Old, so very old. Bittersweet, lost moments of wonder, of joy, of grief – a storm of memories, not his – so many, arriving like ice, then melting in the flare of impact – he felt his flesh grow numb beneath the unceasing deluge—

—was suddenly tugged away—

Blinking in the darkness, his lone eye as blind as the other one – the one he had lost at Pale. Something was pounding at his ears, a sound, then. Shrieking, the floor and walls shaking, chains snapping, dust raining from the low ceiling. I am not alone in here. Who? What?

Claws gouged the flagstones near his head, frantic and yearning.

Reaching. It wants me. What does? What am I to it?

The concussions were growing closer. And now voices, desperate bellowing coming from the other side of walls ... down a corridor, perhaps. Clash of weapons, screams and gurgles, clatter of armour – pieces dancing on the floor.

Toc shifted his head – and saw something in the darkness. Huge, straining as it shrieked without pause. Massive, taloned hands stretched imploringly – reaching out—

For me.

Grey light flashed in the cavern, revealing in an instant the monstrous, fat-layered reptile chained opposite Toc, its eyes lit with terror. The stone that was within reach of the creature was gouged with countless scars, on all sides, a hatch-marked nightmare of madness, triggering horror within the Malazan ... for it was a nightmare he recognized within himself.

She – she is my soul—

The Seer stood before him, moving in desperate, jerky motions – the old man’s body, that the Jaghut had occupied for so long, was falling to pieces – and muttering a singsong chant as, ignoring Toc, he edged ever closer to the Matron, to Mother.

The enormous beast cringed, claws scraping as it pushed itself against the wall. Its shrieks did not pause, resounding through the cavern.

The Seer held something in his hands, pallid, smooth and oblong – an egg, not from a bird. A lizard’s egg, latticed in grey magic.

Magic that waxed with every word of the Seer’s song.

Toc watched as something exploded from the Matron’s body, a coruscation of power that sought to flee upward—

—but was, instead, snared by the web of sorcery; snared, then drawn into the egg in the Seer’s hands.

The Matron’s shrieking suddenly ceased. The creature settled back with a mindless whimper.

In the numbing silence within the cavern, Toc could now hear more clearly the sounds of battle in the corridor beyond. Close, and closing.

The Seer, clutching the Finnest, spun to stare down at Toc. The Jaghut’s smile split the corpse’s desiccated lips. ‘We shall return,’ he whispered.

The sorcery blossomed once more, then, as heavy chains clattered freely to the floor, darkness returned.

And Toc knew that he was alone within the cavern. The Seer had taken Mother’s power, and then he had taken her as well.