A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

had begun to mistrust his belief in happenstance, and the crumbling of that belief left him feeling on shaky ground. To Mom and its wounded warren . . . to Morn, where a renegade T'lan Imass lay in the black dust, waiting – not for me, he said, but for Lady Envy. Not any old renegade T'lan Imass, either. One I've met before. The only one I've met before. And then there's Lady Envy herself, and her damned Seguleh servants and four-legged companions – uh, don't go there, Toc ...
    Anyway. Now we're travelling together. North, to where each of us wants to be. What luck. What happy coincidence!
    Toc disliked the notion of being used, of being manipulated. He'd seen what that had cost his friend, Captain Paran. Paran was tougher than me – I saw that from the start. He'd take the hits, blink, then just keep going. He'd some kind of hidden armour, something inside him that kept him sane.
    Not me, alas. Things get tough, and I'm liable to curl up and start whimpering.
    He glanced over at the two Seguleh. It seemed they were as loth to talk to each other as they were to anyone else. Strong, silent types. I hate those. I didn't before. I do, now.
    So . . . here I am, in the middle of nowhere, and the only truly sane creature in my company is an extinct wolf. His gaze returned once more to Baaljagg. 'And where's your family, beastie?' he asked softly, meeting the ay's soft, brown gaze.
    The answer came, a sudden explosion of swirling colours directly behind the socket of his lost eye – colours that settled into an image. Kin assailing three musk oxen, hunters and hunted mired deep in mud, trapped, doomed to die. The point of view was low, from just beyond the sinkhole, circling, ever circling. Whimpering filled Toc's mind. Desperate love unanswered. Panic, filling the cold air.
    A pup's confusion.
    Fleeing. Wandering mudflats and sandbanks, across a dying sea.
    Hunger.
    Then, standing before her, a figure. Cowled, swathed in roughly woven black wool, a hand – wrapped in leather straps, down to the very fingers – reaching out. Warmth. Welcome. A palpable compassion, a single touch to the creature's lowered forehead. The touch, Toc realized, of an Elder God. And a voice: You are the last, now. The very last, and there will be need for you. In time ...
    Thus, I promise that I shall bring to you ... a lost spirit. Tom from its flesh. A suitable one, of course. For that reason, my search may be a long one. Patience, little one . . . and in the meantime, this gift...
    The pup closed her eyes, sank into instant sleep – and found herself no longer alone. Loping across vast tundras, in the company of her own kind. An eternity of loving dreams, secured with joy, a gift made bitter only by waking hours, waking years, centuries, millennia spent. . . alone.
    Baaljagg, unchallenged among the dreamworld's ay, ruling mother of countless children in a timeless land. No lack of quarry, no lean times. Upright figures on distant horizons, seen but rarely, and never approached. Cousins to come across every now and then. Forest-dwelling agkor, white bendal, yellow' haired ay'tog of the far south – names that had sunk their meaning into Baaljagg's immortal mind . . . eternal whisperings from those ay that had joined the T'lan Imass, there, then, at the time of the Gathering. A whole other kind of immortality ...
    Wakeful, solitary Baaljagg's eyes had seen more of the world than could be fathomed. Finally, however the gift had come, the torn soul delivered to her own, where they merged, eventually became one. And in this, yet another layer of loss and pain. The beast now sought ... something. Something like ... redress ...
    What do you ask of me, wolf? No, not of me – you ask not of me, do you? You ask of my companion, the undead warrior. Onos T'oolan. It was him you awaited, whilst you shared company with Lady Envy. And Garath? Ah, another mystery . . . for another time . . .
    Toc blinked, his head jerking back as the link snapped. Baaljagg slept at his side. Dazed, trembling, he looked around in the gloom.
    A dozen paces away, Tool stood facing him, a brace of hares dangling from one shoulder.
    Oh, Beru fend. See? Soft inside. Far too soft for this world and its layered histories, its endless tragedies. 'What?' Toc asked, his voice rasping. 'What is it this wolf wants of you, T'lan Imass?'
    The warrior cocked his head. 'An end to her loneliness, mortal.'
    'Have you – have you given answer?'
    Tool turned away, dropping the hares to