The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Wither hesitated, then reluctantly accepted that and continued, "But you saw Enziet die, and you knew where he was going. Then do you know where he intended to find the venom he promised me? Can you obtain it now that I have reminded you that I am determined to have it, and you acknowledge yourself in my debt?"

  Arlian paused for a moment before replying.

  In fact, while he knew none of their other lairs, he did know the location of that one cavern beneath the Desolation where dragons slept; Lord Enziet had led him to the entrance, and it was there that the two men had fought their final duel. With a little sorcerous aid and the cool air of winter to keep the great beasts asleep, it should be possible to slip in, collect a few drams of venom, and escape safely—but Arlian had no intention of doing so.

  He would not do so because drinking the mixture of venom and blood, the elixir that Wither sought, would transform Lady Opal into a dragonheart, which would mean that in a thousand years or so, if she were not slain, her blood would give birth to a dragon. Arlian would not willingly help in the creation of another dragon, even at a distance of a thousand years. This was one magic he had no intention of restocking.

  His brief hesitation was not due to any uncertainty about whether or not he would sell Lord Wither the venom; it was instead because he was unsure how much of the truth to tell the old man.

  Lord Wither was impulsive, despite his age, and selfish and stubborn, like virtually all those who had tasted a dragon's venom and lived. Indebted or not, Arlian did not feel he could trust him.

  "I am sorry, my lord," Arlian said. "I have no venom to sell you, nor will I fetch any. Lady Opal must live out her natural span without any draconic assistance."

  The thought struck him as he spoke that perhaps that brief mortal lifetime might yet be enough to outlive Lord Wither. For the most part the dragonhearts thought themselves effectively immortal, since they did not visibly age; Wither probably thought he had another eight or nine centuries of life stretching before him, perhaps even more.

  Arlian knew that to be false. He knew, from Lord Enziet, that it took a millennium or so for dragon venom to transform a man's blood into a dragon, and that that marked the span of years Lord Wither could expect to live—but Lord Wither did not know it; it was all part of the complex of secrets that Enziet had hidden from the Society, and that only Arlian now knew.

  Wither had lived at least eight hundred years, perhaps more, already. If Lady Opal were to be contaminated. as Wither proposed, she would outlive him by centuries. If Arlian's estimate of Wither's age was low, or if the dragon within him developed somewhat faster than Enziet's had, then Wither might not see out another fifty years. In that case, Opal might survive him even without any unnatural meddling.

  Arlian was not about to say as much, though. These were hardly appropriate circumstances to reveal such things. Instead he finished his refusal and explained no further. He stood against his desk and watched a red flush of anger suffuse Wither's features.

  "May the dead gods curse you, Obsidian!" Wither shouted, raising his left hand to shake a finger in Arlian's face. "Why do you refuse me this? You say you are in my debt, yet you refuse me the one thing I ask. I know you, know the way you twist your words—you say you will not, not you can not. You know more than you say. Am I to watch another woman grow old and die because you have some secret you wish to keep? Is that it? Or would aiding me somehow interfere in that ridiculous vengeance you still pursue?"

  Arlian Wished now he had lied outright, instead of trying to remain in the vicinity of the truth. He raised both his own hands, palms out. "Calm yourself, my lord," be said. "I am not withholding anything for the sake of vengeance, nor is it merely to conceal a secret that I refuse you. I have my reasons for declining to bring you venom, and I think them good—as did Enziet before me, I am sure, for remember, he knew for centuries where venom could be obtained, and knew for years that you sought it, yet he did not offer to fetch it until circumstances drove him to it. I believe I know his reasons, and that they were the same as my own.

  The risks involved in such a venture, for myself and Lady Opal both, are so great that I do not care to attempt the feat. I am in your debt, and will gladly perform some other service, or grant you what I may grant—but I cannot give you the venom you seek."

  "And is there no way I can convince you otherwise?" Wither demanded. "No price that would be sufficient? Ungrateful wretch! If you fear the dragons, you need not go yourself; merely guide a servant to the proper location, and I will pay you handsomely. Horn would be glad to accompany you and go where you direct him."

