House of Chains/Chapter 14

__NOTOC__ 
==Raraku==
Wolves stalk Karsa Orlong in the mountains on the western edge of Raraku. The ghosts of Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord give him unwanted advice. The wolves turn out to be the D'ivers Ryllandaras, trying to warn him of two dire travelers he will soon meet, and a threat to the world if he crosses them. Karsa ignores the warning and continues.
He meets Mappo and Icarium in the ruins of a city. Mappo offers food to Karsa as Icarium sizes him up. Mappo and Karsa speak of each other's fame and powers, and Mappo mentions the many ghosts haunting Karsa and an imminent "dreadful convergence". Karsa draws his sword and Icarium strikes, breaking it, then Karsa knocks him unconscious. Karsa turns towards Mappo, who in turn knocks him out with his mace, thinking the result better than he could have hoped.
Karsa awakens alone, and finds that Icarium had been digging up a seven-headed statue of a hound.
==Jhag Odhan==
Six days of travel later, Karsa finds an empty farming town. He sees agricultural life as repellent and inequitably rewarded, giving rise to control by the wealthy. He thinks it odd that the rebellion does not address this, but is only a struggle about who is in charge. He reflects on the ghosts of Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord, Hood, and the chains of living and dead. Led by the ghosts from a ring of barrows, he crosses into warrens, first Tellann in the wake of a Logros T'lan Imass army, then Omtose Phellack where he finds a Jaghut woman beneath a massive stone. The Jaghut, Aramala, speaks of the importance of the Jhag Odhan, and how it has preserved so much ancient life and culture, including horses. She also tells of destroying seven T'lan Imass scouts, leaving one who escaped to bring the army which would trap her. Saying he must answer injustice, Karsa defies High Tellann flames and lifts the stone. He requests that Aramala find him a horse in repayment, and then inquires about the seven scouts. She speaks of Jhag half-bloods, and asks if he wonders about the other half. He frowns, and she says there is much she must tell him.
Karsa emerges back into the Jhag Odhan, and finds a valley where the T'lan Imass made their flint weapons. In a cavern, Urugal and the other Teblor gods appear and speak to Karsa about the Ritual, their wills, their lives as T'lan Imass, and the one they now serve. 'Siballe says she has raised her army of the sacrificed for him to lead against the lowlanders. Karsa listens, and then crafts his own flint blade imbued with the spirits of Bairoth and Delum. Karsa says he can never be Unbound, that the Seven closed on him the chains that carry the souls of those he's killed. Thus he denies Teblor godhood, but accepts the title of Knight of Chains, champion of the Crippled God. Urugal tells Karsa that he has learned much. Karsa agrees and tells the gods that they shall witness.
14