The Paths of the Dead (The Viscount of Adrilankha Book 1)

About this book

The Paths of the Dead is Steven Brusts long-awaited sequel to The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After. Two hundred years after Adrons Disaster in which Dragaera City was accidentally reduced to an ocean of chaos by an experiment in wizardry gone wrong the Empire isnt what it used to be. Deprived at a single blow of their Emperor of the Orb that is the focus of the Empires power of their capital city with its Imperial bureaucracy and of a great many of their late fellow citizens the surviving Dragaerans have been limping through a long Interregnum bereft even of the simple magic and sorcery they were accustomed to use in everyday life. Now the descendants and successors of the great adventurers Khaavren Pel Aerich and Tazendra are growing up in this seemingly diminished world convinced like their elders that the age of adventures is over and nothing interesting will ever happen to them. They are of course wrong . . . For even deprived of magic Dragaerans fight plot and conspire as they breathe and so do their still-powerful gods. The enemies of the Empire prowl at its edges inscrutable doings are up at Dzur Mountain . . . and unexpectedly a surviving Phoenix Heir young Zerika is discoveredsetting off a chain of swashbuckling events that will remake the world yet again.