[SiriusL]

Even after a reread or two, I'm still confused about some stuff in HoC. I think some of it will be answered in later books, but I'll shoot for an answer here.

First, Kurald Emurlahn. I don't have a page number, but right before Kamist Reloe's assassins leave to find the Whirlwind Goddess, Febryl says that the the Soletaken Ritual of the First Human Empire was responsible for the fracturing of KE. Why would this be? I certainly want to know more about the ritual, but I hadn't noticed this statement until a reread last night.

Second, the Deragoth. I had thought that it went down as follows.
a) Paran frees the two Hounds of Shadow from the sword, and they jump through the gate to Kurald Galain.
Onrack coincidentally frees two Hounds of Darkness from Kurald Emerlahn.
c) Two Deragoth coinidentally show up at Raraku.

When the two Hounds of Shadow leapt into KG, I think they ceased becoming reflections, and merged with their original source (Deragoth). There seems to be a theme that KE is some kind of derivative of the interaction between KG and KT (light + dark = shadow?). But why would the Shadow Hounds be thus bound in KE? Onrack or Trull mention that creating a physical likeness of a god renders it powerless, or something like that. Who imprisoned the Deragoth by creating the giant statues?

I sense a major point here, but I can't get my head around it.

If the fracturing of KE was caused by the Soletaken Ritual, and Dissembelackis had a pact with the Deragoth, this might all be related. Perhaps the T'lan Imass didn't just slaughter the First Empire, but also conquered the Deragoth by freezing them in a fragment of KE. But then where did the Hounds of Shadow come from? Does freezing an elder being in a derivative warren automatically create a weaker reflection of the being?

Finally, if an Azath House appeared in Darujhistan to counter Raest, why the hell didn't one appear to counter the massive power convergence that arose in Raraku at the end of HoC? Maybe there was so much conflicting power that the Azath (whomever they are) just knew that things would cancel out. How far from the heart of Raraku is Tremorlor, anyway?

Argh. No, I'm not using any drugs or alcohol right now.

[Spindrift]

it's unclear (from what i remember) exactly how and when KE was broken. it seems to have been a long process, with it gradually being weakened and abused and then fractured and then torn apart completely. Theres a number of events that seem to have contributed to the destruction of KE.


I'm not sure about the hounds, i sense something significant too but i have no idea what.

[Varunwe]

I thought KE was already shattered for a long time before the First Human Empire, and the Soletaken just tore apart one of those shattered bits.

[GardenGnome]

If I got the timeline right, KE shattered before the First Empire - but then again, SE was never any good on timelines...

Anyway, it could be that Febryl is merely wrong. That seems to fit best with what we know later, though I won't go into that here. Or the First Empire ritual just coincided with the shattering, but wasn't the reason for the shattering - but some mages/scholars wrongly think there was some connection.

[Dolorous Menhir]

I think it's a safe bet that the Sundering of the MT prologue (at Scabby's hand) occurred a long long time before the end of the First Human Empire.

A further link between the Soletaken and KE:

when Icarium and Mappo were in Pust's temple in DG, they found a room linked to a warren that Icarium could not name. He thought it was Elder, but the only "Kurald" he knew of was Galain. I think it was Emurlahn that they sensed there, and we did later find out that the Path of Hands actually culminated in that temple, though I'm not sure if it was that particular room.

[SiriusL]

Let me ask this, then. Is there anything in MT or BH (on which I plan to have my hands by the end of the year) that reveals more about the relationship between the Deragoth and KE, or about how creating a likeness of a being allows you to imprison and/or control that being?

I just had a thought that might be a little wild. I still don't quite understand the relationships between all the Kurald warrens, but it seems like Kurald Galain is sort of a basis from which all the others arose. It seems like the Deragoth are completely uncontrollable, unlike their Shadow counterparts. Is it possible that KE represents a derivation of KG that allows other beings to control aspects of it? By imprisoning the Deragoth in KE, other beings were able to gain some control of their weaker reflections.

It's sort of like how otataral can't deaden Elder magic, but does work on the derivative warrens accessible to humans.

I don't know. I'm probably barking up a tree that doesn't exist.

**Edit**
Spelling

[Dolorous Menhir]

I don't have an explanation for you SiriusL, but I wanted to note that, as you say, Kurald Emurlahn users have displayed extra powers of control that other warrens do not appear to provide - most notably on the Silanda, with the souls bound to the dismembered bodies.

[Dark Mac]

SiriusL;144344 said:

It seems like the Deragoth are completely uncontrollable, unlike their Shadow counterparts.

I don't know about that. It's implied quite strongly that Dessimbelackis actually did have control over the Deragoth.

[Dolorous Menhir]

And there appears to have been another Master of the Deragoth too, since Dessimbelackis presumably wasn't in command of them when Dejim Nebrahl was imprisoned post-First Empire meltdown.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Oh, I did it again. Sorry, I was just replying to the earlier message. And I was being so careful.

[SiriusL]

I don't mind, since I have no idea who or what that meant. If nothing else constructive can be added without spoilers, I say move it. If I feel brave, I'll wander over and read up.

