Paran spoke close behind her. «Tattersail, how thorough is your exhaustion?»
She felt the heat in his words triggering a smouldering fire beneath her stomach, and her gaze slid away from the Deck as she turned to face the captain. Though she voiced no reply to his question, her answer was clear. He took her hand, surprising her with such an innocent gesture. So young, she thought, and now he's leading me into the bedroom. She would have laughed if the act hadn't been so sweet.
False dawn played the eastern horizon as Adjunct Lorn guided her mount and packhorse out from Pale's East Gate. True to Dujek's words the guards were nowhere in sight, and the gate had been left open. She hoped the few sleepy eyes that had followed her through the streets had only mild curiosity behind them. In any case, she was dressed in simple, unadorned leather armour; her face was mostly hidden in the shadow cast by the plain bronze helmet's browguard. Even her horses were a local breed, sturdy and placid, much smaller than the Malazan warhorses with which she was most familiar, but a comforting ride none the less. It seemed unlikely that she would have attracted undue attention. More than one unemployed mercenary had left Pale since the Empire's arrival.
The south horizon was a jagged line of snow-capped mountains. The Tahlyn Mountains would remain on her right for some time, before the Rhivi Plain swept past them and became the Catlin Plain. Few farms broke the flatlands around her, and those that did crowded the city's own lands. The Rhivi people were not tolerant of such encroachments, and since every trade route that led to and from Pale crossed their traditional territory, those of the city wisely refrained from angering the Rhivi.
Ahead, as she walked her horses, the dawn showed its face with a streak of crimson. The rain had passed a few days back, and the sky overhead was silver-blue and clear, a few stars dwindling as light came to the world.
The day promised to be hot. The Adjunct loosened the leather thongs between her breasts, revealing the fine mail hauberk beneath. By midday she would reach the first wellspring, where she would replenish her supply of water. She ran a hand across the surface of one of the bladders strapped to her saddle. It came away wet with condensation. She passed her hand across her lips.
The voice that spoke beside her jolted her in the saddle and her mount snorted in fear and sidestepped.
«I will walk with you,» Onos T'oolan said, «for a time.»
Lorn glared at the T'lan Imass. «I would rather you announced your arrival,» she said tightly, «from a distance.»
«As you wish.» Onos T'oolan sank into the ground like so much dust.
The Adjunct cursed. Then she saw him waiting a hundred yards ahead of her, back-lit by the rising sun. The crimson sky seemed to have cast a red flame about the warrior. The effect jangled her nerves, as if she looked upon a scene that touched her deepest, oldest memories-memories that went beyond her own life. The T'lan Imass stood unmoving until she reached him, then fell into step beside her.
Lorn tightened her knees about the horse's shoulders and closed the reins until the mare settled down. «Do you have to be so literal-minded, Tool?» she asked.
The desiccated warrior seemed to consider, then nodded. «I accept that name. All of my history is dead. Existence begins anew, and with it shall be a new name. It is suitable.»
«Why were you selected to accompany me?» the Adjunct asked.
«In the lands west and north of Seven Cities, I alone among my clan survived the Twenty-eighth Jaghut War.»
Lorn's eyes widened. «I thought those wars numbered twenty-seven,» she said quietly. «When your legions left us after conquering Seven Cities, and you marched into the wastelands-»
«Our Bone Casters sensed an enclave of surviving Jaghut,» Tool said. «Our commander Logros T'lan determined that we exterminate them. Thus we did.»
«Which explains your decimated numbers upon returning,» Lorn said.
«You could have explained your decision to the Empress. As it was, she was left without her most powerful army, and no knowledge of when it might return.»
«Return was not guaranteed, Adjunct,» Tool said.
Lorn stared at the tattered creature. «I see.»
«The cessation of my clan's chieftain, Kig Aven, was accompanied by all my kin. Thus alone, I am unbound to Logro. Kig Aven's Bone Caster was Kilava Onass, who has been lost since long before the Emperor reawakened us.»
Lorn's mind raced. Among the Malazan Empire, the T'lan Imass were also known as the Silent Host. She'd never known an Imass as loquacious as this Tool. Perhaps it had something to do with this «unbounding'. Within the Imass, only Commander Logros ever spoke to humans on a regular basis. As for the Bone Casters-Imass shamans-they stayed out of sight. The only one that had ever appeared was one named Olar Ethil, who stood alongside the clan chieftain Eitholos Ilm during the battle of Kartool, which had seen an exchange of sorcery that made Moon's Spawn look like a child's cantrip.
In any case, she'd already learned more of the Imass from this brief conversation with Tool than was present in the Empire Annals. The Emperor had known more, much more, but making records of such knowledge had never been his style. That he had reawakened the Imass had been a theory argued among scholars for years. And now she knew it to be true. How many other secrets would this T'lan Imass reveal in casual conversation?
«Tool,» she said, «had you ever met the Emperor personally?»
«I awakened before Galad Ketan and after Onak Shendok and, as with all the T'lan Imass, I knelt before the Emperor as he sat upon the First Throne.»
«The Emperor was alone?» Lorn asked.
«No. He was accompanied by the one named Dancer.»
«Damn,» she hissed. Dancer had died beside the Emperor. «Where is this First Throne, Tool?»
The warrior was silent for a time, then it said, «Upon the Emperor's death the Logros T'lan Imass gathered minds-a rare thing that was last done before the Diaspora-and a binding resulted. Adjunct, the answer to your question is within this binding. I cannot satisfy you. This holds for all Logros T'lan Imass and for all Kron T'lan Imass.»
«Who are the Kron?»
«They are coming,» Tool replied.
Sudden sweat sprang out on the Adjunct's brow. Logros» legions, when they first arrived on the scene, numbered around nineteen thousand. They were believed now to number fourteen thousand, and the majority of those losses had come beyond the Empire's borders, in this last Jaghut War. Were another nineteen thousand Imass about to arrive? What had the Emperor unleashed?
«Tool,» she asked slowly, almost regretting her need to persist in questioning him, «what is the significance of these Kron coming?»
«The Year of the Three Hundredth Millennium approaches,» the warrior replied.
«What happens then?»
«Adjunct, the Diaspora ends.»
The Great Raven called Crone rode the high winds above Rhivi Plain. The northern horizon was now a green-tinged curve, growing more substantial with every hour of flight. Weariness weighed down her wings, but the heaven's breath was a strong one. And more, nothing could assail her certainty that changes were coming to this world, and she drew again and again upon her vast reserves of magical power.
If ever there was a dire convergence of great forces, it was now, and in this place. The gods were descending to the mortal soil to do battle, shapings were being forged of flesh and bone, and the blood of sorcery now boiled with a madness born of inevitable momentum. Crone had never felt more alive.
With these unveiling of powers, heads had turned. And to one Crone flew in answer to a summons she was powerless to ignore. Lord Anomander Rake was not her only master, and for her this only made things more interesting. As for her own ambitions, she would keep them to herself. For now, knowledge was her power.