The crowd broke into a chorus of wild growls. Fylo beamed at them in delight, then looked into the bear’s eyes. He nodded, signaling Agis that now was a good time to reveal the secret that would keep Nal from being angry. The half-breed suspected that they did not have long before the bawan was ready to cut the bear’s head off.
Nal continued, “As if he had not already done enough to earn our esteem, Fylo brought his animal-brother to us in a third the time that any convert has ever done it before!” The bawan gestured at the bear. “It only took him five days to convince this mighty beast to give up its head!”
Fylo did not miss the note of mockery in Nal’s voice, but the wild shrieks and whistles that accompanied the crowd’s cheer reassured him that all was well.
Nal gestured for Fylo to enter the enclosure. “Bring your bear inside, my friend.”
The proud smile faded from Fylo’s lips, and he could not tear his gaze away from the bear. He wondered why Agis was waiting so long to tell him the secret that would make Nal happy. The thought crossed his mind that his friend had betrayed him; maybe there was no secret.
“You give Fylo bear’s head now?” he asked, already dreading the moment when the bawan found Agis and the others inside the beast.
“We should wait for dawn,” Nal said. “But foolish Mag’r thinks he’s sneaking up on us. The Joorsh army will arrive before dawn, so we’ll have to do this tonight.”
Fylo’s jaw fell open in astonishment. “The Joorsh?” he gasped. “Here?”
Nal nodded. “It’s taken a long time for them to get up the nerve to attack, but our losses to the Balican fleet finally gave them the courage,” said the bawan. He fluffed the feathers beneath his beak, then eyed Fylo thoughtfully. “Strange how that worked, isn’t it?”
The giant furrowed his brow. “How what work?”
“Sachem Mag’r and I had an agreement. If the Balicans interfered in our war, we were to suspend our fight and attack Balic.” Nal reached behind the enclosure wall and grabbed an axe. It had an obsidian blade as large as a schooner’s keel-board. “But instead of attacking Balic, the Joorsh are sneaking up on us!” the bawan yelled, obviously angry.
“Nasty Joorsh!” Fylo agreed, nodding vigorously.
The bawan laid the axe blade against Fylo’s neck. “I think Sachem Mag’r doesn’t need the Oracle as much as he claims. I think he’s smart enough to send you here to warn me about the fleet, so we would attack it—and lose a quarter of our warriors!”
“Fylo no Joorsh!” Fylo gasped. “Sachem Mag’r filthy!”
Nal did not remove the blade. “And do you know what else I think?” he sneered. “I think you’re not as dumb as you act. It’s no coincidence that you returned on the eve of Mag’r’s attack, is it?”
Fylo’s recessed jaw began to quiver, and he shook his head. “Not Fylo’s idea,” he said.
Bawan Nal snorted. “What are you to do?” he demanded. “Wait until the battle starts, then use your bear to open the gate?”
Fylo shook his head. “No. Bawan think wrong.”
“I think right,” Nal replied, raising his axe.
The bear leaped forward, knocking Fylo aside and blocking the bawan’s axe with an immense foreleg. The blow took the limb cleanly off. A trickle of cold blood spilled from the dead beast’s wound, and it crashed face first to the stony ground. Instantly, a dozen Saram warriors jumped on its back and began prying at its bony armor.
The half-breed stepped toward the bear, then abruptly stopped. He still did not know whether Nal had been lying about making him a Saram, so he couldn’t decide whether he should try to correct the misunderstanding or attack Nal.
As Fylo contemplated his decision, the dead bear tried briefly to stand. The giants on its back weighed too much for even its great strength, and it collapsed back to the ground. The beastheads attacked with renewed fury, and a shoulder plate went sailing out of the fray. Soon, the half-breed knew, they would reach the bear’s interior. They were so furious that he doubted they would even notice Agis’s small body before they ripped it to pieces.
The thought of losing his first and only true friend made up Fylo’s mind for him. He stepped over to the fray and grabbed a weasel-headed woman, throwing her off the bear.
“Get up, Agis!” he yelled.
Behind you, Fylo! came the reply. Don’t worry about us.
