House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  Monok Ochem approached the seneschal. ‘We are ready, Liosan.’

  Jorrude nodded. ‘Then I shall begin my prayers, Undead Priest. And there shall be proof that our Master, Osric, is far from lost to us. You shall know his power.’

  The bonecaster said nothing.

  ‘And when,’ Trull asked, ‘shall I start spraying blood around? Which one of you has the pleasure of wounding me?’

  ‘The choice is yours,’ Monok Ochem replied.

  ‘Good. I choose Onrack—he’s the only one here I’m prepared to trust. Apologies to those of you who might take offence at that.’

  ‘That task should be mine,’ Seneschal Jorrude said. ‘Blood lies at the heart of Osric’s power—’

  Onrack was alone noting the slight start from the bonecaster at that, and the warrior nodded to himself. Much answered with those words. ‘—and indeed,’ Jorrude continued, ‘I shall have to spill some of my own as well.’

  But Trull Sengar shook his head. ‘No. Onrack . . . or no-one.’ And he then uncrossed his arms, revealing a clay ball in each hand.

  There was a snort from Jorrude, and the Liosan named Enias growled, ‘Grant me leave to kill him, Seneschal. I shall ensure that there is no shortage of Edur blood.’

  ‘Do so, and I guarantee the same lack of shortage,’ Trull responded, ‘concerning Liosan blood. Bonecaster, do you recognize these munitions?’

  ‘They are known by the Malazans as cussers,’ answered Ibra Gholan, the clan leader. ‘One will suffice, given our collective proximities.’

  Trull grinned over at the T’lan Imass warrior. ‘Even that dhenrabi skin on your shoulders won’t help much, will it?’

  ‘True,’ Ibra Gholan replied. ‘While armour is not entirely ineffectual, such value invariably proves wanting.’

  Monok Ochem turned to the seneschal. ‘Agree to the stipulation,’ he said. ‘Begin your prayers, Liosan.’

  ‘Such commands are not for you to utter,’ Jorrude snarled. He glared at Trull. ‘You, Edur, have much to learn. We shall create this gate, and then there will come a reckoning.’

  Trull Sengar shrugged. ‘As you like.’

  Adjusting his bloodstained cloak, the seneschal strode into the centre of the circle. Then he lowered himself onto his knees, chin settling onto his chest, closing his gleaming, silver eyes.

  Blackflies formed a humming cloud around him. Whatever link existed between Jorrude and his god proved both strong and swift. Gold fire flickered into life here and there beyond the circumference of the circle. The remaining three Tiste Liosan returned to their own camp and began packing.

  Monok Ochem strode into the circle, followed by the two clansmen Haran Epal and Olar Shayn. The clan leader faced Onrack and said, ‘Guard your companion close, if you would he survive. Cleave to that singular concern, Onrack. No matter what you might witness.’

  ‘I shall,’ Onrack replied. In many essential matters, the warrior realized, he had no need for a binding of souls with his kin . . . to know their minds. He strode to Trull Sengar. ‘Follow me,’ he instructed. ‘We must now enter the circle.’

  The Tiste Edur scowled, then nodded. ‘Take the box of munitions, then. My hands are full.’

  Trull had fixed straps to the box. Onrack collected it then led his companion into the circle.

  The three Liosan had completed breaking their camp and were now saddling their white horses.

  The fires continued flickering in and out of existence around the periphery, none large enough to pose a threat. But Onrack could sense the approach of the Liosan god. Or at least the outermost layers of its disguise. Cautious, mistrustful—not of the seneschal, of course—but for this to work, the hidden spirit would have to come to this realm’s very edge.

  And when Jorrude offered up his own blood, the bridge of power between him and his god would be complete.

  The thud of horse hoofs announced the arrival of the other three Liosan, the four mounts in tow.

  Onrack drew forth from beneath rotted furs a small crescent-shaped obsidian knife, single-edged on the inward-curving line, and held it out to Trull. ‘When I so instruct you, Trull Sengar, cut yourself. A few drops will suffice.’

  The Tiste Edur frowned. ‘I thought you were—’

  ‘I would not be distracted, in the moment of crossing.’

  ‘Distracted?’

  ‘Say nothing. Attend to yourself.’

