Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

He skirted the pit on his descent and made his way towards the ruined tower. He thought it unlikely that the occupant of the tomb would have lingered long in the area. I would have wanted to get as far away from here and as fast as was humanly possible. There was no telling how much time had passed since the creature's escape, but Toc's gut told him it was years, if not decades. He felt strangely unafraid in any case, despite the inhospitable surroundings and all the secrets beneath the land's ravaged surface. Whatever threat this place had held seemed to be long gone.

Forty paces from the tower he almost stumbled over a corpse. A fine layer of dust had thoroughly disguised its presence, and that dust, now disturbed by Toc's efforts to step clear, rose in a cloud. Cursing, the Malazan spat grit from his mouth.

Through the swirling, glittering haze, he saw that the bones belonged to a human. Granted, a squat, heavy-boned one. Sinews had dried nut-brown, and the furs and skins partially clothing it had rotted to mere strips. A bone helm sat on the corpse's head, fashioned from the frontal cap of a horned beast. One horn had snapped off some time in the distant past. A dust-sheathed two-handed sword lay nearby. Speaking of Hood's skull …

Toc the Younger scowled down at the figure. 'What are you doing here?' he demanded.

'Waiting,' the T'lan Imass replied in a leather-rasp voice.

Toc searched his memory for the name of this undead warrior. 'Onos T'oolan,' he said, pleased with himself. 'Of the Tarad Clan-'

'I am now named Tool. Clanless. Free.'

Free? Free to do precisely what, you sack of bones? Lie around in wastelands?

'What's happened to the Adjunct? Where are we?'

'Lost.'

'Which question is that an answer to, Tool?'

'Both.'

Toc gritted his teeth, resisting the temptation to kick the T'lan Imass. 'Can you be more specific?'

'Perhaps.'

'Well?'

'Adjunct Lorn died in Darujhistan two months ago. We are in the ancient place called Morn, two hundred leagues to the south. It is just past midday.'

'Just past midday, you said. Thank you for the enlightenment.' He found little pleasure in conversing with a creature that had existed for hundreds of thousands of years, and that discomfort unleashed his sarcasm — a precarious presumption indeed. Get back to seriousness, idiot. That flint sword ain't just for show. 'Did you two free the Jaghut Tyrant?'

'Briefly. Imperial efforts to conquer Darujhistan failed.'

Scowling, Toc crossed his arms. 'You said you were waiting. Waiting for what?'

'She has been away for some time. Now she returns.'

'Who?'

'She who has taken occupation of the tower, soldier.'

'Can you at least stand up when you're talking to me.' Before I give in to temptation.

The T'lan Imass rose with an array of creaking complaints, dust cascading from its broad, bestial form. Something glittered for the briefest of moments in the depths of its eye-sockets as it stared at Toc, then Tool turned and retrieved the flint sword.

Gods, better I'd insisted he just stay lying down. Parched leather skin, taut muscle and heavy bone. all moving about like something alive. Oh, how the Emperor loved them. An army he never had to feed, he never had to transport, an army that could go anywhere and do damn near anything. And no desertions — except for the one standing in front of me right now.

How do you punish a T'lan Imass deserter anyway?

'I need water,' Toc said after a long moment in which they simply stared at each other. 'And food. And I need to find some arrows. And bowstring.' He unstrapped his helmet and pulled it clear. The leather cap beneath it was soaked through with sweat. 'Can't we wait in the tower? This heat is baking my brain.' And why am I talking as if I expect you to help me, Tool?

'The coast lies a thousand paces to the southwest,' Tool said. 'Food is available there, and a certain seagrass that will suffice as bowstring until some gut can be found. I do not, alas, smell fresh water. Perhaps the tower's occupant will be generous, though she is less likely to be so if she arrives to find you within it. Arrows can be made. There is a salt-marsh nearby, where we can find bone-reed. Snares for coast birds will offer us fletching. Arrowheads. ' Tool turned to survey the obsidian plain. 'I foresee no shortage of raw material.'

All right, so help me you will. Thank Hood for that. 'Well, I hope you can still chip stone and weave seagrass, T'lan Imass, not to mention work bone-reed — whatever that is — into true shafts, because I certainly don't know how. When I need arrows, I requisition them, and when they arrive they're iron-headed and straight as a plumb-line.'

'I have not lost the skills, soldier-'

'Since the Adjunct never properly introduced us, I am named Toc the Younger, and I am not a soldier, but a scout-'

'You were in the employ of the Claw.'

'With none of the assassin training, nor the magery. Besides which, I have more or less renounced that role. All I seek to do now is to return to Onearm's Host.'

'A long journey.'

'So I gathered. The sooner I start the better, then. Tell me, how far does this glass wasteland stretch?'

'Seven leagues. Beyond it you will find the Lamatath Plain. When you have reached it, set a course north by northeast-'

'Where will that take me? Darujhistan? Has Dujek besieged the city?'

'No.' The T'lan Imass swung its head round. 'She comes.'

Toc followed Tool's gaze. Three figures had appeared from the south, approaching the edge of the ring of barrows. Of the three, only the one in the middle walked upright. She was tall, slim, wearing a flowing white telaba such as were worn by highborn women of Seven Cities. Her black hair was long and straight. Flanking her were two dogs, the one on her left as big as a hill-pony, shaggy, wolflike, the other short-haired, dun-coloured and heavily muscled.

Since Tool and Toc stood in the open, it was impossible that they had not been seen, yet the three displayed no perturbation or change of pace as they strode nearer. At a dozen paces the wolfish dog loped forward, tail wagging as it came up to the T'lan Imass.

Musing on the scene, Toc scratched his jaw. 'An old friend, Tool? Or does the beast want you to toss it one of your bones?'

The undead warrior regarded him in silence.

'Humour,' Toc said, shrugging. 'Or a poor imitation. I didn't think T'lan Imass could take offence.' Or, rather, I'm hoping that's the case. Gods, my big mouth …

'I was considering,' Tool replied slowly. 'This beast is an ay, and thus has little interest in bones. Ay prefer flesh, still warm if possible.'

Toc grunted. 'I see.'

'Humour,' Tool said after a moment.

'Right.' Oh. Maybe this won't be so bad after all. Surprises never cease.

The T'lan Imass reached out to rest the tips of its bony fingers on the ay's broad head. The animal went perfectly still. 'An old friend? Yes, we adopted such animals into our tribes. It was that or see them starve. We were, you see, responsible for that starvation.'

'Responsible? As in overhunting? I'd have thought your kind was one with nature. All those spirits, all those rituals of propitiation-'

'Toc the Younger,' Tool interrupted, 'do you mock me, or your own ignorance? Not even the lichen of the tundra is at peace. All is struggle, all is war for dominance. Those who lose, vanish.'

'And we're no different, you're saying-'

'We are, soldier. We possess the privilege of choice. The gift of foresight. Though often we come too late in acknowledging those responsibilities…' The T'lan Imass's head tilted as he studied the ay before him, and, it seemed, his own skeletal hand where it rested upon the beast's head.