House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  House of Chains

  A Tale of the Malazan

  Book of the Fallen IV

  Steven Erikson

  Content

  Prologue

  Book One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Book Two Cold Iron

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Book Three Something Breaches

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Book Four House Of Chains

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Prologue

  Verge of the Nascent, the 943rd Day of the Search, 1139 Burn’s Sleep

  Grey, bloated and pocked, the bodies lined the silt-laden shoreline for as far as the eye could see. Heaped like driftwood by the rising water, bobbing and rolling on the edges, the putrefying flesh seethed with black-shelled, ten-legged crabs. The coin-sized creatures had scarcely begun to make inroads on the bounteous feast the warren’s sundering had laid before them.

  The sea mirrored the low sky’s hue. Dull, patched pewter above and below, broken only by the deeper grey of silts and, thirty strokes of the oar distant, the smeared ochre tones of the barely visible upper levels of a city’s inundated buildings. The storms had passed, the waters were calm amidst the wreckage of a drowned world.

  Short, squat had been the inhabitants. Flat-featured, the pale hair left long and loose. Their world had been a cold one, given the thick-padded clothing they had worn. But with the sundering that had changed, cataclysmically. The air was sultry, damp and now foul with the reek of decay.

  The sea had been born of a river on another realm. A massive, wide and probably continent-spanning artery of fresh water, heavy with a plain’s silts, the murky depths home to huge catfish and wagon-wheel-sized spiders, its shallows crowded with the crabs and carnivorous, rootless plants. The river had poured its torrential volume onto this vast, level landscape. Days, then weeks, then months.

  Storms, conjured by the volatile clash of tropical air-streams with the resident temperate climate, had driven the flood on beneath shrieking winds, and before the inexorably rising waters came deadly plagues to take those who had not drowned.

  Somehow, the rent had closed sometime in the night just past. The river from another realm had been returned to its original path.

  The shoreline ahead probably did not deserve the word, but nothing else came to Trull Sengar’s mind as he was dragged along its verge. The beach was nothing more than silt, heaped against a huge wall that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. The wall had withstood the flood, though water now streamed down it on the opposite side.

  Bodies on his left, a sheer drop of seven, maybe eight man-heights to his right, the top of the wall itself slightly less than thirty paces across; that it held back an entire sea whispered of sorcery. The broad, flat stones underfoot were smeared with mud, but already drying in the heat, dun-coloured insects dancing on its surface, leaping from the path of Trull Sengar and his captors.

  Trull still experienced difficulty comprehending that notion. Captors. A word he struggled with. They were his brothers, after all. Kin. Faces he had known all his life, faces he had seen smile, and laugh, and faces—at times—filled with a grief that had mirrored his own. He had stood at their sides through all that had happened, the glorious triumphs, the soul-wrenching losses.

  Captors.

  There were no smiles, now. No laughter. The expressions of those who held him were fixed and cold.

  What we have come to.

  The march ended. Hands pushed Trull Sengar down, heedless of his bruises, the cuts and the gouges that still leaked blood. Massive iron rings had been set, for some unknown purpose, by this world’s now-dead inhabitants, along the top of the wall, anchored in the heart of the huge stone blocks. The rings were evenly spaced down the wall’s length, at intervals of fifteen or so paces, for as far as Trull could see.

  Now, those rings had found a new function.

  Chains were wrapped around Trull Sengar, shackles hammered into place on his wrists and ankles. A studded girdle was cinched painfully tight about his midriff, the chains drawn through iron loops and pulled taut to pin him down beside the iron ring. A hinged metal press was affixed to his jaw, his mouth forced open and the plate pushed in and locked in place over his tongue.

  The Shorning followed. A dagger inscribed a circle on his forehead, followed by a jagged slash to break that circle, the point pushed deep enough to gouge the bone. Ash was rubbed into the wounds. His long single braid was removed with rough hacks that made a bloody mess of his nape. A thick, cloying unguent was then smeared through his remaining hair, massaged down to the pate. Within a few hours, the rest of his hair would fall away, leaving him permanently bald.

  The Shorning was an absolute thing, an irreversible act of severance. He was now outcast. To his brothers, he had ceased to exist. He would not be mourned. His deeds would vanish from memory along with his name. His mother and father would have birthed one less child. This was, for his people, the most dire punishment—worse than execution by far.

  Yet, Trull Sengar had committed no crime.

  And this is what we have come to.

  They stood above him, perhaps only now comprehending what they had done.

  A familiar voice broke the silence. ‘We will speak of him now, and once we have left this place, he will cease to be our brother.’

  ‘We will speak of him now,’ the others intoned, then one added, ‘He betrayed you.’

  The first voice was cool, revealing nothing of the gloat that Trull Sengar knew would be there. ‘You say he betrayed me.’

  ‘He did, brother.’

  ‘What proof do you have?’

  ‘By his own tongue.’

  ‘Is it just you who claims to have heard such betrayal spoken?’

  ‘No, I too heard it, brother.’

  ‘And I.’

  ‘And what did our brother say to you all?’

