The T'lan Imass

 

T’lan Imass: one of the Four Founding Races, now immortal

 

Following the Ritual of Tellann, which endowed the Imass with the immortality they felt was necessary to continue their genocidal extirpation of the Jaghut across the vast barriers of ice, the clans gathered into six massive armies.  A diaspora was enacted, to carry the war to every place on the planet.  This event occurred around 675,000 years before the present age.

 

 

 

Their ability to turn themselves into dust allows them to cross bodies of water although they can only find their form on land. 

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T'lan Imass Customs and Rituals

 

The Ritual of Tellann

 

Silverfox:'The last Gathering...was hundreds of thousands of years ago, at which was invoked the Ritual of Tellann – the binding of the Tellann warren to each and every Imass. The ritual made them immortal...The life force of an entire people was bound in the name of a holy war destined to last for millennia...Logros and the clans under his command were entrusted with the task of defending the First Throne. The other armies departed to hunt down the last Jaghut strongholds – the Jaghut had raised barriers of ice. Omtose Phellack is a warren of ice...a place deathly cold and almost lifeless. Jaghut sorceries threatened the world . . . sea levels dropped, whole species died out – every mountain range was a barrier. Ice flowed in white rivers down from the slopes. Ice formed a league deep in places. As mortals, the Imass were scattered, their unity lost. They could not cross such barriers. There was starvation...As Tellann undead, our armies could cross such barriers. The efforts at eradication proved . . . costly. You (Dujek Onearm) have heard no whispers of those armies because many have been decimated, whilst others perhaps continue the war in distant, inhospitable places.’(MoI, UK Trade, p.88-9)

 

Rud Ellale to Olar Ethil : “Bonecaster,"  Ryadd said, adding a faint bow to the title,  "I know your name.  I know you are the Maker of the Ritual of Tellann.  That without you, all the will of the Imass would have achieved nothing.  The One Voice was yours. You took a people and stole from them death itself." (DoD)

 

Torrent to Olar Ethil : He stared.  "Spirits of the earth!  It was punishment!  Olar Ethil – that Ritual – you were cursing them!  Look at you –"

She spun round.  "Yes!  Look at me!  Do I not choose to wear that curse?  My own body, my own flesh!  What more can I do –"

"But wear you remorse?"  He studied her in horror.  "You miserable, pathetic thing.  What was it?  Some offhand insult?  A jilted love?  Did your man sleep with some other woman?  Why did you curse them for all eternity, Olar Ethil? Why?"(DoD)

 

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T'lan Imass Armies

 

The six armies were each named after their chosen leaders:

 

 

Logros T'lan Imass

Kron T'lan Imass

Kerluhm T'lan Imass

Orshayn T'lan Imass

Bentract T'lan Imass

Ifayle T'lan Imass

 

 

Kron T’lan Imass

 

'They call themselves the Kron T’lan Imass..their warriors...number perhaps fourteen thousand.’(MoI, UK Trade, p.244)

 

Gothos : "You might wonder, what I was doing when the wolf god found me.  I was fleeing.  In disguise.  We had gathered to imprison a tyrant, until our allies turned upon us and resumed the slaughter.  I believe I may be cursed to ever be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"T'lan Imass allies,"  Kallor said.  "Too bad they never found you."

"Kron, the clan of Bek'athana Ilk who dwelt in the Cliffs Above the Angry Sea.  Forty-three hunters and a Bonecaster.  They found me." (TtH)

 

Kron Bonecasters

 

 

Logros T’lan Imass

 

'..the Logros - Guardians of the First Throne itself -'(HoC, UK MMPB, p.322)

 

Throatslitter : “This, son, was the awakening of the Logros T’lan Imass.  The Emperor’s undead army.  I was there, on the streets, and saw with my own eyes those terrible warriors with their pitted eye-holes, the stretched, torn skin, the wisps of hair bleached of all colour.  They say, son, that the Logros were always there, beneath Li Heng.  Maybe in the Crevasse, maybe not.  Maybe just the very dust we walked on every damned day and night -- who can say?  But he woke them, he commanded them, and I tell you after that day every ruler on Quon Tali saw a skull’s face in their silver mirror, aye. (RG)

