‘No, I shall cling to you, Nom Kala.’
She flinched. ‘Do not do that,’ she whispered.
‘I can see you were beautiful once. And now, for the yearning in your empty heart, you are beautiful again.’
‘Will you so torment me? If so, do not journey with me, I beg you.’
‘I shall be silent at your side, unless you choose otherwise, Nom Kala. Look at us, we two remain. Deathless, and so well suited to this search for a moment of peace. Shall we begin?’
Saying nothing, she began walking.
As did he.
Do you remember, how those flowers danced in the wind? Three women knelt in soft clays beside the stream, taking cupped handfuls of clear water to sprinkle upon the softened pran’ag hides before binding them. The migrations were under way, velvet upon the antlers, and the insects spun in iridescent clouds, flitting like delicious thoughts.
The sun was warm that day. Do you remember?
Greasy stones were lifted from the sacks, rolled in hands around the circle of laughing youths, while the cooked meat was drawn forth and everyone gathered to feast. It was, with these gentle scenes, a day like any other.
The call from the edge of camp was not unduly alarming. Three strangers approaching from the south.
One of the other clans, familiar faces, smiles to greet kin.
The second shout froze everyone.
I went out with the others. I held my finest spear in my hand, and with my warriors all about me I felt sure and bold. Those who drew near were not kin. True strangers. If necessary, we would drive them off.
There was this moment — please, you must remember with me. We stood in a row, as they came to within six paces of us, and we looked into their faces.
We saw ourselves, yet not. Subtle the alterations. They were taller, thinner-boned. Strewn with fetishes and shells and beads of amber. Their faces did not possess the rounded comfort of Imass faces. Features had sharpened, narrowed. The bones of their jaw beneath the mouth jutted under dark beards. We saw their weapons and they confused us. We saw the fineness of their skins and furs and leggings, and we felt diminished.
Their eyes were arrogant, the colour of earth, not sky.
With gestures, these three sought to drive us away. This was their land to hunt now. We were the intruders. Do you remember how that felt? I looked into their faces, into their eyes, and I saw the truth.
To these tall strangers, we were ranag, we were bhederin, we were pran’ag.
Killing them made no difference, and the blood on our weapons weakened us with horror. Please, I am begging you, remember this. It was the day the world began to die. Our world.
Tell me what you remember, you who stood facing these roughened savages with their blunt faces, their squat selves, their hair of red and blond. Tell me what you felt, your indignation when we did not cower, your outrage when we cut you down.
You knew you would come again, in numbers beyond imagining. And you would hunt us, chase us down, drive us into cold valleys and cliff caves above crashing seas. Until we were all gone. And then, of course, you would turn on each other.
If you dare to remember this, then you will understand. I am the slayer of children — your children — no! Show me no horror! Your hands are red with the blood of my children! You cannot kill us any more, but we can kill you, and so we shall. We are the sword of ancient memories. Memories of fire, memories of ice, memories of the pain you delivered upon us. I shall answer your crime. I shall be the hand of your utter annihilation. Every last child.
I am Onos T’oolan and once, I was an Imass. Once, I looked upon flowers dancing in the wind.
See my army? It has come to kill you. Seek out the cold valleys. Seek out the caves in the cliffs over crashing seas. It will not matter. As these shelters failed us, so they will fail you.
I see well this truth: you never expected our return.
Too bad.
Yes, he would have liked these thoughts, this blistering, righteous pronouncement that vengeance was deserved and so meted out. And that the innocence of the young was a lie, when they become the inheritors, when they grow fat on the evil deeds of their ancestors.
They were, he knew, the thoughts of Olar Ethil, whispered into the secret places of his soul. He well understood her. He always had.
The Barghast deserved their fate. They had slain his wife, his children. And he remembered the arrogance in the eyes of his family’s slayers — but how had he seen that? It was impossible. He’d already been dead. She creeps inside me. Olar Ethil, you are not welcome. You want me to serve you. You want — yes, I know what you want, and you dare to call it healing.
There is a dead seedling in you, Bonecaster. A shrunken, lifeless thing. In others, it lives on, sometimes frail and starving, sometimes thriving with sweet anguish. That seedling, Olar Ethil, has a name, and even the name would twist sour upon your lips. The name is compassion.
One day I will stand before you, and I will kiss you, Olar Ethil, and give you a taste of what you never possessed. And I will see you choke. Spit in bitter fury. And even then, to show you its meaning, I will weep for you.
We have fled from it for too long. Our people, our blessed, doomed people. Can you not shed a tear for them, Bonecaster? Your putative children? They lived well in their slow failing, well enough — show me the scene I never saw, the moment I never knew, when I stood before the first humans. Tell me of the blood I spilled, to echo my latest crime, to fuse the two together, as if righteousness was a mask to be worn again and again.
Do you think me a fool?
Toc, my brother, sent me away. But I think, now, he was compelled. I think now, Olar Ethil, you held him fast. I have lost a brother and I know he will never return. For his fate, I would weep.
If I only could.
Forces were gathering, to a place in the east. The ancient warren of Tellann was a thing of raging fire, like the plains lit in flames on every horizon. He could feel the heat, could taste the bitter smoke. Elsewhere — not far — Omtose Phellack churned awake with the thunder of riven ice. Seas cracked and valleys groaned. And closer to hand, the stench of the K’Chain Che’Malle rode the winds pungent as a serpent’s belly. And now … yes. Akhrast Korvalain. The pale ghosts of old once more walk the land. The Elder Warrens rise again. By all the spirits of earth and water, what has begun here?
Olar Ethil, in what comes, the T’lan Imass shall be as motes of dust in a maelstrom. And what you seek — no, the price is too high. It is too high.
Yet he marched, as if destiny still existed for his people, as if death itself was no barrier to the glory awaiting them. We have lost our minds. Toc Younger, what is this winter tide that so carries us forward? Ride to me, let us speak again, as we did once. Toc Younger, I forgive you. For the wounds you delivered, for all that you denied me, I cannot but forgive you.
One last journey into the storm, then. He would lead. His lost kin would follow. He understood that much. Less than dust motes they might be, but the T’lan Imass would be there. We shall not be forgotten. We deserve better than that.
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.
