House of Chains

Anarmann,

High Priest of Osserc

‘MEZLA ONE AND ALL,’ FEBRYL MUTTERED AS HE HOBBLED along the worn, dusty path, his breath growing harsher. There was little in this world that much pleased him any more. Malazans. His failing body. The blind insanity of power so brutally evinced in the Whirlwind Goddess. In his mind, the world was plunging into chaos, and all that it had been-all that he had been-was trapped in the past.

But the past was not dead. It merely slept. The perfect, measured resurrection of old patterns could achieve a rebirth. Not a rebirth such as had taken Sha’ik-that had been nothing more than the discarding of one, badly worn vessel for a new one not nearly so battered. No, the rebirth Febryl imagined was far more profound.

He had once served the Holy Falah’d Enqura. The Holy City of Ugarat and its host of tributary cities had been in the midst of a renaissance. Eleven great schools of learning were thriving in Ugarat. Knowledge long lost was being rediscovered. The flower of a great civilization had turned to face the sun, had begun to open.

The Mezla and their implacable legions had destroyed… everything. Ugarat had fallen to Dassem Ultor. The schools were assailed by soldiers, only to discover, to their fury, that their many riches and texts had, along with philosophers and academics, vanished. Enqura had well understood the Mezla thirst for knowledge, the Emperor’s lust for foreign secrets, and the city’s Holy Protector would give them nothing. Instead, he had commanded Febryl, a week before the arrival of the Malazan armies, to shut down the schools, to confiscate the hundred thousand scrolls and bound volumes, the ancient relics of the First Empire, and the teachers and scholars themselves. By the Protector’s decree, Ugarat’s coliseum became the site of a vast conflagration, as everything was burned, destroyed. The scholars were crucified-those that did not fling themselves on the pyre in a fit of madness and grief-and their bodies dumped into the pits containing the smashed relics just outside the city wall.

Febryl had done as he had been commanded. His last gesture of loyalty, of pure, unsullied courage. The terrible act was necessary. Enqura’s denial was perhaps the greatest defiance in the entire war. One for which the Holy Protector paid with his life, when the horror that was said to have struck Dassem Ultor upon hearing of the deed transformed into rage.

Febryl’s loss of faith had come in the interval, and it had left him a broken man. In following Enqura’s commands, he had so outraged his mother and father-both learned nobles in their own right-that they had disowned him to his face. And Febryl had lost his mind that night, recovering his sanity with dawn staining the horizon, to find that he had murdered his parents. And their servants. That he had unleashed sorcery to flay the flesh from the guards. That such power had poured through him as to leave him old beyond his years, wrinkled and withered, his bones brittle and bent.

The old man hobbling out through the city gate that day was beneath notice. Enqura searched for him, but Febryl succeeded in evading the Holy Protector, in leaving the man to his fate.

Unforgivable.

A hard word, a truth harder than stone. But Febryl was never able to decide to which crime it applied. Three betrayals, or two? Was the destruction of all that knowledge-the slaying of all those scholars and teachers-was it, as the Mezla and other Falad’han later pronounced-the foulest deed of all? Fouler even than the T’lan Imass rising to slaughter the citizens of Aren? So much so that Enqura’s name has become a curse for Mezla and natives of Seven Cities alike? Three, not two?

And the bitch knew. She knew his every secret. It had not been enough to change his name; not enough that he had the appearance of an old man, when the High Mage Iltara, most trusted servant to Enqura, had been young, tall and lusted after by both men and women? No, she had obliterated, seemingly effortlessly, his every barricade, and plundered the pits of his soul.

Unforgivable.

No possessor of his secrets could be permitted to live. He refused to be so… vulnerable. To anyone. Even Sha’ik. Especially Sha’ik.

And so she must be removed. Even if it means dealing with Mezla. He had no illusions about Korbolo Dom. The Napan’s ambitions-no matter what claims he made at present-went far beyond this rebellion. No, his ambitions were imperial. Somewhere to the south, Mallick Rel, the Jhistal priest of Elder Mael, was trekking towards Aren, there to surrender himself. He would, in turn, be brought before the Empress herself.

