The Paths of the Dead (Viscount of Adrilankha) (19 page)

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Authors: Steven Brust

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Piro was so filled with awe that he was unable to move, until Kytraan said, “Come, my friend, it is only a corridor. You may as well wait until you meet the Enchantress before being struck dumb.”
Piro swallowed and nodded. “Lead on, then; I am with you.”
We shall no more describe the twists and turns of the passages and stairways they now took than we earlier described the stairway; suffice it to say that presently the three of them found themselves in a room of bare, grey walls, appointed with large chairs that were themselves, to all appearances, carved out of stone, although these chairs were covered with padding to provide comfort. One wall held a massive hearth, which was burning with a bright fire, although Piro could not see what was actually burning in it: there was no sign of wood, but only what appeared to be several rocks. We wish we could solve this mystery for the reader, but, alas, we know no more than Piro, from whose report we know of it, what strange magic was causing this fire.
Tazendra at once sat down in a chair as if there were nothing remarkable in being in Sethra Lavode’s lair.
Piro said, “Should we not inform her that we are here?”
“Pah,” said Tazendra. “She knows.”
Piro started to ask how she knew, but then, on reflection,
merely nodded. At this point, someone entered who was clearly not Sethra. In the first place, the individual gave no appearance of being undead, and, in the second place, was a man. He was of middle years, and rather short than tall. He wore black and bore the insignia of the House of the Dzur upon his shoulders, yet his features were those of the House of the Teckla, distinguished by thick, black eyebrows that seemed always to be in motion: rising, falling, or attempting to compress themselves together. Piro found the effect distracting.
The Teckla bowed to them, and said, “I am Tukko. May I bring any of you refreshment?” His voice was high, and reminded Piro of the door to his father’s study, which was always so much in need of oil that the entire manor was alerted each time it was opened or closed.
They each asked for wine, and Tukko bowed and walked out, returning shortly thereafter with a sparkling sweet Truil for Tazendra, a white Furnia for Kytraan, and a full, red Khaav’n for Piro. Piro sipped it, identified it at once by the dry, spicy flavor with a hint of nuttiness, and the mild tingling upon the tongue, a combination produced only by wines from that district, whereupon he graced Tukko with a glance of inquiry.
“In honor of your family,” said Tukko in explanation.
“Ah, then you know who I am.”
Tukko bowed, which gesture he managed to make at once stiff and undignified. This confused Piro, until it occurred to him that Sethra would have little use for a servant skilled in the ways of court, especially in the ways of a court that no longer existed. After bowing, Tukko said, “You will observe a small rope near the Lady Tazendra’s left hand; should you require anything else, pull upon it; I will hear, and will return” With these words and another clumsy bow, he left the way he had come.
Piro said, “Will the Enchantress be here soon?”
Tazendra shrugged. “Soon? Late? Who can say?”
Kytraan smiled. “Are you anxious to meet her?”
“The word
anxious
is well chosen, my friend,” said Piro, smiling. “I must confess to you, the stories one hears about her give rise to a feeling not unlike trepidation. Yet while you have not told me that these stories are true, neither have you said that they are false. You perceive, therefore, I don’t know
what to believe, and I therefore don’t know what to expect, and, therefore I am, as you have said, anxious.”
“Well, but I have not told you for the best of all possible reasons: I don’t know.”
Tazendra said, “For my part, I believe them.”
“All of them?” said Piro.
“Why not? That is no more foolish than if I believed none of them.”
“Cha! I nearly think I agree with you.”
“Do you?” said Tazendra, smiling. “Well, that is good, then. It is pleasant to find that Khaavren’s son agrees with me. In the old days, you know, he often agreed with me.”
“Did he?” said Piro. “Well, that does not astonish me”
Tazendra nodded. “The truth is, when I would suggest an idea, why, it was most often Khaavren who was the first to agree with me. ‘Tazendra, my friend,’ he would say, ‘I think that is an excellent plan you have suggested, and I, for one, vote that we adopt it at once!’ That is how he would speak to me.”
“I am certain that is just how it was,” said Piro, who was certain it was nothing like that at all.
