The Paths of the Dead (Viscount of Adrilankha) by Steven Brust Read Free Book Online Page B

engineering on the part of a certain Cecilia, and a series of low cottages had been built there to house those who had been steadily arriving in the village—or, more properly, the town—ever since Arra had begun her work.
    Blackchapel had absorbed these new citizens in the simplest
possible way: When they were not engaged in their training in the magical practices, or working with Arra to send out the strange psychic calls to attract more of their number, they put their talents at the disposal of the local citizens. The most annoying of the pests who disturbed the local agriculture were now almost unheard of. Lost livestock no longer remained lost. There had not been a bad year for fish as long as the current generation could remember.
    All of these services for the townspeople were performed at the absolute insistence of Arra, who pretended that the instant the Circle became a burden on Blackchapel, the slow, steady, peaceful growth of the Circle would be, at best, interrupted. Morrolan, for his part, paid little attention: he had the single-mindedness (and, to be sure, the accompanying tendency to be oblivious to everything outside of his immediate focus) that seems to be as much the birthright of the young Dragonlord as the fierce temper and callous disregard for life.
    To be sure, Morrolan was of a naturally cheerful disposition, and had had no occasion for any display of temper. The townspeople considered him something like their pet demon (though, of course, they would never think of using such terms to his face) and as such, considered him something like a living token of good fortune, and he made friends easily both among the townspeople and the witches. These friendships were hampered only by Morrolan’s observation that the people who surrounded him—indeed, everyone except himself and Arra, who were marked by the special favor of the goddess—tended to grow old and die at an alarming speed.
    Over the decades, the distinctions tended to diminish between the two groups: local peasant girls could not help but find the witches fascinating, and no one is as attractive to a peasant boy as a woman with the mysterious powers of a witch. The populations therefore tended to mix, with only those newly arrived remaining separate, for a time, from the life of Blackchapel.
    And so, as we have said, there was nothing but harmony in Blackchapel between those whose families had dwelt there for generations uncounted, and those who drifted in to become part of the Circle, a harmony that, so far as Morrolan
knew, was entirely natural and normal, he being unaware of Arra’s diligent work to maintain this state.
    Arra, for her part, could not help but be aware of the aspects of Morrolan’s character to which we have referred, and so, without complaint, simply added to her duties all of those matters that can be called “politics”; that is, the requirements of maintaining harmony between her witches and the locals of Blackchapel.
    On the occasion of which we now write, she heard Morrolan call her name, and so emerged from a back room into the chapel itself, dressed only in a long towel of a particularly absorbent material, and with water streaming from her hair and collecting in small pools on the hard stone floor.
    “I beg your pardon,” said Morrolan. “I was not aware—”
    “It is nothing, milord,” said Arra. “I was merely immersing myself in sanctified water to which certain salts and herbs have been added, as part of the process of maintaining my youth. The favor of the goddess does a great deal, but, you perceive, even she can use aid in her endeavors from time to time.”
    “Oh, as to that, you seem to have maintained all of your youth with no change, so far as my eyes can see.”
    “You are most kind.”
    “Not at all. And, come to that, when I look in the glass, I do not seem to have particularly aged myself, which speaks strongly for the powers of our goddess, and the rejuvenating effects of the Circle,