The Paths of the Dead (Viscount of Adrilankha)

by Steven Brust

  “You have a letter?”

  “I have,” said the Teckla, touching the pouch he wore over his shoulder and which, presumably, contained the letter.

  “A letter from my mother?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well then, give it to me.”

  “I will do so at once, if you wish.”

  “Yes, at once!”

  The Teckla bowed, opened his pouch, and removed a rolled-up piece of parchment, which was both sealed and tied up with a red ribbon. He handed this over with a bow, and Ibronka fairly snatched it from his hand, pulled off the ribbon, and broke the seal. As we have made it our custom, whenever possible, to give the text of such messages, we will take it upon ourselves to do so here: “My dear daughter,” it read, “it has become necessary for you to travel. I wish you to take what you will require for a journey of some duration, and to wait for a caravan which will be passing through Lorimel in one or two days, from His Venerance the Duke of Kana, who has agreed to permit you to travel with them. You must stay with this caravan until it reaches the coast, which will be near Hartre, after which you must search for another caravan and continue eastward until you come to the coastal city of Adrilankha. There, you must find my kinsman, Lord Shellar, Baron of Alban, who has been informed of your arrival, and will give you a place to live until such a time as I have more to communicate to you.”

  We cannot, however much we might wish to, make the reader fully understand the effect this letter had upon Ibronka; yet the reader should recall that the young girl had been born after Adron’s Disaster, and that she had, during her short life, been raised with the expectation that there would be no opportunity for the sort of adventures of which the young Dzurlord dreams and upon which the older Dzurlord thrives. It is odd to consider that, to the reader of our own happy day, the years of the Interregnum appears rife with adventure; indeed, it seems to us now that it is the very end of the Interregnum that has put an end to the dangers and romance upon which dreams of action and excitement are fed; yet it is undeniable that to those who lived at the time, it seemed that it was the Empire itself that provided the structure and backdrop against which glory could be won, and that the dangers of the time were, though certainly threatening to life and limb, of a poor and miserable sort, there being no Imperium before which to stand and receive the rewards of gallantry. In other words, the dangers of the time were considered to be mundane and uninteresting dangers, which did nothing except to force one to stay at home to avoid an ignominious death which would contribute nothing to honor or prestige.

  For Ibronka, then, to be given not only permission, but, indeed, orders to proceed out from her home and into the world was to tell her that, perhaps, she had been wrong, and that all hope of adventure was not lost to the world.

  Some few moments passed in which Ibronka did nothing more than to give way to these happy reflections, at the end of which time she told the messenger, “Tell my mother I understand these instructions and will follow them to the letter. And you, Clari, go have the stable-boy prepare Tricky for a journey, and do you then pack my valise, for I must make my way to Lorimel and there await the caravan of which my mother speaks in this letter. Apropos, polish my boots as well.”

  “How, polish your boots, my lady?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “Before beginning a journey?”

  “Well, in all the stories I have read, the lackey was ordered to polish his master’s boots before beginning an adventure, and so that is what we will do.”

  “As my lady wishes,” said Clari, keeping her opinions to herself, as a good servant ought.

  The Teckla, whose name, alas, does not appear in any record of the period, took his departure while Clari rushed off without a word to do as she was bidden. Ibronka, once alone, went to her wardrobe and found clothing that befit a Dzurlord setting out on her first adventure, and her sword along with a harness and scabbard, a travel cloak of black wool, and a sort of cap with a feather, after which she studied herself in the full-length glass in her room.

  “Well, Ibronka,” she told herself, “you are on your way, and, it is only fair to say it, you are looking quite well indeed.” Still watching the glass, she flung her hair over her shoulder and set her hand upon the hilt of her sword in a gesture she had once seen her mother make when confronted with a neighbor using what Sennya called “inappropriate diction” regarding the straying of certain sheep. Ibronka decided she liked the gesture and would therefore keep it, and, this decision made, she turned away from the glass and went to see if Clari were ready with her valise.

