The Paths of the Dead Read online

  "Well? Unless?"

  "If Your Lordship should wish it, and you have the filter, I know how to brew klava."

  Khaavren's visage brightened slightly, and something like a smile came to his lips as he said quietly, "Do you, then? I have not tasted klava in three hundred years. Yes, by all means, bring us a pot."

  "Honey and cream?"

  "Exactly."

  "Are there biscuits and bacon?"

  "Perhaps. Bring us what there is."

  Lar bowed and went off to attend to his duties, while Khaavren made his way onto the terrace, which stood in the rear of the house and offered a view out over the ocean-sea—a view which had, in fact, improved with the Interregnum, now that Kieron's Watch no longer stood in the way off to the southwest. The morning breeze came in from the sea, which required use of the appropriately named "morning-coats," which were left on pegs near the terrace door. Khaavren donned his, which was colored a pale blue with white embroidery, then sat in his chair facing the wide expanse of reddish-orange ocean far below him. An instant later the Countess emerged, in a morning-coat of lyorn red against which elaborate stitching in brown could barely be seen (the Countess, we should add, though a Tiassa, always affected the colors of the House of the Lyorn, because they suited her and because she cared very little about the dictates of fashion). Khaavren rose and took both of her hands in his, smiled, and escorted her to a seat next to his, where they sat together for a few minutes, until Lar appeared and announced, "An envoy from the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain," causing Khaavren and Daro to frown in sudden consternation, because Lar, in his inexperience, had first announced the visitor as a messenger rather than an envoy, the latter of which required the hosts to rise to greet him out of courtesy for his principal.

  They managed this, however, without any clumsiness. Daro bowed her head and said, "I am Whitecrest, and this is Lord Khaavren." The envoy bowed very low and did not, of course, give his name, but did accept the chair that was offered, out of respect for his office, and he also gratefully accepted the klava that Lar brought, and which was so good that the Count and Countess immediately forgave Lar his error.

  The envoy, we should add, was not a Teckla, but appeared from his features, at first, to be verily of the House of the Phoenix itself, so that for just an instant the Countess and Count found themselves startled, until they recognized, by the shape of his cheekbones and nose, that the visitor was, in fact, a Dragonlord—those of the House of the Dragon tending to often resemble superficially those of the Phoenix.

  "Your Lordships perceive," began the envoy, "that I wear the Phoenix livery."

  "We had even remarked upon it," said Daro.

  "It is for this mission only. I have taken service for this task at the request of she whom I serve. You might say that I have been loaned from one master to another. Yet I daresay my visit is not unexpected."

  "That depends," said Daro, "on whose behalf you come."

  "I serve one called Sethra Lavode, whose name is, I expect, not unknown to you."

  "That is true," said Daro. "I have heard that name pronounced before."

  "Sethra, on her part, serves one called Zerika."

  "Zerika?" said Khaavren. "I do not believe I know her, but—"

  "But the name," said Daro, "is significant."

  "She is," said the envoy, "the last being born of the House of the Phoenix."

  Khaavren and Daro looked at each other.

  "Her mother," continued the Dragonlord, "was the Princess Loudin, the Phoenix Heir at the time of the disaster. Her father was—"

  "Vernoi," said Khaavren, suddenly remembering a conversation he had had with that worthy gentleman, a scant few days before the fall of the Empire.

  "Exactly," said the other. "Vernoi died in Adron's Disaster, but he had—"

  "Sent his wife out of the city some days before."

  The envoy frowned. "Ah. You knew of this circumstance?"

  "At one time," said Khaavren. "And yet, until you brought it to mind, I had not given it a thought in more than two hundred years."

  "Well, yes. It seems the Lord Vernoi had a premonition of catastrophe, and sent his wife, the Princess Loudin, to a safe place some days before the Disaster, where she was delivered of a child."

  "Zerika."

  "Exactly. Now the Princess herself scarcely survived the birth of her child by a year, falling to the first wave of Plagues that accompanied the Disaster, but the child survived, and has been raised by foster parents, and it is now at last time…" His voice trailed off and he looked expectantly at Khaavren.

