The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  "What are they?" Isein asked.

  "First, I need some way to drive a spear into a dragon's heart."

  The Aritheians exchanged glances.

  "You spoke of that in Manfort," Thirif said. "We have spoken among ourselves. We think it can be done, but must speak with the elders of the House of Arlian nodded. "That's fine," he said. "The other—I think I need a physician."

  "You are ill?" Isein asked worriedly.

  "No, I... well, perhaps I am. But I need a magician who can drain a man's blood, perhaps even stop his heart, yet keep him alive. If there is some way to replace tainted blood with clean.. "

  For a long moment the magicians were silent; at last Thirif spoke.

  "I have never heard of such a thing," he said.

  "Is it impossible?"

  "I do not know."

  "Find out," Arlian said. "Please. Speak to whoever might know in Arithei—not just the House of Deri, but all the eleven houses, even the House of Slihar. I will pay for this magic in silver and amethysts and whatever else you might want; it's worth more to me than everything else put together."

  "We will ask," Isein said.

  Arlian nodded. "Good," he said. Then he added, "If you do find such a magic, bring it to me at once, even if it means abandoning everything else. And bring enough to do it many times over, if that is possible."

  "As you say," Isein said, bowing her head.

  "Good!" Arlian looked up at the night sky, the stars hidden by clouds, then at the inn. "Then let us find ourselves some supper, and rest while we can."

  He led the way inside.

  In the morning they set out again, beneath an overcast sky, and rolled onward through an uneventful day of oppressive heat.

  Arlian was startled to realize, as his caravan rolled down the dusty main street of Deep Delving, that he had never seen the place before. He had spent seven years in the mines, but he had never set foot in the town, half a mile away.

  Now, though, he saw a crowded tangle of narrow streets lined with half-timbered buildings, nestled into a steep-sided valley. There was no open market, no plaza—but there was an inn, of course. A town that relied on the sale of what its mines produced could hardly fail to provide accommodations for the people who came to buy. Arlian guided the weary oxen toward the inn, and when the wagon had creaked to a stop by the door he dismounted, sweat sticking his shirt to his back.

  He left his hat in the wagon, and left the caravan waiting in the street while he and Black went inside.

  He stood by the door, looking impatient, with Black beside him, until the landlord deigned to notice them.

  "May I help you, my lord?" the proprietor asked, brushing crumbs from his apron.

  "I'm looking for an old man named Lithuil who operates a mine near here," Arlian said.

  The innkeeper glanced over the customers in the taproom, then shrugged. "I know him, but he's not in here."

  "Where might we find him, then?"

  "He has offices in Brown Street—the second street on the left, that way." He pointed.

  "Thank you." Arlian turned away.

  Fifteen minutes later Arlian found himself face-to-face with the Old Man for the first time in almost a decade—across a cluttered desk in a dusty office, this time, rather than in stone tunnels. For a moment he had an irrational fear that the Old Man would recognize him and fling him back down into the mine, but he fought it down—after all, how could Lithuil recognize that ragged eleven-year-old boy in the elegant young lord who stood before him?

  Arlian recognized the Old Man, however, though he was even older and had lost weight. He had the same wrinkled face and long beard, but the wrinkles had deepened and he was no longer so impressively fat.

  Either that, Arlian thought, or his memory had exaggerated the Old Man's girth.

  Once upon a time this man had carried him down into the darkness of the mine and had left him there, to slave away breaking the galena ore from the tunnel walls and carting it to the shaft.

  Now that same old man said, "It is a great honor to meet you, Lord Obsidian. How fortunate that I was here in town today! Usually I would be out at the mine, but urgent matters ..."

  "Yes, I'm sure," Arlian said, interrupting. He could not bear to hear that voice wheedling like this, when he remembered it bullying. "I have my own urgent business to attend to here. I assume you know that I now own four of the five shares in your mine?"

  "I had heard..." Lithuil began.

