‘I am pleased. I so tire of listening 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 become so lost?’

‘I know nothing of that army, Seer,’ Toc said. ‘I am now a Tenescowri, and that is all that matters.’

‘A bold claim. What is your name?’

‘Toc the Younger.’

‘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 my nation. But that has changed. I find myself irritated by a new, stubborn threat. These ... Seguleh . . . 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 was who 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. Power waxed until it seemed the ancient’s body would simply disintegrate. 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 upon me, brimming with their vaunted warrens, and seen nothing awry. My deception knew no challenge. Yet you . . .’

Toc shrugged. ‘I see what I see.’

‘With which eye?’

He shrugged again. To that, he had no answer.

‘But we were speaking of friends, Toc the Younger. Within my holy embrace, a mortal does not feel alone. Anaster, I see now, was deceived.’

‘I did not say I felt alone, Seer. I said I am without friends. Among the Tenescowri, I am one with your holy will. Yet, consider the woman who walks at my side, or the weary child whom I carry, or the men all around me ... should they die, I will devour them. There can be no friendship in such company, Seer. There is only potential food.’

‘Yet you would not eat.’

Toc said nothing.

The Seer leaned forward once again. ‘You would now, wouldn’t you?’

And so madness steals upon me like the warmest cloak. ‘If I am to live.’

‘And is living important to you, Toc the Younger?’

‘I do not know, Seer.’