The half-breed spun and saw Nal standing behind him. His axe was raised to strike again, but, astonished by the bear’s mental message, he was staring at it in wide-eyed astonishment. Fylo gave the bawan a mighty shove, sending him crashing back into the quartz enclosure. Nal’s head hit the wall with a resounding crack, and the axe slipped from his hands. His eyes grew glassy and unfocused, then he reached back to grasp a large crystal and brace himself.
Returning his attention to saving Agis, Fylo pulled another Saram off the pile, then a second, and a third. As quickly as he flung one aside, another leaped into the missing warrior’s place. Other beastheads began to attack him, clawing at his gravelly skin and raining thunderous blows down on his head. The half-breed could see that he would never free his friend in this manner, but he did not know what else he could do.
The bear’s efforts were just as futile. Pinned as it was on its stomach, it could bring neither its three remaining legs nor its muzzle to bear on them. It tried to roll over and crawl away, but met with no success. The immense weight bearing down on it probably would have been too great for a live bear, and Fylo knew that, as exhausted as Agis must be, he would not be able to infuse its muscles with even that much strength.
“Leave bear!” Fylo yelled, locking his arm around a lizard-headed Saram. “Bear not dangerous—Fylo is!”
The half-breed grabbed the warrior’s chin and pulled, snapping the neck with a loud crackle. A death rattle gurgled from the beasthead’s throat, then he dropped motionless to the ground. The other Saram hardly seemed to notice, save that some of those attacking him added their fangs to the battle.
Run, Fylo! Agis sent. You’ll do us more good if you escape.
“But—”
Do it! Agis commanded. Before Nal attacks you again.
The half-breed grabbed a Saram attacker and spun around to see Nal leaping at him. The bawan held his fingers splayed like claws, while his hooked beak gaped wide-open for the strike. Fylo hurled his captive at the owl-headed giant. Both Saram crashed to the ground with a tremendous rumble, Nal’s fingers and beak slashing wildly at his tribesman.
Fylo stepped away, pumping his legs hard as he tried to sprint to safety. Three strides later, a handful of Saram hit him from the side. The half-breed slammed into the ground and heard himself groan as his breath was forced from his lungs. In the next instant, he found a beasthead warrior sitting on each of his limbs, with two more straddling his chest.
Gasping for breath, he arched his back and tried to roll. His efforts were to no avail. Like his bear, he could not battle the sheer crush of bodies holding him down. Fylo looked toward the beast and saw that the Saram had ripped most of its bony plates away. Now they were mercilessly gouging its dead flesh with their fangs and filthy fingernails. The half-breed summoned his remaining strength and made one last attempt to pull free of his captors, but could not liberate even a single limb.
Nal came over and stood at Fylo’s side, holding his axe near the half-breed’s head. “I accepted you into my tribe,” he hissed angrily. “And you repay me with treachery!”
The bawan brought the axe handle down. A loud crack rang through Fylo’s skull, and everything went black for a moment. His nose went numb, and blood began to stream back into his throat, filling his mouth with a coppery taste.
“Please,” Fylo begged. “Don’t let warriors hurt little people.”
“Little people?” Nal asked.
The bawan struck again with his axe handle. This time, a terrible lancing pain shot through Fylo’s eye. The lid puffed up instantly.
“In bear,” Fylo said, using his chin to moti
on toward the beast. “They have secret for Bawan Nal.”
Nal stopped hitting Fylo and twisted his fluffy head toward the bear. About that time, the half-breed saw a flash of blue, sizzling light glimmer over the beast’s entire body. The Saram pinning it to the ground screamed in shock and clawed madly at each other in their panicked haste to leap free. With a great roar, the beast rose to its three remaining feet and galloped forward in an awkward hobble, heading straight for Fylo.
Nal stepped between the half-breed and his bear, hefting the axe and hooting an eerie war cry. The bear flung itself into the air, trying to leap over the blade and seize the bawan’s head in its maw.
