The Paths of the Dead (Viscount of Adrilankha)

by Steven Brust

This plan was no sooner agreed to than acted upon. Pel, after draining his glass, said, “Farewell, then, for this time, my friend. I must go see about a fire.”

  “And may it burn well and brightly,” said Aerich.

  Pel left the next morning, after a warm embrace from Aerich which he returned in full measure, after which he was helped onto his horse, bowed once more, and turned his horse’s head away from Brachington’s Moor. As he passed through the archway, he murmured under his breath the words “It is good, and rare, to have friends.” He traveled for several hours, letting his horse, which was a brown and white mare of the Cramerie breed, which Aerich had always favored for its endurance and its noble appearance, proceed at a walk. After several hours had elapsed, he murmured under his breath the words “I hope it won’t be necessary to kill too many innocent people.”

  The reader may be interested to learn that these two statements, separated by hours and miles, were, in fact, the product of one continuous chain of thought. On the chance that the reader might be curious about how such apparently disparate thoughts could lead one to the other, we will take it upon ourselves to intrude on the thoughts of the Yendi in order to satisfy this curiosity.

  To begin, then, Pel was reflecting not only on all the memories he had shared with Aerich, but also with Khaavren, whom they intended to help if they could manage to do so, which led to his first remark. From there, he considered Tazendra, whom he had always especially loved, perhaps because her simplicity formed such a compliment to his own complexity. As the miles passed, he recalled many of the incidents that formed the association of which he was a part, and, moreover, he considered the ways of friendship, formed in furnaces of shared trials, and, though this thought made him happy, he knew with a certain sorrow, that, while the friendship remained, the youth that surrounded and enriched it was gone forever.

  “But then,” he reflected, “so many things are gone. ‘Cha,’ as my old friend Khaavren would say. I have seen what an innkeeper must do in order to procure ice for patrons who wish their drinks cold. And I have passed rivers, once the domain of those giant man-made fish called ‘barges,’ now almost empty, as transportation is broken down in every phase. Speaking of rivers, half of the bridges have collapsed, and the others are no longer safe. The landlords cannot trade, one with the other, and, in the same way, the merchants cannot safely acquire those things the peasants need. And, while I am not of a disposition to be ordinarily moved by the suffering of people I don’t know—indeed, I have always found it easy to maintain equilibrium in the face of others’ misfortunes—still, I have seen too much, too many since the collapse of the Empire, to say nothing of the Plague, which seems to re-emerge each time we think we have forgotten about it. And, how can it not? Such a mundane matter as the disposal of refuse, which was solved tens of millennia ago, is now a problem that each village must solve anew, and without sorcery, and without the means to easily communicate its solution to others. And then, the arts of the physicker relied so heavily upon sorcery that what was once the most easily cured illness is now fatal as often as not.

  “But then,” he continued, “that is why we were engaged in rebuilding the Empire. Or, at least, that is a good reason to do so, even if it is not my own reason, which has far more to do with my desire to hold an important post within it. And why should I not? Before Adron’s spell got out of control, I was well on my way to becoming a Discreet, from which position I would have access to sufficient secret knowledge to achieve whatever goals I might set myself. Since that was denied to me, well, then I must find access to this power another way, and what better way than to be instrumental in the forming of the Empire that is to be? Perhaps I shall even be mentioned in history, which would be amusing. It may be that this Empire will be built upon the bodies of many of those it is to serve. But, one way or another, if I am to achieve my ambitions, and, incidentally, to help those unfortunates who now suffer from want of what the Empire provided, it must be done. I hope it won’t be necessary to kill too many innocent people.”

  It was at just this point that he recognized the village he was looking for, a small village, like thousands of others in the region, yet in this village, he had been informed by his spies, there was a small enclave of Easterners who, like the Valabars of Adrilankha, had been permitted to dwell there from time immemorial.

  He rode his horse slowly through the muddy main street of the village, until he came to a small brick house at the end where, after tethering his horse, he clapped. The door opened, and a tiny, frail-looking woman opened the door. Pel had no way of guessing her age, yet her hair was still mostly dark, and her features not exceptionally wrinkled. She looked up at him fearfully. He said, “You are a friend of the man who knits rocks?”

  Her eyes widened, and she seemed confused, but after a moment she said, “He does not knit, he crochets.”

  “Well, that is good enough.”

  “Please come in,” she said.

  Pel did so, not bothering to remove his hat. Without preamble he said, “I require an enchantment.”

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  “No.”

  “Would you care for refreshment?”

  “No.”

  “Well then, what sort of enchantment do you require?”

  “The subtlest kind.”

  “Oh?”

  “A man must have an idea planted in his head.”

  “That is easily done, especially if the idea is not too far out of the ordinary.”

  “Oh, this idea is very ordinary for him; indeed, he is always looking for it.”

  “Very well. It can be done.”

  Pel removed a gold coin and placed it carefully on the table. The Easterner, who had neither given her name nor asked for Pel’s, looked at it and shrugged. “You must,” she explained, “give me the name of the man who is to have this idea, and you must also tell me this idea he is to have, in as much detail as possible.”

