'I don't recall asking for a new name, Tool.'
'Names are not for the asking, mortal. Names are earned.'
'Huh, sounds like the Bridgeburners.'
'An ancient tradition, Aral Fayle.'
Hood's breath. 'Fine!' he snapped. 'Only I can't see that I've earned anything-'
'You were sent into a Warren of Chaos, mortal. You survived — in itself an unlikely event — and travelled the slow vortex towards the Rent. Then, when Morn's portal should have taken you, it instead cast you out. Stone has taken one of your eyes. And the ay here has chosen you in the sharing of her soul. Baaljagg has seen in you a rare worthiness, Aral Fayle-'
'I still don't want any new names! Hood's breath!' He was sweating beneath his worn, dust-caked armour. He searched desperately for a way to change the subject, to shift the conversation away from himself. 'What's yours mean, anyway? Onos T'oolan — what's that from?'
'Onos is "clanless man". T' is "broken". Ool is "veined" while lan is "flint" and in combination T'oolan is "flawed flint".'
Toc stared at the T'lan Imass for a long moment. 'Flawed flint.'
'There are layers of meaning.'
'I'd guessed.'
'From a single core are struck blades, each finding its own use. If veins or knots of crystal lie hidden within the heart of the core, the shaping of the blades cannot be predicted. Each blow to the core breaks off useless pieces — hinge-fractured, step-fractured. Useless. Thus it was with the family in which I was born. Struck wrong, each and all.'
'Tool, I see no flaws in you.'
'In pure flint all the sands are aligned. All face in the same direction. There is unity of purpose. The hand that shapes such flint can be confident. I was of Tarad's clan. Tarad's reliance in me was misplaced. Tarad's clan no longer exists. At the Gathering, Logros was chosen to command the clans native to the First Empire. He had the expectation that my sister, a Bonecaster, would be counted among his servants. She defied the ritual, and so the Logros T'lan Imass were weakened. The First Empire fell. My two brothers, T'ber Tendara and Han'ith lath, led hunters to the north and never returned. They too failed. I was chosen First Sword, yet I have abandoned Logros T'lan Imass. I travel alone, Aral Fayle, and thus am committing the greatest crime known among my people.'
'Wait a moment,' Toc objected. 'You said you're heading to a second Gathering — you're returning to your people …'
The undead warrior did not respond, head slowly turning to gaze northward.
Baaljagg rose, stretched, then padded to Tool's side. The massive creature sat, matching the T'lan Imass's silent regard.
A sudden chill whispered through Toc the Younger. Hood's breath, what are we headed into? He glanced at Senu and Thurule. The Seguleh seemed to be watching him. 'Hungry, I gather. I see your bridling impatience. If you like, I could-'
Rage.
Cold, deadly.
Unhuman.
Toc was suddenly elsewhere, seeing through a beast's eyes — but not the ay, not this time. And not images from long ago, but from this moment; behind which tumbled a cascade of memories. A moment later, all sense of himself was swallowed, his identity swept away before the storm of another creature's thoughts.
It has been so long since life found shape. with words, with awareness.
And now, too late.
Muscles twitched, leaked blood from beneath his slashed, torn hide. So much blood, soaking the ground under his flesh, smearing the grasses in a crawling track up the hill's slope.
Crawling, a journey of return. To find oneself, now, at the very end. And memories awakened …
The final days — so long ago, now — had been chaotic. The ritual had unravelled, unexpectedly, unpredictably. Madness gripped the Soletaken. Madness splintered the more powerful of his kin, broke one into many, the burgeoning power wild, blood-hungry, birthing the D'ivers. The Empire was tearing itself apart.
But that was long ago, so very long ago …
I am Treach — one of many names. Trake, the Tiger of Summer, the Talons of War. Silent Hunter. I was there at the end, one of the few survivors once the T'lan Imass were done with us. Brutal, merciful slaughter. They had no choice — I see that now, though none of us were prepared to forgive. Not then. The wounds were too fresh.
Gods, we tore a warren to pieces on that distant continent. Turned the eastlands into molten stone that cooled and became something that defied sorcery. The T'lan Imass sacrificed thousands to cut away the cancer we had become. It was the end, the end of all that promise, all that bright glory. The end of the First Empire. Hubris, to have claimed a name that rightly belonged to the T'lan Imass…
