A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 1

turned to Tattersail. 'I was there, Tattersail. Under Whiskeyjack's command I was sent down to rein you in, which I did.'
    She shook her head. 'Whiskeyjack commanded?' Her eyes narrowed. 'This has the taste of a god's game.'
    Dujek swung back to the Adjunct. 'The Empire has its history, and we each are in it.'
    'In this,' Tayschrenn rasped, 'I must agree with the High Fist, Adjunct.'
    'There's no need to have all this official,' Tattersail said, her eyes on Lorn. 'I hereby challenge you to a duel. On my behalf I shall employ all my magical skills in an effort to destroy you. You may defend with your sword, Adjunct.'
    Toc took a step forward. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He'd been about to tell Tattersail that Lorn carried an Otataral sword, that the duel would be grossly unfair, that she'd die within seconds, as the sword devoured her every spell. Then he saw that the sorceress knew all that.
    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