Steven Erikson - Memories of Ice

Those who chose to stand close to Silverfox might well be able to influence what she was to become. Korlat sought a private conversation with him, and he'd just accepted the invitation. Whiskeyjack wished he had Quick Ben at his side right now — the Seven Cities mage was sharp when it came to situations like these. The commander already felt out of his depth. Paran, you poor bastard. What do I tell you? Should I arrange a meeting between you and Silverfox? Will I be able to prevent one once you're told? Is it even any of my business?

Crone's beak gaped, but not in soundless laughter this time. Instead, unfamiliar terror raced through her. T'lan Imass! And K'rul, the Elder God! Holders of the truth of the Great Ravens, a truth no-one else knows — except for Silverfox, by the Abyss. Silverfox, who looked upon my soul and read all within it.

Careless, careless child! Would you force us to defend our-selves from you? From those whom you claim to command? We Great Ravens have never fought our own wars — would you see us unleashed by your unmindful revelations?

Should Rake learn. protestations of innocence will avail us naught. We were there at the Chaining, were we not? Yet. aye, we were there at Fall itself! The Great Ravens were born like maggots in the flesh of the Fallen One and that, oh, that will damn us! But wait! Have we not been honourable guardians of the Crippled God's magic? And were we not the ones who delivered to one and all the news of the Pannion Domin, the threat it represents?

A magic we can unleash, if forced to. Ah, child, you threaten so much with your careless words.

Her black, glittering eyes sought out and fixed on Caladan Brood. Whatever thoughts the warlord possessed remained hidden behind the flat, bestial mask that was his face.

Rein in your panic, old hag. Return to the concerns before us. Think!

The Malazan Empire had made use of the T'lan Imass in the Emperor's time. The conquest of Seven Cities had been the result. Then, with Kellanved's death, the alliance had dissolved, and so Genabackis was spared the devastating implacability of tens of thousands of undead warriors who could travel as dust in the wind. This alone had allowed Caladan Brood to meet the Malazan threat on an equal footing … ah, perhaps it only seemed that way. Has he ever truly unleashed the Tiste Andii? Has he ever let loose Anomander Rake? Has he ever shown his own true power? Brood's an ascendant — one forgets that, in careless times. His warren is Tennes — the power of the land itself, the earth that is home to the eternal sleeping goddess, Burn. Caladan Brood has the power — there in his arms and in that formidable hammer on his back — to shatter mountains. An exaggeration? A low flight over the broken peaks east of the Laederon Plateau is proof enough of his younger, more precipitous days. Grandmother Crone, you should know better! Power draws power. It has always been thus, and now have come the T'lan Imass, and once again the balance shifts.

My children spy upon the Pannion Domin — they can smell the power rising from those lands so thoroughly sanctified in blood, yet it remains faceless, as if hidden beneath layer after deceiving layer. What hides at the core of that empire of fanatics!

The horrific child knows — I'd swear on the god's bed of broken flesh to that, oh yes. And she will lead the T'lan Imass … to that very heart.

Do you grasp this, Caladan Brood? I think you do. And, even as that hoary old tyrant Kallor utters his warnings with a bloodless will. even as you are rocked by the imminent arrival of undead allies, so you are jolted even more by the fact that they will be needed. Against what have we proclaimed war? What will be left of us when we are done?

And, by the Abyss, what secret truth about Silverfox does Kallor possess?

Defying her own overwhelming self-disgust, the Mhybe forced brutal clarity into her thoughts, listening to all that Silverfox said, to each word, to what lay between each word. She hugged herself beneath the barrage of her daughter's pronouncements. The laying bare of secrets assailed her every instinct — such exposure was fraught with risks. Yet she finally understood something of the position in which Silverfox had found herself — the confessions were a call for help.

She needs allies. She knows I am not enough — spirits below, she has been shown that here. More, she knows that these two camps — enemies for so long — need to be bridged. Born in one, she reaches out to the other. All that was Tattersail and Nightchill cries out to old comrades. Will they answer?

She could discern nothing of Whiskeyjack's emotions. His thoughts might well be echoing Kallor's position. An abomination. She saw him meet Korlat's eyes and wondered at what passed between them.

Think! It is the nature of everyone here to treat every situation tactically, to push away personal feelings, to gauge, to weigh and balance. Silverfox has stepped to the fore; she has claimed a position of power to rival Brood, Anomander Rake and Kallor. Does Dujek Onearm now wonder with whom he should be dealing? Does he realize that we were all united because of him — that, for twelve years, the clans of Barghast and Rhivi, the disparate companies from a score or more cities, the Tiste Andii, the presence of Rake, Brood and Kallor, not to mention the Crimson Guard — all of us, we stood shoulder to shoulder because of the Malazan Empire? Because of the High Fist himself.

But we have a new enemy now, and much of its nature remains unknown, and it has engendered a kind of fragility among us — oh, what an understatement — that Dujek Onearm now sees.

Silverfox states that we shall have need of the T'lan Imass. Only the vicious old Emperor could have been comfortable with such creatures as allies — even Kallor recoils from what is being forced upon us. The fragile alliance now creaks and totters. You are too wise a man, High Fist, to not now possess grave doubts.

The onearmed old man was the first to speak after Silverfox's statement, and he addressed the child with slow, carefully measured words. 'The T'lan Imass with whom the Malazan Empire is familiar is the army commanded by Logros. By your words we must assume there are other armies, yet no knowledge of them has ever reached us. Why is that, child?'

'The last Gathering,' Silverfox replied, 'was hundreds of thousands of years ago, at which was invoked the Ritual of Tellann — the binding of the Tellann warren to each and every Imass. The ritual made them immortal, High Fist. The life force of an entire people was bound in the name of a holy war destined to last for millennia-'

'Against the Jaghut,' Kallor rasped. His narrow, withered face twisted into a sneer behind the already-drying blood. 'Apart from a handful of Tyrants, the Jaghut were pacifists. Their only crime was to exist-'

Silverfox rounded on the warrior. 'Do not hint at injustices, High King! I possess enough of Nightchill's memories to recall the Imperial Warren — the place you once ruled, Kallor, before the Malazans made claim to it. You laid waste an entire realm — you stripped the life from it, left nothing but ash and charred bones. An entire realm!'

The tall warrior's blood-smeared grin was ghastly. 'Ah, you are there, aren't you. But hiding, I think, twisting the truth into false memories. Hiding, you pathetic, cursed woman!' His smile hardened. 'Then you should know not to test my temper, Bonecaster. Tattersail. Nightchill. dear child. .'

The Mhybe saw her daughter pale. Between these two. the feel of a long enmity — why had I not seen that before? There are old memories here, a link between them. Between my daughter and Kallor — no, between Kallor and one of the souls within her.