Moon's Spawn

Sky keeps - constructs of the K'Chain Che'malle -  Gath'ran Citadels

Known Skypkeep names :

Moon's Spawn -A floating mountain, home to Anomander Rake, his contingent of Tiste Andii and the Great Ravens.  A K'Chain Che'Malle  device, recovered by Rake an unknown time in the past.

Ampelas Rooted - Once Nest Home to Matron Acyl

Kalse Rooted - Failed, the occupants destroyed.

Both Ampelas Rooted and Kalse Rooted are carved in the form of dragons.

Kalyth : "Think of the Nests, the Rooted. Carved in the likeness of dragons..." - (DoD UK HC p.248)

Andarist had once explained that skykeeps – such as the one Anomander Rake claimed as his own – was not a creation of sorcery, and indeed the floating fortresses were held aloft through arcane manipulations of technology. 

K'Chain Che'Malle, Kallor had said.  Clearly, he had made the same connection as had Skintick. (TtH)

Origins

‘The Jaghut remember Moon’s Spawn. I alone am in possession of the relevant scrolls from Gothos’s Folly that whisper of the K'Chain Nah'ruk – the Short-Tails, misbegotten children of the Matrons – who fashioned mechanisms that bound sorcery in ways long lost, who built vast, floating fortresses from which they launched devastating attacks upon their long-tailed kin...Oh, they lost in the end. Were destroyed. And but one floating fortress remained, damaged, abandoned to the winds. Gothos believed it had drifted north, to collide with the ice of a Jaghut winter, and was so frozen, trapped for millennia. Until found by the Tiste Andii Lord...Anomander Rake knows nothing of Moon’s Spawn’s fullest powers – powers he has no means of accessing even were he to know of them.' - The Pannion Seer - (MoI, UK Trade, p.696-7)

Osserc on Skykeeps

L’oric nodded. He looked around the chamber. ‘You live here?’

His father grimaced. ‘An observation point. The K’Chain Che’Malle skykeeps invariably approach from the north, over water.’

‘Skykeeps . . . such as Moon’s Spawn?’

A veiled glance, then a nod. ‘Yes.’

‘And it was in Rake’s floating fortress that you first embarked on the trail that took you here. What did you discover that the Tiste Andii Lord of Darkness didn’t?’

Osric snorted. ‘Only that which was at his very feet. Moon’s Spawn bore signs of damage, of breaching. Then slaughter. None the less, a few survived, at least long enough to begin it on its journey home. North, out over the icefields. Of course, it never made it past those icefields.  Did you know that the glacier that held Moon’s Spawn had travelled a thousand leagues with its prize? A thousand leagues, L’oric, before Rake and I stumbled upon it north of Laederon Plateau.’

‘You are saying Moon’s Spawn was originally one of these skykeeps that arrived here?’

‘It was. Three have come in the time that I have been here. None survived the Deragoth.’ (HoC UK mmpb, p.607)

In the Imperial Warren

“There were … Moon’s Spawns in the Imperial Warren.  Ten, twelve came into sight before we retreated.” - Quick Ben - (BH)

.... “It’s an old warren, effectively dead and abandoned, although, of course, not nearly as dead or abandoned as it first seems.  Now, there is no known warren attributed to the K’Chain Che’Malle, but that does not mean one never existed.”

“You believe the Imperial Warren was originally the K’Chain Che’Malle warren?”

The High Mage shrugged.  “It’s possible, Adjunct.” (BH)

Eleven Moon’s Spawns hovered in an even row above another rise of hills two thousand paces distant.  “So,”  the assassin asked,  “what passes for night in this warren?”

“It’s on its way, and it isn’t much.” - Quick Ben (BH)

Ameplas Rooted

Root, Womb, Heart, Eyes - which contain the Inner Keep and the Nest - the home to the Matron (Matron Acyl in this instance)

Kalse Rooted 

Perhaps a thousand reaches tall, it stood alone, empty-eyed, a dragon of stone balanced on its hind limbs and curling tail.  One of its forelimbs reached down to sink talons into the ground; the other was drawn up and angled slightly outward, as if poised to swipe some enemy from its path.  Even its hind limbs were asymmetrically positioned, tensed, coiled.

No real dragon could match its size, and yet as they edged closer – mute now, diminished – they could see the astonishing detail of the creation.  The iridescence of the whorls in each scale, lightly coated in dust; the folded-back skin encircling the talons – talons which were at least half again as tall as a man, their polished, laminated surfaces scarred and chipped.  They could see creases in the hide that they had first taken to be fractures; the weight of muscles hanging slack; the seams and blood vessels in the folded, arching wings.  A grainy haze obscured the edifice above its chest height, as if it was enwreathed in a ring of suspended dust.

"No,"  whispered Taxilian,  "not suspended.  That ring is moving … round and round it swirls, do you see?"

"Sorcery,"  said Breath, her tone oddly flat. 9  (DoD- UK HC p.202)

The K'Chain Che'malle occupants of Kalse rooted had all been all been slaughtered (DoD- UK HC p.210)

Icarium :   Kalse Rooted.  A demesne of the K'Chain Che'Malle, a border keep.  A vast body now drained of all life, a corpse standing empty-eyed on the plain.  And he knew that a Shi'Gall Assassin had slain those K'ell Hunters.  To seal the failure of this fortress. - (DoD UK HC p.266)

Moon's Spawn - General References

"...Tattersail paused outside the tent and turned to study the enormous mountain hanging suspended a quarter-mile above the city of Pale. She scanned the battered face of Moon's Spawn - it's name for as long as she could remember. Ragged as a blackened tooth, the basalt fortress was home to the most powerful enemy the Malazan Empire had ever faced. High above the earth, Moon’s Spawn could not be breached by siege. Even Laseen’s own undead army, the T'lan Imass, who travelled as easily as dust on the wind, were unable, or unwilling, to penetrate its magical defences."  - (GotM, UK Trade p.46, UK mmpb p.61)

"Moon's Spawn had been revolving steadily for the last three years. It had just stopped. Near its very top, on the side facing them, was a small ledge, and a shadowed recess had appeared. A portal. No movement showed yet." - beginning of the Sorcery Enfilade at Pale - (GotM, UK mmpb p.74)

"The spell crashed against the black rock, sending chunks hurtling out, then down. A rain of death descended into the city of Pale, and among the Malazan legions waiting in the plain." - (GotM, UK mmpb p.74)

"A black cloud enshrouded Moon's Spawn, followed by faint shrieking. A moment later the cloud spread out, fragmenting, and Tattersail realised what she was seeing.

Ravens.

Thousands upon thousands of Great Ravens. They must have nested among the crags and pocks in the Moon's surface. Their shrieks grew more defined, a caterwaul of outrage. They wheeled out from the Moon, their fifteen-foot wingspans catching the wind and lifting them high above the city and plain." - (GotM, UK mmpb p.74)

"She raised bleary eyes to see Moon's Spawn, billowing smoke and ablaze in a dozen places on its ravaged mien, moving away, pulling back. Then it was past the city, unsteady in its revolutions and leaning to one side. Moon's Spawn headed south, towards the distant Tahlyn Mountains. - Moon's Spawn, badly damaged by the Malazans, retreats from Pale  - (GotM, UK mmpb p.77)

"And Moon's Spawn had retreated south, across the Tahlyn Mountains to Lake Azur, trailing smoke, drifting and leaning to one side like a spent thunderhead."  - (GotM, US HC, p.95)

"Within my city are children, priests and three elderly, exceedingly bookish warlocks." - Anomander Rake -  (GotM, US HC, p.159)

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