Tool had vanished into a dusty swirl a half-bell earlier, off on another hunt. The remaining two Seguleh weren't in a generous mood, not deigning to engage the unranked Malazan in conversation. They stood off to one side. Watching the sunset? Relaxing at ramrod attention?
He wondered what was happening far to the north. Dujek had chosen to march on the Pannion Domin. A new war, against an unknown foe. Onearm's Host was Toc's family, or at least what passed for family for a child born to an army. The only world he knew, after all. A family pursued by jackals of attrition. What kind of war were they heading into? Vast, sweeping battles, or the crawling pace of contested forests, jagged ranges and sieges? He fought back another surge of impatience, a tide that had been building within him day after day on this endless plain, building and threatening to escape the barriers he'd raised in his mind.
Damn you, Hairlock, for sending me so far away. All right, so that warren was chaotic—so was the puppet that used it on me. But why did it spit me out at Morn? And where did all those months go, anyway? He had begun to mistrust his belief in happenstance, and the crumbling of that belief left him feeling on shaky ground. To Morn and its wounded warren… to Morn, where a renegade T'lan Imass lay in the black dust, waiting—not for me, he said, but for Lady Envy. Not any old renegade T'lan Imass, either. One I've met before. The only one I've met before. And then there's Lady Envy herself, and her damned Seguleh servants and four-legged companions—uh, don't go there, Toc…
Anyway. Now we're travelling together. North, to where each of us wants to be. What luck. What happy coincidence!
Toc disliked the notion of being used, of being manipulated. He'd seen what that had cost his friend, Captain Paran. Paran was tougher than me—I saw that from the start. He'd take the hits, blink, then just keep going. He'd some kind of hidden armour, something inside him that kept him sane.
Not me, alas. Things get tough, and I'm liable to curl up and start whimpering.
He glanced over at the two Seguleh. It seemed they were as loth to talk to each other as they were to anyone else. Strong, silent types. I hate those. I didn't before. I do, now.
So… here I am, in the middle of nowhere, and the only truly sane creature in my company is an extinct wolf. His gaze returned once more to Baaljagg. 'And where's your family, beastie?' he asked softly, meeting the ay's soft, brown gaze.
The answer came, a sudden explosion of swirling colours directly behind the socket of his lost eye—colours that settled into an image. Kin assailing three musk oxen, hunters and hunted mired deep in mud, trapped, doomed to die. The point of view was low, from just beyond the sinkhole, circling, ever circling. Whimpering filled Toc's mind. Desperate love unanswered. Panic, filling the cold air.
A pup's confusion.
Fleeing. Wandering mudflats and sandbanks, across a dying sea.
Hunger.
Then, standing before her, a figure. Cowled, swathed in roughly woven black wool, a hand—wrapped in leather straps, down to the very fingers—reaching out. Warmth. Welcome. A palpable compassion, a single touch to the creature's lowered forehead. The touch, Toc realized, of an Elder God. And a voice: You are the last, now. The very last, and there will be need for you. In time…
Thus, I promise that I shall bring to you… a lost spirit. Torn from its flesh. A suitable one, of course. For that reason, my search may be a long one. Patience, little one… and in the meantime, this gift…
The pup closed her eyes, sank into instant sleep—and found herself no longer alone. Loping across vast tundras, in the company of her own kind. An eternity of loving dreams, secured with joy, a gift made bitter only by waking hours, waking years, centuries, millennia spent… alone.
Baaljagg, unchallenged among the dreamworld's ay, ruling mother of countless children in a timeless land. No lack of quarry, no lean times. Upright figures on distant horizons, seen but rarely, and never approached. Cousins to come across every now and then. Forest-dwelling agkor, white bendal, yellow-haired ay'tog of the far south—names that had sunk their meaning into Baaljagg's immortal mind… eternal whisperings from those ay that had joined the T'lan Imass, there, then, at the time of the Gathering. A whole other kind of immortality…
Wakeful, solitary Baaljagg's eyes had seen more of the world than could be fathomed. Finally, however the gift had come, the torn soul delivered to her own, where they merged, eventually became one. And in this, yet another layer of loss and pain. The beast now sought something. Something like… redress…
What do you ask of me, wolf? No, not of me—you ask not of me, do you? You ask of my companion, the undead warrior. Onos T'oolan. It was him you awaited, whilst you shared company with Lady Envy. And Garath? Ah, another mystery… for another time…
Toc blinked, his head jerking back as the link snapped. Baaljagg slept at his side. Dazed, trembling, he looked around in the gloom.
