Long ago, one of the gods fashioned an artifact called the silver tiassa. To Devera the Wanderer, it's a pretty toy to play with. To Vlad Taltos, it's a handy prop for a con he's running. To the Empire, it's a tool to be used against their greatest enemies―the Jenoine. To the Jhereg, it's a trap to kill Vlad. The silver tiassa, however, had its own agenda. Steven Brust's Tiassa tells a story that threads its way through more than ten years of the remarkable life of Vlad Taltos―and, to the delight of longtime fans, brings him together with Khaavren, from The Phoenix Guards and its sequels. Khaavren may be Vlad's best friend―or his most terrible enemy. “ Dzur gives us Vlad Taltos at his best.” ― Cinescope “Fresh, snappy, and terribly likeable… Dzur shows you what heroic fantasy can be.” ― Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing “Steven Brust may well be America's best fantasy writer.” ―Tad Williams STEVEN BRUST is the author of Dragon , Issola , Jhegaala , and the New York Times -bestselling Dzur , among many other popular fantasy novels. A native of Minneapolis, he currently lives in Texas. Tiassa By Steven Brust Tor Books Copyright © 2011 Steven Brust All right reserved. ISBN: 9780765312099   The first time I saw the tiassa was nine Real Years before I was born. Mafenyi was holding it, and it was so pretty! When I saw it again, two hundred Real Years earlier, I had to take it so I did. I didn’t think Mafenyi would mind too much. She hadn’t made it to keep. She told me that she made it because she had to, but it shouldn’t ever stay with anyone for too long. She used silver that came all the way from Aelma, which is a city on the Chareq River near some mountains called Daeld, which is where the silver was found in the ground. Mafenyi said she melted the silver in a cauldron made of light, and she cut off her hand and put it in the cauldron, and plucked out one of her eyes and put that in, too, and then shaped it while it was still hotter than hot. She worked on it for years and years, so the ears would be so perfect, and you could see candlelight through the wings; she put tiny sapphires in for the eyes. I asked her how come she still had both hands and both eyes, and she said she was a Goddess and so she grew them back. She said I could be a Goddess if I wanted to be, and I said my grandmother was a Goddess and it didn’t seem like much fun. When we were done talking I went away, but then I came back. I wanted to just look at it some more, but she was sleeping, and that’s when I knew I had to have it, so I took it from her shelf. It wasn’t big, but it was so heavy I had to hold it in both hands. I went back home and just held it and looked at it, but I got fingerprints on it so I cleaned it off, and then wrapped it in cloth. I kept it in the cloth after that except when I wanted to look at it. There was a woman named Chuvin. She was an Athyra, and she was very nice. I thought she should have the tiassa, so I left it in her house, then I went off to see a new world being made, which was very exciting. When I got back, I went to look at the silver tiassa, but Chuvin didn’t have it anymore. She had made some very pretty psiprints, though, and I got to see them. She gave me one of Yevetna Falls that’s so good you can almost get wet looking at it. Mommy said that first, but I think it’s funny and true, so I’m saying it now. I asked Chuvin what she did with the tiassa, but she said she didn’t know, it just got lost somehow. It wasn’t hard to find it, though. When you looked in what the Necromancer calls the other place, it was like a big white light, with two blinking blue thingies. I saw it right away, and followed it because I wanted to know where it was, and really I just wanted to see it again. It isn’t hard to follow something in the other place, but it’s hard to talk about. It’s like painting when you don’t have paint, or singing when there’s no song, or talking when there are no words. I can’t explain. Anyway, I followed it. It was an old man who had it. He was a Lyorn and his name was Pindua. He made statues from big pieces of marble. I got to hold the tiassa for a little while, but then I left it with him. He made one called “Worill Reclining on Stairway” that they put in the Hall of Monuments in the Imperial Palace. A little while after he made it he died and they brought him to the Paths of the Dead. He owed a lot of money when he died, and when that happens they sell all your things to try to pay the people you owe money to, so the tiassa was sold to a man named Paarfi who was a Hawk and who wrote books. I didn’t think about it for a long time, but then I remembered it one day a year later, which was almost three hundred Real Years later. I looked for it, and Paarfi still had it. I went to talk to him about it. He talked about what he was writing. He was a nice man. I told him he should give the tiassa away, and he agreed, but said he wanted to keep it a little longer, until he finishe