House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  The fallen warriors formed a vast semicircle around a low, square-walled tower. Its battered stones were limned in runnelled ice, its doorway gaping, the interior dark.

  Karsa picked his way across the field, his moccasins crunching through the ice and snow.

  The tower’s doorway was tall enough to permit the Teblor to stride through without ducking. A single room lay within. Broken furniture and the pieces of more fallen warriors cluttered the stone floor. A spiral staircase that seemed made entirely of iron rose from the centre.

  From what he could determine from the wreckage, the furniture was of a scale to suit a Teblor, rather than a lowlander.

  Karsa made his way up the ice-sheathed staircase.

  There was a single level above, a high-ceilinged chamber that had once held wooden shelves on all four walls. Torn scrolls, bound books ripped apart, vials and clay jars containing various pungent mixes crushed underfoot, a large table split in half and pushed up against one wall, and on a cleared space on the floor . . .

  Karsa stepped off the landing and looked down.

  ‘Thelomen Toblakai, welcome to my humble abode.’

  Karsa scowled. ‘I crossed blades with one much like you. He was named Icarium. Like you, yet less so.’

  ‘Because he is a half-blood, of course. Whilst I am not. Jaghut, not Jhag.’

  She lay spread-eagled within a ring of fist-sized stones. A larger stone rested on her chest, from which heat rose in waves. The air in the chamber was a swirling mix of steam and suspended frost.

  ‘You are trapped within sorcery. The army was seeking you, yet they did not kill you.’

  ‘Could not would be more accurate. Not immediately, in any case. But eventually, this Tellann Ritual will destroy this core of Omtose Phellack, which will in turn lead to the death of the Jhag Odhan—even now, the north forest creeps onto the plains, whilst from the south the desert claims ever more of the odhan that was my home.’

  ‘Your refuge.’

  She bared her tusks in something like a smile. ‘Among the Jaghut, they are now one and the same, Thelomen Toblakai.’

  Karsa looked around, studying the wreckage. He saw no weapons; nor was the woman wearing armour. ‘When this core of Omtose Phellack dies, so will you, yes? Yet you spoke only of the Jhag Odhan. As if your own death was of less importance than that of this land.’

  ‘It is less important. On the Jhag Odhan, the past lives still. Not just in my fallen kin, the Jhag—the few that managed to escape the Logros T’lan Imass. There are ancient beasts that walk the treeless lands beside the sheets of ice. Beasts that have died out everywhere else, mostly on the spears of the T’lan Imass. But there were no Imass in the Jhag Odhan. As you said, a refuge.’

  ‘Beasts. Including Jhag horses?’

  He watched her strange eyes narrow. The pupils were vertical, surrounded in pearlescent grey. ‘The horses we once bred to ride. Yes, they have gone feral in the odhan. Though few remain, for the Trell come from the west to hunt them. Every year. They drive them off cliffs. As they do to many of the other beasts.’

  ‘Why did you not seek to stop them?’

  ‘Because, dear warrior, I was hiding.’

  ‘A tactic that failed.’

  ‘A scouting party of T’lan Imass discovered me. I destroyed most of them, but one escaped. From that moment, I knew their army would come, eventually. Granted, they took their time about it, but time is what they have aplenty.’

  ‘A scouting party? How many did you destroy?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘And are their remains among those surrounding this tower?’

  She smiled again. ‘I would think not, Thelomen Toblakai. To the T’lan Imass, destruction is failure. Failure must be punished. Their methods are . . . elaborate.’

  ‘Yet what of the warriors lying below, and those around the tower?’

  ‘Fallen, but not in failure. Here I lie, after all.’

  ‘Enemies should be killed,’ the Teblor growled, ‘not imprisoned.’

  ‘I would not argue that sentiment,’ the Jaghut replied.

  ‘I sense nothing evil from you.’

  ‘It has been a long time since I heard that word. In the wars with the T’lan Imass, even, that word had no place.’

  ‘I must answer injustice,’ he rumbled.

  ‘As you will.’

  ‘The need overwhelms all caution. Delum Thord would smile.’

  ‘Who is Delum Thord?’

  Not answering, Karsa unslung his pack then threw off his bear cloak and stepped towards the ring of stones.

