House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  He unveiled power, forcing his will into the fissure, widening it until he was able to step through—

  Onto a muddy beach at the edge of a vast lake. His boots sank to the ankles. Clouds of insects flitted up from the shoreline to swarm around him. L’oric paused, stared upward at an overcast sky. The air was sultry with late spring.

  I am in the wrong place . . . or the wrong time. This is Raraku’s most ancient memory.

  He faced inland. A marshy flat extended for another twenty paces, the reeds waving in the mild wind, then the terrain rose gently onto savanna. A low ridge of darker hills marked the horizon. A few majestic trees rose from the grasslands, filled with raucous white-winged birds.

  A flash of movement in the reeds caught his attention, and his hand reached for the hilt of his sword as a bestial head appeared, followed by humped shoulders. A hyena, such as could be found west of Aren and, more rarely, in Karashimesh, but this one was as large as a bear. It lifted its wide, stubby head, nose testing the air, eyes seeming to squint.

  The hyena took a step forward.

  L’oric slid the sword from the scabbard.

  At the blade’s hiss the beast reared up, lunging to its left, and bolted into the reeds.

  He could mark its flight by the waving stalks, then it appeared once more, sprinting up the slope.

  L’oric resheathed his weapon. He strode from the muddy bank, intending to take the trail the hyena had broken through the reeds, and, four paces in, came upon the gnawed remains of a corpse. Far along in its decay, limbs scattered by the scavenger’s feeding, it was a moment before the High Mage could comprehend its form. Humanoid, he concluded. As tall as a normal man, yet what remained of its skin revealed a pelt of fine dark hair. The waters had bloated the flesh, suggesting the creature had drowned. A moment’s search and he found the head.

  He crouched down over it and was motionless for some time.

  Sloped forehead, solid chinless jaw, a brow ridge so heavy it formed a contiguous shelf over the deep-set eye sockets. The hair still clinging to fragments of scalp was little longer than what had covered the body, dark brown and wavy.

  More ape-like than a T’lan Imass . . . the skull behind the face is smaller, as well. Yet it stood taller by far, more human in proportion. What manner of man was this?

  There was no evidence of clothing, or any other sort of adornment. The creature—a male—had died naked.

  L’oric straightened. He could see the hyena’s route through the reeds, and he set out along it.

  The overcast was burning away and the air growing hotter and, if anything, thicker. He reached the sward and stepped onto dry ground for the first time. The hyena was nowhere to be seen, and L’oric wondered if it was still running. An odd reaction, he mused, for which he could fashion no satisfactory explanation.

  He had no destination in mind; nor was he even certain that what he sought would be found here. This was not, after all, Tellann. If anything, he had come to what lay beneath Tellann, as if the Imass, in choosing their sacred sites, had been in turn responding to a sensitivity to a still older power. He understood now that Toblakai’s glade was not a place freshly sanctified by the giant warrior; nor even by the T’lan Imass he had worshipped as his gods. It had, at the very beginning, belonged to Raraku, to whatever natural power the land possessed. And so he had pushed through to a place of beginnings. But did I push, or was I pulled?

  A herd of huge beasts crested a distant rise on his right, the ground trembling as they picked up speed, stampeding in wild panic.

  L’oric hesitated. They were not running towards him, but he well knew that such stampedes could veer at any time. Instead, they swung suddenly the other way, wheeling as a single mass. Close enough for him to make out their shapes. Similar to wild cattle, although larger and bearing stubby horns or antlers. Their hides were mottled white and tan, their long manes black.

  He wondered what had panicked them and swung his gaze back to the place where the herd had first appeared.

  L’oric dropped into a crouch, his heart pounding hard in his chest.

  Seven hounds, black as midnight, of a size to challenge the wild antlered cattle. Moving with casual arrogance along the ridge. And flanking them, like jackals flanking a pride of lions, a score or more of the half-human creatures such as the one he had discovered at the lakeshore. They were clearly subservient, in the role of scavengers to predators. No doubt there was some mutual benefit to the partnership, though L’oric could imagine no real threat in this world to those dark hounds.

