House of Chains/Chapter 16

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==Tesem==
Kalam Mekhar spends a week healing at Tesem, the Temple of Shadow run by Iskaral Pust. He hears singing, and thinks it comes from Mogora who is in search of Pust and a bhok'aral. Pust gives him some of the shadow diamonds, and offers to help him breach the Whirlwind in the heart of Raraku without being detected.
Out of the warren near the Whirlwind Wall, Kalam still hears singing. Pust does not hear it, but says that Mogora cannot sing, and it is the Tanno song. They approach the Wall, and Pust vanishes. The Azalan demon misdirects the Whirlwind, and Kalam is able to slip in unnoticed.
==Drift Avalii==
On Drift Avalii, Cutter, carrying Apsalar who is unconscious, finds Cotillion surrounded by dead Tiste Edur but crouched over the body of the witch Hawl. Cotillion says he thought Surly had already killed all the Talon's command. He tells Cutter he wonders why Hawl was with Traveller and what the Talon is up to. He pulls a yellow-stained talon from round Hawl's neck and throws it into Apsalar's lap, then sends Cutter to the Edur ship, with the mission to join another of his agents to assist in dealing with someone he calls "the Master of the Talon".
Cotillion carries Hawl's body to a glade. Shadowthrone materialises, and Cotillion tells him that Traveller is here: they speak of his stubbornness. They agree that Hawl, though no longer a follower, was a friend. Shadowthrone says that whatever the Talon is up to must fail. Cotillion says he knows who their mastermind is; Cutter and Apsalar are on the way there, with other agents available, and the destination is Raraku. Shadowthrone says he should tell Cotillion more of his endeavours, including about the diamonds the former gave the latter. He adds that Traveller makes him nervous, and they depart, taking Hawl to their home, where they will speak at length.
Cutter carries Apsalar to the shore. She awakens, and tells him that she knows Traveller from Dancer's memories: he was with Dancer and Kellanved from the beginning. Cutter asks if she can help him prepare an oared runner with supplies scattered on the shore, to take them to one of two badly damaged dromons anchored in the bay. He says Cotillion has another task for them. She tells him not to walk that path, but then slowly accepts the ladle of drinking water he offers.
==Pan'potsun Hills==
Pearl and Lostara Yil are in the Pan'potsun Hills, on top of a buried city. Pearl uses the place for a ritual in which he talks to the ghost of a local earth spirit which was killed nearby. Lostara cuts him off from providing details, but he leads them southward. They find a burned trader's wagon, surrounded by tiny bones which he says are those of rats, remnants of a D'ivers, Gryllen, who was badly hurt there. There are five ash heaps covering corpses. One holds a melted sigil from a Malazan mage cadre. Another corpse can still speak: Pearl learns he was an undead porter for Gryllen, named Clam. They follow a trail to a further corpse, which is just a shell. Pearl says that Hood had visited in person to take the man to add to his household. Pearl identifies this body as Baudin, and the mage they found earlier as Kulp. Lostara says the bodies were not present when, after following Kalam Mekhar, she ambushed Sha'ik. She deduces that Felisin and Heboric are with the Army of the Apocalypse in Raraku. She says that Sha'ik was indeed killed in the ambush, and they wonder who is now commanding the Apocalypse.
==Jhag Odhan==
Onrack's memories have returned. Rather than the surrounding landscape with mesas, gorges and planted fields, a city on the north horizon, he sees an inland sea of the distant past, stretching between what will become the Thalas Mountains and the Clatar Sea. Renig Obar's trader clan is walking on the shore. Coral reefs are threatened by chill winds, perhaps from a Jaghut stirring Omtose Phellack. Onrack has ceded to Absin Tholai as bonecaster for his clan. In distrusted solitude, he fashions paintings on cave walls: herds of ranag, then a true image of a mortal Imass, the lovely woman Kilava—thus trapping her in time. Logros and the First Sword Onos T'oolan are filled with wrath, though Onos shows wonder and love as well at the painting of Kilava his sister. Onrack does not know if she ever saw it: was she angered, or did she understand his heart?
In the present, Trull Sengar says he shivers at Onrack's silences. Onrack tells him that the night before the Ritual, near where they now stand, he was to have been banished from his tribe for his crime. But four Jaghut tyrants had risen. In the cavern a woman came to him in the darkness, not his wife. He does not know if it was Kilava, who in the morning was gone, defying the call of the Ritual, having killed all her kin bar Onos. Nor does he know what witness he heard in the passage beyond. Then he tells Trull that the trail of the renegades is fresh. Trull says the renegades have betrayed his people, and he must speak with them; then Onrack can kill them. Onrack says he is too badly damaged, but he will be satisfied with Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan, who are pursuing them in hope of being led to the renegades. Trull asks if Onrack will join the renegades; he says he will only if Trull does.
Onrack and Trull begin climbing into the saw-toothed hills where the T'lan Imass had quarried flint for weapons, which the renegades would reclaim, able to use their sorcery as they were kin to the makers, and thus severing the power of Tellann from their bodies. Onrack tells Trull that he does not know why his memories have returned, and that his crime of denying the Ritual to the woman—a bonecaster and Soletaken—was the cause of the murders that followed. He acknowledges that he was obsessed with her. Trull says we should learn from rather than repeat our mistakes, but Onrack says he still longs for solitude from his kind and has just betrayed Monok and Ibra, the same crimes as long ago. Trull says that Onrack is sounding more and more mortal, but that he is returning home.
Seneschal Jorrude's Tiste Liosan are camped nearby. Malachar reflects that they are battered but at least alive. They are bitten by vicious flies, leaving something squirming beneath the skin. Jorrude is anguished and Enias watches over him; Orenas guards the horses. Malachar foresees an accounting with the T'lan Imass: the Tiste Liosan had undertaken the ritual in good faith. Jorrude announces that the Guardian is dead, but their brothers and sisters will hold until Osric's return. Meanwhile the four of them have another task: find the trespassers who stole the Fire, and are in this world, close. Jorrude has sensed an old friend not far away, whom they will seek out: Icarium.
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