The Paths of the Dead

by Steven Brust

  Zerika took into her hand the vine, and, grasping it firmly, began to climb. While she had never before attempted such a maneuver, with vine or even with rope, she found it easy enough to achieve, owing, perhaps, to certain irregularities on the vine itself that provided purchase for her boots. Having arrived at the branch, some five or six feet over her head, she straddled it, and then made her precarious way across by shifting herself along it, until she found that her boot touched the lower branch of a tree upon the other side. The transfer to this branch was easy enough, and, once she was fully upon it, she contrived to hang from it with both hands so that, upon letting go, she had only a drop of four or five feet, which drop she managed without any harm.

  "Well," she said, catching her breath. "That could have been worse. What will come next? I am now to listen, rather than watch, and, in doing so, I am to continue in the direction in which I was walking before the pond. Very well, we will walk, and we will listen."

  She set off, and had hardly taken ten steps before she heard a scream, fat off to her right. Do not let the cries of lost souls take you from your path, nor the sight of those who suffer cause your eyes to stray. "Well," she said. "All right, then." She held herself still until she was confident she knew from what directions the cries came, then set off in the opposite direction. A little later, she caught fleeting glimpses of figures waving to her, or attempting to find their way through the Paths, but, as she was told, she ignored them. Some, she knew, would eventually reach the Halls of Judgment, others never would; but everyone's path within the Paths was his own and she could not help them. She wondered how it was that any soul who came to these Paths without preparation ever reached the Halls of Judgment Yet it was certain that many did. "Well," she decided, "but they have eternity to make the attempt, and that is certainly a very long time. Indeed, from what I know, eternity is even longer than the amount of time it takes a servant to prepare one's morning klava in a morning where one is forced to rise early after a night's excess; and that is the longest time I know."

  From this point, she continued for some distance in a straight line, her eyes fixed upon a spot in the distance in order to be certain she did not deviate from her path, which path, we should say, was as straight, clear, and as easy as any in that strange landscape where the bizarre was created out of improbable combinations of the mundane. As she walked, some of this appeared: it seemed that far ahead of her, directly on her route, something was stirring. She strained her eyes attempting to determine what it was, reminding herself that there should be nothing that directly threatened her, both because she was on her proper path, and, moreover, because she was living (she had, the reader may perceive, gradually come to the conclusion that she was, in fact, still alive, and proposed to operate under that assumption until she had good reason to reconsider it).

  She frowned, continued walking, and watched. It appeared to her that there were black specks on her path, and that, though she was still unable to determine precisely what they were, they were becoming larger. "Well now," she said. "As I do not know what those specks represent, well, I cannot say if it is something that ought not to be growing larger. Yet it seems to me that it is just as likely, or, in fact, more likely, that they are remaining exactly the same size, but coming closer. But larger or closer, I certainly wish the book had thought to warn me about this; it seems to be a sufficiently significant event as to be worth two words. But then, if no action is called for, the book would say nothing; it is certainly as practical as a recipe book, and a touch of poetry would have done it no harm whatsoever."

  The objects continued to grow, or to approach; Zerika continued to walk toward them because she had not yet found the next landmark which was to indicate that she should turn. In a short time, two things became apparent: first that the objects were weapons—in particular, swords and spears, which were all aimed at her; and second that they were, indeed, approaching, and at a furious speed. When she realized this, she very nearly ducked out of their way, and, upon realizing that this would be a mistake, very nearly stopped. "But," she reflected, "I have been assured by Sethra Lavode that nothing within the Paths can harm me so long as I remain on the proper path, and, moreover, I am told that I must continue to move forward. Well, I will continue to move forward, and if I am punctured, well then—but there, they are gone; and while it looked as if several of them pierced me, at least it didn't feel as if any of them did.

  "But I wonder what these Paths will throw at me next? I wonder as well when I will find the trees that form an arch, which is my next landmark. Now what is that? Another pond like the last one, only without a convenient vine laid out for me. Ah, but is that a bridge across it? It seems to be very like a bridge, only thinner. What, now the Paths wish to know if I can walk across a two-inch wide plank without falling in? This place is insupportable. I will walk it then, holding my head steady and keeping my back straight, for that, along with slightly bent knees and arms slightly out from the body, is the secret to balance. There, I have walked across it. What next? It doesn't matter, I will face it and overcome it with as much grace as I can muster."