 

'Olar Ethil, Kilava Onas, Monok Ochem, Hentos Ilm, Tem Benasto, Ulpan Nodost, Tenag Ilbaie, Ay Estos, Absin Tholai . . . the bonecasters of the Logros T’lan Imass.'(HoC, UK Trade, p.577)

 

Bentract 

 

Olar Ethil: '‘The four remaining clans of Bentract T’lan Imass are on Jacuruku, I believe, yet trapped within the Warren of Chaos. I searched there, Summoner, without success' (MoI, UK Trade, p.596)

 

This is now known to be incorrect - see Refugium

 

Ifayle 

 

decimated on the continent of Assail, the few remaining unable to extricate themselves, see Lanas Tog

   

Orshayn 

 

Olar Ethil:'Of the Orshan, the Ifayle and Kerluhm, I report my failure in discovering any sign. It follows that we must conclude they no longer exist.’(MoI, UK Trade, p.596)

 

Tool :  When all the others halted their steps, six Bonecasters emerged, continuing their approach.

He knew three.  Brolos Haran, Ulag Togtil, Ilm Absinos.  Bonecasters of the Orshayn T'lan Imass.  The Orshayn had failed to appear at Silverfox's Gathering.  Such failure invited presumptions of loss.  Extinction.  Fates to match the Ifayle, the Bentract, the Kerluhm.  The presumption had been erroneous. (DoD)

 

Kerluhm 

 

Destroyed on the continent of Assail aside from Lanas Tog

  

Unknown  : Wither tells Udinaas there are four thousand T'lan Imass as dust, in the Edur encampment - ‘The dust can rise, Udinaas. Can take shape. Warriors of bone and withered flesh, with swords of stone. Where are these ones from? Which warleader sent them here? They do not answer our questions. They never do. There are no bonecasters among them. They are, like us,lost.’(MT UKTpb, p.422)

 

T'lan Imass Army from the Second Ritual of Tellann

 

Brold T'lan Imass

 

 

"Profound indeed,"  Ulag said.  "First Sword, they are T'lan Imass of a second Ritual.  The descendants of those who sought to follow Kilava Onnass when she rejected the first Ritual.  It was their failure to determine beforehand Kilava's attitude to being accompanied.  But when there is but one hole in the ice, then all must use it to breathe."

"My sister invited no one."

"Alas.  And so it comes to this.  These three are Bonecasters of the Brold T'lan Imass.  Lid Ger, Lera Epar and Nom Kala.  The Brold number two thousand seven hundred twelve.  The majority of these remain in the dust of our wake. Our own Orshayn number six hundred twelve – you see them here.  If you need us, we shall serve."

Tools thoughts on these Bonecasters : The remaining three were wrong in other ways.  They were clothed in the furs of the white bear – a beast that had come late in the age of the Imass – and their faces were flatter, the underlying structure more delicate than that of true Imass.  Their weapons were mostly bone, ivory, tusk or antler, with finely chipped chert and flint insets.  Weapons defying the notion of finesse: intricate in their construction and yet the violence they would deliver promised an almost primitive brutality. (DoD) 

 

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The First Throne

 

Onrack: 'To command the First Throne, one must be mortal. Which mortal can we trust to such a responsibility?' (HoC, UK Trade, p.580)

 

 

