Fortune-telling scene; the pov character knew from the cards that the querent had seen the beginning of a terrible (magical) plague, but had reasons not to say that outright, so soft-pedaled it as him having seen the beginning of something, she wasn't sure what. The responding line was: “The end.” His laugh creaked like a gallows rope. So it evoked both the type of laugh that is not melodious and not really a laugh, and the association with death (turned out his brother was the first one to die of that plague).