  And, there was no doubt in his mind, those hounds did not belong here.

  Intruders. Strangers to this realm, against which nothing in this world can challenge. They are the dominators . . . and they know it.

  And now he saw that other observers were tracking the terrible beasts. K’Chain Che’Malle, three of them, the heavy blades at the end of their arms revealing that they were K’ell Hunters, were padding along a parallel course a few hundred paces distant from the hounds. Their heads were turned, fixed on the intruders—who in turn ignored them.

  Not of this world either, if my father’s thoughts on the matter are accurate. He was Rake’s guest for months in Moon’s Spawn, delving its mysteries. But the K’Chain Che’Malle cities lie on distant continents. Perhaps they but recently arrived here, seeking new sites for their colonies . . . only to find their dominance challenged.

  If the hounds saw L’oric, they made no sign of it. Nor did the half-humans.

  The High Mage watched them continue on, until they finally dipped into a basin and disappeared from sight.

  The K’ell Hunters all halted, then spread out cautiously and slowly closed to where the hounds had vanished.

  A fatal error.

  Blurs of darkness, launching up from the basin. The K’ell Hunters, suddenly surrounded, swung their massive swords. Yet, fast as they were, in the span of a single heartbeat two of the three were down, throats and bellies torn open. The third one had leapt high, sailing twenty paces to land in a thumping run.

  The hounds did not pursue, gathering to sniff at the K’Chain Che’Malle corpses whilst the half-humans arrived with hoots and barks, a few males clambering onto the dead creatures and jumping up and down, arms waving.

  L’oric thought he now understood why the K’Chain Che’Malle had never established colonies on this continent.

  He watched the hounds and the half-humans mill about the kill site for a while longer, then the High Mage began a cautious retreat, back to the lake. He was nearing the edge of the slope down to the reeds when his last parting glance over one shoulder revealed the seven beasts all facing in his direction, heads raised.

  Then two began a slow lope towards him. A moment later the remaining five fanned out and followed.

  Oh . . .

  Sudden calm descended upon him. He knew he was as good as already dead. There would be no time to open the warren to return to his own world—nor would he, in any case, since to do so would give the hounds a path to follow—and I’ll not have their arrival in the oasis a crime staining my soul. Better to die here and now. Duly punished for my obsessive curiosity.

  The hounds showed nothing of the speed they had unveiled against the K’ell Hunters, as if they sensed L’oric’s comparative weakness.

  He heard water rushing behind him and spun round.

  A dragon filled his vision, low over the water—so fast as to lift a thrashing wave in its wake—and the talons spread wide, the huge clawed hands reaching down.

  He threw his arms over his face and head as the enormous scaled fingers closed like a cage around him, then snatched him skyward.

  A brief, disjointed glimpse of the hounds scattering from the dragon’s shadow—the distant sound of half-human yelps and shrieks—then naught before his eyes but the glistening white belly of the dragon, seen between two curled talons.

  He was carried far, out onto a sea, then towards an island where stood a squat tower, its flat roof broad an
d solid enough for the dragon, wings spreading to thunder against the air, to settle.

  The claws opened, tumbling L’oric onto the gouged and scraped stones. He rolled up against the platform’s low wall, then slowly sat up.

  And stared at the enormous gold and white dragon, its lambent eyes fixed upon him with, L’oric knew instinctively, reproach. The High Mage managed a shrug.

  ‘Father,’ he said, ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

  Osric was not one for furnishings and decor. The chamber beneath the platform was barren, its floor littered with the detritus left by nesting swallows, the air pungent with guano.

  L’oric leaned against a wall, arms crossed, watching his father pace.

  He was pure Liosan in appearance, tall and pale as snow, his long, wavy hair silver and streaked with gold. His eyes seemed to rage with an inner fire, its tones a match to his hair, silver licked by gold. He was wearing plain grey leathers, the sword at his belt virtually identical to the one L’oric carried.

