Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #3)

by Steven Erikson

‘In any case, those severed hands were as poison to Fener. He could not touch them, nor could he remove them from his realm. He burned the tattoos announcing his denial upon the high priest’s skin, and so sealed the virulent power of the hands, at least for the time being. And that should have been that.

The High Priest has, by design or chance, come into contact with the Warren of Chaos – an object, perhaps, forged within that warren. The protective seal around his severed hands was obliterated by that vast, uncontrolled surge of power. And, finding Fener, those hands … pushed.’

‘The Elder Gods.’ ‘And why are they so interested in all this?’ ‘They were there when the Crippled God fell – was dragged – down to this earth. The Fall destroyed many of them, leaving but a few survivors.

Quick Ben moved forward, slipping through the gap in the wall. The firelight threw stark slashes through the shadows, randomly painting glimpses of the wizard’s body. Deep shadow cutting through any firelit scene would have been noticeable. He concentrated on blending into what surrounded him. Flame, smoke and ashes. Vague moans from collapsed buildings; a few streets away, the mourning chant of Barghast. ‘The Pannions are all gone,’ Talamandas whispered. ‘Why the need to hide?’ ‘It’s my nature. Caution keeps me alive, now be quiet.’

‘We’ll need a different warren for this,’ the wizard finally said. ‘The choice is this: Hood’s own, or Aral Gamelon—’ ‘Aral what? I’ve never heard—’ ‘Demonic. Most conjurors who summon demons are opening a path to Gamelon – though they probably don’t know it, not by its true name, anyway. Granted, one can find demons in other warrens – the Aptorians of Shadow, for example. But the Korvalahrai and the Galayn, the Empire’s favoured, are both of Gamelon.

Death ran riot in this city. Souls crowded the streets, trapped in cycles of their own last moments of life. The air was filled with shrieks, wailing, the chop of weapons, the crushing collapse of stone and the suffocating smoke. Layered beneath this were countless other deaths – those that were set down, like successive snowfalls, on any place where humans gathered. Generation upon generation. Yet, Quick Ben slowly realized, this conflagration was naught but echoes, the souls themselves ghostly. ‘Gods below,’ he murmured in sudden understanding. ‘This is but memory – what the stones of the streets and buildings hold, memories of the air itself. The souls – they’veall gone through Hood’s Gate …’ Talamandas was motionless on his shoulder. ‘You speak true, Wizard,’ he muttered. ‘What has happened here? Who has taken all these dead?’ ‘Taken, aye, under wing. They’ve been blessed, one and all, their pain ended. Is this the work of the Mask Council?’

Quick Ben was already in the air, through the warren’s gate, back into Hood’s own, where he dipped a shoulder as he struck the flagstones,rolling over then back onto his feet – with Talamandas still clinging to his tunic. The wizard then froze. They were surrounded by dark, insubstantial figures, now motionless as their quarry was no longer visible. Wisely, Talamandas said nothing.

inward. Daru-style architecture was predictable and symmetrical. The main chamber of the ground floor would be central. Upper levels were more problematic, but more often than not the ground floor’s main chamber was vaulted, pushing the upper rooms to the building’s sides.

‘Stone knows blood but cannot hold it. Stone yearns for life, yet can only mimic it.’ The words were ancient ones, a mason and sculptor who’d lived centuries ago in Unta. Appropriate enough when on the Path of D’riss. When in the flesh of the Sleeping Goddess.

Frowning, Bauchelain collected the bottle again and sniffed once more. ‘Well,’ he said, returning it to the tray, ‘I’m not the one to ask, of course, but I think it’s virgin’s blood.’ Quick Ben had no choice but to enquire, ‘How can you tell?’ Bauchelain regarded him with raised brows. ‘Why, it’s woody.’

‘And you are the Malazan captain.’ ‘Ganoes Paran.’ ‘The One Who Blesses.’ Paran frowned. ‘No, that title would better fit Itkovian, the Shield Anvil—’ Cafal shook his head. ‘He but carries burdens. You are the One Who Blesses.’ ‘Are you suggesting that if anyone is capable of relieving Itkovian’s … burden … then it’s me? I need only … bless him?’