  Arlian shook his head. "I will not do it, my lord.

  Perhaps someday, when your temper has cooled, I will explain my reasons, but for now you must simply accept my decision."

  Wither lowered his hand and his gaze met Arlian's.

  "Indeed I must," he said, his tone bitter, "for I have sworn not to harm you within Manfort's walls, and I have no way to compel you. But I am patient, my lord Obsidian, and Opal is still young, scarcely thirty. We will wait. We will wait for you to come to your senses, and we will pursue every other avenue open to us, and we will have our way!"

  With that, he turned on his heel, snatched open the door, and marched out of the room, brushing past the waiting Venlin in the passage beyond. Venlin, startled, hurried down the corridor after the departing guest Arlian watched them go, and frowned.

  Wither was a resourceful man. He might well find a way to obtain venom for Lady Opal—which would add her name to the long list of those Arlian might someday need to kill. Whether Opal herself would, given die option, choose a natural life or an extended one marked with the dragon taint and ending in violent death, Arlian could not guess—he had never met the woman.

  He doubted, though, that she would defy Lord Wither's obvious wishes. Wither had the unnatural charm and intensity of the heart of the dragon; ordinary mortals would be hard put to refuse him anything he wanted.

  Arlian did not want to kill anyone, really—at least, no one human. Even the deaths of the handful of people he had sworn vengeance upon and had not yet slain, should they come about, would not be something he enjoyed. Lord Enziet's death had been necessary, and satisfying in its way, but it had sated his bioodlust. Any further killing would be an unpleasant duty, required by the need to force justice upon an unjust world, and to keep humanity free from any threat from the dragons.

  Unless he could find some miraculous cure for the venom's effects, he would have to kill Wither in time.

  He would have to kill Rime and Nail and Toribor and all the rest of the Dragon Society before they could undergo die bloody transformation from human host to newborn dragon. He would have to kill himself before he became sufficiendy draconic to lose sight of the necessity.

  He shuddered, then swallowed—not at the prospect of his own death, a prospect he had lived intimately with since he was a boy of eleven, but at the thought that he might misjudge, and allow himself to complete has own eventual transformation.

  He would need to kill all the dragonhearts before that change could occur—and he would have to find and kill the dragons themselves, as well.

  It was a daunting task, to say the least.

  He had perhaps as much as a thousand years or so before he became a dragon, but when would his nature have altered enough to vitiate the drive for vengeance and put an end to the project? That might happen far sooner.

  He had been thinking that he was in no hurry, but perhaps there were reasons not to dawdle. The palace was largely restored to its proper order, and the servants could handle any remaining details; it was time to attend to all the other matters that delayed his assault on the dragons. It was time to investigate Enziet's legacy further, and to see what could be done about obtaining amethysts from the mines of Deep Delving and perhaps meting out some overdue justice there. It was time to send a caravan guarded by silver and amethyst to Arithei, so that his fortune could be enlarged and his magical arsenal restocke
d—he might need both money and magic to carry out an attack on the dragons.

  And then, when all that was done, it would be time to begin the extermination of his draconic foes—or to die trying.

  Arlian wondered, as he turned the dusty pages of yet another encrypted notebook, whether Enziet had accumulated secrets deliberately, as another man might collect gems or concubines, or whether it was simply a natural consequence of living for so very long.

  Ferrezin had completed a rough inventory of Enziet's major holdings, and the list was impressive, but for die most part Arlian had only scanned it briefly. He was not interested in farms or taverns, or mines in the western mountains. Mines in Deep Delving, especially one particular mine, were another matter, but he could not tell from the list whether Enziet had had any finan-cial interest in the Old Man's mine there. There were properties in Deep Delving, some of them clearly related to mining, bat their exact nature was not stated.

  Ferrezin had assured him that two trusted men were already on their way to inquire further.

  An inn in Westguard was also of some interest, since Arlian knew that it had been built from the burned-out ruins of the House of Carnal Society. It was odd to think that he now owned Enziet's share of the buikhng where he had spent months hidden in the attic.

