Here Be Dragons (15 page)

Whether the performance of sorcery is affected by the domain of death is equally impossible to decide from the two narrators' accounts. Where Vlad is clear about this effect, Paarfi mentions no diminution of any sorcerous abilities; one of his protagonists is actually prepared to do magical battle with an opposing sorcerer only a few steps from the waterfall (
Paths
329). Closer examination makes both cases tenuous, however. Vlad never verifies Morrolan's assertion that sorcery becomes increasingly hard the closer to the Falls one comes (
Taltos
96, 104). Given that the Dragonlord explains that he discovered this in a fight that he, according to Paarfi's story, was nowhere near, there is cause to doubt him; he might, for some reason, have lied to his companion. As for Paarfi's account, the magical battle he mentions never takes place; sorcery is never employed near the Falls in either case, so Morrolan's claim is not disproved. Consequently, the border might be described as a crosshatch in
Taltos
owing to Vlad's being nervous and misinformed; or it might not be described this way in
The Paths of the Dead
owing to Paarfi's imperfect knowledge.

The two narrators give similar accounts of the way back to the domain of life—that is, of crossing the border in the other direction. In both cases, the return route is indeterminate until the protagonists find themselves back in the land of the living. The actual point of crossing is, again, impossible to determine; it is only clear once the characters have returned that they have in fact completed the crossing itself. Although the way back to life is as much a one-way track as is the way down the Falls, the indeterminate nature of the exit is more pronounced than the entrance. Vlad and Paarfi agree that it is impossible to predict where in the domain of the living people will turn up if they manage to return from the domain of death (
Taltos
99;
Paths
315). Yet both Zerika and Vlad leave through a cave. These caves (or this cave; it is never made clear whether they are in fact one and the same) come as surprises to both of them because of their great weariness (
Taltos
173;
Paths
387), illustrating how the border cannot be anticipated before it is crossed; it cannot even be identified in retrospect.

Unlike the two examples to follow (from
Stardust
and the Abhorsen series), in
Taltos
and
The Paths of the Dead
entry and exit across the border do not coincide, either spatially or in terms of construction. Both directions have their indistinctness in common: in neither case can the actual point of crossing be identified, which stresses the gradual nature of the border. The entrance to the domain of the dead is always located at the Deathgate Falls, however, whereas the location for the exit varies. Furthermore, the return trips construct a border that does not correspond to any of the functions Clute mentions for a physical threshold: it lacks the distinctiveness of a spine, and there are no borderlands for which it could serve as a spine; nor is there any suggestion of a crosshatch or polder. Instead, it combines a physical aspect (moving, physically, from one area to another) with a metaphorical one (achieving a certain feat, fulfilling some condition, passing some test). Orpheus and Eurydice illustrate this combined border: the border between Hades and the land of the living is a physical location in that they can walk there, but it also entails a test of Orpheus' faith, a test he fails by turning around to look at Eurydice. Brust's protagonists are similarly subjected to a condition: they cannot leave if they fall asleep. The focus when they enter at the Deathgate is on the physical challenge; when they leave, their weariness causes a shift in focus to the metaphorical aspect and to the achievement needed to leave. The border, and the passing of it, cannot be anticipated in their state of weariness; it can only be established once they have passed it. This shift in focus not only constructs the border differently; it suggests that returning to the domain of the living is actually a test, continued life being a gift only bestowed on those who are worthy of it.

From both Paarfi's and Vlad's accounts, it is plain that travelers are tested both when entering and when leaving the domain of death. The main test for entering the domain actually comes once the border has been crossed, in the labyrinthine Paths of the Dead. This test calls attention not only to social segregation but also to injustice in death: both Vlad and Paarfi recount how books are available with instructions that a Dragaeran can memorize before death, as an aid to negotiating the Paths. These instructions are of varying quality, and are passed down in families; reading another family's book is not allowed. Vlad (characteristically for a Jhereg) reacts against this inequality by proposing to steal one of the better books and sell copies. However, he is informed that such a breach of the rules of the domain would not be possible (
Taltos
115). For
the living who wish to enter the domain, another test precedes the Paths, as they must somehow make their way down the waterfall. Although Vlad and Morrolan carefully climb down a rope, Zerika just rides off the cliff edge and survives the fall (although her horse does not; see
Paths
359–60)—indeed, one character suggests that the Falls will not kill anyone who plunges down them alive (
Paths
198, 360). Going in is simply a question of boldness—to dare to enter in whatever fashion. Entering the domain of the dead is therefore radically different from leaving it. Anyone can, theoretically, cross the border at the Deathgate Falls and even enter the Paths. Once in the domain of the dead, alive or dead makes little difference, though, since no one is meant to return; people trapped in the domain of death are to all intents and purposes dead, regardless of the state of their physical bodies. The real test is, in other words, the return journey.

