Gardens of the Moon

It is now the seventh year of Empress Laseen’s rule. Laseen successfully staged a coup and assassinated the emperor shortly after the events of the Prologue. Her reign has been one of conquest. A few remaining cities resist imperial control. These Free Cities have partnered with mercenary armies to resist the empire. Pale is one such city.

A column of soldiers is marching along a road outside a fishing village in Itko Kan, one of the countries that the empire conquered. A young woman is innocently fascinated by the parade of soldiers. She meets an elderly seer, Rigga, who tells the young woman that she’s blinded by the lies of the empire. Rigga makes a prophecy, linking the two together in a spell that the young woman instantly forgets.

A soldier knocks Rigga to the ground; she dies when her head hits a rock. Two men dressed in black approach the girl. They are Shadowthrone, a god and ruler of the House of Shadows, and his companion Cotillion, patron of assassins. They release seven Hounds of Shadow into the countryside while having a conversation about the revenge they seek against Empress Laseen. They take control of the young woman’s mind, telling her that she has become “a pawn of a god” (36). They name her Sorry. Now under Cotillion’s control, Sorry travels to the army recruiting station in the next town and joins up.

The Hounds massacre hundreds of people. Whiskeyjack (now Captain rather than Commander, having been demoted when Empress Laseen took power) is investigating the scene along with Adjunct Lorn. The Adjunct is the empress’s right hand. Whiskeyjack and the Adjunct can tell that something magical was responsible for the massacres, but they don’t know what.

Ganoes Paran, now a lieutenant in the imperial army, is under Whiskeyjack’s command. Paran reports that the nearby village had bodies in every hut, except for the huts belonging to Rigga and a fisherman and his daughter. The Adjunct is impressed by Paran’s honesty and keen eyes. She asks him to take her to see the village and then recruits him to work directly for her. The Adjunct deduces that the missing young woman is of some import and that the slaughter committed by the Hounds was meant as a distraction. She assigns Paran to the years-long project of finding out more about the missing young woman.

After a day of searching Sorry’s village and finding only evidence of slaughter, Paran is stopped on the road by a man who introduces himself as Topper. Topper works for the Adjunct as a Claw. He can use magic and does so to open the Imperial Warren, which enables them to travel hundreds of miles in a few hours. They meet the Adjunct in the empire’s capital city, Unta.

In Unta, Paran meets the Empress before speaking with the Adjunct. She encourages him to visit his family before he is reassigned to his new commission working for her.

Two years pass between the events of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Under the command of High Fist Dujek Onearm, the imperial forces are holding Pale under siege. Above the city floats Moon’s Spawn, a fortress in the sky. Moon’s Spawn is controlled by Lord Anomander Rake and is home to the Tiste Andii. Moon’s Spawn’s regiments are working as mercenary forces alongside Pale, attempting to defend the city from the imperial invaders.

A team of imperial mages is part of the occupying army. The mages Tattersail, Hairlock, and Calot are commanded to attack Moon’s Spawn by the Empress’ High Mage, Tayschrenn. The mages argue that Anomander Rake is too powerful for them to defeat, but the High Mage insists that they attack.

The mages attack Moon’s Spawn, with the imperial army assembled to move into Pale as soon as the floating fortress is defeated. Moon’s Spawn takes heavy damage in battle and retreats, leaving Pale open to imperial conquest. Calot dies in battle, as do two of the other mages who came with Tayschrenn. Hairlock is fatally wounded. Tattersail realizes that the attacks that hit Hairlock and Calot did not come from Moon’s Spawn but from Tayschrenn. She deduces that the empire is trying to wipe out people who might be loyal to Dujek. Most of Dujek’s army, including a majority of Whiskeyjack’s squad, is decimated during the battle.

After the battle, Whiskeyjack approaches Tattersail and Hairlock, who is dying. Whiskeyjack is accompanied by Quick Ben, who is his sorcerer, and Sorry, who was assigned to the Bridgeburners after she joined the army. Quick Ben performs magic that Tattersail doesn’t recognize and that Hairlock calls “lost arts.” After the spell is complete, Hairlock seems to be dead, but Quick Ben gives Tattersail a bundle to open in her tent. The bundle contains a wooden puppet, into which they have moved Hairlock’s consciousness in a process called “soul shifting.” Tattersail is unnerved by this magic and by Hairlock’s ongoing presence.

Tattersail has a deck of cards like a tarot deck, called the Deck of Dragons. She reads the cards with Hairlock, foretelling that Oponn, the god of chance, will play a role in the coming events. She thinks she hears a coin spinning, a sound that follows her for days.

Paran receives word that the Adjunct has located Sorry after all this time; she’s with the Bridgeburners. Paran is assigned to take command of the Bridgeburners.