Nal ducked. At the same time, the bawan brought his blade around in a horizontal slice that severed the bear’s remaining foreleg and ripped the bony armor off its chest. The animal’s long snout plowed into the rocky ground and stopped, while the momentum of its charge carried it head over heels. Its immense rump crashed into the enclosure wall, and it came to rest flat on its back.
“Agis!” Fylo yelled, worried about his friend.
The bawan’s axe flashed three more times, severing the bear’s two remaining limbs and its head. Once the beast could cause no more harm, Nal positioned himself above its chest and swung his blade one more time. When it cleaved the bear’s sternum, Fylo heard a trio of muffled screams sound from inside the beast’s body.
Nal’s ears pricked up. He pulled his axe free with a loud rasp, then reached into the wound with both hands to pull the sternum apart. The heavy bones separated with a sharp crack, and he opened it up like a walnut.
“What have we here?” the bawan asked. He glanced back at Fylo with an angry glimmer in his eye, then thrust a huge hand inside the bear’s chest. “Lungworms?”
TEN
THE CRYSTAL PIT
AN IMMENSE SHEET OF ROCK CRYSTAL COVERED the pit, its edges melting into the surrounding granite with no visible seam. So thin and pellucid was this lid that whenever one of the amorphous forms beneath slipped up to press against the veneer, Agis saw the ghostly features of a face. Usually the visage belonged to a child with a soft chin, fleshy cheeks, and hurt, questioning eyes.
“Why did you come to Lybdos?” demanded Nal.
The bawan stood on Sa’ram’s Bridge, a stone trestle that arced over the pit. With one hand, he held Agis’s ankles, dangling the noble far above the translucent slab. In his other hand, Nal clutched Tithian and Kester, his fingers wrapped so tightly around their chests that their faces had turned purple.
Tithian was the one who answered. “We’ve already told you!” the king declared. “Our ship wrecked on Mytilene. Sachem Mag’r promised to let us live if we helped him.”
“The Joorsh are attacking at dawn,” added Kester. “That’s when we’re supposed to open yer gates.”
“And what was Fylo’s part in this plan?”
With the hand clutching Tithian and Kester, the bawan gestured across the pit, where four Saram warriors held the unconscious half-breed by his arms and legs. The rest of the enclosure was empty, for most Saram were busy preparing for the next day’s battle.
“Fylo has no part in this,” said Agis. “We tricked him into helping us.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Nal hissed. “I’m wise enough to know that you are thieves, and that Fylo is a traitor to all giants.” The bawan nodded to the tribesmen holding the giant. “Show our guests what awaits them.”
The four warriors pitched Fylo’s battered body onto the pit. The slab did not shatter or even crack, but merely sagged under the giant’s great weight. The half-breed lay on his back, covering the silvery sheet almost completely, with his hands and feet hanging over the edges. Beneath him, the ghostly faces pressed their lips and noses against the sheet, their muffled voices crying out in the high-pitched tones of excited children. Many of the Saram backed away from the hole, covering whatever passed for ears on their beastly heads and turning away with fearful expressions on their faces.
After a moment, Fylo began to sink, slowly passing through the rock crystal. The faces began to swirl around him in blurry, saffron streaks. Then, as his shoulders and knees melted through the slab, the half-breed fell free and plunged into the hole. The ghostly countenances streaked into the darkness after him.
“The giant you just killed never intended you anything but good!” Agis yelled, glaring up at Nal.
“That is for me to decide,” the bawan replied. “Besides, I doubt Fylo is dead—though he’ll soon wish he were.”
“What do you mean?” Agis demanded.
“This is where we keep our deformed heads after we become true Saram. We must give them playthings so they can amuse themselves, or they will fade away—and us with them,” he said, his ears cocked at a cruel angle. “Be assured, the Castoffs will make Fylo pay for his treachery a thousand times over.”
“I suggest you think carefully before sending us to join him,” said Tithian. “If you release us, we can help you defeat the Joorsh. But if you try to punish us, nothing will stop us from helping them defeat your tribe.”
Nal’s eyes flashed angrily. “Your threats are as empty as your promises,” he said. “What difference can three puny humans make in a battle between giants?”
