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| - In a grove, Karsa Orlong is finishing up carvings of the seven Teblor gods as well as those of his dead friends, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. He is met by Leoman who asks about the seven carvings (he recognizes the other two as Toblakai) and is visibly shocked when Karsa tells him they are his gods. He informs Karsa about the Malazan army's movements. Leoman disagrees with Korbolo Dom's plan to meet the Malazan army with large scale engagements and instead thinks they should be fought in smaller skirmishes. He has been given permission by Sha'ik to venture out with a small force to scout the Malazans but not harass or attack them. Leoman admits that he'll do whatever he wants when he's outside of the whirlwind. He shrugs off Karsa's warning that Sha'ik will know he disobeyed and begins to complain about the goddess' leadership and decisions. Karsa agrees, saying that she is, after all, a Malazan and that she is chained by her memories and trapped by fear that is born out of a secret only she and Ghost Hands know. Leoman calls Karsa defeatists, which Karsa shrugs off before admitting that he once viewed the Malazans as enemies but has come to realize that the are no worse than other lowlanders. He even notes that at least the Malazans have a strong sense of justice and that the people of Seven Cities who despise them seek nothing more than to have the power the Malazans took from them, power they used to terrorize their own people. Leoman agrees and admits that that is probably why Sha'ik considers him to have "no loyalty." He goes on to explain why he supports the Army of the Apocalypse, because he feels that the human race, with all its cruelty and brutality, should be annihilated and "the sooner we obliterate ourselves, the better the world will be." Heboric, L'oric, Sha'ik, Febryl, Young Felisin and Bidithal are looking at the Deck, specifically the House of Chains. They disagree on aspects of the House, namely its power and whether it is enemy or friend. Sha'ik asks to see the new unaligned card and asks Heboric what he senses from it. Heboric replies that he can sense nothing from it, and that there is no link of power between his hands and the Deck. She asks him again, this time as a historian and priest, what this new unaligned card may tell him. They discuss various aspects of the details of the card and speculate on their possible significance. Heboric, being blind, asks specific questions regarding details of the card, giving Sha'ik and L'oric suspicions that he has knowledge he is not sharing with them. Heboric then leaves, guided by Felisin. As he passes Dom's army training, he notes how it and Tavore's army will be evenly matched. When Leoman asks Karsa if he'll be joining his raiding party, Karsa says there are no horses for him. Leoman says there are some to the west in the Jhag Odhan, horses bred by the Jaghut that would fit him well. Karsa agrees to get Sha'ik's permission to venture out to find a suitable horse. He comments that he should kill Bidithal before he leaves to keep Felisin Younger safe from his depravity, but Leoman convinces him that Heboric will soon leave and take her safely away with him. After Leoman departs, the air grows cold and snakes are seen fleeing the grove. Karsa watches as the seven god's faces waken and hears voices in his mind of thousands of souls moaning and the snapping thunder of chains. Urugal speaks, telling Karsa they have waited a long time for the fashioning of a sacred place and demands he destroy the two carvings of his Teblor friend because they are offensive to the gods. Karsa refuses and reminds the gods that he freed them from their prison in the Teblor land and that what he made, he can also shatter. He tells Urugal he is to travel west into the Jhag Odhan and they are shocked and excited and want to know how he knows this. The seven gods fade out, and Karsa knows they are not as powerful as they want him to believe. He turns to the carvings of his friends and confesses that his loyalty was misplaced and that he served glory and empty words while there was true glory before him, in the form of his loyal friends. Bairoth's statue speaks, "Lead us, Warleader," and both of his companions agree to follow Karsa on his quest once more. L'oric enters Heboric's tent and offers him an exchange of knowledge that will stay between the two of them. At first Heboric says that L'oric has nothing of interest to him, but then he relents when L'oric says he can give information about the Jade statue. Over tea, they discuss histories of the humans and the Tiste, speculate on the identity of the new Master of the Deck as well as the origin of the Jade statues. L'oric says that the Jade statues are “intruders in our world from some other realm.” They are all found in deposits of otataral. L'oric suspects that their arrival was anticipated and the otataral was prepared to trap them, but Heboric disagrees and speculates that the passage of the giants through the portal is what creates the otataral or maybe the otataral was created by the accumulation of magic from a ritual involving collective sorcery, like the Tellann Ritual or the calling down of the Crippled God. Leoman sees Karsa off, exchanging warnings and advice of how each should proceed with him. As Karsa heads off, he can sense and hear that he is flanked by his two Teblor companions. Kamist Reloe informs Korbolo Dom of Karsa's departure, and the two continue to discuss their plans to take the throne for themselves. Their plans include Febryl killing Sha'ik, Tavore killing Febryl, Dom and Reloe destroying Tavore and the Malazan army as well as the Seven Cities rebellion, killing the Empress and having the Talons destroy the Claw, all while Dujek is a continent away. Dom orders Reloe to dispose of L'oric as a loose end in need of tying. As Reloe leaves, Dom muses on how he would like to see all magic in the world gone, so the world would belong to people like him.
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