The Malazan Fallen discussion

Chapter Five discussion thread.

Oh snap, in before David Sven!

Karsa with a spyglass... lol.

The Pearl/Kalam situation could become very interesting.

Return of Paran - I'm not sure if the clues have been there about what threats he's answering and his route to Seven Cities then Quon Tali (and how Apsalar puts it together herself). I'll await David's and others' posts to see if anyone else has put it together or if it is just an unknown at this time.

So far, enjoying this one definitely.

Samar autopsies the body of the K’Chain Chemalle that Karsa killed. What looks like an infestation of worms inside turns out to be nanotech – well...not quite nano but machines anyway.

Not a worm. Hundreds of legs, strangely finned, and, even more surprising, the creatures were mechanisms. Not living at all, the metal of their bodies somehow impervious to the acids. ..
...An infestation? She did not think so. No, there were many creatures that worked in concert. The pond of stomach acid had been home to these mechanisms, and they in turn worked in some fashion to the demon’s benefit.

Karsa decides he’s off to a place called Sepik. Samar will accompany him, but not before breaking one of her own rules. The one about not binding spirits in case you become bound in turn. She invests one of her knives...

‘Ah,’ she whispered, ‘I see no choice in the matter. None at all ...’ She drew out a belt-knife, spat on the blade, then began waving the iron through the flame of each candle.
The spirits howled in her mind, outraged at this unexpected, brutal imprisonment. She nodded. ‘Yes, we mortals are cruel ...’

I’m not sure what she’s planning to do with the knife. She has some sense of Karsa’s formidability so maybe it’s for him?

And we find out what Quick Ben and Kalam and squad came across in the Imperial warren. An Armada of Sky Keeps.

‘There were ... Moon’s Spawns in the Imperial Warren. Ten, twelve came into sight before we retreated...’
... ‘And who might they be?’ Tavore asked.
‘K’Chain Che’Malle, Adjunct. Long-Tails or Short-Tails. Or both.’

It’s like a full on alien invasion. Quick Ben also surmises

‘Now, there is no known warren attributed to the K’Chain Che’Malle, but that does not mean one never existed.’
‘You believe the Imperial Warren was originally the K’Chain Che’Malle warren?’


Now that’s different to what we’ve already heard. According to Night Chill in MOI – the Imperial warren used to be Kallor’s realm. And we do get an omniscient POV that states in MOI

They left Kallor upon his throne, upon its heap of bones. They merged their power to draw chains around a continent of slaughter, then pulled it into a warren created for that sole purpose, leaving the land itself bared. To heal.

So this would seem to cast doubt on Quick’s surmising – but maybe not. Perhaps the warren was originally K’Chain Chemalle? Though it sounds like the warren was made specifically for Kallor’s realm. – Or maybe the Kchain made use of it afterwards? Or maybe the warren became a dumping ground and incorporated the Kchain warren? I can’t remember.


Either way, Tavore wants Quick and Kalam to play Men in Black and follow the Sky Keeps to keep an eye on things.

Quick thinks she’s just trying to get rid of them because of their ties to Dujek. She has knocked back all of Dujeks’s offers of help bar a few replacements.

Had it been just a matter of pride, sending the wizard away? The meetings with Dujek Onearm had been strained. Tavore’s refusal of assistance beyond a contingent of replacements from Quon Tali made little sense.


Anyway, Quick’s plan is to infiltrate the mothership

‘Anyway,’ Quick Ben said, ‘you and me and Gesler have to come up with a way to hitch a ride on one of those fortresses.’
Kalam turned his head. Stared at his friend. ‘That wasn’t a joke, was it?’
‘I’m afraid not.’

And we are introduced to a newly arrived Captain, Faradan Sort. She makes a rather rude entry by crushing Joyful Union under her heel. Bottle is not happy

‘ ‘Soldier,’ the voice was a woman’s, the accent Korelri, ‘which squad is this?’
Bottle’s mouth opened and closed a few times, then he said in a low tone, ‘This is the squad that will start making plans to kill you, once they find out what you’ve just done.’
.

