'I don't recall asking for a new name, Tool.'
'Names are not for the asking, mortal. Names are earned.'
'Huh, sounds like the Bridgeburners.'
'An ancient tradition, Aral Fayle.'
Hood's breath. 'Fine!' he snapped. 'Only I can't see that I've earned anything-'
'You were sent into a Warren of Chaos, mortal. You survived — in itself an unlikely event — and travelled the slow vortex towards the Rent. Then, when Morn's portal should have taken you, it instead cast you out. Stone has taken one of your eyes. And the ay here has chosen you in the sharing of her soul. Baaljagg has seen in you a rare worthiness, Aral Fayle-'
'I still don't want any new names! Hood's breath!' He was sweating beneath his worn, dust-caked armour. He searched desperately for a way to change the subject, to shift the conversation away from himself. 'What's yours mean, anyway? Onos T'oolan — what's that from?'
'Onos is "clanless man". T' is "broken". Ool is "veined" while lan is "flint" and in combination T'oolan is "flawed flint".'
Toc stared at the T'lan Imass for a long moment. 'Flawed flint.'
'There are layers of meaning.'
'I'd guessed.'
'From a single core are struck blades, each finding its own use. If veins or knots of crystal lie hidden within the heart of the core, the shaping of the blades cannot be predicted. Each blow to the core breaks off useless pieces — hinge-fractured, step-fractured. Useless. Thus it was with the family in which I was born. Struck wrong, each and all.'
'Tool, I see no flaws in you.'
'In pure flint all the sands are aligned. All face in the same direction. There is unity of purpose. The hand that shapes such flint can be confident. I was of Tarad's clan. Tarad's reliance in me was misplaced. Tarad's clan no longer exists. At the Gathering, Logros was chosen to command the clans native to the First Empire. He had the expectation that my sister, a Bonecaster, would be counted among his servants. She defied the ritual, and so the Logros T'lan Imass were weakened. The First Empire fell. My two brothers, T'ber Tendara and Han'ith lath, led hunters to the north and never returned. They too failed. I was chosen First Sword, yet I have abandoned Logros T'lan Imass. I travel alone, Aral Fayle, and thus am committing the greatest crime known among my people.'