The Baron of Magister Valley

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  For Rick and JoAnn

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Peter Cook, who told me Stuff about paper, and Scott Lynch who answered medical questions. Phillip Wiebe told me how to dissolve rocks. Alexx Kay (http://www.panix.com/~alexx/dragtime.html#PreTortaalik) was of considerable help keeping me from tripping over my own feet, as were all of those who have contributed to the Lyorn Records (http://dragaera.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page). Brian Newell helped me keep track of who went where and how long it took. Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, Will Shetterly, and Adam Stemple gave much needed help on getting it into shape, as, of course, did my editor, Claire Eddy. A warm thank you to copy editor Sophia Dembling, to Irene Gallo, artist David Palumbo, and to the entire production staff at Tor, who make me look good. My humble respects are always due to Robert Charles Morgan, who started it all, and my agent, Kay McCauley, who helps keep it going.

  Additional proofreading and copy editing by sQuirrelco Textbenders, Inc.

  A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO THE STRANGE HISTORY OF THE PERSONAGE KNOWN AS

  The Baron of Magister Valley

  By Paarfi of Roundwood

  {His arms, seal, lineage block}

  Submitted to the Imperial Library

  By Springsign Manor

  House of the Hawk

  On this 11th day of the Month of the Issola

  Of the Year of the Dragon

  Of the Turn of the Phoenix

  Of the Phase of the Dragon

  Of the Reign of the Dragon

  In the Cycle of the Phoenix

  In the Great Cycle of the Dragon;

  (2:1/2:2/0/2)

  Or, in the 290th Year

  Of the Glorious Reign

  Of Her Imperial Majesty Norathar the Second

  Presented, with deepest Gratitude and Respect,

  To my Esteemed Patron,

  Her Highness, the Princess of Mermaid Cove

  In Hopes it will Please Her

  Foreword

  1. One Word about the Work of Paarfi of Roundwood

  Perfection.

  —Shetwil of the House of Dzur, author of The Purchaser of This Book Is a Personage of the Finest Discernment

  2. If One Word Is Not Sufficient, Surely One Poem Is

  paarfi of roundwood

  in one word is just so good.

  read him? yes, you should

  —Shetwil, the acclaimed “Poet of the Dzur” and author of Should You Do Me the Insult of Refusing to Purchase My Book, Redeem Your Honor with the Weapon of Your Choice at Dawn on the Morrow by the Lightning-Struck Tree at Deep River Park

  3. Must the Poet Serve the Muse or the Patron?

  That one word, “perfection,” and no other, is all you, Dear Reader, need to be told before you begin the newest distraction from the pen of that most prolific teller of implausible yet impeccably accurate tales, the incomparable Paarfi of Roundwood. To give one word more, to say, for example, that what awaits you is an account of adventure and love and betrayal and revenge, is to limit your expectations of what you are to experience. Why would any honorable person cut short the moment when you hold a tome in your hands and only know that something delightful lies before you?

  But that is my onerous duty. Glorious Mountain Press demands a thousand words when a contract has been signed, specifying that number of words as a foreword to Paarfi’s latest work, and they will not pay if what’s delivered is a word short, not even if the signer of the contract is as committed as Paarfi to choosing the one right word among the many that may be found in any dictionary (or one might say, any concordance) or thesaurus (or one might say, synonymy).

  Nor will Glorious Mountain be content with a poem, though each syllable was chosen with the precision of a Dzur’s blade flashing in battle.

  A publisher who insists a contract for a thousand words can only be fulfilled with a thousand words does not grasp what Paarfi knows, that precision is the only trait of the true artist—along with concision and grace, of course—and let no one forget wit.

  A publisher whose soul has more of the lawyer than the artist cannot comprehend that the right word in the right place is worth far more than a thousand wrong ones, just as the right Dzur before a narrow pass or bridge is worth far more than a thousand Teckla. Such a publisher fails to see the simplest truth: when a poet finds the one necessary word, the need for a thousand is no more and the contract should be paid in full. Such a publisher is like a landlord who cannot hear the truth that only a few days of grace are required before the last three months’ rent will be paid in full, or perhaps another week at most, and surely not more than two, unless the payment has been misplaced by the post, in which case the poet is not to blame and a bit more than three weeks may be required, or at worst, a few months, though almost certainly not four more months. Such a publisher is like a lover who will not accept that art requires research for the sake of truth, and so to describe the moonlight playing on thrashing sheets, a poet might require a comely young person’s assistance in recreating a scene from The Shepherdess’s Delight, a thing done in absolute innocence and in no way affecting the vows of eternal devotion that poet has made to such a lover nor in any way justifying that poet’s ejection unclad into the streets with insults and dinnerware hurled at his head.

