The Paths of the Dead Read online

  "Ah, Pel. There is nothing to say. I exist, my friend, nothing more. I exist, and am content with my family, my estate, my books, and my memories."

  "Your family, good Khaavren?"

  "Why yes. The Countess you know, and I have a son, as well."

  "Ah! A son!"

  "Very much so. He is near his first century, and as fine a boy as I could wish for."

  "And do you tell him so?" said Pel with a smile.

  Khaavren sighed. "I'm afraid I do, Pel. I have become the doting father, and I cannot conceal from him how I feel, yet it seems to have done him little harm."

  "Well, well. And when will I have the honor of meeting him?"

  Daro said, "Oh, as to that—"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm afraid he is not here."

  "Not here?" said Pel, looking from one of his hosts to the other. "Well, when will he return?"

  "I cannot say," said Khaavren. "He is on a mission, you see."

  "How, a mission?"

  "Exactly. Just as, in the old days, you and I would set off on missions for His Majesty, whom the Lords of Judgment receive"—Pel bowed his head briefly and touched his breast as Khaavren spoke these words—"and as, I daresay, you still do from time to time."

  "Who, I? You think I still go on missions?"

  Khaavren gave a brief laugh. "Hang me if I don't think you are on a mission now, my old friend."

  "Oh, but what of you, Khaavren? Surely you have not given up missions?"

  "I? Entirely. I am a broken-down mill, or an old suit of clothing, and no one would offer me a mission, nor would I accept one if offered."

  As he spoke, a certain shade passed over Daro's countenance, but she did not comment. Pel, for his part, did comment, and in the following terms: "Bah!"

  "I tell you the truth, Pel," said Khaavren. "Two hundred years ago the Islanders attempted to invade, and I ran back and forth all along the lines of defense, it was very nearly with my own hand that the invaders were pushed back; and I think I accounted for six or seven of them myself."

  "Nine," put in the Countess.

  Khaavren smiled, and resumed his argument. "Well," he said, "if the Islanders were to attack again to-day—"

  "Yes? If they were to attack?"

  "Then I should make my contribution by turning command over to someone who might be able to lead, for I could not. Oh, I might consult on tactics, if I were asked to, but nothing more."

  "I cannot believe it."

  "Cha! If you saw what an effort it was for me to so much as lift my sword, well, you would be convinced. And so, when missions come, they go to my son."

  "Well, but what is this famous mission?"

  "Ah, as to that, I cannot say, except—"

  "Yes?"

  "It was our old friend, Sethra, who sent for him."

  "Ah! But you don't know what the Enchantress wanted with him?"

  "Not the least in the world, on my honor."

  "Hmmm," said Pel.

  "But tell me," said Khaavren, "what is this about a post working once more?"

  "Oh, you wish to know that?"

  "Yes, yes. In one thing I am not changed: I still have some curiosity. And you perceive that to have the post working once more, when for two hundred and fifty years there was none, well, it is like the sudden rising of the waves here on the coastline, in that it implies a great deal more activity than is at once visible."

  "Well, that is true."

  "So, then, will you explain?"

  "I should be glad to do so, and this instant, if you wish."

  "I wish for nothing else in the world."

  "This is it, then: Someone has, on his own initiative, put together a post."

  "Well, and for what reason?"

  "For what reason?"

  "Yes."

  "Why, to aid in communication and travel."

  "Well, that much is clear, only—"

  "Yes?"

  Khaavren frowned and considered. "What aren't you telling me, Pel?"

  Pel laughed. "Ah, it is good to see you once more, my friend. Yes, yes. His name is Kâna, his domain is large, and his ambition is boundless."

  "Kâna," said Daro, as if, taken by the feeling the this name might become important, she wished to commit it to memory.

  "Kâna," said Khaavren. "Yes, that name has come to my ears."

  "Well?"

  "Well," said Khaavren, "I have heard little enough. What more can you tell me?"

  "Nothing, my friend. I have told you what I may."

  "There must be more than that, if his posts extend all the way from Kâna to the Coast, and you are able to use them."

  "Well, that is true, but, you perceive, I am not allowed to tell all I know, even to you."

