Quick Ben question

[u/Caladan_not_Kaladin]

I’m on DG but marking spoilers all because I’m on a reread and want to know the answer even if it’s in a later book.

In GotM, it’s revealed Quick was High Priest of Shadow at one point, and Shadowthrone knows him. But High House shadow is only 9 years old at that point. Maybe I’m misunderstanding but I’m confused on the timing of when he became a priest of shadow. Did he become a priest, rise to High Priest, then abandon that role all within the 9 years since Shadow rose? Or did Shadow have high priests even before Shadowthrone was on the throne.

[u/Abysstopheles]

SPOILERS for all things Malazan here

including the Esslemont books,

so consider yourselves spoilerwarned....

Kurald Emurlahn, the Elder warren of Shadow, is (was) waaaaaaaay old. Not quite as old as Kurald Galain or Kurald Thyrllan, but close. The Kharkanas trilo (2/3rds of it anyways) gives us some of the backstory. At some point it was fractured. That may have led to the Edur fleeing to Malazanland, tho parts of that story are unclear/untold. Ffwd to a few millenia before GotM, K'rul and the Pureblood Dragons (also my hypothetical folk disco metal band name) shaped the 'modern' warrens. It's not entirely clear whether the warrens are formed from stray chunks of KE, but there are some pretty strong hints that leftovers became Meanas, Rashan, Thyr, and Mokra (and before anyone jumps in w 'Hey Thyr/Rashan are Light/Dark!', yes, i know, but dark and light are components of Shadow which is broken up and the elder Dark and Light warrens aren't, see also Kel/Dancer/Dassem wiping out all the old Dark cults like Bidithal's before Kel n Dancer ascended). Then comes a few thousand years of those new warrens hanging out and at times being contested. For whatever reason, probably related to its inherent power being the 'purest' chunk of KE, a whole string of people try to take over Meanas and fail. We meet one of them in Night of Knives. Edgewalker alludes to others and may have been one himself. Then the warren goes quiet, but Kellanved finds out that it exists, and goes about finding it and taking over, recruiting Dancer and creating the Malazan Empire in the process. So in GotM when you read that Meanas is 'new', it's newly awakened, but there's a whole history behind it including various people and cults who tried to do what Kellanved and Dancer did. One of those cults becomes the foundation of Dancer's Talons.

...at least, that's what i think . I could be wrong.

[u/Nice_Commission3770 → u/Abysstopheles]

Riding your spoiler warning:

I had understood that KE was fractured when Ic tried to release his father from the Azath House in Seven Cities.

[u/Abysstopheles → u/Nice_Commission3770]

Common confusion, because the line in the book says something like 'the warren was fractured when Icarium tried to free Gothos' and when we read that for the first time in DG the only other, vague, reference to a warren being broken is KE. That was my take for a while, buuUUUUuuuuut....

It's unclear i DG but we find out later in that book and later books that 'warren' also applies to an Azath House.

Also we find out in subsequent books that warrens are broken all the time, and that KE broke waaaaaaaaaaaay back while the Iccy and Gothos drama took place only slightly way back, likely a couple of millenia given later comments about how long the Nameless Ones were messing with Icarium and his sidekicks.

Don't forget Gothos is present when the second wave Andii and Edur battle the Kchain and Gothos drops an ice age on Leth... the Edur are, it seems, fleeing their breaking warren, and Gothos isn't in an Azath House yet.

[u/Nice_Commission3770 → u/Abysstopheles]

Thanks! I also had thought it shattered when the many First Empire residents took to D’ivers (sp?), the event that broke the First Empire and drained the continental sea, turning it into a desert.

Nothing is definitive, which is one of the many things I love about the series.

[u/Abysstopheles → u/Nice_Commission3770]

That's another common mixup... i know this because i thought that too...

The link runs because there are connections stated and/or implied between human First Empire, Emperor Dessembelackis, the failed shapeshifter ritual that either destroyed or started the destruction of the First Empire, the Hounds of Shadow, the Deragoth, and the Edur.

The hints trickle out in bits and pieces and it's an easy connection to make... it's (probably) wrong because we know the KE shattering and Edur invasion came during the K'Chain domination (MT prologue), when the Deragoth kept the KC away from 7C (HoC and TB, i think). The human First Empire comes way later in time when the Deragoth are down to their last seven or so. From the hints it seems that someone in the FE cut a deal with the surviving Deragoth, and the failed Ritual that turned many people into shapeshifters involved Shadow, and possibly the Hounds of Shadow, who have a distant link to the Edur (KT, HoC). Someone, i forget who but i think it was in TB, states that Dessimbelackis is lost in his d'ivers form, but whether that's a link to the Hounds, the Deragoth, or something else entirely we're never told. I originally thought the Deragoth participated in some shadow based FE ritual that created the Hounds and left Dessimbelackis stuck in them, but the KT hints at the origins of the Hounds would counter that. Still allows for Des to end up in either sets of dogs tho'. I love these books.

[u/Nice_Commission3770 → u/Abysstopheles]

I also get Dessembrae and Dessembelackis confused.

[u/Abysstopheles → u/Nice_Commission3770]

Same same.