#mappo runt

[chloristoflora]

"You were a blacksmith—"

"By default. I was a soldier, Mappo. A Red Blade."

"Even so, to work iron is a worthy profession. Perhaps you were a soldier, once, but to set down your weapons and find another profession is not surrender. Yet if it feels so to you, well, this city is no doubt crowded with estates, many of which would welcome a guard of your experience. And there will be merchants, operating caravans. Indeed, the city must have its own garrison – no warrior ever tears unemployment, for their skills are ever in demand."

"A sad admission, Mappo."

The Trell shrugged again. "I would think, now, Barathol, that if anyone needs his back guarded, it is Cutter."

Barathol sighed in frustration. "He says little of what he plans to do. In any case, this is his city. He will find those who know enough to protect him. Besides, I must admit having seen Cutter practise with those knives of his, well, perhaps it is Darujhistan that must fear his return."

"He is too precipitous."

"I trust Scillara to rein him in."

"Barathol, let us now make our farewells. I intend to depart soon."

"And had I not followed you down here?"

"I do poorly saying goodbye." His gaze shied away.

"Then I will convey such to the others, on your behalf. Cutter will be . . . upset. For he has known you the longest among us all."

"I know, and I am sorry – in so many ways I am a coward."

But Barathol well understood. This was not cowardice. It was some sort of shame, twisted past any possible reason, any conceivable justification. The loss of Icarium was a wound so raw, so irreconcilable, that its spreading stain swept all from its path. Friends, loyalties, lives and histories. And Mappo could not fight against that onrushing tide and the fate he sought at its very end. There would be grief at that conclusion, Barathol suspected, of incalculable measure.

Toll the Hounds, by Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen #8)

[preston-holt]

Epic of Gilgamesh, transl. Herbert Mason [1, 19] // Steven Erikson, The Malazan Book of the Fallen [2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 23] // Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (transl. Charles E. Wilbour) [3] // Gilgamesh by Wael Tarabieh [6] // Eurypides, Orestes (transl. R. Potter) [9] // George RR Martin, A Game of Thrones [12,14] // Robin Hobb, Fool's Fate [17] // Gang of Youths, Achilles Come Down [20] // Orpheus tries to hold on to Eurydice (1791) by François Gérard [22] // Hadestown, Wait For Me [24]

[schroedingerskatze87]

Experimental thing, lighting with layers and whatnot.

Malazan Fanart. Mappo and Icarium being travel buddies in the desert.

[whiskeyjack-bridgeburner]

What held real value in this world?

In any world? Friendship, the gifts of love and compassion. The honour one accorded the life of another person. None of this could be bought with wealth. It seemed to him such a simple truth. Yet he knew that its very banality was fuel for sneering cynicism and mockery. Until such things were taken away, until the price of their loss came to be personal, in some terrible, devastating arrival into one's life. Only at that moment of profound extremity did the contempt wash down from that truth, revealing it bare, undeniable. (Mappo Runt) Toll the Hounds The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson

[chloristoflora]

He looked away. "Why have they not killed him, then?"

She shrugged. "Presumably, they foresee a use for his talents. Ah, the notion terrifies you, doesn't it? Can it be true that you have, until this moment, retained your faith in the Nameless Ones?"

"No. I am distressed by the notion of what they will release. Icarium is not a weapon—"

"Oh you fool, of course he is. They made him, and now they will use him… ah, now I understand Shadowthrone. Clever bastard. Of course, I am offended that he would so blithely assume my allegiance. And even more offended to realize that, in this matter, his assumption was correct." She paused, then sighed. "It is time to send you back."

"Wait – you said something – the Nameless Ones, that they made Icarium. I thought—"

"Forged by their own hands, and then, through the succession of guardians like you, Mappo, honed again and yet again. Was he as deadly when he first crawled from the wreckage they'd made of his young life? As deadly as he is now? I would imagine not." She studied him. "My words wound you. You know, I dislike Shadowthrone more and more, as my every act and every word here complies with his nefarious expectation. I wound you, then realize that he needs you wounded. How is it he knows us so well?"

