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Authors: Steven Brust

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This is how Morrolan tells the story of his dream of the black wand. We confess that Morrolan is capable of exaggeration, prevarication, disingenuousness, and making something up out of whole cloth, wherefore we cannot insist upon the truth of the matter.
In any case, it was dawn when he emerged from the chapel, the Easterner called Arra behind him, Morrolan appearing pale and exhausted.
Morrolan said, “What now?”
“Well, how do you feel?”
“How do I feel?”
“Yes. Do you feel at all different than you did last night?”
Morrolan considered this question carefully, and at length he said, “Yes. I do. It is difficult to describe—”
“You feel as if there is a presence, just past the corner of your eye. You feel almost as if you were being watched, but by a benign presence. You feel as if you had a way of touching something that you didn’t have before, only there is nothing there to touch. Does that come close?”
Morrolan considered for a moment, then said, “No, I cannot say that it does.”
“Well, you are right; it is difficult to describe.”
“Yes.”
“At all events, your soul is now consecrated to the goddess, so that anything you do, you do for her. And anyone who attempts to thwart you, will be thwarting her.”
“It is an honor,” reflected Morrolan.
“It is that,” agreed Arra.
“Well, what now?”
“Now we begin to gather witches.”
“Gather witches?”
“Exactly.”
“You must explain why we would wish to do this.”
“I shall do so at once.”
“Then I am listening.”
“Are you aware that when two witches work together, they can create a spell more powerful than either acting alone?”
“I have heard that, yes.”
“Can you imagine a hundred witches working together?”
Morrolan thought for a moment, then said, “No.”
“It can be done, as long as there is a focus.”
“Ah. And what is the focus?”
“I am,” said Arra.
“We will gather a hundred witches?”
“With the blessing of the goddess, we will gather a thousand.”
“A thousand! Well, I think that will be enough. But where will we find them?”
“They will come to us.”
“How, they will come to us?”
“Yes. They will hear of Blackchapel, and they will come.”
“How do you know?”
“The goddess has told me.”
“Then I shall not dispute with her.”
“You are right not to.”
Morrolan looked out into the morning of Blackchapel and considered the future.
 
 
How a Dragonlord with an
Ambitious Cousin Considered
The Possibility of
Becoming an Emperor
 
 
 