A dozen paces away, Tool stood facing him, a brace of hares dangling from one shoulder.
Oh, Bern fend. See? Soft inside. Far too soft for this world and its layered histories, its endless tragedies. 'What?' Toc asked, his voice rasping. 'What is it this wolf wants of you, T'lan Imass?'
The warrior cocked his head. 'An end to her loneliness, mortal.'
'Have you—have you given answer?'
Tool turned away, dropping the hares to the ground. His voice when he spoke shocked the scout with its raw mournfulness. 'I can do nothing for her.'
The cold, lifeless tone was gone, and for the first time Toc saw something of what hid behind that deathly, desiccated visage. 'I've never heard you speak in pain before, Tool. I didn't think—'
'You heard wrong,' the T'lan Imass said, his tone once again devoid of inflection. 'Have you completed the fletching for your arrows, Toc the Younger?'
'Aye, like you showed me. They're done, twelve of the ugliest-looking arrows I've ever had the pleasure of owning. Thank you, Tool. It's outrageous, but I am proud to own them.'
Tool shrugged. 'They will serve you well.'
'I hope you're right.' He rose with a grunt. I'll do the meal, then.'
'That is Senu's task.'
Toc squinted at the T'lan Imass. 'Not you, as well? They're Seguleh, Tool, not servants. While Lady Envy isn't here, I will treat them as travelling companions, and be honoured by their company.' He glanced over to find the two warriors staring at him. 'Even if they won't talk to me.'
He took the hares from the T'lan Imass, crouched down beside the hearth. Tell me, Tool,' he said as he began skinning the first of the creatures, 'when you're out there hunting… any sign of other travellers? Are we completely alone on this Lamatath Plain?'
'I have seen no evidence of traders or other humans, Toc the Younger. Bhederin herds, antelope, wolves, coyotes, fox, hares and the occasional plains bear. Birds of prey and birds that scavenge. Various snakes, lizards—'
'A veritable menagerie,' Toc muttered. Then how is it that every time I scan the horizons, I see nothing? Nothing. No beasts, no birds, even.'
'The plain is vast,' Tool replied. 'Also, there are the effects of the Tellann warren which surrounds me—though that is much weakened at the moment. Someone has drawn on my life-force, almost to exhaustion. Ask me no questions regarding this. My Tellann powers none the less discourage mortal beasts. Creatures are given to avoidance,' when able. We are, however, being trailed by a pack of ay'tog—yellow-haired wolves. But they yet remain shy. Curiosity may overcome that, eventually.'
Toc's gaze returned to Baaljagg. 'Ancient memories.'
'Memories of ice.' The T'lan Imass's cavern eyes were fixed on the Malazan. 'By this and your earlier words, I conclude that something has occurred—a binding of souls—between you and the ay. How?'
'I'm not aware of any binding of souls,' Toc answered, still staring at the sleeping wolf. 'I was granted… visions. We shared remembrances, I think. How? I don't know. There were emotions within it, Tool, enough to make one despair.' After a moment he returned to cleaning the scrawny creature beneath
his hands.
'Every gift is edged.'
Toc grimaced as he gutted the animal. 'Edged. I suppose so. I'm beginning to suspect the truth of the legends—lose an eye to receive the gift of true vision.'
'How did you lose your eye, Toc the Younger?'
'A sizzling chunk from Moon's Spawn—that deathly rain when the Enfilade was in full swing.'
'Stone.'
Toc nodded. 'Stone.' Then he stopped, looked up.
'Obelisk,' Tool said. 'In the ancient Deck of Holds, it was known as Menhir. Touched by stone, mortal—Chen're aral lich'fayle—there, on your brow. I give you a new name. Aral Fayle.'
'I don't recall asking for a new name, Tool.'
'Names are not for the asking, mortal. Names are earned.'
'Huh, sounds like the Bridgeburners.'