The troops, especially Bottle, were rather attached to the scorpion. I like Bottle’s salute

‘You want a salute, Captain? Which one? I have plenty of salutes to choose from. Any preference?’
‘The salute that tells me you have just become aware of the precipice I am about to kick your ass over. After I shove the sack of bricks up it, of course.’
Oh. ‘Standard salute, then. Of course, Captain.’

I think Bottle would rather have given her the one finger salute. Instead he provides the Captain with his name as

‘We will try that again later, soldier. Your name?’
‘Uh, Smiles, sir.’
‘Well, I doubt I will see many of those on your ugly face, will I?’

And the Captain orders Fiddler to make life tough for Smiles by giving her a double load to carry. At least Bottle has a bit of a conscience though and offers to help out

‘We got to stick together,’ Bottle said, ‘now that we got ourselves a tyrant officer over us.’
‘Smart lad,’ Strings said.
‘Still,’ Smiles said, ‘thanks, Bottle.’
He smiled sweetly at her.

Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. If only she knew...

It turns out that Faradan Sort is not just a hard ass but a bad ass. A veteran of the Stormwall

The Stormwall is leagues long, on the north coast of Korelri. It stands as the only barricade between the island continent and the Stormriders, those demonic warriors of the seas between Malaz Island and Korelri

And our Captain had to fight these demons. A couple of grunts aren’t going to be able to get the jump on her I don’t think.


Meanwhile, Sergeat Hellian, from the prologue, has been punished by being sent to the front lines

Twenty-two followers of D’rek had been butchered in their own temple, in a district that had been her responsibility –
...Where had the killers gone, Sergeant Hellian? And why didn’t you see them leave? And what about that man who accompanied you, who then vanished?

Being half drunk didn’t help her cause. And where is she going to find a drink out here?


And the Master of the Deck – Ganoes Paran shows up on a boat in the middle of the new Raraku sea where he invites Apsalar for a chat.

I am here to counter an enemy. To remove a threat. Only, I am afraid I will not get there in time, in which case I will clean up the mess as best I can, before moving on—’

Sorry Lori - I don't know what Paran is up to or how or what Apsalar knows about it just yet.

This chapter was a long one with a lot of plot happening and a bit of comic relief. The Bottle/Smiles scene was really funny, as were the Curdle/Telorast bits.

Regarding the K'Chain Che'Malle and the Imperial Warren my memory is also blank.
SE is never one for an easy and obvious solution, so the assumption that the aliens used the Warren after its creation sounds good to me.
Do we actually know anything about a K'Chain connection to Kallor? If they had dealings in the past, maybe he let them use his warren. As I've skipped MOI I can't really remember, if there was something to support that wild guess.

Regarding sentences, this chapter didn't offer that many topics, so here's what I came up with.

1) Karsa's Anatomy

As we had the discussion about Karsa's healing powers in the thread about a previous chapter, we have another observation that seems to confirm his unnatural Wolverine abilities.
This is from Semar Dev:

The warrior's wounds had healed with appaling swiftness, with no signs of infection.

2) People starting with E...sort of

Telorast and Curdle made an interesting statement hinting at a relation between Tiste Edur and the Eres. Take a look:

„Tiste Edur forest,“ Curdle said, scampering ahead. „They like their forests.“
„All those natural shadows,“ Telorast added. „Power in permanence. Blackwood, bloodwood, all sorts of terrible things. The Eres were right to fear.“

I wasn't aware that the two people had met each other, therefore I'm going to file this as "interesting".

3) Tavore

In Keneb's chapter we learn that the fists are uneasy about Tavore's passive approach. They want to corner her to make her tell her plans, if any.

In his conversation with Apsalar, Paran sheds a bit of light onto the strategies of her sister:

To win a war you must come to know all the players. All of them.

So it seems that Tavore is still figuring out all the players.

4) A huge conflict

Later in the conversation Paran hints at the bigger picture:

„The pantheon is splitting asunder. The Crippled God is finding allies.“
„Why?“
„What? Well...I don't really know. Compassion?“

And now I guess, if we remember Tavore's sentence from the last point, everybody is trying to figure out, who the players are and on what side they might end up.
Paran and Apsalar figure out that they might end up on the same side, but they aren't 100% sure.

