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Forty-two steps brought him to the next level Toc sank down onto the cold bronze of the landing, his li drunken and sickly before hiritty, pebbled surface of theas he atte him was unlit, yet his lone eye could discern every detail, the open racks croith instruments of torture, the low beds of stained wood, the bundle of dark, stiff rags against one wall, and, covering those walls like a mad artisan’s tapestries, the skins of huertips and nails, stretched out into a ghastly, oversized approximation of the huh stone of the wall shohere the eyes had once been Nostrils and mouths sewn shut, hair pulled to one side and loosely knotted

Waves of revulsion swept through Toc, shuddering, debilitating waves He wanted to screaasp Tre steps, began dragging hiher once more

Charainy uncertainty, as he clily endless stairs Ti on all sides -- pitching in the wind -- had become the ascent of his entire life, what he had been born to, a mortal’s solitary task Coldlike the passage of weak suns, the traverse of aeons, civilizations born, then dying, and all that lay betas naught but the illusion of glory

Fevered, hisever deeper into the well of madness even as his body clawed upward, step by step Dear Hood, cood’s diseased feet, end this sha-

’The stairs have ended,’ an ancient, high-pitched and quavering voice called to hi countenance of yours You have no strength? Allow me’

A will seeped into Toc’s flesh, a stranger’s vigour ith in each muscle None the less, its taste was foul, insipid Toc ainst it, but defiance failed hi, he lifted his head He was kneeling on the last platfor hunched and twisted on a wooden chair was the wrinkled carcass of an oldas if their surface was no more than the thin film of two paper lanterns, stained and torn The Pannion Seer was a corpse, yet a creature dithin the husk, aniuely man-shaped exhalation of power

’Ah, now I see,’ the voice said, though the mouth did not move ’Indeed, that is not a human’s eye A wolf’s in truth Extraordinary It is said you do not speak Will you do so now?’

’If you wish,’ Toc said, his voice rough with disuse, a shock to his own ears

’I a to myself Your accent is unfamiliar to me You are most certainly not a citizen of Bastion’

’Malazan’

The corpse creaked as it leaned forward, the eyes flaring brighter ’Indeed A child of that distant, formidable empire Yet you have come from the south, whereas my spies inform me that your kin’s army marches from Pale How, then, did you beco of that army, Seer,’ Toc said ’I am now a Tenescowri, and that is all that matters’

’A bold claier’

’Let us leave the matter of the Malazan army for a moment, shall we? The south has, until recently, been a place devoid of threat to ed I find uleh and a disturbing, if mercifully small, collection of allies Are these your friends, then, Toc the Younger?’

’I am without friends, Seer’

’Not even your fellow Tenescowri? What of Anaster, the First Child who shall one day lead an entire army of Children of the Dead Seed? He noted you as … unique And what of me? Am I not your Lord? Was it not I who embraced you?’

’I cannot be certain,’ Toc said dully, ’which of you it ho embraced me’

Entity and corpse both flinched back at his words, a blurring of shapes that hurt Toc’s eye Two beings, the living hiding behind the dead Poaxed until it seerate The limbs twitched spasmodically After a moment, the furious emanation diminished, and the body fell still once more ’More than a wolf’s eye, that you should see so clearly what no-one else has been able to descry Oh, sorcerers have looked uponawry My deception knew no challenge Yet you ’