Deadhouse gates Erikson, Steven

"A Tom Doherty Associates book."

Seven Cities was an ancient civilization, steeped in the power of antiquity, where Ascendants once walked on every trader track, every lost road between forgotten places. It was said the sands hoarded power within their susurrating currents, that every stone had soaked up sorcery like blood, and that beneath every city lay the ruins of countless other cities, older cities, cities that went back to the First Empire itself. It was said each city rose on the backs of ghosts, the substance of spirits thick like layers of crushed bone; that each city forever wept beneath the streets, forever laughed, shouted, hawked wares and bartered and prayed and drew first breaths and the last breaths that announced death. Beneath the streets there were dreams, wisdom, foolishness, fears, rage, grief, lust and love and bitter hatred.

(http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55401.Deadhouse_Gates)