'An ancient tradition, Aral Fayle.'
Hood's breath. 'Fine!' he snapped. 'Only I can't see that I've earned anything—'
'You were sent into a Warren of Chaos, mortal. You survived—in itself an unlikely event—and travelled the slow vortex towards the Rent. Then, when Morn's portal should have taken you, it instead cast you out. Stone has taken one of your eyes. And the ay here has chosen you in the sharing of her soul. Baaljagg has seen in you a rare worthiness, Aral Fayle—'
'I still don't want any new names! Hood's breath!' He was sweating beneath his worn, dust-caked armour. He searched desperately for a way to change the subject, to shift the conversation away from himself. 'What's yours mean, anyway? Onos T'oolan—what's that from?'
'Onos is "clanless man". T' is "broken". Ool is "veined" while lan is "flint" and in combination T'oolan is "flawed flint".'
Toc stared at the T'lan Imass for a long moment. 'Flawed flint.'
'There are layers of meaning.'
'I'd guessed.'
'From a single core are struck blades, each finding its own use. If veins or knots of crystal lie hidden within the heart of the core, the shaping of the blades cannot be predicted. Each blow to the core breaks off useless pieces—hinge-fractured, step-fractured. Useless. Thus it was with the family in which I was born. Struck wrong, each and all.'
'Tool, I see no flaws in you.'
'In pure flint all the sands are aligned. All face in the same direction. There is unity of purpose. The hand that shapes such flint can be confident. I was of Tarad's clan. Tarad's reliance in me was misplaced. Tarad's clan no longer exists. At the Gathering, Logros was chosen to command the clans native to the First Empire. He had the expectation that my sister, a Bonecaster, would be counted among his servants. She defied the ritual, and so the Logros T'lan Imass were weakened. The First Empire fell. My two brothers, T'ber Tendara and Han'ith Iath, led hunters to the north and never returned. They too failed. I was chosen First Sword, yet I have abandoned Logros T'lan Imass. I travel alone, Aral Fayle, and thus am committing the greatest crime known among my people.'
'Wait a moment,' Toc objected. 'You said you're heading to a second Gathering—you're returning to your people…'
The undead warrior did not respond, head slowly turning to gaze northward.
Baaljagg rose, stretched, then padded to Tool's side. The massive creature sat, matching the T'lan Imass's silent regard.
A sudden chill whispered through Toc the Younger. Hood's breath, what are we headed into? He glanced at Senu and Thurule. The Seguleh seemed to be watching him. 'Hungry, I gather. I see your bridling impatience. If you like, I could—'
Rage.
Cold, deadly.
Unhuman.
Toc was suddenly elsewhere, seeing through a beast's eyes—but not the ay, not this time. And not images from long ago, but from this moment; behind which tumbled a cascade of memories. A moment later, all sense of himself was swallowed, his identity swept away before the storm of another creature's thoughts.
It has been so long since life found shape… with words, with awareness.
And now, too late.
Muscles twitched, leaked blood from beneath his slashed, torn hide. So much blood, soaking the ground under his flesh, smearing the grasses in a crawling track up the hill's slope.
Crawling, a journey of return. To find oneself, now, at the very end. And memories awakened…
The final days—so long ago, now—had been chaotic. The ritual had unravelled, unexpectedly, unpredictably. Madness gripped the Soletaken. Madness splintered the more powerful of his kin, broke one into many, the burgeoning power wild, blood-hungry, birthing the D'ivers. The Empire was tearing itself apart.
But that was long ago, so very long ago…
I am Treach—one of many names. Trake, the Tiger of Summer, the Talons of War. Silent Hunter. I was there at the end, one of the few survivors once the T'lan Imass were done with us. Brutal, merciful slaughter. They had no choice—I see that now, though none of us were prepared to forgive. Not then. The wounds were too fresh.
Gods, we tore a warren to pieces on that distant continent. Turned the eastlands into molten stone that cooled and became something that defied sorcery. The T'lan Imass sacrificed thousands to cut away the cancer we had become. It was the end, the end of all that promise, all that bright glory. The end of the First Empire. Hubris, to have claimed a name that rightly belonged to the T'lan Imass…
We fled, a handful of survivors. Ryllandaras, old friend—we fell out, clashed, then clashed again on another continent. He had gone the farthest, found a way to control the gifts—Soletaken and D'ivers both. White Jackal. Ay'tog. Agkor. And my other companion, Messremb—where has he gone? A kind soul, twisted by madness, yet so loyal, ever loyal…
Ascending. Fierce arrival—the First Heroes. Dark, savage.