  "But there must be one thing you can tell me."

  "And what is that?"

  "Why you have come to visit me."

  "Oh, as to that—"

  "Well?"

  "You are right, there is no reason not to tell you."

  "Then you will do so?"

  "This very instant."

  "Then I await you."

  "It was just this: I wanted the chance to see for myself how you were getting along."

  "How I was getting along?"

  "Exactly."

  "Well, and how am I getting along?"

  "In my judgment, admirably."

  "Ah, I see."

  "You see?"

  "Yes. Whatever ravages neglect may have perpetrated upon my body, my mind has not yet wasted away entirely, and I begin to understand a little more."

  Daro glanced at Khaavren with an expression of both fondness and amusement. Pel, for his part, permitted an ingenious expression of surprise to cross his countenance, and said, "You pretend there is something to understand?"

  "I am nearly certain of it. But come, will you have no more wine?"

  "A little, perhaps."

  "And some for you, Countess?"

  "Thank you, yes."

  "Well, here you are, and you. You see, my friend Pel, I am still capable of standing up when I wish, and the wine-bottle does not tax my strength exceedingly."

  "My dear Khaavren—"

  "But enough of this, old friend. Shall we show you to your room?"

  "Ah, I am sorry to say it, but I am on an errand, and this is only the briefest stop."

  "Shards! Do you mean to say that you will arrive on my doorstep after three hundreds of years and then leave without spending even a single night beneath my roof? Impossible!"

  "You are no stranger to duty, my old friend, and that is what calls me now."

  "Impossible," repeated Khaavren.

  "At least," said Daro, "you will stay and eat with us, will you not?"

  "After which," said Pel smiling, "it will be too late to travel? Well, so be it. I will stay and eat, and will remain with you tonight, and we will drink wine and reminisce until it becomes so late that my departure tomorrow will be delayed, and I will lose nearly an entire day. Come, will that satisfy you?"

  "Ah, my old friend, I will not be satisfied until the four of us are living once again under a single roof, but that can never be, I think, and so I will take my pleasures where I can find them, and be content."

  "The beginning of wisdom," said Pel.

  "Or dotage," murmured Khaavren.

  Cook, upon being informed of a guest for dinner, was, after an initial and short-lived panic, positively delighted; guests for dinner, and thus the requirement for creative efforts, had now occurred twice within a month; this would not only be reflected in the budget for the month, and was not only entertaining in itself, but it meant that there was a chance that the Count would begin, once more, to show an interest in food for its own sake—an interest he had not shown in a hundred years. This would not make up for the departure of the Viscount, whom she missed, we should add, for himself as well as for the way the young man appreciated a good meal; but it would help a little.

  She therefore spared no effort, requiring the m
aid to run down to the market for the freshest squabs, the choicest cuts of kethna, a supply of goose fat, cresent-onions, striped mushrooms, marrows, basil, peppers, and saltpea pods; all of this while she, the cook, rummaged in the cellar for the best wines, the purest flour, the freshest garlic, and the most active yeasts. She had been trained, the reader ought to understand, at the same Valabar's Restaurant that still exists in Adrilankha today, and from which those most concerned with victualing still hire, or attempt to hire, the cooking staff; it being said that a man who has cleaned tables at Valabar's will absorb more of the art of cooking than the head chef for any other inn or tavern in the Empire; an exaggeration which, if not entirely true today, was much closer to the truth during the Interregnum.

  We should add as an aside that, should the reader believe that Cook was giving herself all of the exciting work while forcing the maid to engage in the drudgery, nothing could be further from the truth. While the maid had the pleasure of a pleasant walk into town (with, as always, a few extra pennies in hand to spend as she pleased) the cook, with full confidence in the maid's abilities to garner only the best of the supplies for which she had been dispatched, was engaged in carefully washing and seasoning all of the pots, pans, and utensils required by her exacting profession; at the same time, she cheerfully arranged her mind for the frenzy of preparation and execution that would begin upon the maid's return.