  ‘Stay back, warrior!’ the Jaghut hissed. ‘This is High Tellann—’

  ‘And I am Karsa Orlong, of the Teblor,’ the warrior growled. He kicked at the nearest stones.

  Searing flame swept up to engulf Karsa. He snarled and pushed his way through it, reaching down both hands to take the slab of stone, grunting as he lifted it from the woman’s chest. The flames swarmed him, seeking to rend his flesh from his bones, but his growl simply deepened. Pivoting, flinging the huge slab to one side. Where it struck a wall, and shattered.

  The flames died.

  Karsa shook himself, then looked down once more.

  The ring was now broken. The Jaghut’s eyes were wide as she stared up at him, movement stirring her limbs.

  ‘Never before,’ she sighed, then shook her head as if in disbelief. ‘Ignorance, honed into a weapon. Extraordinary, Thelomen Toblakai.’

  Karsa crouched down beside his pack. ‘Are you hungry? Thirsty?’

  She was slow in sitting up. The T’lan Imass had stripped her, leaving her naked, but she seemed unaffected by the bitter cold air now filling the chamber. Though she appeared young, he suspected she was anything but. He felt her eyes watching him as he prepared the meal.

  ‘You crossed swords with Icarium. There had ever been but a single conclusion to such an ill-fated thing, but that you are here is proof that you somehow managed to avoid it.’

  Karsa shrugged. ‘No doubt we will resume our disagreement the next time we meet.’

  ‘How did you come to be here, Karsa Orlong?’

  ‘I am seeking a horse, Jaghut. The journey was long, and I was led to understand that this dream world would make it shorter.’

  ‘Ah, the ghost-warriors hovering behind you. Even so, you take a grave risk travelling the Tellann Warren. I owe you my life, Karsa Orlong.’ She cautiously climbed to her feet. ‘How can I repay you?’

  He straightened to face her, and was surprised—and pleased—to see that she almost matched him in height. Her hair was long, murky brown, tied at the back. He studied her for a moment, then said, ‘Find for me a horse.’

  Her thin eyebrows rose fractionally. ‘That is all, Karsa Orlong?’

  ‘Perhaps one more thing—what is your name?’

  ‘That is what you would ask?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aramala.’

  He nodded and turned once more to readying the meal. ‘I would know all you can tell me, Aramala, of the seven who first found you.’

  ‘Very well. If I may ask something in turn. You passed through a place on your way here, where Jhag had been . . . imprisoned. I shall of course free those who have survived.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘They are half-bloods.’

  ‘Aye, so I am told.’

  ‘Do you not wonder at what the other half is?’

  He glanced up, then slowly frowned.

  She smiled. ‘There is much, I think, that I must tell you.’

  Some time later, Karsa Orlong strode from the tower. He moved on, resuming the trail of the army where it began once again beyond the frozen ground of Omtose Phellack.

  When he finally emerged from the warren, into the heat of late afternoon on the world of his birth, he found himself on the edge of a ridge of battered hills. Pausing, he glanced behind him, and could make out, at the very rim of the horizon, a city—probably Sarpachiya—and the glimmer of a vast river.

>   The hills ahead formed a spine, a feature on the land that he suspected showed up only on local maps. There were no farms on the lowlands before it, no herds on its broken slopes.

  The T’lan Imass had reappeared in this place before him, though their passage onwards, into those hills, left no sign, for decades had passed in this world since that time. He was on the edge of the Jhag Odhan.

  Dusk had arrived by the time he reached the foothills and began making his way up the weathered slope. The exposed rock here had a diseased look, as if afflicted by some kind of unnatural decay. Pieces of it collapsed under his feet as he climbed.

  The summit was little more than a ridge, less than three paces across, crusted with rotten stone and dead grasses. Beyond, the land fell away sharply, forming a broad valley marked by sunken, banded sandstone mesas rising from its base. The valley’s opposite side five thousand or more paces distant, was a sheer cliff of rust-coloured rock.

  Karsa could not imagine the natural forces that could have created such a landscape. The mesas below were born of erosion, as if floods had run the length of the valley, or perhaps fierce winds roared down the channels—less dramatic and demanding much greater lengths of time. Or the entire valley could have once stood level with the surrounding hills, only to suffer some subterranean slump. The decayed outcroppings suggested some kind of leaching process afflicting the region.

