{"id":290,"date":"2013-10-07T19:33:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T23:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/45.79.82.122\/blogs\/natterings\/?p=290"},"modified":"2013-10-09T19:50:24","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T23:50:24","slug":"blogging-malazan-book-1-prologue-and-chapter-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/?p=290","title":{"rendered":"Blogging Malazan, Book 1: Prologue and Chapter One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gardens of the Moon: Book One of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, <\/em>by Steven Erikson<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Prologue<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

It’s the 1154th year of Burn’s Sleep. \u00a0Ganoes Paran looks down on riots in the Mouse Quarter of the ancient imperial capital of Malaz City. \u00a0He’s young, the son of a wine merchant. \u00a0Magic battles rage below. \u00a0We don’t know anything, except that it’s a tumultuous time. \u00a0High ranking men are dead. \u00a0A soldier – a Bridgeburner, an elite – pauses to speak to Ganoes. \u00a0The boy asks, is it true? \u00a0Did the dead man betray a god? \u00a0And the Bridgeburner answers like this:<\/p>\n

Every decision you make can change the world. \u00a0The best life is the one the gods don’t notice. \u00a0You want to live free, boy, live quietly.<\/p>\n

Another Bridgeburner with a pockmarked face and a fiddle stops by. \u00a0He’s only a few years older than Ganoes’ twelve, but speaks his opinions like a peer. \u00a0The soldiers discuss the out-of-control mages laying unnecessary waste to the Mouse Quarter. \u00a0They discuss a woman, Surly, who dislikes protectiveness, who takes a new name that means “Thronemaster,” who acts with efficient brutality when the Emperor isn’t around.<\/p>\n

And here she is Herself, the woman who was Surly but is now Laseen, blue-skinned, flanked by Claw bodyguards. \u00a0Ganoes is stunned by the Bridgeburner’s informality with a woman of immense and frightening power. \u00a0The Bridgeburner, the Commander of the Bridgeburners, calls Laseen out on the destruction in the city, only to be ripped a new one and told to get out of town.<\/p>\n

Laseen leaves. \u00a0Ganoes and the Commander look back out over the town. \u00a0They have this exchange:<\/p>\n

“One day I’ll be a soldier,” Ganoes said.<\/p>\n

The man grunted. \u00a0“Only if you fail at all else, son. \u00a0Taking up the sword is the last act of desperate men. \u00a0Mark my words and find yourself a more worthy dream.”<\/p>\n

Ganoes scowled. \u00a0“You’re not like the other soldiers I’ve talked to. \u00a0You sound more like my father.”<\/p>\n

“But I’m not your father,” the man growled.<\/p>\n

“The world,” Ganoes said, “doesn’t need another wine merchant.”<\/p>\n

The commander’s eyes narrowed, gauging. \u00a0He opened his mouth to make the obvious reply, then shut it again.<\/p>\n

Malaz City is burning. \u00a0The air gains the sweet reek of burning pigs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chapter One<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

It’s now the 1161st year of Burn’s Sleep. \u00a0An old woman and a fishergirl stand by the side of a road, watching a massive column of soldiers pass. \u00a0The old woman mentions the kin she sent to war before Laseen, “in the days of the Emperor.” \u00a0The fishergirl barely listens.<\/p>\n

Her bright eyes darted among the soldiers passing before her. \u00a0The young men atop their high-backed saddles held expressions stern and fixed straight ahead. \u00a0The few women who rode among them sat tall and somehow fiercer than the men. \u00a0The sunset cast red glints from their helms, flashing so that the girl’s eyes stung and her vision blurred.<\/p>\n

The fishergirl exchanges small talk with the old woman Rigga, then says, “Isn’t it wonderful?” of the column. \u00a0The woman Rigga’s hand shoots out, snagging the fishergirl painfully by the hair. \u00a0There’s a prophecy to deliver. \u00a0Rigga the old woman is also Riggalai the seer and wax-witch. \u00a0The fishergirl will be given a sword and a horse and sent across the sea to war, and shadow will take her soul.<\/p>\n

