Toll the Hounds полностью

‘He claimed that your debt was my debt, dear husband. Of course that’s nonsense. Even after I won that challenge, he had me followed around. For months. Suspected you were in hiding somewhere and I was delivering food and the like, I suppose. I can’t tell you how much fun that was. Why can’t I, Torvald? Because it wasn’t. Fun, that is. Not fun at all.’

‘I’m home now,’ Torvald said, trying the smile again. ‘Wealthy, too. No more debt — I’m clearing that in the morning, straight away. And no more low-grade temper for your clay either. And a complete replenishment of your herbs, tinctures and such — speaking of which, just to be safe we should probably put together a ritual or two-’

‘Oh, really? You’ve been stealing again, haven’t you? Tripped a few wards, did you? Got a bag of coins all glowing with magic, have you?’

‘And gems and diamonds. It was only proper, love, honest. A wrongful debt dealt with wrongfully, the two happily cancelling each other out, leaving everything rightful!’

She snorted, then stepped back and let him inside. ‘I don’t believe I’m buying all this.’

‘You know I never lie to you, Tis. Never.’

‘So who did you rob tonight?’

‘Why, Gareb, of course. Cleaned him out, in fact.’

Tiserra stared at him. ‘Oh, husband.’

‘I know, I’m a genius. Now, about those wards — as soon as he can, he’ll bring in some mages to sniff out the whereabouts of his loot.’

‘Yes, Torvald, I grasp the situation well enough. You know where the secret hole is — drop the bag in there, if you please, while I get started on the rest.’

But he had not moved. ‘Still love me?’ he asked.

Tiserra turned and met his eyes. ‘Always, y’damned fool. Now hurry.’

Glories unending this night in Darujhistan! And now the dawn stirs awake, a light to sweep aside the blue glow of the unsleeping city. See the revellers stumbling towards their beds or the beds of newfound friends or even a stranger’s bed, what matter the provenance of love? What matter the tangled threads of friendship so stretched and knotted?

What matter the burdens of life, when the sun blazes into the sky and the gulls stir from their posts in the bay, when crabs scuttle for deep and dark waters? Not every path is well trod, dearest friends, not every path is set out with even pave-stones and unambiguous signs.

Rest eyes in the manner of a thief who is a thief no longer, as he looks with deepest compassion down upon the sleeping face of an old friend, there in a small room on the upper floor of the Phoenix Inn; and sees too a noble councilman snoring slouched in yon chair. While in the very next room sits an assassin who is, perhaps, an assassin no longer, dull-eyed with pain as he ponders all manner of things, in fashions sure to be mysterious and startling, were any able to peek into his dark mind.

Elsewhere, a child long ago abandoned by his mother frets in his sleep, pursued by a nightmare face with the absurd name of Snell attached to it.

And two guards run, hearts pounding, from the gate to the estate as alarms ring loud and urgent, for an evil man has lost all his ill-won wealth — a fact as sure to pluck his talons as a torturer’s pliers, since evil only thrives in a well of power, and when the coin of cruelty is stolen away, why, so too vanishes the power.

A fingerless man stumbles home, god-blessed and blood oozing from battered knuckles, while his wife sleeps without dreams, her expression so peaceful even the most unsentimental sculptor could do naught but weep.

And, in a street unworthy of any particular notice, stands an ox, thinking about breakfast. What else is there, after all, when love and friendship and power, and regret and loss and reunion fierce enough to tear away all that might have been bittersweet, when all — all — is gone and done with, what else is there, but the needs of the stomach?

Eat! Dine on pleasures and taste sweet life!

Inconsequential? Bah!

As Kruppe ever says, it is a wise ox that gets the yoke.