  She continued on, still with no sign of the arch she was looking for. The ground dropped slowly, and she was afraid she'd meet a swamp or a bog, but it continued to be dry enough, appearing to be a sort of valley, full of grass. "Well, it is easy enough to walk, at any rate. But I have never walked through so many different landscapes in such a short time. I cannot have gone two leagues, and I have seen jungle, forest, chaparral, marsh, rocky desert, and grassland. If I did not know this region was magical, well, I should at once deduce that it was enchanted. I wonder at who designed it. It must have been the gods. They sit upon their thrones, laughing and drinking wine, or whatever it is the gods drink, and planning out how to torment the poor souls who want nothing more than to reach the Halls of Judgment where, pah! where most of them are given purple robes anyway, and made to serve the dwellers for some period of time more or less prolonged. I think when my time comes I will leave instructions to permit my body to decay where it is, or be burned, and let my soul fly free into its next life. Yes, that is what I will do, or—what now? Are those trees I see ahead of me? Perhaps there will be two that form an arch, for, whatever direction this is—the directions I know are meaningless here—I am tired of it."

  She took another step, and the ground shook beneath her feet. She stumbled, but did not fall from the path. "What was that?" she said to herself. "I was never told this would happen." Another tremor quite nearly knock her from her feet, but she maintained her balance. "I wish," she said, "that there were someone to glare at." She took a few more tentative steps, and, as the ground remained firm, was beginning to feel confident once more when a pit, perhaps four feet wide and of unknown depth, opened up directly before her feet.

  Zerika made one of those decisions that is half instinct, and half thought out, as a result of which decision she took one more step and allowed her knees to buckle, after which she leapt into the air, her leap taking her across the pit, and landed upon the other side hardly breaking step. After this feat, she still had the presence of mind, after careful consideration, to curse, which she did once, with considerable emotion.

  She resumed her walk, then, glaring about her. "If I were in charge," she remarked, "I should think it was enough to ask the poor soul to stand before me and be judged. I should not require it to go through such peregrinations to even arrive at the place of judgment. And suppose I were some poor pilgrim who managed to pass all of these absurd obstacles and tests and false trails, and then the gods were to judge me as unfit for any advancement, and they should sentence me to life as a norska or a kethna. How unfair! If they presume to judge, they ought to have at least built this place so that one can simply walk to the Halls of Judgment. It is a shame that my Empire, if it is established, does not extend to this region, or I swear by the gods who live here that I should tear it down and start over within a year of the beginning of my reign. There. I have sai
d it, and if the gods should hear me, well, so much the better."

  Having expressed her displeasure with the universe, she turned her mind once more to her path, which led her to the very arch of trees she had been looking for, which discovery pleased her so much she nearly forgot that she was supposed to change direction before it, rather than after passing through it. She remembered in time, however, turned to the right, and continued on her way. It was not long before she found her way blocked again, this time by what seemed to be a boulder, at least twice her height, and laid directly across her path.

  No matter that she didn't wish to, she was forced to stop; and more than stop, to reflect. As she reflected, she observed; and observing, she saw; and seeing, she considered; and, after considering, she planned; and after planning, she moved several small stones in front of the boulder, and laid a log on top of these stones, which permitted her to ascend to the top of the boulder. Once there, she considered once more: this time, the question under consideration was how to get back down without injury.

  "Well," she decided, "I cannot safely jump, but perhaps I can slide." She did this, and found herself in undignified safety on the path below the boulder. This was followed by a loud crack and the boulder split exactly in half, each part rolling away from the path behind her.

  "Useless," she muttered, "although, no doubt, significant in a mystical way that is beyond my mortal comprehension. Bah."

  She began walking once more, this time taking herself as far as a wide stream, almost a river, which did not, however, appear very deep. She glanced at it suspiciously, but, as she had not been given any other direction, resolved to pass directly through it, hoping to emerge with nothing more than wet feet.

  She was brought up sharply by a second look at the river, which revealed two things to her quick eyes and agile mind: the first was that this was the Blood River, and that all of her laborious walking and ducking and jumping and climbing and twisting and turning had done nothing more than to bring her back to the river from which she had begun her walk, albeit some distance downriver, which fact could be deduced by the fact that Deathgate Falls was no longer in sight. The second was that this part of the river was full of corpses, in various states of decay.

  It is not our intention, as will some of our brother historians, to dwell upon these decaying corpses, delighting in a discussion of grotesqueries; we are certain our readers can imagine the appearance, not to mention the odor of these bodies; and can imagine as well the effect upon our young Phoenix. By this time, however, she had no inclination to permit anything to interfere with her purpose; she took a deep breath through her mouth, held this breath within her lungs, and walked across the river, which was, in fact, at no time more than knee deep, though it was bitter cold. If her path took her over rotting corpses, well, soon enough she was upon the other side, breathing again, and there were only a few bleached bones there, which were quickly behind her.

  "What next?" she said to herself. "Let us attempt to remember. Perhaps the greatest danger lies in all of the distractions causing one to forget what one has learned." She set this thought firmly aside, and concentrated on recalling everything that the book had taught her was to come next.