  And Enziet, using the Duke's ancient right to bestow abandoned property upon his retainers, had laid claim to the ruins of the village of Obsidian, on the Smoking Mountain, and to the obsidian workings there. No one had contested the claim, so that Arlian now owned what remained of his own childhood home, as well.

  In a way it was almost comforting to know that Enziet had at least taken the trouble to keep what he had stolen, rather than casting it aside after looting it. And it was oddly satisfying to know that it had now returned to the village's only survivor and rightful heir.

  Those emotional interests aside, Arlian thought that owning the ruined village might be useful, since sooner or later he would need obsidian.

  Those properties were all of interest, in their way, and stood out on the long list of holdings, but for the moment Arlian was more concerned with the contents of the Grey House itself—Enziet's walled estate here in Manfort, the ancient fortified home where Arlian now sat at one of Enziet's desks, looking through his dead foe's notebooks, hoping to find further information about just what Enziet's arrangements with the dragons had been.

  There were innumerable books, and several sealed chests—Ferrezin had worked with sorcery enough to know better than to open any—and an amazing collection of miscellany. Poor Dove's bones were still in a box on the third floor, and Arlian intended to give those a proper burial eventually.

  For now, though, he was going through Enziet's journals and accounts, trying to puzzle out the dead man's systems.

  Enziet had had an annoying habit of using ciphers and codes and other tricks, and of course no one had the keys to any of them, but Arlian was able to puzzle out some things, and there were often hastily written entries in plain Man's Tongue scattered among the in-decipherable material.

  While most of the writing in the notebooks might not be readily understandable, it was quite clear to Arlian that Enziet had gathered a great many secrets, only a few of which had anything to do with dragons.

  Many of them appeared to be related to blackmail or scandal of one sort or another—but then, Enziet had been active in politics, so that was hardly surprising.

  Several notebooks appeared to describe die misdeeds of various long-dead courtiers, and Arlian wondered why Enziet had bothered to preserve them.

  Enziet had also been a sorcerer, and there were notes on many of his experiments. While Arlian's own knowledge of magic was severely limited, and mostly concerned the wild southern magic rather than the subtle sorcery of the Lands of Man, he was fairly certain that some of the things Enziet's notes described went beyond what the other sorcerers of Manfort knew to be possible.

  It had already become clear to Arlian that if he wanted to recapture Enziet's knowledge of the dragons, he would need to study sorcery. And he did want to recapture that knowledge, so that he could use it in exterminating the monsters and eliminating their threat forever. He knew how to destroy their offspring by killing the human hosts, and he knew that weapons of obsidian could pierce the hides of young dragons, but he did not know how to find all the deep caverns where the dragons slept. He did not know just how effective obsidian blades would be against full-grown dragons. An obsidian dagger had slain the beast that emerged from Lord Enziet's corrupt heart, but that dragon had been a mere hatchling, not very much larger than a man, its hide still soft and red, while the three that had destroyed Arlian's birthplace had measured at least fifty feet, and perhaps as much as a hundred, from snout to tail, and had been black and hard and ancient. Arlian did not think a mere dagger, no matter what its substance, could kill such a creature.

  A spear might, if thrust directly into the heart...

  He reached the last page of the notebook and slapped it shut, stirring a flurry of dust He sneezed, and wiped his nose with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.

  He had had enough of poring over these frustrating tomes, at least for the moment, he decided as he slid the notebook back into its place on the shelf. The secrets he needed might be right here in front of him, lost amid the hundreds for which he had no use, hidden by Enziet's codes and ciphers—or they might be somewhere else entirely, or perhaps Enziet had only carried them in his head.

  He rose from his seat, brushed dust from his linen blouse, and turned his attention to the row of three trunks that stood against the wainscotting to the left of Enziet's desk. According to the inventory, these chests contained sorcerous apparatus—Ferrezin had not been any more specific than that.

  Ferrezin had not dared to open them.

