Dragon Weather

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  He signed it “Obsidian,” with a flourish, then blotted it, folded it, and handed it to Black.

  Black had read it over his shoulder. “It may not do any better,” he said.

  “You’re welcome to make suggestions.”

  “You’re the lord here,” Black said with a shrug. “Anything else?”

  “Check on Kuruvan,” Arlian said. “See if you can find out, without being obvious, whether he did communicate with Enziet.” A thought struck him. “And check on Cover, too. Perhaps he knows something useful—where did he meet Lord Dragon, all those years ago? Did he have any way to send Lord Dragon or any of the others a message?

  Black nodded and tucked the note inside his tunic.

  Arlian watched him go.

  It seemed clear what had happened. The duel with Lord Kuruvan had hardly been secret—duels couldn’t very well be kept secret. The reason for the duel would surely have become known, as well—Kuruvan would have had no reason not to speak of it. That meant that the other proprietors of the House of the Six Lords all knew that Lord Obsidian meant them ill. Furthermore, the fact that Kuruvan, a very respectable swordsman, had lost his duel meant that they would probably not be eager to face Arlian openly. He would be unlikely to catch any of them off guard, and luring each of them into a duel might well be impossible.

  But perhaps he could still bully them into fighting. Demanding that Lord Enziet apologize was a first step in that direction; by the code of honor the lords of Manfort observed, if Enziet refused to apologize Arlian could escalate the conflict until Enziet had no choice but to fight.

  And if he did apologize, well, Arlian could insist the apology be made in person, and matters could proceed from there. He was not yet stymied.

  He might be in danger himself, though. Lord Dragon had had no hesitation about killing Madam Ril when she displeased him. While Ril had been a mere employee, not a fellow lord, might he not attempt to kill Arlian by some method less open than dueling? Assassination was not legal, but it happened. Arlian had no idea how one went about hiring an assassin, but he was sure Enziet did.

  And that didn’t even consider the fact that Enziet was reputed to know something of sorcery. Arlian frowned and rose from his desk; he left the study and trotted down the stairs to the office where Thirif conducted his business.

  The Aritheian was seated cross-legged on a mat in one corner, meditating. He looked up as Arlian entered.

  Arlian quickly explained the situation—that he had intended to visit Lord Enziet and challenge him to a duel, but that his polite request for an audience had been met with an insulting refusal.

  “I believe my enemies may be aware of my intentions,” he concluded. “I also suspect they may attempt to take action against me by dishonorable means.”

  Thirif asked, “Do you mean assassins?”

  “Or sorcery,” Arlian said.

  Thirif nodded. “Do you want me to place wards?”

  “I’m not sure,” Arlian said. “I’ve heard the word, but could you explain what you mean?”

  “A ward is…” Thirif frowned. “I know no other word for it in your tongue. It is a device or magic that surrounds a place and turns aside malign influences. The iron fences in Arithei serve as wards against wild magic, but would not stop any mortal, nor a properly made spell; for that we have magical wards. Any who try to enter a magically warded place while wishing the inhabitants harm will feel a compulsion to turn aside—a strong will may resist this compulsion, though. Hostile magic cannot enter a warded place unless it is stronger than the ward. If an enemy enters despite the ward, the magician who placed the ward will feel it and know what has happened. If the ward is broken by stronger magic, that, too, will be felt.”

  “That sounds ideal,” Arlian said. “Can you do that here?”

  “Of course. We brought many wardings with us, and they have not sold well—your northern sorcerers can create wards of their own. It is one of the few things that sorcery can do well—had we known that, we would not have brought them.”

  “But you did bring them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then by all means, place wards around the palace immediately. Strong ones.”

  “As you wish.” Thirif unfolded his legs and rose from his mat.

  “Thank you,” Arlian said.

  Thirif bowed an acknowledgment, then departed.

  Arlian stood gazing thoughtfully after the Aritheian for a moment. There was so much he didn’t know about magic! Wards were clearly a basic spell, yet he had needed an explanation.

  And there was so much he still didn’t know about Manfort, and about the city’s lords.

