The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen

by Steven Erikson

Paran’s attention was drawn to the flagstones beneath him. Carved into their bleached surfaces were cards of the Deck of Dragons. No, more than just the Deck of Dragons – there’s cards here I don’t recognize. Lost Houses, and countless forgotten Unaligned Houses, and … The captain stepped forward, crouched down to study one image. As he focused his attention on it the world around him faded, and he felt himself moving into the carved scene. A chill wind slid across his face, the air smelling of mud and wet fur. He could feel the earth beneath his boots, cold and yielding. Somewhere in the distance crows cackled. The strange hut he had seen in the carving now stood before him, long and humped, the huge bones and long tusks comprising its framework visible between gaps in the thick, umber fur-skins clothing it. Houses … and Holds, the first efforts at building. People once dwelt within such structures, like living inside the rib-cage of a dragon. Gods, those tusks are huge – whatever beast these bones came from must have been massive … I can travel at will, it seems. Into each and every card, of every Deck that ever existed. Amidst the surge of wonder and excitement he felt ran an undercurrent of terror. The Deck possessed a host of unpleasant places. And this one? A small stone-lined hearth smouldered before the hut’s entrance. Wreathed in the smoke was a rack made of branches, on which hung strips of meat. The clearing, Paran now saw, was ringed with weathered skulls – dou...