  In the event, Clari was more than ready. Not only was the valise packed, but the maid had changed into garb suitable for travel, and carried a small satchel which, like the valise, had hooks by which it could be attached to a saddle.

  “What is this?” said Ibronka. “You are dressed for traveling, Clari.”

  “Yes, my lady. I am dressed for traveling.”

  “Well, but I wish to know why you are dressed for traveling.”

  “Why? Because I expect to travel, my lady.”

  “You? Travel? Where?”

  “With Your Ladyship,” said Clari simply.

  “How, you pretend you will travel with me?”

  “I confess, my lady, that was my thought.”

  “Your thought was that, when I left, you would come along?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “But why?”

  “Your Ladyship does the me the honor to ask why I expected to accompany you on your journey?”

  “Yes, that is what I wish to know.”

  “Well, to serve Your Ladyship, as I’ve done these last sixty years.”

  “Well, but you are a maid, not a lackey!”

  “And then?”

  “Yet you pretend you can serve me while I travel?”

  “If Your Ladyship pleases, I should like nothing better than to find out.”

  “But … what would Her Highness my mother say?”

  “What would she say? Why, I believe Her Highness would be pleased.”

  “Feathers! You think so?”

  “Nearly.”

  Ibronka considered this novel idea, then said, “I admit that I should be glad to see a familiar face on my travels, and, moreover, it would be good to have help from time to time in, well, I don’t know, whatever one does between adventures.” The reader should understand that Ibronka’s comprehension of what an adventure consisted of was only of the vaguest, most incomplete variety; yet, in her defense, we must add that she was well aware of this, and didn’t let it deter her in the least from setting forth.

  The good Teckla, Clari, bowed at Ibronka’s words, taking them as a sign that she could go; and she said, “I will go and saddle a pony, then. I was considering the little sorrel, Kork.”

  Ibronka nodded her agreement and said, “Well then, pick up my valise, and let us be on our way.”

  “How, without a meal first, my lady? Consider: It is some three or four hours to Lorimel, and there is nowhere to eat on the way. Moreover, it seems I ought to prepare sustenance for us on the journey, in case the caravan’s victuals are not to our standards.”

  Ibronka, though anxious to be on the road, could not find any fault with this plan, and so she grudgingly said, “Very well, but I beg you to be quick.”

  “I will be like lightning, my lady.”

  “That is good, Clari, for if you are slow, I will be like thunder.”

  Clari smiled at the witticism her mistress did her the honor to share, and rushed off to complete the preparations for the journey.

  Chapter the Twenty-Third

  How Ibronka Met Röaana, and

  They Discussed Who Should Be

  Permitted to Fight Over Whom

  While the worthy Clari prepares for the journey, we hope the reader will permit us to say two words about this maid who has so unexpectedly become part of our history. She had been born some hundred and fifty or hundred and sixty years before, fa
r to the south, in what had, before Adron’s Disaster, been the port city of Hartre, which we have already mentioned, but was now a tiny fishing village, and one, moreover, where it was becoming more difficult every year to fish effectively, owing to the gradual decay of the fine fishing vessels that had been built before the Disaster, and lack of technique in building new ones. When these factors combined to make life untenable for Clari’s family, they—by which we mean the twenty-year-old Clari, her mother, her father, two older brothers, and one younger sister—all moved north in the hopes of finding some means of livelihood. By the time they arrived in the duchy of Blackbirdriver, Clari was thirty-five, and the family had been reduced to her mother and one older brother, all of whom were discovered by Sennya fishing the Blackbird River. The means of discovery had, in fact, been the aroma of cooking slipper fish, which Clari’s mother had prepared according to the Southern style: filleting them, cutting them into strips, rolling them in flour, and sauteeing them in butter with the juice of tomatoes, salt, black pepper, and a few fresh greenbreads.