W
e will now, with the reader’s indulgence, turn our attention from a place so far east that it is beyond the old border of the Empire at the time of its greatest expanse, to a place that is very nearly at the western edge—that is, to the far northwestern region of the continent, on a peak called Kâna, in the Kanefthali Mountains. It behooves us, before going on, to say two words about the district in general and this mountain in particular.
In the earliest days of the Empire, when the seventeen tribes (or sixteen, or twenty-one, depending on whether the number is submitted by a culturalist, a biologist, or a rationalist) united under the Dragonlord Kieron the Conqueror and the Phoenix Zerika the First and began moving east, among the first discoveries was a mountain range filled with, in the first place, large veins of iron ore, and, in the second, the race of the Serioli, who were mining this ore and turning it into such objects as were useful to themselves, many of which were also useful to the seventeen tribes. Here arose one of the first disagreements between Kieron and Zerika, a disagreement eventually won by the Phoenix, who, after using the newly created object that would come to be called the Imperial Orb to solve the language problem, negotiated with the Serioli for much of this ore, for the secrets of bladesteel, and for the rights to a portion of the mountain range itself. This portion
centered around four of the mountains: Koopyr, famous for its large twin peaks where so much mountain buckwheat was grown and for its fertile valleys where oats grew and flatfoot sheep grazed; Needle-at-the-top and Redground, with their rich iron veins; and Kâna, which looked back north upon the others, with vineyards and orchards along her lower slopes.
With the agreement made, the district was populated, for the most part, by the tribe of the Vallista, except for portions of Kâna in which several Dragonlords took up their abode to provide a defensive fastness in case of a retreat by the armies of Kieron. Over the long centuries after Kieron and the rest of the tribes had marched away, the region became nearly its own country, developing a language in which the tongue of the Dragon combined with the Northwestern language and included elements of the speech of the Serioli, until the eastward expansion ended and, toward the end of the Third Cycle, the unity of trade, military matters, and communication began to form what came to be the Empire (or, to be more precise, what many finally realized had been an Empire all along).
The fall of the Empire was felt in the Kanefthali Mountains (now, for a long time, nearly devoid of Serioli, and those few confined to the far north, on such peaks as Lostway and Brownhead) as a strong tremor, and many of the old fortresses of the area collapsed and were ruined, along with many of the working mines; but in a lower valley of Kâna called Whiteside, near a village of the same name, there was a Count named Skinter, of the e’Terics line of the House of the Dragon, whose keep, constructed low and strong and in conformity with the landscape, survived the shaking and rending of the ground. Shortly before the disaster he had been involved in gathering certain forces around him, in preparation for a dispute with a neighbor over an insult Skinter planned to deliver as soon as he calculated he had amassed a sufficient army. Skinter’s intended enemy was a second cousin who had, over the previous century, acquired fishing rights to a certain lake, control of a particular vineyard renowned for its fortified wine made from late-apples, and the affections of the daughter of a local baron, all of which Skinter wanted, and none of which survived Adron’s Disaster. In fact, the second cousin
himself succumbed to the first tremors by drowning while attempting to enjoy all three of these acquisitions at once.
This left Skinter, also called Whiteside, relatively safe, without enemies, with a large standing army, without anyone to whom he was responsible (the Duchess of Kâna and most of her family having been in Dragaera City at the time of the Disaster, and the remainder having unfortunately been at home during the aftershocks) and with a great store of ambition. To round out this list, however, we ought to add that he had no means to feed over an extended period of time such an army as he had gathered. When we consider these conditions, and remind ourselves that he was, after all, a Dragonlord, it should come as no surprise that he began to widen his circle of dominance.
When he did so, he made the same discovery that thousands of other warlords of the era, going through the same process, discovered: For the most part, the aristocrats, the tradesmen, and even the peasants welcomed the firm hand of a leader; they had been “free,” that is, without the Empire, for too short a time to become habituated to anarchy (this was, we should point out, within the first few years after the Disaster), and they were nearly all lost, confused, and frightened, and any semblance of order was greeted with a sense of relief; Skinter’s army had rarely to draw sword, lower spear, or set catapult to secure the first victories.
These victories gave the Duke of Kâna, which title he assumed after completing the subjugation of that duchy, a broader area from which to secure food for his army, but it also required of him that he station portions of this army in each of his newly conquered territories, to insure that no other potential warlord, envying him his success, would be able to raise an army to replace or overthrow him and that no leader should rise among the subdued peasantry; he thus required a larger army, he thus required even more territory to support this army, and he was thus forced to continue his expansion, albeit necessarily at a slower pace as the area to be conquered grew geometrically.
This pattern—the lone aristocrat acquiring, building, or already possessing an army needing more land to feed the army, and then a larger army to protect the land—was repeated
