The Paths of the Dead

The long-awaited sequel to The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After

Two hundred years after Adron€s Disaster, in which Dragaera City was accidentally reduced to an ocean of chaos by an experiment in wizardry gone wrong, the Empire isn€t what it used to be. Deprived at a single blow of their Emperor, of the Orb that is the focus of the Empire€s power, of their capital city with its Impe-rial 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 ad-venturers Khaavren, Pel, Aerich, and Tazendra are growing up in this seemingly diminished world, con-vinced, 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, in-scrutable doings are up at Dzur Mountain...and, unex-pectedly, a surviving Phoenix Heir, young Zerika, is discovered€"setting off a chain of swashbuckling events that will remake the world yet again.