Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

'Holy One,' the Seerdomin said, 'why would Poleil bless our cause?'

'I know not, nor do I care. Perhaps she has had her own vision, of the glory of our triumph, or perhaps she simply begs favour. Our soldiers will be hale. And once the invaders are destroyed, we can begin our march once more, to new cities, new lands, and there grow fat on the spoils.'

The invaders. among them, my kin. I was Toc the Younger, a Malazan. And the Malazans are coming.

The laugh that came from his throat began softly, a liquid sound, then grew louder as it continued.

The conversation fell silent. The sound he made was the only one in the chamber.

The Seer's voice spoke from directly above him. 'And what amuses you so, Toc the Younger? Can you speak? Ah, haven't I asked that once before?'

Breath wheezing, Toc answered, 'I speak. But you do not hear me. You never hear me.'

'Indeed?'

'Onearm's Host, Seer. The deadliest army the Malazan Empire has ever produced. It's coming for you.'

'And I should quake?'

Toc laughed again. 'Do as you like. But your mother knows.'

'You think she fears your stupid soldiers? I forgive your ignorance, Toc the Younger. Dear Mother, it must be explained, has ancient … terrors. Moon's Spawn. But let me be more precise, so as to prevent your further misunderstanding. Moon's Spawn is now home to the Tiste Andii and their dreaded Lord, but they are as lizards in an abandoned temple. They dwell unaware of the magnificence surrounding them. Dear Mother cannot be reached by such details, alas. She is little more than instinct these days, the poor, mindless thing.

'The Jaghut remember Moon's Spawn. I alone am in possession of the relevant scrolls from Gothos's Folly that whisper of the K'Chain Nah'rhuk — the Short-Tails, misbegotten children of the Matrons — who fashioned mechanisms that bound sorcery in ways long lost, who built vast, floating fortresses from which they launched devastating attacks upon their long-tailed kin.

'Oh, they lost in the end. Were destroyed. And but one floating fortress remained, damaged, abandoned to the winds. Gothos believed it had drifted north, to collide with the ice of a Jaghut winter, and was so frozen, trapped for millennia. Until found by the Tiste Andii Lord.

'Do you comprehend, Toc the Younger? Anomander Rake knows nothing of Moon's Spawn's fullest powers — powers he has no means of accessing even were he to know of them. Dear Mother remembers, or at least some part of her does. Of course, she has nothing to fear. Moon's Spawn is not within two hundred leagues of here — my Winged Ones have searched for it, high overhead, through the warrens, everywhere. The only conclusion is that Moon's Spawn has fled, or failed at last — was it not almost destroyed over Pale? So you've told me.

'So you see, Toc the Younger, your Malazan army holds no terror for any of us, including dear Mother. Onearm's Host will be crushed in the assault on Coral. As will Brood and his Rhivi. Moreover, the White Faces will be shattered — they've not the discipline for this kind of war. I will have them all. And I will feed you bits of Dujek Onearm's flesh — you'd like some meat again, wouldn't you? Something that hasn't been … regurgitated. Yes?'

He said nothing, even as his stomach clenched in visceral greed.

The Seer crouched lower and touched a fingertip to Toc's temple. 'It's so easy breaking you. All your faiths. One by one. Almost too easy. The only salvation you can hope for is mine, Toc the Younger. You understand that now, don't you?'

'Yes,' he replied.

'Very good. Pray, then, that there is mercy in my soul. True, I've yet to find any myself, though I admit I've little searched. But perhaps it exists. Hold to that, my friend.'

'Yes.'

The Seer straightened. 'I hear my mother's cries. Take him back, Seerdomin.'

'As you command, Holy One.'

Strong arms gathered Toc the Younger, lifted him with ease from the cold floor.

He was carried from the room. In the hallway, the Seerdomin paused.

'Toc, listen to me, please. She's chained down below, and the reach does not encompass the entire room. Listen. I will set you down beyond her grasp. I will bring food, water, blankets — the Seer will pay little heed to her cries, for she is always crying these days. Nor will he probe towards her mind — there are matters of far greater import consuming him.'

'He will have you devoured, Seerdomin.'

'I was devoured long ago, Malazan.'

'I–I am sorry for that.'

The man holding him said nothing for a long moment, and when he spoke at last, his voice cracked. 'You … you offer compassion. Abyss take me, Toc, I am ever surpassed. Allow to me, please, my small efforts-'

'With gratitude, Seerdomin.'

'Thank you.'

He set off once more.

Toc spoke. 'Tell me, Seerdomin, does the ice still grip the sea?'

'Not for at least a league, Toc. Some unexpected twist of the currents has cleared the harbour. But the storms still rage over the bay, and the ice out there still thunders and churns like ten thousand demons at war. Can you not hear it?'

'No.'

'Aye, I'll grant you it's faint from here. From the keep's causeway, it is a veritable assault.'

'I–I remember the wind …'

'It no longer reaches us. Yet another wayward vagary, for which I am thankful.'

'In the Matron's cave,' Toc said, 'there is no wind.'

Wood splintered, a sickening sound that trembled through the entire Meckros fragment. Lady Envy paused in her climb towards the street's ragged, torn end. The slope had grown suddenly steeper, the frost slick on the cobbles underfoot. She hissed in frustration, then drew on a warren and floated to where Lanas Tog stood on the very edge.

The T'lan Imass did not so much as sway on her perilous perch. Wind ripped at her tattered skins and bone-white hair. The swords still impaling her glistened with rime.

Reaching her side, Lady Envy saw more clearly the source of the terrible, snapping sounds. A vast section of ice had collided with them, was grinding its way along the base in a foaming sluice of jetting water and spraying ice.

'Dear me,' Lady Envy muttered. 'It seems we are ever pushed westward.'

'Yet we drive towards land none the less,' Lanas Tog replied. 'And that is sufficient.'

'Twenty leagues from Coral by this course, and all of it wilderness, assuming my memories of the region's map are accurate. I was so weary of walking, alas. Have you seen our abode yet? Apart from the canting floor and alarming views through the windows, it is quite sumptuous. I cannot abide discomfort, you know.'

The T'lan Imass made no reply, continued staring northwestward.

'You're all alike,' Lady Envy sniffed. 'It took weeks to get Tool in a conversational mood.'

'You have mentioned the name earlier. Who is Tool?'

'Onos T'oolan, First Sword. The last time I saw him, he was even more bedraggled than you, dear, so there's hope for you yet.'

'Onos T'oolan. I saw him but once.'

'The First Gathering, no doubt.'

'Yes. He spoke against the ritual.'

'So of course you hate him.'

The T'lan Imass did not immediately reply. The structure shifted wildly beneath them, their end pitching down as the floe punched clear, then lifting upward once more. There was not even a waver to Lanas Tog's stance. She spoke. 'Hate him? No. Of course I disagreed. We all did, and so he acquiesced. It is a common belief.'

Lady Envy waited, then crossed her arms and asked, 'What is?'

'That truth is proved by weight of numbers. That what the many believe to be right, must be so. When I see Onos T'oolan once more, I will tell him: he was the one who was right.'

'I don't think he holds a grudge, Lanas Tog. I suppose, thinking on it, that makes him unique among the T'lan Imass, doesn't it?'