  The ground rose slightly as she walked away from the Blood River, and soon she was on bare dirt, stone, and a few patches of weeds or grass scattered about like flecks of foam upon a brown ocean. She came to a sequence of three narrow ditches, and, upon reaching the third, turned left to walk in it, following it as it curved back, bringing her to where, it seemed, she ought to have met the Blood River yet again, only she did not; instead the ditch gradually ended and the ground became rockier, until, after some time, she found that she was walking between walls of granite so close together that she barely had room to pass between them. When the wall on her left suddenly appeared to collapse onto her, her reaction, which was to interpose her left hand between the granite and her face, was so instinctive that she could no more have stopped it than she could have prevented herself from falling had she stepped off a cliff. Her difficulty was only increased when, an instant later, the other wall did the same thing, and so she found herself unable to move, each hand engaged in holding back a mass of granite that took nearly all of her strength to keep from falling onto her.

  For a moment she held herself very still, but then she remembered that one was never to stop in the Paths, or if one did stop, one should begin moving again as soon as possible. She swallowed, and took a small step forward, adjusting her grip on each side by the smallest amount. As she did, the wall crashed in behind her. Zerika noted it, and continued, moving forward just a little, and carefully adjusting each hand together, and wondering if were true that nothing could actually hurt her. Well, she decided, even if it didn't hurt her, it would almost certainly slow her down.

  She continued as she had, making certain above all that neither her feet nor her hands ever got too far ahead, until finally the wall tapered down to the point where she could simply step forward beyond it. She took a moment to glance back, and there was no trace of where she had gone, only crumbled rock over the path. She wondered what would happen to the next Phoenix to come this way. Did it repair itself? Or was it nothing but illusion in the first place? She shrugged and continued on her way.

  The ground climbed a little, the rocks becoming fewer, to be replaced by thin grass and occasional shrubs, after which the ground climbed a little, the rocks becoming fewer, to be replaced by thin grass and occasional shrubs, after which the ground climbed—

  "I have been here before," said Zerika, continuing to walk. A little later she said, "I have been here too many times.

  "Well now," she reflected. "This isn't right This was not supposed to happen. I am actually caught. It isn't illusion—or, if it is, it is a very convincing one. And it suddenly occurs to me that, for all I know, the gods are watching me and laughing even as I go around and around. If I were not a Phoenix, and thus above such mundane emotions, well, I should begin to become not only annoyed, but frustrated, perhaps even to the point where I should weep with anger. It is fortunate that I am above such things."

  She wiped her cheeks and continued both walking and reflecting. After some time, unable to come up with any other idea, she closed her eyes. She opened them after ten or twelve paces, to find that nothing had changed. She closed them again, this time keeping them closed rather longer, until, in fact, she tripped and landed on the ground, which was, fortunately, rather soft. Her eyes naturally opened as she stumbled, and she was delighted to find that she was now in a more jungle-like region than hitherto.

  She got to her feet, took a deep breath, and continued. "Well, that wasn't so bad after all. I should be all right now, as long as I didn't go off in the wrong direction, or miss a landmark, or, by closing my eyes, violate some arcane rule of which I was unaware. So, we will continue hopefully forward, and, why, there it is! A small pile of rocks, arranged in a pyramid, which I am to step over and then, fixing my eyes upon the tallest of the evergreens before me, continue until I reach a place where I am at the bottom of three hills. This should be easy enough, as long as the hills are hills in fact, and neither mountains nor piles of dirt. If I get back, I will attempt to clarify some of these matters for those who follow. It is the least I can do."

  In fact, she found the hills without undue difficulty, and turned as she was directed, feeling more confident now; beginning to think that this was a task that was, after all, within her abilities, and she did not forget, even as she concentrated on looking for the next landmark, to think kind thoughts of Sethra Lavode, who had been so insistent upon her memorizing very nearly the entire Book of the Phoenix.

  We should hasten to add that, although confident, she was not over-confident; that is, she maintained a keen awareness that she could take nothing for granted, but, on the contrary, remembered that she required all of her faculties and must remain extraordinarily alert for whatever the Paths might next place before her. And yet, even with this alertness
, she very nearly missed what happened next.

  The book had said she was to look for the place a cliff no higher than your head stands upon your left, and upon this cliff seek a bush of flowers of the brightest red. This pretended cliff, which was in the event no more than a mound of dirt with, apparently, the front face cut away as if by a shovel, did, indeed, have a bush upon it, and the flowers of this bush were blooming like the reddest of geraniums. That part of her instructions was simple enough, but what followed was the command to turn her back upon the bush, and set her foot onto the animal trail that led directly away. She did this, and, just as her foot was about to descend upon the trail, realized that there were two animal tracks leading away: one seemed to have been made by the passing of medium-sized animals with cloven feet, such as deer or brownstag; but there was another, considerably smaller, which might have been made by many norska. It was this second that led more directly away from the diminutive cliff and the bush, although the difference in direction between the two was hardly noticeable.