  His frown deepening, Trull crouched to return the two cussers to the box, affixed the lid once more and slung the contrivance over a shoulder, then straightened and accepted the stone blade.

  The flames were now growing, unbroken immediately beyond the inscribed ring. Kurald Thyrllan, but the ascendant shaping it remained unseen. Onrack wondered at its nature. If these Liosan were any indication, it found sustenance from purity, as if such a thing was even possible. Intransigence. Simplicity.

  The simplicity of blood, a detail whispering of antiquity, of primeval origins. A spirit, then, before whom a handful of savages once bowed. There had been many such entities, once, born of that primitive assertion of meaning to object, meaning shaped by symbols and portents, scratchings on rock-faces and in the depths of caves.

  No shortage . . . but tribes died out, were winnowed out, were devoured by more powerful neighbours. The secret language of the scratchings, the caves with their painted images that came alive to the pounding of drums—those most mysterious cathedrals of thunder . . . all lost, forgotten. And with that fading away of secrets, so too the spirits themselves dwindled, usually into oblivion.

  That some lingered was not surprising to Onrack. Even unto usurping the faith of a new tribe. What was new to the warrior, rising like a tightness into his desiccated throat, was the sense of . . . pathos.

  In the name of purity, the Liosan worship their god. In the name of . . . of nostalgia, the god worships what was and shall never again return.

  The spilling of blood was the deadliest of games.

  As is about to be seen.

  A harsh cry from the seneschal, and the flames rose into a wall on all sides, raging with unbridled power. Jorrude had laid open his left palm. Within the circle, a swirling wind rose, laden with the smells of a thaw—of spring in some northern clime.

  Onrack turned to Trull. ‘Now.’

  The Tiste Edur slashed the obsidian blade across the edge of his left hand, then stared down disbelieving at the gash—clear, the flesh neatly parted, frighteningly deep.

  The blood emerged a moment later, welling forth, red roots racing and branching down his grey-skinned forearm.

  The gate seemed to tear itself open, surrounding the group within the circle. Spiralling tunnels reached outward from it, each seeming to lead on into eternity. A roar of chaos on the flanks, miasmic grey fire in the spaces between the portals. Onrack reached out to catch a reeling Trull Sengar. The blood was spraying out from his left hand, as if the Edur’s entire body was being squeezed by some unseen, but unrelenting pressure.

  Onrack glanced over—to see Monok Ochem standing alone, head tilted back as the winds of Tellann whipped the silver-tipped fur around his unhelmed head. Beyond the bonecaster, a momentary glimpse of Ibra Gholan, Olar Shayn and Haran Epal vanishing down a tunnel of fire.

  The seneschal’s companions were now running towards their master’s prone, unconscious body.

  Satisfied that the others were occupied—temporarily unmindful—Onrack dragged Trull close until their bodies made contact, the T’lan Imass managing a one-armed embrace. ‘Hold on to me,’ he rasped. ‘Trull Sengar, hold on to me—but free your left hand.’

  Fingers clutched at Onrack’s ragged cloak, began dragging with growing weight. The T’lan Imass relinquished his one-armed hug and snapped out his hand—to close on Trull’s. The blood bit like acid into flesh that had forgotten pain. Onrack almost tore his grip free in the sudden, overwhelming agony, but then he tightened his hold and leaned close to the Tiste Edur. ‘Listen! I, Onrack, once of the Logros but now stranger to the
Ritual, avow service to Trull Sengar of the Tiste Edur. I pledge to defend your life. This vow cannot be sundered. Now, lead us from here!’

  Their hands still locked together, sealed for the moment by a slowing flow of blood, Onrack pulled Trull around until they faced one of the spiralling tunnels. Then they plunged forward.

  Onrack saw the bonecaster wheel to face them. But the distance was too great, and the ritual had already begun tearing itself apart.

  Then Monok Ochem veered into his Soletaken form. A blur, then a massive, hulking beast was thundering in pursuit.

  Onrack sought to tear his grip from Trull to reach for his sword, to block the Soletaken and so ensure Trull’s escape—but the Edur had turned, had seen, and would not let go. Instead, he pulled, hard. Onrack stumbled back.