‘Not for me to say,’ Cafal growled, his eyes glittering in the torchlight. ‘You can’t bless someone who denies your right to do so.’ ‘A good point. No wonder most priests are miserable.’

He’d learned that Barghast hated saying yes to anything, but an affirmative could be gleaned by guiding them into saying no to the opposite. ‘Would you rather I leave?’

‘The Barghast would have their gods … blessed.’ ‘What? You don’t need me for that—’ ‘That is true. We ask it none the less.’ ‘Well, let me think about it, Cafal. One of my problems is, I don’t know how it’s done. Do I just walk up to the bones and say “I bless you” or is something more complicated necessary?’ Cafal’s heavy brows rose. ‘You do not know?’ ‘No. You might want to call together all your shamans and discuss the matter.’ ‘Aye, we shall need to do just that. When we discover the ritual that is necessary, will you agree to it?’ ‘I said I’d think about it, Cafal.’ ‘Why do you hesitate?’ Because I’m a Hood-damned fulcrum and what I choose to do could – will – change everything.

‘When I decide to act, Cafal, it will be decisive. If that makes sense. One thing it won’t be is precipitous, and if indeed I possess vast power then be glad for that.’

Legitimizing. Right now, the Crippled God’s outside the whole damned game, meaning he’s not bound by any rules whatsoever—’

Abyss take me, that’s it. If I bless the House of Chains then the Crippled God becomes … bound—’ ‘Just another player, aye, jostling on the same board.

the survival of the Grey Swords took precedence over his own wishes; indeed, his own life. It has to be this way. I can think of no other. A new Reve must be fashioned. Even in this, I am not yet done.

When frozen between life and death, in the glacial in-between, what can exist of mortal feeling? Not even an echo. Only memories of ice, of ice and no more than that.

Pran Chole can in no way be considered your father. He stands here, accepting the burden of your rage, for he is what he is. If you would call anyone your father, if you so require a face upon which hatred can focus, then you must forbear, for the one you seek is not among us.’

‘Your souls were forged in the Warren of Tellann, yet not in the distant past – the past in which Pran Chole lived – not at first, at any rate. Summoner, the unveiled warren of which I speak belonged to the First Sword, Onos T’oolan. Now clanless, he walks alone, and that solitude has twisted his power of Tellann—’

‘Twisted? How?’ ‘By what he seeks, by what lies at the heart of his desires.’ Silverfox was shaking her head, as if striving to deny all that Okral Lom said. ‘And what does he seek?’ The Bonecaster shrugged. ‘Summoner, you will discover that soon enough, for Onos T’oolan has heard your call to the Second Gathering. He will, alas, be rather late.’

‘Summoner, the First Throne found a worthy occupant. Logros was commanded so by the occupant.’ ‘An occupant? Who?’ ‘A mortal known then as Kellanved, Emperor of Malaz.’ Silverfox said nothing for a long moment, then, ‘Of course. But he no longer occupies it, does he?’ ‘He no longer occupies it, Summoner, yet he has not yielded it.’ ‘What does that mean? Ah, because the Emperor didn’t die, did he?’ Olar Ethil nodded. ‘Kellanved did not die. He ascended, and has taken the Throne of Shadow. Had he died in truth, the First Throne would be unoccupied once more. He has not, so it is not. We are at an impasse.’

Righting himself, Anomander Rake lowered his wedge-shaped head as he closed on the peasant army. Fanged mouth opened. Raw Kurald Galain issued from that maw. Roiling darkness that Whiskeyjack had seen before, long ago, outside the city of Pale. But then, it had been tightly controlled. And more recently, when led by Korlat through the warren itself; again, calmed. But now, the Elder Warren of Darkness was unleashed, wild. So there’s another way into the Warren of Kurald Galain – right down that dragon’s throat.

A broad, flattened swathe swept through the Tenescowri. Bodies dissolving to nothing, leaving naught but ragged clothing.

he would have confronted you at that warren’s gate long ago. He would have denied it to you, Jaghut.