  But enough of the failings of others. A Dzur knows battles cannot be fought as they should be fought, but as they are fought. A publisher who demands a thousand words knows almost no one reads forewords. Such a publisher is buying a block of verbiage with a name above it that might help sell the book. Perhaps Glorious Mountain saw that Paarfi’s audience likes thick books, so I was hired to attract those who like slim ones. Whatever the reason, there is a reason I am a poet and small-minded people are publishers. Did I get a word of praise when I delivered the only necessary word? No—I got a note saying I was 999 words short. When I offered my poem, was there any acknowledgment of its cleverness? No—there was only a note saying, “985 more.”

  So I conclude my efforts are not read by one who values quality over quantity. That such a person should publish Paarfi’s work is an affront to all the gods of art, but so it is. Obviously, my pages are given to a clerk who serves as a computer, a word tallier, who ticks off the count.

  Word Tallier, I offer you vengeance on those who treat you like a lowly Teckla—by which I mean no insult if you are a lowly Teckla, for it strikes me now that lowly Teckla may take umbrage at being called lowly Teckla. If so, know that I mean no insult in reminding you of your lowliness, nor, Word Tallier, did I mean to imply that you are a lowly Teckla if you are not a member of that base House. Tally the words in this piece. You shall find
a full thousand. Assure your oppressor that the count is true and my money should be sent posthaste. A landlord will be content, an unhappy lover will be wooed at a fine tavern, and a poet who you may count as comrade whether you are a lowly Teckla or a child of a noble House will be grateful.

  What, I am a word short?

  Kumquat.

  —Shetwil, author of This Volume Will Adorn Any Bookshelf in the Most Becoming Way and If My Quill Is a Rapier, Have the Grace to Die

  Preface

  I have always been a critic of Paarfi of Roundwood’s works. Not his harshest critic, certainly, for there are those who hate his prose more than a Yendi hates a straight line. But if I never tore them apart sentence to syllable, neither did I ever say an overly kind word about them. With this in mind, I can assure you that I was greatly surprised to hear the Lord of Roundwood wished me to write the preface to his latest “masterpiece.” So intrigued was I as to the reasoning behind this idea, I decided that before I took the contract, I had to meet the man himself and ask him directly why he would want me—an actual critic of the literary arts, not a barely-lettered Dzur willing to fawn for a thousand words if it gave him the smallest opportunity to advance the profile of his latest masterpiece, How I Killed a Thousand Teckla with a Single Stroke of My Sword and Will Do the Same to You If You Do Not Purchase This Title, or some such other drivel—to introduce his newest words to the public.

  That is, if I could ever get a word in.

  “Good afternoon, Lord Roundwood,” I greeted him when he entered the small klava house he had chosen as our meeting place. He was taller than I thought he would be, as most writers of his years—especially those as irresponsibly verbose as Paarfi—are foreshortened by the time they have spent hunched over their drafting desks. He was also, I noted—again with some measure of surprise—a man of rather pleasing appearance: broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, with the chiseled good looks of his House and a countenance that spoke of measured insight and forthright honesty. I conjectured then and maintain now that it is only his abrasive personality that has kept him single all these years, as he is blessed in both fortune and feature, two traits that, we can all agree, weigh heavily on the female of the species’ mind when selecting a potential mate.

  “And to you, good Adain of Arylle. Let us get right to the point.” His voice was a touch nasally, as if air had trouble making its way through the sharpness of his nose.

  “I would like nothing more, sir.”

  “It pleases me to hear this.”

  “Uh … good?”

  “It is good when two men such as us—not friends, but not enemies either—can meet congenially to discuss matters of such importance.”

  “As to that…”

  “For surely men of the word, of the book, of literature, can put aside any worldly—and thereby, by their very nature, petty—differences to discuss matters of more scholarly import?”

  “Surely,” I agreed, though I was no longer sure what I was agreeing to or why.

  “So let us discuss it!”

  “I have come to do exactly that.”

  “You have a question then?”

  “I do.”

  “An inquisitive mind is an active mind.”

  “Just so.”

  “And an active mind is ever young.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Which makes it life’s deepest irony that children wish so deeply to grow up and the old wish nothing more than to be young again.”

  I surmised of a sudden that I had likely misjudged when I described the dialog he writes as “a ridiculous mélange of witlessness and repetitious retort made sensical only by the certain assumption that the author is paid by the word.” Apparently, all this time Paarfi has just been recording his own, very real, conversational style.

  He gave a sigh as he pondered life’s ironies, and I saw my opening. “The introduction,” I blurted. “Why me?”

  He fixed me with his Hawk gaze then, finally concentrating on the matter at hand. “I am so confident in this book,” he said solemnly, “that I wished my greatest critic to be forced to acknowledge the magnitude of its brilliance from the very first page.”

  As I mentioned earlier, there are certainly far greater critics of Paarfi’s work than I. But perhaps Orthon the Eldest, who called Paarfi’s seminal work, The Phoenix Guards, a “pile of hot steaming sludge, troweled into the reader’s maw in great mounding mouthfuls, whereas a single bite of the perennially putrid prose would be easily enough to dissuade any trace of intellectual appetite” was unavailable. Or the Lady Monthrell, who attacked him personally, calling him “not very nice,” (if one knows anything about Issola in general and Lady Monthrell in particular then one would understand how deeply in contempt she must hold Paarfi to utter such a statement publicly), could not be persuaded to put aside her personal feelings and associate with him for even a few hundred words.

