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

by Steven Erikson

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.

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.’

The final days – so long ago, now – had been chaotic. The ritual had unravelled, unexpectedly, unpredictably. Madness gripped the Soletaken. Madness splintered the more powerful of his kin, broke one into many, the burgeoning power wild, blood-hungry, birthing the D’ivers. The Empire was tearing itself apart.

was there at the end, one of the few survivors once the T’lan Imass were done with us. Brutal, merciful slaughter. They had no choice – I see that now, though none of us were prepared to forgive. Not then. The wounds were too fresh. Gods, we tore a warren to pieces on that distant continent. Turned the eastlands into molten stone that cooled and became something that defied sorcery.

We fled, a handful of survivors. Ryllandaras, old friend – we fell out, clashed, then clashed again on another continent. He had gone the farthest, found a way to control the gifts – Soletaken and D’ivers both. White Jackal. Ay’tog. Agkor. And my other companion, Messremb – where has he gone? A kind soul, twisted by madness, yet so loyal, ever loyal

I remember a vast sweep of grasses beneath a sky deepening to dusk. A wolf, its single eye like a smear of moonlight, on a distant ridgeline. This strangely singular memory, sharp as talons, returning to me now. Why?

this vision of the wolf, awakening all within me … I am Treach. Memories returning in full flood, even as my body grows cold, so very cold.

reached the crest of a nearby hill, his eyes had flashed. A sleek, long black shape flowed from the grasses, was among his slayers. Power flowed like black water. The first K’Chain Che’Malle withered beneath the onslaught.

She appeared before him, sleek and muscled and smooth-skinned. A woman, small yet not frail, the fur of a panther on her shoulders, her long black hair unkempt yet gleaming in the day’s dying light. Almond-shaped eyes, amber like his own. Heart-shaped face, robustly featured. Coarse

Small hands stroked the blood and dried froth from around his eyes.

Others were involved in the task of repairing the shattered warren.

‘Who has unchained your memories, Treach? Who has returned you to yourself? For centuries you were a beast, with a beast’s mind. Once that place is reached, there is no return. Yet …’

She had, in that last moment, seen what he only now felt. Darkness closed around him, narrowed his world. Vision … from two eyes … to one. One. Looking across a stretch of grasses as night fell, watching the massive Soletaken tiger pause warily above the dead bull ranag upon which it had been feeding. Seeing the twin flares of its cold, challenging glare. All … so long ago, now … Then nothing.

‘What have I seen? I was witness, T’lan Imass, to the death of Treach.

‘Chen’re aral lich’fayle. The Menhir, heart of memory.’ He swung round again as Baaljagg rose suddenly, hackles

more than twice a man’s height in length, eyes almost level with Toc’s own, her sleek fur blue-black and shimmering. A scent of spice swept forward like an exhaled breath, and the creature began sembling, the shift an uncertain blurring, a folding in of darkness itself. Then a small woman stood before them, her eyes on Tool. ‘Hello, brother.’

‘I saw you,’ she said, ‘looking out from Treach’s eyes—’ ‘Both eyes?’ She smiled. ‘No. Only one – the one you no longer have, mortal. I would know what the Elder God has planned … for us.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t recall ever meeting him, alas. Not even a whisper in my ear.’ ‘Brother Onos, who is this mortal?’ ‘I have named him Aral Fayle, sister.’ ‘And you have given him weapons of stone.’ ‘I have. Unintended.’

Mortal, the children of the Pannion Seer are suffering. You must find a way to release them. It is difficult – a risk beyond imagining – but I must send you into the Seer’s embrace. I do not think you will forgive me. Struggling, Toc pushed his question forward in his mind. Release them. Why? An odd question, mortal. I speak of compassion. There are gifts unimagined in such efforts. A man who dreams has shown me this, and indeed, you shall soon see for yourself. Such gifts

‘Stoneblade and Stonearrow, attend. The meal awaits us.’

No-one in Callows had been spared. She had come upon the heaped pyres on her approach down the inland road, and judged the slaughter at perhaps thirty thousand.

Ten days, no more, since the slaughter.

She could smell Hood’s breath, a sigh at unexpected bounty, a faint ripple of unease at what it signified. You are troubled, dear Hood. This bodes ill, indeed … Garath led her unerringly, as she knew he would.

She unveiled her warren, passed a hand over the floorboards, watched them dissolve into dust, creating a circular hole. A damp, salty breath wafted from its darkness.

Crippled and chained he may be, Lady Envy, but this particular god is never so obvious. His game displays a master’s sleight of hand. Nothing is as he would have us believe, and his use of unwitting servants is as brutal as his treatment of enemies. Consider, after all, the Pannion Seer. No, for Callows, death came from the sea. A warren-twisted fleet. Cold-eyed, unhuman killers. Seeking, ever seeking, they now ply the world’s oceans. ‘Seeking what, dare I ask?’ A worthy challenge, no

The Seguleh will not be controlled.

