House of Chains

Cheekbone and orbital ridge were both shattered, the pieces that remained held in place by strips of withered tendon and muscle. Had Onrack possessed anything more than a shrunken, mummified nugget for an eye, it would have been torn away by the Tiste Liosan’s ivory scimitar.

There was, of course, no effect on his vision, for his senses existed in the ghostly fire of the Tellann Ritual- the unseen aura hovering around his mangled body, burning with memories of completeness, of vigour. Even so, the severing of his left arm created a strange, queasy sense of conflict, as if the wound bled in both the world of the ritual ghost-shape and in the physical world. A seeping away of power, of self, leaving the T’lan Imass warrior with vaguely confused thoughts, a malaise of ephemeral… thinness.

He stood motionless, watching his kin prepare for the ritual. He was outside them, now, no longer able to conjoin his spirit with theirs. From this jarring fact there was emerging, in Onrack’s mind, a strange shifting of perspective. He saw only their physicality now-the ghost-shapes were invisible to his sight.

Withered corpses. Ghastly. Devoid of majesty, a mockery of all that was once noble. Duty and courage had been made animate, and this was all the T’lan Imass were, and had been for hundreds of thousands of years. Yet, without choice, such virtues as duty and courage were transformed into empty, worthless words. Without mortality, hovering like an unseen sword overhead, meaning was without relevance, no matter the nature-or even the motivation behind-an act. Any act.

Onrack believed he was finally seeing, when fixing his gaze upon his once-kin, what all those who were not T’lan Imass saw, when looking upon these horrific, undead warriors.

An extinct past refusing to fall to dust. Brutal reminders of rectitude and intransigence, of a vow elevated into insanity.

And this is how I have been seen. Perhaps how I am still seen. By Trull Sengar. By these Tiste Liosan. Thus. How, then, shall I feel? What am I supposed to feel? And when last did feelings even matter?

Trull Sengar spoke beside him. ‘Were you anyone else, I would hazard to read you as being thoughtful, Onrack.’ He was seated on a low wall, the box of Moranth munitions at his feet.

The Tiste Liosan had pitched a camp nearby, a picket line paced out and bulwarks of rubble constructed, three paces between each single-person tent, horses within a staked-out rope corral-in all, the precision and diligence verging on the obsessive.

‘Conversely,’ Trull continued after a moment, his eyes on the Liosan, ‘perhaps your kind are indeed great thinkers. Solvers of every vast mystery. Possessors of all the right answers… if only I could pose the right questions. Thankful as I am for your companionship, Onrack, I admit to finding you immensely frustrating.’

‘Frustrating. Yes. We are.’

‘And your companions intend to dismantle what’s left of you once we return to our home realm. If I was in your place, I’d be running for the horizon right now.’

‘Flee?’ Onrack considered the notion, then nodded. ‘Yes, this is what the renegades-those we hunt-did. And yes, now I understand them.’

‘They did more than simply flee,’ Trull said. ‘They found someone or something else to serve, to avow allegiance to… while at the moment, at least, that option is not available to you. Unless, of course, you choose those Liosan.’

‘Or you.’

Trull shot him a startled look, then grinned. ‘Amusing.’

‘Of course,’ Onrack added, ‘Monok Ochem would view such a thing as a crime, no different from that which has been committed by the renegades.’

The T’lan Imass had nearly completed their preparations. The bonecaster had inscribed a circle, twenty paces across, in the dried mud with a sharpened bhederin rib, then had scattered seeds and dust-clouds of spores within the ring. Ibra Gholan and his two warriors had raised the equivalent of a sighting stone-an elongated chunk of mortared fired bricks from a collapsed building wall-a dozen paces outside the circle, and were making constant adjustments beneath the confusing play of light from the two suns, under Monok Ochem’s directions.

‘That won’t be easy,’ Trull observed, watching the T’lan Imass shifting the upright stone, ‘so I suppose I can expect to keep my blood for a while longer.’