  He made his way down the steep slope.

  And quickly discovered that it was honeycombed with caves and pits. Mines, if the scree of calcreted rubble fanning out from them was any indication. But not tin or copper. Flint. Vast veins of the glassy brown material lay exposed like raw wounds in the hillside.

  Karsa’s eyes narrowed on the mesas ahead. The bands in the sandstone were all sharply tilted, and not all at the same angle. Their caps displayed nothing of the flat plateau formation that one would expect; instead, they were jagged and broken. The valley floor itself—for as far as he could see amidst the squat mesas—seemed to be sharp-edged gravel. Shatter flakes from the mining.

  In this single valley, an entire army could have fashioned its weapons of stone . . .

  And the flint in this place was far from exhausted.

  Bairoth Gild’s voice filled his head. ‘Karsa Orlong, you circle the truths as a lone wolf circles a bull elk.’

  Karsa grunted, his only reply. He could see, on the cliff on the other side, more caves, these ones carved into the sheer wall. Reaching the shadowed valley floor, he set out for them. The gravel underfoot was thick, shifting treacherously, the sharp edges slicing into the hide soles of his moccasins. The air smelled of limestone dust.

  He approached a large cave mouth situated a third of the way up the cliff. A broad slope of scree led up to within reach of it, though it shifted ominously under the Teblor as he scrambled upward. He finally managed to clamber onto the uneven floor.

  With the cliff wall facing northeast, and the sun already riding the horizon, there was no ambient light in the cave. The Teblor set down his pack and drew out a small lantern.

  The walls were calcined limestone, blackened by generation upon generation of woodsmoke, the ceiling high and roughly domed. Ten paces further in, the passage swiftly diminished as ceiling, walls and floor converged. Crouching, Karsa slipped through the choke point.

  Beyond was a vast cavern. Dimly seen on the wall opposite was a monolithic projection of solid, pure flint, reaching almost up to the ceiling. Deeply recessed niches had been bored into the flanking walls. A fissure above the centre of the hewn chamber bled grey light from the dusk outside. Directly beneath it was a heap of sand, and growing from that mound was a knotted, twisted tree—a guldindha, no higher than the Teblor’s knee, its leaves a deeper hue of green than was usual. That daylight could reach down two-thirds of this cliff was itself a miracle . . . but this tree . . .

  Karsa walked over to one of the niches and extended the lantern into it. Another cavern lay beyond. And it was filled with flint weapons. Some were broken but most were whole. Swords, double-bladed axes with bone shafts, hundreds upon hundreds covering the floor. The next niche contained the same, as did the one after that. Twenty-two side-chambers in all. The weapons of the dead. The weapons of the failed. In every cave on this cliff, he knew, he would find the same.

  But none of the others were important to him. He set the lantern down near the pillar of flint, then straightened. ‘Urugal the Woven, Beroke Soft Voice, Kahlb the Silent Hunter, Thenik the Shattered, Siballe the Unfound, Halad the Giant, Imroth the Cruel. Faces in the Rock, gods of the Teblor. I, Karsa Orlong of the Uryd Tribe of the Teblor, have delivered you to this place. You were broken. Severed. Weaponless. I have done as you commanded me to do. I have brought you to this place.’

  Urugal’s broken rasp replied, ‘You have found that which was taken from us, Karsa Orlong. You have freed your gods.’

  The Teblor watched the ghost of Urugal slowly take shape before him. A squat, heavy-boned warrior, shorter than a lowlander but much broader. The bones of his limbs were split—where Karsa could see between the taut straps of leather and hide that bound them, that held him together. More straps crossed his chest.

  ‘Karsa Orlong, you have found our weapons.’

  The warrior shrugged. ‘If indeed they are among the thousands in the chambers beyond.’

  ‘They are. They did not fail us.’

  ‘But the Ritual did.’

  Urugal cocked his head. His six kin were taking shape around him. ‘You understand, then.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Our physical forms approach, Karsa Orlong. They have journeyed far, bereft of spirit, held only by our wills—’

  ‘And the one you now serve,’ the Teblor growled.

