“You are a fool, then,” Nail said, slumping back into his chair. “Or at any rate, a very young man who has not yet learned when to hide the truth in sarcasm, or pretty words, or circumlocutions. I think Belly—Lord Toribor—was hasty, and having you here in the Dragon Society may be a good thing after all—the day may come when we meet outside the walls, but I’m in no hurry, and the longer we have to study each other, the more entertaining that day may eventually be.” He stared at Arlian for a moment, then sat up.
“My instruction,” Nail said, “is this: The Dragon Society’s purpose is in part as Rime stated it, to study our draconic foes; however, the original impetus was simply loneliness. You’re still very young, and you haven’t yet learned this, but we truly are a people apart from the rest of humanity. We are all tainted, we are all marked, we are all blessed and cursed. We have the power to influence others to some extent, to bend them to our will—but that sets us apart; the shepherd, however beloved by his sheep, is not a part of the flock. We live long lives, and are free of disease; we can walk unscathed through streets heaped with plague-ridden corpses—and this means that those around us age and sicken and die as we watch, and we can do nothing to prevent it. When Wither and I first met, centuries ago, and recognized one another as kindred beings, it meant an end to decades of loneliness, for we now had each other as companions—no matter what his failings, a fellow shepherd must surely be better company than the finest of sheep. And when Enziet found us, and Rehirian, and Sharrae, we gathered them to us gladly, and the Dragon Society was begun. We created the oath, and had this place built for us, and bethought ourselves as to what goals we might set the Society. Others have found us over the centuries, and joined for their own reasons, just as you have—but in time, each one has come to see that whatever other purposes we may have, the simple need for the companionship of our peers is reason enough for the Society’s existence. In time you, too, will come to prize all of us, and if we have indeed wronged you you may find it in you to forgive us. When this initiation is done, let us speak, you and I, and see if we can work this out amicably, shall we?”
Arlian hesitated. “Maybe,” he said.
Nail nodded. “I can wait—and so can you, child.” He turned to the woman beside him. “Ask your questions, Flute.”
Flute was tall and thin, with a long nose and a scar across the right side of her jaw; even unmarked, her face would have been far from beautiful.
“What do you know of sorcery?” she asked, in a cool, distant voice.
“Almost nothing,” Arlian said. “I have crossed the Dreaming Mountains to Arithei and back, so I have seen magic in many forms, and I have spent a great deal of time with Aritheian magicians, but I have not studied the arts myself. I deal in magical devices, potions, and other such things, but I am only the merchant, not the manufacturer, and besides, I do not believe this magic is properly considered sorcery—I brought my goods and my magicians from Arithei, and they dismiss our northern sorcery as a different and lesser sort of magic than their own. Like the rest of you, I am a nobleman—I own a business, I do not dirty my own hands with the labor of running it. I am therefore familiar with what Aritheian magic can do, and what the wild magic beyond the Borderlands looks like, but that’s all.”
“You learned nothing from your village elders or the local sorcerer as a child?”
“Nothing at all. We had a sorcerer in Obsidian, but he and I rarely spoke, and even more rarely of his specialty. My grandfather told me a few tales, but nothing more.”
“Do you know what I mean by sorcery, as opposed to mere magic?”
“No.”
Flute sighed.
“Then my instruction, Obsidian, must be very rudimentary, for you haven’t the knowledge for more, and it may sound like mere nonsense. Long ago, very long ago, the legends tell us, the dragons dwelt amid chaos and were displeased by it. They drove the chaos back and imposed order; they drove it southward, for the most part, out of the lands they had chosen for themselves. Or another version has it that the gods accomplished this, and the dragons later usurped their place, but the point is unchanged: Chaos is at the very root of magic—instability, change, and deception, these are the core of magic, and the dragons dispelled them from the Lands of Man.
“It may be that the dragons are themselves creatures of magic, and did not want competition. It may be that the dragons are somehow the opposite of magic. We don’t know. We do know that in the lands where the dragons once ruled, the lands that are now the Lands of Man, magic is a dry well, while south of the Borderlands it’s a flood. Perhaps the dragons drank the magic; perhaps they swept it away; perhaps they are this land’s magic. Whatever the reasons, beyond the Lands of Man magic runs rampant, and anyone with a little skill can learn to manipulate it—but no one can truly control it, for it’s too powerful, too wild.
“And here, in Manfort, magic is so weak, so feeble, that it must either be brought in from outside, as you are doing, in which case it’s strong and easy but flawed and fades over time, or it must be coaxed and teased out in tiny threads, and the skills to do this are so arcane, so difficult, that it takes a lifetime to master them.
“These skills, the ability to use the thin traces of magic native to this land, are sorcery; what the Aritheians do is not, but is mere crude thaumaturgy. Sorcery is subtle and strong and lasting; thaumaturgy is bright and impressive, but unstable and untrustworthy.
“And because sorcery takes so long to master—well, who do you suppose is best suited to study it?” She waved at the gathering around her. “We are, we who can devote centuries to the task. Members of the Dragon Society are expected to learn at least the rudiments of sorcery—though there’s no need to hurry. You’ll have all the time you need.”