  Knuckles pounded on the ground—the ape that Monok Ochem had become was, despite being gaunt with death, enormous. Patched grey and black skin, tufts of silver-tipped black hair on the broad shoulders and the nape of the neck, a sunken-eyed, withered face, jaws stretching wide to reveal canines—voicing a deep, grating roar.

  Then Monok Ochem simply vanished. Swallowed by a surge of chaos.

  Onrack stumbled over something, crashed down onto hard-packed ground, gravel skidding under him. Beside him, on his knees, was Trull Sengar.

  The fall had broken their grip, and the Tiste Edur was staring down at his left hand—where only a thin, white scar remained.

  A single sun blazed down on them, and Onrack knew they had returned to his native realm.

  The T’lan Imass slowly climbed to his feet. ‘We must leave this place, Trull Sengar. My kin shall pursue. Perhaps only Monok Ochem remains, but he will not relent.’

  Trull raised his head. ‘Remains? What do you mean? Where did the others go?’

  Onrack looked down on the Tiste Edur. ‘The Liosan were too late to realize. The turning of Tellann succeeded in driving all awareness from the seneschal. They were entirely unprepared. Ibra Gholan, Olar Shayn and Haran Epal walked into the warren of Kurald Thyrllan.’

  ‘Walked into? Why?’

  Onrack managed a one-sided shrug. ‘They went, Trull Sengar, to kill the Liosan god.’

  Little more than bones and scraps of armour, what had once been an army lay in the thick grey ash, encircling a steeply sloped pit of some kind. There was no way to tell whether the army had faced outward—defending some sort of subterranean entrance—or inward, seeking to prevent an escape.

  Lostara Yil stood ankle-deep in the trail’s ashes. Watching Pearl walk gingerly among the bones, reaching down every now and then to drag some item free for a closer look. Her throat was raw, her hatred of the Imperial Warren deepening with every passing moment.

  ‘The scenery is unchanging,’ Pearl had noted, ‘yet never the same. I have walked this path before—this very path. There were no ruins, then. And no heap of bones or hole in the ground.’

  And no winds to shift the ashes.

  But bones and other larger objects had a way of rising to the surface, eventually. Or so it was true in the sands—why should ashes be any different? None the less, some of those ruins were massive. Vast expanses of flagstones, unstained, devoid even of dust. Tall, leaning towers—like the rotted stubs of fangs. A bridge spanning nothing, its stones so precisely set that a knife-tip could not be slipped between them.

  Slapping the dust from his gloved hands, Pearl strode up. ‘Curious indeed.’

  Lostara coughed, hacked out grey sputum. ‘Just find us a gate and get us out of here,’ she rasped.

  ‘Ah, well, as to that, my dear, the gods are smiling down upon us. I have found a gate, and a lively one it is.’

  She scowled at him, knowing he sought the inevitable question from her, but she was in no mood to ask it.

  ‘Alas, I know your thoughts,’ Pearl continued after a moment, with a quick wry grin. He pointed back towards the pit. ‘Down there . . . unfortunately. Thus, we are left with a dire choice. Continue on—and risk you spitting out your lungs—in search of a more easily approachable gate. Or take the plunge, as it were.’

  ‘You’re leaving the choice to me?’

  ‘Why not? Now, I’m waiting. Which shall it be?’

  She drew the scarf over her mouth and nose once more, tightened the straps on her pack, then marched off . . . towards the pit.

  Pearl fell in step. ‘Courage and foolishness, the distinction so often proves problematic—’

  ‘Except in hindsight.’ Lostara kicked herself free of a rib cage that had fouled her stride, then swore at the resultant clouds of ash and dust. ‘Who were these damned soldiers? Do you know?’

  ‘I may possess extraordinary powers of observation and unfathomable depths of intelligence, lass, but I cannot read when there is nothing to be seen. Corpses. Human, in so far as I can tell. The only detail I can offer is that they fought this battle knee-deep in this ash . . . meaning—’

  ‘That whatever crisped this realm had already happened,’ Lostara cut in. ‘Meaning, they either survived the event, or were interlopers . . . like us.’

  ‘Very possibly emerging from the very gate we now approach.’

  ‘To cross blades with whom?’

  Pearl shrugged. ‘I have no idea. But I have a few theories.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ she snapped. ‘Like all men—you hate to say you don’t know and leave it at that. You have an answer to every question, and if you don’t you make one up.’

