The Crippled God

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 theymight 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.
    It was likely, Rystalle Ev suspected, that Onos T’oolan was unaware that he had opened his mind to them, that the terrible emotions warring in his soul rushed out to engulf them all. The ancient barriers had been torn down, and she and all the others weathered the storm in silence, wretched, beaten into numbness.
    At the field of slaughter, his howls had echoed their own, but now the First Sword was binding them in grisly chains.
    They would stand with him. They had no choice. And when at last he fell, as he must, so too would they.
    This was … acceptable. It was, in fact, just. Slayers of children deserve no glory. The caves are emptied now, but we cannot dwell there. The air is thick with the blood we spilled. Even the flames from the hearth cannot warm us .
    She sensed that Kalt Urmanal was no longer with them. She was not surprised, and although her own anguish at his absence clawed at her, the pain felt distant, drowned beneath the torments of the First Sword. Her love had always been a lost thing, and he had ever been blind to it.
    All the jealousy she had once felt lingered, a poison suffusing her being, tainting her love for him. He had been broken by the K’Chain Che’Malle long ago, when they had slain his wife and children. Her love was for a memory, and the memory was flawed.
    No, it is best that he is gone. That he decided he could not go on. The truth is, I admire the strength of his will, that he could so defy the First Sword’s power . Had others remained behind? She did not know, but if they had, she prayed their presence would comfort Kalt Urmanal.
    What is it, to lose a love you never had?
    Ulag Togtil, who had come among the Orshayn Imass as a stranger, whose blood was thickened with that of the Trellan Telakai, now