What's more, aside from the relative numbers, the dragons did not dare wipe out humanity—after all, if they did that, how would they reproduce? To destroy mankind would be to destroy themselves.
And once secrets were out, they could scarcely be suppressed. If it came to war, then everyone would learn how to kill dragons, and how to destroy their unborn young. Sooner or later, victory for humanity was inevitable.
Arlian opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
Yes, mankind would survive—but what about all those men and women and children who would not?
What right did he have to condemn tens of thousands to the sort of gruesome death that the dragons would inflict, the same death that had taken his own family?
He needed time to think, to plan, to consider his op-tions—but the dragon wanted an agreement now.
"What can I do?" he asked. "The secret is out—even if I do nothing, word will spread that obsidian can kill you."
"You can say it was illusion, mere sorcery of your own contrivance."
"And how would that explain Nail's death?"
"More sorcery."
"You say I should confess to killing him."
"You swore to kill him."
"But I didn't kill him!"
"You slew what he became."
"But..." Ariian began, then stopped.
The dragon didn't care about lies or oaths, or whether or not Nail and the dragon that he bore were the same being; it wanted an agreement, a restoration of the truce.
"You want me to he," he said.
**Yes
"And in return—what? You'll stay in your caverns?
You'll let me live?"
"You have killed two of our hatchlings, and two dragons yet unborn; letting you live is generous. Lie for us, and kill no more, and we will remain in our lairs and go on as before. Fail us in this, and we will have no choice but to attempt to destroy all inhabitants of the so-called Lands of Man before you can turn them against us and arm them with the black stone."
"Destroy them allT The idea astonished Ariian.
Could even the dragons hope to wipe out everyone?
Perhaps they could. Perhaps a bargain would be the sensible thing—but Arlian's anger welled up, and he said, only remembering at the last instant not to shout,
"You killed my family, my entire village, and now you threaten my entire race! Two of your foul offspring is not enough to begin to make up for that..."
The dragon's words interrupted him. "Lie for us, and kill no more dragons, bom or unborn, or face the consequences."
And the dragon needed no more words to convey what the consequences would be.
Arlian fell silent, and stared at the inhuman face floating in the bowl.
Those golden eyes, eyes that were oddly human, eyes that had presumably once, thousands of years ago, belonged to a man or woman, stared back at him.
Arlian swallowed his rage and tried to reason with the monster. "Born or unborn?" he asked. "Do you say you would not even permit me to kill Lord Toribor?
Or to kill in my own defense should a dragonheart attack me?"
For the first time the dragon hesitated.
"That one, but no other," came the reply at last.
"And in defense of your own life"
"Fair enough," Arlian said, oddly pleased with himself. He had won a concession, however minor, from a dragon; he had not known that was possible.
Of course, he no longer had any particular interest in killing Toribor. Lord Belly, and all the dragonhearts, seemed insignificant compared with the dragons already born.
He would have to find some way to destroy them without permitting open warfare—though right now, exhausted as he was, he could not imagine what it might be.
And he realized, with that, that he was in no condition to deal with this just now. True, he had not been injured fighting Nail's dragon as he had been when he battled Enziet, he had not driven himself across half the Desolation in pursuit of his foe, but still, he was weary and not thinking clearly. He had been through no great physical effort, but the mental and emotional strain of the extended deathwatch at Nail's bedside, followed by this sudden apparition in his washbasin, had in its way been worse.
"Then we are agreed."
"Enough," Arlian said, and he thrust a hand into the water with a splash. The dragon's image spattered into nonexistence, and his mind was suddenly clearer. The dragon's method of communication, he realized, had imperceptibly become an oppressive weight upon his thoughts, a weight that was now lifted.
He hoped he had not been too hasty in breaking the link; he watched the bowl for a moment, to see whether the dragon would attempt to reestablish the spell.
Nothing happened. The water rippled for a moment, then stilled, the blood dispersed and slowly settling.
Apparently the monster had been satisfied, at least for the moment—but Arlian told himself that he had not actually agreed to anything. He had said the terms were reasonably fair; he had never said he accepted them.
But he had bargained with the dragons, like Enziet; he was truly Enziet's heir. He held Enziet's estates, Enziet's secrets, and now Enziet's bargains.
He stared at the water for a moment
He did not hold Enziet's beliefs, he told himself. He would never sacrifice an innocent village ...
But hadn't he, just a moment before, been considering the possibility of allowing a new Man-Dragon War, sacrificing thousands, for the sake of destroying die dragons forever?
And hadn't he been planning for months to eventually slaughter every dragonheart in the city in order to destroy the dragons they carried within?
Just where was the moral line between his quest for retribution against the dragons, and Enziet's subtle, centuries-long campaign to control them? Which side of that line was truly right and good? Enziet's blackmail had kept the dragons penned in their caverns; Arlian's actions threatened to unleash them again.
If he started a new Man-Dragon War, how could he claim to be any better than the late, unlamented Lord Dragon?