  Sorcery did not generally require much in the way of apparatus. Sorcery was subtle. The Lands of Man, all the lands that had been taken from the dragons centuries ago, were poor in magic, and required that subtlety. In the lands beyond the borders, places like Arithei and Tirikindaro and Pon Ashti, magic ran wild, raging across the sky and flowing through the earth, and all the power a mage could want was there for the taking; in fact, Aritheian magicians Arlian had spoken with had explained to him that the hardest part of wielding magic in their homeland was restraining the sheer raw energy that would, if given any leeway, destroy or transform the magician and everything else in the area. Roads and cities in Arithei had to be protected by elaborate networks of wards and cold iron to keep wild magic in check. Silver and iron and certain stones, not just amethysts but a variety of gemstones, were used to contain the wild magic, and spells involved the use of a wide variety of symbols and talismans to bind the mystic energies.

  In Manfort, though, and throughout most of the Lands of Man, there was so little magic that most people could not sense or use it at all, and the delicate art of sorcery had developed to exploit the tiny trace that remained Anything that would restrict the flow of magic would be useless in sorcery, and anything that might confine it would be impossible to use with any frequency. Most sorcery relied on the sorcerer's own skill, and a few common objects.

  It took a normal man's lifetime to learn to coax any significant effects from so limited a resource—but because dragonhearts lived many times longer than normal men, many of them were adept in the sorcerous arts. Enziet had been very adept indeed. He had used sorcery in this very house to communicate with the dragons in their caverns—but the only visible tool he had used for that, according to the only witness Arlian had heard describe the feat, was a bowl of water. He had maintained spells of warning and protection, but those had required nothing but words, gestures, and the stones of the house and wall to anchor them.

  What, then, was in the chests?

  Arlian took from his belt the ring of keys that Ferrezin had provided, and knelt before the first chest, eyeing the lock. He lifted an oil lamp down from the desk and turned up the flame to provide more tight.

&nb
sp; The lock appeared ordinary enough, but sorcery was usually invisible. Arlian debated sending for Thirif or Shibiel or Isein, or perhaps inviting a local sorcerer to take a look at it, to see whether there might be some sort of sorcerous trap—but that would take too long.

  Pawing through dozens of incomprehensible notebooks had left him impatient, and after all, he did have the key, and Enziet was dead. Sorcery was delicate work, so delicate that much of Enziet's lesser magic might well have died with him, and Arlian certainly could not sense anything magical about the lock.

  Besides, he simply did not think Enziet would have bothered with traps. It did not seem his style.

  Arlian judged the size and shape of the keyhole, then looked at the three dozen keys to find one that would fit.

  There were several that looked possible, but Arlian chose one immediately, for a very simple reason—it was black iron banded with silver, where the others were brass or steel. Iron and silver were protections against magic.

  Sure enough, the key slid easily into the lock and snugged tightly against the wards; when Arlian turned it he heard a satisfying series of clicks, and the hasp sprang free.

  No magic manifested itself; whatever protective sorcery the trunk might have had placed upon it either was gone or had yielded before the key. Smiling, Arlian lifted the lid unhindered, and peered into the chest, holding the lamp high.

  For a moment he didn't recognize what he saw; the gleaming black shapes refused to resolve into intelligi-ble forms. He shifted the lamp, and saw its light glitter on sharp, curved edges.

  At last, though, he realized what he was seeing.

  The chest was full of obsidian.

  This was what Lord Dragon had looted from the Smoking Mountain all those years ago. This was what he had been seeking when he found young Arlian, trapped in the cellars of his ruined home—and sold the boy into slavery.

  For an instant that long-ago scene came back to Arlian in all its terrifying detail. He remembered the sight of the dragon's face as one of the three monsters looked directly at him. He remembered the horrible warm weight of his grandfather's corpse, and the pressure of the hot stone floor beneath him, as he lay pinned at the foot of the fallen ladder. He remembered the unspeakably hideous taste of blood and venom dripping into his open mouth, and his stomach wrenched at the memory.