Steven Brust - Taltos

The appetizer of the day was anise-jelled winneoceros cubes, the soup was a very spicy potato soup with Eastern red pepper, the sorbet was lemon, the paté—made of goose liver, chicken liver, kethna liver, herbs, and unsalted butter—was served on hard-crusted bread with cucumber slices that had been just barely pickled. The salad was served with an impossibly delicate vinegar dressing that was almost sweet but not quite.

Kragar had fresh scallops in lemon and garlic sauce, Kragar’s date had the biggest stuffed cabbage in the world, Mara had duck in plum brandy sauce, and I had kethna in Eastern red pepper sauce. We followed it with dessert pancakes, mine with finely ground walnuts and cream chocolate brandy sauce topped with oranges. We also had a bottle of Piarran Mist, the Fenarian dessert wine. I paid for the whole thing, because I’d just killed someone.

We were all feeling giggly as we walked the meal off; then Mara and I went up to my flat and I discovered that a meal at Valabar’s is one of the world’s great aphrodisiacs. I wondered what my grandfather would make of that information.

Mara got tired of me and dumped me a week or so later, but what the hell.

I said, “Feather-breath?”

Loiosh said, “Sheesh.”

“I think,” said Morrolan judiciously, “that we’ve managed to get someone in trouble.”

“Yeah.”

Morrolan looked around, as did I. None of the other beings present seemed to be paying us any attention. We were still standing there a few minutes later when Verra reappeared in another shower of sparks. She had a gleam in her eye. Barlan appeared then, and, as before, his expression was unreadable. I noticed then that Verra was holding the staff.

Verra said, “Come with me.”

She stepped down from her throne and led us around behind it, off into the darkness. She didn’t speak and Morrolan didn’t speak. I certainly wasn’t going to say anything. Loiosh was under my cloak again.

We came to a place where there was a very high wall. We walked along it for a moment, passing another purple robe or two, until we came to a high arch. We passed beneath it, and there were two corridors branching away.

Verra took the one to the right and we followed. In a short time, it opened to a place where a wide, shallow brick well stood, making water noises.

Verra dipped her hand into the well and took a drink; then, with no warning, she smashed the staff into the side of the well.

There was the requisite cracking sound, then I was blinded by a flash of pure white light, and I think the ground trembled. When I was able to open my eyes again, there was still some sort of visual distortion, as if the entire area we were in had been bent at some impossible angle, and only Verra could be seen clearly.

Things settled down then, and I saw what appeared to be the body of a female Dragaeran in the black and silver of the House of the Dragon stretched out next to the well. I noticed at once that her hair was blonde—even more rare in a Dragonlord than in a human. Her brows were thin, and the slant of her closed eyes was rather attractive. I think a Dragaeran would have found her very attractive. Verra dipped her hand in again and allowed some of the water to flow into the mouth of her whom I took to be Aliera.

Then Verra smiled at us and walked away.

Aliera began to breathe.

My grandfather, in teaching me fencing, used to make me stand for minutes at a time, watching for the movement of his blade that would give me an opening. I suspect that he knew full well that he was teaching me more than fencing.

When the moment came, I was ready.

Her eyes fluttered open, but she didn’t focus on anything. I decided that she was better looking alive than she’d been dead. Morrolan and I stood there for a moment, then he said softly, “Aliera?”

Her eyes snapped to him. There was a pause before her face responded; when it did she seemed puzzled. She started to speak, stopped, cleared her throat, and croaked, “Who are you?”

He said, “I’m your cousin. My name is Morrolan e’Drien. I am the eldest son of your father’s youngest sister.”

“Morrolan,” she repeated. “Yes. That would be the right sort of name.” She nodded as if he’d passed a test. I took in Morrolan’s face, but he seemed to be keeping any expression off it. Aliera tried to sit up, failed, and her eyes fell on me; narrowed. She turned to Morrolan and said, “Help me.”

He helped her to sit up. She looked around. “Where am I?”

“The Halls of Judgment,” said Morrolan.

Surprise. “I’m dead?”

“Not any more.”

“But—”

“I’ll explain,” said Morrolan.

“Do so,” said Aliera.

“Those two must be related,” I told Loiosh. He sniggered.

“What is the last thing you remember?”

She shrugged, a kind of one-shoulder-and-tilt-of-the-head thing that was almost identical to Morrolan’s. “It’s hard to say.” She closed her eyes. We didn’t say anything. A moment later she said. “There was a strange whining sound, almost above my audible range. Then the floor shook, and the ceiling and walls started to buckle. And it was becoming very hot. I was going to teleport out, and I remember thinking that I couldn’t do it fast enough, and then I saw Sethra’s face.” She paused, looking at Morrolan. “Sethra Lavode. Do you know her?”

“Rather,” said Morrolan.

Aliera nodded. “I saw her face, then I was running through a tunnel—I think that was a dream. It lasted a long time, though. Eventually I stopped running and lay on what seemed to be a white tile floor, and I couldn’t move and didn’t want to. I don’t know how long I was there. Then someone shouted my name—I thought at the time it was my mother. Then I was waking up, and I heard a strange voice calling my name. I think that was you, Morrolan, because then I opened my eyes and saw you.”

Morrolan nodded. “You have been asleep—dead, actually—for, well, several hundred years.”

Aliera nodded, and I saw a tear in her eye. She said very quietly, “It is the reign of a reborn Phoenix, isn’t it?”

Morrolan nodded, seeming to understand.

“I told him it would be,” she said. “A Great Cycle—seventeen Cycles; it had to be a reborn Phoenix. He wouldn’t listen to me. He thought it was the end of the Cycle, that a new one could be formed. He—”

“He created a sea of chaos, Aliera.”

“What?”

I decided that “he” referred to Adron. I doubted that he was to be found in these regions.

“Not as big as the original, perhaps, but it is there—where Dragaera City used to be.”

“Used to be,” she echoed.

“The capital of the Empire is now Adrilankha.”

“Adrilankha. A seacoast town, right? Isn’t that where Kieron’s Tower is?”

“Kieron’s Watch. It used to be there. It fell into the sea during the Interregnum.”

“Inter—Oh. Of course. How did it end?”

“Zerika, of the House of the Phoenix, retrieved the Orb, which somehow landed here, in the Paths of the Dead. She was allowed to return with it. I helped her,” he added.

“I see,” she said. Morrolan sat down next to her. I sat down next to Morrolan. Aliera said, “I don’t know Zerika.”

“She was not yet born. She’s the only daughter of Vernoi and, um, whoever it was she married.”

“Loudin.”

“Right. They both died in the Disaster.”

She nodded, then stopped. “Wait. If they both died in the explosion, and Zerika wasn’t born when it happened, how could ...?”

Morrolan shrugged. “Sethra had something to do with it. I’ve asked her to explain it, but she just looks smug.” He blinked. “I get the impression that, whatever it was she did, she was too busy doing it to rescue you as thoroughly as she’d have liked. I guess you were the second priority after making sure there could be an Emperor. Zerika is the last Phoenix.”