  Sennya, upon tasting the fish, to which she had a right as they had been caught within her domain, had at once hired the woman as her cook, and the boy as stable-boy.

  Some years later, Clari’s remaining brother had succumbed to the same outbreak of plague that had taken Sennya’s husband, and, some years after that, Clari had been given the responsibilities of maid, which also implied caring for the young Ibronka, although this had never been made explicit.

  Having now given her history, we will, with the reader’s permission, quickly sketch her appearance. She had, to begin with, the round face of the House of the Teckla; in her case in very pleasing form, with bright, intelligent eyes that were neither too round nor too widely spaced, and a high forehead for a Teckla. And, while she did not have the hands or feet of an aristocrat, she was, nevertheless, a not unattractive girl for one of her type.

  In a very short time, the pony had been saddled, and Clari had prepared provisions—which provisioning, having brought her to the kitchens, had provided an opportunity for her to exchange farewell tears with her mother in a scene over which we will draw a veil out of respect for the sentiments with which a Teckla is as well supplied as anyone else.

  These matters being attended to, they took their mounts—Clari directly into the saddle, Ibronka with the aid of a mounting post—and set off. It was only when they had followed the road around the manor and were passing the two stones, Herger and Berger, that Ibronka thought to wave farewell to her home, aware in the sense that the young are—that is, with her head, if not her heart—that she might never again see the place where she was raised. Then she turned her attention eagerly forward.

  “My lady,” said Clari.

  Ibronka turned her head. “Well?”

  “I beg leave to observe that, at this pace, you will kill your horse before we have made it halfway to Lorimel, not to mention Adrilankha which is, I believe, rather further.”

  Ibronka sighed and reined in her horse, after which they resumed the journey at a more reasonable rate, which brought them several hours later into Lorimel, a village that boasted three or four houses, one of them public, a market, a posting house, and, most important, a location along the Great Northwestern Road that had once run, unbroken, some six hundred leagues from the Kanefthali Mountains all the way to Adrilankha, and still ran unbroken for portions of this distance, although many of the bridges were now gone, and very little of the stone paving was still intact, so that it was difficult to make the journey along much of it during the rainy season.

  Ibronka knew the public house, from having visited it in the company of her mother once or twice, but this was the first time she had gone there with the intention of letting a room—indeed, this would be the first night she had spent away from home, with the only exceptions being certain occasions she had spent on the mountain under the sky. The host recognized her at once, and insisted upon giving her the best room he boasted, which was, we are sorry to admit, nothing to boast of. Nevertheless, the excitement of the moment more than made up for damp walls, poor straw wrapped in moth-eaten mattress covers, and a certain amount of unwelcome insect life. In a word, Ibronka was enchanted. Clari, though not excited the way her mistress was, nevertheless accepted it with only an unexpressed wish that the time would be short before the caravan arrived. Having thus looked over the sleeping chamber, Ibronka hastened down to the jug-room, because she was well aware that adventures often began with chance meetings in the jug-room of a public house, and she was, as the reader has no doubt realized, more than just a little anxious to begin her adventure.

  In this she was disappointed; the jug-room was entirely empty with the exception of a Teckla who was softly snoring in the corner, and two tradesmen who appeared to be Chreotha who were having a quiet discussion in another corner. Ibronka procured for herself a glass of wine, and, by the time she had finished it, had come to the conclusion that nothing of interest was going to happen, and she repaired to such comforts as her bed could supply, joining the worthy Clari, who was already sound asleep on the floor. We would not be faithful to our duty as historian if we did not point out that, once she was in bed, the combination of excitement and the discomfort of the bed prevented her from falling asleep for some few hours, yet eventually sleep claimed her, and, once asleep, she slept soundly and deeply until the next morning when she was awakened by a loud clamor that, as far as she could tell, came from the street directly below her window.

