House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  ‘Very little. The Logros crossed paths with them only once, long ago, in the time of the First Empire. Seven in number. Serving an unknown master, yet bent on destruction.’

  Trull smiled oddly, then asked, ‘The human First Empire, or yours?’

  ‘I know little of the human empire of that name. We were drawn into its heart but once, Trull Sengar, in answer to the chaos of the Soletaken and D’ivers. The Hounds made no appearance during that slaughter.’ Onrack looked back at the massive stone Hound before them. ‘It is believed,’ he said slowly, ‘by the bonecasters, that to create an icon of a spirit or a god is to capture its essence within that icon. Even the laying of stones prescribes confinement. Just as a hut can measure out the limits of power for a mortal, so too are spirits and gods sealed into a chosen place of earth or stone or wood . . . or an object. In this way power is chained, and so becomes manageable. Tell me, do the Tiste Edur concur with that notion?’

  Trull Sengar climbed to his feet. ‘Do you think we raised these giant statues, Onrack? Do your bonecasters also believe that power begins as a thing devoid of shape, and thus beyond control? And that to carve out an icon—or make a circle of stones—actually forces order upon that power?’

  Onrack cocked his head, was silent for a time. ‘Then it must be that we make our own gods and spirits. That belief demands shape, and shaping brings life into being. Yet were not the Tiste Edur fashioned by Mother Dark? Did not your goddess create you?’

  Trull’s smile broadened. ‘I was referring to these statues, Onrack. To answer you—I do not know if the hands that fashioned these were Tiste Edur. As for Mother Dark, it may be that in creating us, she but simply separated what was not separate before.’

  ‘Are you then the shadows of Tiste Andü? Torn free by the mercy of your goddess mother?’

  ‘But Onrack, we are all torn free.’

  ‘Two of the Hounds are here, Trull Sengar. Their souls are trapped in the stone. And one more thing of note—these likenesses cast no shadows.’

  ‘Nor do the Hounds themselves.’

  ‘If they are but reflections, then there must be Hounds of Darkness, from which they were torn,’ Onrack persisted. ‘Yet there is no knowledge of such . . .’ The T’lan Imass suddenly fell silent.

  Trull laughed. ‘It seems you know more of the human First Empire than you first indicated. What was that tyrant emperor’s name? No matter. We should journey onward, to the gate—’

  ‘Dessimbelackis,’ Onrack whispered. ‘The founder of the human First Empire. Long vanished by the time of the unleashing of the Beast Ritual. It was believed he had . . . veered.’

  ‘D’ivers?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And beasts numbered?’

  ‘Seven.’

  Trull stared up at the statues, then gestured. ‘We didn’t build these. No, I am not certain, but in my heart I feel . . . no empathy. They are ominous and brutal to my eyes, T’lan Imass. The Hounds of Shadow are not worthy of worship. They are indeed untethered, wild and deadly. To truly command them, one must sit in the Throne of Shadow—as master of the realm. But more than that. One must first draw together the disparate fragments. Making Kurald Emurlahn whole once more.’

  ‘And this is what your kin seek,’ Onrack rumbled. ‘The possibility troubles me.’

  The Tiste Edur studied the T’lan Imass, then shrugged. ‘I did not share your distress at the prospect—not at first. And indeed, had it remained . . . pure, perhaps I would still be standing alongside my brothers. But another power acts behind the veil in all this—I know not who or what, but I would tear aside that veil.’

  ‘Why?’

  Trull seemed startled by the question, then he shivered. ‘Because what it has made of my people is an abomination, Onrack.’

  The T’lan Imass set out towards the gap between the two nearest statues.

  After a moment, Trull Sengar followed. ‘I imagine you know little of what it is like to see your kin fall into dissolution, to see the spirit of an entire people grow corrupt, to struggle endlessly to open their eyes—as yours have been opened by whatever clarity chance has gifted you.’

  ‘True,’ Onrack replied, his steps thumping the sodden ground.

