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Cycle.
Aliera nodded. I had no objection.
We took the path to the left.
Chapter 16
The horizon jumped and misted, the candle exploded, the knife
vibrated apart, and the humming became, in an instant, a roar that
deafened me.
On the ground before me, the rune glowed like to blind me, and I
realized that I was feeling very sleepy. I knew what that meant, too.
I had no energy left to even keep me awake. I was going to lose
consciousness, and I might or might not ever regain it, and I might
or not be mad if I did.
My vision wavered, and the roar in my ears became a single
monotone that was, strangely, the same as silence. In the last blur
before I slipped away, I saw on the ground, in the center of the rune,
the object of my desire that which I d done all of this to summon
sitting placidly, as if it had been there all along.
I wondered, for an instant, why I was taking no joy in my success;
then I decided that it probably had something to do with not
knowing if I d live to use it. But there was still somewhere the sense
of triumph for having done something no witch had ever done
before, and a certain serene pleasure in having succeeded. I decided
I d feel pretty good if it didn t kill me.
Dying, I ve found, always puts a crimp in my enjoyment of an event.
I d love to see a map of the Paths of the Dead.
Ha.
We followed the wall to the left, and it kept circling around until we
ought to have been near the thrones, but we were still in a hallway
with no ceiling. The stars vanished sometime in thee, leaving a grey
overcast, yet there was no lessening in the amount of light I thought
had been provided by the stars. I dunno.
The wall ended and we seemed to be on a cliff overlooking a sea.
There was no sea closer than a thousand miles to Deathgate Falls, but
I suppose I ought to have stopped expecting geographical consistency
some time before.
We stared out at the dark, gloomy sea for a while and listened to its
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roar. It stretched out forever, in distance and in time. I can t look at a
sea, even the one at home, without wondering about who lives beyond
it. What sorts of lives do they have? Better than ours? Worse? So
similar I couldn t tell the difference? So different I couldn t survive
there? What would it be like? How did they live? What sorts of beds
did they have? Were they soft and warm, like mine, safe and
 Vlad!
 Uh, what?
 We want to get moving, said Morrolan.
 Oh. Sorry. I m getting tired.
 I know.
 Okay, let s Wait a minute.
I reached around and opened my pack, dug around amid the useless
witchcraft supplies I d carried all this way, and found some kelsch
leaves. I passed them around.  Chew on these, I said.
We all did so, and, while nothing remarkable or exciting happened, I
realized that I was more awake. Morrolan smiled.  Thanks, Vlad.
 I should have thought of it sooner.
 I should have thought of it, boss. That s my job. Sorry.
 You re tired, too. Want a leaf? I ve got another.
 No, thanks. I ll get by.
We looked around, and far off to our right was what seemed to be a
large rectangle. We headed toward it. As we got closer, it resolved
itself into a single wall about forty feet high and sixty feet across. As
we came still closer, we could see there was a large circular object
mounted on its face. My pulse quickened.
Moments later the three of us stood contemplating the Cycle of the
Dragaeran Empire.
Raiet picked up a carriage at the Imperial Palace the next day and
went straight to the home of his mistress. A Dragonlord rode with
him, another rode next to the driver, and a third, on horseback, rode
next to the carriage, or in front of it, or behind it. Loiosh flew above it,
but that wasn t part of their arrangements.
Watching them through my familiar s eyes, I had to admire their
precision, futile though it was. The one on top of the coach got down
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first, checked out the area, and went straight into the building and up
to the flat, which was on the second floor of the three-story brick
building.
If you d been there watching, you would have seen the rider dismount
smartly as the driver got down and held the door for the two inside
while looking up and down the street, and up at the rooftops as well.
Raiet and the two Dragons walked into the building together. The first
one was already inside the flat and had checked it over. Raiet s
mistress, who name was Treffa, nodded to the Dragon and continued
setting out chilled wine. She seemed a bit nervous as she went about
this, but she d been growing more and more nervous as this testimony
business continued.
As he finished checking the apartment, the other two Dragons
delivered Raiet. Treffa smiled briefly and brought the wine into the
bedchamber. He turned to one of the Dragons and shook his head.  I
think she s getting tired of this.
The Dragon probably shrugged; he d been assigned to protect a
Jhereg, but he didn t have to like it, or him, and I assume he didn t.
Raiet walked into the bedchamber and closed the door. Treffa walked
over to the door and did something to it.
 What s that, babe?
 A soundproofing spell. I just bought it.
He chuckled.  They making you nervous?
She nodded.
 I suppose it s starting to wear on you.
She nodded again and poured them each a glass of wine.
When he hadn t appeared after his usual few hours, the Dragons
knocked on the door. When no one answered, they broke the door
down. They found his lifeless and soulless body on the bed, a
Morganti knife buried in his chest. They wondered why they hadn t
heard him scream, or the window opening. Treffa lay next to him,
drugged and unconscious. They couldn t figure out how the drugs had
gotten into the wine, and Treffa was no help with any of it.
They were suspicious of her, naturally, but were never able to prove
that Treffa had actually taken money to set him up. She disappeared a
few months later and is doing quite well to this day, and Treffa isn t
her name anymore, and I won t tell you where she s living.
It is commonly believed that if anyone had the strength to take hold of
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the great wheel that is the Cycle and physically move it, the time of the
current House would pass, and the next would arrive. It is also
commonly held that it would require enough strength to overcome all
the weight contained by the forces of history, tradition, and will that
keep the Cycle turning as it does. This being the case, it seems a moot
point, especially when, as I stared at it, it was hard to imagine anyone
with the strength to just move the bloody great wheel.
That s all it was, too. A big wheel stuck onto a wall in the middle of
nowhere. On the wheel were engraved symbolic representations of all [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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