Memories of Ice & House of Chains - By Steven Erikson Page 0,41

a mortal soul—'

Cloth held to his face, Kallor's snort was muffled. ' "Nightchill",' he murmured. 'Such a lack of imagination ... Did K'rul even know? Ah, what irony . . .'

Silverfox resumed. 'It was these three who gathered to help my mother, this Rhivi woman who found herself with an impossible child. I was born in two places at once – among the Rhivi in this world, and into the hands of the Bonecaster in the Tellann warren.' She hesitated, shuddering as if suddenly spent. 'My future,' she whispered after a moment, her arms drawing around herself, 'belongs to the T'lan Imass.' She spun suddenly to Korlat. 'They are gathering, and you will need their power in the war to come.'

'Unholy conjoining,' Kallor rasped, hand and cloth falling away, eyes narrowed, his face white as parchment behind the smeared blood. 'As I had feared – oh, you fools. Every one of you. Fools—'

'Gathering,' the Tiste Andii repeated, also ignoring the High King. 'Why? To what end, Silverfox?'

'That is for me to decide, for I exist to command them. To command them all. My birth proclaimed the Gathering – a demand that every T'lan Imass on this world has heard. And now, those who are able, are coming. They are coming.'

In his mind, Whiskeyjack was reeling. Fissures in Brood's contingent was alarming enough, but the child's revelations ... his thoughts spun, spiralled down ... then arose in a new place. The command tent and its confines slipped away, and he found himself in a world of twisted schemes, dark betrayals and their fierce, unexpected consequences – a world he hated with a passion.

Memories rose like spectres. The Enfilade at Pale, the decimation of the Bridgeburners, the assault on Moon's Spawn. A plague of suspicions, a maelstrom of desperate schemes...

A'Karonys, Bellurdan, Nightchill, Tattersail... The list of mages whose deaths could be laid at High Mage Tayschrenn's sandalled feet was written in the blood of senseless paranoia. Whiskeyjack had not been sorry to see the High Mage take his leave, though the commander suspected he was not as far off as it seemed. Outlawry, Laseen's proclamation cut us loose ... but it's all a lie. Only he and Dujek knew the truth of that – the remainder of the Host believed they had indeed been outlawed by the Empress. Their loyalty was to Dujek Onearm, and, perhaps, to me as well. And Hood knows, we'll test that loyalty before we're done ...

Yet she knows. The girl knows. He had no doubt that she was Tattersail reborn – the sorceress was there, in the cast of the child's features, in the way she stood and moved, in that sleepy, knowing gaze. The repercussions that tumbled from that truth overwhelmed Whiskeyjack – he needed time, time to think ...

Tattersail reborn . . . damn you to Hood, Tayschrenn – in' advertent or not – what have you done?

Whiskeyjack had not known Nightchill – they'd never spoken and the breadth of his knowledge was based solely on the tales he'd heard. Mate to the Thelomen, Bellurdan, and a practitioner of High Rashan sorcery, she had been among the Emperor's chosen. Ultimately betrayed, just as the Bridgeburners had been ...

There had been an edge to her, it was said, a hint of jagged bloodstained iron. And, he could see, what remained of that woman had cast a shadow over the child – the soft gleam in Tattersail's sleepy eyes had darkened, somehow, and seeing it frayed the commander's already rattled nerves.

Oh, Hood. One of those repercussions had just settled in his mind with a thunderous clang. Oh, the gods forgive us our foolish games ...

Back in Pale waited Ganoes Paran. Tattersail's lover. What will he make of Silverfox? From woman to a newborn babe in an instant, then from that newborn to a ten-year-old child in six months. And six months from now? A twenty-year-old woman? Paran ... lad ... is it grief that is burning holes in your gut? If so, then what will its answering do to you?

As he struggled to comprehend the young girl's words, and all that he saw in her face, his thoughts turned to the Mhybe standing beside Silverfox. Sorrow flooded him. The gods were cruel indeed. The old woman would likely be dead within the year, a brutal sacrifice to the child's needs. A malign, nightmarish twist to the role of motherhood.

The girl's final words jarred the commander yet again. 'They are coming.' The T'lan Imass – Hood's breath, as