The Obsidian Oracle

by Denning, Troy

  “That’s not your concern,” Tithian replied, pointedly turning his head away.

  Knowing that he would learn no more by arguing, the noble fell silent and began to puzzle out the king’s motivations for himself. Tithian was not the type to serve as an errand boy for someone else, especially not when the task involved dangers such as they faced at the moment. If the king had come here on the Dragon’s behalf, there had to be a special reward in it for him—and Agis had to figure out what.

  Tithian continued his discussion with Nal. “I suggest you give the Oracle to me now, Bawan,” he said. “You’ll save your tribe a terrible fight with the Joorsh.”

  Nal held the king out at arm’s length and let Tithian’s legs dangle free. “And what happens when I drop you instead?”

  “You and your tribe will die, if not at Mag’r’s hands, then at the Dragon’s,” Tithian replied. Had he been back in the Golden Palace addressing his personal valet, he could not have sounded any more calm and sure of himself.

  “You’re bluffing,” Agis said.

  The bawan nodded. “Your friend is right,” he said, still holding the king over the pit. “I have nothing to fear from the Dragon. Sa’ram’s magic prevents Borys and his minions from discovering the Oracle’s location.”

  “Am I not Borys’s servant? And did I not find the lens?” Tithian asked. “There are ways to bypass the spells hiding it—as my presence here proves.”

  Nal remained silent.

  “Both Andropinis and Borys know I took a Balican fleet to search for the lens,” the king continued, pressing his argument. “When not one ship out of twenty returns, how long will it take them to guess what happened? How many giant villages will the Dragon destroy before he lands on Lybdos?”

  “Your audacity is astounding,” Agis said. “No one else would dare threaten his captor in these circumstances—but I suppose I should expect no less. You’ve always been boldest when the prize was the greatest.”

  A cloud came over Tithian’s face. “I warn you, don’t interfere.”

  “Interfere with what?” demanded Nal.

  “With the arrangements I’ve made to keep the Dragon from savaging Tyr,” supplied Tithian, jumping in with an answer before Agis could respond. “Pay him no attention. Nothing he can say will change what I’ve told you.”

  Agis did not correct the statement, for if Nal was the kind of ruler who would allow himself to be intimidated, anything the noble could say would only make matters worse. Still, Agis perceived the lie behind the words, for he had long been suspicious of the purpose behind the king’s preoccupation with sorcery and the Way. Now, it had become apparent that Tithian lacked only the Dark Lens to convert his dream into a nightmare for Tyr.

  After considering Tithian’s words for a moment, Nal said, “I wish to know what prize you expect to earn by giving our Oracle to the Dragon.”

  “All you need to know is that in the end, you’ll give the lens to me, or the Dragon will take it from the ruins of your citadel,” Tithian countered. “The choice is yours.”

  The bawan’s neck feathers ruffled. “I’ve heard the truth in what you’ve said, Tithian,” he said. “And before this is over, I’ll also hear the truth in what you haven’t said.”

  It disappointed Agis to see Nal restraining his anger, for it meant Tithian’s threats had affected him. “I’m sure you’ll find what the king hasn’t said more interesting than what he did, Bawan,” said Agis. “But first, it would serve you well to hear me out. I’ve also come to Lybdos seeking use of the Dark Lens, but my purpose is to kill the Dragon, not serve him. Only then can we return Athas to the paradise it once was.”

  “Kill the Dragon?” Nal muttered, incredulous.

  “My friends have already gathered two of the things we need,” Agis replied. “We have an enchanted sword forged by Rajaat himself, and our sorceress has been imbued with the magic of the Pristine Tower. All we need now is the Dark Lens.”

  “And what magic will keep the Castoffs in their cave after you take the Oracle away?” Nal demanded.

  “The same magic that keeps them in the caves when it’s the Joorsh’s turn to keep the lens,” Agis countered.

  “Mytilene is only a wade of three days away from Lybdos, and even at that distance the magic is weakened. Many Castoffs escape and harm my Saram,” he said. “If I allow you to take the Oracle farther away, my tribe will be destroyed as surely as if the Dragon took it from us.”

  “Perhaps we can find another way to keep them at bay,” Agis insisted. “This is for the good of all Athas.”

  “What do I care about Athas?” Nal replied. “My concern is the Saram first, and all giants second.”

  “Killing Borys benefits giants, too!” Agis objected.

  “Not as much as keeping the Oracle where it belongs,” replied the bawan, lowering Agis toward the pit. “No matter how noble you believe your cause, I won’t allow you to steal it from us.”

  With that, Nal dropped Agis onto the crystal lid.

  The noble’s knees buckled as soon as he hit, and he collapsed onto his side. The surface seemed curiously warm, and Agis could feel it buzzing with the flow of energy. Below his cheek, Castoffs began to press their faces against the translucent surface, and he could hear them crying in the lonely, frightened voices of young children.

