Toll the Hounds

See him still, he stands there



While you remain, unforgiving



The poet damns you



The artist cries out



The one who weeps



Turns his face away



Your mind is crowded



By the inconsequential



Listing the details



Of the minuscule



And every measure



Of what means nothing



To anyone



He takes from you every rage



Every crime…



Whether you like it



Or you do not…



Sacrifices made



Vows given



He stands alone



Because none of you dare



Stand with him



– Fisher’s challenge to his listeners, breaking the telling of the Mane of Chaos



On this morning, so fair and fresh with the warm breeze coming down off the lake, there were arrivals. Was a city a living thing? Did it possess eyes? Could its senses be lit awake by the touch of footsteps? Did Darujhistan, on that fine morning, look in turn upon those who set their gazes upon it? Arrivals, grand and modest, footsteps less than a whisper, whilst others trembled to the very bones of the Sleeping Goddess. Were such things the beat of the city’s heart?



But no, cities did not possess eyes, or any other senses. Cut stone and hardened plaster, wood beams and corniced facades, walled gardens and quiescent pools beneath trickling fountains, all was insensate to the weathering traffic of its denizens. A city could know no hunger, could not rise from sleep, nor even twist uneasy in it s grave.



Leave such things, then, to a short rotund man, seated at a table at the back of the Phoenix Inn, in the midst of an expansive breakfast, to pause with a mouth crammed full of pastry and spiced apple, to suddenly choke. Eyes bulging, face flushing scarlet, then launching a spray of pie across the table, into the face of a regretfully hungover Meese, who, now wearing the very pie she had baked the day before, simply lifted her bleary gaze and settled a basilisk regard upon the hack-ing, wheezing man opposite her.



If words were necessary, then, she would have used them. The man coughed on, tears streaming from his eyes.



Sulty arrived with a cloth and began wiping, gently, the mess from a motionless, almost statuesque Meese.



On the narrow, sloped street to the right of the entrance to Quip’s Bar, the detritus of last night’s revelry skirled into the air on a rush of wild wind. Where a moment before there had been no traffic of any sort on the cobbled track, now there were screaming, froth-streaked horses, hoofs cracking like iron mallets on the uneven stone. Horses-two, four, six-and behind them, in a half-sideways rattling skid, an enormous carriage, its back end crashing into the face of a building in a shattering explosion of plaster, awning and window casement. Figures flew from the careering monstrosity as it tilted, almost tipping, then righted itself with the sound of a house falling over. Bodies were thumping on to the street, rolling desperately to avoid the man-high wheels.



The horses plunged on, dragging the contraption some further distance down the slope, trailing broken pieces, plaster fragments and other more unsightly things, before the animals managed to slow, then halt, the momentum, aided In no small part by a sudden clenching of wooden brakes upon all six wheels.



Perched atop the carriage, the driver was thrown forward, sailing through the air well above the tossing heads of the horses, landing in a rubbish cart almost buried in the fete’s leavings. This refuse probably saved his life, although, as all grew still once more, only the soles of his boots were visible, temporarily motionless as befitted an unconscious man.



Strewn in the carriage’s wake, amidst mundane detritus, were human remains in various stages of decay,-some plump with rotting flesh, others mere skin stretched over bone. A few of these still twitched or groped aimlessly on the cobbles, like the plucked limbs of insects. Jammed into the partly crushed wall of the shop the conveyance’s rear right-side corner had clipped was a corpse’s head, driven so deep as to leave visible but one eye, a cheek and one side of the jaw. The eye rolled ponderously. The mouth twitched, as if words were struggling to escape, then curled in an odd smile.



Those more complete figures, who had been thrown in all directions, were now slowly picking themselves up, or, in the case of two of them, not moving at all-and by the twist of limbs and neck it was clear that never again would their unfortunate owners move of their own accord, not even to draw breath.



From a window on the second level of a tenement, an old woman leaned out for a brief glance down on the carnage below, then retreated, hands snapping closed the wooden shutters.



Clattering sounds came from within the partly ruined shop, then a muted shriek that was not repeated within the range of human hearing, although in the next street over a dog began howling.