The Paths of the Dead (Viscount of Adrilankha) Read Online Free PDF Page B

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
     
     
     
    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