  Arlian cut him off. "That means you work for me,"

  he said. "I sent instructions to gather amethysts, like this one." He displayed the silver pendant that held the largest of the stones he had taken from poor Hathet so long ago. "Do you have them ready?"

  Lithuil spread empty palms. "Oh. well, my lord, we had not yet determined a price for the stones, and the miners report that they have had no luck in finding them ..." He shrugged, and smiled apologetically.

  Arlian stared at him for a moment.

  "Was my message not clear?" he snapped.

  Lithuil's smile vanished. "I don't..

  "I said I needed them, and you were to start mining them immediately," Arlian said angrily. "Are you telling me that you have found none?"

  "My lord, I never even heard of these stones before you sent your messages," Lithuil said defensively. "I had no idea that these purple crystals could be found in the ore. I did as you instructed and told the miners to look for them and send them up with the ore, but as yet none have been delivered."

  "And what did you offer the miners in exchange?"

  Lithuil blinked. "Offer them? My lord, they are slaves—I told them to send up the purple stones."

  Arlian stared at him for a moment, remembering his own years in the tunnels. None of the miners would have done anything to please their masters simply because they were told to—or rather, almost none, and those who might try would be reminded of the folly of their actions. If someone had fetched a few amethysts to the ore lift, one of the others would certainly have made sure the stones did not make it up the pitshaft.

  In fact, the demonstration of folly might have permanent results.

  "Have there been more deaths than usual since you told them to fetch the stones?" he asked.

  Lithuil cocked his head to one side. "More than usual? Not really. There have been deaths, of course.

  Two men were killed in fights. Why? Are these stones supposed to bring bad luck, then?"

  Arlian shook his head. "No," he said. "Quite the contrary. They can protect the bearer from certain sorts of magic."

  "Then why did.. "

  "We'll go to the mine," Arlian said, interrupting again; he found he had very little patience with this unpleasant old man. "I want to speak to your slaves."

  In fact, he intended to do considerably more than speak to them.

  'It's late, my lord, not long until supper time"

  Lithuil protested. "Let us look at the books tonight, so you can see how things stand, and wait until tomorrow to..."

  "We'll go to the mine now," Arlian said, not loudly, but in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Lithuil looked at Arlian's face, and said nothing more.

  Half an hour or so later Arlian, Lithuil, Black, and four carefully chosen caravan guards arrived at the entrance to the mine. Arlian stared at the heavy wooden door in the shadowy opening, remembering when he had last seen it

  He had been coming out into sunlight after seven years in darkness, wearing rags, carrying a bag of amethysts, and with nothing else to his name but his freedom, newly restored to him by a pair of brothers named Enir and Linnas in gratitude for saving Enir's life. Enir, also known as Bloody Hand, had been one of the mine's overseers; Linnas had been a guard.

  Lithuil opened the door and stood aside so that Lord Obsidian could enter; Arlian hesitated, thinking for a moment that the Old Man would slam the door behind him once he was inside—but Black and the guards would see that so harm came to him. He was not a half-starved boy anymore;
he was Lord Obsidian. He stepped in.

  Lithuil followed, then Black, then the guards.

  The stone passageway was lit by widely spaced torches mounted on the walls, providing light but filling the air with smoke. Even with the torches, though, the air inside was cooler than the raging heat of summer outside.

  Arlian remembered the system—farther down the tunnel the torches gave way to oil lamps, and both the torches and the lamps were lit before each shift change for the convenience of the guards, overseers, and ore-haulers, but mostly because the mules that hauled the ore wagons didn't like the dark. The guards would light the torches and lamps as they went down the passage ahead of the empty carts, and would replace any torches or wicks that had burned down too far, and re-fill the lamps that needed it

  A shift change must be in progress, as it had been all those years ago when he was first carried down to the pitshaft.

  "How many people work for you here?" he asked Lithuil as the party started down the tunnel.

  "We employ two overseers, two guards, and six teamsters," the Old Man replied.

  Naturally, he didn't mention the slaves. "Very effi-cient," Arlian said. "And you trust these men?"