  “I will do so. I have the name here, and I will explain it to you fully, with exact detail.”

  “And you will do right to do so.”

  “It is most important,” said Pel, “that he not only have this idea, but that he not have any idea it was given to him from the outside.”

  “Of course,” said the Easterner. “He will believe the idea comes from himself.”

  Pel nodded. “That is good,” he said. “I depend on you.”

  “You may,” said the Easterner.

  Chapter the Twenty-Second

  How Ibronka, Only Daughter of

  Her Highness Sennya,

  Came to Begin an Adventure

  Some three hundred and ten or or three hundred and twenty leagues southwest of Mount Kâna there is a region called Harata, which name comes from “Hvaer-itha,” which, in the ancient language still preserved by the House of the Dragon, means “several hills,” or something very like it. It should not, we should add, be confused with the name of the town of Hartre, to the south, which derives from “Hara-itha,” meaning “several winds.”

  Harata is, indeed, a place of rolling hills, in addition to a large number of small ponds, gentle meadows, and, here and there, small wooded areas, the whole of which is populated mostly by Dzur and Lyorn, as well as the occasional Tiassa and, of course, the Teckla; but more than all of this, it is populated by sheep.

  It is well known that most of the Empire’s wool came from this district. In the days of the Empire, the wool had, most often, been transported to the Elbow River, from which point it could be loaded on ships, which might journey to Hartre, or to Elde Island, or to barges that would make their way along the Grand Canal from Candletown to Dragaera City. From this, the reader might deduce that the Elbow River was vital to the entire district; we can only say that such a deduction would be entirely correct.

  The Elbow River was named by a certain Tiassa who, seeing it from atop Blackbird Mountain, fancied that it resembled a bent arm as its westerly course made an abrupt southward turn as it was joi
ned by streams running from the mountain to which we have just had the honor to refer. As for Blackbird Mountain itself, there is little to say about it, except that it does not, in fact, contain an abundance of blackbirds; rather it was named for Lord Blackbird, of the House of the Hawk, who first discovered it, and then named it after himself. He also named the stream that flows down from it, the river that the stream becomes and which flows into the Elbow River just at the elbow, and the surrounding district.

  The region was first settled in the Chreotha Reign of the Eighth Cycle, and, when it was raised to a duchy in the Issola Reign of the Ninth Cycle, the first Duke, who happened to be a Dzurlord, naturally took for his title Duke of Blackbird. It is equally natural that Lady Blackbird of the House of the Hawk protested, and what followed was a battle in the justice chambers of the Iorich. It happened that Lady Blackbird retained as an advocate the famous Sir Neevya, whereas the Duke of Blackbird enlisted the aid of the brilliant Lady Jutatil, with the result that the struggle before the Justicers lasted some seven hundred years, and set several precedents which are still referred to often in disputes of this kind. In the end a compromise was reached: Lady Blackbird was given sole possession of her title, and the name of the duchy was changed from Blackbird to Blackbirdriver, which is why the single largest political division within the geographical region of Harata takes its name from what is, in fact, little more than a stream, and one that passes through the duchy for only a score or so of miles.

  The reader should understand that for this entire region the Interregnum, with its breakdown of trade, was nothing short of catastrophic; yet it should be said that within the county of Larkspur, where the Duchess of Blackbirdriver had her seat, matters were not as bad as they were in many other counties, this because of certain lowlands at the base of the mountain which, combined with the extreme heat of the summer and the moderation of the winter, permitted the growing of fieldrice, which, along with mutton, at least kept starvation at bay, this being more than could be said for much of what had been the Empire.

  The manor of Larkspur was a long, low structure, and had been built after the old one had failed to survive the tremors that accompanied Adron’s Disaster. The new house, in addition to being low, was built solidly of stones that had been brought up the Elbow River at great expense and difficulty because of the breakdown of transportation to which we have already alluded. It was, in general, a comfortable manor, though less imposing, as it were, than might be expected of a Dzurlord, and an Heir at that. But after her experiences during the last years before the Interregnum—experiences which, we hope, the reader will permit us to skip over for now—Sennya had determined that, instead of the ostentation usual for a princess of her House, she would instead cause to be built a home in which she could raise her daughter—the daughter who was now, to her, the only reason for living.

  This daughter, to whom we have now made mention on more than one occasion, had not yet reached her ninetieth year. She was distinguished by the narrow eyes and pointed ears of her House; but nature had also graced her with thick, dark hair that she permitted to grow so long that it fell to her waist. Other than this, she was small, but, rather than being frail, gave the impression of strength and sinew contained in a package from which it might explode at any moment; and, although she was too young for those marks of character to be revealed upon her features, one would, upon seeing her, nevertheless gain the impression of a latent ferocity, overlaid with a ready smile and a mind that was sharper than, perhaps, one might usually expect in a Dzurlord. Her aspect was of one who smiled often and laughed much; and, in the opinion, at any rate, of her mother, she required only opportunity to make a name for herself that would bring honor to her clan and her House; indeed, her cradle song had been Beed’n’s “Dance of the Six Battle Flags,” which did little to put her to sleep, but, at least in Sennya’s opinion, instilled in her a good martial spirit and a disposition toward victory and triumph.

