Deadhouse Gates

Deadhouse Gates

Author	Steven Erikson
Cover artist	Steve Stone
Language	English
Series	Malazan Book of the Fallen
Genre	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Bantam Books (UK & Canada) & Tor Books (USA)
Publication date	1 September 2000
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	943 (UK paperback edition)
ISBN	0-553-81311-0 (UK paperback edition)
OCLC	47062853
Preceded by	Gardens of the Moon
Followed by	Memories of Ice

Deadhouse Gates is an epic fantasy novel by Canadian writer Steven Erikson, the second installment in his Malazan Book of the Fallen series. It follows the events of the first novel, Gardens of the Moon, and takes place simultaneously with the events of the third novel, Memories of Ice.

The novel was first published in the United Kingdom as a trade paperback on 1 September 2000, followed by a mass-market paperback edition on 1 October 2001. The first United States edition was published in hardcover by Tor Books on 28 February 2005, with a mass-market paperback edition released on 7 February 2006. Notably, Deadhouse Gates is the only novel in the series where the UK and US editions share the same cover design; other US books feature different cover artists and styles.

The book received mixed to positive reviews. Critics praised its tone, the softer introduction compared to its predecessor, and its intricate plot. However, some criticized the shift in setting to another continent at the start of the story.

The narrative follows multiple storylines that eventually converge, with relentless pacing and consistently high stakes. Themes of survival, sacrifice, and the brutal realities of war are masterfully explored. Coltaine’s leadership and the plight of the refugees add significant emotional weight to the story.

Plot introduction

Deadhouse Gates opens a few months after the events of Gardens of the Moon. Unlike its predecessor, which followed different groups of characters operating in close proximity, the character storylines in Deadhouse Gates are often separated by hundreds or even thousands of miles.

The Malazan Empire is shaken by a purge of the nobility, with many nobles sent to the mines on Otataral Island, located off the coast of the Seven Cities subcontinent. At the same time, Seven Cities is engulfed by a rebellion known as the Whirlwind, led by the prophetess Sha'ik from the Holy Desert of Raraku.

As cities fall to the rebellion, the Malazan forces stationed in the city of Hissar devise a daring plan to evacuate overland to Aren, the Malazan continental capital. The 7th Army, commanded by the legendary Coltaine of the Crow Clan of the Wickans, is tasked with escorting 50,000 refugees on a perilous 1,500-mile march to safety. This extraordinary journey, known as the Chain of Dogs, becomes a defining legend of Seven Cities.

Meanwhile, the assassin Kalam undertakes a dangerous mission, while a group of travelers from Genabackis arrives in Seven Cities on their own mysterious quests.

Plot summary

Deadhouse Gates takes place a few months after the conclusion of Gardens of the Moon, though it features few recurring characters and almost no shared settings between the two novels. The main events of Memories of Ice, the third book in the series, partially overlap with those of Deadhouse Gates.

Prologue and Raraku

Felisin Paran, the youngest sister of Ganoes Paran (a protagonist of the previous novel), and Tavore Paran, Empress Laseen's newly appointed Adjunct, becomes entangled in a purge of the nobility orchestrated by Laseen to eliminate rival centers of power.

During her ordeal, Felisin befriends Baudin, a hardened thug, and Heboric, an excommunicated High Priest of Fener, the war god, who has been punished by having his hands removed. The trio is sent to an otataral mine off the coast of the Seven Cities continent. There, Felisin offers her body to Beneth, the slaves' self-appointed leader, in exchange for his protection of the group. She also becomes addicted to the narcotic durhang, further complicating her plight.

Meanwhile, Icarium, a half-Jaghut immortal inventor and warrior whose destructive past has been erased from his memory to protect the world, travels with Mappo Runt, a Trell warrior secretly tasked with monitoring and, if necessary, containing Icarium's rage.

The pair becomes entangled in a conflict involving Soletaken and D’ivers—shapeshifters who can transform into a single beast or multiple beasts, respectively—who are pursuing the Path of Hands. This path leads to Tremorlor, an Azath House located in the Holy Desert of Raraku, which is believed to offer Ascendancy and the possibility of godhood.