  "Yes? It is now time?"

  "Well, Sethra Lavode deems the time is ripe."

  "The time is ripe for what, my dear sir?"

  "As to that, I cannot say."

  To hide his confusion, Khaavren busied himself in pouring more klava, adding cream and honey, and drinking. At this moment Lar, who had slipped away unseen, returned with a plate full of warm biscuits, a tub of butter, and a jar of apple marmalade, all of which conspired to put the conversation in abeyance for some few minutes. During this time, Daro, who had spoken little, studied her husband, wondering at his thoughts but unwilling to intrude upon them.

  After a biscuit or two had been consumed by each of the three, the Countess said, "We were not expecting you until next week."

  The envoy nodded. "In the event, the passage was not as difficult as we anticipated, yet it is a long passage, and through treacherous regions."

  "I understand. Well, you are welcome here."

  The envoy bowed his head solemnly and said, "Here is my signet and a letter." He rose and gave these items into the hand of the Countess, who looked at them and passed them on to Khaavren, who, after making certain of the handwriting and the description contained in the letter, and the authenticity of the signet, gave them back to the envoy. Reading Sethra Lavode's description, however, caused Khaavren to pay closer attention to the individual before them than perhaps he had hitherto, whereupon he frowned suddenly, and staring hard at the Dragonlord, suddenly pronounced the word "Uttrik."

  The envoy nodded. "I have the honor to be his son."

  "Well," said Khaavren, smiling for the second time that morning, "You resemble him." Then, no longer smiling, he said, "And how is my old friend?"

  "Alas, sir, he was in Dragaera at the time of the Disaster."

  Khaavren bowed his head. "I'm sorry," he said in a voice so low it was nearly a whisper. "I had not known that he was so close by in those last days. I wish…" His voice trailed off from a whisper to less than a whisper—in fact, to silence.

  "I scarcely knew him, sir," said the envoy.

  Khaavren nodded and said in a stronger voice, "I had the honor and pleasure of knowing him well. Your name, young man, is Kytraan?"

  "Yes, my lord."

  "Well, Kytraan, you are always welcome in my home, whether you have an errand or not, in memory of a good man, a good fighter, and a good companion." He glanced at Daro for confirmation, and she nodded solemnly.

  "Thank you, Lord and Lady," said the envoy.

  As if to emphasize this greeting, Lar appeared once more, this time with a plate full of bacon and onions, which he set on the table before drawing discreetly back, which bacon and onion dish was at once sampled by those present.

  We trust the reader will allow us, during this lull in the conversation, to briefly sketch Kytraan, the son of that Uttrik whom some of our readers may recall from our history of The Phoenix Guards. He was, then, a well-proportioned young man of about three hundred or three hundred and twenty, perhaps slightly short for a Dragonlord, yet with long arms and legs that gave the opposite impression when he sat. His hair was of a light brown shade, as were his eyes, and he bore a Dragonshead pendant with the jewels that marked the line of Lanya. His movements were slow and graceful, almost like a Lyorn's, and from his countenance one would think that he smiled but rarely.

  After a few minutes of silence, during which the three of them ate bacon and onions, dra
nk klava, and stared out over the sea, Daro said, "We received a message from Dzur Mountain, that is, from the Enchantress of Dzur Mountain, that we should prepare to receive an envoy, and that we should prepare our son for a journey, but there was no reason given."

  Kytraan smiled. "And yet, you began to do so at once, didn't you, even though you had no notion of what would be asked?"

  Khaavren shrugged. "I know Sethra Lavode."

  The envoy started to speak, but Khaavren cut him off with a gesture. "Lar," he said, "have the Viscount dress, and bring him here."

  The servant, who had been standing by some distance away, bowed and left to carry out his orders, and some half an hour later Piro, dressed and alert thanks, in spite of his abbreviated rest, to the recuperative powers of youth, appeared before them, with a cheerful word to his father, a kiss of the hand to his mother, and a respectful bow to the stranger, who was introduced at once as an envoy from the House of the Phoenix.