And later on we get the scenes from Heboric:

The old belong to the ways of blood. The new proclaim their own justice. [...] These two cannot - cannot - be reconciled. It is so simple, do you see? So simple.

So Heboric expects a struggle between Elder Gods and the new pantheon. And he lets us know that Treach has made his decision, but doesn't tell us for which side he decided.
And is it really as simple as Heboric says? Are the lines drawn really that clear? What about K'rul, what about Mael? Do I see Oponn on the same side as Shadowthrone?
And who is truly Elder? And what about Eleint and Soletaken dragons? And aren't the Tiste also Elder, but likewise part of the new pantheon, like Rake as the Son of Darkness?
Mr. crazy pants Ghost Hands...nice that it is so simple for you, but I'm totally confused. And I haven't even started to think about spaceship, mechanical aliens, Kallor or Caladan Brood...or...you know what...I#m with Tavore on this one.
I'm going to sit in a corner and won't do nothing untill I know all the players!

So, don't step on any scorpions, sneak up on a sky keep without shadows and make sure that Karsa Orlong never gets home! See you next chapter.

Mpauli wrote: "Do we actually know anything about a K'Chain connection to Kallor? If they had dealings in the past, maybe he let them use his warren. As I've skipped MOI I can't really remember, if there was something to support that wild guess."

We are still putting a lot of weight on Quick's surmising. He doesn't really know. But if it's not right then it's one cruel red herring Erikson!

I wasn't aware that the two people had met each other, therefore I'm going to file this as "interesting".

Perhaps it's the bloodwood and blackwood trees and their properties that the Eres don't like. In Lether the Edur live right on top of the former Nerek sacred lands and the Nerek worship the Eres.

And is it really as simple as Heboric says? Are the lines drawn really that clear?

Well you missed a few things by skipping straight to Bonehunters :)

But we have team K'rul and we have Team Crippled god. They are the two opposing sides. So far on team K'rul we have Treach, the two wolves of winter, Hood, Lady Envy, Kruppe, Silverfox/Nightchill, Draconus, - if they can bust him out of the sword. That's off the top of my head so I might have missed a couple.

Then on team Crippled god you have the Tiste Edur, Kallor, Hood's ex herald(I forget his name), the - and he's had a few that have fallen away already like the Pannion Seer and Bidithal who got his balls ripped off and the Teblor gods.

Then we have some who aren't really on team K'rul but are still against the crippled god - which is almost the same thing -
Like Paran and Rake and Caladan Brood and we can put Shadowthrone here as well as it's his realm and throne that are currently being threatened by the CG

And there are some undeclared or unknown like Osserc, the Elient(though if we believe the ones chained in Shadow they would side with K'rul), and what about the three sisters Menadore, Sukul, and Sheltatha - what about Silchas Ruin, and where does Sister Spite sit.

Ohh, I just had a thought - maybe the "She" from last chapter who's been killing the priests of D'rek is Sister Spite? I only say that because she is a she - and I'm assuming, spiteful.

David Sven wrote: Well you missed a few things by skipping straight to Bonehunters :)"

Yeah, that's true, but as a rereader I actually know who ends up where, but I'm always trying to voice my first time thoughts from my first read to bounce of some ideas.^^

But Heboric seems pretty sure that the line is drawn between the Elders and the new gods and I thought this would be a bit simplistic.
On the one hand, we have players that aren't easily part of only one group and on the other hand we have players from both groups that won't side with their own. That's what my rant was all about.

The connection between Tiste Edur and the Eres about the wood seems about right, when I read the passage again.

And I just like the idea of Kaptain Kallor kommanding K'chain Che'Melle for the Krippled God.^^

Mpauli wrote: "And I just like the idea of Kaptain Kallor kommanding K'chain Che'Melle for the Krippled God.^^
"

I like that idea too :)

Maybe D'rek is killing her own?