Onrack cut in.  “This you must understand, Cotillion of Shadow.  Once, long ago by mortal standards, now, your companion found the First Throne.  He occupied it and so gained command over the T’lan Imass.  Even then, it was a tenuous grasp, for the power of the First Throne is ancient.  Indeed, its power wanes.  Shadowthrone was able to awaken Logros T’lan Imass -- a lone army, finding itself still bound to the First Throne’s remnant power due to little more than mere proximity.  He could not command Kron T’lan Imass, nor Bentract, nor Ifayle, nor the others that remained, for they were too distant.  When Shadowthrone last sat upon the First Throne, he was mortal, he was bound to no other aspect.  He had not ascended.  But now, he is impure, and this impurity ever weakens his command.  Cotillion, as your companion loses ever more substance, so too does he lose … veracity.” (BH)

 

Trull : There were broken T’lan Imass out there, somewhere, who sought to usurp the First Throne, to take its power and gift it to the Crippled God -- to the force that now chained all of the Tiste Edur.  The Crippled God, who had given Rhulad a sword riven with a terrible curse.  Yet, for that fallen creature, an army of Edur was not enough.  An army of Letherii was not enough.  No, it wanted the T’lan Imass. (BH)

 

The sorcerous windstorm must have raced into the chamber, with a power the Bonecaster could not withstand -- the T’lan Imass had been thrown back, colliding with the right side of the throne, where, Trull saw with growing horror, Monok Ochem had melted.  Fused, destroyed and twisted as its body was melded into the First Throne.  Barely half of the Bonecaster’s face was visible, one eye surrounded by its cracked, collapsed socket.  (BH)

 

Contradiction?

 

Four leagues to the northwest, Onos Toolan suddenly halted, the first time in days.  Something not far away had brushed his senses, but now it was gone.  T'lan Imass.  Strangers.  He hesitated, as the more distant and altogether different wave of compulsion returned, insistent, desperate.  He knew its flavour, had known its flavour for weeks now. ...

The summons was Malazan.  It was the claim of alliance as had been forged long ago, between the Emperor and the Logros T'lan Imass.  Somewhere to the east, a Malazan force waited.  Danger approached, and the T'lan Imass must stand with allies of old.  Such was duty.  Such was the ink of honour, written so deep as to stain the immortal soul.(DoD) 

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The Title of First Sword

 

Onos T'oolan: 'The First Sword of the T’lan Imass must be without equal'(MoI, UK Trade, p.282)

 

First Sword and Dassem Ultor

 

The last Jaghut in the Odhan had been hunted down, butchered.  The time had come to return to the Malazan Empire, to the Emperor who had seated himself in the First Throne.  And Onos T'oolan knew he would soon return to the side of Dassem Ultor, his mortal shadow who had taken for himself – and for his closest followers – the title of First Sword.  Prophetic inspiration, for they would soon all be dead – as dead as Onos T'oolan, as dead as the T'lan Imass.  Or if not dead, then … destroyed.

 

Instead, Logros had lifted one hand, a splay of gnarled fingers all pointing at Onos.  "You were once our First Sword,"  he said.  "When we return to the mortal empire, we shall avow service to Dassem Ultor, for he is your heir to the title.  You shall surrender the name of First Sword."

Onos T'oolan considered that for a time.  Surrender the title?  Cut through the bindings?  Sever the knots?  Know freedom once more?  "He is mortal, Logros.  He does not know what he has done, in taking for himself the title of First Sword."

                "In service,"  Logros replied, "the T'lan Imass sanctify him –"

                "You would make of him a god?"

                "We are warriors.  Our blessing shall –"

                "Damn him for eternity!"

                "Onos T'oolan, you are of no use to us."

                "Do you imagine –" and he recalled the timbre of his voice, the seething outrage, and the horror of what Logros sought to do … to a mortal man, to a man destined to face his own death, and that is something we have never done, no, we ever ran from that moment of reckoning – Logros, the Lord of Death shall strike at the T'lan Imass, through him.  Hood shall make him pay.  For our crime, for our defiance – "Do you imagine,"  he'd said,  "that your blessing could be anything but a curse?  You would make him a god of sorrow, and failure, a god with a face doomed to weep, to twist in anguish –"

                "Onos T'oolan, we cast you out."

