House of Chains
‘True,’ the T’lan Imass replied. ‘We are a cold weather people. But this region exists within our memories. Before the Imass, there was another people, older, wilder. They dwelt where it was warm, and they were tall, their dark skins covered in fine hair. These we knew as the Eres. Enclaves survived into our time-the time captured within this warren.’
‘And they lived in jungles like this one?’
‘Its verges, occasionally, but more often the surrounding savannas. They worked in stone, but with less skill than us.’
‘Were there bonecasters among them?’
Monok Ochem answered from behind them. ‘All Eres were bone-casters, Trull Sengar. For they were the first to carry the spark of awareness, the first so gifted by the spirits.’
‘And are they now gone, Monok Ochem?’
‘They are.’
Onrack added nothing to that. After all, if Monok Ochem found reasons to deceive, Onrack could find none to contradict the bone-caster. It did not matter in any case. No Eres had ever been discovered in the Warren of Tellann.
After a moment, Trull Sengar asked, ‘Are we close, Onrack?’
‘We are.’
‘And will we then return to our own world?’
‘We shall. The First Throne lies at the base of a crevasse, beneath a city-’
‘The Tiste Edur,’ Monok Ochem cut in, ‘has no need for learning the name of that city, Onrack the Broken. He already knows too much of our people.’
‘What I know of you T’lan Imass hardly qualifies as secrets,’ Trull Sengar said. ‘You prefer killing to negotiation. You do not hesitate to murder gods when the opportunity arises. And you prefer to clean up your own messes-laudable, this last one. Unfortunately, this particular mess is too big, though I suspect you are still too proud to admit to that. As for your First Throne, I am not interested in discovering its precise location. Besides, I’m not likely to survive the clash with your renegade kin.’
‘That is true,’ Monok Ochem agreed.
The bonecaster said nothing.
There was no need to, Onrack reflected. But I shall defend him. Perhaps Monok and Ibra understand this, and so they will strike at me first. It is what I would do, were I in their place. Which, oddly enough, I am .
The trail opened suddenly into a clearing filled with bones. Countless beasts of the jungle and savanna had been dragged here by, Onrack surmised, leopards or hyenas. The longbones he noted were all gnawed and split open by powerful jaws. The air reeked of rotted flesh and flies swarmed in the thousands.
‘The Eres did not fashion holy sites of their own,’ Monok Ochem said, ‘but they understood that there were places where death gathered, where life was naught but memories, drifting lost and bemused. And, to such places, they would often bring their own dead. Power gathers in layers-this is the birthplace of the sacred.’
‘And so you have transformed it into a gate,’ Trull Sengar said.
‘Yes,’ the bonecaster replied.
‘You are too eager to credit the Imass, Monok Ochem,’ Onrack said. He faced the Tiste Edur. ‘Eres holy sites burned through the barriers of Tellann. They are too old to be resisted.’
‘You said their sanctity was born of death. Are they Hood’s, then?’
‘No. Hood did not exist when these were fashioned, Trull Sengar. Nor are they strictly death-aspected. Their power comes, as Monok Ochem said, from layers. Stone shaped into tools and weapons. Air shaped by throats. Minds that discovered, faint as flickering fires in the sky, the recognition of oblivion, of an end … to life, to love. Eyes that witnessed the struggle to survive, and saw with wonder its inevitable failure. To know and to understand that we must all die, Trull Sengar, is not to worship death. To know and to understand is itself magic, for it made us stand tall.’
‘It seems, then,’ Trull Sengar muttered, ‘that you Imass have broken the oldest laws of all, with your Vow.’
‘Neither Monok Ochem nor Ibra Gholan will speak in answer to that truth,’ Onrack said. ‘You are right, however. We are the first lawbreakers, and that we have survived this long is fit punishment. And so, it remains our hope that the Summoner will grant us absolution.’
‘Faith is a dangerous thing,’ Trull Sengar sighed. ‘Well, shall we make use of this gate?’
Monok Ochem gestured, and the scene around them blurred, the light fading.
A moment before the darkness became absolute, a faint shout from the Tiste Edur drew Onrack’s attention. The warrior turned, in time to see a figure standing a dozen paces away. Tall, lithely muscled, with a fine umber-hued pelt and long, shaggy hair reaching down past the shoulders. A woman. Her breasts were large and pendulous, her hips wide and full. Prominent, flaring cheekbones, a broad, full-lipped mouth. All this registered in an instant, even as the woman’s dark brown eyes, shadowed beneath a solid brow, scanned across the three T’lan Imass before fixing on Trull Sengar.