Jaghut
Race: Jaghut
Also known as:
Warren: Omtose Phellack
Appearance: Tall with green skin, tusked.
Further info: One of the Elder races.
Steven Erikson: Jaghut as a word has no earthly influence by way of origin. I just liked the way it looks on the page. I pronounce it Jag-goot but accenting the first syllable and falling off on the last syllable. (Q and A with malazanempire No 1 (2003))
_
Jaghut Society
The Jaghut rejected community in a solitudinal sort of anarchism- they realized that the company of others spawns the tendency to dominate. Having experienced terrible domination at the hands of the K'Chaine Che'Malle, the Jaghut remained dispersed. Most lived alone in tower-like homes. Besides the unusual Tyrants, Jaghut were mostly peaceful (if exceptionally dour and cynical).
'...the Jaghut feared community, pronouncing society to be the birthplace of tyranny – of the flesh and the spirit – and citing their
own bloody history as proof...' - (GotM, UK Trade, p.435)
"Jaghut? They are scattered and few" - Scabandari Bloodeye (discussing who on the Malaz world has the power to oppose the Tiste Edur) - (MT, UK HC, pg 3)
"The Jaghut are odd people.'
'Tool, they weren't very warlike, were they? I mean, before your kind sought to destroy them.
The Imass was slow to reply. 'Even then,' he said at last. 'The key lay in making them angry, for then they destroyed indiscriminately, including their own." - (GotM, US HC, p.388)
"'Jaghut women had deceptive strength and admirable ferocity, especially when cornered.'" - (HoC, UK MMPB, p.323)
"'No bargains, Jaghut? You always seek bargains to spare the lives of your children. Have you broken the kin-threads with these two, then? They seem young for that.'" - (MoI, UK mmpb, p.27)
Jaghut Tyrants
"One whose blood was poisoned by ambition to rule over others. This Jaghut Tyrant enslaved the land around it - all living things - for close to three thousand years. The Imass of the time sought to destroy it, and failed. It was left to other Jaghut to attend to the sundering and imprisoning of the Tyrant - for such a creature was as abominable to them as it was to Imass." - Bellurdan - (GotM, US HC, p.237)
"A Jaghut Tyrant, imprisoned by the Jaghut themselves." - (GotM, US HC, p.277)
Jaghut Creations
"Your Nachts – the Jaghut were inveterate jokers. Hah hah. That was a Forkrul Assail. It seems the Shake stirred things up somewhat – they're probably all dead, in fact, and this one was backtracking with the intention of cleaning up any stragglers – out through the gate, probably, to murder every refugee on that shoreline we've just left behind. Instead, he ran into us – and your Venath demons."
Withal wiped blood from his eyes. "I'm, uh, starting to see the resemblances – they were ensorcelled before?"
"In a manner of speaking. A geas, I suspect. They're Soletaken … or maybe D'ivers. Either way, this particular realm forced a veering – or a sembling – who can say which species is the original, after all."
"Then what do the Jaghut have to do with any of this?"
"They created the Nachts. Or so I gathered – the mage Obo in Malaz City seemed to be certain of that. Of course, if he's right and they did, then what they managed to do was something no one else has ever managed – they found a way to chain the wild forces of Soletaken and D'ivers. " - Sandalath- (DoD)
Jaghut Magic
"‘Ice...The Jaghut answer to everything.’" -
Mael - (MT, UK Trade, p.6)
"'The Warrens of the Imass are similar to those of the Jaghut and the
Forkrul Assail – Elder-, blood- and earthbound –'" - (
GotM, UK Trade, p.204)
"'Jaghut. To stem the tides of invading humans, they raised ice. Sometimes swiftly, sometimes slowly, as their strategy dictated. In places it swallowed entire continents, obliterating all that once stood upon them.
Forkrul Assail civilizations, the vast mechanisms and edifices of the
K'Chain Che'Malle, and of course the squalid huts of those who would one day inherit the world." -
Sormo E'nath - (DG, UK MMPB, p.428)
Jaghut and Death
The T'lan Imass pursued the Jaghut in a most relentless manner, including those Jaghut who elected to surrender their place in the world - said individuals choosing something closely resembling death. Their souls would travel to their Hold, leaving their flesh behind, the flesh being stored in tombs like this one. - Bugg - (MT UK T - p. 327)
"Perhaps," Emroth continued, "for some, oblivion was not what they found. Dragged down into the Jaghut underworld, the Jaghut realm of death. A place without the war, without, perhaps, the Ritual itself."
