We were you before you were born. Do not forget us. And in your memory, I beg of you, let us stand tall and proud. Leave to us our footprints in the sand, there to mark the trail you now tread, so that you understand – wherever you go, we were there first .
In the wake of Onos T’oolan, three thousand T’lan Imass followed. Orshayn, Brold, and a score more forgotten clans – those that fell in the Wars, those that surrendered to despair.
It was likely, Rystalle Ev suspected, that Onos T’oolan was unaware that he had opened his mind to them, that the terrible emotions warring in his soul rushed out to engulf them all. The ancient barriers had been torn down, and she and all the others weathered the storm in silence, wretched, beaten into numbness.
At the field of slaughter, his howls had echoed their own, but now the First Sword was binding them in grisly chains.
They would stand with him. They had no choice. And when at last he fell, as he must, so too would they.
This was … acceptable. It was, in fact, just. Slayers of children deserve no glory. The caves are emptied now, but we cannot dwell there. The air is thick with the blood we spilled. Even the flames from the hearth cannot warm us .
She sensed that Kalt Urmanal was no longer with them. She was not surprised, and although her own anguish at his absence clawed at her, the pain felt distant, drowned beneath the torments of the First Sword. Her love had always been a lost thing, and he had ever been blind to it.
All the jealousy she had once felt lingered, a poison suffusing her being, tainting her love for him. He had been broken by the K’Chain Che’Malle long ago, when they had slain his wife and children. Her love was for a memory, and the memory was flawed.
No, it is best that he is gone. That he decided he could not go on. The truth is, I admire the strength of his will, that he could so defy the First Sword’s power . Had others remained behind? She did not know, but if they had, she prayed their presence would comfort Kalt Urmanal.
What is it, to lose a love you never had?
Ulag Togtil, who had come among the Orshayn Imass as a stranger, whose blood was thickened with that of the Trellan Telakai, now reeled in the First Sword’s wake, as if his limbs were under siege. There was a harshness to the Trellan that had stood him well on the day of the slaughter, but now it floundered in the depthless well that was the emotional torrent of the Imass.
To feel too deeply, oh, how the callous would mock this. Their regard, flat and gauging as a vulture’s upon a dying man. Something to amuse, but even trees will tremble to cold winds; are you so bereft, friend, that you dare not do the same?
Onos T’oolan gives us his pain. He is unaware of the gift, yet gift it is. We obeyed the command of the First Sword, knowing nothing of his soul. We’d thought we had found in him a tyrant to beggar the Jaghut themselves. Instead, he was lost as we are .
But if there be unseen witnesses to this moment, if there be callous ones among them, ah, what is it that you fear to reveal? There in that tear, that low sob? You smile in superiority, but what is the nature of this triumph of yours? I wish to know. Your self-made chains draped so tight about you are nothing to be proud of. Your inability to feel is not a virtue .
And your smile has cracks .
Ulag had played this game all his life, and now he did so again, in the ashes of Tellann, in the swirling mad river of the First Sword’s path. Imagining his invisible audience, a sea of blurred faces, a host of unknown thoughts behind the veil of their eyes.
And he would speak to them, from time to time.
I am the wolf that would die of loneliness if cast from the pack. And so, even when I am alone, I choose to believe otherwise .
There was no true unity in the T’lan Imass, for we had surrendered the memories of our lives. Yet even then, I refused to be alone. Ah, I am a fool. My audience belongs to future’s judgement, and harsh it shall be, and when at last it speaks in that multitude of voices, I shall not be there to hear it .
Can you be at ease with that, Ulag? Can you hear the dry laughter of the Trellan? The jeering of humans?
But see how it bows you, even now. See how it batters you down .
Against the future, Ulag, you are helpless as a babe lying on a rock. And the eagle’s shadow slides across the tear-filled eyes, the soft face. The babe falls silent, knowing danger is near. But, alas, it has not even learned to crawl. And Mother’s hands are long gone .
For this fate, Onos T’oolan, we would all weep. If we could .
Shield Anvil Stormy picked himself up off the ground, blinking water from his eyes and probing his split cheek. ‘All right,’ he said, spitting blood, ‘I suppose I deserved that. At least,’ and he glared at Gesler, ‘that’s what you’re going to tell me right now. It is, isn’t it? Tell me it is, or so help me, Ges, I’m going to rip your head right off and throw it in the nearest cesspit I find.’
