[cowl]

Abyss said:

One also wonders where this tendency of Meanas to enslave those who tried to control it came from, and how the Hounds ended up in the same boat, but obeying Shadowthrone, unlike Edgy who told him to bug right off.

I didn't think that Edgewalker and Shadowthrone had met. if they had the it would have been Kellanved nyway wouldn't it as he hadn't taken over then. maybe edgewalker has to obey shadowthrone now he's in charge of the realm.

[Set'alahd Crool]

Edgewalker. I seem to recall something about him. Some rumour.....
It's gone again.

@Cowl: They meet alright. I got the impression that Edgewalker is a slave TO shadow rather than being a slave IN shadow. He's not shadowkeep's fulltime buttler, subject to its ruler's whims. He walks the borders of Emurlahn. And if Jhedel can be believed he's a lot more than your average god. Or was, at least.

Scabby? Maybe. Maybe not. That's one of which we probably will learn the truth. Edgewalker's identity, if he's not Scabby, might well remain a mystery.

[Rel]

Hetan said:

revelation....

...the spicy smell of the Hounds...

That bit struck me as odd, actually. If it means what I think it means, then I'm surprised we haven't had a hint of it before.

[Abyss]

It's been implied, more than once, mostly in HoC, that the Hounds of Shadow were tied to Dessimbelackis, who was D'ivers, and who did have seven forms.

The theory that the Hounds are or once were some form of shapeshifter isn't TOO crazed.

- Abyss, some form of seatshifter.

[Iron Bars]

Wasn't it the Hounds of Darkness that had a link to Dessimbelackis? Anyway how does it tie in with NoK?

[cowl]

Iron Bars said:

Wasn't it the Hounds of Darkness that had a link to Dessimbelackis? Anyway how does it tie in with NoK?

i think their tying in the spicy smell of the Hounds in NoK with whats been said about soultaken in other books that when they change theres a a spicy smell. hinting that the hounds are soultaken

[Iron Bars]

Which part is this, I seem to have missed it. Probably the Rood vs Temper fight.

Time for a reread (already).

[Abyss]

Hmmm...

Dassem Ultor - First Sword, tasked with finding the enemy's champions and drawing them out in order to kill them and thus damage enemy moral and prompt Malazan victory.


Rhulad Sengar - Emporer, forced by the CG into finding enemy champions who might kill him so he can get stronger, come back and kill them and thus damage enem,y morale and prompt Edur victory.


Random coincidence? Deliberate parallel? Abyss is procrastinating real work too much? Discuss.

- Abyss, probably the last option.

[Hume]

Well I just finished it then.

Great Book overall, found it didnt really pick up till around half-way.
However House of chains I found to be a little condusing, GotM, DG, MoI and MT I didnt find confusing at all.
Night of Knives though, this for me was by far the most confusing one of all.

Loved Temper from the start, epecially his flashbacks to Y'Ghtatan and Dassems "death"


So just to add my two cents on some things floating around so far.

The whole Temper "Guardian" and Jhenna "Guardian" thing.
The way I saw it was that Dancer and Kellanved went through the back while their cultist friends out the front distracted the fiends. One of these fiends of course being a Jaghut. Those two blokes attacked Jhenna so she couldnt stop Dancer and Kellanved getting in really. Because of the "Shadow Night" it seems that Jhenna had an oppurtunity to escape the azath grounds when it got attacked. When the two blokes died (forgot their names) Temper had to stand in to stop her getting out.
Temper defeated her with the help of the Azath, Corrin and The Hunchback and the Azath grounds took her again into the ground.

So, the way I see it. Temper is a guard at Mocks hold, he is NOT a guardian of the deahouse or related to or needed by it in ANY manner at all, once he defeated Jhenna his role was finished. Jhenna was a PRISONER of the deadhosue and wanted to leave, she however was also an unwitting and unwanting defacto guardian. Gothos on the other hand was a prisoner but he accepted that fact while Jhenna didnt and Gothos in effect was more of a guardian than Jhenna ever was. The way I saw it he guarded the house when it was in REAL trouble (like the odanhouse style trouble in DG).
So, Gothos was always there as an accepted Guardian while Jhenna didnt like being there.

The stormriders, woah that was a bit off-center having some new and all powerful force being introduced again for me. Didnt mind it too much though, loved that bit at the end with what the stormrider says.

Dassem, Top Bloke as well, agree with Hetan there, he is definately one of the coolest of the old guard probly second after whiskeyjack at this stage. Hope to see him again soon, I think we will. The book also shows how Good Dassem really is as well as Skinner, also gotta think that Whiskeyjack could fight Dassem for a while until Dassem would win, makes you think how good Whiskey must have been as well. (Whiskey = Iron Bars Level of skill?)
One thing this didnt clarify, which I wanted it too.
When exactly did Dassem Ascend ?
Was it a Coltaine sort of thing where as over time due his awesome sword powers and tactical prowess he ascended sort off. As we see no magical ability or hear from it at all. We only get a strong Hint of power from Apsalar that Dassem has in HoC, he also kicked some edur arse as well.
Did he ascend when he 'died' ?
Did hood have a hand in it ? clearly having a Patron was a popular thing in the early days of the empire and Dassem chose hood until hood took his daughter obviously. There is also the quite (forgot who said it) "Dassem's power had grown to Rival Hoods own".
Hmm Food for thought ? when was ascension for him or was it a event over time for him ?

Kiska took a little bit to grow on me, like her though a lot towards the end.

Best character probly Temper, Though I doubt we'll see him again.


I think it'll be either Kiska or Ferulle that we see in Bonehunters.

[Folken]

On temper...yes we will. Steven Erikson said he loved Temper and would use him soon. I think in BH, iirc.

[Hume]

^^
Really ?