“Oh, those were grand days! Adventure at every turn! To save this Dragonlord, to foil this Jhereg, to protect this Emperor—”
She stopped suddenly as if fearful that Piro might take her words amiss. The Tiassa shrugged, however, and said, “And adventures are gone now?”
“Oh, I don’t say that! I had thought they might be, but then Zerika appeared last week—”
“Ah! You mention Zerika!”
“Well, and why should I not?”
“It is only that I am curious about her.”
“Well, and it is right you should be, because she will save us all.”
“How, she will save us?”
“Yes, but first we must save her.”
“You perceive,” said Piro, “that I am now bewildered.”
“You are? But, what has bewildered you?”
“Why, you have said she will save us, and we must save her, and she has changed everything, and yet, I have no idea of who she is.”
“Ah! And you wish to know why I said all of those things about her?”
“That is exactly what I wish.”
“Well, I said them for the simplest possible reason: because that is what Sethra said, and I am convinced that if Sethra Lavode said it, it must be the truth.”
“So then,” said Piro, “is that why I am here? To save Zerika?”
“Oh, as to that—”
“Well?”
“I have not the least idea in the world, I assure you.”
Kytraan looked up suddenly. “Well, but here is someone you can ask, if you wish.”
Piro stood up, startled, and turned to see a tall dark figure standing in the doorway.
“Piro,” said Kytraan, also rising to his feet. “I am honored to introduce you to Sethra Lavode, the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain.”
In Which Sethra Lavode’s Plans
Are Not Only Revealed, but Attempted
To Be Put into Action
 
 
How the Gods Conerned
Themselves with the Momentous
Events That Were Taking Place
 
 
 
A
ccording to the Athyra scholar Ekrasan of Sibletown, writing in the Eleventh Cycle during the Reign of the Issola or the Tsalmoth, we forget which, there are four classes of literature: The ironic, which concerns the actions of men to whom the reader is invited to feel superior; the realistic, which concerns the actions of men with whom the reader is invited to identify; the romantic, which concerns the actions of men the reader is invited to admire; and the mythic, which concerns the actions of the gods.
We must confess that we have nothing but admiration for the worthy Athyra: it was he, after all, who first identified the Five Parts of Literature, and who, moreover, took the first Chair in the great debate before His Imperial Majesty Fecila the Third over the ban on works of fiction proposed during the Eleventh Vallista Reign, with the result that a destruction of literary works that we shudder to contemplate was, in the end, avoided.
Nevertheless, upon this point, we must dispute him. It seems to us that, in any serious work, all of these classes are contained, and all the issues within them addressed; and if more or less emphasis is placed on one or the other in a certain work, this does not mean that the others are not present, by implication if not explicitly, in every work of literature that merits the name.
If we were to use our own humble effort as an example, we might say that our treatment of Tazendra could be considered ironic; whereas when we address ourselves to certain of the Teckla, such as Lar, we strive for the strictest realism; many of those persons who make their way through our history are, at least in the opinion of the author, admirable: Sethra Lavode, Aerich, and, we hope, many others.
Yet we have not, hitherto, dared to directly address the gods in this work. Indeed, we would not do so now, except that at this point our history absolutely requires it.
Therefore, we must ask our reader to permit us to take him to the very Halls of Judgment, where those beings who control, as best they can, the fate of our entire world sit and pass judgment, not only on all of those who come before them, but on all of the events that take place over which they exert, or attempt to exert, some measure of control.
While it is beneath our dignity as historian to plead excuses to the reader, we must, nevertheless, explain that to describe the Halls of Judgment is no easy task. In the first place, this is because there are few witnesses who have returned with such a description. In the second place, it is because the descriptions that do exist seldom agree. And in the last place, it is because the realm comes from the dreams of the gods themselves. The reader may consider the problem for himself: if the reader could dream and then make that dream real, and share that dream with a score of others who were making their own dreams real, and if some observer were to enter this place which was an intersection of all of these dreams, and if, moreover, the dream was constantly changing as new presences were added and removed, well, we beg liberty to doubt the reader’s ability to precisely—or even meaningfully—describe the place he had visited.