  She sprang out of bed in an instant and, looking out of the window, saw at once that the clamor was caused by nothing less than the ringing of swords, as two men, both of whom appeared to be Dragonlords, circled each other and enthusiastically endeavored to dismember each other with swords of very good length, while a crowd, who also appeared to be Dragonlords, stood as near to the conflict as safety and the narrowness of the street permitted.

  “Is it a duel?” said Clari, who had, evidently, been awakened as well.

  “I can’t tell,” said Ibronka over her shoulder. “It is either a duel or simply a brawl.”

  “There is little enough difference,” said the philosophical Teckla.

  “Bah. Help me to dress; I must go down there.”

  “Very well,” said Clari, who knew better than to attempt to dissuade the young Dzurlord.

  Ibronka was quickly dressed and, still buckling on her weapon, went rushing down the stairs, but, alas, it was already too late: by the time she emerged from the front door of the hostelry, the steel no longer sang, and, indeed, she could see that one of the Dragonlords was stretched out full length upon the ground, while the other maintained a guard position, watching to be sure he didn’t rise again.

  “Bother,” said Ibronka under her breath.

  She turned to the man next to her, a Dragonlord with a dark complexion and very long arms, and said, “Tell me, my lord, what were they fighting about?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders without looking at her and said, “A girl, of course. Why else should soldiers fight each other instead of a common enemy?”

  “How, over a girl?”

  The soldier grunted and glanced at her, and then looked at her again, this time more carefully, which raised upon Ibronka’s countenance a certain flush, and sent her mind working in directions that, hitherto, it had never gone—that is, it had never occurred to Ibronka that girls might be fought over; indeed, she had considered that she might someday win a boy by laying the other pretenders to his affections upon the ground (by preference, having defeated all of them at once), but the idea of men fighting over her had never entered her remotest dreams. Yet, now that it did, well, it seemed, while not as pleasing as doing the fighting, to imply a compliment that, she decided, would not be entirely unwelcome.

  “Well?” she said. “Who is this famous girl?”

  The soldier with whom she was speaking grunted once more and made a gesture with his head. Ibronka, looking in the indicated direction, saw a slight girl
with a pretty face dressed in the colors of the House of the Tiassa, and with an expression on her countenance of profound distress, even anguish.

  “Well,” she thought to herself, “if this girl is worth fighting over I must meet her.” Having made this decision, she at once acted upon it by making her way past several soldiers who were now beginning to cluster around the victor to offer congratulations and the vanquished to offer assistance. Ibronka placed herself in front of the girl, who seemed to be her own age, and sketched a perfunctory bow, saying, “How are you called?”

  The Tiassa hardly appeared to notice her—her eyes remained fixed upon the Dragonlord who still lay facedown, unmoving, and from beneath whom blood could now be seen to be flowing. Still, the girl was able to murmur, “Röaana of Three Seasons.”

  “Well then, Röaana of Three Seasons, I am Ibronka of Blackbirdriver, and I wish to know if it is true that it was over you they were fighting.”

  The Tiassa now looked at her for the first time, and Ibronka could see that her eyes were very wide, as she—that is to say, Röaana—gave a quick nod, then turned her attention back to the fallen soldier.

  “But,” said Ibronka, “how did it happen?”

  Röaana looked at her once more, then said, “You wish to know that?”

  “I think I do. You perceive, I asked.”

  “Well, that is true.”

  “And then?”

  “A soldier made certain suggestions that another found offensive, and so they had a discussion, the results of which you can even now observe.”

  “And did the insulter triumph, or the defender?”

  “The defender.”

  “That is but just. And yet—”

  “Yes? And yet?”

  “You seem profoundly affected.”

  “Madam, I have never seen a man kill another.”

  “How, never?”

  “Never. Have you?”

  “Well,” said Ibronka, “now that you mention it, I have not. Indeed, I didn’t see it this time for I arrived too late. And yet, I do not believe it would affect me the way it has affected you.”