On The Nature of Warrens and Their Study
Steven Erikson: Are warrens aspect specific? Generally, yes. The death of A'karonys in Gardens seems consistent with that.(Q and A with malazanempire No 1 (2003))
Steven Erikson: How does one become a mage? I'm sure I mentioned this elsewhere, but it's acquired through discipline and study, usually under the tutelage of another mage, but not always. Personality often guides the aspect, or warren, one chooses. But not always.(Q and A with malazanempire No 2 (2003))
Steven Erikson: Why do warrens seem to be weaker the younger they are? Just as a puppy is weaker than a full grown wolf, I guess.(Q and A with malazanempire No 2 (2003))
Steven Erikson: Are all human-accessed warrens descended from Elder warrens? Well, they're all variations on that extended list of elemental forces that make up the Elder Warrens, so I guess, yes is the answer.(Q and A with malazanempire No 2 (2003))
K'rul and Lady Envy on the Creation of the (Human?) Warrens
Visions flooded her (Lady Envy's) mind, staggering her. Darkness. Then chaos, wild, unfocused power, a universe devoid of sense, of control, of meaning. Entities flung through the maelstrom. Lost, terrified by the birth of light. A sudden sharpening – pain as of wrists opened, the heat spilling forth – a savage imposition of order, the heart from which blood flowed in even, steady streams. Twin chambers to that heart – Kurald Galain, the Warren of Mother Dark – and Starvald Demelain, the Warren of...Dragons. And the blood – the power – now sweeping in currents through veins, through arteries, branching out through all existence, and the thought that came to her then stole all warmth from her flesh. Those veins, those arteries, they are the warrens...in striding through the warrens, we travel through your very flesh. That, when we draw upon the power of the warrens, we draw your very blood? Who knows?
K'rul: Anomander Rake, Draconus, Osric, a handful of others. And now you. Forgive me, Lady Envy, I have no wish to be a tyrant. My presence within the warrens has ever been passive – you are free to do as you choose, as is every other creature who swims my immortal blood. (MoI, UK Trade, p.236)
The Natural Laws of a Warren
Kulp cursed his own limitations. Had he been a practitioner of Serc, or Denul or D’riss or indeed virtually any of the other warrens accessible to humans, he would find what they needed. But not Meanas.
No seas, no rivers, not even a Hood-damned puddle. From within his warren, Kulp was seeking to effect a passage through to the mortal world . . . and it was proving problematic.
They were bound by peculiar laws, by rules of nature that seemed to play games with the principles of cause and effect. Had they been riding a wagon, the passage through the warrens would unerringly have taken them on a dry path. The primordial elements asserted an intractable consistency across all warrens. Land to land, air to air, water to water.
Kulp had heard of High Mages who – it was rumoured – had found ways to cheat those illimitable laws, and perhaps the gods and other Ascendants possessed such knowledge as well. But they were as beyond a lowly cadre mage as the tools of an ogre’s smithy to a cowering rat. - ( DG, UK MMPB, p.436)
The effects of drawing too much on one's warren
Duiker: 'They've (the healers of the Chain of Dogs) drawn so much on their warrens that it's begun to damage their own bodies - I saw one healer's arm snap like a twig when he lifted a pot from a hearth'(DG, UK MMPB, p.624
General
'I take it, then,' Paran said,'that no god claims this Warren. By this, you cheat the tolls, the gatekeepers, the guardians on unseen bridges, and all the others said to dwell in the Warrens in service to their immortal masters.'
Topper grunted. 'You imagine the Warrens as crowded as that? Well, the beliefs of the ignorant are ever entertaining. You shall be good company on this short journey, I think.' - (GotM, UK mmpb, p38)
"The Warrens of Magic dwelt in the beyond, Find the gate and nudge it open a crack. What leaks out is yours to shape. With these words a young woman set out on the path to sorcery. Open yourself to the Warren that comes to you - that finds you. Draw forth its power - as much as your body and soul are capable of containing – but remember,when the body fails, the gate closes." - thoughts of Tattersail (GotM, UK Trade p.58, UK mmpb p.78)
"The last thing she had expected was that bitter taste on her tongue that said something nasty and ugly had come to the hilltop. Such warnings seldom came to a practitioner unless the gate was open, a Warren unveiled and bristling with power. She'd heard tales from other sorcerors, and she'd read mouldy scrolls that touched on moments like these, when the power arrived groaning and deadly, and each time, it was said, a god had stepped on the mortal ground." (GotM, UK mmpb p.78)
'Kulp could sense his own warren. It felt ready - almost eager - for release...uncharacteristic attentiveness. It wanted to join the game...the trap of thinking Meanas as an entity, a faceless god, where access was worship, success a reward of faith. Warrens were not like that. A mage was not a priest and magic was not divine intervention. Sorcery could be the ladder to Ascendancy - a means to an end, but there was no point in worshipping the means' - (DG, UK MMPB, p.325)
Kulp: 'We're in a warren...No telling how time works here.'- (DG, UK MMPB, p.334)
Tattersail, while still recovering from an illness caused by exposure to chaotic magic:
'If I attempted to open my Warren in this state the power would consume me, burn me to ashes.' - (GotM, UK Trade, p.209)
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