The Bonehunters, by Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen #6)

[chloristoflora]

"Will there be villages and such on our route?"

Mappo shook his head. "These Odhans are virtually lifeless now, Icarium. Occasionally, Vedanik tribes venture down from the Thalas Mountains, but not at this time of year. Keep your bow at the ready – there are antelope and hares and drolig."

"Waterholes, then?"

"I know them," Mappo said.

Icarium walked over to his gear. "We have done this before, haven't we?"

Yes. 'Not for a long while, my friend.' Almost eighty years, in fact. But the last time, we stumbled onto it – you remembered nothing. This time, I fear, it will be different.

Icarium paused, the horn-rimmed bow in his hands, and looked over at Mappo. "You are so patient with me," he said, with a faint, sad smile, "whilst I wander, ever lost."

Mappo shrugged. "It is what we do."

The Bonehunters, by Steven Erikson (Malazan Book of the Fallen #6)

[ae-neon]

'Tesem,' Icarium said, watching the priest vanish through the window. 'A place of healing. Solitary reflection, repository of scrolls and tomes, and insatiable nuns...'

'Insatiable?'

The Jhag glanced at his friend, an eyebrow rising. 'Indeed.'

'Oh, sad demise.'

'Very.'

He don't remember much but he remembered that 😭

[seamusquigley]

‘We fight for reasons that are, for the most part, essentially nonsensical, even when the justification seems plain and straightforward. Two kingdoms, one upriver, one downriver. The kingdom downriver sees the water arrive befouled and sickly, filled with silts and sewage. The kingdom upriver, being on higher land, sees its desperate efforts at irrigation failing, as the topsoil is swept away each time the rains come to the highlands beyond. The two kingdoms quarrel, until there is war. The downriver kingdom marches, terrible battles are fought, cities are burned to the ground, citizens enslaved, fields salted and made barren. Ditches and dykes are broken. In the end, only the downriver kingdom remains. But the erosion does not cease. Indeed, now that there is no irrigation occurring upriver, the waters rush down in full flood, distempered and wild, and they carry lime and salt that settles on the fields and poisons the remaining soil. There is starvation, disease, and the desert closes in on all sides. The once victorious leaders are cast down. Estates are looted. Brigands rove unchecked, and within a single generation there are no kingdoms, neither upriver nor downriver. Was the justification valid? Of course. Did that validity defend the victors against their own annihilation? Of course not.

‘A civilization at war chooses only the most obvious enemy, and often also the one perceived, at first, to be the most easily defeatable. But that enemy is not the true enemy, nor is it the gravest threat to that civilization. Thus, a civilization at war often chooses the wrong enemy. Tell me, Mappo Runt, for my two hypothetical kingdoms, where hid the truest threat?’

He shook his head.

‘Yes, difficult to answer, because the threats were many, seemingly disconnected, and they appeared, disappeared then reappeared over a long period of time. The game that was hunted to extinction, the forests that were cut down, the goats that were loosed into the hills, the very irrigation ditches that were dug. And yet more: the surplus of food, the burgeoning population and its accumulating wastes. And then diseases, soils blown or washed away; and kings – one after another – who could or would do nothing, or indeed saw nothing untoward beyond their fanatical focus upon the ones they sought to blame.

‘Alas,’ she said, leaning now on the rail, her face to the wind, ‘there is nothing simple in seeking to oppose such a host of threats. First, one must recognize them, and to achieve that one must think in the long term; and then one must discern the intricate linkages that exist between all things, the manner in which one problem feeds into another. From there, one must devise solutions and finally, one must motivate the population into concerted effort, and not just one’s own population, but that of the neighbouring kingdoms, all of whom are participating in the slow self-destruction. Tell me, can you imagine such a leader ever coming to power? Or staying there for long? Me neither. The hoarders of wealth will band together to destroy such a man or woman. Besides, it is much easier to create an enemy and wage war, although why such hoarders of wealth actually believe that they would survive such a war is beyond me. But they do, again and again. Indeed, it seems they believe they will outlive civilization itself.’

Spite, The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson, book 6 of The Malazan Book of the Fallen