  And so much he didn’t know about dragons, about Lord Dragon, about the connections between Enziet and the dragons. Maybe Lord Enziet had not been told anything by Lord Kuruvan, but had known Arlian meant him harm by other means. How had Lord Dragon known that the dragons would destroy Obsidian, and that he could loot it?

  Enziet was a mystery. Was Sweet safe in his hands? Lord Dragon had taken her—what had he done with her, and with Dove? Were Sweet and Dove still alive? Hasty and Kitten were safe and well, but Lord Dragon was not Lord Kuruvan.

  At that, Arlian’s thoughts turned to his two houseguests. Kitten seemed to be settling in reasonably well—she had not yet taken up learning any sort of skills, but she professed to be thinking about it, and she had discovered the library. Arlian had not had time to use it himself, but the Old Palace had a library, and it had been furnished with a modest collection of books when he bought the place. These were presumably the books not considered worth the trouble of moving to the Citadel, but Kitten apparently found them interesting enough. She spent much of her time there.

  Hasty, on the other hand, had no interest in books—Arlian was not sure she knew how to read. Instead, during the several days Arlian had spent recovering from his wounds, she seemed to have devoted herself to harassing Arlian’s servants, demanding to be carried hither and yon for no reason, deliberately seducing and then abandoning one young man after another.

  He supposed she would get over it—especially if she was correct in suspecting that she was pregnant with Kuruvan’s child.

  As for himself, he had kept busy through his convalescence with his household and business. He had now sold off, through his agents, a significant fraction of the magical artifacts he had brought north from Arithei, and his income from those was augmented by investments he had made with the money thus generated. Keeping track of those hundreds of thousands of ducats was a considerable task, and working at it kept his mind off his plans for revenge, plans that could only circle endlessly and pointlessly in his head until he was again fit to fight.

  Now, while Thirif set wards and Arlian waited for Black’s return from the errands Arlian had assigned him, Arlian returned to his study to go over the latest business records once again. Until he had more information there was little else he could do.

  He had closed the account books and eaten supper, and was sitting in the salon, glass in hand, when Black returned. Arlian looked up from his wine expectantly as the steward stood over him.

  “Cover is dead,” Black said. “Five days ago.”

  That was not really a surprise—if anything, he had lived somewhat longer than Arlian had expected. “And Stammer?”

  Black shrugged.

  “If she can find nothing better, offer her a job here,” Arlian said.

  Black sighed. “As you say,” he said.

  “And Enziet?”

  Black hesitated.

  “Lord Enziet,” he said, “spoke to me at some length. To be specific, at sword’s length.”

  “What?” Arlian put down his glass.

  Black sighed again.

  “Sit down,” Arlian said, “and tell me all about it.” He gestured at the decanter and an empty glass.

  Black sat and poured himself a drink. He downed it in a gulp, then poured another.

  “I was kept waiting for some time after I gave yo
ur note to a footman,” Black said, “but at last Lord Enziet himself came to speak to me.” He grimaced. “Not alone; he had half a dozen guards with him, and his own sword ready in his hand.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I remember his very words,” Black said. “He told me, ‘Your master has nerve, demanding an apology from a man he intends to murder.’”

  “Oh,” Arlian said.

  “He went on at some length, as I told you,” Black said. “He is aware that you consider yourself wronged by the proprietors of the House of Carnal Society; he has no interest in the truth of such accusations, or for that matter in any sort of justice, fairness, or revenge. Instead he wants me to warn you that if you harass or harm him or any of his surviving partners further, or attempt to enter his home, he will kill you—and not in anything so formal as a duel. If I return, he will kill me. If you send any other messenger, he will kill the messenger. He is not concerned with rules or custom, and is confident that his hold over the Duke is more than enough to ensure he won’t suffer any legal consequences for any of these deaths should he choose to bring them about. He strongly advises you to leave Manfort and go back wherever you came from. That he hasn’t already killed you, he says, is only because he does not care to antagonize your Aritheian allies—but having now warned you, that won’t stop him if you persist. He assumes that once you’re dead the Aritheians can be made to see reason. Furthermore, if by some chance you do kill him, he has made arrangements to ensure that you will be killed in return.”