  ‘Yes. The one we now serve. We have guided you in turn, Warleader. And now shall come your reward, for what you have given us.’

  Siballe the Unfound now spoke. ‘We have gathered an army, Karsa Orlong. All the children sacrificed before the Faces in the Rock. They are alive, Warleader. They have been prepared. For you. An army. Your people are assailed. The lowlanders must be driven back, their armies annihilated. You shall sweep down with your legions, down into their lands, and reap destruction upon the lowlanders.’

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘The Seven Gods of the Teblor,’ Urugal said, ‘must now become Eight.’

  The one named Halad—the largest of the seven by far, hulking, bestial—stepped forward. ‘You must now fashion a sword, Karsa Orlong. Of stone. The mines outside await you—we shall guide you in the knowledge—’

  ‘There is no need,’ Karsa said. ‘I have learned the many hearts of stone. The knowledge is mine, and so too shall the sword be mine. Those you fashion are well enough for your own kind. But I am Teblor. I am Thelomen Toblakai.’ With that he swung about and walked towards the monolithic pillar of flint.

  ‘That spar will defeat you,’ Halad said behind him. ‘To draw a long enough blade for a sword, you must strike from above. Examine this vein carefully, and you will see that, pure as it is, the flow of the stone is unforgiving. None of our kind has ever managed to draw forth a flake longer than our own height. The spar before you can no longer be worked; thus its abandonment. Strike and it shall shatter. And that failure shall stain your next efforts, and so weaken the sorcery of the making.’

  Karsa stood before the brown, almost black, flint pillar.

  ‘You must fashion a fire at its base,’ Halad said. ‘Left to burn without cessation for a number of days and nights. There is little wood in the valley below, but in the Jhag Odhan beyond, the bhederin herds have travelled in their multitudes. Fire, Karsa Orlong, then cold water—’

  ‘No. All control is lost with that method, T’lan Imass. Your kind are not unique in knowing the truths of stone. This task is mine and mine alone. Now, enough words.’

  ‘The name you have given us,’ Urugal rasped, ‘how did you come by such knowledge?’

  Karsa turned, face twisting into a sneer. ‘Foolis
h Teblor. Or so you believed. So you would have us. Fallen Thelomen Toblakai, but he who has fallen can rise once again, Urugal. Thus, you were once T’lan Imass. But now, you are the Unbound.’ The sneer became a snarl. ‘From wandering to hold. From hold to house.’

  The warrior climbed the spar of flint. Perched on its top, he drew out his Malazan short-sword. A moment’s examination of the stone’s surface, then he leaned over to study the almost vertical sweep of flawless flint reaching down to the cave’s floor. Reversing the sword, Karsa began scraping the top of the pillar, a hand’s width in from the sharp edge. He could see the tracks of old blows—the T’lan Imass had tried, despite Halad’s words, but had failed.

  Karsa continued roughing the surface where he would strike. In his mind, he spoke. Bairoth Gild. Delum Thord. Hear me, when none other can. One day, I shall break my chains, I shall free the souls that now hound me. You would not be among them, or so you said. Nor would I wish Hood’s embrace upon you. I have considered your desires in this. And have fashioned an alternative . . .

  ‘Warleader, Delum Thord and I understand your intent. Your genius never fails to astonish me, Karsa Orlong. Only with our consent will you succeed. And so you give us words and lo, we find our path forced. Hood’s embrace . . . or what you seek.’

  Karsa shook his head. Not just me, Bairoth Gild. But you yourself. Do you deny it?

  ‘No, Warleader. We do not. Thus, we accept what you offer.’ Karsa knew that he alone could see the ghosts of his friends at this moment, as they seemed to dissolve, reduced to pure will, that then flowed down into the flint. Flowed, to find a shape, a form of cohesion . . .

  Awaiting . . . He swept dust and grit from the roughened surface, then closed both hands about the short-sword’s stubby grip. He lifted the weapon high, fixing his gaze upon the battered striking platform, then drove the pommel down. A strange snapping sound—

  Then Karsa was leaping forward, short-sword flung aside, down through the air, spinning as he dropped. His knees flexed to absorb the impact, even as he raised his hands to intersect the toppling spear of flint.