I don't think it's a clear cut war between Elder and new pantheon, but there's a definite sense some Elders are threatened now that the houses have ascended with a master of the deck. I'd think the houses and holds can't coexist with equal power and the newer is a natural evolvement, therefore perhaps fitter in Darwin definition. It seems as if the elders have bypassed and one ones on Letheri even excluded and ignorant of the the developments.

On top of that there's the invader and usurper Shadowthrone and I would suspect the elders don't want him. Too many new gods!

And then there's the CG. Infecting the world and making a play for complete power.

All this to say I think Heboric is over simplifying things! Treach is new himself and is looking at this war from his personal POV, which remember as a beast is probably limited since he's a beast.

I have to say, seeing Paran meet up with Apsalar was a pleasant surprise.

I'm probably laughing more at this book than any of the previous ones too. Between Greyfrog and the Ghost pair. Not to mention QB/Kalam, and Fiddler/Strings.

I had a tough time deciding just which quote to use for my status update.

-------------
David Sven wrote: "Meanwhile, Sergeant Hellian, from the prologue, has been punished by being sent to the front lines"

The front lines of what exactly? Is she somewhere in Talvore's 14th? I assume we're not supposed to know yet, or I missed subtle hints as to where exactly she was sent.

Rob wrote: "The front lines of what exactly? Is she somewhere in Talvore's 14th?
"

Yes

The Fourteenth had been kicked awake and was now swarming with activity. Head pounding, Sergeant Hellian sat on the side of the road. Eight days with this damned miserable army and that damned tyrant of a captain, and now she was out of rum.

Damnit. How did I miss that? I fail. Maybe I should just quit now. I'm not a careful enough reader for this series.

I swear I even went back rereading wonder where she was.

I kind of assumed she'd be hooking up with the 14th since the prologue..but I thought he was being coy again about it.

*sigh*

Rob wrote: "Damnit. How did I miss that? I fail. Maybe I should just quit now. I'm not a careful enough reader for this series."

On my first read it was like that all the time. I guess SE is very clever in handing out tons of information in thousands of small sentences.
And you just can't know which of them belong to which plot or are important at some point.

I'm now reading FoD and due to that I'm reading it very slowly.
And I tried to train my brain in spotting things. And Erikson always does sentences like this (which is an imagined sentence by me)

"He ascended the stairs, stepping through the door and slipping in the shadows..."

And now I'M like. Alaram! He said "ascend" Will this person ascend somewhere in the story?
Alaram! Stepping through a door? Is he going to be going through a portal at some point?
Alarm! Shadow, will Shadow be involved somehow?

And 6 out of 7 times the sentence is just a sentence, but at the seventh time somebody will step through a portal through Shadow and ascend to godhood.

You shouldn't be so hard on yourself Rob. You are picking more up on your first read than I did. And it would eventually click that Hellian is in the 14th when you see her again anyway.

David Sven wrote: "You shouldn't be so hard on yourself Rob. You are picking more up on your first read than I did. And it would eventually click that Hellian is in the 14th when you see her again anyway."

Definitely, Rob, I'm in the same boat. Reading these threads with rereaders and the great summaries is really helping - I think if I was reading this stuff on my own a TON of the subtle hints and information would be completely lost on me.

I'm a fast reader but this one definitely rewards careful, patient reading... a challenge for me as I just want to consume it as fast as I can! (And therefore miss a bunch of stuff, heh)

PLEASE!!! I'm on my second read and I'm still missing stuff that David and Mpauli are throwing out like it's so obvious, it's a lesson in humiliation!

"I must ask myself with each invention, what possible abuses await such an object? More often than not, I conclude that those abuses outweigh the value of the invention"

Interesting that in the same chapter where Samar Dev discusses the ethics of invention, we also see a new example of K'Chain Che'Malle technology in the mechanisms found during the autopsy. Clearly with their sky keeps, etc. the K'Chain don't hold to this same law of invention.

"How can you call yourself an inventor if you dislike breaking things?"- my favourite line.

Thanks for bringing that up, it made a big impression on me. She is a great character, and is a moral compass.