  Arlian swallowed.

  “He also says to tell you that the wards won’t stop him. I don’t know what that means, but I assume you do.”

  “Yes,” Arlian said.

  “Ari,” Black said, “I had never met Lord Enziet before. Remember not long after we met, I told you you had the heart of the dragon in you? Well, Enziet has the heart, soul, liver, and lights of the dragon. I don’t doubt for a minute that he means exactly what he says, and can do it.”

  “I don’t doubt it, either,” Arlian agreed. He picked up his glass and swallowed the rest of his wine. The heart of the dragon, he thought. Credentials for membership in the Dragon Society. Lord Enziet was undoubtedly a member.

  “He may decide to go ahead and kill you even if you don’t harass anyone,” Black said. “I think maybe you should go home. Or back to the Borderlands.”

  “No!” Arlian flung his glass away; it shattered against the wall as Arlian got to his feet. “This is my home! Dragons destroyed my first home; Lord Dragon burned the next; this is my home now, and they won’t take it away from me!” He grabbed Black by his shirt. “I will kill that bastard somehow! If he won’t let me do it openly and honorably in a duel, I will find another way!”

  “If he doesn’t kill you first,” Black said, locking his hands around Arlian’s wrists. “It would seem to me that you ought to concern yourself with staying alive before you worry about killing someone else. I’d point out that even if you do somehow get Enziet, that leaves at least four others who’ll want you dead—not even counting the Duke, once he’s deprived of the man who tells him what to do.”

  Arlian released Black’s shirt and stepped back. He looked thoughtfully at his friend. Staying alive was indeed a prerequisite for any planned revenge, and Lord Enziet was clearly a powerful man—Arlian remembered the casual way Lord Dragon had slashed Madam Ril’s throat with a single sweep of his sword, how he had paid no attention to the bright blood that had spurted from the wound, how no one had dared to step forward and oppose him or hinder him in any way.

  A man who could kill like that, a man who had all Manfort’s resources at his disposal … Arlian knew that if Lord Dragon were to decide Arlian must die, then Arlian would die, unless he took drastic measures to protect himself.

  Bodyguards, soldiers—he could afford them, but could he trust them? Did he want to live surrounded by them?

  He could flee the city, as Enziet suggested, but that would be defeat; it would mean giving up any chance at vengeance, and on a much less exalted level it would mean losing a significant portion of his fortune, since he could not hope to sell the Old Palace readily. He had paid far more than he should have to buy it and restore it, in the interests of impressing and intriguing the city’s nobility and advancing his planned revenge.

  And it would mean leaving Sweet and Dove in Lord Dragon’s clutches.

  What other means of protection could he find, then? Enziet had already discovered the wards Thirif had placed and dismissed them as inadequate, and Arlian did not think he was boasting. From what he had seen and heard, Lord Dragon had never struck him as boastful. Was there other, stronger magic he could employ?

  He could think of none. He was no magician. He would talk to Thirif, but he doubted that salvation lay in that direction. Both the Aritheians and his own people had told him that magic was deceitful and untrustworthy stuff, as likely to destroy you as preserve you.

  The best solution would be somehow to change Enziet’s mind, to convince him that killing Arlian would be a bad idea—and there might, Arlian realized, be a way to do that.

  “You spoke with him,” Arlian said. “Do you think he’s a man of honor?”

  “No,” Black said promptly. “But he may think he is.”

  “Would he break an oath?”

  “Probably. It would depend on the consequences.”

  The obvious next question, not spoken aloud, was whether he, Arlian, Lord Obsidian, would break an oath, given sufficient incentive.

  He wasn’t sure of the answer.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t need to. Perhaps he could find a way around it.

  But regardless of the oath, the time had come to walk down the Street of the Black Spire to a black door with a red bar. It was too late now, but come morning, he would go there.

