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

signs?”
    “She does sometimes, when it suits her purposes.”
    “Well then, perhaps it will—what is that?”
    “What is what?”
    “I heard something.”
    “What did you hear?”
    “Something clattering, outside of the chapel.”
    “Clattering?”
    “And the sounds of horses’ hoofs.”
    “Perhaps it is a coach.”
    “Well, if there is a coach, perhaps there is a passenger.”
    “That is not impossible.”
    “Let us look.”
    “Very well, let us do so; I believe that I am able to walk now.”
    “As am I.”
    “Then let us go outside.”
    “Very well.”

Chapter the Seventh
     
     
    How Morrolan Is Astonished
To Learn Something that the
Reader Has Known All Along
     
     
     
    H aving made the decision to determine the exact nature and cause of the sound outside of the temple, Morrolan and Arra stepped around the altar, and took what seemed to them to be a long walk to the doors. They stepped out and blinked their eyes in the sudden brightness.
    “It is a coach,” said Arra.
    “And a coachman,” said Morrolan. “Miska, is it not?”
    “The same,” said Miska, as he climbed down.
    “I am pleased to see you still among the living. I would have thought—”
    “No, my good Dark Star. Priestesses of the Demon Goddess are immortal, elfs are long-lived, and coachmen—”
    “Yes, what of coachmen?”
    “We are eternal.”
    “Very well, I accept that you are eternal. In any case, I am pleased to see you. I would offer you brandy, only it chances that I have none.”
    Miska shrugged. “It chances that I have a flask of it, so I require no more at the moment.”
    “That is well,” said Morrolan. “Tell me, what brings you here?”
    “I am delivering a passenger.”
    “A passenger?”
    “Yes, indeed.”
    “How did you acquire this passenger?”
    “She was kind enough to buy me a flask of brandy, so I offered to bring her to where she should be.”
    “Ah, and this is where she should be?”
    Miska shrugged. “So it would seem, for I am here.”
    “Is that how you know?”
    “Assuredly. You must understand, my dear Sötétcsilleg, that when I set out upon a journey, I do not always know where I am going. But I always know when I have arrived, and, as I have said, I am here.”
    “Well, that is true,” put in Arra, who had been following this conversation closely.
    “Then,” said Morrolan, “let us meet this famous passenger.”
    “You are about to,” said Miska.
    “Then we await you,” said Morrolan.
    Miska, having by now climbed down from his box, stepped up to the door, with its two windows, both of which were shuttered, and struck the door twice with the knuckles of his right hand, evidently as a signal or warning; after which he grasped the door handle and, with a practiced maneuver, turned it, which not only permitted him to open the door, but, at the same time as the door opened, caused a small stairway to descend from the coach to the ground. The coachman held out his hand, and another hand, this one covered in a green glove, took it delicately, after which appeared the arm connected to the glove, then a face, then neck and shoulders, until at length all of the mysterious passenger had appeared, set foot upon the stairway, and descended to the ground.
    In addition to her gloves, which, as we have already said, were green, she wore a gown of the same color (with the addition of white trim) that fit very close, left bare her right shoulder, and, save for a few small ruffles, was without decoration. In addition to this, she had a white wrap of some sort of fur, and for jewelry she wore a pair of small, plain, gold ear-rings and a ring upon the fourth finger of her right hand in which three tiny rubies were set in silver. Her hair was rather dark than otherwise, and her face narrow and angular. Her figure, as could be clearly discerned from the tight fit of the gown, was quite slim; but what caught everyone’s attention at once was
her height, which was nearly the equal of