A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

if there was justice in the world.'
    Paran faced the darkness. 'And is there?'
    'You ask that of a Jaghut? Now, do we stand here for ever?'
    'All right, all right,' the captain sighed. 'Pick any direction?'
    Raest shrugged. 'They are all one to me.'
    Grinning in spite of himself, Paran strode forward. Then he paused and half turned. 'Raest, you said the Azath has need for a Master of the Deck. Why? What's happened?'
    The Jaghut bared his tusks. 'A war has begun.'
    Paran fought back a sudden shiver. 'A war? Involving the Houses of the Azath?'
    'No entity will be spared, mortal. Not the Houses, not the gods. Not you, human, nor a single one of your short-lived, insignificant comrades.'
    Paran grimaced. 'I've enough wars to deal with as it is, Raest.'
    'They are all one.'
    'I don't want to think about any of this.'
    'Then don't.'
    After a moment, Paran realized his glare was wasted on the Jaghut. He swung about and resumed his journey. With his third step his boot struck flagstone instead of root, and the darkness around him dissolved, revealing, in a faint, dull yellow light, a vast concourse. Its edges, visible a hundred paces or more in every direction, seemed to drift back into gloom. Of Raest and the wooden stairs there was no sign. Paran's attention was drawn to the flagstones beneath him.
    Carved into their bleached surfaces were cards of the Deck of Dragons. No, more than just the Deck of Dragons – there's cards here I don't recognize. Lost Houses, and countless forgotten Unaligned. Houses, and ... The captain stepped forward, crouched down to study one image. As he focused his attention on it the world around him faded, and he felt himself moving into the carved scene.
    A chill wind slid across his face, the air smelling of mud and wet fur. He could feel the earth beneath his boots, chill and yielding. Somewhere in the distance crows cackled. The strange hut he had seen in the carving now stood before him, long and humped, the huge bones and long tusks comprising its framework visible between gaps in the thick, umber fur-skins clothing it. Houses . . . and Holds, the first efforts at building. People once dwelt within such structures, like living inside the rib-cage of a dragon. Gods, those tusks are huge – whatever beast these bones came from must have been massive . . .
    I can travel at will, it seems. Into each and every card, of every Deck that ever existed. Amidst the surge of wonder and excitement he felt ran an undercurrent of terror. The Deck possessed a host of unpleasant places.
    And this one?
    A small stone-lined hearth smouldered before the hut's entrance. Wreathed in the smoke was a rack made of branches, on which hung strips of meat. The clearing, Paran now saw, was ringed with weathered skulls – doubtless from the beasts whose bones formed the framework of the hut itself. The skulls faced inward, and he could see by the long, yellowed molars in the jaws that the animals had been eaters of plants, not flesh.
    Paran approached the hut's entrance. The skulls of carnivores hung down from the doorway's ivory frame, forcing him to duck as he entered.
    Swiftly abandoned, from the looks of it. As if the dwellers just left but moments ago ... At the far end sat twin thrones, squat and robust, made entirely of bones, on a raised dais of ochre-stained human skulls – well, close enough to human in any case. More like T'lan Imass...
    Knowledge blossomed in his mind. He knew the name of this place, knew it deep in his soul. The Hold of the Beasts . . . long before the First Throne . . . this was the heart of the T'lan Imass's power – their spirit world, when they were still flesh and blood, when they still possessed spirits to be worshipped and revered. Long before they initiated the Ritual of Tellann . . . and so came to outlast their own pantheon ...
    A realm, then, abandoned. Lost to its makers. What then, is the Warren of Tellann that the T'lan Imass now use? Ah, that warren must have been born from the Ritual itself, a physical manifestation of their Vow of Immortality, perhaps. Aspected, not of life, nor even death. Aspected . . . of dust.
    He stood unmoving for a time, struggling to comprehend the seemingly depthless layers of tragedy that were the burden of the T'lan Imass.
    Oh my, they've outlasted their own gods. They exist in a world of dust in truth – memories untethered, an eternal existence ... no end in sight. Sorrow flooded him in a profound, heart-rending wave. Beru fend . . . so