Topper confirms for Paran that the empire is preparing to attack the final Free City, Darujhistan. In preparation for this major effort, the empress wants to remove potential threats, including Dujek. Paran finds it odd that they wouldn’t send a Claw assassin to take care of Sorry and finds the empress’s suspicion of Dujek to be unwarranted.

Paran travels to Pale with a group of Moranth soldiers on their domesticated giant flying insects called Quorls. Upon his arrival, Paran is met by Toc the Younger, a Claw agent. Toc is unique among Claw in that he behaves like a soldier and is sporting injuries from the battle for Pale. Toc, having spent so much time with the army, has mixed allegiances, torn between his duty as a spy assassin and his loyalty to the foot soldiers of the empire.

Paran is stabbed on the streets of Pale. He doesn’t know it, but his attacker is Sorry. Shadowthrone and Cotillion (speaking through Sorry) have a conversation nearby, thinking him dead. They speak of Empress Laseen being their eventual target. He also hears a coin spinning.

In Pale, Tattersail meets with the sorcerer Bellurdan, who was one of the Tayschrenn’s crew in the battle with Moon’s Spawn. Bellurdan is grief-stricken for his partner Nightchill, who died in battle. Tattersail casts a preservation spell on Nightchill’s body so that it won’t decompose further before Bellurdan can bury it. Tattersail tries to speak to Bellurdan about Tayschrenn’s treachery, but he resists. She asks him if they can talk more later. He agrees.

Tayschrenn demands that Tattersail read her cards for him. Her reading connects Sorry, Cotillion, and Darujhistan. Tattersail continues to hear the coin spinning and provides the reading for Tayschrenn while withholding as much information as possible, never mentioning Sorry to him. Instead, the two discuss the possibility that the gods are involved in this conflict.

Whiskeyjack, Quick Ben, and Kalam suspect that the Empress is trying to get rid of the Bridgeburners. They are suspicious of the new captain they’ve been assigned, although they haven’t met Paran yet. They also suspect Sorry; they are unnerved by her presence and wonder if she might be a Claw agent.

Tattersail meets with Whiskeyjack, Quick Ben, and Kalam. She warns them that Hairlock is erratic and growing more powerful as he takes more risks with his magic. Quick Ben agrees that Hairlock is “twisted” but argues that he has him under control and that Hairlock is making progress in discovering who wants them all dead. Whiskeyjack is not adept at magic. Tattersail and Quick Ben explain to him that Hairlock is using unconventional, dangerous approaches to magic to avoid detection by Tayschrenn.

Tattersail demands to know more of Whiskeyjack’s plans since she is becoming more involved with them. Quick Ben reveals that they believe Sorry is connected to House Shadow. He also reveals his suspicions that Shadowthrone is the fallen Emperor Kellanved and that Cotillion is his associate, Dancer. Whiskeyjack is not convinced, claiming that Sorry is no worse than any other assassin, Kalam included.

High Fist Dujek gives Whiskeyjack the next orders for the Bridgeburners; they’re headed to Darujhistan to pave the way for an imperial invasion. They fly with the Moranth on their Quorls.

Alone, Tattersail consults her Deck of Dragons again. She foresees a conflict between the House of Shadow (Shadowthrone) and the Dark Knight (Anomander Rake). She also sees a servant of death building a barrow and thinks it might be hers.

Paran awakes in a strange landscape near an archway made of human bodies. He is literally at death’s door, which is called Hood’s Gate. Twins, a man and a woman, appear before him. These twins are the two faces of Oponn, the god of chance. They tell Paran that they are there because they admire his sword, which he named “Chance” when he got it years ago. Oponn strikes a deal with Hood for Paran’s life—someone close to him will die in his place. Two Hounds of Shadow arrive, frightening Oponn away. Paran realizes that these were the creatures responsible for the massacre in Itko Kan. Shadowthrone is with them, planning to kill Paran because he is working for the Adjunct until he realizes that some other god has intervened on Paran’s behalf. Shadowthrone waits to kill Paran, wanting to know who his protector is first.

A couple of Bridgeburners find Paran and are shocked to discover that he’s alive despite the severity of his wounds. Kalam is summoned, and he moves through the city with ease; all the guards show greater respect and loyalty for a corporal of the Bridgeburners than they do for their imperial orders. Kalam and Quick Ben take Paran to Tattersail. They ask her to care for him while they head to Darujhistan.

One of the Hounds of Shadow, named Gear, traces them down. Tattersail and Hairlock are battling the Hound with magic when Paran stabs it with his sword, Chance. The sword is only able to pierce the Hound’s magic protections because it is blessed by Oponn. The Hound, wounded, flees. Tattersail is also wounded in the fight.