  "Well enough."

  "Have die present overseers worked here long?"

  Startled, the Old Man glanced at him. "Why do you ask?"

  Arlian shrugged. "Simple curiosity. I take an interest in how men live their lives, and a job like that, spending the day down in the dark with slaves...

  well, I'm curious whether it's something men do for their entire lives, or whether they find it unbearable after a time."

  He was not about to explain that he wanted to know whether Lampspiller, the sadist who had made his life as a slave even more miserable than it should have been, was still there, and available as a target for revenge.

  "It can be either one, my lord," the Old Man said.

  "We've had men who lived out their lives as overseers, and others who quit quickly."

  "And the current pair? Have they been here long, then?"

  He knew that Bloody Hand had begun working in the mine about ten years ago, and Lampspiller about six—but he didn't know whether they were still there.

  And he couldn't ask about both of them by name; Bloody Hand and Lampspiller had been the slaves'

  names for them, and Lithuil presumably knew them by other names. Arlian knew that Bloody Hand's true name was Enir, but he had no idea who Lampspiller might be outside the mine.

  Lithuil grimaced. "No," he said. "We had an unfortunate incident last year—one of the overseers was murdered by the slaves, and the other resigned, so we had to hire new men. One of the new ones didn't work out, so ... well, one of our overseers has been here just over a year, and the other seven or eight months."

  Arlian had to remember to keep his expression calm. "Murdered?"

  Lithuil shrugged. "Apparendy. We don't really know."

  "What happened?"

  "The other overseer, a man named Enir, arrived for his shift, and the dead one didn't come up out of the mine when he should have " Arlian smothered a sigh of relief—Bloody Hand had lived. "Enir went down to see what had happened, and found Klorikor's body.

  The slaves tried to tell him there had been an accident, but Enir said Klorikor appeared to have been beaten, and then strangled with his own whip."

  "Unpleasant," Arlian said—but he could not help thinking that Lampspiller had deserved it.

  It also resolved any question of whether to seek vengeance on Lampspiller; the other miners had beaten him to it.

  That assumed, of course, that it was indeed Lampspiller who had been killed. "How long had the dead man worked here?" he asked.

  "Oh, five or six years, I think."

  That was Lampspiller. "And what became of the slaves responsible?" Arlian asked.

  Lithuil did not answer immediately, and Arlian glanced at him, feeling a sudden chill. Had all the slaves been killed in retaliation?

  "We never determined which men were responsible," the Old Man said at last. "Enir came back up, and we left them unsupervised and unfed, telling them that they would get no more food or water until they turned over those responsible for Klorikor's death. But they never admitted his death had been anything but an accident, and we couldn't afford to let them all die, so after a few days we gave in. That was when Enir resigned, rather than risk his life down there."

  "But you found new overseers?"

  Lithuil nodded. "We didn't tell them what had happened to Klorikor."

  Arlian suspected that the new overseers would have found out by now. The miners would have told them, if no one else did. That might be why the one "didn't work out"

  Black cleared his throat. "Pardon me, sir," he said.

  "You said Enir described the injuries Klorikor sustained. Did no one else see the body? Didn't you see it?"

  "Uh..." Lithuil glanced uneasily at Arlian.

  "Speak up, man," Arlian said. "Surely you don't think you can keep secrets from me?" He met Lithuil's eyes with his own intense gaze.

  "Well, Enir left a little hurriedly after seeing the body," Lithuil explained. "He didn't bring it up with him. He left it down there. And then—well, as I said, we decided not to feed the slaves."

  Arlian missed a step, stumbling on the smooth stone of the floor. He remembered what it was like down there, how they had all been perpetually hungry, all slightly underfed. Missing a single meal could be agonizing.

  He knew what had happened to Lampspiller's body.

  "They ate him," Black said.

  Lithuil nodded unhappily. One of die guards gagged.

  "Very unpleasant," Arlian said mildly, though in fact it seemed oddly fitting. He wondered whether he would have eaten any, had he still been in the mine, or whether he would have preferred to stay hungry.