                "I shall speak to Dassem Ultor –"

                "You do not understand.  It is too late."

                Too late. 

The Adjunct Lorn had believed that it had been the murder of the Emperor that had broken the human empire's alliance with Logros T'lan Imass.  She had been wrong.  The spilled blood you should have heeded was Dassem Ultor's, not Kellanved's.  And for all that neither man truly died, only one bore the deadly kiss of Hood in all the days that followed.  Only one stood before Hood himself, and learned of the terrible thing Logros had done to him.

They said Hood was his patron god.  They said he had avowed service to the Lord of Death.  They said that Hood then betrayed him.  They understood nothing.  Dassem and his daughter, they were Hood's knives, striking at us.  What is it, to be the weapon of a god?

Where are you now, Logros?  Do you feel me, so fiercely reborn?  My heir – your chosen child – has rejected the role.  His footfalls now mark the passing of tragedy.  You have made him the God of Tears, and now that Hood is gone, he must hunt down the next one who made him what he was.  Do you tremble, Logros?  Dassem is coming for you.  He is coming for you.

 

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Imass Legacy

 

“Barghast, Trell, Tartheno Toblakai,”  said the seventh priest, his voice a rumble,  “these are the surviving threads of Imass blood, no matter their claims to purity.  (BHP)

 

 'Among the Malazan Empire, the T’lan Imass were also known as the Silent Host.' (GotM, UK Trade, p.234)

 

'The Warrens of the Imass are similar to those of the Jaghut and the Forkrul Assail – Elder-, blood- and earthbound –'(GotM, UK Trade, p.204)

'The mud was transmogrifying, coalescing into the shapes of figures. Flint blades appeared, some grey, some the deep red of chalcedony. Bedraggled fur slowly sprouted, riding broad, bony shoulders. Bone helmets gleamed polished gold and brown - the skulls of beasts that Felisin could not imagine existing anywhere. Long ropes of filthy hair were now visible, mostly black or brown. The mud did not so much fall away as change. These creatures were one with the clay...All wore furs except one, who was smaller than the others and last to appear. It was bedecked in the oily, ragged feathers of colourful birds, and its long hair was iron grey streaked with red. Shell, antler and bone jewellery hung from its rotting hide shirt, but it appeared to carry no weapons.'(DG, UK MMPB, p.375)

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The Wars against the Jaghut

 

The Jaghut were the wrong enemy.  The Ritual should have been enacted in the name of a war against the K'Chain Che'Malle.  They were the ones who hunted us.  For food.  For sport.  They were the ones who saw us as nothing more than meat.  They would descend upon our camps sleek with the oils of cruel, senseless slaughter, and loved ones died.(DoD)

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T'lan Imass senses

 

'Of course, the word 'smell' had acquired new meaning for the T'lan Imass in the wake of the Ritual. Mundane senses had for the most part withered along with the flesh. Through the shadowed orbits of his (Onrack's) eyes, for example, the world was a complex collage of dull colours, heat and cold and often measured by an unerring sensitivity to motion. Spoken words swirled in mercurial clouds of breath - if the speaker lived, that is. If not, then it was the sound itself that was detectable, shivering its way through the air. Onrack sensed sound as much by sight as by hearing.'(HoC, UK MMPB, p.324)

 

T'lan Imass 'Dusting'

 

'Hentos Ilm tilted her head back, then began dissolving, the dust of her being spinning in place. A moment later it spiralled upward...'(DG, UK MMPB, p.378)

 

 

T'lan Imass and Soletaken

 

Heboric: 'There is a bond between the T'lan Imass and Soletaken and D'ivers, a mysterious kinship that was unsuspected by the dwellers of this city - though they claimed for themselves the proud title of First Empire. That would have irritated the T'lan Imass - assuming such creatures can feel irritation - to have so boldly assumed a title that rightly belonged to them. Yet what drew them here was the ritual, and the need to set things right.'(DG, UK MMPB, p.517)

 

 

T'lan Immass and death 

'T’lan Imass. No room for doubt – their undead faces stare out at us,from all sides, skulls and withered faces peering out from wreaths ofcrystallized bark, the dark pits of their eyes tracking our passage. Thisis a burial ground, not of the flesh-and-blood forebears of the T’lan Imass, but of the deathless.' creatures themselves.

