Midnight Tides (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #5)

by Steven Erikson

The last full unveiling of Kurald Emurlahn had been by Scabandari Bloodeye, Father Shadow himself.

The Errant would then weave its mysterious skein, forging the Holds themselves. Ice. Eleint. Azath. Beast. And into their midst would emerge the remaining Fulcra. Axe, Knuckles, Blade, the Pack, Shapefinder and White Crow.

Brys stared down at the blank tile. ‘Hull may prove a problem,’ he said in a dull voice. ‘This is what your heart whispered?’ ‘It is.’ ‘At the Great Meeting?’ He nodded. ‘How?’ ‘I fear, Ceda, that he might kill Prince Quillas Diskanar.’

These were the mysteries of men, so baffling to women. Where silences could become a conjoining of paths. Where a handful of inconsequential words could bind spirits in an ineffable understanding. Forces at play that she could sense, indeed witness, yet ever remaining outside them. Baffled and frustrated and half disbelieving. Words knit the skein between and among women. And the language of gesture and expression, all merging to fashion a tapestry that, as every woman understood, could tear in but one direction, by deliberate, vicious effort. A friendship among women knew but one enemy, and that was malice. Thus, the more words, the tighter the weave.

The urgency was a silent scream that squeezed blood from the Azath tower. Five kin creatures, taken and held since the time of the K’Chain Che’Malle, were almost within reach of the surface. And this was not good, for they were Toblakai.

There was nothing pleasing in this, but Udinaas straightened and tucked the lump in his belt pouch. He returned to his nets. ‘I shall not,’ he muttered, ‘be the hand of your vengeance.’ Wither’s laugh followed him in the crunch of stones.

One time, in her journey, she took within her a sacred seed, and so gave birth to a girl-child. To all outward appearances,’ he continued, ‘that child was little different from her mother, for the sacredness was hidden, and so it remains hidden to this day. Within the Nerek, who are the offspring of that child.’

‘Heed that as a warning, my dears. Mother Dark’s first children were spawned without need of any sire. And, despite what Anomander might claim, they were not Tiste Andii.’

Hope persists, and its voice is compassion, and honest doubt.’

Nameless Ones were of the First Empire. A cult. It was expunged. Eliminated. It cannot have survived, but it seems to have done just that. It seems to have outlived the First Empire itself.’ ‘Are they some sort of death cult?’ ‘No. They were servants of the Azath.’

‘This subcontinent, the region ranging from Tiste Edur lands to the north, Bluerose and Awl’d’an to the east, and Descent and D’aliban to the south – it is a rather peculiar region, master, and has been since, well, since the earliest times. There are, uh, no pathways. For the dead, I mean. For their spirits.’