This noted, however, we will say that, by all accounts, the Halls of Judgment were spacious. Let us say, then, that we observe a large open space, such as the Terraces of Finance behind the Silver Exchange in the old city of Dragaera. And like the Terraces of Finance, there is no ceiling, but neither is there the Enclouding of the Empire, nor the sparkling holes in the sky that are visible in the East; rather, there is simply naked, empty blue-black sky. There is no light of lamp or torch, nor
is there the natural light of the Furnace; rather the Halls of judgment are perpetually in that state that comes just after twilight; one can see clearly enough, but one always wishes for just a little more light.
As for the gods, they sit upon “thrones” that are as diverse as their characters, to say nothing of their forms. They sit in a great circle—so great, indeed, that were the reader to stand directly before one and by turning his head look around, he could only barely see the one directly behind him. Yet, by the deep wizardry that is a part of the Halls of Judgment, three or four steps are all that is needed to be before the other, and he whom one had been addressing before would now appear to be an incalculable distance behind. The conclusion is inescapable : in this dream of place, distance has no meaning.
We have put this chapter here, interrupting Piro’s arrival at Dzur Mountain, for two reasons: the first is that, insofar as we can judge, it was at just about this point in history that what follows actually occurred. But secondarily, it was to emphasize that
time
, as it applies to the Halls of Judgment, cannot be understood as the normal, orderly progression of moments where it is elsewhere experienced. From everything we know, at least this much is clear from those few who have entered the Halls of Judgment and returned to the normal world: a day spent in the Halls might be an hour outside of it; or it might be a year, or ten years. The conclusion is inescapable: in this dream of sequence, time has no meaning.
We have used the terms
sorcery
, and
necromancy
, and
witchcraft
, and
wizardry
, to refer to the different techniques of holding in abeyance natural law—or, to be more precise, temporarily substituting one set of natural laws for another. These different forms of magic are understood to different degrees, and, after the manner of all branches of science, the efforts to understand them more deeply never cease. To use is to learn, and to learn is to use better, and to use better is to learn more deeply. This is a continuing process, and one that gives meaning to the term
progress
(however much certain desert-born mystics might sneer at the word). Yet, in the timeless, placeless place that we call the Halls of Judgment, the realm of the gods, there are no natural laws, because all is a dream of the gods. And where there are no natural laws, there can be no
abeyance of these laws. Where everything is possible, nothing is possible. Where all laws of magic and reality operate, no laws of magic and reality apply. The conclusion is inescapable : in this dream of truth, magic has no meaning.
Of course, this confusion of distance, time, and magic will make no difference to the residents of the Halls of Judgment, by which, be it clearly understood, we mean the gods; we are not at this time concerned with those poor souls who wear the purple robes and are the servants of all who pass beyond Deathgate Falls; nor with those who await judgment or rebirth ; nor those who, like Kieron the Conqueror, have simply chosen to remain within the Paths for a time more or less protracted. As we look upon this scene, he who is, some believe, the most powerful of all the gods, that being Barlen, sits in a chair that appears to be a stone that has been chiseled to conform to his reptilian shape. Always near him are the Three Daughters of Darkness, who appear very nearly human, and whom we know as Verra, Moranthë, and Kéurana. Some say Verra, who is either the eldest or the youngest, is Barlen’s lover, upon this subject the historian will not speculate. Others might be here as well: Ordwynac, the embodiment of fire; Nyssa, who most often appeared as a dim shape floating in the air; Tri’nagore, similar to Barlen, although larger and darker; Kelchor, the cat-centaur; Trout, supposed to be the wisest of gods.
All of these, and, perhaps, others, sit in a great circle, and communicate with each other by pure thought, thus eliminating, the reader should understand, the need for them to speak each other’s languages, because many of them do speak different languages, and some, such as Ordwynac, are believed to have no means to speak at all (a proposition which, frankly, this historian finds dubious, if not impossible).
As we listen in on this conversation, there are questions that, no doubt, will at once occur to the reader: First, the reader will be curious as to how we will reproduce thoughts from the minds of the gods. To this question, we will say the way thoughts are always reproduced—that is, we will turn them into language. If there are perhaps certain turns of phrase that are introduced in this way, the reader may be assured,
at least, that the most important aspect of the thought, that is, the
substance
, will be faithfully rendered.