Leaving the land of the dead to return to the land of the living is traditionally the tricky part. “
[F]acilis descensus Averno
,” Æneas is told, “
sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras, hoc opus, hic labor est
.”
²⁰
There are always conditions to fulfill for those who want to go to the underworld—and return. Æneas brings a golden bough as a present to Proserpine (Persephone). For Persephone herself, eating a pomegranate seed is enough to give her an annual stretch in Hades. Inanna needs to find someone to take her place in the underworld. In the Dragaeran domain of death, no matter what else, if you fall asleep there, you have to stay. Both Vlad and Zerika are exhausted during their return trip, and their test is simply to stay awake and walk until they eventually find themselves back in the domain of life. Even the awareness of this condition makes them weary: when Vlad is informed that he must not sleep, he “suddenly felt very tired” (
Taltos
148); similarly, Zerika tells the gods that she needs to return to find somewhere to sleep and then realizes that “she was every bit as weary as she had said” (
Paths
385). As soon as the characters become aware of the danger of tiredness, the clock starts ticking and the test begins.

Staying awake is not enough, though; only those of the right blood are allowed to return to life. Paarfi makes this into a social issue: Zerika is the heir to the imperial throne and can thus claim the Imperial Orb from the gods, who also want to see the Empire restored. The Orb then facilitates her return. Vlad's account attributes Zerika's return solely to the Orb (and thus her birthright), but although Aliera, next in line for the throne, has the same social reason (imperial succession) to return, the
deciding factor is revealed to be blood in a more literal sense: Aliera has inherited the right to leave bestowed on her ancestor—her right to leave is a property of her blood, not her social position; similarly, it is Vlad's non-Dragaeran blood that allows him to return (
Taltos
156–58). Even the gods' ability to cross the border is connected to their blood (
Taltos
156), and Morrolan can thus return because he is given a small transfusion of divine blood (172 et passim).

The ability of Loiosh, Vlad's jhereg familiar, to enter and leave the domain of the dead can be argued to be a question of his species. One of the gods informs Vlad that Loiosh “shares [Vlad's] fate” (
Taltos
156); but whereas the statement gives the impression of being unambiguous, it does not, in fact, say that the fates of Vlad and Loiosh are connected, only that they are shared. Loiosh is allowed to leave, but not necessarily because he is Vlad's familiar. Instead, both narrators refer to giant jhereg that circle over the Deathgate Falls, the only creatures apparently able to cross from one domain to the other as they carry out the necessary task of eating the dead bodies that are sent down the Falls (
Paths
360). As it happens, apart from the jhereg (and the obscuring mists), nothing can be seen of what lies on the other side of the border, regardless of whether one looks toward the land of the dead or back toward the land of the living. Even though Loiosh never attempts to return up to the lip of the Falls as his giant cousins appear to do, he displays intuitive knowledge about returning to the domain of the living. Vlad recounts how his familiar occupies a very important role during the journey back: “From time to time we'd stop, and Aliera and Morrolan would have a hushed conversation about which way to go. […] When this happened Loiosh would say, ‘Tell them that way, boss,' and I'd gesture in the indicated direction” (
Taltos
172).

This description suggests that any direction conveyed by the exhausted Vlad is telepathically supplied to him by Loiosh. It is reasonable to assume that the jhereg is also the one who ultimately points out the cave that leads them to the realm of the living (
Taltos
173). Alone of the four, the small reptile is able to navigate his way back from the realm of the dead, sharing at least some of the liminal qualities of his giant relatives at the Deathgate. The fact that a representative of the most despised of the Dragaeran Houses leads two Dragonlords back illustrates how the border crossing can be used to subvert the social order, a topic that deserves further comment.