Uh, that's a good pick-up. I really like it. I think the responsibility of power is reflected throughout the series.
In BH, we see the word "necessity" used quite often to justify the use of power.
Samar gives us a great anti-thesis to this concept here.

Mpauli wrote: "On the one hand, we have players that aren't easily part of only one group and on the other hand we have players from both groups that won't side with their own."

Yeah, Heboric's story doesn't make sense with the Team K'rul vs. Team Crippled God story. But I was assuming he was getting this through the power of the jade statue rather than through Treach.

My guess goes with Quick Ben being just plain wrong, making a reasonable hypothesis under the circumstances but without information that we know. But Kallor was the one who introduced Short-tails to us, supposedly on the authority of his archaeologists from his old empire. It will be something to watch whether he knows even more about K'Chain Che'Malle than he's telling.

Silvio wrote: "But Kallor was the one who introduced Short-tails to us, supposedly on the authority of his archaeologists from his old empire."

Thanks for reminding me of that Silvio. I forgot that. Kallor's realm was sitting on top of a K'Chain Chemalle civilization. So while the warren is Kallor's former empire, Kallor's empire was formerly K'chain Chemalle. That makes more sense to me. In that case Quick Ben is both right and wrong. The warren is new, created specifically by K'rul to isolate Kallor's realm - but the K'Chain still have a connection to that realm - and maybe they have come home.

Just think how much we'll pick up when we read it a third time through :)

Lee wrote: "Just think how much we'll pick up when we read it a third time through :)"

Now you're just playing with my sanity.^^

I might take a long holiday first :)

Does this mean that Tavore cannot win her war until after she realizes that she killed Felesin? Nice irony in that.

I think this is the first time we get a fuller picture of Karsa's goals. How different is what he wants to do from what Kallor actually did? Sometimes I find myself deeply troubled by how much I like this guy.

Welcome to team Karsa! Somebody should give SE an award for making him so likeble! For Hood's sake! He rapes people!

Duffy wrote: "I think this is the first time we get a fuller picture of Karsa's goals. How different is what he wants to do from what Kallor actually did? Sometimes I find myself deeply troubled by how much I like this guy."

Kallor enslaved everyone and only killed them when they were going to be liberated. Karsa doesn't want to enslave people, just kill them. I'm not sure how Erikson's managed to make genocidal people look so much better than slave drivers, but he has.

David Sven wrote: "Silvio wrote: "But Kallor was the one who introduced Short-tails to us, supposedly on the authority of his archaeologists from his old empire."

Thanks for reminding me of that Silvio. I forgot tha..."

Yeah, that makes sense. If it's right, I wonder what the K'Chain Che'Malle think of having had their territory turned into a warren.

That's a good distinction between Kallor and Karsa. As I recall, the Elder gods cursed Kallor as punishment for his genocide, and didn't seem to have as much an issue with the slavery. Kallor basically acted like the kid who knocks over the board when he sees the game is not going his way.

Taking things to a different level, Karsa's goals strike me as a nearly perfect counter-example to Kant's Categorical Imperative. And yeah, I fully expect that to be a conversation killer.

As you can't study philosophy in Cologne without a heavy dose of Kant (the german Kant professor fan-base is huge in Cologne^^) I would say, that one of the problems is in the lack of definition of "good" and "morally".
There is too much implied in the end. As the genocide as a goal would absolutely be the anti-thesis to the CI, I could see some of Karsa's behaviour being in tone with a CI that would be based on Toblakai morales.
But I make a note and ask Gothos about it, next time I see him.^^

Kimberly wrote: ""I must ask myself with each invention, what possible abuses await such an object? More often than not, I conclude that those abuses outweigh the value of the invention"

I noted down this very same quote.
Erikson has been light on the society critique in this book, but here we go: TNT and nuclear energy were the first two things that came to mind that were invented for good reasons, and massively abused.