"Without the war? This is the Jaghut underworld – shouldn't it be filled with Jaghut? Their souls? Their spirits?"
"The Jaghut do not believe in souls, Ghost." (HoC)
Jaghut tombs (made by T'lan Imass)
"'It looked like nothing more than a cairn marker, a huge, elongated slab of stone tilted upward at the southernmost end'"- (DG, UK MMPB, p.783)
"There lies a standing stone in the Gadrobi Hills - I know its location precisely. It is almost invisible, only its weathered top breaks the ground, perhaps a hand's span in height. The remaining twenty feet are beneath the earth...For while the stone marks the beginning point, it is not the entrance to the barrow." - (GotM, US HC, p.277)
Jaghut Underworld
See : Verdith'anath
Jaghut War on Death
Tell me, High King, did you know they broke peace only once? In all their existence – no, not the T'lan Imass – that war belonged to those savages and the Jaghut were a most reluctant foe."
.. "Perhaps, but I was speaking of an earlier war – the war that destroyed the Jaghut long before the coming of the T'lan Imass. The war that shattered their unity, that made of their lives a moribund flight from an implacable enemy – yes, long before and long after the T'lan Imass."
... "No. There were some among us who chose to join in this war, to fight alongside the Jaghut armies –"
"Armies? Jaghut armies?"
"Yes, an entire people gathered, a host of singular will. Legions uncountable. Their standard was rage, their clarion call injustice. When they marched, swords beating on shields, time itself found measure, a hundred million hearts of edged iron. Not even you, High King, could imagine such a sight – your empire was less than a squall to that terrible storm."
... "Yes again, High King. When you forged your empire, it was on the dust of that time, that grand contest, that most bold assault. We fought. We refused to retreat. We failed. We fell. So many of us fell – should we have believed any different? Should we have held to our faith in the righteousness of our cause, even as we came to believe that we were doomed?"
... "Grieve for the Jaghut, High King, when at last you sit on that throne. Grieve for the chains that bind all life, that you can never break. Weep, for me and my fallen kin – who did not hesitate to join a war that could not be won. Know, for ever in your soul, Kallor Eidorann, that the Jaghut fought the war no other has dared to fight."
"Eleint…."
"Think of these people. Think of them, High King. The sacrifice they made for us all. Think of the Jaghut, and an impossible victory won in the heart of defeat. Think, and then you will come to understand all that is to come. Perhaps, then, you alone will know enough to honour their memory, the sacrifice they made for us all.
"High King, the Jaghut's only war, their greatest war, was against Death itself." Tulas Shorn to High King Kallor - (TtH UK HB, p. 575)
Gothos to Arathan : "He (Hood)grieves for the silence she now gives him, (Karish) Arathan. I fear, in truth, that he will announce a war upon that silence. All to hear her speak again, one more time. He will, if he is able, shatter the peace of death itself." (FoD - Tpb - p. 521)
Jaghut Army
A chilling sound, the rattling laughter of fourteen undead Jaghut.
Then the spear-wielder spoke. "Flee. Your hunters shall know the privilege of meeting the last soldiers of the only army the Jaghut ever possessed."
"The last to die," one added in a growl.
"And should you see Hood," said the swordwoman, "remind him of how his soldiers never faltered. Even in his moment of betrayal. We never faltered." (DoD)
"I am named Varandas. We do not serve Hood. We did Iskar Jarak a favour, and now we are free to do as we please." (female) (DoD)
Varandas (Captain) female
Haut -The thick-limbed warrior with the heavy voice shifted, armour clanking and shedding red dust
Suvalas
Sanad
Gathras
Burrugast (lieutenant)
Gedoran
Bolirium
Daryft
Guardians of the Gate
Fourteen in all. Details assembling as Sag Churok and Gunth Mach raced ever closer. Gaunt despite the blackened, gnarled armor encasing their torsos and limbs. Strange helms with down-swept cheek guards that projected below their chins. Ragged camails of black chain. Thick, tattered and stained cloaks that had once been dyed an intense, deep yellow, trimmed in silver fur.