Paarfi and Vlad clearly express their own social bias in the way they
use and comment on the social hierarchy reflected in the construction of the border between the two domains. Death is not a place of social equality. Vlad makes two basic points that display a connection to the social order: Easterners are not allowed to enter this domain of death, only Dragaerans are welcome. This echoes the fact that Easterners can be imperial citizens only if they buy a title in House Jhereg or become serfs in House Teckla (and thus become nominal Dragaerans). Furthermore, Vlad explains how only Dragaerans who are “highly respected by their House” are sent over the Falls (
Taltos
74; see also 99); high social status is consequently a key to the afterlife. Considering the animal statues along the Blood River, it is also possible to infer that no Tecklas (and possibly no Jheregs) are sent to the Paths of the Dead. Paarfi's account mentions how Zerika's party passes the statue of each noble in the group, but never mentions any Teckla statue or any reaction to such statues by the Teckla lackeys (
Paths
318–19). Nor are the two lackeys ever included in any discussion about entering the Paths, and they do not discuss it between themselves. While this does not prove that Tecklas are not sent into the Paths, it implies that at the very least, such a journey is of much greater moment to Dragaerans of the noble Houses. A similar argument can be made for House Jhereg—no Jhereg sculpture is mentioned—but on the other hand, no Dragaeran Jhereg passes along the river near the Deathgate Falls in either story.

The animal sculptures, and the Paths themselves, express not only nobility but also the segregation of Dragaeran society. The animal sculptures, and the various places for launching the dead over the Falls, offer a physical manifestation of the social taboo against mixing blood between Houses. This image of segregation is reinforced further by the fact that each House has its own route through the Paths. That House Teckla, and possibly House Jhereg, is not represented along the river—that they are not sent into the domain of death—would accord with the acceptance by both of these Houses of inter-House marriages and children of mixed parentage. Not only a lack of nobility, but also failure to comply with the segregation demanded by society, is emphasized by the border and the Paths of the Dead.

The implicit and explicit discrimination in favor of the upper classes at the Deathgate Falls, while clearly visible in both books, is used in opposing ways by the two narrators. Paarfi's story is one of reestablishing Dragaeran society and maintaining its social order, with an imperial sovereign at the top. The social values of the border match those of Paarfi,
and he uses them to reinforce the legitimacy of Zerika's quest. She and her noble friends all in some way acknowledge their respective animal sculptures; and as they approach the Deathgate Falls, Zerika's behavior changes in the direction of the autocratic and self-reliant personality expected of an Empress (see
Paths
316). Paarfi relates how Zerika deals with the tests both of entering and leaving in a manner appropriate for a strong leader: a constant reliance on her own strength and fortitude, and a focus on how her role as imperial heir and restorer of the Empire (and thus its society) allows her to cross into the domain and return.

In
Taltos
, on the other hand, Vlad uses the superiority of social status and the importance of segregation as a foundation for social criticism. As they enter the Paths, Vlad's account centers on how he is treated with contempt by the Dragaerans for being an Easterner and a Jhereg, and thus neither respected nor allowed into the domain of death; and he counters by refusing to abide by traditions or social rules. Once Aliera's soul has been retrieved, it is made clear how blood rather than social position determines who can leave. That marks the beginning of a subversion of the Dragaeran social hierarchy: in order to return to the domain of the living, the two Dragonlords, one of them the imperial heir, have to rely on an Easterner belonging to House Jhereg (and assisted by a jhereg). Representing the pinnacle of Dragaeran society, the imperial throne itself, as well as a noble House, Aliera and Morrolan need the assistance of Vlad, a criminal from the lowest of the noble Houses, who would not even be a citizen were it not for that House's policy of selling titles; compared to the Dragonlords, he truly belongs on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Furthermore, Morrolan can leave only through the use of witchcraft, a despised form of magic among most Dragaerans, and by mixing blood, a symbolic violation of the taboo against inter-House liaisons. Social mores are turned on their heads and traditional roles reversed. Vlad, doubly unprivileged, saves not only Morrolan and Aliera but, by extension, the Dragaeran Empire—assisted by a despised and reviled animal, a jhereg. At the same time, Vlad himself would not be able to leave without the Dragonlords' help, and the three eventually find themselves friends rather than social opposites. Their return thus celebrates cooperation rather than autocracy and heroic self-reliance.