Posted 03 December 2014 - 10:46 AM
As we can learn from MoI and TtH, among others, Darkness and Chaos are two opposing forces and have been 'warring' for ages. Draconus told Ganoes Paran in MoI that he thought he could protect the Gate of Darkness (which is the essence of Kurald Galain, the hold of Darkness) from Chaos by sealing it within its own warren (Dragnipur). This would also lure Chaos in an endless pursuit of the Gate, meaning it could not wreck havok anywhere else. So the sword was both a protection of the Gate and a trap for Chaos, deviced by Draconus.
However, in order to keep the Gate away from the forces of Chaos, the warren needed continuous input of power, i.e. strong beings to lend their aid to the evasion of Chaos. Also, each of these strong beings claimed by Dragnipur would consequently not be able to be claimed by Chaos, so it worked two ways.
(Draconus in MoI: "Darkness has ever warred against Chaos, mortal. Ever retreated. And each time that Mother Dark relented – to the Coming of Light, to the Birth of Shadow – her power has diminished, the imbalance growing more profound. Such was the state of the realms around me in those early times. A growing imbalance. Until Chaos approached the very Gate to Kurald Galain itself. A defence needed to be fashioned. Souls were . . . required...Chaos hungers for the power in those souls – for what Dragnipur has claimed. To feed on such power will make it stronger – tenfold. A hundredfold. Sufficient to breach the Gate.")
Rake figured out that this endless fight/flight was doomed to failure and that the price of Dragnipur's continued existence was too high, so he sought an alternative: to restore the Gate of Darkness to the Tiste Andii and reconcile with Mother Dark. In order to achieve this he made a deal with Hood and some others. Hood would enter Dragnipur as God of Death, meaning that he could take the armies of the dead with him in a fight to halt Chaos (temporarily) and deal it a hefty blow. This both weakens Chaos and gives Rake time to enter Dragnipur himself, where he sacrifices himself (Anomander Rake, still standing, head tilted back, arms raised, began to dissolve, shred away, as the Gate took hold of him, as it fed upon him, upon the Son of Darkness. [...] The man that had been Anomander Rake was scattered into the realm of Kurald Galain, on to its own long-sealed path that might - just might - lead to the very feet of Mother Dark) to the Gate in order to return it and Mother Dark to Black Coral.
Yesterday, upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. Oh, how I wish he'd go away.