I remember a vast sweep of grasses beneath a sky deepening to dusk. A wolf, its single eye like a smear of moonlight, on a distant ridgeline.
This strangely singular memory, sharp as talons, returning to me now. Why?
I padded this earth for thousands of years, sunk deep into the beast, human memories fading, fading, gone. And yet… this vision of the wolf, awakening all within me…
I am Treach. Memories returning in full flood, even as my body grows cold, so very cold.
He'd tracked the mysterious beasts for days, driven by relentless curiosity. A scent unknown to him, a swirling wake of death and old blood. Fearless, he'd thought only of delivering destruction, as he had done without challenge for so long. The White Jackal had vanished into the mists centuries past, dead, or if not dead, then as good as. Treach had driven him from a ledge, sent him spinning and writhing down into the fathomless crevasse. No enemies worthy of the name since then. The tiger's arrogance was legendary—it had not been difficult, embracing such assurity.
The four K'Chain Che'Malle hunters had circled back, awaited him with cold intent.
I tore into them. Slashed flesh, shattered bones. I dragged one down, fangs deep in its lifeless neck. Another moment, another heartbeat, and there would have been but three.
So close a thing…
Treach lay dying from a dozen mortal wounds. Indeed, he should have been dead already, yet he clung on, with blind, bestial determination, fuelled by rage. The four K'Chain Che'Malle had left him, contemptuously, knowing he would not rise again and immune to mercy.
Prone on the grasses, the Tiger of Summer had watched with dulled eyes as the creatures padded away, noted with satisfaction as an arm on one of them, dangling from the thinnest strip of skin, finally parted and fell to the ground—to be left behind with utter indifference.
Then, as the undead hunters reached the crest of a nearby hill, his eyes had flashed. A sleek, long black shape flowed from the grasses, was among his slayers. Power flowed like black water. The first K'Chain Che'Malle withered beneath the onslaught.
The clash descended beyond the crest, beyond Treach's line of sight, yet, dimly heard past the deafening thunder of his waning life, the battle continued. He began dragging himself forward, inch by inch.
Within moments, all sounds from the other side of th
e hill fell away, yet Treach struggled on, his blood a slick trail behind him, his amber eyes fixed on the crest, his will to live reduced to something bestial, something that refused to recognize an end to its life.
I have seen this. Antelope. Bhederin. The wilful denial, the pointless struggle, efforts to escape, even as throat gushes blood to fill my mouth. Limbs kicking in the illusion of running, of fleeing, even as I begin feeding. I have seen this, and now understand it. The tiger is humbled by memories of prey.
He forgot the reason for the struggle to reach the crest, knew only that he must achieve it, a final ascent, to see what lay beyond.
What lay beyond. Yes. A sun low on the horizon. The endless sweep of unbroken, untamed prairie. A final vision of wildness, before I slink through Hood's cursed gates.
She appeared before him, sleek and muscled and smooth-skinned. A woman, small yet not frail, the fur of a panther on her shoulders, her long black hair unkempt yet gleaming in the day's dying light. Almond-shaped eyes, amber like his own. Heart-shaped face, robustly featured. Coarse queen, why does this sight of you break my heart? She approached, settled down to lift his massive head, rest it against her lap. Small hands stroked the blood and dried froth from around his eyes. 'They are destroyed,' she said in the ancient language, the language of the First Empire. 'Not so difficult—you left them with little, Silent Hunter. Indeed, they veritably flew apart at my softest touch.'
Liar.
She smiled. 'I have crossed your wake before, Treach, yet would not approach—recalling your rage when we destroyed your empire, so long ago.'
It has long cooled, Imass. You did only what was necessary. You mended the wounds—
'The Imass cannot take credit for that. Others were involved in the task of repairing the shattered warren. We did nothing but slay your kind—those whom we could find, that is. It is our singular skill.'