  None of this, of course, was apparent to Khaavren, Daro, or Pel, who gave the order for the meal to be prepared and then continued chatting, entirely oblivious to the flurry of activity in the back rooms of Whitecrest—or almost oblivious, the exception being that Khaavren had to show Pel to his room himself, the maid being otherwise occupied.

  Pel did not, in fact, require any rest, and so, after a cursory inspection of the room, carried out for the sake of custom, he returned at once to the parlor, where the conversation continued without interruption until Cook herself, dressed in her finest outfit of pale blue and white, with the Tiassa insignia apparent, announced that dinner was ready, whereupon they proceeded into the dining room and engaged in a meal where, if there was perhaps more ceremony than might have been strictly called for, the diners were inclined to forgive it because of both the rarity of the occasion and the quality of the food. When the sweet (a puff pastry filled with thin slices of cheese and covered with strawberries) had been digested along with a good quantity of fortified wine, the diners made their way back into the parlor.

  Should the reader feel annoyed at the brevity with which we have described the meal, we can only say that, under these circumstances, what was most important was not the meal, but that which occurred before it and after it, and so that is where we insist the reader's attention be turned, and we are thus refusing to indulge in a misplaced desire for sensuous gratification at a time when our duty demands we concentrate on other areas: to wit, the conversation that took place, especially between Khaavren and Pel—a conversation destined to have far-reaching effects on the history of both individuals, and, thus, on the history we have taken it upon ourselves to relate.

  Once the participants were seated in a relaxed posture, the conversation, to which we have just had the honor to refer, turned toward the conditions prevailing in what had once been the Empire. It came as no surprise to Khaavren, and should come as no surprise to the reader, that Pel was exceptionally well informed of the major movement throughout the territory that had until Adron's Disaster been ruled from Imperial Palace in the city of Dragaera, and for some time kept up a stream of gossip concerning lords of small areas attempting to expand, or of marauders terrorizing unprotected districts, or of the difficulty, in many cases, of telling one from the other. He spiced the anecdotes with observation of a more general character, touching on the failure of certain long-established customs and the emerging of new, sometimes inexplicable ones; as well as making shrewd observations and daring predictions.

  "Do you know," he remarked during one lull in the conversation, "I believe our old friend Aerich, Lyorn that he is, must be truly scandalized by what has become of rank. A man born before the Disaster as a baron often simply decides that he is now a count, or even a duke, and so he is called unless someone nearby decides to take issue."

  "Indeed?" said Khaavren. "And what of you, who were, I believe, actually a duke?"

  "I? Oh, I claim no title anymore. It seems pointless, when I am not engaged in the general scrabbling for land or power."

  "How, you are not?"

  "No more than you are, my dear Khaavren. Less, in fact, as you have some responsibility to a certain amount of territory, whereas I am responsible for nothing and to no one."

  "For nothing and to no one," Khaavren echoed. "Well, yes, I understand that. Perhaps you are right, then, and titles mean nothing. I should dearly love to learn what Aerich thought of the matter."

  Pel nodded, watching Khaavren closely. "What," he said, "is it that you're not telling me?"

  "I?" said Khaavren. "Not telling you? Now, that is a peculiar question for you to ask, don't you think?"

  Pel sighed and looked away. "I cannot help but be worried for you, my old friend, whatever other concerns may be occupying my thoughts."

  "Concerned for me?" said Khaavren. "Well, it is good of you to be concerned, but there is no need. The sculpture of Kieron the Conqueror stood for a score of centuries outside the Dragon Wing in the Palace, and the elements played such havoc with it that twice each century artisans were called in to repair it, yet I am certain it didn't care. In the same way the forces of nature work on old men like me, but that is only part of life, and there is no need to be concerned about it."

  "You! Old!"

  "Beyond my years, Pel, for reasons you know as well as I. Yet there is no cause to be sad on my account. I have a good home, a family, and all is as it should be, and I even have my footnote in history to console myself with when the dream-winds blow. I am as contented a man as you are likely to find, and, I tell you frankly, that when I see you scheming as of old I feel nothing but fondness, and I would no more expect you to tell me everything you are thinking than I expect you to worry about this old statue that is content to stand before the gate of its keep and provide a nesting place for the birds who flock about it with such careless abandon."