  "We hadn't thought them so depraved," Lithuil said defensively. "It didn't occur to us at all!"

  Arlian had no reply to that, and conversation was becoming more difficult in any case, as the ore wagons were coming up the tunnel just ahead. The rattle of harness and the creak of heavily laden wheels echoed from the stone walls.

  The six men stepped to one side of the tunnel to let the wagons pass. The drivers glanced at them in surprise, but said nothing.

  A few minutes later they reached the hp of the pitshaft, where a heavy wood and metal framework supported ropes and pulleys that would haul ore up from below, tons at a time. A lone guard in leather had been leaning against one of the support beams; he stepped aside at the arrival of this unexpected party of visitors.

  He recognized Lithuil, and did not question the presence of strangers; his job was to make sure the slaves stayed down where they belonged, not to interfere with any guests his employer might bring.

  Arlian breathed in; the air down here was cool and still, and smelled of dust and stone. It might have been pleasant and restful, a welcome change from the heat outside, if not for what he knew lay at the foot of the pitshaft. This was die end of the world of free men, Arlian thought as he looked down past the beams and ropes at the flickering light of oil lamps at the bottom.

  Down there, fifteen feet below, was the dark and tiny world of the mining slaves.

  And if the ore had just been hauled away, then the slaves would be eating the food that they received in exchange. Most of diem, maybe all of them, would still be nearby.

  Arlian stepped to the edge and bellowed, "You miners! Listen to me!"

  "My lord!" a shocked Lithuil protested.

  From somewhere below another voice called, "Who in hell is that?"

  "I am Lord Obsidian," Arlian called, ignoring Lithuil.

  "I am the majority owner of this mine, and I want all of you miners to listen closely to my proposal."

  "My lord, this is..."

  "Shut up," Arlian told Lithuil, without looking.

  "Black, keep him quiet. Cut his throat if you must."

  Arlian heard the hiss of steel sliding on leather, a
nd Lithuil made no further protest. A glance showed that the caravan guards had cowed the mine guard, as well—one of the caravan guards, a man called Stabber, whom Arlian had fought beside two years before in the Desolation, held a blade at the mine guard's throat.

  "You men," Arlian shouted, "you heard a month ago that you were to collect the purple stones called amethysts, and send them up with the ore. You didn't deliver any. I don't think I blame you—what were you offered in exchange?"

  "Nothing!" a braver-than-usual miner called back.

  "Exactly. But those stones are very precious to me, and I'm going to offer you something precious in exchange. I know what men everywhere are like, and I assume you've all been saving die amethysts, and just not delivering them. That's fine—but deliver them now, and if you collectively deliver one hundred suitable stones, each large enough for my purposes, then you'll all go free."

  When the echoes of this speech faded away there was a moment of stunned silence; then Lithuil protested, "You can't do that!"

  Arlian turned, his hand on the hilt of his own sword.

  "Yes," he said, "I can."

  "But they're not your slaves! They're mine!"

  "I'll pay you for them," Arlian said, smiling an unpleasant, tight little smile. This was his revenge on the Old Man. Then he turned back to the pit and called,

  "One more thing—if any one of you dies before the full hundred has been delivered, the total goes up to one hundred and ten! Each additional death will add ten. If you steal from one another, you had better make sure your victim survives—and it won't buy you anything more; nobody wants these but me, and I will not pay you with anything but your freedom. I don't care who found how many—it's all of you or none. The sooner you can find die hundred, the sooner you can go! Now, how many do you have?"

  There was a murmur from below, but no clear answer.

  "All right, you aren't ready to say," Arlian said. "I'll be back here at the end of the shift with a bucket, and you can put the amethysts in the bucket, and we'll see what we have."

  The thought of a mere bucket brought a wry, uncomfortable smile; ordinarily the miners filled a gigantic ore hopper twice a day, but to him, the contents of that one ordinary bucket would be worth far more than a dozen of the hoppers.