But then, the reader might wonder, how can the historian pretend to know conversations that occurred where distance, time, and magic have no meaning, far from anywhere, and only within the minds of beings who are not subject to the understanding of a mere human. This is a more difficult question, and deserves an answer that is as honest in its substance as it is brief in its exposition.
The answer, then, is this: While we cannot, for the reasons outlined above, know precisely what was expressed, nevertheless, we can know from testimony of those monks who commune with the gods, and those priests who intercede with them, and those sorcerers who have made pacts with them, some of what they did during this fascinating era of our history. And, as the thought is to the deed as the road is to the destination, so, by examining the results, we can arrive at certain conclusions concerning their thoughts. Moreover, we have, from writings that go back far into the depths of history, certain clues concerning the personalities of these deities. Last, we know that the Orb was present, and the Orb cannot forget, and hints that Her Majesty the Empress has been gracious enough to drop are also useful in providing us with material with which to make informed guesses.
It is true, the ability to make an informed guess is often over-used and mis-used by historians and pretended historians: It is well known, for example, that the military historian is at his best when giving the names of field officers who fell in battle, and at his worst when attempting to explain the reason for the general officer to have made a certain decision at a certain time. Nevertheless, we believe that, just as there are times when conclusions are so obvious that the cold recitation of fact and nothing but fact best serves the ultimate goal of history, which is the discovery of
truth
, still, there are other times when a judicious application of careful, responsible guesswork is not only permitted, but very nearly required. We further contend that this is just such a circumstance, and we hope the reader will be willing to give us his trust as we explore these difficult yet vital matters.
To begin, then, Kelchor spoke, saying, “Great matters are stirring in what was once the Empire of Men.”
“That may be,” said Ordwynac. “But need we concern ourselves ? That is, does it involve the Cycle? Or is it only more playing by those who have already wasted the opportunity we gave them.”
“It was not wasted,” said Moranthë.
“It was not their fault,” said Kéurana.
“Opportunity
who
gave them?” said Verra.
“Nevertheless,” said Ordwynac. “The question is, do these ‘great matters,’ as you call them, involve the Cycle, or do they not?”
Nyssa said, “They involve the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain, at any rate, for I have seen her stirring.”
“Well,” said Kelchor, “that is something. I have known her as long as any of you, and you will all agree, I think, that she rarely involves herself in trivialities.”
“So then,” said Barlen, “it may involve the Cycle. In fact, I begin to become convinced that it does.”
Ordwynac said, “Very well, it involves the Cycle. And yet, the Cycle is broken—”
“The Cycle is never broken,” said Barlen. “Only the Empire is shattered, but the Cycle which was its foundation cannot be broken, for it is part of the fundamental nature of the universe. As long as there is one living being—”
“There is no remaining Phoenix!” said Ordwynac. “How can the Cycle survive with no Phoenix?”
“There is one,” said Moranthë.
“Actually two,” said Verra, “though they are both female.”
“How, there are two?” said Barlen.
“Yes,” said Verra.
“You are certain?”
“The House of the Phoenix is my watch,” she said. “I am certain. There are two.”
“I am astonished,” said Barlen. “This may change everything.”
“And yet,” said Verra, “as I have said, they are both female.”
“Then,” said Ordwynac, “that is the same as if there were none.”
“How so?” said Kéurana. “You perceive, if two is the same as none, then all of the sciences must be redefined, beginning with arithmetic.”
“Because,” said Ordwynac, ignoring the irony the goddess did him the honor to share, “these are beings who require a male and a female to reproduce.”
“And so?” said Verra.
“And so, even if there is a Phoenix now, there can never be another, and so, by the time the Cycle returns to the Phoenix, it will be broken.”
“You know little of the Phoenix,” said Verra.
“And less of the Cycle,” added Barlen.
“Then explain it to me,” said Ordwynac.
“And to me as well,” said Kelchor, “for, you perceive, I do not understand how the Cycle is to survive either, and, if there is to be no Cycle, well, then why are we here?”

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