none but strangers Watch my fall



None but Strangers Fisher Kel Tath



The stately trees with their black trunks and midnight leaves formed a rough ring encircling Suruth Common. From the centre of the vast clearing, one could, upon facing north, see the towers of the Citadel, their slim lines echoing these sacred trees. Autumn had arrived, and the air was filled with the drifting filaments from the blackwood.



The great forges to the west lit crimson the foul clouds hanging over them, so that it seemed that one side of Kharkanas was ablaze. An eternal rain of ash plagued the massive, sprawling factories, nothing as sweet as the curled filaments to mark the coming of the cold season.



Within the refuge of Suruth Common, the blasted realm of the factories seemed worlds away. Thick beds of moss cloaked the pavestones of the clearing, muting Endest Silann’s boots as he walked to the concave altar stone at the very heart. He could see no one else about-this was not the season for festivity. This was not a time for celebration of any sort. He wondered if the trees sensed him, if they were capable of focusing some kind of attention upon him, made aware by the eddies of air, the exudation of heat and breath.



He had read once a scholar’s treatise describing the chemical relationship between plants and animals. The language had been clinical in the fashion of such academic efforts, and yet Endest recalled closing the book and sitting back in his chair. The notion that he could walk up to a plant, a tree, even a blackwood, and bless it with his own breath-a gift of lung-soured air that could enliven that tree, that could in truth deliver health and vigour, deliver life itself… ah, but that was a wonder indeed, one that, for a time, calmed the churning maelstrom that was a young man’s soul.



So long ago, now, and he felt, at times, that he was done with giving gifts. He stood alone in front of the ancient altar. The past night’s modest rain had formed a shallow pool in the cup of the basalt. It was said the Andii came from the forests and their natural clearings. Born to give breath to the sacred wood, and that the first fall of his people occurred the moment they walked out, to set down the first shaped stone of this city.



How many failings had there been since? Suruth Common was the last fragment of the old forest left in all Kharkanas. Blackwood itself had fed the great forges.



He had no desire to look westward. More than the fiery glow disturbed him. The frenzy in those factories-they were making weapons. Armour. They were readying for war. He had been sent here by the High Prlestess. ‘ Witness,’ she had said. And so he would. The eyes of the Temple, the priesthood, must remain open, aware, miss-ing nothing in these fraught times. That she had chosen him over others-or even herself-was not a measure of respect. His presence was political, his modest rank a deliberate expression of the Temple’s contempt.



‘Witness, Endest Silann. But remain silent. You are a presence, do you under-stand!’



He did.



They appeared almost simultaneously, one from the north, one from the east and one from the south. Three brothers. Three sons. This was to be a meeting of blood and yes, they would resent him, for he did not belong. Indeed, the Temple did not belong. Would they send him away?



The trees wept their promise of a new season of life-a season that would never come, for there was nowhere left for the filaments to take root-not for scores of leagues in any direction. The river would take millions, but even those fine black threads could not float on its waters, and so what the river took the river kept, buried in the dead silts of Dorssan Ryl. Our breath was meant to give life, not take it away. Our breath was a gift, and in that gift the blackwood found betrayal.