  That was where he could find Lord Dragon and confront him without need for any invitation into anyone’s home. And that was where he could at least make it expensive for Lord Dragon to kill him, make him an outcast and oath breaker if he carried out his threats. If Arlian joined the Dragon Society, Lord Dragon would be sworn not to kill him within Manfort’s walls.

  That Arlian would be required to swear in return not to kill Lord Dragon was a matter he would deal with later.

  38

  Behind the Black Door

  “Wait here,” he told Black.

  The other man nodded and leaned back comfortably against a gray sun-warmed stone wall.

  Arlian stepped up to the black door. It was riveted iron, blackened, unpainted save for a broad red stripe across it. The handle was cast in the shape of a beast of some sort, but so worn that Arlian could not be sure just what it was meant to represent. It might have been a dragon.

  The building around it was gray stone, like so much of Manfort, but larger than most. There were few windows, and those there were were tall and narrow and horizontally barred with black iron.

  He reached out and touched the metal door; it was cold and slightly damp, rough with a thin layer of rust, and felt very solid. He pressed a palm against it, then made a fist and rapped.

  The resulting sound was so faint he was sure it couldn’t be heard inside the building. He looked around for a bell pull or knocker, but found none; he tried the latch, but it did not yield. Seeing no alternative, he shrugged, then pounded on the iron door with his fist.

  This time it rang, a deep, dull sound.

  Arlian waited, and a moment later the latch rattled and the door swung open, revealing a small, dim antechamber. A heavily built man dressed in dark green finery stepped around the door and looked Arlian in the eye.

  “Yes?”

  Arlian bowed. “I am Lord Obsidian,” he said. “Lord Wither tells me that I might be welcome here.”

  The man in green stared at him, studying Arlian’s face in a way that would ordinarily have been objectionably rude; Arlian stared back. For a moment the two men stood, eye to eye.

  “You’re very young for this place,
” the man in green said at last, “but the mark does seem to be there.”

  Arlian snorted. “Lord Wither had no doubt of it, and he didn’t have to count my eyelashes.”

  And for that matter, Arlian had not needed to stare as long as he had to recognize the dragon’s mark on the man in green—the doorkeeper was presumably a member, not merely a servant or slave. That explained his attire, which was far richer than any servant would wear.

  “Lord Wither is an exceptional man,” the doorkeeper said. “I don’t have a tenth his experience. And I must be sure before I let you pass the inner door.”

  “Are you sure, then?”

  “I believe I am. You wish to join the Dragon Society, then?”

  Arlian took a deep breath. “I do,” he said.

  “If you enter, you must join,” the man in green warned him. “Once inside you cannot change your mind; you join or you die.”

  Arlian hesitated. He had not expected that. Lord Wither had said it was easy, though, for one with the heart of the dragon.

  “It’s not too late to turn back,” the doorkeeper said, in reassuring tones.

  “No,” Arlian said. “I’ve come this far. I’ll join.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Certain enough.”

  “Enter, then.” The man stepped back, ushering Arlian inside.

  “I have my steward…” Arlian began.

  “No,” the man in green said firmly. “Only members and applicants pass through this door.”

  Arlian shrugged; he waved a farewell to Black, then stepped inside. The doorkeeper closed the heavy iron door behind him, shutting out the sunlight.

  For a moment he was in utter darkness and near-total silence, broken only by the scuffling of the doorkeeper, and he feared that his enemies had arranged a trap, that Lord Enziet had foreseen an attempt to join the Dragon Society and arranged to prevent it; then the inner door opened.

  The room beyond was vast, rich and strange, and brightly lit—not by sunlight, though it was a cheerful cloudless morning outside, but by dozens of assorted candles, perched on tables and shelves or mounted in wall sconces and candelabra. Thick carpets covered the floor, and where not hidden by shelves or cabinetry the walls were polished wood panels; the high ceiling was coffered and gilded. Chairs, sofas, and tables, all heavy and elaborately carved, were so numerous as to make the chamber seem cluttered and mazelike, despite its size; perhaps a dozen of the chairs were occupied. Most of those occupants were busy with their own concerns and did not look up at the new arrival. The air smelled of dust and candle smoke.