Toll the Hounds полностью

Words were empty in the face of brutal will. They were helpless to defend whatever sanctity might be claimed, for a person’s self, for their freedom to choose how they would live, and with whom. Empathy haunted her. Compassion opened wounds which only a hardening of the soul could in the future prevent, and this she did not want — she had seen too many faces, looked into too many eyes, and recoiled from their coldness, their delight in vicious judgement.

The righteous will claim sole domain on judgement. The righteous are the first to make hands into fists, the first to shout down dissenters, the first to bully others into compliance.

I live in a village of the meek, and I am the meekest of them all. There is no glory in being helpless. Nor is there hope.

Rain lashing down, a drumming roar on the slatted, angled roof, the sound of a deluge that filled her skull. That the Redeemer will embrace is neither just nor unjust. No mortal can sanction their behaviour in the Redeemer’s name. How dare they so presume? Miserable faces marching past, peering in through the cracks in her door. And she wanted to rail at them all. You damned fools. Absolution is not enough! But they would then look upon her, moon-eyed and doleful, desperate that every question yield an answer, clinging to the notion that one suffered for a reason and knowledge of that reason would ease the suffering.

Knowledge, Salind told herself, eases nothing. It just fills spaces that might otherwise flood with despair.

Can you live without answers? All of you, ask that of yourself. Can you live without answers? Because if you cannot, then most assuredly you will invent your own answers and they will comfort you. And all those who do not share your view will by their very existence strike fear and hatred into your heart. What god blesses this?

‘I am no High Priestess,’ she croaked, as water trickled down her face.

Heavy boots splashing in the mud outside. The door was tugged back and a dark shape blotted out the pale grey light. ‘Salind.’

She blinked, trying to discern who so spoke to her with such. . such compas shy;sion. ‘Ask me nothing,’ she said. ‘Tell me less.’

The figure moved, closing the door in a scrape of sodden grit that filled the shed with gloom once more. Pausing, standing, water dripping from a long leather cloak. ‘This will not do.’

‘Whoever you are,’ Salind said, ‘I did not invite you in. This is my home.’

‘My apologies, High Priestess.’

‘You smell of sex.’

‘Yes, I imagine so.’

‘Do not touch me. I am poison.’

‘I–I have no desire to. . touch you, High Priestess. I have walked this village — the conditions are deplorable. The Son of Darkness, I well know, will not long abide such poverty.’

She squinted up at him. ‘You are the Benighted’s friend. The only Tiste Andii for whom humans are not beneath notice.’

‘Is this what you believe of us, then? That is. . unfortunate.’

‘I am ill. Please go away, sir.’

‘My name is Spinnock Durav. I might have told you that when last we met — I do not recall and clearly neither do you. You. . challenged me, High Priestess.’

‘No, I rejected you, Spinnock Durav.’

There might have been something like wry amusement in his tone as he replied, ‘Perhaps the two are one and the same.’

She snorted. ‘Oh, no, a perennial optimist.’

He reached down suddenly and his warm palm pressed against her forehead. She jerked back. Straightening, he said, ‘You are fevered.’

‘Just go.’

‘I will, but I intend to take you with me-’

‘And what of everyone else so afflicted in this camp? Will you carry them all out? Or just me, just the one upon whom you takc pity? Unless it is not pity that drives you.’

‘I will have healers attend the camp-’

‘Do that, yes. I can wait with the others.’

‘Salind-’

‘That’s not my name.’

‘It isn’t? But I was-’