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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.
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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.
The last Phoenix? There can t be another? Then the Cycle is broken.
If not now, for the future.
Maybe, said Morrolan.
Can there be another Phoenix?
How should I know? We have the whole Cycle to worry about it. Ask
me again in a few hundred thousand years when it starts to matter.
I could see from Aliera s expression that she didn t like this answer,
but she didn t respond to it. There was a silence, then she said, What
happened to me?
I don t understand entirely, said Morrolan. Sethra managed to
preserve your soul in some form, though it became lost. Eventually I
imagine shortly after Zerika took the Orb an Athyra wizard found
you. He was studying necromancy. I don t think he realized what he
had. You were tracked down, and
Who tracked me down?
Sethra and I, he said, watching her face. He glanced at me quickly,
then said, And there were others who helped, some time ago.
Aliera closed her eyes and nodded. I hate it when they talk over my
head. Did you have any trouble getting me back?
Morrolan and I looked at each other. None to speak of, I said.
Aliera looked at me, then looked again, her eyes narrow. She stared
hard, as if she were looking inside of me. She said, Who are you?
Vladimir Taltos, Baronet, House Jhereg.
She stared a little longer, then shook her head and looked back at
Morrolan.
What is it? he asked.
Never mind. She stood up suddenly, or, rather, tried, then sat down.
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She scowled. I want to get out of here.
I believe they will let Vlad leave. If so, he will help you.
She looked at me, then back at Morrolan. What s wrong with you?
As a living man, I am not allowed to return from the Paths of the
Dead. I shall remain here.
Aliera stared at him. Like hell you will. I ll see you dead first.
It s hard for me to pin down the point at which I stopped considering
myself to be someone s enforcer who sometimes did work and
started considering myself a free-lance assassin. Part of it was that I
worked for several different people during a short period of time
during and after the war, including Welok himself, so this made
things confusing.
Certainly those around me began to think of me that way before it
occurred to me, but I don t think my own thinking changed until I had
developed professional habits and a good approach to the job.
Once again, it s unclear just when this occurred, but I was certainly
functioning like a professional by the time I finished my seventh job
assassinating a little turd named Raiet.
While I was thinking over this announcement and wondering whether
to laugh, I realized that Verra had left us; in other words, we had no
way of knowing where to go from here.
I cleared my throat. Morrolan broke off from his staring contest with
Aliera and said, Yes, Vlad?
Do you know how we can find our way back to where all the gods
were?
Hmmm. I think so.
Let s do that, then.
Why?
Do you have a better idea?
I suppose not.
As I stood, I was taken with a fleeting temptation to take a drink from
the well. It s probably fortunate that it was only fleeting. We helped
Aliera to stand, and I discovered that she was quite short hardly
taller than me, as a matter of fact.
We began walking back the way we d come, Morrolan and me each
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supporting one of Aliera s arms. She looked very unhappy. Her teeth
were clenched, perhaps from anger, perhaps from pain. Her eyes,
which I d first thought were green, seemed to be grey, and were set
straight ahead.
We made it back to the archway and rested there for a moment.
Morrolan suggested that Aliera sit down and rest her legs. Aliera said,
Shut up.
I saw that Morrolan s patience was wearing thin. So was mine, for
that matter. We bit our lips at the same moment, caught each other s
eyes, and smiled a little. We took her arms and started moving again,
in what Morrolan thought was the right direction. We took a few
tentative steps and stopped again when Aliera gasped. She said, I
can t ... and we let her sink to the ground.
Her breath came in gasps. She closed her eyes, her head up toward
the sky; her brow was damp and her hair seemed soaked with sweat.
Morrolan and I looked at each other, but no words came.
A minute or so later, as we were still standing there wondering if we
would mortally insult Aliera if we offered to carry her, we saw a figure
approach us out of the darkness and gradually become visible in the
light of those incredible stars.
He was very tall and his shoulders were huge. There was a massive
sword at his back, and his facial features were pure Dragon, as were
the colors of his clothing, though their form a peculiar formless
jacket and baggy trousers tucked into darrskin boots were rather
strange. His hair was brown and curly, his eyes dark. He was or,
rather, had died at late middle age. He had lines of thought on his
forehead, lines of anger around his eyes, and the sort of jaw that
made me think he kept his teeth clenched a lot.
He studied the three of us while we looked at him. I wondered what
Morrolan thought of him, but I couldn t take my eyes off the
Dragonlord s face to check Morrolan s expression. I felt my pulse
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