Onrack slowly swung his misshapen head to study the Tiste Edur. ‘It is you who should be fleeing, Trull Sengar.’

‘Your bonecaster explained that they needed only a drop or two.’

My bonecaster… No longer. ‘True, if all goes well.’

‘Why shouldn’t it?’

‘The Tiste Liosan. Kurald Thyrllan-this is the name they give their warren. Seneschal Jorrude is not a sorcerer. He is a warrior-priest.’

Trull frowned. ‘It is the same for the Tiste Edur, for my people, Onrack-’

‘And as such, the seneschal must kneel before his power. Whereas a sorcerer commands power. Your approach is fraught, Trull Sengar. You assume that a benign spirit gifts you that power. If that spirit is usurped, you may not even know it. And then, you become a victim, a tool, manipulated to serve unknown purposes.’

Onrack fell silent, and watched the Tiste Edur… as a deathly pallor stole the life from Trull’s eyes, as the expression became one of horrified revelation. And so I give answer to a question you were yet to ask. Alas, this does not make me all-knowing. ‘The spirit that grants the seneschal his power may be corrupted. There is no way to know… until it is unleashed. And even then, malign spirits are highly skilled at hiding. The one named Osseric is… lost. Osric, as humans know him. No, I do not know the source of Monok Ochem’s knowledge in this matter. Thus, the hand behind the seneschal’s power is probably not Osseric, but some other entity, hidden behind the guise and the name of Osseric. Yet these Tiste Liosan proceed unawares.’

It was clear that Trull Sengar was, for the moment, unable to offer comment, or pose questions, so Onrack simply continued-wondering at the sudden extinction of his own reticence-‘The seneschal spoke of their own hunt. In pursuit of trespassers who crossed through their fiery warren. But these trespassers are not the renegades we hunt. Kurald Thyrllan is not a sealed warren. Indeed, it lies close to our own Tellann-for Tellann draws from it. Fire is life and life is fire. Fire is the war against the cold, the slayer of ice. It is our salvation. Bonecasters have made use of Kurald Thyrllan. Probably, others have as well. That such incursions should prove cause for enmity among the Liosan was never considered. For it seemed there were no Tiste Liosan.

‘Monok Ochem considers this, now. He cannot help but consider this. Where are these Liosan from? How distant-how remote-their home? Why are they now awakened to resentment? What does the one hidden behind the guise of Osseric now seek? Where-’

‘Stop! Please, Onrack, stop! I need to think-I need-’ Trull rose suddenly, flinging a dismissive gesture at the T’lan Imass, then strode off.

‘I think,’ Onrack said quietly to himself as he watched the Tiste Edur storm away, ‘that I will revert to reticence.’

A small chunk of mortared brick had now been positioned in the centre of the ring; its top was being inscribed with slashes and grooves by the bonecaster, and Onrack realized that Monok Ochem had already discerned the celestial patterns of the two suns and the numerous moons that wheeled overhead.

Colours played constantly over this landscape in sullen blood hues, occasionally overwhelmed by deep blues that limned everything in a cold, almost metallic sheen. At the moment, magenta dominated, a lurid tone as of reflected conflagration. Yet the air remained still and damp, eternally pensive.

A world aswarm in shadows. The hounds that Onrack had inadvertently freed from their stone prisons had cast scores of them. The battered warrior wondered where the two beasts had gone. He was fairly certain that they were no longer in this realm, in this place known as the Nascent.

Shadow and spirit reunited… the beasts had possessed something… unusual. As if each was shaped of two distinct powers, two aspects chained together. Onrack had unleashed those hounds, yet, on second consideration, perhaps not freed them. Shadow from Dark. That which is cast… from that which has cast it. The warrior lowered his gaze to study his own multiple shadows. Was there tension between him and them? Clearly, there was a binding. But he was the master and they his slaves.

Or so it seemed… Silent kin of mine. You precede. You follow. You strive on my flanks. Huddle