“If Enziet doesn’t kill you,” a woman further around the circle muttered.
“My lady, are you implying that our own Enziet might break his oath?” Door asked.
“No,” the woman replied, “I’m suggesting that someday young Arlian may set foot outside Manfort’s gate.”
Door could hardly argue with that, and it was not his time to speak; he subsided, and the man to Flute’s right asked, “Is it my turn? I don’t recall anything else essential, so I’ll ask what I’m sure we’re all wondering—why in the world are you determined to kill Enziet and the others in the first place?”
Arlian had expected this. “He kidnapped me and sold me into slavery when I was a child,” he said. “And he and the others killed four women I cared for.”
“Did he! Well, then, you must tell us all about it!”
Arlian sighed. He collected his wits for a moment, then began, “I was in the cellars with my grandfather when we heard screaming…”
40
Contemplating Eternity
The iron door swung open and Arlian stepped out into the street. He was not surprised to find it dark; after all, he had just come from a candlelit chamber where he had lost all track of time.
He was somewhat surprised to find Black still waiting for him, and said so.
“This street’s as good a place as any to wait,” Black replied. “I had a chance to chat with Lord Toribor, for example.”
“Did he say anything of interest?”
“He thinks you’re completely mad; is that of interest?”
Arlian grimaced. “It seems to be the consensus.” He clapped Black on the shoulder. “Come on; let’s go home.”
The two men set out toward the Old Palace, making their way through the badly lit cobblestone streets; the moonlight was sufficient to see them through those areas where no torches, lanterns, or illuminated windows served.
“If you’d brought a lantern…” Arlian began as he stubbed his toe on an uneven cobble.
“If I’d brought a lantern I’d have been demonstrating a truly remarkable prescience,” Black retorted. “We came here at midmorning, remember? I hadn’t expected to stay all day. Had you not emerged soon I might well have given up and gone home.”
; “As I thought you would have,” Arlian replied penitently. “Thank you for waiting, and forgive my unreasonableness.”
Black waved that away.
They walked on for a moment longer, and Arlian glanced sideways at his companion.
Why had Black stayed? What had Arlian done to inspire such loyalty? He wasn’t paying Black for this sort of attention.
But Black was his friend—whether because of the dragon’s heart Arlian possessed, or because of some more natural human magic. That was a gift Arlian appreciated, but sometimes, he thought, not enough.
He thought over what he had heard in the Dragon Society’s hall. The questioning and instruction had dragged on and on; new members, beyond the original fourteen, had wandered in now and then, and had joined in, sometimes repeating things that had already been said—Arlian had not kept count, but thought he had met and spoken to perhaps a score in all. He was, he had been told, the forty-third living member whose current whereabouts were known.
The eight skulls on that one shelf were some of the deceased members, all eight of whom had died violently at various points over the past seven centuries, in duels, accidents, assassinations, or other mishaps; a few others had died in such fashion that their bones were not recovered. The whereabouts of some members were not known, nor whether they were living or dead.
There was no requirement that every member speak to him; only that those present at the time each question him, and each offer some instruction in exchange. They had done that.
Arlian had told them every detail he could remember of the destruction of Obsidian on the Smoking Mountain; he had admitted to being an escaped slave, and had described something of his stay in Deep Delving. That had not caught anyone’s fancy very strongly, though; the passage through the Dreaming Mountains, and his visit to Arithei, had gotten much more attention. He had also admitted his residence in Westguard.
And in exchange he had heard a great deal of the Dragon Society’s history, how it had been part of the resistance against the dragons in the final days of their rule, how its members had been among Manfort’s rulers, how the traditions of secret societies, false names, and noble privilege had been established or preserved by the Dragon Society for the benefit of its members, the better to hide their strangeness from ordinary mortals.
He knew now that the governance of Manfort was manipulated by the Society as a whole, most directly by Lord Enziet and the other advisers such as Rime and Drisheen but also by other means, for their own ends. The Duke of Manfort was not a member, might not even be aware the group existed, but most of his advisers belonged to the Society and were as interested in its welfare as that of the city as a whole.
Chief among those advisers was Lord Enziet, of course—the man Arlian had known for years as Lord Dragon. Arlian had learned a little about Enziet, but not much; he had made no attempt to press, since the others were clearly reluctant to gossip about one of their senior members.
Lady Rime had been present, but had said nothing of her own work with the Duke, and Arlian had no special interest in her. Lord Drisheen, another adviser who was also on the list of six lords Arlian meant to destroy, had not appeared, and Arlian had learned no more about him than about Enziet.
Arlian had heard a great deal about what the blood-and-venom elixir actually did, though. He knew now that he would probably never sire children—no member of the Dragon Society had ever produced offspring after joining, although a few had descendants from before their draconic encounters, and it was assumed that this lack was due to induced sterility, since there had been no shortage of opportunities for procreation.
He knew that he need never fear disease or infection—that he had had even a mild case of fever in the mines startled the others, and he was assured that that could only have happened in his very earliest years after drinking the elixir. He had been assured that he could expect every wound that did not actually kill him to heal quickly and cleanly—only the injuries inflicted by dragons left scars.
