Welcome to the Malazan Re-read of the Fallen! Every post will start off with a summary of events, followed by reaction and commentary by your hosts Bill and Amanda (with Amanda, new to the series, going first), and finally comments from Tor.com readers. In this article, we’ll cover Chapter 18 of
Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson (MoI).
A fair warning before we get started: We’ll be discussing both novel and whole-series themes, narrative arcs that run across the entire series, and foreshadowing.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SCENE 1
Silverfox and Kruppe, followed by her two marines, head to the Gathering. They are joined by thousands of Ay, then tens of thousands of T’lan Imass. Kruppe senses “Despair. Or perhaps after this seeming eternity, only its ashes.” He wonders if they have memories or feelings: “True Memories? Of enlivened flesh and the wind’s caress, of the laughter of children? Memories of love? When frozen between life and death, in the glacial in-between, what can