As the battle unfolds, Icarium and Mappo find refuge in the temple of Iskaral Pust, a High Priest of Shadow whose eccentric behavior suggests he may be insane.

Meanwhile, the Wickan warleader Coltaine assumes command of the Malazan Empire's 7th Army, tasked with escorting Malazan civilians across the Seven Cities to the imperial continental capital of Aren. The journey, spanning hundreds of leagues on foot, is undertaken to protect the civilians from the impending rebellion inspired by Sha'ik, a prophetess leading the uprising from the Holy Desert of Raraku.

Despite the dire situation, the continent's High Fist, Pormqual, refuses to provide a naval convoy, choosing instead to remain sheltered within Aren. Accompanying the 7th Army on this arduous march is the Imperial Historian, Duiker.

Following the events of Gardens of the Moon, Fiddler, Kalam, Crokus, and Apsalar (formerly Sorry) arrive in Ehrlitan, one of the Seven Cities. Their original mission was to return Apsalar to her home village, but Kalam and Fiddler now plan to assassinate Empress Laseen to curtail her growing power, using the Seven Cities’ rebellion as a cover for Kalam to infiltrate her ranks.

While in Ehrlitan, Fiddler encounters a Tano Spiritwalker, a mage who casts spells through song. The Spiritwalker offers a song of power that could grant ascension to the Bridgeburners, honoring their sacrifices in the empire's dishonorable war to conquer the Seven Cities. Meanwhile, Kalam, a native of the Seven Cities, reconnects with the local resistance to Malazan rule. He agrees to deliver Dryjhna's Holy Book, a catalyst for the rebellion’s Apocalypse, to Sha'ik in the Holy Desert of Raraku.

Kalam's actions draw the attention of Lostara Yil, a Red Blade loyalist captain, who uncovers his mission. Yil secretly follows him to Sha'ik, witnesses him delivering the Book of the Apocalypse and receiving an aptorian demon bodyguard as a gift, and then kills Sha'ik after Kalam departs, despite the presence of her loyal guardians, Leoman of the Flails and Toblakai.

Meanwhile, Fiddler, Crokus, and Apsalar travel separately through Raraku. As they journey, Apsalar’s memories gradually reveal that the Rope—the patron god of assassins who once possessed her as Sorry—is none other than Dancer, the assassin of the previous Emperor Kellanved. It becomes evident that Kellanved and Dancer evaded Laseen's assassination attempts by ascending to godhood, claiming dominion over the new Warren and House of Shadow.

Whirlwind

Baudin and Heboric arrange, with Duiker's help, to escape from the mines during a slave mutiny and give Felisin the chance to go with them, and she agrees. En route to the coast, Heboric finds an enormous jade pillar that turns out to be merely the finger of an enormous figure, and touches it with his stumps of hands, which draws his god Fener into the mortal realm. Fener flees and Heboric's hands become tangible, mixing his Denul warren with the magic-deadening properties of otataral. Duiker sends the mage Kulp on a Malazan boat to retrieve the trio from the otataral island, but the company is drawn into a mad mage's watery warren where they board the Silanda, on which they find headless Tiste Andii oarsmen still capable of accepting commands and probable Tiste Edur corpses in the captain's cabin. Soon they encounter Logros T’lan Imass warriors under Bonecaster Hentos Ilm pursuing an unnamed quarry, who inform the humans that they are in Kurald Emurlahn, the Tiste Edur Elder Warren. One of the T’lan Imass sacrifices himself to heal the breach in the warren, and the Imass take one of the heads, but they leave the humans behind to find their own way out.

Pust tells Icarium and Mappo that Sha’ik will be resurrected, as an enormous wall of deadly whirling sand surrounds Raraku and the winds within reveal buried roads, structures, and evidence that the desert was once coastal. They leave to seek her out and find instead Fiddler, Crokus, and Apsalar, who have made their way through storms, rebel pursuers, and the ongoing shapeshifter battle. The company returns to Pust's temple, where his servant Servant turns out to be Apsalar's father, transported he knows not how clear of the Shadow Hound attack at the beginning of Gardens of the Moon. Fiddler, Crokus, Apsalar, and Servant set out for Tremorlor, which may offer a path to the Deadhouse, the corresponding Azath house in Malaz City, where Laseen rules.