  "The House of the Phoenix?" said Piro, frowning in bewilderment.

  The envoy bowed his agreement, after which they all sat down, having, we should have mentioned, stood upon the Viscount's entrance. Piro was then given some time to eat and drink, during which he manfully attempted, with only limited success, to conceal his curiosity and impatience and to give the impression of eating and drinking with the relaxed ease that became his rank. Both the effort and its failure were noted, we should say, with both pleasure and amusement by the Count and the Countess.

  "My son," began Khaavren without preamble when at length Piro had set aside his plate, "you are called upon to serve—I will not say the Empire, for the Empire no longer exists, but the memory of what was, and the hope of what may be again." He stopped and spoke to Kytraan. "Will you say I am wrong?"

  "I will not," said Kytraan.

  Daro said, "What exactly does the Enchantress wish of our son?"

  "That I do not know. Only that he is to come with me to Dzur Mountain, a distance of some sixty-five or seventy leagues. I have arrived sooner than I had expected, and so if you wish to delay the departure, there is no reason why you should not, but I can give you no more information man I possess."

  "That is only natural," said Daro, who glanced quickly at Piro, and then looked away. We trust the reader is able to understand what might be passing through the mind of a mother at such a moment—a moment, that is, when she is preparing to see her only child leave home for the first time, and, moreover, to leave home on a quest of uncertain results and unknown dangers. As for Khaavren, he was not immune to these feelings, yet there were other emotions as well flitting through his nerves—emotions having to do with recollections of when he had first set out from home, and of what he considered his failures since that time, and of a certain hope that his child might in some measure redeem him, and of sorrow that he would not have the chance to redeem himself, and of many other delicate shades and nuances of feeling that accompanied these.

  As for Piro—for we will not hesitate to take advantage of our position as narrator to flit hither and yon into the mind and heart of whomever we wish—it may be that buried somewhere within him was a certain regret for leaving his family, perhaps for-ever, and there may have even been the smallest hint of apprehension with regard to setting out toward unknown dangers, and it is even possible that he felt some strains of loyalty toward the cause his father had served for so long; but all of these emotions were drowned and submerged by one: the sudden longing to set out and to make his way in the world, for better or worse, for good or ill, for fortune or catastrophe.

  Each of the Great Houses has, as is well known, its own characteristics: the heroism of the Dzur, the ferocity of the Dragon, the cleverness of the Yendi, the nobility of the Lyorn, and, of course, the enthusiasm of the Tiassa. But some of these Houses, as is also well known, have also their similarities; and it is worth noting one point of similarity that the Tiassa share with the Dragon and the Dzur: their inability to keep their thoughts from being fully and immediately reflected on their countenances. Daro and Khaavren, then, saw at once what was passing in the mind of their son, and responded in the same manner: They gave a smile that was at once fond and a little sad, and reached out and took each other's hands. Kytraan, upon witnessing this conjugal meeting of minds, coughed in confusion and looked away.

  "Well," said Daro after a moment, letting go of Khaavren's hand with a gentle squeeze and recovering herself, "we must confer as to details, but, at any rate, you, good Kytraan, will spend the night beneath our roof, to which end you must be shown to a room. The servant—" She paused, realizing she didn't know the servant's name and the servant could not yet have knowledge of the manor. "The servant," she continued, "will have the maid show you to a room, and we will meet again at dinner."

  Kytraan rose and bowed, and allowed himself to be escorted from the room, leaving Daro, Khaavren, and Piro alone. When they had seated themselves again, Khaavren said, "You understand there may be danger."

  "I understand that."

  "I trust you will acquit yourself bravely, because you are, after all, a Tiassa."

  "Yes, Father, and more-so because I am your son."

  "Well, it is true I have never lacked for courage, although there have been times—"

  "None of that," said the Countess gently. "Be brave, my son, but not foolish."

  "I give you my word," said the Viscount, "that I will be inspired and guided by your examples, and I will always hold to those principles by which I have been raised."