  ‘An outrageous accusation, my dear. It is not a matter of making up answers, it is rather an exercise in conjecture. There is a difference—’

  ‘That’s what you say, not what I have to listen to. All the time. Endless words. Does a man even exist who believes there can be too many words?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pearl replied.

  After a moment she shot him a glare, but he was studiously staring ahead.

  They came to the edge of the slope and halted, looking down. The descent would be treacherous, jumbled bones, swords jagged with decay, and an unknown depth of ash and dust. The hole at the base was perhaps ten paces across, yawning black.

  ‘There are spiders in the desert,’ Lostara muttered, ‘that build such traps.’

  ‘Slightly smaller, surely.’

  She reached down and collected a thigh bone, momentarily surprised at its weight, then tossed it down the slope. A thud.

  Then the packed ash beneath their boots vanished. And down they went, amidst explosions of dust, ashes and splinters of bone. A hissing rush—blind, choking—then they were falling through a dry downpour. To land heavily on yet another slope that tumbled them down a roaring, echoing avalanche.

  It was a descent through splintered bones and bits of iron, and it seemed unending.

  Lostara was unable to draw breath—they were drowning in thick dust, sliding and rolling, sinking then bursting free once more. Down, down through absolute darkness. A sudden, jarring collision with something—possibly wood—then a withered, rumpled surface that seemed tiled, and down once more.

  Another thump and tumble.

  Then she was rolling across flagstones, pushed on by a wave of ash and detritus, finally coming to a crunching halt, flat on her back, a flow of frigid air rising up on her left side—where she reached out, groping, then down, to where the floor should have been. Nothing. She was lying on an edge, and something told her that, had she taken this last descent, Hood alone would greet her at its conclusion.

  Coughing from slightly further up the slope on her right. A faint nudge as the heaped bones and ashes on that side shifted.

  Another such nudge, and she would be pushed over the edge. Lostara rolled her head to the left and spat, then tried to speak. The word came out thin and hoarse. ‘Don’t.’

  Another cough, then, ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Move.’

  ‘Oh. That doesn’t sound good. It’s not good, is it?’

  ‘Not good. Another ledge. Another drop . . . this one I think for ever.’

&nbs
p; ‘Judicious use of my warren seems appropriate at this point, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A moment, then.’ A dull sphere of light emerged, suspended above them, its illumination struggling in the swirling clouds of dust.

  It edged closer—grew larger. Brightened.

  Revealing all that was above them.

  Lostara said nothing. Her chest had contracted as if unwilling to take another breath. Her heart thundered. Wood. An X-shaped cross, tilting over them, as tall as a four-storey building. The glint of enormous, pitted spikes.

  And nailed to the cruciform—

  —a dragon.

  Wings spread, pinned wide. Hind limbs impaled. Chains wrapped about its neck, holding its massive wedge-shaped head up, as if staring skyward—

  —to a sea of stars marked here and there with swirls of glowing mist.

  ‘It’s not here . . .’ Pearl whispered.

  ‘What? It’s right above—’

  ‘No. Well, yes. But . . . look carefully. It’s enclosed in a sphere. A pocket warren, a realm unto itself—’

  ‘Or the entranceway,’ she suggested. ‘Sealing—’

  ‘A gate. Queen of Dreams, I think you’re right. Even so, its power doesn’t reach us . . . thank the spirits and gods and demons and ascendants and—’

  ‘Why, Pearl?’

  ‘Because, lass—that dragon is aspected.’

  ‘I thought they all were.’

  ‘Aye. You keep interrupting me, Lostara Yil. Aspected, I was saying. But not to a warren. Gods! I cannot fathom—’

  ‘Damn you, Pearl!’

  ‘Otataral.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Otataral. Her aspect is otataral, woman! This is an otataral dragon.’

  Neither spoke for a time. Lostara began edging herself away from the ledge, shifting weight incrementally, freezing at every increase in the stream of dust slipping away beneath her.

  Turning her head, she could make out Pearl. He had unveiled enough of his warren to draw himself upward, hovering slightly above the slope. His gaze remained fixed on the crucified dragon.

  ‘Some help down here . . .’ Lostara growled.

  He started, then looked down at her. ‘Right. My deepest apologies, lass. Here, I shall extend my warren . . .’