"The Quieting is based on the following three things: First is media artist Matthias Fritsch's sixth "Music from the Masses" film, called Wintersong, for which this piece of music is one of the soundtracks.

"Second are the following two paragraphs from the book:

And beyond the Watching Thing was The Place Where The Silent Ones Are Never, close by the great road; which was bounded upon the far side by The Giant's Sea; and upon the far side of that, was a Road which was always named The Road By The Quiet City; for it passed along that place where burned forever the constant and never-moving lights of a strange city; but no glass had ever shown life there; neither had any light ever ceased to burn.

And beyond that again was the Black Mist. And here, let me say, that the Valley of The Hounds ended towards the Lights of the Quiet City.“

"Third is something I imagined. The Black Mist secretly invaded the city and sucked up, absorbed, ate (?) the inhabitants' voices, and with it their language, robbing them of the ability to form and share coherent thoughts. All that was left after the attack were dumb, soulless madmen who didn't even have the capacity left to fathom what had happened. The city turned quiet. Maybe what was left of the citizens became food for the Hounds.

"Alternatively, here the story could tie in with what is mentioned in Cry of the Night Hound by John C. Wright: the madness which resulted from the nature of the attack, because it couldn't establish itself in the formless chaotic minds, affected the brain stem itself and brought about mutations that made those lost humans mate with Night creatures and so contribute to the line of abhumans."