‘Slightly, aye, slightly. Squatter? No surprise, we never went hungry, for the sea provided. Yet more, Tartheno Toblakai were among us …’ ‘You were T’lan Imass! Hood’s breath! Then … you and your kin must have defied the Ritual—’ ‘Defied? No. We simply failed to arrive in time – our pursuit of the Jaghut had forced us to venture onto the seas, to dwell among ice-flows and on treeless islands. And in our isolation from kin, among the elder peoples – the Tartheno – we changed … when our distant kin did not.
