Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2)

by Steven Erikson

‘Ah, Fist, it’s the curse of history that those who should read them, never do. Besides, I am tired.’ ‘Uncle,

this, Corporal. Every one of us.’ Other figures were emerging from the ground on all sides: women, children, dogs. Many of the dogs still wore leather harnesses, still dragged the remnants of travois. The women held their children to their bosoms, gripping the bone hafts of wide-bladed bronze knives they had plunged into those children. An ancient, final tragedy in frozen tableau, as a whole tribe faced slaughter at the hands of some unknown foe – how many thousands of years ago did this happen, how long have these trapped souls held on to this horrifying, heart-rending moment? And now? Are they doomed to repeat that eternal anguish? ‘Hood bless these,’ Duiker whispered, ‘please. Take them. Take them now.’

‘You can see. Who kills them?’ ‘Who?’ He ran a trembling hand across his brow. ‘Kin. The clan split, two rivals for

Antlered Chair. Kin, Historian. Cousins, brothers, uncles . . .’ Duiker felt something breaking inside him at Nil’s words. Half-formed expectations, held by desperate need, had insisted that the killers were . . . Jaghut, Forkrul Assail, K’Chain Che’Malle . . . someone . . . someone other. ‘No,’ he said. Nil’s eyes, young yet ancient, held his as the warlock nodded. ‘Kin. This has been mirrored. Among the Wick. A generation ago. Mirrored.’ ‘But no longer.’ Please.

‘The Emperor, as our enemy, united us. By laughing at our small battles, our pointless feuds. Laughing and more: sneering. He shamed us with contempt, Historian. When he met with Coltaine, our alliance was already breaking apart. Kellanved mocked. He said he need only sit back and watch to see the end of our rebellion. With his words he branded our so...

before him in true gratitude, accepted what he offered us and gave him our loyalty. You once wondered how the Emper...

Remember, Historian, had these warriors won the first time, they would have done to their victims what was done to their own families.’ The child warlock slowly shook his head. ‘There is little good in people. Little good.’

this?’ ‘Jaghut. To stem the tides of invading humans, they raised ice. Sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly, as their strategy dictated. In places it swallowed entire continents, obliterating all that once stood upon them. Forkrul Assail civilizations, the vast mechanisms and edifices of the K’Chain Che’Malle, and of course the squalid huts of those who would one day inherit the world. The highest of Omtose Phellack, these rituals never die, Historian. They rise, subside, and rise yet again. Even now, one is born anew on a distant land, and those rivers of ice fill my dreams, for they are destined to create vast upheaval, and death in numbers unimaginable.’

Better howling than snapping at the heel.

Who in the Abyss has such power? He could think of but two: Anomander Rake, the Son of Darkness, and Osric. Both Soletaken, both supremely arrogant. If there were others, the tales of their activities would have reached him, he was certain.

Kulp craned his head skyward.

being Kulp had ever seen. Not Rake, not Osric. Hugely boned, with skin like dry shark hide, its wing-span dwarfed even that of the Son of Darkness – who has within him the blood of the draconian goddess – and the wings had nothing of the smooth, curving grace; the bones were multi-jointed in a crazed pattern, like that of a crushed bat wing, each knobbed joint prominent beneath taut, cracked skin.

This was damage on a cosmic scale, a

As he watched, the creature’s wedge-shaped head appeared as it twisted to cast its dead, black eye sockets in their direction. Gesler waved.

Shadowthrone! And every other hoary Ascendant bastard within hearing! Maybe I’ve got no faith in any of you, but you’d better acquire a faith in me. And fast! Illusion’s my gift, here and now. Believe! Eyes on the rent, Kulp braced his legs wide, then released the stern rail and raised high both arms. It shall close . . . it shall heal!

The power was undead. The will that gripped him was a dragon’s. Tinged with irritation, reluctant to act, it nevertheless grasped the illogic of Kulp’s sorcerous effort . . . and gave it all the force it needed. Then more.

