And I have been defeated.
By mortals -
The sky heaved over her — she looked up. Eyes widening in disbelief-
The wolf thrashed, battered against the bone bars of its cage — its cage … my ribs. Trapped. Dying -
And that is a pain I share.
His chest was on fire, blossoms of intense agony lashing into him as if arriving from somewhere outside, a storm, blistering the skin covering his ribs-yet it grew no stronger, indeed, seemed to fade, as if with each wounding something was imparted to him, a gift-
Gift? This pain? How — what is it? What comes to me?
Old, so very old. Bittersweet, lost moments of wonder, of joy, of grief — a storm of memories, not his — so many, arriving like ice, then melting in the flare of impact — he felt his flesh grow numb beneath the unceasing deluge-was suddenly tugged away-
Blinking in the darkness, his lone eye as blind as the other one — the one he had lost at Pale. Something was pounding at his ears, a sound, then. Shrieking, the floor and walls shaking, chains snapping, dust raining from the low ceiling. I am not alone in here. Who? What?
Claws gouged the flagstones near his head, frantic and yearning.
Reaching. It wants me. What does? What am I to it?
The concussions were growing closer. And now voices, desperate bellowing coming from the other side of walls … down a corridor, perhaps. Clash of weapons, screams and gurgles, clatter of armour — pieces dancing on the floor.
Toc shifted his head — and saw something in the darkness. Huge, straining as it shrieked without pause. Massive, taloned hands stretched imploringly — reaching out-For me.
Grey light flashed in the cavern, revealing in an instant the monstrous, fat-layered reptile chained opposite Toc, its eyes lit with terror. The stone that was within reach of the creature was gouged with countless scars, on all sides, a hatch-marked nightmare of madness, triggering horror within the Malazan … for it was a nightmare he recognized within himself.
She — she is my soul -
The Seer stood before him, moving in desperate, jerky motions — the old man's body, that the Jaghut had occupied for so long, was falling to pieces — and muttering a singsong chant as, ignoring Toc, he edged ever closer to the Matron, to Mother.
The enormous beast cringed, claws scraping as it pushed itself against the wall. Its shrieks did not pause, resounding through the cavern.
The Seer held something in his hands, pallid, smooth and oblong — an egg, not from a bird. A lizard's egg, latticed in grey magic.
Magic that waxed with every word of the Seer's song.
Toc watched as something exploded from the Matron's body, a coruscation of power that sought to flee upward-
— but was, instead, snared by the web of sorcery; snared, then drawn into the egg in the Seer's hands.
The Matron's shrieking suddenly ceased. The creature settled back with a mindless whimper.
In the numbing silence within the cavern, Toc could now hear more clearly the sounds of battle in the corridor beyond. Close, and closing.
The Seer, clutching the Finnest, spun to stare down at Toc. The Jaghut's smile split the corpse's desiccated lips. 'We shall return,' he whispered.
The sorcery blossomed once more, then, as heavy chains clattered freely to the floor, darkness returned.
And Toc knew that he was alone within the cavern. The Seer had taken Mother's power, and then he had taken her as well.
The wolf thrashed in his chest, launching spikes of pain along his broken, malformed limbs. It yearned to loose its howl, its call to lover and to kin. Yet it could not draw breath- cannot draw breath. It dies. The hail, these savage gifts, they mean nothing. With me, the god's fatal choice, we die -
The sounds of fighting had stopped. Toc heard iron bars snap, one after another, heard metal clang on the flagstones.
Then someone was crouching down beside him. A hand that was little more than rough bone and tendon settled on Toc's forehead.
The Malazan could not see. There was no light. But the hand was cool, its weight gentle.
'Hood? Have you come for us, then?' The words were clearly spoken in his mind, but came out incomprehensibly — and he realized that his tongue was gone.
'Ah, my friend,' the figure replied in a rasp. 'It is I, Onos T'oolan, once of the Tarad Clan, of the Logros T'lan Imass, but now kin to Aral Fayle, to Toc the Younger.'
Kin.
Withered arms gathered him up.
'We are leaving now, young brother.'
Leaving?
Picker eyed the breach. The bravado that had been behind her proclamation that they would follow the T'lan Imass into the keep had not survived a sudden return to caution once they came within sight of the fortress. It was under assault, and whatever enemy had stormed into the keep had kicked hard the hornet nest.