If he succeeded, the dragons would be gone forever, while Enziet had allowed them to live, had allowed them to emerge every few years to destroy a village—
his goal was superior. Enziet had wanted his own long life untroubled by dragons, no more than that, while Arlian sought to free all the world of them forever.
That, surely, was a better goal.
But the cost to reach it...
He swallowed, and looked down at his hands, and thought he could see in the lamplight a thin red film of blood still clinging to them.
"No," he said aloud. "I will think this through. I will find a way." He snatched up the towel and dried his hands thoroughly, scrubbing them until the skin was red, as he stood by the bed.
At last, when he looked down and saw the skin now as red with the blood beneath as it had been before with the blood upon it, he flung the towel aside and fell onto the bed.
Even tired as he was, it was hours before he slept.
Black's voice penetrated the crumbling wall of sleep. "The burial will be this afternoon," that voice said. "You might want to go home long enough to change clothes; while that black coat is appropriate enough, some would consider it poor form to attend the obsequies with the departed's blood still on your shirt"
Arlian reluctantly admitted he was awake; he opened his eyes and saw the canopy above the bed.
This was not his own bed. Although he had barely looked at it the night before, and seen it only by the light of a lamp with a badly trimmed wick, he recognized that canopy. He was still in Lord Nail's home.
He turned his head and saw the washbasin, still on the nightstand, and Black standing beside it.
Is there water in the bowl?" he asked. If Black could forgo greetings and pleasantries, so could he.
Black glanced at it. "Yes, but it would appear you washed your hands in it last night"
"Does anything look strange about it?"
Black cocked his head curiously. "Other than the film of blood, no. Should it?"
Arlian waved the question aside. He would need to dank about that dragon's image he had seen and spoken with, but he did not need to think about it at this very moment. He frowned, then slid his head up against the headboard, the better to see Black. "Isn't it a little soon for the funeral?" he asked. "He's been dead less than a day."
"You haven't seen the condition of the corpse,"
Black replied. "It's the subject of much discussion downstairs—it's decaying far faster than is normal.
The steward had an embalmer in earlier this morning who took one look at the body, and refused to touch it—he allegedly said that with the entire chest torn out like that he couldn't have done much even when it was fresh, and he judged the man to be two weeks dead.
When he was told Lord Nail had been alive and conscious just last night he called the steward a liar and stamped out in a huff. The staff here is all atwitter, arguing whether to attribute the phenomenon to Lord Stiam's extreme age, or his frequent use of sorcery, or to some sort of draconic curse."
"Probably all of them," Arlian said, reluctantly sitting up. "What time is it?"
"Noon, give or take a little. I've taken the liberty of summoning your coach, since Lord Hardior departed some time ago. I believe you had wanted to speak with him, but he seemed disinclined to wait, or to have you awakened."
"Oh? Well, thank you for attending to that." He did want to talk to Hardior—but right now, he was not at all sure what he wanted to say. Last night, when Hardior had suggested they talk, Arlian had thought he would tell Hardior the whole story, all Enziet's secrets, and try to enlist his aid—and the Duke's!—in a campaign to hunt down and exterminate the dragons.
But that was before his magical conversation. The dragons didn't want their secrets spread.
Arlian was not interested in pleasing the dragons, but he was interested in his own survival, and doing everything he could to protect innocents. He had not yet worked out to his own satisfaction how that might best be achieved.
He stretched, then looked down at himself.
He was still in the same white shirt and black trousers he had worn the night before, and as Black had said, blood dried to a dark and ugly brown speck-led the right sleeve almost to the elbow, and a few spots showed on the lace of the left cuff. He had had the presence of mind to remove his coat and boots before going to sleep, but had simply dropped them on the floor. Glancing down, he saw that the toe of one boot was spattered, as well.
He plainly couldn't attend Nail's burial in this condition, and he very much wanted to pay his respects to the old man.
"Go see to the coach," he said, reaching for the chamber pot. "I'll be down in ten minutes."
In fact, he made it in eight.
At the Old Palace he made no pretense of a proper toilet, but simply changed into fresh garments as quickly as he could, then turned and headed quickly back to the coach.
Slightly over an hour later he stood with a few dozen others around the hastily-dug grave in the untended garden at the back of Nail's estate, close against the city's eastern wall. There he watched silently as Lord Stiam's mortal remains were consigned to the earth.
The shroud hid the mangled condition of the body, but did not entirely contain the stench of unnatural corruption. Several of the mourners held handkerchiefs to their noses and averted their faces.
Arlian kept his own hands clasped behind his back, holding his hat, and kept his eyes on the grave; unpleasant as the odor was, he felt Lord Stiam deserved to be seen to his rest with proper dignity.
When the first spadeful of earth fell on the shroud, Arlian felt be could decently turn away. He took a deep breath, then looked about at the others.
All those who had been present at Nail's deathbed, who had seen the dragon within him born and slain, were gathered here, as were several other members of the Dragon Society, the estate's entire resident staff, and a few others Arlian did not recognize. Save for the four groundskeepers acting as gravediggers, all the servants in attendance wore Nail's livery of rose and fawn; Arlian studied their faces, and thought they looked genuinely saddened by their master's death.