  ‘Nor is it mere naivete,’ the Tiste Edur went on, limping in Onrack’s wake. ‘Our denial is wilful, our studied indifference conveniently self-serving to our basest desires. We are a long-lived people who now kneel before short-term interests—’

  ‘If you find that unusual,’ the T’lan Imass muttered, ‘then it follows that the one behind the veil has need for you only in the short term—if indeed that hidden power is manipulating the Tiste Edur.’

  ‘An interesting thought. You may well be right. The question then is, once that short-term objective is reached, what will happen to my people?’

  ‘Things that outlive their usefulness are discarded,’ Onrack replied.

  ‘Abandoned. Yes—’

  ‘Unless, of course,’ the T’lan Imass went on, ‘they would then pose a threat to one who had so exploited them. If so, then the answer would be to annihilate them once they are no longer useful.’

  ‘There is the unpleasant ring of truth to your words, Onrack.’

  ‘I am generally unpleasant, Trull Sengar.’

  ‘So I am learning. You say the souls of two Hounds are imprisoned within these—which ones again?’

  ‘We now walk between them.’

  ‘What are they doing here, I wonder?’

  ‘The stone has been shaped to encompass them, Trull Sengar. No-one asks the spirit or the god, when the icon is fashioned, if it wishes entrapment. Do they? The need to make such vessels is a mortal’s need. That one can rest eyes on the thing one worships is an assertion of control at worst, or at best the illusion that one can negotiate over one’s own fate.’

  ‘And you find such notions suitably pathetic, Onrack?’

  ‘I find most notions pathetic, Trull Sengar.’

  ‘Are these beasts trapped for eternity, do you think? Is this where they go when they are destroyed?’

  Onrack shrugged. ‘I have no patience with these games. You possess your own knowledge and suspicions, yet would not speak them. Instead, you seek to discover what I know, and what I sense of these snared spirits. I care nothing for the fate either way of these Hounds of Shadow. Indeed, I find it unfortunate that—if these two were slain in some other realm and so have ended up here—there are but five remaining, for that diminishes my chances of killing one myself. And I think I would enjoy killing a Hound of Shadow.’

  The Tiste Edur’s laugh was harsh. ‘Well, I won’t deny that confidence counts for a lot. Even so, Onrack of the Logros, I do not think you would walk away from a violent encounter with a Hound.’

  The T’lan Imass halted and swung towards Trull Sengar. ‘There is stone, and there is stone.’

  ‘I am afraid I do not understand—’

  In answer, Onrack unsheathed his obsidian sword. He strode up to the nearer of the two statues. The creature’s forepaw was itself taller than the T’lan Imass. He raised his weapon two-handed, then swung a blow against the dark, unweathered stone.

  An ear-piercing crack ripped the air.

  Onrack staggered, head tilting back as fissures shot up through the enormous edifice.

  It seemed to shiver, then exploded into a towering cloud of dust.

  Yelling, Trull Sengar leapt back, scrambling as the billowing dust rolled outward to engulf him.

  The cloud hissed around Onrack. He righted himself, then dropped into a fighting stance as a darker shape appeared through the swirling grey haze.

  A second concussion thundered—this time behind the T’lan Imass—as the other statue exploded. Darkness descended as the twin clouds blotted out the sky, closing the horizons to no more than a dozen paces on all sides.

  The beast that emerged before Onrack was as tall at the shoulder as Trull Sengar’s full height. Its hide was colourless, and its eyes burned black. A broad, flat head
, small ears . . .

  Faint through the grey gloom, something of the two suns’ light, and that reflected from the moons, reached down—to cast beneath the Hound a score of shadows.

  The beast bared fangs the size of tusks, lips peeling back in a silent snarl that revealed blood-red gums.

  The Hound attacked.

  Onrack’s blade was a midnight blur, flashing to kiss the creature’s thick, muscled neck—but the swing cut only dusty air. The T’lan Imass felt enormous jaws close about his chest. He was yanked from his feet. Bones splintered. A savage shake that ripped the sword from his hands, then he was sailing through the grainy gloom—

  To be caught with a grinding snap by a second pair of jaws.

  The bones of his left arm shattered into a score of pieces within its taut hide of withered skin, then it was torn entirely from his body.