  ‘He said that you had severed your blood from ours.’

  ‘That you now served a hidden master.’

  ‘That your ambition would lead us all to our deaths—’

  ‘Our entire people.’

  ‘He spoke against me, then.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘By his own tongue, he accused me of betraying our people.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘And have I? Let us consider this charge. The southlands are aflame. The enemy’s armies have fled. The enemy now kneels before us, and begs to be our slaves. From nothing, was forged an empire. And still our strength grows. Yet. To grow stronger, what must you, my brothers, do?’

  ‘We must search.’

  ‘Aye. And when you find what must be sought?’

  ‘We must deliver. To you, brother.’

  ‘Do you see the need for this?’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘Do you understand the sacrifice I make, for you, for our people, for our future?’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘Yet, even as you searched, this man, our once-brother, spoke against me.’

  ‘He did.’

&
nbsp; ‘Worse, he spoke to defend the new enemies we had found.’

  ‘He did. He called them the Pure Kin, and said we should not kill them.’

  ‘And, had they been in truth Pure Kin, then . . .’

  ‘They would not have died so easily.’

  ‘Thus.’

  ‘He betrayed you, brother.’

  ‘He betrayed us all.’

  There was silence. Ah, now you would share out this crime of yours. And they hesitate.

  ‘He betrayed us all, did he not, brothers?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word arrived rough, beneath the breath, mumbled—a chorus of dubious uncertainty.

  No-one spoke for a long moment, then, savage with barely bridled anger: ‘Thus, brothers. And should we not heed this danger? This threat of betrayal, this poison, this plague that seeks to tear our family apart? Will it spread? Will we come here yet again? We must be vigilant, brothers. Within ourselves. With each other. Now, we have spoken of him. And now, he is gone.’

  ‘He is gone.’

  ‘He never existed.’

  ‘He never existed.’

  ‘Let us leave this place, then.’

  ‘Yes, let us leave.’

  Trull Sengar listened until he could no more hear their boots on the stones, nor feel the tremble of their dwindling steps. He was alone, unable to move, seeing only the mud-smeared stone at the base of the iron ring.

  The sea rustled the corpses along the shoreline. Crabs scuttled. Water continued to seep through the mortar, insinuate the Cyclopean wall with the voice of muttering ghosts, and flow down on the other side.

  Among his people, it was a long-known truth, perhaps the only truth, that Nature fought but one eternal war. One foe. That, further, to understand this was to understand the world. Every world.

  Nature has but one enemy. And that is imbalance.

  The wall held the sea.

  And there are two meanings to this. My brothers, can you not see the truth of that? Two meanings. The wall holds the sea.

  For now.

  This was a flood that would not be denied. The deluge had but just begun—something his brothers could not understand, would, perhaps, never understand.

  Drowning was common among his people. Drowning was not feared. And so, Trull Sengar would drown. Soon.

  And before long, he suspected, his entire people would join him. His brother had shattered the balance.

  And Nature shall not abide.

  Book One

  The slower the river, the redder it runs

  Nathii saying

  Chapter One

  Children from a dark house choose shadowed paths.

  Nathii Folk Saying

  THE DOG HAD SAVAGED A WOMAN, AN OLD MAN AND A CHILD BEFORE the warriors drove it into an abandoned kiln at the edge of the village. The beast had never before displayed an uncertain loyalty. It had guarded the Uryd lands with fierce zeal, one with its kin in its harsh, but just, duties. There were no wounds on its body that might have festered and so allowed the spirit of madness into its veins. Nor was the dog possessed by the foaming sickness. Its position in the village pack had not been challenged. Indeed, there was nothing, nothing at all, to give cause to the sudden turn.

  The warriors pinned the animal to the rounded back wall of the clay kiln with spears, stabbing at the snapping, shrieking beast until it was dead. When they withdrew their spears they saw the shafts chewed and slick with spit and blood; they saw iron dented and scored.

  Madness, they knew, could remain hidden, buried far beneath the surface, a subtle flavour turning blood into something bitter. The shamans examined the three victims; two had already died of their wounds, but the child still clung to life.

  In solemn procession he was carried by his father to the Faces in the Rock, laid down in the glade before the Seven Gods of the Teblor, and left there.

  He died a short while later. Alone in his pain before the hard visages carved into the cliff-face.

  This was not an unexpected fate. The child, after all, had been too young to pray.

  All of this, of course, happened centuries past. Long before the Seven Gods opened their eyes.

  Urugal the Woven’s Year 1159 Burn’s Sleep

  They were glorious tales. Farms in flames, children dragged behind horses for leagues. The trophies of that day, so long ago, cluttered the low walls of his grandfather’s longhouse. Scarred skull-pates, frail-looking mandibles. Odd fragments of clothing made of some unknown material, now smoke-blackened and tattered. Small ears nailed to every wooden post that reached up to the thatched roof.