He wondered how many of them were slaves, and whether Nail had made any provision for them in his will—assuming he had a will; members of the Dragon Society generally expected to live forever, and therefore neglected such morbid concerns.
Black, who stood at Arlian's elbow, noticed the direction of his gaze. "He named his steward as his heir, when he fell ill," he said. "There are bequests to the others, as well. He appears to have been a considerate employer. I would tend to think their grief is sincere, and not merely concern over their future prospects for employment."
"He had his charms," Arlian said. "Lily tells me he was never demanding or deliberately cruel, and Musk admired his strength."
"And he had the heart of the dragon," Black said. "I think you may underestimate how much that affects mere mortals like myself."
Arlian threw Black a quick glance. "Indeed," he said.
He was curious just what Black meant to imply by that remark, whether he was hinting that Arlian's own position owed more than Arlian realized to the taint in his blood, but this was hardly the time or place to pursue die matter. Instead he looked around at the other mourners.
Lord Wither was standing close by the grave, just clear of the men shoveling earth, and Lady Opal was close behind him, peering impatiently over his shoulder. Wither still wore his green silk, but Opal had changed her gown for one of blue and gold—Arlian wondered if the other had blood on it.
Horn stood on Wither's other side, a step farther back. As Arlian's gaze reached the three of them Wither happened to look up, and their eyes met.
The two men stood, staring at one another, for a few long seconds; then Opal whispered something in Wither's ear, and the old man turned to speak with her.
Arlian watched him, noting that Wither was moving more slowly than his wont. His eyes, when they met Arlian's own, had seemed darker than before.
"They were friends for more than seven hundred years," Arlian murmured to Black. "This has hit old Wither hard."
"From what he said last night, I think it's the glimpse of his own future, as much as the loss of his friend, that troubles him," Black replied.
"You could be right," Arlian agreed. "He and Nail were the oldest surviving members of the Dragon Society, and they claimed that neither knew for certain who was the elder. If Nail's time has come, Wither's cannot be far behind." He watched Wither specula-tively as die old man argued quietly with Opal; although he was not quite as forceful as usual, the old man still seemed strong and vigorous, with no sign of the weakness, fever, and swollen chest that had sent Nail to his deathbed.
"And of course," Arlian continued quietly, so no one but Black could hear, "the knowledge that a dragon is growing in one's chest is hardly a comfort." The dragons might not want their secrets made public, and perhaps they had some way to overhear his words even now, but he could not lie to Black about what they had seen last night. "I have lived with that nightmare for months, and though my own end is still centuries away, it is a nightmare. For Wither, it's that much more immediate."
"Everyone dies," Black said. "Some of you forgot that for a while, and he's just been reminded. As for the dragon, how much does it really matter how you die, when the time has come?"
"It matters," Ariian said, still watching Wither.
"The dragon will undoubtedly be slain quickly."
"I don't know if that matters. He's not as concerned with what the dragon might do as with what and where it is."
Black was silent for a moment, watching the gravediggers, then remarked, "/ prefer to concern myself with results. A corpse is a corpse, and if the blood briefly took the form of a dragon, what of it? But then I've often been told I lack the finer sensibilities."
Ariian snorted. "They merely tell me I'm mad, never that I'm unrefined; Sweet
and Rose trained me well, that winter I spent in Westguard."
Wither turned away from Opal and began to march away from the graveside; Opal followed him, still re-monstrating quietly. Ariian watched, and then realized that Wither was making his way around the grave and gravediggers, heading in his direction. He stood, waiting. Sure enough, Wither rounded the shrinking pile of earth, then headed directly to Ariian, striding briskly, while Lady Opal trailed a few yards behind, and Horn behind her.
"My lord," Ariian said, nodding his head as Wither came within comfortable speaking distance.
"Obsidian," Wither said. "I have a favor to ask of you, and this time I don't think you'll refuse."
"Oh?" Arlian asked politely. "I am always happy to serve you, my lord, when other commitments do not intervene."
"They won't this time—and thank you, boy, for refusing me before, and saving Lady Marasa from the loath-some end I would have unknowingly inflicted upon her.
If only you could have done the same for me, long ago!"
Arlian acknowledged this with a slight bow.
"You might have told me why, though."
Arlian hesitated.
The dragons wanted him to he, to say that Opal had been right the night before, that Wither had seen a mere illusion. If he did not, and the dragons knew it, then he would be declaring war. He would be challenging them to come out of their caverns and attempt to kill everyone who knew their secrets.
Were they listening, even now? Arlian did not know what the dragons knew, or how they knew it; they had certainly known what befell Nail, but could they hear everything a dragonheart said, everything a dragonheart heard?
Even if they could, they couldn't listen every moment of every day. Surely Enziet could not have lived his entire life under draconic surveillance, or he would never have been permitted his studies into obsidian's properties, nor the drugs that staved off his death for a few years.
They might be listening now—or they might not.
The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2) Page 14