And he knew that he could expect to live for centuries—but probably not forever. The very oldest of those who had drunk the elixir were gone, and presumed dead—although each had left Manfort willingly, under his or her own power, they had never returned. Wither, Nail, and Enziet were the three oldest survivors, each approaching a thousand years of age.
Wither had turned up briefly at one point, and had questioned Arlian viciously about whether he really knew where venom might be obtained.
Enziet had not come, which was probably just as well—but it was also disappointing. It would have been satisfying for Arlian finally to see him face to face again, after all these years, and to see his reaction upon learning who Obsidian was, and to knowing for certain that he was bound by the same oath Arlian had sworn.
“By whatever gods may hear, be they living or dead,” he had recited when the questioning was done, “I swear that I shall abide by the covenant of this society, to share whatever knowledge I may have of our common foes, the dragons. I swear to make no attempt to do mortal harm to any other member while we are within the walls of this city, nor to aid or abet another in any effort to do such harm to any member.”
That oath might prove inconvenient—but at the same time, it had given Arlian an opportunity to speak freely with Nail, and that had been worthwhile.
Nail claimed that he had taken a share in the House of Carnal Society at Enziet’s urging, not on his own impulse; further, he was willing to set Lily and Musk free in Arlian’s care. “I tired of them long since,” he had said. “They’ve been working in my kitchens.”
He had taken an interest in Arlian’s own humanitarian impulses and views on justice, but he hardly subscribed to them. “You’ll outgrow that, I fear,” he had said.
Nail had seemed quite certain that Arlian would outgrow a great many things, that in time he would become more like Nail himself, more like most of the others—cool, cynical, unconcerned with the lives of people he would outlive anyway.
Arlian hoped he was wrong, and noted Toribor’s anger and Wither’s devotion to his mistress Marasa as signs that neither great age nor dragon venom need quench all passions.
But a general detachment from the rest of humanity seemed to have affected all the members, and Arlian wondered whether in time he too would grow cold.
He studied Black as they walked.
Would he eventually come to think of Black as his inferior, rather than his equal? As a thing to be used, rather than an adviser and companion?
He could not easily imagine it—but then he remembered Lord Dragon’s face and voice telling him that he was nothing but plunder to be sold, remembered Lord Dragon’s sword cutting Madam Ril’s throat. A natural man could not be so cold.
He hoped that he would never become a creature like that. He thought he would almost prefer to die in one of the duels he intended to fight outside the city walls.
But no one in the Dragon Society had seemed the least bit surprised or dismayed by his explanation of why he had sworn vengeance against Lord Dragon; they had all accepted Enziet’s actions as normal, if unpleasant.
“He didn’t know you’d drunk the venom,” Nail had said.
“And if he had, would it have made any difference?” Rime had asked, and the consensus was no, not for Enziet; he’d have done the same in any case.
So Enziet was probably the worst, but all of them had something of the same cold detachment and ruthlessness. And presumably, in time, so would Arlian—if he didn’t already. He remembered how he had insisted on fighting Kuruvan …
But he also remembered how he had felt when the duel was almost upon him, how he’d felt sick and scared and doubting; that had not been anything he would expect from a member of the Society.
Maybe he was different. Maybe he would always be different. And maybe, if he did start to turn cold, he would notice the change and do something about it.
But Black would probably be long dead by then.
Black would be dead, and he w
ould be living on, untouched by age. Maybe that was what turned the Society’s members cold—not the venom, but watching their friends and family age and fade and die.
Then a thought struck him, and he smiled to himself.
He was being absurd. He wasn’t going to live long enough to turn cold. He had sworn an oath, after all; once he had disposed of Lord Enziet and the others he would hunt down the dragons themselves, and try to kill them.
He wouldn’t need to commit suicide to keep from turning heartless; the dragons would undoubtedly kill him if Lord Enziet didn’t.
He needed to find some way to get Enziet and the others outside the city, and away from their friends and guards, where he could meet them on even terms.
With that, his thoughts began to slip back into older, more familiar paths, and concerns about his own nature faded away.
He still had his vengeance to carry out. He had not yet met Lord Enziet, Lord Drisheen, or Lord Horim at the Dragon Society hall; Lord Nail was an old man who didn’t seem to be inclined to cause trouble, and Lord Toribor was a hothead who could probably be lured out easily.
But there was no need to hurry, was there? He would have centuries in which to realize his plans.
Centuries. That was a hard concept to accept.
He was back to those new ideas, the new information about the Dragon Society and his own strange circumstances.
There were still things he didn’t know, though. No one had explained how Lord Enziet had known that a village on the Smoking Mountain was going to be destroyed, or why a man as rich and powerful as Enziet would bother looting a ruined village or investing in a brothel. He had told them all what had happened to Obsidian, but no one had said anything about that.
At some point he would have to ask someone about those points. They might be important. He would go back to the Society’s hall tomorrow or the day after and see if anyone there could tell him.
They were at the gate of the Old Palace now, and there were more immediate matters to attend to.
“Have you eaten anything?” he asked Black.
Dragon Weather Page 36