“We may be small, but my magic is not,” said Tithian. “It’s for you to decide whether I use it to aid you, or to oppose you.”
Nal’s hooked beak clattered in the bawan’s equivalent of a chuckle. “I think you’re overestimating the value of your magic,” he said. The bawan leaned over and thrust the hand holding Tithian and Kester toward the pit, then opened his fingers and allowed the tarek to fall free. A short scream sounded from her lips before she slammed into the slab and lay motionless, the Castoffs swarming up to press their faces to the crystal beneath her body.
“If you are so powerful, save her,” said Nal.
Tithian tried to pull his arms free. Nal continued to hold him tight, preventing the king from reaching for his spell components or making any mystical gestures.
“Loosen your grip,” Tithian ordered. “I need my hands to use my magic.”
“How unfortunate for your tarek friend,” sneered the bawan, watching Kester’s stunned form slowly rise to her knees. “I don’t think I should trust you with free hands.”
On the crystal lid, Kester rose to her knees and crawled toward the edge. She had traveled only a short distance before her arms and legs melted into the rock crystal. The tarek snarled in frustration and looked up at Agis. “I never should’ve taken your silver,” she said, slipping the rest of the way through the lid.
After she vanished into the abyss, Nal turned Agis right-side up, then lifted him and Tithian to the level of his golden eyes. “Now, tell me what you thieves want with the Oracle, or you will join her.”
“We have no interest in the Oracle,” Agis said. “It’s the Joorsh—”
“Don’t deny it!” snapped the bawan. “Sa’ram has told me that humans seek it.”
“Sa’ram said that?” Tithian asked. “Why would he think we want your Oracle?”
Agis realized the answer to the question almost before the king had finished asking it: the Oracle had to be the same thing as the Dark Lens. It was the lens that the ancient dwarf and his partner had stolen from the Pristine Tower so many centuries ago, and only it would be so important to them that they were still keeping a watch over it a thousand years later. Probably, the noble reasoned, they had brought it here for safekeeping, and the artifact had eventually become a central focus of giant culture.
“Sa’ram does not explain his reasons to any giant—even me,” Nal said, answering Tithian’s question. “But to doubt him would be foolish.”
“Of course, as it would be to doubt Jo’orsh,” Tithian replied, nodding with exaggerated sincerity. “We know that even in Tyr. We also know that they’re the dwarves who stole the Dark Lens—what you call the Oracle—from the Pristine Tower.”
“How dare you say such a thing!” Nal roared, indigna
nt. “Sa’ram and Jo’orsh were the first giants, not dwarves!”
Agis raised his brow, suspecting that both Tithian and Nal were correct. From the Book of the Kemalok Kings, he knew that Sa’ram and Jo’orsh had been the last dwarven knights. But, as the birthplace of the Dragon, the Pristine Tower had become a dangerous and magical place, where living beings were transformed from one kind of creature into something as different as it was hideous. Given that the two dwarves had penetrated to its very core, it seemed likely that they had come out as something else—in this case, giants.
“The race of Jo’orsh and Sa’ram is not important,” Tithian said. “What matters is that they were thieves. We’ve come to reclaim what they stole for the rightful owner.”
Agis frowned. “There’s no need for lies,” he said. “The truth will work better here.”
Tithian fixed a murderous gaze on the noble. “I agree. That’s why I am being honest, this time.” He looked back to Nal. “I’m here on behalf of the true owner of the Dark Lens.”
“How can that be?” scoffed the bawan. “Sa’ram has said that Rajaat fell more than a thousand years ago.”
Tithian gave the giant a confident smile. “If you know the history of Rajaat, then you also know who defeated him, and therefore who has the right to his property.”
“You can’t mean Borys!” Agis gasped. “Even you couldn’t sink to such depths of corruption!”
“It’s not corruption for a king to do what he must to save his city,” Tithian replied.
“You care nothing for Tyr!” the noble accused, noting that Nal was silently watching the exchange with rapt interest. “By giving the lens to the Dragon, you would destroy everything the city stands for—as well as any hope we may have of saving the rest of Athas. What can be worth that?”
The Obsidian Oracle Page 16