Sag Churok saw that seven of the strangers held in their gauntleted hands long, narrow-bladed swords of blued steel, basket-hilted with half-moon knuckle-guards; and ornate bucklers. He saw two others with heavier single-edged axes and embossed round shields covered in mottled hides. Three with broad-headed, iron-sheathed spears. And two more, standing behind the rest, preparing slings.
And, surrounding them all, spreading down from the faint rise on which they waited, frost sparkled on earth and stone.
Disbelief struck Sag Churok like a hammer-blow.
This was not possible. This was … without precedent. Impossible – what cast these strangers? Foes or allies? But no, they cannot be allies.
Besides, as all know, Jaghut stand alone.
"There!" shouted Kalyth, pointing. "I prayed! There – run to them – quickly! Guardians of the Gate!"
Destriant – hear me. These ones will not help us. They will do nothing.
"You're wrong!"
Destriant. They are Jaghut. They are …
… impossible.
But Gunth Mach had altered her course, was closing directly upon the waiting warriors. Sag Churok fell in beside her, still shocked, still confused, uncomprehending –
And then he and Gunth Mach caught the stench wafting from the Jaghut, gusting out from the frozen ground encircling them.
Destriant, beware! They are undead! (DoD)
"The remaining two peoples warred endlessly. Eventually one fell, for they were a race of individuals, battling as much among themselves as against their racial enemies. They were called the Jaghut, though the term has degenerated these days to Jhag, or Shurl. While losers in the war, they did not disappear entirely - it's said some Jaghut survive to this day, though, thankfully, not on
Genabackis." - (
GotM, US HC, p.263)
Duiker (referring to a Jaghut tower): 'How old?'
List: 'Not sure. A hundred, two, maybe even three.'
Duiker: 'Not years.'
List: 'No. Millenia' - (DG, UK MMPB, p.769)
'Each siege lasted centuries, the losses among the T'lan Imass staggering. Jaghut were anything but wanderers. When they chose a place...A strange bond, unique among the Jaghut. When the mother was in peril, the children returned, joined the battle. Then the father. Things. . . escalated. . .'
'She must have been. . . special.'
...
'Is she your guide?'
'No. Her mate.' - List and Duiker on the ancient battleground crossed by The Chain of Dogs - (DG, UK MMPB, p.769)
"'Did the Jaghut seek to reason with them, Corporal?'
'Many times, among those not thoroughly corrupted by power - the Tyrants - but you see, there was always an arrogance in the Jaghut, and it was a kind that could claw its way up your back when face to face. Each Jaghut's interest was with him or herself. Almost exclusively. They viewed the T'lan Imass no differently from the way they viewed ants underfoot, herds on the grasslands, or indeed the grass itself. Ubiquitous, a feature of the landscape. A powerful, emergent people, such as the T'lan Imass could not be stung -'
'To the point of swearing an deathless vow?'
'I don't believe that, at first, the T'lan Imass realized how difficult the task of eradication would be. Jaghut were very different in another way - they did not flaunt their power. And many of their efforts in self-defence were. . .passive. Barriers of ice - glaciers - they swallowed the lands around them, even the seas, swallowed whole continents, making them impassable, unable to support the food the mortal Imass required.'
'So they created a ritual that would make them immortal--'
'Free to blow like the dust - and in the age of ice, there was plenty of dust.'" - (DG, UK mmpb, p.785)
General references
"There was a timeless saying for deceit and betrayal: dealing with a Jaghut." - Temper - (NoK, UK mmpb, p.413)
"A many-jointed hand...Out of the darkness comes the cold hand of a Jaghut." - (DG, UK mmpb, p.631)
"The mother smiled, lips peeling back to reveal her tusks." - (MoI, UK mmpb, p.30)
Related Entries
Finnest
Gothos
Huntress
Jhag
Omtose Phellack
Pannion
The Ice Hold
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