Where did he say that ?

at the KeyCon thing ?

[Abyss]

I had thought someone, possibly Patch, had mentioned that NoK was the only place to meet a character who appears in BH, but not necessarily that it was a viewpoint character. Since new viewpoint characters amount to Temper, Kiska and briefly her Aunt, it could go any which way.

Kiska's fun, but with Apsalar and presumably Felisin Younger and that female soldier from Fiddler's platoon who liked knives, in BH, we've got our quota of young rebellious female characters. Since one can never have enough grizzled veterans, and BH is supposed to tie to Yghatan, where Temper's some of flashbacks occured, I'd go with Temper, who WAS a great character.

Relatedly, I understood that when he accepted the Guardianship of the Deadhouse, it wasn't a one-time deal.

- Abyss, has zero problem with abundant young rebellious females with knives.

[Folken]

Yeah that thing Patch said coupled with how much Erikson loved the character of Temper, it just seems logical thats the character Patch was refering to. But then again what do we know.

[Tenaka Khan]

It was an interesting read, even though I could only really enjoy it the second time through, during the first read it was a bit too confusing. I loved the fact that we learn more about the First Sword, Dassem and Dacer and Kellanved himself. It was also great to get to know Tayschrenn a bit more. I really start to like him as a character and look forward to see more of him. And darn, he's gotta be powerful (Stormriders).

One thing struck me when I read it the second time. Tayschrenn says something along the line of "Reminds me of the Emperor at his most brutal" when he sees the stormfront created by the Stormriders. That made me think about how powerful a mage Kellanved actually was even before he ascended. There has been a discussion going on in another thread about how powerful Tays actually is, and there are also some hints in NoK that he is one of the most powerful human mages around. So I think Kellanved might well have been even more powerful as Tays whe still being a 'normal' human. Now that he's ascended, I guess his power (in terms of unleashing of sorceries) has to be huge. In the 'regular' series, Shadowthrone only played a minor part (in terms of 'screentime') up to now, and that led me to underestimate his might. I guess I am not alone in that. Got my fingers crossed that we'll see lots more of him, and of course Cotillion in the next books

There is one thing bugging me however. Why did Dancer and the Emperor have to creat the whole diversion with the Shadow Cult and so on to get into the Deadhouse? They were 'chosen' by it before and could enter it without all the drama. Perhaps they just wanted to play it safe, who knows...

My bet for the character in BH would also be Temper, even though I wonder what became of Kiska.


Thank you ICE for a thrilling look behind the scenes, I am looking forward to more spin offs

[vaiski]

About Kellanved's power..

Hetan said:

When Kellanved arrived in the Mock's Hold just prior to Surly's attack.. An overpowering sensation of pressure bore down upon her like an invisible hand. She senses something enormous nearby, silent in the dark.....A gravid deadly presence too huge to grant her notice. She glanced at Tayschrenn and saw him grimace........ A droplet of blood fell from his nose.

This sounds remarkably like the scene in GotM when Rake arrives in Baruk's house.

[Tenaka Khan]

Thanks for digging that out Vaiski, was too lazy to go through all the pages That quotation makes it even more obvious how powerful Kellanved must have been. We know that the Deadhouse granted the Old Guard an unusually long life span. I wonder if the Emperors stay in it prior to his ascension also had a positive effect on his abilities as a mage.

[Dave]

This was a great read, but there's something that I don't think has been touched on here that I wanted to get people's opinions on.

At one stage Edgewalker says he can't concentrate on the obvious threat to the Shadow realm because of the ice - which were the storm riders. Agayla says the storm riders are attacking because Surly's purge of mages has left the island's defences weakened.

Is Surly actually working with Kellanved? Did she execute the purge due to orders, or a plan, of Kellanved's so that the Shadow Realm/Deadhouse (I'm not sure how the two of them are connected really) would be left relatively unguarded at the crucial moment?

Despite the apparently obvious animosity toward Laseen from Shadowthrone and Cotillion in GOTM, this just seems like too much of a coincidence. Mind you, they've certainly killed a lot of underlings to disguise their collusion if this is the case, which begs the question who they're trying to hide their cooperation from and why. Not that I have any definite answers at this point, I'm just curious as to what others think.

Actually, I have a bit of a theory. The Deadhouse provides a gate to the Shadow realm only during a Shadow Moon; which explains why despite the fact Kellanved and company had gained entrance to the DH previously, they needed to do so again on that night. The storm riders also need access not just to te DH, but the Shadow Realm as well, but have previously never attacked due to the wealth of mages on Malaz island. Surly directs the purge under orders from Kellanved, so that, on the next Shadow Moon, the riders will attack and distract Edgewalker. They agree, however, to pretend to enmity so as to keep their collusion hidden from the Nameless Ones. Maybe they know, or suspect, that Tay is an agent of the Nameless Ones, so they need a convincing battle. The biggest problem with this is what Surly would have done/said if Kell. and Dancer had failed to ascend. Just some ideas.

[Abyss]

The way i figure it, Kellanved needed to appear to die in order to take over Meanas, either to ascend to Shadowthrone, or to ensure other powers didn't associate his mortal empire with the High House and Shadow warren.

And he knew that given the oportunity to take over the Empire, Surly would attempt to kill him.

And to use the Deadhouse to access Meanas, he needed to enter it during the Shadowmoon.

So he made sure Surly knew when he would return, and gave her plenty of time to plan for it, while he was off searching out other Thrones. Meanwhile, he got all his other pawns in place, such as the cultists.

I like the notion that Kell also deliberately got Surly to weaken the Island's defences so the Stormriders would make a play and further weaken both the Deadhouse and Meanas' defences. We can only assume he knew other powers would ensure the island wasn't taken over by the Riders in turn.

- Abyss, wants to be Kellanved when I grows up.