And then what? That snake of a priest would announce an extraordinary reversal of fortunes in Seven Cities. Korbolo Dom had been working in her interests all along. Or some such nonsense. Febryl was certain of his suspicions. Korbolo Dom wanted a triumphant return into the imperial fold. Probably the title of High Fist of Seven Cities as well. Mallick Rel would have twisted his part in the events at the Fall and immediately afterwards. The dead man, Pormqual, would be made the singular focus for the debacle of Coltaine’s death and the slaying of the High Fist’s army. The Jhistal would slip through, somehow, or, if all went awry, he would somehow manage to escape. Korbolo Dom, Febryl believed, had agents in the palace in Unta-what was being played out here in Raraku was but a tremble on a much vaster web.

But I shall defeat it in the end. Even if I must appear to acquiesce right now. He has accepted my conditions, after all-a lie, of course-and I in turn accept his-another lie, naturally.

He had walked through the outskirts of the city and now found himself in the wilder region of the oasis. The trail had the appearance of long disuse, covered in crackling, dried palm fronds and gourd husks, and Febryl knew his careless passage was destroying that illusion, but he was indifferent to that. Korbolo’s killers would repair the mess, after all. It fed their self-deceptions well enough.

He rounded a bend in the path and entered a clearing ringed in low stones. There had once been a well here, but the sands had long since filled it. Kamist Reloe stood near the centre, hooded and vulpine, with four of Korbolo’s assassins positioned in a half-circle behind him.

‘You’re late,’ Kamist Reloe hissed.

Febryl shrugged. ‘Do I look like a prancing foal? Now, have you begun the preparations?’

‘The knowledge here is yours, Febryl, not mine.’

Febryl hissed, then waved one claw-like hand. ‘No matter. There’s still time. Your words only remind me that I must suffer fools-’

‘You’re not alone in that,’ Kamist Reloe drawled.

Febryl hobbled forward. ‘The path your… servants would take is a long one. It has not been trod by mortals since the First Empire. It has likely grown treacherous-’

‘Enough warnings, Febryl,’ Kamist Reloe snapped, his fear showing through. ‘You need only open the path. That is all we ask of you-all we have ever asked.’

‘You need more than that, Kamist Reloe,’ Febryl said with a smile. ‘Would you have these fools stride in blind? The goddess was a spirit, once-’

‘That is no secret.’

‘Perhaps, but what kind of spirit? One that rides the desert winds, you might think. But you are wrong. A spirit of stone? Sand? No, none of these.’ He waved one hand. ‘Look about you. Raraku holds the bones of countless civilizations, leading back to the First Empire, the empire of Dessimbelackis. And still further-aye, the signs of that are mostly obliterated, yet some remain, if one has the eyes to see… and understand.’ He limped over to one of the low stones ringing the clearing, struggling to hide the wince of pain from his overworked bones. ‘Were you to dig down through this sand, Kamist Reloe, you would discover that these boulders are in fact menhirs, stones standing taller than any of us here. And their flanks are pitted and grooved in strange patterns…’

Kamist swung in a slow circle, studying the protruding rocks with narrowed eyes. ‘T’lan Imass?’

Febryl nodded. ‘The First Empire of Dessimbelackis, Kamist Reloe, was not the first. That belonged to the T’lan Imass. There was little, it is true, that you or I might recognize as being… imperial. No cities. No breaking of the ground to plant crops or irrigate. And its armies were undead. There was a throne, of course, upon which was meant to sit a mortal-the progeny race of the T’lan Imass. A human. Alas, humans viewed empire… differently. And their vision did not include T’lan Imass. Thus, betrayal. Then war. An unequal contest, but the T’lan Imass were reluctant to annihilate their mortal children. And so they left-’

‘Only to return with the shattering of the warren,’ Kamist Reloe muttered, nodding. ‘When the chaos erupted with the ritual of Soletaken and D’ivers.’ He faced Febryl once more. ‘The goddess spirit is… was… T’lan