The city’s harbour was little more than a narrow, crooked cut on the lee side of the cliff, a depthless fissure that opened a split nearly bisecting the city. It was a harbour without docks. The sheer faces of the sides had been carved into long piers, surmounted by causeways. At high tide level, mooring rings had been driven into the living stone. Broad sweeps of thick netting, twice the height of an ocean trader’s masts, spanned the entire breadth of water from the harbour’s mouth all the way to its apex. Where no tethered anchor could touch the fjord’s bottom, and where the shores themselves offered no strand, no shallows whatsoever, a ship’s anchors were drawn upward. The cat-men, as they were called - that strange, almost tribal collection of workers who lived with their wives and children in shacks on the netting and whose sole profession was the winching of anchors and the tethering of sway-lines – had made of the task artistry in motion.

From the wide, sea-facing battlement of the palace, the sealskin-roofed huts and driftwood sheds of the cat-men were like a scattering of brown pebbles and beach detritus, snagged on netting that was thread-like with distance.

‘Oh, right. Must be Jhess, then. Mistress of Weaving. They’re all taking up knitting, but fiercely—’

‘I see little relevance in all this,’ Silverfox cut in. ‘If the Clanless One has indeed broken his vow, then he will have to answer to me.’ ‘My point was,’ Dujek said, ‘you make a claim that the T’lan Imass and what they do or don’t do is separate from everyone and everything else. You insist on detachment, but, as a veteran of the Malazan campaigns, I tell you that what you assert is patently untrue.’ ‘Perhaps indeed the Logros T’lan Imass grew … confused. If so, such ambivalence is past. Unless, of course, you would challenge the authority that I was born to.’

A spirit of hard edges, to hold the others to their course despite all the pain that others must bear. Another spirit, to clasp hard the hurt of abandonment until it can find proper answer! And yet a third spirit, filled with love and compassion – if somewhat witless, granted – to so flavour the pending moment. And a fourth, possessing the power to achieve the necessary reparation of old wounds—’ ‘Fourth?’ Quick Ben sputtered. ‘Who’s the fourth in Silverfox?’ ‘Why, the seed-child of a T’lan Imass Bonecaster, of course. Pran Chole’s daughter, the one whose true name is indeed the one by which we all know

‘Oh my,’ she whispered yet again. ‘How shall we follow Tool across … mis? And why was he not a T’lan Elephant, or a T’lan Whale, so that he could carry us on his back, in sumptuous howdahs? With running hot water and ingenious plumbing.’

‘Of course I will! Garath is my beloved companion, after all. Even if he once tried to pee on my robe – though I will acknowledge that since he was asleep at the time it was probably one of K’rul’s pranks. All right, all right, stop interrupting me.’

‘Be quiet, I’m not talking to you any more. Garath! Look at how your strength returns, even as we watch! See, you are standing! Oh, how wonderful! And – no, stay away, please. Unless you want a pat? Do you want a pat? If so, you must stop growling at once!’ Mok stepped between them, eyes on the bristling hound. ‘Garath, we have need of her, even as we have need of you. There is no value in continuing this enmity.’ ‘He can’t understand you!’ Lady Envy said. ‘He’s a dog! An angry dog, in fact.’ The hulking creature turned away, padded slowly to where Baaljagg stood facing the storm. The wolf did not so much as glance at him.

floated a structure. High-walled on two sides with what appeared to be a latticework of wicker, and surmounted by frost-rimed houses – three in all – it looked nothing more than a broken, torn-away piece of a port town or city. A narrow, crooked alley was indeed visible between the tall, warped houses. As the ice gripping the base of the structure twisted to some unseen current, the two opposites sides came into view, revealing the broken maw of wooden framework reaching beneath the street level, crowded with enormous balsa logs and what appeared to be massive inflated bladders, three of them punctured and flaccid.

Upon reaching the rearing wall of wicker, they found no sign of Baaljagg or Garath, yet could follow their tracks on the snow-crusted raft, which seemed to be holding afloat most of the Meckros structure, round to the unwalled, broken side.