Undead cared nothing for the limits of mortal flesh, a lesson now burning in his bones.

‘You lit up with blue fire, Mage. Never seen anything like it. Make a damned good tavern tale.’

coming.’ Felisin snorted. ‘All I smell is rank sweat – you’re standing too close, Baudin, go away.’ ‘I’m sure he would if he could,’ Heboric muttered, not un-sympathetically. A moment later he looked up in surprise, as if he had not intended to voice aloud that thought. His toadlike face twisted in dismay.

Clearly shaken, the mage spun to Baudin. ‘You’re a Claw, aren’t you?’ The air around Kulp seemed to glitter – Felisin realized he’d opened his warren. The mage bared his teeth. ‘The Adjunct’s remorse, in the flesh.’ ‘Not a Claw,’ Heboric said. ‘Then what?’ ‘That’ll take a history lesson to explain—’ ‘Start talking.’ ‘An old rivalry,’ the ex-priest said. ‘Dancer and Surly. Dancer created a covert arm for military campaigns. In keeping with the Imperial symbol of the demon hand gripping a sphere, he called them his Talons. Surly used that model in creating the Claw. The Talons were external – outside the Empire – but the Claw were internal, a secret police, a network of spies and assassins.’

‘It was too bitter to contemplate from the very start,’ Heboric was saying. ‘Throwing her younger sister into shackles like any other common victim. An example proclaiming her loyalty to the Empress—’ ‘Not just hers,’ Felisin said. ‘House Paran. Our brother’s a renegade with Onearm on Genabackis. It made us . . . vulnerable.’

‘No-one,’ Baudin answered. ‘I was born into it. There’s a handful left, kicking around here and there, either old or drooling or both. A few first sons inherited . . . the secret. Dancer’s not dead. He ascended, alongside Kellanved – my father was there to see it, in Malaz City, the night of the Shadow Moon.’

Dessembrae. The Cult of Dassem.

them. ‘At the lowest levels of this temple there lies a chamber. Its floor – flagstones – displays a series of carvings. Inscribing something like a Deck of Dragons. Neither Icarium nor I have seen anything like it before. If it is indeed a Deck, it’s an Elder version. Not Houses, but Holds, the forces more elemental, more raw and primitive.’

Nastiness grows like a cancer in any and every organization – human or otherwise, as you well know. And nastiness gets nastier. Whatever evil you let ride becomes commonplace, eventually. Problem is, it’s easier to get used to it than carve it out.’

‘Precipitous youth! I am reminded of my own melodramatic gestures when I but toddled about in Aunt Tulla’s yard. Bullying the chickens when they objected to the straw hats I had spent hours weaving. Incapable of appreciating the intricate plaits I devised. I was deeply offended.’ He cocked his head, grinned up at Crokus. ‘She’ll look good in my new and improved straw hat—’

Perhaps the bone feeds the warren in the sack somehow . . . or the handful of irritating people I’ve stuffed inside in my own fits of ill temper.

Mappo grunted. ‘A worrying thought.’ ‘Why?’ The Trell scowled. ‘I had a sudden vision of Emperor Iskaral Pust . . .’ He shook himself, lifted the sack and swung it over a shoulder. ‘For the moment, I think it best we keep this conversation to ourselves, friend.’

The lad was alone. Alone with his withering, collapsing life. And when the body became a corpse, when it rotted and fell away to join all those others ringing a place that had once held an army, he would be forgotten. Another faceless victim. One in a number that beggared comprehension.

The Imperial threat was ever thus: The destruction you wreak upon us and our kind, we deliver back to you tenfold.

