Location from Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
Southern desert continent of ancient holy sites, buried civilizations, and cyclic rebellion — a land that remembers every conqueror and eventually buries them all beneath the sand.
Seven Cities is the oldest continuously inhabited continent in the Malazan world, and it has never forgiven anyone for trying to rule it. The Malazan Empire annexed the subcontinent through military superiority, installing Fists and garrisons in cities whose foundations predate the Empire by tens of thousands of years. The occupation bred the Whirlwind rebellion — Sha'ik's apocalyptic uprising that turned the desert itself into a weapon. Beneath the political violence lies something older and stranger. The Holy Desert Raraku was once an inland sea, and its dry bed holds memories that bleed into the present — ghosts of ancient navies, pre-human civilizations, and the ascension of a goddess. The continent's native peoples — the Seven Holy Cities that give it its name — practice forms of magic older than the Warren system, drawing on the land's own accumulated power. Every conquest here is temporary. The sand reclaims everything.
Endless desert broken by oases, cliff cities, and coastal ports baking under a white sun. The Holy Desert Raraku dominates the interior — a sea of sand concealing the bones of an ancient ocean. Coastal cities rise in terraced sandstone, their markets shaded by canvas that snaps in the hot wind. Dust devils carry the smell of cardamom and old blood. The roads between cities are lined with the cairns of travelers who underestimated the distances.
Also known as: Seven Cities, the Seven Cities subcontinent