[Keruli]

Both MT and TBH tells you more of these subjects. The Midnight Tides prologue (If you haven't read it already is available online for free) adds another piece of the puzzle of the sundering of Emurlahn. And there is more on the Deragoth in The Bonehunters.

I don't think that about likeness imprisons was mentioned. And I can't say I can recall another referens to that statement or something else happening to that effect. Unless... those "faces in the wall" back at Karsa's village. They were imprisoned. Can't recall if we ever learned how that came to be though.

As for Dessimbelackis and the Hounds I'm still somewhat confused as to their relationship. Same goes for the relationship between the Hounds of Shadow and the Deragoth, especially since I think SE said in an interview or something that there are no Hounds of Light. And everything suggests that the Deragoth are indominable and not tied to the strings of Galain as the Hounds of Shadow are tied to the Masters of Emurlahn.

I've long had the belief that it went,
1. Paran frees the Hounds of Shadow into the Gate to Galain.
2. They're enfolded in the Deragoth and stuck in the statues found by Onrack and Trull.
3. They're freed from there by the shattering of said statues.

Now I'm not sure.
What exaclty does Onrack say about those statues, didn't he believe that they were made by Trull's people? Trull said didn't think it was his people. But what if Onrack was close in his first guess, that maybe the statues were made by Tiste, but not Edur. Maybe the Andii made the statues to contain the Deragoth. I'm tempted to say more, but it might be spoilerish.

[SiriusL]

Keruli said:

Now I'm not sure.
What exaclty does Onrack say about those statues, didn't he believe that they were made by Trull's people? Trull said didn't think it was his people. But what if Onrack was close in his first guess, that maybe the statues were made by Tiste, but not Edur. Maybe the Andii made the statues to contain the Deragoth. I'm tempted to say more, but it might be spoilerish.

I just reread this section last night.

I think he asked Trull if his people made them, and Trull said that he didn't believe so. They have a philosophical discussion about how people create their gods by applying structure to power . Onrack goes on to say that Mother Dark tore the Edur free from the Andii, and Trull implies that the Hounds of Shadow were similarly torn free from the Hounds of Darkness. The Hounds of Shadow cast no shadows, but the Deragoth cast many. (?)

And here's the really interesting part. Trull guides Onrack to the conclusion that the Deragoth are actually the D'ivers form of Dissembelackis. Interesting that Osric mentions Diss's "pact" with the Deragoth, and that the seven Hounds were the original basis for the 7C. No mention of D'ivers. Does the Soletaken/D'ivers ritual involve some kind of agreement between a human/Imass and one or a group of animals? That has its own echoes of placing structure upon chaotic power in order to control it.

Trull definitely knows more about this whole thing than he's letting on.

As for Hounds of Light--that kind of makes sense. Right around the same time in the books, the Tiste Liosan show up. They make a big deal of the fact that the Tiste Andii have none of the blood of Father Light, while the Edur do. So, the Hounds of Shadow were created from the interaction of Father Light with the Deragoth. Light creates shadow, and Mother Dark tore the Shadows free. I'm not sure how the Tiste Liosan came to be, but I don't see any reason for there to be Hounds of Light.

[Dragnipur]

@Keruli - The faces in the wall in Karsas' village were actually renegade T'lan Imass, not gods. They just posed as them.

@SiriusL - I'm just making an assumption here but, wouldn't it be entirely plausable that the Tiste Liosan are the creation of Father Light. As the Andii are to Mother Dark.

[SiriusL]

Dragnipur;145159 said:

@SiriusL - I'm just making an assumption here but, wouldn't it be entirely plausable that the Tiste Liosan are the creation of Father Light. As the Andii are to Mother Dark.

Well, it certainly seems plausible. I was always under the impression that all the Tiste are solely children of Mother Dark, but I don't see what that would exclude Father Light.

[Illuyankas]

MD made... stuff, and then the Andii, FL made the Liosan afterwards on his own, and then they made the Edur together.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Hence the civil wars of the Tiste - not everyone was happy at MD hooking up with FL.

Rake certainly wasnt, but Ruin seems to have gotten over it.

[SiriusL]

In another part of the book, Heboric and Bidithal are "talking," and Bidithal mentions that Shadowthrone is a usurper. He says something like, "the warren was once ruled by...No. Not for you."

I'm trying to piece this together with the information about KE that we also learn in the book.

Meanas is an offshoot of KE, right? Is Bidithal talking about the Edur, or about those mysterious people that were washed away by the flood in KE, or neither?

[SiriusL]

What's one more reply to this thread, in the grand scheme of things?


I recently reread the part where Kalam runs into the ghosts of the old First Empire soldiers, and Tanno, the original Spiritwalker (apparently). Tanno talks about how he was a renegade because of his alliance with the Nameless Ones. He asks Kalam if Kalam predicted "what Dessimbelackis would do," I believe in terms of the Deragoth. That is, Diss/Dess/whatever made his "pact" with the Deragoth, apparently to make them the Seven Holy Protectors.

What I found most interesting about this was that the soldiers said that they had killed or destroyed or defeated five of the seven protectors, and banished two others from the realm. Two Deragoth banished? Seems too obvious to be concidental with the appearance of the two Deragoth that Onrack freed.

What I don't understand: who was the mage that summoned them while Kalam watched? And why?