  "Well," said Daro, "let us hear those principles."

  "You wish, then, for me to recite them?"

  "Exactly. We will see what you have learned."

  "Very well. I think you will not be disappointed. I will recite them now."

  "I am listening. What are your principles?"

  "To seek understanding before taking action, yet to trust my instincts when action is called for. Never to avoid danger from fear, never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity, never to be eccentric from fear of conformity. To preserve the honor of my name and House, and to cherish the memory of the Empire. To always care for my horse, my lackey, and my equipage as if they were part of my own body. To hold myself to higher standards of conduct than I hold another. To never strike without cause, and, when there is cause, to strike for the heart. To respect, love, and obey those whom the gods have made my masters, for their sake when deserved, for my sake should my masters be unworthy, and for the sake of duty at all times. To be loyal to my House, my family, my name, and the principles of the Empire."

  "That is it," said Daro. "Now see to your horse, lackey, and equipment, for you will leave in the morning."

  Khaavren responded to this with a sharp intake of breath. Daro looked at him quickly, but he nodded. "A delay," he said, "would only…"

  "Yes," said Daro.

  Piro stood, respect battling excitement in his address, yet he bowed and walked from the terrace without unseemly haste before breaking into a run that took him through the manor and out to the stables, to give his favorite horse an extra measure of grain, and to begin the other preparations necessary for his journey.

  The Count and Countess of Whitecrest took klava on the terrace overlooking the Southern Coast of Dragaera; the sight, smell, and sound of the sea filled their senses. Khaavren never took his eyes from the reddish waves.

  "My lord," said the Countess. "For what do you look?"

  "Ships, my lady, from distant ports."

  "Someday you will see them," she said.

  After this they spoke no more for the better part of an hour. At length, Khaavren said very softly, "It seems that I did some good after all."

  "You speak of the Princess Loudin?"

  "Exactly."

  "Well, but speak more clearly."

  "It is nothing," said Khaavren. "Only that, in this one matter, it seems that I was a tool of the gods."

  "And does this give you joy?"

&nb
sp; "I feel that, in some measure, the burden is eased."

  "Then I am glad."

  Khaavren looked at her quickly. "It cannot have been easy, my dear, to—"

  "Come, do not speak of it. Rather, let us watch the ocean-sea and wonder at its farther shores."

  "Yes, let us do that."

  And that is what they did, until at last Daro took her leave to be about the business of Whitecrest. Khaavren sat where he was until, well after noon, he was joined by the Viscount, who saluted him respectfully and, at Khaavren's sign, sat next to him.

  "You are ready to leave in the morning?" said Khaavren.

  "Yes, sir, I am."

  "How will you travel?"

  "Sir, I will take my horse, and, with your permission, we will load the supplies on the seveck gelding, who is large and strong and will also carry the lackey; unless you, my father, believe we should take a mule. Yet I thought to bring as little as possible, and thus travel the more quickly."

  "No, no, my son. I subscribe to your plan exactly."

  "Then that is what I will do."

  "And you will leave early, will you not?"

  "Before it is light."

  "In fact, before the Countess and I have risen."

  "That is our intention, sir, for I know that you have said that an early start on the first day is of utmost importance in a long journey, and so I have taken your words to heart."

  "That is good, Viscount. And you have come to see if I have any other words, that is, any last words of advice to you before you leave?"

  "Exactly."

  "I am gratified that this thought came to you. Well, I do not, for I have taught you what I could, in words where I could not do so by example, and whatever you have learned must serve you as best it can. What of your friends?"

  "I shall write to them this evening."

  "That is well. It is important that we not neglect our friends, for they are our anchors, and good friends can hold in any storm, provided we do not cut them loose." He laughed. "You perceive what living near the sea has done to my habits of speech."

  "You have had good friends, sir, have you not?"

  "I have indeed. But distances have grown longer since the Disaster, and we no longer have the posts, so that one must remain ignorant of what is passing with old friends, unless one is Sethra Lavode."