thousands of times during the period of history we call the Interregnum, but what made Kana, as he now styled himself, unique was the presence of his cousin, a certain Marchioness of Habil, herself of the e’Terics line of the House of the Dragon; a lady with no ambition herself, but with a good knowledge of history, a head for strategy, a skill with arithmetic, and a fierce loyalty to her cousin. On a certain day, scarcely twenty years after the Disaster, she spoke to Kana as he broke his fast and contemplated his position. Before letting the reader in on this interesting conversation, it is only necessary to say, by way of sketches, that Kâna and Habil, although cousins, looked like brother and sister, were often mistaken for brother and sister by casual observers, and have even been identified as such by careless historians. They were quite typical Dragonlords, rather short than tall, and marked by hollow cheeks, deep-set eyes, and curly brown hair that each wore to the shoulder. Kâna wore the black and silver of the Dragon warrior, Habil, though not actually a warrior, did the same.
This being established, let us endeavor to discover what they said to each other on that morning some score of years after the Disaster, as they took their ease in Kâna’s dining room.
“Let us consider,” said Habil.
“Very well,” replied Kana. “I am willing to consider. Only—”
“Well?”
“What do you wish to consider?”
“Acreage of farmland,” she said.
“Ah. Well, what of it?”
“In this district, it requires some thirty or thirty-five acres to produce sufficient grain for the usual Teckla family that works it to feed itself for a year.”
“Very well. And then?”
“And then, for each ten additional acres the family produces, we are able to feed—that is, pay—an additional soldier for our army.”
“But then, there are the vineyards, which produce wine that we sell, and the orchards, which produce fruit, not to mention livestock and—”
She made a dismissing motion with her hand. “You complicate
the issue needlessly. The figures work out to be very nearly the same.”
“You are certain of these figures? That is, you have made a study?”
“No, I read them in a book.”
“Do you trust this book?”
“Oh, certainly. It was published by the University Press before the Disaster.”
“Very well, then, I accept the figures. What of them?”
“Suppose I have thirty renters, each renter, on average, has—”
“What does ‘on average’ mean?”
“It is unimportant. Each renter, let us say, farms fifty acres.”
“Very well, let us say that.”
“When we subtract from this the amount the renter is entitled to for his own use, either to eat or to sell, which is, by chance, very close to what he needs to keep himself and his family alive, we find we have the amount needed to support one soldier, along with the portion that goes into your bin, and eventually, your treasury.”
“Yes, yes, or larder, or wine-cellar. I am familiar with this process. What you are saying, then, is that we are able to support one soldier for each peasant family.”
“That is correct.”
“This also came from a book?”
“The same book.”
“Perhaps I should read it.”
“I will lend it to you.”
“Well, I accept these figures. And then?”
“After reading the books, I did my own calculations.”
“I am not surprised that you did. But—”
“Yes?”
“What did these calculations tell you?”
“That in order to effectively defend the land in these times, with brigands and armies everywhere, we require one of two things: either one and a half soldiers for each peasant—”
“Half of a soldier is hard to imagine.”
“—or we must arm the peasants.”
“A risky proposition.”
“Exactly.”
“And then? What is your conclusion, my dear cousin?”
“There is yet a third method.”
“I am anxious to hear it.”
“Each time we gain an area equal to fifty acres, and, in doing so, use fewer than one soldier for each fifty acres conquered, we stay afloat, as the Orca say, for a little longer.”
“Ah. I understand.”
“Yes. That is why we are driven to keep expanding.”
“Well, and so we expand.”
“But there is a limit, you know. The expansion must necessarily slow down, because there is time required to secure each new area, and as the circle widens—”
“Circle?”
“Say, rather, as your holdings grow, it will soon take so much time to see to the arrangements that, well, the entire structure will collapse.”
“Having seen the Disaster,” remarked Kana, looking around nervously, “I mislike the thought of structures collapsing.”
“As do I.”
“But permit me to put a question.”
“Very well,” said Habil, “ask your question.”
“If this is how it works—”
“Oh it does, I assure you.”
“How was the Empire able to function?”
“Because it was an Empire, and everywhere was order, and there was little bickering, and so only a small army, and that managed by the Empire itself, could keep order over a large area. In fact, rather than requiring one and half soldiers for each peasant, it required scarcely one soldier for each thousand peasants. You perceive there is a great deal of difference.”
“Yes, yes, I see that. But is there a solution?”
“I believe there is.”
“And what is that?”
“A new Empire.”
“How, a new Empire?”
“Exactly.”
“But that requires a new Emperor.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“And where might we find such an Emperor?”
“I believe I am looking at one.”
“How, me?”
“Are you not a Dragonlord?”
“Well, yes.”
“And have you not proved your ability to win battles?”
“Battles, yes. But to govern such an area, and that without the Orb—”
“The lack of the Orb is a problem.”
“I nearly think it must be!”
“But I have a solution.”
“Have you then?” said Kâna admiringly. “I recognize you so well in that!”
“I think so,” said Habil, blushing.
“Well, I should be glad to hear it, Marchioness.”
“A system of counselors, of observers, and governors of territories.”
“I see. Advisers, then, to suggest actions, and spies to be sure I am informed of what is going on in all parts of the Empire, and rulers of sections to carry out my orders in their territories.”
“You have understood exactly.”
“But how am I to conquer such a large area, when you have already said that expansion such as we have been engaged in is doomed?”

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