Toll the Hounds

Groaning, he slipped over the edge, cautious with his handholds, and resumed his journey down.

And, not two man-heights down from the balcony, his groping feet found another ledge, followed immediately by another-a staircase, angling steeply down the wall. One hand maintaining contact with the seamless stone, Harllo worked his way down, step by step.

He did not recall noticing any of this his first time down here. Of course, the candlelight had been feeble-which made easier catching the glitter of gold and the like-and he had gone straight back to the rope. And hadn’t his mind been awhirl? A talking Imass! Down here for maybe hundreds of years-with no one to talk to and nothing to look at, oh, how miserable that must have been.

So. He should not be resenting doing all this for the Bone Miner. A few switches to the back wasn’t much to pay for this mercy.

He reached the floor and paused. So dark! ‘Hello? It’s me! Dev’ad Anan Tol, can you hear me?’

‘I can. Follow, then, the sound of my voice. If such a.thing is possible-’

‘It is… I think. Scratch the rock you’re sitting on-I’ll feel that under my feet-’

‘That,’ said the Imass, ’is an impressive talent.’

‘I’m good when I can’t see. Vibrations, it’s called.’

‘Yes. Can you feel this then?’

‘I’m getting closer, yes. I think I can start a lantern here. Shuttered so it won’t spread out.’ He crouched down, the ends of the long bones thunking behind him, and untied the small tin lantern from his belt. ‘This one’s called a pusher. You can fix it on to a pole and push it ahead. If the wick dims fast then you know it’s bad air. Wait.’ A moment later and soft golden light slanted like a path, straight to where sat the Bone Miner. Harllo grinned. ‘See, I was almost there, wasn’t I?’

‘What is it that you carry, cub?’

‘Your splints. And rope and string.’

‘Let me see those… bones. Yes, give them to me-’ And he reached out skeletal hands to grasp the splints as soon as Harllo came close enough. A low grating gasp from the Imass, then soft muttering. ‘By the Shore of Jaghra Til, I had not thought to see… cub, my tools… for this. The gift is not in balance.’’I can try to find some better ones-’

‘No, child. The imbalance is the other way, These are emlava, a male, his hind long bones. True, they twist and cant. Still… yes… possible.’

‘Will they work as splints then?’

‘No.’

‘ Harllo sagged.

The Imass rumbled a low laugh. ‘Ah, cub. Not splints. No. Legs.’

‘So you can walk again? Oh, I’m glad!’

‘If indeed I was somehow caught in the Ritual of Tellann, yes, I think I can fashion… from these… why do you fret so, cub?’

‘I had to sneak down here. If they find out I’m missing…’

‘What will happen?’

‘I might be beaten-not so much as to make me useless. It won’t be so bad.’

‘You should go, then, quickly.’

Harllo nodded, yet still he hesitated. ‘I found a building, a buried building. Was that where you lived?’

‘No. It was a mystery even to the Jaghut Tyrant. Countless empty rooms, windows looking out upon nothing-blank rock, pitted sandstone. Corridors leading nowhere-we explored most of it, I recall, and found nothing. Do not attempt the same, cub. It is very easy to get lost in there.’

‘I better go,’ said Harllo. ‘If I can come down here again-’

‘Not at risk of your hide. Soon, perhaps, I will come to you.’

Harllo thought of the consternation such an event would bring, and he smiled. A moment later he shuttered the lantern and set off for the stairs.

From sticks a fortress, a forest, a great wall. From sticks, a giant, rising up in the darkness, and to look into the pits of its eyes is to see twin tunnels into rock, reaching down and down, reaching back and back, to the very bones of the earth.

And so he rises, to look upon you-Harllo imagines this but none of it in quite this way. Such visions and their deadly promise belong to the adults of the world. To answer what’s been done. What’s been done.

And in the city every building wears a rictus grin, or so it might seem, when the stone, brick, plaster and wood breathe in the gloom of dusk, and the gas lanterns are yet to be set alight, and all the world is ebbing with shadows drawing together to take away all certainty. The city, this artifice of cliffs and caves, whispers of madness. Figures scurry for cover, rats and worse peer out curious and hungry, voices grow raucous in taverns and other fiery sanctuaries.