  Evidence that Silver Lake was real, that it existed in truth, beyond the forest-clad mountains, down through hidden passes, a week—perhaps two—distant from the lands of the Uryd clan. The way itself was fraught, passing through territories held by the Sunyd and Rathyd clans, a journey that was itself a tale of legendary proportions. Moving silent and unseen through enemy camps, shifting the hearthstones to deliver deepest insult, eluding the hunters and trackers day and night until the borderlands were reached, then crossed—the vista ahead unknown, its riches not even yet dreamed of.

  Karsa Orlong lived and breathed his grandfather’s tales. They stood like a legion, defiant and fierce, before the pallid, empty legacy of Synyg—Pahlk’s son and Karsa’s father. Synyg, who had done nothing in his life, who tended his horses in his valley and had not once ventured into hostile lands. Synyg, who was both his father’s and his son’s greatest shame.

  True, Synyg had more than once defended his herd of horses from raiders from other clans, and defended well, with honourable ferocity and admirable skill. But this was only to be expected from those of Uryd blood. Urugal the Woven was the clan’s Face in the Rock, and Urugal was counted among the fiercest of the seven gods. The other clans had reason to fear the Uryd.

  Nor had Synyg proved less than masterful in training his only son in the Fighting Dances. Karsa’s skill with the bloodwood blade far surpassed his years. He was counted among the finest warriors of the clan. While the Uryd disdained use of the bow, they excelled with spear and atlatl, with the toothed-disc and the black-rope, and Synyg had taught his son an impressive efficiency with these weapons as well.

  None the less, such training was to be expected from any father in the Uryd clan. Karsa could find no reason for pride in such things. The Fighting Dances were but preparation, after all. Glory was found in all that followed, in the contests, the raids, in the vicious perpetuation of feuds.

  Karsa would not do as his father had done. He would not do . . . nothing. No, he would walk his grandfather’s path. More closely than anyone might imagine. Too much of the clan’s reputation lived only in the past. The Uryd had grown complacent in their position of preeminence among the Teblor. Pahlk had muttered that truth more than once, the nights when his bones ached from old wounds and the shame that was his son burned deepest.

  A return to the old ways. And I, Karsa Orlong, shall lead. Delum Thord is with me. As is Bairoth Gild. All in our first year of scarring.

  We have counted coup. We have slain enemies. Stolen horses. Shifted the hearthstones of the Kellyd and the Buryd.

  And now, with the new moon and in the year of your naming, Urugal, we shall weave our way to Silver Lake. To slay the children who dwell there.

  He remained on his knees in the glade, head bowed beneath the Faces in the Rock, knowing that Urugal’s visage, high on the cliff-face, mirrored his own savage desire; and that those of the other gods, all with their own clans barring Siballe, who was the Unfound, glared down upon Karsa with envy and hate. None of their children knelt before them, after all, to voice such bold vows.

  Complacency plagued all the clans of the Teblor, Karsa suspected. The world beyond the mountains dared not encroach, had not attempted to do so in decades. No visitors ventured into Teblor lands. Nor had the Teblor themselves gazed out beyond the borderlands with dark hunger, as they had often done generations past. The last man to have led a raid into foreign terri
tory had been his grandfather. To the shores of Silver Lake, where farms squatted like rotted mushrooms and children scurried like mice. Back then, there had been two farms, a half-dozen outbuildings. Now, Karsa believed, there would be more. Three, even four farms. Even Pahlk’s day of slaughter would pale to that delivered by Karsa, Delum and Bairoth.

  So I vow, beloved Urugal. And I shall deliver unto you a feast of trophies such as never before blackened the soil of this glade. Enough, perhaps, to free you from the stone itself, so that once more you will stride in our midst, a deliverer of death upon all our enemies.

  I, Karsa Orlong, grandson of Pahlk Orlong, so swear. And, should you doubt, Urugal, know that we leave this very night. The journey begins with the descent of this very sun. And, as each day’s sun births the sun of the next day, so shall it look down upon three warriors of the Uryd clan, leading their destriers through the passes, down into the unknown lands. And Silver Lake shall, after more than four centuries, once again tremble to the coming of the Teblor.

  Karsa slowly lifted his head, eyes travelling up the battered cliff-face, to find the harsh, bestial face of Urugal, there, among its kin. The pitted gaze seemed fixed upon him and Karsa thought he saw avid pleasure in those dark pools. Indeed, he was certain of it, and would describe it as truth to Delum and Bairoth, and to Dayliss, so that she might voice her blessing, for he so wished her blessing, her cold words . . . I, Dayliss, yet to find a family’s name, bless you, Karsa Orlong, on your dire raid. May you slay a legion of children. May their cries feed your dreams. May their blood give you thirst for more. May flames haunt the path of your life. May you return to me, a thousand deaths upon your soul, and take me as your wife.

  She might indeed so bless him. A first yet undeniable expression of her interest in him. Not Bairoth—she but toyed with Bairoth as any young unwedded woman might, for amusement. Her Knife of Night remained sheathed, of course, for Bairoth lacked cold ambition—a flaw he might deny, yet the truth was plain that he did not lead, only follow, and Dayliss would not settle for that.

 
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