Night of Knives

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Authors: Ian C. Esslemont

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NIGHT OF KNIVES

NIGHT OF KNIVES

A NOVEL OF THE MALAZAN
EMPIRE

Ian C. Esslemont

A Tom Doherty Associates Book

New York

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations,
and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

NIGHT OF KNIVES: A NOVEL OF THE MALAZAN EMPIRE

Maps © Neil Gower

Previously published in the UK in 2005 by PS Publishing
LLP and in 2007 by Bantam Press, a division of
Transworld Publishers.

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
^®is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Esslemont, Ian C. (Ian Cameron)

Night of knives: a novel of the Malazan Empire / Ian C.
Esslemont.—1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2371-2 (trade pbk.)

ISBN-10: 0-7653-2371-0 (trade pbk.)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2369-9 (hardcover)

ISBN-10: 0-7653-2369-9 (hardcover)

I. Title.

PS3605.S684N54 2009

813'.6—dc22

2009001517

First U.S. Edition: May 2009

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This novel is dedicated to
Steve
who made the world real

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work’s long journey from conception to print has been full of aid from many unexpected directions. It grew out of a collaboration of many years’ standing with Steven Erikson that continues to be rich and rewarding, creatively and in friendship. To him must go my greatest thanks for our partnership in creating the world of Malaz. I would also like to thank Simon Taylor for his generosity of spirit, William Thompson for his encouragement and editing skills, my agent, John Jarrold, and Gerri Brightwell for her longstanding support and insightful comments. And finally, extraordinary thanks to Peter Crowther for taking a chance on an unknown.

INTRODUCTION

T
HE WORLD OF MALAZ WAS BORN IN
1982,
AND FROM THAT
moment onward that world’s history slowly took shape. On summer archaeological digs and winters spent in Victoria, B.C., in the midst of degrees in Creative Writing, in Winnipeg and on Saltspring Island – wherever Ian (Cam) Esslemont and I crossed paths for any length of time. We were co-writers on a number of feature film scripts, and it was clear that our individual creativities were complementary, and during our breaks from writing we gamed in the world of Malaz.

When the notion of writing fiction set in that world was first approached, it seemed obvious that we would divvy up the vast history we had fashioned over the years. And so we did. Since the publication of
Gardens of the Moon
, I have heard from and read of fans wanting to know about the old empire, the empire of the Emperor, Kellanved, and his cohort, Dancer. And time and again I was asked: will you ever write of those early times in the empire’s history? Or, will you write about The Crimson Guard? And I have always been firm in my reply: no. The reason should now be obvious.

This is a huge imaginary world, too big for a single writer to manage in a lifetime. But two writers . . . that’s different. The dedication in
Gardens of the Moon
was to Ian C. Esslemont.
Worlds to conquer, worlds to share.
I do not think I could have made my desire, and intent, more clear. Granted, it has taken a while for this, Cam’s first work set in Malaz, to arrive. Our life journeys diverged for a time, and other demands occupied
Cam – family, postgraduate studies and so on. But I always had faith, was always aware that a surprise and a treat were on their way, and this novel,
Night of Knives
, marks the first instalment of this, the shared world that we had both envisioned years ago.

Night of Knives
is not fan fiction. We shaped the world of Malaz through dialogue; our gaming was novelistic and with themes that were, more often than not, brutally tragic. At other times there was comedy, usually of the droll variety. We duelled each other on understatement and absurdity, and we made it a point to confound the genre’s overused tropes. The spirit of that has infused every one of my novels set in the Malazan world. And it infuses Ian Esslemont’s writing in the same imaginary world. That being said, the novel in your hands possesses its own style, its own voice. The entire story takes place in the span of a single day and night, and it is exquisite. Readers of my own work will recognize the world, its atmosphere, its darkness; they will see the characters in
Night of Knives
as simply more players woven into the same tangled tapestry, they will see the story as one more bloodstained piece of imagined history. And there’s so much more to come.

To this day, we continue to work on the Malazan world’s history, poring over its details, confirming the sequence of events, discussing the themes, subtext, and ensuring the consistency of cross-over characters. We hammer away at the timeline and the fates of countless characters, many of whom no one else has met yet. And we discuss deviousness, and as the readers of the
Malazan Book of the Fallen
know, deviousness abounds.

From the beginning of the Malazan series, I was writing to an audience of one – Cam. And he has reciprocated. Thus, the dialogue continues; only now there are others, and they are listening in. Finally, to both sides of the conversation.

We hope it proves entertaining.

Steven Erikson
Winnipeg, Canada, 2004

NIGHT OF KNIVES