  During this uncharacteristically lengthy speech, Pel's frown grew deeper, and at its end he glanced covertly at Daro, to see if her countenance expressed worry, pity, impatience, annoyance, or if she were carefully keeping all expression from showing; what he noticed was a frown of puzzlement that was, had he known it, nearly the twin to his own. It seemed clear that there was something about what Khaavren had said that, in some measure, bewildered her, yet she said nothing. Pel, after some thought, realized that he could do no more.

  "Very well," he said. "You have told me not to worry, so I shall not."

  "That is best, believe me," said Khaavren.

  "I do," said Pel.

  The conversation turned, then, to other topics, and, pleasant as it was for Khaavren, and, indeed, for Pel to be reminded of the good times of the past, such reminiscences, we know, would hold but little interest for the reader, and moreover the details of this conversation would do nothing to bring forward the story we have taken it upon ourselves to tell, wherefore we shall content ourselves with the remark that the conversation continued well into the night, and was ended only by the drooping lids of both Khaavren and Pel, Daro having retired some time earlier. Khaavren then showed the guest to his room, after which he took himself to his own and fell into a sleep which, though deep, was not without dreams, the dreams being full of images from the adventures of the past, and especially of Aerich, whom Khaavren still missed bitterly.

  The next morning, Khaavren and Daro were up early to greet their departing guest, who, after breaking his fast with them, left amid embraces all around. As he rode out of the gate and down the streets of Adrilankha, Khaavren continued staring after him for some time, until, at last, Daro said, "There is someth
ing on your mind, I think."

  "Yes," said Khaavren.

  "Well?"

  "I am thinking about what he told me."

  "Did he tell you so much?"

  "That he did, Countess. I know him, and I know how to interpret his words, and read his lies, and fill in what he doesn't say, so that he has told me a great deal."

  "But what did he tell you?"

  "That there a great power brewing in the Kanefthali Mountains, and that he has allied himself with it in some capacity, and this may bring about a conflict with none other than Sethra Lavode herself."

  "He said all that?"

  "He did."

  "It must have been after I had retired for the evening."

  Khaavren smiled briefly, then said, "The fact is, I am troubled."

  "How, troubled?"

  Khaavren nodded. "Great events are afoot."

  Daro looked steadily at Khaavren, who, in turn, was staring off into the distance, as if he could see the future, and what he saw troubled him.

  Chapter the Fourteenth

  How Kâna Met with Representatives

  Of the Great Houses

  It should come as no surprise to the reader that, as Pel prepared to take his leave of Khaavren, there were other activities occurring in other parts of what had once been the Empire. This is because of that phenomenon of history called "simultaneity," which avers that events do not always happen in a neat orderly manner, one after the other; but rather that many things can happen at the same time. Thus, for example, during the Eleventh Issola Reign, while in Dragaera City the Baron of Karris was preparing an expedition to venture into the eastern jungles in search of exotic birds, at that same moment, in the desert of Suntra a caravan of traders was forming that, on their way to the port city of Adrilankha, would be passing through the jungle; and it was in this way that there came the fateful meeting between Ricci of Longgarden and Nessa of Kobi that resulted, some few years later, in the Battle Beneath the Hills and the subsequent rise to power of the Chreotha who became the Empress Synna the Fourth. This is just one example out of thousands of the phenomenon of simultaneity, and serves to point out one of the difficulties in writing—and, consequently, reading—history: that is, while historical events of significance are inclined to happen at the same time, it is nevertheless obvious that they can be treated by the historian only one at a time, as if they had happened sequentially. Hence, the writing of history is bound to introduce certain inaccuracies, and the reading of history is bound to produce certain misconceptions. It is the hope of the author that these inaccuracies and misconceptions can be held to a minimum by the expedient of making the reader aware of this circumstance, which we have just endeavored to do by our discussion of simultaneity, which, now that it has been made, can be set aside as we turn our attention to an example of this phenomenon of more direct moment to our particular history than the events, thousands of years in the past, when the birdwatcher met the game hunter.