Coltaine defeats the rebel army of Hissar, the city where he takes command of the 7th, and begins the march to Aren, which comes to be known as the Chain of Dogs. Kamist Reloe, a High Mage of the empire, rebels to lead a second army against Coltaine's refugees. Coltaine's Wickans defeat one of Kamist Reloe's tribes, though outnumbered seven to one, thus convincing Duiker that Coltaine means to do more than merely flee the rebellion. When the refugees are caught at a wide river between two armies, Coltaine insists on giving the Malazan nobles under Nethpara no special treatment, despite their protests, and it turns out that he insisted on sending the wagons of wounded across the river first in order to conceal the laying of a road under the water that his sappers then detonate when the peasant army starts to cross it behind the fleeing refugees, while Coltaine leads his forces to defeat the army ahead of the refugees. Coltaine's warlocks, led by Sormo E’nath, defeat a Semk tribal god by loosing the spirits of the land against it.

Kalam heads south toward Aren, accompanied by Apt and pursued by Yil. He learns of a traitor Jhistal within Pormqual's camp in Aren from rebels he affects to join as he travels, and joins a Malazan family fleeing toward Aren after he helps them defeat the rebels, including Captain Keneb and his wife's sister Minala, both warriors.

Chain of Dogs

Mappo reveals to Fiddler that he and Icarium have found carvings in Pust's temple that resemble the Deck of Dragons, but with ancient Holds rather than modern Houses, and suspect that the shapeshifters’ Path of Hands may end at the temple itself, and that Pust hopes that he and Icarium will defend it. Servant leaves for the suspected site of Sha’ik's rebirth and Icarium, Mappo, Fiddler, Crokus, and Apsalar pursue him, suspecting that Pust, Shadowthrone, and Cotillion may intend Apsalar to replace Sha’ik as the rebellion's prophetess in order to draw in and kill Laseen.

Kulp manages to open a rent from Kurald Emurlahn to his own Meanas warren, drawing the attention of an undead Soletaken dragon, which grants Kulp the power to heal the rent. The dragon leads the Silanda into a fire warren, and Kulp, Heboric, Baudin, and Felisin fall or leap to safety in the mundane world near Raraku as the ship moves between warrens, on fire. Stormy, Truth, and Gesler, Kulp's escorts, are trapped on the ship. Baudin's heroic saving of Felisin during their flight makes Heboric and Kulp suspicious, and he admits that he is a Talon assassin sent by Tavore to protect Felisin. The company takes refuge in a cave network to avoid Raraku's whirling sand and finds a First Empire city of T’lan Imass, destroyed in hours by the outbreak of conflict between the Soletaken and D’ivers, and signs in a Deck of Holds that the Beast Hold throne is empty. After leaving the city, they meet a mage who identifies himself as Nawahl Ebur but turns out to be the Soletaken Gryllen. Gryllen consumes Kulp, but Baudin wounds him and Gryllen flees. Baudin is critically injured, and Felisin and Heboric leave him behind, only to come across Leoman and Toblakai guarding Sha’ik's corpse; they recognize her as Sha’ik reborn, a mantle Felisin accepts.

As water grows scarce and raiders harry the refugees, Coltaine's group approaches the river P’atha. His warlocks Nil and Nether at one point open a tunnel into a raider encampment to destroy it, incidentally revealing water underground, and learn that a Semk tribesman has a piece of the destroyed Semk god sewn into him. At P’atha crossing, Nil and Nether sacrifice a mare to gift Coltaine's heavy cavalry with strength enough to charge up Kamist Reloe's artificial ramp, and they are helped by the wayward sappers who hid themselves in the ramp the night before; the marines ably guard the wounded and a Wickan band guarding the refugees destroys its attackers, though not without losses of refugees, and attacks the flanking tribes’ flanks to drive them away.