  ‘Father. The Queen of Dreams believes you lost,’ he said after a long moment.

  ‘I am. Or, rather, I was. Further, I would remain so.’

  ‘You do not trust her?’

  He paused, studied his son briefly, then said, ‘Of course I trust her. And my trust is made purer by her ignorance. What are you doing here?’

  Sometimes longing is to be preferred to reality. L’oric sighed. ‘I am not even sure where here is. I was . . . questing for truths.’

  Osric grunted and began pacing once more. ‘You said earlier you were looking for me. How did you discover my trail?’

  ‘I didn’t. My searching for you was more of a, ah, generalized sort of thing. This present excursion was an altogether different hunt.’

  ‘That was about to see you killed.’

  L’oric nodded. He looked around the chamber. ‘You live here?’

  His father grimaced. ‘An observation point. The K’Chain Che’Malle skykeeps invariably approach from the north, over water.’

  ‘Skykeeps . . . such as Moon’s Spawn?’

  A veiled glance, then a nod. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it was in Rake’s floating fortress that you first embarked on the trail that took you here. What did you discover that the Tiste Andü Lord of Darkness didn’t?’

  Osric snorted. ‘Only that which was at his very feet. Moon’s Spawn bore signs of damage, of breaching. Then slaughter. None the less, a few survived, at least long enough to begin it on its journey home. North, out over the icefields. Of course, it never made it past those icefields. Did you know that the glacier that held Moon’s Spawn had travelled a thousand leagues with its prize? A thousand leagues, L’oric, before Rake and I stumbled upon it north of Laederon Plateau.’

  ‘You are saying Moon’s Spawn was originally one of these skykeeps that arrived here?’

  ‘It was. Three have come in the time that I have been here. None survived the Deragoth.’

  ‘The what?’

  Osric halted and faced his son once more. ‘The Hounds of Darkness. The seven beasts that Dessimbelackis made pact with—and oh, weren’t the Nameless Ones shaken by that unholy alliance? The seven beasts, L’oric, that gave the name to Seven Cities, although no memory survives of that particular truth. The Seven Holy Cities of our time are not the original ones, of course. Only the number has survived.’

  L’oric closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the damp stone wall. ‘Deragoth. What happened to them? Why are they here and not there?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably it had something to do with the violent collapse of the First Empire.’

  ‘What warren is this?’

  ‘Not a warren at all, L’oric. A memory. Soon to end, I believe, since it is . . . shrinking. Fly northward and by day’s end you will see before you a wall of nothingness, of oblivion.’

  ‘A memory. Whose memory?’

  Osric shrugged. ‘Raraku’s.’

  ‘You make that desert sound as if it is alive, as if it is an entity.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re saying it is?’

  ‘No, I’m not saying that. I was asking you—have you not just come from there?’

  L’oric opened his eyes and regarded his father. You are a frustrating man. No wonder Anomander Rake lost his temper. ‘What of those half-humans that ran with these Deragoth?’

  ‘A quaint reversal, wouldn’t you say? The Deragoth’s only act of domestication. Most scholars, in their species-bound arrogance, believe that humans domesticated dogs, but it may well have been the other way round, at least to start. Who ran with whom?’

  ‘But those creatures aren’t humans. They’re not even Imass.’

  ‘No, but they will be, one day. I’ve seen others, scampering on the edges of wolf packs. Standing upright gives them better vision, a valuable asset to complement the wolves’ superior hearing and sense of smell. A formidable combination, but the wolves are the ones in charge. That will eventually change . . . but not for those serving the Deragoth, I suspect.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because something is about to happen. Here, in this trapped memory. I only hope that I will be privileged to witness it before the world fades entirely.’

  ‘You called the Deragoth “Hounds of Darkness”. Are they children of Mother Dark, then?’

  ‘They are no-one’s children,’ Osric growled, then he shook his head. ‘They have that stench about them, but in truth I have no idea. It just seemed an appropriate name. “Deragoth” in the Tiste Andü tongue.’

