The Paths of the Dead Read online

  While her frame was slight, her voice was strong as she said, "Greetings, my friends. I have been expecting you."

  "How," said Morrolan. "Expecting us?"

  "For some reason," murmured Miska, "that does not astonish me."

  "Yes, indeed," she said. "I knew the time, and the place, although I did not know you would be a, that is, I did not know who precisely. And I knew you would be accompanied by a guide, although I did not know the nature of the guide. I take you to be a coachman, sir?"

  Miska bowed at this.

  "There are many stories of coachmen."

  "Indeed, madam. And coachmen, on their part, take revenge by telling stories of everyone else."

  "Yes, I have heard of this. And your name, my good coachman?"

  "Miska."

  The woman nodded. "Very well, Miska. You have done well. Here is your fee." So saying, she threw him a small purse, which he caught out of the air.

  "How," he said. "That is all for me?"

  "You wish more?"

  "Indeed."

  "What more would you wish?"

  "How much is available?"

  "Nothing," said the woman.

  Miska sighed. "Well, I should at least like to know how this all comes out in the end. You perceive, it might give me another story."

  "I have no doubt," she said, "that you will come to learn about it, sooner or later. But for now…"

  Her voice trailed off, her sentence punctuated by an eloquent look. Miska interpreted the look, bowed to each of them, and, addressing Morrolan, said, "Well, at least some of your tasks are now completed." With this he backed out of the chapel, leaving Morrolan alone with the strange woman.

  "I am called Arra," she said after Miska had left.

  "I am Morrolan."

  "Morrolan?" she said. "'Black Star.' An auspicious name."

  "I hope so. And who—"

  "I am a priestess."

  "Ah! Yes, of course. I should have realized. A priestess of—?"

  "The Demon Goddess. I serve her. You will serve her as well."

  "You think so?" said Morrolan.

  Arra nodded. "Yes," she said. "In fact, I am entirely convinced of it."

  "Well then," said Morrolan. "Perhaps you are right. But will you do me the honor to explain why I will do this?"

  "Because you wish for knowledge, and for power."

  "And I can gain these things by serving the goddess?"

  The priestess indicated by a sign that, in fact, he could.

  "Well," said Morrolan, "I do not wish to say that I doubt you—"

  "That is good. You should not doubt me."

  "—but how am I to know that serving her will lead me to knowledge and power?"

  "Oh, you wish to know that?"

  "Yes. In fact, I so strongly wish to know, that I cannot conceive of committing myself to the goddess before this question has been answered."

  "But then, what do you know of the goddess?"

  "Very little. I know that her feast day falls in the winter, and that she is one of the Daughters of Night, and that she is said to take an interest in certain of the smaller kingdoms."

  "Have you heard that she takes an especial interest in those who study the arts of the witch?"

  "I had not heard this. In fact, I had thought that was one of her sisters."

  "They are sometimes hard to tell apart."

  "Very well."

  "Nevertheless, it is true."

  "Then I accept that she interests herself in the study of the Art. What next?"

  "Next? She is very powerful."

  "That is but natural in a goddess."

  "That is true, but, moreover, she is loyal."

  "Ah! She is loyal, you say."

  "I not only say it, but I insist upon it."

  "Well, I admit that makes a difference."

  "And then?"

  Morrolan suddenly found himself in one of those moments where the direction of one's whole life can change in an instant. Another might have hesitated, but Morrolan was not of a character for hesitation, and, moreover, he had set out from home with the idea in mind of putting himself into the path of just this sort of event.

  "Very well, I accept," he said. "Is there a ritual or a ceremony?"

  "Yes, exactly."

  "Well, when shall we perform this ritual?"

  "Unless you can think of a reason to delay, well, we can do so at once."

  "I can think of no reason," he said.

  "Then let us begin," said Arra.

  Morrolan went forward to the altar and, towering over Arra, he said, "What, then, must we do?"

  "Will you agree to serve the goddess?"

  "I will."

  "Very well, then."

  "How, that is it?"

  "No, but it is a good beginning."

  "I see. Well then, what next?"

  "Next is the consecration."

  "Ah, the consecration!"

  "Exactly."

  "Well, but—"

  "Yes?"

  "What is being consecrated?"

  "Your soul, to the goddess."

  "Ah."

  "Then you have no objection?"

  "None at all. One's soul must do something, after all."

  "That is true, though I had not thought of it in precisely those terms."

  "And from this, I will get power?"

  "You will."

  "And will there be a cost for this power?"

  "Of course."

  "And that is? For it is always good to inquire as to the cost."

  "Yes, I understand that. Well, the cost will be that you must serve the goddess."

  "Oh, I have no qualms about serving her."

  "It is good that you do not. Next, when you die—"

  "Yes?"

  "She will then have disposition of your soul."

  "What happens when I die does not concern me excessively."

  "That is good. Then can we begin?"

  "I nearly think so."

  "Very well, then."

  As to the exact nature of the ritual through which Arra led Morrolan, we must confess that it has not come down to us; indeed, even if it had, we would no more reveal its details than would a Discreet reveal the intimacies which had been confided to him. Yet we can say that the matter consumed several hours, and involved various rare herbs, long incantations, body paints of certain colors, some amount of blood from both participants; and was, as far as Morrolan was concerned, physically and emotionally exhausting. When it had at last been concluded, at very nearly the exact hour of midnight, Morrolan fell into a deep sleep, stretched out behind the stone altar.

  While he slept, Arra cleaned up the devices and material which had been used in the consecration, and, while she did so, Morrolan had a dream, which he later reported this way: "I was standing knee deep in a large, calm lake, that seemed to be Lake Vidro, only there were no trees along the shore, only large boulders. And as I stood there, I thought that I was looking for something, but I could not remember what it was. Then the water was disturbed, and a whistlefish broke through the surface and looked up at me, and it seemed that its eyes were two jewels, one green and the other red. After it had looked at me for a moment, it dived into the lake, and I knew I was to follow it. I did so, holding my breath, and under the water, which in my dream was very clear, I swam easily to the bottom, and there I saw, sticking in the sand at the bottom of the lake, surrounded by glittering light, a short black staff or wand. I took it in my hand, and it came away easily. I swam back toward the surface, which now seemed an impossible distance away, and I thought I should never make it, but at last, just as my lungs seemed ready to burst, I broke out onto the surface, and at that moment, I woke up, gasping for air."

  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.

  Chapter the Third

  How a Dragonlord with an

  Ambitious Cousin Considered

  The Possibility of

  Becoming an Emperor

  We 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 flat-foot 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 Kâna, 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 Kâna 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 Kâna. "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?"