‘Alas, this is a door where no door should be possible. Granted, north of here even the Imperial Warren is fraught with . . . unwelcome intruders . . . but their means of entry is far more . . . primitive,

Thirteen hundred Malazan children had vanished, the liberation unseen by the pickets or the mounted patrols. The X-shaped wooden crosses were bare, with only stains of blood, urine and excrement to show that living beings had once hung from them in agony. In the darkness the plain was strangely alive with shadows, flowing sourcelessly over the motionless grasses.

was a potential meal. ‘Am I a cutter? A healer?’ Shadowthrone’s voice was rising, octave by octave. ‘Is Cotillion a kindly uncle? Are my Hounds farmyard skulkers and orphans’ puppies?’ The shadow that was the god flared wildly. ‘Have you gone entirely insane?’

‘That High Priest of mine alarms even me. If he cannot deceive the hunters on the Path of Hands, my precious realm – which has seen more than its share of intruders of late – will become very crowded indeed . .

Raraku was once an ochre sea.

We totter on edges seen and unseen. We are reduced, yet defiant. We’ve lost the meaning of time. Endless motion broken only by its dulled absence – the shock of rest, of those horns sounding an end to the day’s plodding. For that moment, as the dust swirls on, no-one moves. Standing in disbelief that another day has passed, and yet still we live.

‘Children are dying.’ Lull nodded. ‘That’s a succinct summary of humankind, I’d say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.

Quote me, Duiker, and your work’s done.’ The bastard’s right. Economics, ethics, the games of the gods – all within that single, tragic statement. ‘I’ll quote you, soldier. Be assured of that. An old sword, pitted and blunt and nicked, that

cuts clean to the heart. ‘You humble ...

‘The Malazan professional soldier is the deadliest weapon I know. Had Coltaine three armies instead of only three-fifths of one, he would end this rebellion before year’s end. And with such finality that Seven Cities would never rise again. We could shatter Kamist Reloe now – if not for the refugees whom we are sworn to protect.’

wailed in the shrouded darkness. Then

Being pulled from the front lines had been the Emperor’s reward all those years ago. That and the various alchemies that keep me tottering on well past my prime. Gods, even the scars from that last horror have faded away! ‘No-one who’s grown up amidst scrolls and books can write of the world,’ Kellanved had told him once, ‘which is why I’m appointing you Imperial Historian, soldier.’ ‘Emperor, I cannot read or write.’ ‘An unsullied mind. Good. Toc the Elder will be teaching you over the next six months – he’s another soldier with a brain. Six months, mind. No more than that.’ ‘Emperor, it seems to me that he would

The Emperor loved lessons in humility. So long as it was never thrown back at him. What happened to Toc the Elder, I wonder? Vanishing after the assassinations – I’d always imagined it as Laseen’s doing . . . and Toc the Younger – he’d rejected a life amidst scrolls and books . . . now lost in the Genabackan campaign

What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They’re allowed to think.

‘The Claw. Someone was covering our retreat. Using stars and stickers and moving unseen like a Hood-damned breath on my back!’

‘That creature is sewn shut everywhere, Historian. Lest that which was devoured escapes.’

‘There was retribution,’ Heboric said. ‘A methodical, dispassionate cleaning-up of the mess.’ As he pulled off his sand-scoured cloak, Kulp scowled down at the ex-priest. ‘What are you going on about, Heboric?’ ‘First Empire, the city above. They came and put things aright. Immortal custodians. Such a debacle! Even with my eyes closed I can see my hands – they’re groping blind, so blind now. So empty.’

‘People. Carved as if lying around – at first I thought they were real—’ ‘And why don’t you think that any more?’

‘Her daughter chose the Path of the Soletaken, a fraught journey, that. She was hardly unique, the twisted route was a popular alternative to Ascension. More . . . earthly, they claimed. And older, and that which was old was in high favour in the last days of the First Empire.’

‘Colonel Tras wanted a quiet, obedient wife, a wife to perch on his arm and make pretty sounds—’ ‘Not very observant, was he?’ ‘More like stubborn. Any horse can be broken, was his philosophy. And that’s what he set about doing.’ ‘Was the colonel a subtle man?’ ‘Not even a clever one.’ ‘Yet Minala is both – what in Hood’s name was she thinking?’