Kalam and company use a stone Quick Ben gave to Kalam that puts them into the Imperial Warren, which is full of bones, to bypass Korbolo Dom's additional army of the rebellion. Laseen's Claw Pearl detects the breach and meets Yil there. Apt, at Kalam's behest, removes 1,300 Malazan children crucified by Korbolo Dom's army to the warren of Shadow and saves one child, Panek, to ride on and merge with her, then trails Pearl and Yil into the Imperial warren and follows them as Pearl challenges the Semk-bound warrior and Apt kills it. Kalam and company exit the warren in Aren to learn that Salk Elan, who claims to be Kalam's friend, is waiting for him with a ship, and though Kalam's suspicious he has little choice but to investigate. Arriving in Aren, Yil's detained with the other Red Blades on suspicion of treason. Keneb joins the city's garrison.

Deadhouse Gates and Epilogue

Icarium finds one of his own time-measuring devices intact and 94,000 years old in the midst of a destroyed First Empire city, but accepts Fiddler and Mappo's assurances that an ascendant or god must be responsible for the destruction. Apsalar and Servant lead Fiddler, Crokus, Icarium, and Mappo to the threshold of what Iskaral calls a knotted torn piece of warren to which his false Path of Hands has led the shapeshifters, but they enter it because Servant can use what's in it to take them home. Inside the warren, they find the Azath house Tremorlor. Icarium can tell that the house is under siege by the shapeshifters and the damaged warren, and plans to fight to defend it. Mappo fears that the Azath will take Icarium, which the Nameless Ones who chose him to guard Icarium would favor. Icarium senses his hesitation and tells Mappo he would die for him, and Mappo tells Icarium the truth about the First Empire city. Icarium tells Mappo to let the house have him if it takes him, even though it would mean eternal imprisonment. Shadow Hounds join them as they approach the House through the battle in its surrounding maze and try to take Icarium after he defeats some shapeshifters, but Mappo, Fiddler, and even Apsalar threaten to protect him, and Pust is forced from his deal to give the Azath Icarium in exchange for not taking the Hounds. Fiddler's conch shell with its Tano song and munitions delivered from Quick Ben by the Trygalle Trade Guild help to restrain the shapeshifters, as does Crokus's bhoka’rala, who turns out to be a soletaken demon who becomes the guardian of Tremorlor after opening the door for the company. The interior of Tremorlor is like a map of all Azath Houses, and Pust and then Icarium and Mappo disappear to other parts of the world before Fiddler, Crokus, Servant, and Apsalar find their way to Malaz City, where the Deadhouse's Guardian Gothos reveals that Icarium is his son and his crime was to wound a warren while trying to free Gothos from the Azath. (Pust, later en route home, finds the spider d’ivers Mogora hiding in his clothing, but uninterested in the Path of Hands, and sees the dragon T’lan Imass Bonecaster, guardian of the real gate at his temple, leave into a warren.)

Kalam meets Salk Elan to learn that the Ragstopper and the whole Aren fleet has been impounded and Admiral Nok arrested by Pormqual, who plans to flee by sea. Minala sneaks on board a trader following the Ragstopper, which Pormqual puts in the charge of his treasurer. The treasurer turns out to be in league with pursuing "pirates", and Elan and Kalam work with the Marines on board to foil his plan. Kalam gets the sense that the captain is under a glamour not to tell him something important, so he contacts Quick Ben for help, who says that the ship is indeed under a glamour of confusion and that he will try to get help to Fiddler and company as they approach Tremorlor due to the active warrens. The ship arrives at Malaz City and Elan reveals himself to be Pearl and that, though the Empress wants to speak with Kalam, the Claw takes care of its own business and stabs Kalam and throws him overboard to face three Hands of Claws in the city, and Minala catches up to him and helps. Apt and Panek appear to force Pearl to retreat before he can kill the captain and crew of the Ragstopper. Kalam reaches Laseen's audience chamber where she's concealed, as he accuses her of killing the Bridgeburners deliberately (she denies it), outlawing Dujek, killing Dassem Ultor, killing Dancer and Kellenvad, and incompetence in the Seven Cities; he leaves after hearing her defense. Apt and Fiddler's group appear as Kalam and Minala leave Mock's Hold and Shadowthrone takes them all into Shadow to save them from the Claws that are still after Kalam. Apsalar, Crokus, and Servant ask to go to Apsalar's home in Itko Kan; Kalam and Minala join Apt in the new Shadow warren home of the 1300 crucified children; and Fiddler re-enlists to join Tavore's host.

