Kruppe rose as low thunder reached him from the west. In the distance moved a massive herd of brown-furred beasts. The steam of their breath gusted silver in the air above and behind them as they ran, turning as one this way and that but ever at a distance. He watched them for some time.
When they came closest to him he saw the reddish streaks in their fur, and their horns, sweeping down then up and out. The land shook with their passage.
«Such is the life in this world, Kruppe wonders. Has he travelled back, then, to the very beginning of things?»
«You have,» said a deep voice behind him.
Kruppe turned. «Ah, come to share my fire, of course.» He saw before him a squat figure, covered in the tanned hides of deer or some such similar animal. Antlers stretched out from a flat skull-cap on the man's head, grey and covered in fuzzy skin. Kruppe bowed. «You see before you Kruppe, of Darujhistan.»
«I am Pran Chole of Cannig Tol's Clan among the Kron Tlan.» Pran stepped close and crouched before the fire. «I am also the White Fox, Kruppe, wise in the ways of ice.» He glanced at Kruppe and smiled.
Pran's face was wide, the bones pronounced beneath smooth, gold skin. His eyes were barely visible between tight lids, but what Kruppe saw of them was a startling amber in colour. Pran reached out long, supple hands over the fire. «Fire is life, and life is fire. The age of ice passes, Kruppe. Long have we lived here, hunting the great herds, gathering to war with the Jaghut in the southlands, birthing and dying with the ebb and flow of the frozen rivers.»
«Kruppe has travelled far, then.»
«To the beginning and to the end. My kind give way to your kind, Kruppe, though the wars do not cease. What we shall give to you is freedom from such wars. The Jaghut dwindle, ever retreat into forbidding places. The Forkrul Assail have vanished, though we never found need to fight them. And the K'chain Che'Malle are no more-the ice spoke to them with words of death.» Pran's gaze swung back to the fire. «Our hunting has brought death to the great herds, Kruppe. We are driven south, and this must not be. We are the Tlan, but soon the Gathering comes, and so shall be voiced the Rite of Imass and the Choosing of the Bone Casters, and then shall come the sundering of flesh, of time itself.
«With the Gathering shall be born the T'lan Imass, and the First Empire.»
«Why, Kruppe wonders, is he here?»
Pran Chole shrugged. «I have come for I have been called. By whom, I know not. Perhaps it is the same with you.»
«But Kruppe is dreaming. This is Kruppe's dream.»
«Then I am honoured.» Pran straightened. «One of your time comes. Perhaps this one possesses the answers we seek.»
Kruppe followed Pran's gaze to the south. He raised an eyebrow. «If not mistaken, then Kruppe recognizes her as a Rhivi.»
The woman who approached was perhaps middle-aged, heavy with child. Her dark, round face bore features similar to Pran Chole's, though less pronounced. Fear shone in her eyes, yet there was a grim determination about her as well. She reached the fire and eyed the two men, most of her attention drawing to Pran Chole. «Tlan,» she said, «the Tellann Warren of the Imass of our time has birthed a child in a confluence of sorceries. Its soul wanders lost. Its flesh is an abomination. A shifting must take place.» She turned to Kruppe and swept back the thick woven robe she wore, revealing her swelled stomach. The bare, stretched skin had been recently traced in a tattoo. The image was that of a whitehaired fox. «The Elder God walks again, risen from blood spilled on consecrated stone. K'rul came in answer to the child's need and now aids us in our quest. He apologizes to you, Kruppe, for using the world within your dream, but no younger god can influence this place. Somehow you have made your soul immune to them.»
«The rewards of cynicism,» Kruppe said, bowing.
The woman smiled.
«I understand,» Pran Chole said. «You would make of this child, born of Imass powers, a Soletaken.»
«Yes. It is the best we can manage, Tlan. A shapeshifter-which we too know as Soletaken-must be fashioned.»
Kruppe cleared his throat. «Excuse Kruppe, please. But are we not missing someone vital to these plans?»
«She strides two worlds,» the Rhivi said. Vrul guides her now into yours. She is frightened still. It falls to you, Kruppe, to welcome her.»
Kruppe adjusted the sleeves of his faded, threadbare cloak. «This should not prove difficult for one of Kruppe's charms.»
«Perhaps,» the Rhivi said, frowning. «Her flesh is an abomination. You have been warned.»
Kruppe nodded affably, then looked around. «Will any direction do?»
Pran Chole laughed.
«I suggest south,» the Rhivi said.
He shrugged and, with a bow to the two companions, he headed south. After a few minutes he glanced back, but the fire was nowhere in sight. He was alone in the chill night.
A full moon appeared on the eastern horizon, bathing the land in silver light. Ahead, the tundra rolled on as far as Kruppe could see, flat and featureless. Then he squinted. Something had just appeared, still distant, walking with seeming great difficulty. He watched it fall once, then climb back to its feet. Despite the luminescence, the figure looked black.
Kruppe moved forward. It had yet to see him, and he stopped when he was but thirty feet away. The Rhivi had been right. Kruppe produced his silk handkerchief and wiped the sweat that had sprung across his brow.
The figure had been a woman once, tall, with long black hair. But that woman had been long dead. Her flesh had withered and assumed the hue of dark wood. Perhaps the most horrific aspect of her was her limbs, which had been roughly sewn back on to her body. «Aye,» Kruppe whispered. This woman had been torn apart once.
The woman's head flew up and sightless eyes fixed upon Kruppe. She stopped, her mouth opening but no words coming forth.
Surreptitiously, Kruppe cast a spell upon himself, then looked at her yet again. He frowned. A spell had been woven about the woman, one of preservation. But something had happened to that spell, something had reshaped it. «Lass!» Kruppe barked. «I know you can hear me" He didn't know, but decided to insist in any case. «Your soul is trapped within a body that is not your own. It does not become you. I am named Kruppe, and I will lead you to succour. Come!» He spun round and began to walk. A moment later he heard a shuffling behind him, and smiled «Ah,» he whispered, «Kruppe has charms indeed. But more, he can be harsh when necessary.»
The fire had returned, a beacon e re'tern and Kruppe Q!axxr'tA ft3 three figures awaiting them. The vestiges of the spell he had cast upon himsell made the Tlan and the Rhivi blinding to his eyes, such was their power.
Pran Chole stepped forward. «Thank you, Kruppe.» He studied the woman and nodded slowly. «Yes, I see the effects of the Imass upon her.
«But there is more.» He looked to the Rhivi. «She was a mage once?»
The Rhivi moved close to the woman. «Hear me, lost one. Your name Tattersail, your sorcery is Thyr. The Warren flows within you now, it animates you, protects you.» She opened her robe once more. «It is time to bring you back into the world.»
Tattersail stepped back in alarm «Within you is the past,» Pran said. «My world. You know the present and the Rhivi offers you to the future. In this place all is merged. The flesh you wear has upon it a spell of preservation, and in your dying act you opened your Warren within the influence of Tellarm. And now you wander within a mortal's dream. Kruppe is the vessel of change. Permit I With a wordless cry Tattersail staggered into Pran's arms. The Rhivi