  I was certain dozens of other critics who had spent years heaping hatred on the work and personage of the Lord of Roundwood were much more qualified to be “his greatest critic” than I, but he did not ask them. He asked me. And he appears to have made a good choice, because after reading The Baron of Magister Valley I am forced to say—truthfully, reluctantly, and with the greatest amazement possible—that it is …

  Good.

  Not great. Good. But given Paarfi’s previous work, we can consider “good” to be such a vaulting achievement that he is right in declaring this his masterwork, the pinnacle of his art.

  It features characters of real depth, not the usual foppish caricatures who wander drunkenly through increasingly unrealistic adventures. Instead, Baron’s heroes’ travails are torturous and dark and require inward journeys as well as outward.

  Yes, self-reflection in a Paarfi book. What will his Dzur fans say?

  Even his signature dialog is less of a chore to get through, as you actually care about the characters and feel you are slogging through it together.

  So, as I approach the end of my assigned thousand words, I will, at the risk of my reputation, recommend to you, dear reader, this good book.

  —Adain of Arylle, Critic of the Literary and Poetic Arts

  Cast of Characters

  In Order of Appearance

  Eremit of Cryden, afterward Dust, afterward the first Baron of Magister

  Livosha (Nedyrc): His lover

  Coru: Livosha’s servant.

  Kefaan (Arin): Livosha’s brother

  Tiscara: Livosha’s father

  Cerwin: Livosha’s mother

  Nira: Livosha’s sister

  Horatha: A driver and servant of Cerwin

  Waymin: A lackey

  Nessit: Eremit’s father

  Sudora: Eremit’s mother

  Jerin: A groom

  Dorin: Count of Westward, the local magistrate.

  Director: Head of the jail on Burning Island

  Suzil: Livosha’s maid

  Unnamed cutthroat: A mercenary

  Unnamed mercenary: A cutthroat

  Riffetra: The owner of the Wriggling Dolphin.

  Emeris: A clerk

  Gystralan: A money-lender and advocate

  Traanzo the Younger, a nobleman, afterward Duke, afterward Prince: An Iorich

  Traanzo the Elder: Father of Traanzo the Younger

  Berwick: Orca, owner of a fishing fleet

  Yanis: Berwick’s son and heir

  Magister: A prisoner

  Biska: A servant

  Ficora: An aristocrat, kinswoman of Emeris (not Eremit)

  Tigra: A Jhereg

  Jailer: A guard

  Guard: A jailer

  Nyleth: An Issola, or perhaps not

  Inmate: A prisoner

  Wosca: A jailer

  Kelsama: A prisoner

  Fagre: A bandit

  Doro: A bandit

  Liniace: A bandit

  Cho: A bandit

  Alishka: A bandit chief

  Nef: A bandit

  Kitescu: A bandit r />
  Jiscava: A bandit

  S’rik’ki’ka: A demon

  Hadrice: Berwick’s henchman

  Urastor: Traanzo’s cloaklady

  Sajen: An artist and forger

  Keen: A Jhereg

  Rennis: An Orca

  Sheen: A pirate captain

  Acilla: A pirate

  Lan: Berwick’s attendant

  Nosaj: A pirate captain

  Vokra: An Iorich

  Daro: Countess of Whitecrest

  Halvar: A Jhereg

  Fidra: A cutthroat, afterward one of Berwick’s guards

  Istamar: One of Berwick’s guards

  Ironhead: One of Berwick’s guards

  Part I

  BURNING ISLAND

  Chapter the First

  In Which Two Young People, Unlike the Reader, Are Blissfully Unaware of the Doom Hanging Over Them

  On the fourth day of autumn in the two hundred and forty-first year of the reign of Cherova the Third, the Gods—if one believes, as many do, that the Gods are responsible for the weather—had granted an exceptionally fine day along that portion of the western coast, forming a part of the region known as Zerika’s Point, that is called, for reasons of which we must confess our ignorance, the Sinking Hills.

  The breeze from the Ocean-sea was mild and smelled clean, and even now, as dusk loomed, the air was warm and pleasant. The question of whether such a mild and delightful day is a fitting and appropriate way to begin a history in which the reader will bear witness to no small amount of violence, treachery, deceit, and sorrow (as well, to be sure, as proper proportions of laughter, honor, candor, and joy), is one we must answer in the affirmative, and for two reasons: One reason, the simplest, is that this is, in fact, the way the history began, and while mere statements of fact do not exhaust the study of history, even those desert-born mystics who are subject to the wildest flights of imagination agree that facts are where the study of history must take its departure. The other reason, however, is more complex, and we hope the reader will be patient while we explain our thinking in this matter.