  Another crunching shake, then he was thrown into the air once more. To crash in a splintered heap on the ground, where he rolled once, then was still.

  There was thunder in Onrack’s skull. He thought to fall to dust, but for the first time he possessed neither the will nor, it seemed, the capacity to do so.

  The power was shorn from him—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.

  He lay unmoving, and felt the heavy tread of one of the Hounds as it padded up to stand over him. A dust- and shard-flecked muzzle nudged him, pushed at the broken ribs of his chest. Then lifted away. He listened to its breathing, the sound like waves riding a tide into caves, could feel its presence like a heaviness in the damp air.

  After a long moment, Onrack realized that the beast was no longer looming over him. Nor could he hear the heavy footfalls through the wet earth. As if it and its companion had simply vanished.

  Then the scrape of boots close by, a pair of hands dragging him over, onto his back.

  Trull Sengar stared down at him. ‘I do not know if you can still hear me,’ he muttered. ‘But if it is any consolation, Onrack of the Logros, those were not Hounds of Shadow. Oh, no, indeed. They were the real ones. The Hounds of Darkness, my friend. I dread to think what you have freed here . . .”

  Onrack managed a reply, his words a soft rasp. ‘So much for gratitude.’

  Trull Sengar dragged the shattered T’lan Imass to a low wall at the city’s edge, where he propped the warrior into a sitting position. ‘I wish I knew what else I could do for you,’ he said, stepping back.

  ‘If my kin were present,’ Onrack said, ‘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.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Of course, you cannot do such things. Thus, I am forced into continuation, despite my present condition.’ With that, Onrack slowly clambered upright, broken bones grinding and crunching, splinters falling away.

  Trull grunted, ‘You could have done that before I dragged you.’

  ‘I regret most the loss of an arm,’ the T’lan Imass said, studying the torn muscles of his left shoulder. ‘My sword is most effective when in the grip of two hands.’ He staggered over to where the weapon lay in the mud. Part of his chest collapsed when he leaned down to retrieve it. Straightening, Onrack faced Trull Sengar. ‘I am no longer able to sense the presence of gates.’

  ‘They should be obvious enough,’ the’Tiste Edur replied. ‘I expect near the centre of the city. We are quite a pair, aren’t we?’

  ‘I wonder why the Hounds did not kill you.’

  ‘They seemed eager to leave.’ Trull set off down the street directly opposite, Onrack following. ‘I am not even certain they noticed me—the dust cloud was thick. Tell me, Onrack. If there were other T’lan Imass here, then they would have done all those things to you? Despite the fact that you remain . . . functional?’

  ‘Like you, Trull Sengar, I am now shorn. From the Ritual. From my own kind. My existence is now without meaning. The final task left to me is to seek out the other hunters, to do what must be done.’

  The street was layered in thick, wet silt. The low buildings to either side, torn away above the ground level, were similarly coated, smoothing every edge—as if the city was in the process of melting. There was no grand architecture, and the rubble in the streets revealed itself to be little more than fired bricks. There was no sign of life anywhere.

  They continued on, their pace torturously slow. The street slowly broadened, forming a vast concourse flanked by pedestals that had once held statues. Brush and uprooted trees marred the vista, all a uniform grey that gradually assumed an unearthly hue beneath the now-dominant blue sun, which in turn painted a large moon the colour of magenta.

  At the far end was a bridge, over what had once been a river but was now filled with silt. A tangled mass of detritus had ridden up on one side of the bridge, spilling flotsam onto the walkway. Among the garbage lay a small box.

  Trull angled over towards it as they reached the bridge. He crouched down. ‘It seems well sealed,’ he said, reaching out to pry the clasp loose, then lifting the lid. ‘That’s odd. Looks like clay pots. Small ones . . .’

  Onrack moved up alongside the Tiste Edur. ‘They are Moranth munitions, Trull Sengar.’

  The Tiste Edur glanced up. ‘I have no knowledge of such things.’

  ‘Weapons. Explosive when the clay breaks. They are generally thrown. As far as is possible. Have you heard of the Malazan Empire?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Human. From my birth realm. These munitions belong to that empire.’