  As we look upon her, that is, at the very instant when our history requires we devote a certain amount of attention to her actions, we see her seated by the window of her room. We must add that this is a place she often sat, staring out that window. Of the many beautiful and scenic wonders of this world upon which the gods have been pleased to set us, it must be admitted that the view from Ibronka’s window was not the most spectacular. Indeed, other than very plain, unadorned fields of grass upon which sheep were wont to wander, the only feature she could see were a pair of grey rocks, each about six or seven meters in height, that had been left there after the construction of the manor and had never been removed. Now, Ibronka, as a child with an unusually fertile imagination for a Dzurlord, had made believe that these rocks were people, the one named Herger and the other named Berger; and she had, in fact, built up in her mind an entire history for these imaginary people, and in this way she had pleasantly spent many hours. The reader will be aware of just how unusual this sort of mental activity is on the part of a Dzurlord; yet it is an indelible part of Ibronka’s character, and therefore we feel obligated to bring it to the reader’s attention.

  On this occasion, while she was, indeed, looking out the window, her thoughts did not, in fact, involve her stone friends, but, rather, a living human being—to be precise, one who, mounted upon an old, broken-down horse of a shade of white in which an odd hint of red was mixed, she had seen cross upon the road that was clearly visible from her window. As the rider approached the manor, the bend in the road took him from her view, because her room, being in the back, didn’t look out upon the path to the front of the manor, which was, evidently, the destination of the rider.

  We would be remiss in our duty as historian if we failed to observe that at such times, during the Interregnum, any visitor was a cause for excitement; this visitor, complete with a horse—or, more precisely, a nag—that walked with its head nearly as low as its knees, was no exception. Ibronka, who was in a state of undress hardly suitable for meeting a stranger of any sort, hastened to dress herself without even waiting for her maid, after which she rushed through the manor until she came to the front door, which she flung open, only to discover to her astonishment, not to mention dismay, that there was no one there. Indeed, not only was there no one there, but there was nothing to be seen of either horse or rider as she looked out to the road. It was, she reflected, quite a pretty mystery: how could horse and rider vanish in such a short span of time in this age when, as she had been assured, there was little sorcery to be found, and that of the meanest, most paltry sort?

  It is probable that she would have spent several minutes, perhaps even hours, considering this matter had she not been interrupted by the maid, who approached her with these words: “My lady, you have a visitor.”

  Ibronka turned and said, “I beg your pardon, Clari”—Clari was, the reader should understand, the maid’s name—“but I fail to comprehend how I could have a visitor when it is clear that there is no one here at all. And yet, I fail to see how there could not be a visitor when I saw with these eyes a man approaching upon a horse, and saw it so clearly, in fact, that I could even describe the horse upon which he rode. You perceive, Clari, that I am confused.”

  “Well, my lady, I believe I can remove your confusion with two words.”

  “How, can you? I assure you, I should be ever so grateful if you could.”

  “Well, I will do so then.”

  “I am listening, Clari, but I beg you, speak at once, for I believe I will die if I do not understand soon.”

  “This is it, then: He is at the servants’ door.”

  “How, the servants’ door?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But then, is he a Teckla?”

  “Precisely, my lady. He is a Teckla.”

  “But then, why would a Teckla wish to see me?”

  “He pretends, my lady, that he is a messenger.”

  “A messenger?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Then he has a message?”

&n
bsp; “Your Ladyship has understood me exactly.”

  “Well, but who is this message from?”

  “Oh, as to that—”

  “Well?”

  “I assure Your Ladyship, I have not the least idea in the world.”

  “Then,” said Ibronka, suppressing her disappointment at not having a visitor after all, but hoping, at least, that the message was from some dashing prince, or perhaps kidnappers holding someone for ransom, or something interesting, “let the messenger be brought to me, and I, well, I will listen to his message.”

  “As Your Ladyship wishes.”

  Clari went off to fetch the messenger, and Ibronka, remembering as best she could how her mother would accept messages, set herself down in her mother’s favorite chair, folded her hands in her lap, and, when the maid returned with the Teckla, nodded to him imperiously and said, “Well, my man? What is this famous message?”

  The Teckla, a sandy-haired man of perhaps nine hundred years, bowed to her and said, “My lady, it is from your mother, and she says—”

  “From my mother?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Very well, then. What does she say?”

  “My lady, she says you are to pack a valise and prepare for a journey.”

  “How, a journey?” cried Ibronka, her heart suddenly beating faster.

  The Teckla bowed his assent.

  “But, a journey to where? And when am I to leave? And how am I to travel?”

  “Oh, as to that—”

  “Yes?”

  “I assure Your Ladyship, I have not the least idea in the world.”

  “What is this? You don’t know?”

  “I am as ignorant as an Easterner, I promise you.”

  “But then, how am I to travel if I am unaware of these things?”

  “If Your Ladyship would like my opinion—”

  “Oh, if you have anything to say, well, I should like to hear it.”

  “This is it, then. I believe it possible that some of this might be contained in the letter I have been instructed to give you.”