The K'CHain Chemalle are really totally scifi for me. But it also made my change my perspectives. I had imagined these skykeeps as pretty big (really like moon's) and warrens as some kind of corridor. But none of my corridors would fit 12 skykeeps :)


I'm waiting for the moment Tavore finds out she killed her own sister. And even more than that, I'm waiting for the moment Paran finds out what Tavore did to Felisin (starting from the eviction to the Ottaral mines)

Hanne wrote: "And even more than that, I'm waiting for the moment Paran finds out what Tavore did to Felisin"

That is actually a very good point. I always assumed that Paran knows about Felisin's demise, due her being part of the deck.
But I'm not so sure, if he knows what actually happened to her in DG.

I have always assumed that at this stage of the story the only people who know the truth are Lostara Yil, Pearl and by extension Laseen.

I thought that Paran believes also that she died on the Otataral Island.

Mpauli wrote: " I always assumed that Paran knows about Felisin's demise, due her being part of the deck."

Was she part of the deck? I'm not sure she or the whirlwind goddess had her own card.

i was also under the impression that paran doesn't know what happened to felisin after the mines. and presumably dead

Of course that will all change when Paran receives the missive communique from the interstellar drone currently in hyperspace on route from Therac. Oh wait. Sorry, mixing my books again.

See, this is what happens, when you skip four books and argue from a point of uneducated half-remembered fragments from this place called memory.
Thanks for clearing this up. This messes up one of my chapter 8 theories, but I'll think about it some more.
Damn...I should really read those older books as well...grrr

Lee wrote: "Of course that will all change when Paran receives the missive communique from the interstellar drone currently in hyperspace on route from Therac. Oh wait. Sorry, mixing my books again."

Ha ha! Would that be the one from the hidden empire inside the gas warren? I thought Theroc had all the Azath trees with telelink?

Mpauli wrote: "This messes up one of my chapter 8 theories, but I'll think about it some more."

But I like your messed up theories. It gets the brain juices frying

David Sven wrote: "Mpauli wrote: "This messes up one of my chapter 8 theories, but I'll think about it some more."

But I like your messed up theories. It gets the brain juices frying"

Pew, thought about it and realized it's no problem at all, as long as Paran knows that she's dead. Didn't actually matter if he knew she was Shai'k.

Hanne wrote: "Erikson has been light on the society critique in this book, but here we go: TNT and nuclear energy were the first two things that came to mind that were invented for good reasons, and massively abused."

Yeah. And isn't it interesting that Karsa ends up half-convincing Dev that motor vehicles are a bad idea - something most of us probably see as good, unlike TNT. It's like instead of giving us a noble savage stereotype or glorifying progress, Erikson's putting both ways of life in the worst possible light.

I hope that if Paran knew about Felisin, Erikson would have to have told us he knew. Maybe even being Master of the Deck doesn't give you that much extra information.

I'm not sure what you mean by the invention of "nuclear energy," but the first practical invention involving the unleashing of nuclear energy was by the Manhattan Project, and it was designed and used for the purpose of destroying entire cities.

A better example of your point, I think, is gunpowder. Invented by the Chinese, it was first used in fireworks to scare away evil spirits. (I don't know if it was effective.) Military use came later.

It's much, much more common for something to have been invented for a military purpose, and then for the invention to be adapted to civilian use. First things that come to my mind are refrigeration, and the internet.

The cool thing about Karsa was his ability to see that the automobile would make the world smaller, and that the freedom it would bring would as a result be largely illusory. This shows a level of genius that is almost unbelievable.

Kallor basically acted like the kid who knocks over the board when he sees the game is not going his way.

Well I imagine karsa is one who simply kills next player because he does not like him.But I too agree Karsa's character has shown tremendous development from where he began and where he is now, also his sense of justice seems to be clear right now.

Regarding Mappo and Icarium they also seem to be stumbling on some mechanism created by Icarium, it was nice to see they stumbled on something different.Also Mappo seems to be know quite tired of roaming around and the deceit.

Also i can't picture kchain with their sword hands doing research in their laboratory :P.

The K'Chain short tails don't have sword hands. And only the Kell Hunters of the K'Chain Chemalle have sword hands.

Everytime a different group of soldiers hears about the new "scorpion killing captain" their reaction is absolutely hilarious. Don't mess with soldiers pets!