  ‘Well, that is troubling indeed—for why are they here?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  Trull Sengar closed the lid and collected the box. ‘While I would prefer a sword, these will have to do. I was not pleased at being unarmed for so long.’

  ‘There is a structure beyond—an arch.’

  Straightening, the Tiste Edur nodded. ‘Aye. It is what we seek.’

  They continued on.

  The arch stood on pedestals in the centre of a cobbled square. Floodwaters had carried silt to its mouth where it had dried in strange, jagged ridges. As the two travellers came closer, they discovered that the clay was rock hard. Although the gate did not manifest itself in any discernible way, a pulsing heat rolled from the space beneath the arch.

  The pillars of the structure were unadorned. Onrack studied the edifice. ‘What can you sense of this?’ the T’lan Imass asked after a moment.

  Trull Sengar shook his head, then approached. He halted within arm’s reach of the gate’s threshold. ‘I cannot believe this is passable—the heat pouring from it is scalding.’

  ‘Possibly a ward,’ Onrack suggested.

  ‘Aye. And no means for us to shatter it.’

  ‘Untrue.’

  The Tiste Edur glanced back at Onrack, then looked down at the box tucked under his arm. ‘I do not understand how a mundane explosive could destroy a ward.’

  ‘Sorcery depends on patterns, Trull Sengar. Shatter the pattern and the magic fails.’

  ‘Very well, let us attempt this thing.’

  They retreated twenty paces from the gate. Trull unlatched the box and gingerly drew forth one of the clay spheres. He fixed his gaze on the gate, then threw the munition.

  The explosion triggered a coruscating conflagration from the portal. White and gold fires raged beneath the arch, then the violence settled back to form a swirling golden wall.

  ‘That is the warren itself,’ Onrack said. ‘The ward is broken. Still, I do not recognize it.’

  ‘Nor I,’ Trull muttered, closing the munitions box once more. Then his head snapped up. ‘Something’s coming.’

  ‘Yes.’ Onrack was silent then for a long moment. He suddenly lifted his s
word. ‘Flee, Trull Sengar—back across the bridge. Flee!’

  The Tiste Edur spun and began running.

  Onrack proceeded to back up a step at a time. He could feel the power of the ones on the other side of the gate, a power brutal and alien. The breaking of the ward had been noted, and the emotion reaching through the barrier was one of indignant outrage.

  A quick look over his shoulder showed that Trull Sengar had crossed the bridge and was now nowhere in sight. Three more steps and Onrack would himself reach the bridge. And there, he would make his stand. He expected to be destroyed, but he intended to purchase time for his companion.

  The gate shimmered, blindingly bright, then four riders cantered through. Riding white, long-limbed horses with wild manes the colour of rust. Ornately armoured in enamel, the warriors were a match for their mounts—pale-skinned and tall, their faces mostly hidden behind slitted visors, cheek and chin guards. Curved scimitars that appeared to have been carved from ivory were held in gauntleted fists. Long silver hair flowed from beneath the helms.

  They rode directly towards Onrack. Canter to gallop. Gallop to charge.

  The battered T’lan Imass widened his stance, lifted his obsidian sword and stood ready to meet them.

  The riders could only come at him on the narrow bridge two at a time, and even then it was clear that they simply intended their horses to ride Onrack down. But the T’lan Imass had fought in the service of the Malazan Empire, in Falar and in Seven Cities—and he had faced horse warriors in many a battle. A moment before the front riders reached him, Onrack leapt forward. Between the two mounts. Ignoring the sword that whirled in from his left, the T’lan Imass slashed his blade into the other warrior’s midsection.

  Two ivory blades struck him simultaneously, the one on his left smashing through clavicle and cutting deep into his shoulder blade, then through in a spray of bone shards. The scimitar on his right chopped down through the side of his face, sheering it off from temple to the base of the jaw.

  Onrack felt his own obsidian blade bite deep into the warrior’s armour. The enamel shattered.

  Then both attackers were past him, and the remaining two arrived.