 

'At the war’s end, the survivors came here, carrying those comrades too shattered to continue, and made of this forest their eternal home. The souls of the T’lan Imass cannot join Hood, cannot even flee their prisons of bone and withered flesh. One does not bury such things – that sentence of earthen darkness offers no peace. Instead, let those remnants look out from their perches upon one another, upon the rare mortal passages on this trail . . ' (DG UKTpb, p.549)

 

'Failure'

'Too shattered to remain with their kin, they had been left behind, as was the custom of their kind. Failure's sentence was abandonment, an eternity of immobility. When failure was honourable, their sentient remnants would be placed open to the sky, to vistas, to the outside world, so that they might find peace in watching the passing of eons. But for these seven, failure had not been honourable. Thus, the darkness of a tomb had been their sentence.'(HoC, UK MMPB, p.36)

 

'The power was shorn from him (Onrack)– the Vow had been broken, ripped away from his body. He was now, he realized, as those of his fallen kin, the ones that had sustained so much physical destruction that they had ceased to be one with the T’lan Imass...

 

Onrack: 'If my kin were present...they would complete the necessary rites. They would sever my head from my body, and find for it a suitable place so that I might look out upon eternity. They would dismember the headless corpse and scatter the limbs. They would take my weapon, to return it to the place of my birth.’ (HoC, UK Trade, p.324-5)

 

Melding Body Parts from another T'lan Imass

 'Onrack knew his list of crimes, of outrages, had grown long, and this last theft of the body parts of another T’lan Imass

was the greatest abomination, the most dire twisting of the powers of Tellann thus far.' (HoC, UK Trade, p.581)

 

Ritual of Binding

'Their kin had marked this place of internment, with carved faces, each a likeness, mocking the vista with blank, blind eyes. They had spoken their names to close the ritual of binding, names that lingered in this place with a power sufficient to twist the minds of the shamans of the people who had found refuge in these mountains...' (HoC, UK MMPB, p.37)

 

T'lan Imass and Warrens

 

'...Kurald Emurlahn, fragmented or otherwise, was not amenable to the T'lan Imass. Without a Bonecaster beside him, Onrack could not extend his Tellann powers, could not reach out to his kin...'(HoC, UK MMPB, p.322)

 

T'lan Imass 'Dissolution'

'The roiling waters...offered true oblivion. Dissolution was the only escape possible from this eternal ritual...Onrack knew of kin who had chosen that path.'(HoC, UK MMPB, p.322)

 

The Clanless among the T'lan Imass

 'With his (Onrack's] link, born of the Ritual, now severed, he could only communicate with these T’lan Imass by speaking out loud.'(HoC, UK Trade, p.330)

 

Onrack: 'I am unburdened. Freed from the Ritual’s Vow. This has resulted in a certain . . . liberation of thought.'(HoC, UK Trade, p.579)

 

 

 

Irynthal : "I am Dev'ad Anan Tol, of the Irynthal Clan of the Imass, who once lived on the shores of the Jhagra Til until the Tyrant Raest came to enslave us." (TtH) 

 

T'lan Imass and Assail

 

“To Hood with Assail!”  Cotillion shouted, his voice echoing wildly in the cavern.  “This is nothing but damned pride!  You cannot win there!  You send clan after clan, all into the same destructive maw!  You damned fools -- disengage!  There is nothing worth fighting for on that miserable nightmare of a continent!  Don’t you see?  Among the Tyrants there, it is nothing but a game!”  (BH)