Coltaine refuses the nobles’ entreaty to retake Ubaryd; Duiker believes that it is because the approaching Korbolo Dom is an experienced general and greater threat, whereas Kamist Reloe was merely a mage. Coltaine makes the former slaves soldiers of the Seventh. When the Chain reaches the river Vathar, the Silanda is there, and Stormy, Gesler, and Truth take the most seriously wounded on board. One of Coltaine's officers recognizes Gesler as a former captain, and when Gesler threatens to punch him if he's promoted again, Coltaine punches Gesler and breaks his own hand; Nil concludes that Gesler, Stormy, and Truth are nearly ascended. Coltaine rejects an offer from Korbolo to let the refugees cross the river, but the nobles and refugees cross anyway, and Korbolo sends archers on floating bridges to kill them. Coltaine's sappers are among the refugees and save many, as does Sormo, who's killed in combat; 20,000 refugees die all told. Coltaine promotes a particularly effective sapper to sergeant, only to learn that he's demoted their captain. Past Vathar the column passes through the remains of a war between the Jaghut and pursuing T’lan Imass. The Trygalle Trade Guild arrives via warren to provide food and water from Dujek and friends in Darujhistan and a bottle for Coltaine to crush against his chest when the time comes, and all present realize that Dujek's alleged treason is false and he fights alongside his former enemies against the Pannion Seer at the Empress's behest. One of the three tribes facing the Chain attacks the other two and Dom's army, defeating the tribes but not the army, but declares the Wickans the most powerful after they survive the multiway fight around them. The Chain continues south, harried by Dom's forces; Coltaine sends the refugees to buy passage with a biddable tribe to Aren while the Wickans and even the wounded stand and fight to cover their retreat. Coltaine insists that Duiker keep the bottle Dujek sent him because it is more important that the empire's memory survive than its soldiers.

Aren's gates open for the refugees but Pormqual's army does nothing to cover their flight. Kamist Reloe finally captures Coltaine before the city and crucifies him, but the archer Squint kills him from the city wall at Duiker's urging and thousands of crows arrive to carry off his spirit (which in the epilogue enters the body of a previously motionless infant in a Wickan widow's belly). Mallick Rel urges Pormqual to sally to face Dom rather than wait a week for Tavore's fleet, and the army is surrounded and surrenders at Rel's urging. When Duiker refers to Rel as a Jhistal, Keneb recalls Kalam referring to a Jhistal traitor in Aren, and Keneb flees into Aren. Dom crucifies Duiker and 10,000 other soldiers. Icarium and Mappo later emerge from the Azath warren on the Aren way to find Stormy, Gesler, and Truth searching for Duiker's corpse among the crucified, but Baruk's bhok’arala servants from Darujhistan find him first and take the bottle with his spirit in it and his body. Icarium has lost memory of most of the events of the book and he and Mappo continue their journey.

Felisin and Heboric travel to Sha’ik's oasis with Leoman and Toblakai, whom Heboric says carries chained souls. Felisin tells the others to open the holy book: Leoman sees nothing, Toblakai weeps, and Heboric refuses to touch it and disarms and throws Toblakai when he attacks him for it. Felisin dons Sha’ik's clothing and, using something of the goddess's power, she reads the thoughts of the High Mages: Bidithal abused Sha’ik as a child, Febryl tried to poison her thrice, and L’oric is an enigma, but all kneel before her with the crowd in the end. Felisin accepts the goddess's power but does not give herself up entirely, and adopts a young girl and names her Felisin. The Whirlwind turns out to be a warren that Sha’ik's armies can use to travel quickly. Felisin/Sha’ik and her army travel via the warren to learn that Dom did not take Aren and return to Raraku to await Tavore's advance on their own terms.

Reviews

• Review by Chris Gilmore (2000) in Interzone, #159 September 2000
• Review by Carolyn Cushman (2000) in Locus, #478 November 2000
• Review by Vikki Lee (2000) in Vector 214
• Review by uncredited (2001) in Vector 220
• Review by Matthew Scott Winslow (2005) in Deep Magic, #37, June 2005

External links

• Deadhouse Gates title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Deadhouse Gates at the Internet Book List