'Ganoes Paran? Why?'
'He is the Master of the Deck of Dragons.'
'It's no secret, then.'
'It never was.'
'Do you know,' Whiskeyjack asked, 'what that role signifies? A genuine question, because, frankly, I don't and wish I damn well did.'
'The Crippled God has fashioned a new House and now seeks to join it to the Deck of Dragons. A sanction is required. A blessing, if you will. Or, conversely, a denial.'
Whiskeyjack grunted. 'What of the House of Shadow, then? Was there a Master of the Deck around who sanctioned its joining?'
'There was no need. The House of Shadow has always existed, more or less. Shadowthrone and Cotillion simply reawakened it.'
'And now, you want Paran — the Master of the Deck — to deny the Crippled God's House.'
'I believe he must. To grant the Fallen One legitimacy is to grant him power. We see what he is capable of in his present weakened state. The House of Chains is the foundation he will use to rebuild himself.'
'Yet, you and the gods took him down once before. The Chaining.'
'A costly endeavour, Whiskeyjack. One in which the god Fener was vital. Tell me, among your soldiers, the Tusked One is a popular god — have you priests as well?'
'No. Fener's popular enough, being the Lord of Battle. Malazans are somewhat … relaxed when it comes to the pantheon. We tend to discourage organized cults within the military.'
'Fener is lost to us,' Rake said.
'Lost? What do you mean?'
'Torn from his realm, now striding the mortal earth.'
'How?'
There was a grim smile in Rake's tone as he explained. 'By a Malazan. A once-priest of Fener, a victim of the Reve.'
'Which means?'
'His hands were ritually severed. The power of the Reve then sends those hands to the hooves of Fener himself. The ritual must be the expression of purest justice, but this one wasn't. Rather, there was a perceived need to reduce the influence of Fener, and in particular that High Priest, by agents of the Empire — likely the Claw. You mentioned the discouraging of cults within the army. Perhaps that was a factor — my knowledge is not complete, alas. Certainly the High Priest's penchant for historical analysis was another — he had completed an investigation that concluded that the Empress Laseen in fact failed in her assassination of the Emperor and Dancer. Granted, she got the throne she so badly wanted, but neither Kellanved nor Dancer actually died. Instead, they ascended.'
'I can see why Surly's back would crawl at that revelation.'
'Surly?'
'The Empress Laseen. Surly was her old name.'
'In any case, those severed hands were as poison to Fener. He could not touch them, nor could he remove them from his realm. He burned the tattoos announcing his denial upon the high priest's skin, and so sealed the virulent power of the hands, at least for the time being. And that should have been that. Eventually, the priest would die, and his spirit would come to Fener to retrieve what had been cruelly and wrongfully taken from him. That spirit would then become the weapon of Fener's wrath, his vengeance upon the priests of the fouled temple, and indeed upon the Claw and the Empress herself. A dark storm awaited the Malazan Empire, Whiskeyjack.'
'But something's happened.'
'Aye. The High Priest has, by design or chance, come into contact with the Warren of Chaos — an object, perhaps, forged within that warren. The protective seal around his severed hands was obliterated by that vast, uncontrolled surge of power. And, finding Fener, those hands … pushed.'
'Hood's breath,' Whiskeyjack muttered, his eyes on the glittering river.
'And now,' Rake continued, 'the Tiger of Summer ascends to take his place. But Treach is young, much weaker, his warren but a paltry thing, his followers far fewer in number than Fener's. All is in flux. No doubt the Crippled God is smiling.'
'Wait a moment,' Whiskeyjack objected. 'Treach has ascended? That's one huge coincidence.'
'Some fates were foreseen, or so it seems.'
'By whom?'
'The Elder Gods.'
'And why are they so interested in all this?'
'They were there when the Crippled God fell — was dragged — down to this earth. The Fall destroyed many of them, leaving but a few survivors. Whatever secrets surround the Fallen One — where he came from, the nature of his aspect, the ritual itself that captured him — K'rul and his kin possess them. That they have chosen to become directly involved, now that the Crippled God has resumed his war, has dire implications as to the seriousness of the threat.'