Indeed, I wonder who humours whom when it comes to those three frightful warriors.

Hopefully, not before Mok and his brothers have carved their way into the Pannion Seer’s throne room.

Yet, with the Second missing, and with Mok’s growing prowess, no doubt the First had his reasons.

In any case, you defied the summons at the Chaining, Lady Envy. I will not brook your indifference a second time. ‘You?’ She sneered. ‘Are you my master, K’rul? Since when—’ Visions flooded her mind, staggering her.

Darkness. Then chaos, wild, unfocused power, a universe devoid of sense, of control, of meaning. Entities flung through the maelstrom. Lost, terrified by the birth of light. A sudden sharpening – pain as of wrists opened, the heat spilling forth – a savage imposition of order, the heart from which blood flowed in even, steady streams. Twin chambers to that heart – Kurald Galain, the Warren of Mother Dark – and Starvald Demelain, the Warren of … Dragons. And the blood – the power – now sweeping in currents through veins, through arteries, branching out through all existence, and the thought that came to her then stole all warmth from her flesh. Those veins, those arteries, they are the warrens. ‘Who created this? Who?’

You are a sorceress. By Light’s Wild Mane, your power feeds on the very blood of my eternal soul, and I will have your obedience in this!

in striding through the warrens, we travel through your very flesh. That, when we draw upon the power of the warrens, we draw your very blood?

Dassem Ultor, the First Sword reborn

There is little value in worrying such questions, beyond the obvious lesson that inaction is a deadly choice. Consider: from Dassem’s fall, a mortal empire now totters on the edge of chaos. From Dassem’s fall, the Shadow Throne found a new occupant. From Dassem’s fall … ah, well, the tumbling dominoes are almost countless. It is done.

There was need. To show you the vastness of the threat.

Indeed, you may well choose to cut the knot that is at the heart of the Domin. Or, you may find a way to loosen it, to free all that has been bound for three hundred thousand years.

I so long to return to the others, to Toc the Younger in particular. He’s a darling, isn’t he?’

Take great care of him, Lady. The scarred and the flawed are what the Crippled God seeks in his servants. I shall endeavour to keep Toc’s soul from the Chained One’s grasp, but, please, maintain your guard. Also … there is something else to that man, something … wild. We shall have to await its awakening before understanding comes to us, however.

Within the Pannion Domin, Lady, my blood is poisoned. It is a poison you can defeat, but Toc the Younger cannot. Garath awoke, rose and stretched before her. K’rul was gone.

Wandering among the dismembered corpses of five K’Chain Che’Malle hunters were hundreds of huge, gaunt wolves – with pitted eyes that were a match to those of the T’lan Imass.

Of the three Barghast on the hill, one lies dead. The other two are injured, but will survive with proper ministration. Of the rest, only one breathes no more. An array of injuries to attend to. Two may yet die, sir. None of the survivors has yet regained consciousness. Indeed, each seems in unusually deep sleep.’

‘Understood.’ The Shield Anvil addressed Farakalian: ‘Draw on the Destriant’s power if necessary.’

Bauchelain had elected to use the various bones of the dismembered K’Chain Che’Malle hunters in the reconstruction. Sorcerously melded into the carriage’s frame, the bones formed a bizarre skeleton, which Bauchelain then covered with swathes of grey, pebbled skin. The effect was horrific.

‘Bonecaster, what do you make of these two sorcerors?’ ‘The unmanned one is insane, yet the other is the greater threat. They are not welcome company, Shield Anvil.’ ‘Unmanned?’ Itkovian’s eyes narrowed on Korbal Broach. ‘A eunuch. Yes, of course. They are necromancers?’ ‘Yes. The unmanned one plies the chaos on the edge of Hood’s realm. The other has more arcane interests – a summoner, of formidable power.’

‘Shield Anvil, the injured mortals are, one and all, dreaming.’ ‘Dreaming?’ ‘A familiar flavour,’ the T’lan Imass said. ‘They are being … protected. I look forward to their awakening, in particular the priest. Your soldiers displayed considerable skill in healing.’

‘Our Destriant is High Denul – we are able to draw on his power in times of need, though I imagine his mood is dark at the moment. Exhausted, knowing that healing has occurred, but little else. Karnadas dislikes uncertainty. As does the Mortal Sword, Brukhalian.’

Now ask of your lord, does he dare challenge us?’ Gethol grunted as something dragged him bodily back, the warren snapping shut, swallowing him.

He stared down at the hearth for a long time, and despite the unveiled power of the sanctified sword, the Mortal Sword saw before him nothing but ashes.

The Jaghut opened his warren, stared into the portal that formed before him, his path into the cold, almost airless realm of Omtose Phellack.

The steep, jagged walls of ice to either side bathed him in blue-green light. He paused, tested the air. No stench of Imass, no signs of intrusion, yet the power he sensed around him was weakened, damaged by millennia of breaches, the effrontery of T’lan.