Rigga is saying, “Look to the Lord spawned in Darkness; his is the hand that shall free you, though he’ll know it not–” when a soldier interrupts. \u00a0The old woman is harassing a pretty young one. \u00a0The soldier’s gauntleted hand cracks across the old woman’s head. \u00a0Her dead body flops to the ground. \u00a0The candles that signal necromancy roll out of her bag. \u00a0The soldiers ride off. \u00a0Only dust remains in their wake.<\/p>\n

The girl is broken in some deep emotional way. \u00a0She speaks of her father in her own voice until she suddenly speaks in another voice entirely. \u00a0Shadows pour across the road. \u00a0A hand falls on her shoulder. \u00a0Two men are near, both black-clad, one hooded and tall, the other shorter. \u00a0They speak like old-time companions about the dead seer.<\/p>\n

The shorter man raises his arms. \u00a0The air rends, blackness fades, and seven huge Hounds now sit in the road. \u00a0“Something to gnaw on Laseen’s mind,” the shorter man says with a giggle. \u00a0The short one is Ammanas. \u00a0The tall one, Cotillion. \u00a0The Hounds catch up with the column of soldiers; the fishergirl can hear their screams. \u00a0Ammanas tells the fishergirl she’s the pawn of a god now, and everything else fades away.<\/p>\n

Switch scenes. \u00a0A captain rides alongside a woman called Lorn, the Adjunct to the Empress, which makes her Laseen’s personal servant. \u00a0The captain is not entirely pleased or comfortable to have such a woman nearby. \u00a0She points out that he survived the purges of the Empress after her ascendance. \u00a0They have 1100 soldiers with them to patrol where they’re going. \u00a0He tells her, “The carnage stretches half a league from the sea, Adjunct, and a quarter-league inland.”<\/p>\n

They reach a hill’s summit and look beyond. \u00a0Crows and gulls’ cries fill the air. \u00a0Beneath a carpet of feeding birds lie nearly four hundred corpses of men and horses. The captain explains: \u00a0all these dead had arms drawn. \u00a0They fought. \u00a0All the dead are the Empress’s troops. \u00a0The carnage is horrific. \u00a0One man rides out of the gory scene to greet them: \u00a0Ganoes Paran from the prologue, now a lieutenant. \u00a0He reports that a fishing village nearby is also full of its dead. \u00a0But, a man and his daughter are missing. \u00a0The wounds to the dead have been made by “natural weapons.” \u00a0Teeth. \u00a0No evidence is left behind, no scat, no hair.<\/p>\n

Lorn and Ganoes share barbed conversation – he’s a noble, and nobles rarely take commissions. \u00a0Ganoes speaks of the horrors he’s seen with a bluntness that verges on rude. \u00a0He’s therefore surprised when Lorn bogarts him from his current position to become an officer on her own staff.<\/p>\n

She tells the truth as she knows it (or as she’s willing to tell it): \u00a0the deaths of the 400 were a diversion from a mighty sorcerer’s hidden deed. \u00a0She sends him to the next town over to ask about a fisherman and his daughter. \u00a0Before he’s off, though, Lorn makes Ganoes’ captain look into any new recruits, either young women or old men, in the Empress’s forces. \u00a0The captain agrees, sourly.<\/p>\n

(And good GOD I forgot how long these chapters were. \u00a0We’ll just adjourn for today. \u00a0And perhaps cut down on the detail in the future.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gardens of the Moon: Book One of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, by Steven Erikson —– Prologue: It’s the 1154th year of Burn’s Sleep. \u00a0Ganoes Paran looks down on riots in the Mouse Quarter of the ancient imperial capital of Malaz City. \u00a0He’s young, the son of a wine merchant. \u00a0Magic battles rage below. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/natterings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}