Within the chaotic framework of beams and struts, steeply angled, thick-planked ladders had been placed – no doubt originally built to assist in maintenance of the city’s undercarriage. The frosted steps within sight all revealed deep gouging from the wolf’s and the hound’s passage upward. Water streamed down the jumbled, web-like framework, revealing the sundered nature of the street and houses above.

the travellers climbed slowly, cautiously upward. They eventually emerged through a warehouse-sized trap door that opened onto the pitched, main floor of one of the houses. The chamber was crowded along three of its four walls with burlap-wrapped supplies. Huge barrels had tumbled, rolled, and were now gathered at one end. To its right were double doors, now shattered open, no doubt by Baaljagg and Garath, revealing a cobbled street beyond.

‘I love you still, but with your death I succumbed to a kind of infatuation. I convinced myself that what you and I had, so very briefly, was of far vaster and deeper import than it truly was. Of all the weapons we turn upon ourselves, guilt is the sharpest, Silverfox. It can carve one’s own past into unrecognizable shapes, false memories leading to beliefs that sow all kinds of obsessions.’

I can examine myself, my every feeling, until the Abyss swallows the world, yet come no closer to mastery of those emotions within me. For they are not static things; nor are they immune to the outside world – to what others say, or don’t say. And so they are in constant flux.’

‘Not for you,’ the warrior rumbled. ‘Her spirit awaits. And those of her gathered kin. And the beasts whose hearts are empty. All await. Not for you.’

‘No, I was not Gidrath. Not Capan. I am not, I think, from this continent at all. I do not know why I appeared here. Nor how. I have not been here long. This is as my master wills. Of my past, I recall but one thing.’ Coll carried Murillio to the back of the wagon and laid the man down. ‘And what’s that?’ ‘I once stood within fire.’ After a long moment, Coll sighed roughly.

‘There was pain. Yet I held on. Fought on. Or so I believe. I was, I think, sworn to defend a child’s life. But the child was no more. It may be … that I failed.’

And it seems he does possess mercy, for he’s taken you far away from all that you once knew, for if I’m not mistaken, if only by your features and never mind that strange skin, you’re Malazan.

‘Oh, what you were saying. Not the dead recruit, but Detoran having been a master sergeant. We’ve all been busted about, us Bridgeburners. Almost every damned one of us, starting right up top with Whiskeyjack himself. Mallet led a healer’s cadre back when we had enough healers and the Emperor was in charge. And didn’t Spindle captain a company of sappers once?’

All I was saying was, we’re all of us losers.’ ‘Oh, that’s a welcome thought, Picker.’ ‘And who said every thought has to be a nice one? Nobody.’ ‘I would, only I didn’t think of it.’

‘As for Paran, there’s a certain logic there, as well. Tayschrenn was grooming Tattersail to the role of Mistress of the Deck, after all. And when that went wrong, well, there was a residual effect – straight to the man closest to her at the time. Not physically, but certainly spiritually.

Tayschrenn really believed he could take down Moon’s Spawn – and force Rake into the open. And had he not been left virtually on his own in the attack, things might well have turned out differently. From what I learned later, Tayschrenn didn’t know at the time who Nightchill really was, but he knew she was closing in on Rake’s sword. Her and Bellurdan, who she was using to do her research for her. It looked like a play for power, a private one, and Laseen wasn’t prepared to permit that. And even then, Tayschrenn only hit her when she took out A’Karonys – the very High Mage who came to Tayschrenn with his suspicions about her. When I said Bellurdan killing Tattersail was the worst foul-up in Malazan history, that day at Pale runs a close second.’

‘All starting, I’d say, with the T’lan Imass slaughtering the citizens of Aren. But, as even with that one, each disaster yields its truths. Laseen didn’t give that order, but someone did. Someone returned to sit down in that First Throne – and that someone was supposed to be dead – and he used the T’lan Imass to wreak vengeance on Laseen,

to shake her grip on the Empire.