Gardens of the Moon (The Malazan Book of the Fallen #1) 54

Dujek rounded on Tattersail. “Dammit, woman! Do you think everything hinges on how it's worded? Execution. Duel. None of it matters one whit! All that the Adjunct does, all that she says, is on behalf of Empress Laseen.” He spun to Lorn. “You are here as Laseen's voice, as her will, Adjunct.”

Tayschrenn spoke softly, “The woman named Lorn, the woman who once was a child, who once had a family,” he looked upon the Adjunct with anguish in his eyes, “that woman does not exist. She ceased to exist the day she became the Adjunct.”

Lorn stared at the two men, her eyes wide.

Standing beside her, Toc watched those words battering her will, crushing the anger, shattering into dust every last vestige of identity. And from her eyes rose the icy, clinical repose of the Adjunct to the Empress.

Toc felt his heart pounding hard against his chest. He'd just witnessed an execution. The woman named Lorn had risen from the turgid mists of the past, risen to right A wrong, to find justice and in that last act reclaim its life-and she had been denied. Not by the words of Dujek or Tayschrenn, but by the thing known as the Adjunct.

“Of course,” she said, removing her hand from her sword. “Please enter, Sorceress Tattersail, and dine with us.”

The flat tone of her voice told Toc that her invitation had not cost anything-and this horrified him, shook him to his very core. A quick glance showed a similar response from Tayschrenn and Dujek, though the latter veiled it.

Tattersail looked positively ill, but she nodded shakily in answer to the Adjunct's invitation.

Toc found the decanter and a spare crystal goblet. He walked up to the sorceress. “I am Toc: the Younger,” he said, smiling, “and you need a drink.” He poured the glass full and handed it to her. “Often, when we camped on the march, I'd see you lugging that travelling wardrobe of yours around. Now I finally see what was in it. Sorceress, you're a sight for a sore eye.”

A look of gratitude entered Tattersail's gaze. She raised an eyebrow. “I hadn't realized my travelling wardrobe garnered such attention.”

Toc grinned. “I'm afraid you've provided a standing joke in the Second.

Anything surprising, be it an ambush or an unplanned skirmish-the enemy invariably came from your travelling wardrobe, Sorceress.”

Dujek guffawed behind him. “I've often wondered where that phrase came from, and damn, I heard it a lot-even from my officers.”

The atmosphere in the room relaxed somewhat; though undercurrents of tension still swirled, they seemed to be between Tattersail and High Mage Tayschrenn. The sorceress turned her gaze upon Lorn whenever the Adjunct's attention was elsewhere, and Toc could see the compassion there, and his respect for her rose considerably. In her shoes, any look he gave Lorn would have been filled with fear. And whatever storm threatened between Tattersail and Tayschrenn seemed born of a difference in opinion coupled with suspicion; it didn't look personal.

Then again, Toc considered, Dujek's steady presence may have been providing the levelling influence. His father had spoken much of Dujek, of a man who never lost his touch with the powerless or the less powerful. In dealing with the former, he always made his own failings an easy recognition; and with the latter he had an unerring eye that cut away personal ambition with the precision of a surgeon removing septic flesh, leaving in its place someone who treated trust and honesty as givens.

Studying Dujek's easy, relaxed rapport with the others in attendance, including himself, and then with the servants who filed in bearing trays of food, it struck Toc that the man had not changed perceptibly from the one Toc the Elder had called friend. And that impressed Toc deeply, knowing as he did the pressures that burdened the High Fist.

As soon as everyone was seated and the first course presented, it was Adjunct Lorn who took command, however. Dujek relinquished it without a word or a gesture, evidently confident that the earlier incident was now over as far as the Adjunct was concerned.

Lorn addressed Tattersail in that uncanny, flat voice. “Sorceress, permit me to compliment you on besting a Hound of Shadow, and on your timely recovery. I know that Tayschrenn has questioned you regarding this incident, but I would like to hear the tale from you directly.”

Tattersail set down her goblet and regarded her plate briefly before meeting the Adjunct's steady gaze. “As the High Mage may have explained, it's now clear that the gods have entered the fray. Specifically, they've become involved with the Empire's plans for Darujhistan-”

Toc rose quickly. “I believe,” he said, “I should excuse myself now, as what will be discussed here exceeds-”