  ‘Well,’ L’oric muttered, ‘actually, it would be Dera’tin’jeragoth.’

  Osric studied his son. ‘So like your mother,’ he sighed. ‘And is it any wonder we could not stand each other’s company? The third day, always by the third day. We could make a lifetime of those three days. Exaltation, then comfort, then mutual contempt. One, two, three.’

  L’oric looked away. ‘And for your only son?’

  Osric grunted. ‘More like three bells.’

  Climbing to his feet, L’oric brushed dust from his hands. ‘Very well. I may require your help in opening the path back to Raraku. But you might wish to know something of the Liosan and Kurald Thyrllan. Your people and their realm have lost their protector. They pray for your return, Father.’

  ‘What of your familiar?’

  ‘Slain. By T’lan Imass.’

  ‘So,’ Osric said, ‘find yourself another.’

  L’oric flinched, then scowled. ‘It’s not as easy as that! In any case, do you hold no sense of responsibility for the Liosan? They worship you, dammit!’

  ‘The Liosan worship themselves, L’oric. I happen to be a convenient figurehead. Kurald Thyrllan may appear vulnerable, but it isn’t.’

  ‘And what if these Deragoth are servants of Darkness in truth? Do you still make the same claim, Father?’

  He was silent, then strode towards the gaping entranceway. ‘It’s all her fault,’ he muttered as he passed.

  L’oric followed his father outside. ‘This . . . observation tower. Is it Jaghut?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, where are they?’

  ‘West. South. East. But not here—I’ve seen none.’

  ‘You don’t know where they are, do you?’

  ‘They are not in this memory, L’oric. That is that. Now, stay back.’

  The High Mage remained near the tower, watching his father veer into his draconic form. The air suddenly redolent with a sweet, spicy aroma, a blurring of shape before L’oric’s eyes. Like Anomander Rake, Osric was more dragon than anything else. They were kin in blood, if not in personality. I wish I could understand this man, this father of mine. Queen take me, I wish I could even like him. He strode forward.

  The dragon lifted one forelimb, talons opening.

  L’oric frowned. ‘I would rather ride your shoulders, Father—’

  But the reptilian hand reached out and closed about him.

  He resolved to suffer the ind
ignity in silence.

  Osric flew westward, following the coastline. Before too long forest appeared, and the land reached around northward. The air whipping between the dragon’s scaled fingers grew cold, then icy. The ground far below began climbing, the forests flanking mountain sides shifting into conifers. Then L’oric saw snow, reaching like frozen rivers in crevasses and chasms.

  He could recall no mountains from the future to match this ancient scene. Perhaps this memory, like so many others, is flawed.

  Osric began to descend—and L’oric suddenly saw a vast white emptiness, as if the mountain rearing before them had been cut neatly in half. They were approaching that edge.

  A vaguely level, snow-crusted stretch was the dragon’s destination.

  Its southern side was marked by a sheer cliff. To the north . . . opaque oblivion.

  Wings pounding, raising clouds of powdery white, Osric hovered for a moment, then released L’oric.

  The High Mage landed in waist-deep snow. Cursing, he kicked his way onto firmer footing, as the enormous dragon settled with a shuddering crunch off to one side.

  Osric quickly sembled into Liosan form, the wind whipping at his hair, and strode over.

  There were . . . things near the faded edge of the memory. Some of them moving about feebly. Osric stomped through the deep snow towards them, speaking as he went. ‘Creatures stumble out. You will find such all along the verge. Most of them quickly die, but some linger.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Demons, mostly.’

  Osric changed direction slightly, closing on one such creature, from which steam was rising. Its four limbs were moving, claws scraping through the slush surrounding it.

  Father and son halted before it.

  Dog-sized and reptilian, with four hands, similar to an ape’s. A wide, flat head with a broad mouth, two slits for nostrils, and four liquid, slightly protruding eyes in a diamond pattern, the pupils vertical and, in the harsh glare of the snow and sky, surprisingly open.

  ‘This one might suit Kurald Thyrllan,’ Osric said.