Kharkanas

Kharkanas, called Wise Kharkanas and the First City of Dark, is the ancient capital of the Tiste Andii, standing on the river Dorssan Ryl in the realm of Mother Dark. It is a city of black stone and blackwood, its palace throne raised on the stump of a blackwood tree whose roots snake into the floor, and only one of royal Andii blood can make a true claim to that throne. Within the Malazan Book of the Fallen the city exists mostly in memory: it is the home the Tiste Andii left in the deep past, invoked in their poems and songs, and Andii legend holds that their people's first fall came when they quit their forests to set down its first stone. Steven Erikson's prequel Kharkanas Trilogy, beginning with Forge of Darkness, returns to the living city in its own age.