  Agis closed his eyes. Although he had not been able to use the Way to help Fylo or Kester, he hoped to save himself by buoying his body on its surface, much as Damras had shown him how to float a ship. He felt the familiar tingle of energy rising from deep within himself—then a brilliant flash exploded inside his mind, bringing with it the blaring clamor of a thousand trumpets. The noble’s mind ruptured into unbelievable agony, and, though he could not hear it over the terrible din inside his head, a horrid scream rasped out of his throat. Every muscle in his body erupted into fiery pain, and a wicked, cramping torment filled his stomach. He tried to open his eyes, but found it impossible. From somewhere above him, he heard Bawan Nal laugh.

  “That’s but a small taste of the Oracle’s power,” the Saram said. “Do not call on the Way again—or the anguish you feel will be a hundred times worse.”

  The pain vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving Agis soaked in cold sweat and gasping for breath. A freezing chill ran through his body. He opened his eyes and found himself half-submerged in rock crystal. One side of his body had already passed through the translucent cover. It was visible only as a pinkish blur, and it was as numb as ice. The noble looked up and was surprised to see Tithian watching him with a remorseful expression, then he dropped into the abyss.

  Agis plunged downward for what seemed like forever, his gaze fixed on the translucent cover above, his terrified screams breaking against huge quartz crystals growing out of the granite walls. The Castoffs streamed after him, their masklike faces strangely detached from any semblance of a head and glowing in the darkness like a hundred moons.

  Agis crashed into something pulpy and warm, stopping with a terrifying abruptness that sent a fiery ache burning through his abdomen. His head smashed into a bony rib and his limbs slapped against hairy flesh, then a deep grunt echoed off the walls of the pit.

  Agis found himself cradled in Fylo’s midriff, more than a dozen yards below the pit’s crystal cover. As he looked around, he glimpsed Kester’s motionless form draped over the giant’s shoulder, a dozen Castoffs teeming over her body. The giant’s head was also being swarmed, with several glowing faces jostling for position as they each tried to slip over his visage.

  The noble rolled onto his stomach, preparing to stand, and found himself peering past Fylo’s hip into the crystal-lined depths of a black shaft. It occurred to Agis that the half-breed had gotten lodged far above the abyss bottom, then the searing nettle of the Castoffs’ touch erupted all over his body.

  Bawan Nal allowed Tithian a moment to contemplate Agis’s fate, then pinched the king between a massive thumb and finger. “Tell me what reward you expected in return for s
tealing our Oracle,” the Saram ordered. He pressed his fingertips toward each other, painfully compressing Tithian’s chest. “Or must I squeeze the answer from you?”

  “What does it matter to you?” the king asked. “You have no choice except to yield the Oracle.”

  The Saram’s ears twitched several times, and he brought Tithian closer to his eye. “You’re the one without choices.”

  As Nal’s beak closed, the king heard the soft hiss of a deep breath. The bawan’s eye suddenly grew cold and still, and Tithian found his attention riveted on the yellow orb. He tried to look away and could not.

  Realizing that his mind was about to be attacked, Tithian visualized his defense: an unbreakable net of transparent energy, so fine that not even a gnat could slip through the mesh. At its edges, the strands were fused to the feet of a dozen huge bats, with red flame where their eyes should have been and mouths filled with venom-dripping fangs.

  Tithian had barely managed to move his trap into position before a glimmering white lion with wings came roaring into his mind. The creature hit at a full charge, filling the dark grotto with sizzling echoes and flashing blue sparks. The beast stretched the net across half the cavern before Tithian’s bats managed to catch up and close their web tightly enough to bind the immense wings to its sides.

  The lion roared in rage, then plummeted straight for the deepest, darkest abyss in Tithian’s mind. The king sent his bats up toward an exit. As they struggled to obey, Nal’s construct changed from flesh to rock, growing heavier and heavier, dragging its captors deeper into the Tyrian’s intellect.

  Tithian summoned more energy to enlarge his bats. The effort wore on him, but he did not stop until each bat was the size of a kes’trekel. If he let the lion escape, he knew it would require so much energy to recapture it that he would be too weak to counterattack.

  The lion’s fall slowed for a moment, then the construct changed from rock to iron, doubling in weight all at once. The beast passed out of the main grotto, dragging Tithian’s huge bats along into the black pit at the base of his mind.

  The lion opened its mouth, but it was Nal’s voice that came out. “Fool!” he chortled. “You cannot overpower me. I have the Oracle!”

  The construct began to claw at its net, pulling the bats down toward its reach. Calling on the last of his strength, Tithian tried to dissolve the mesh and let Nal’s construct fall free, but he was too late. The beast had the bats by their legs, and as it continued through the darkness, it clawed and gnawed at their stomachs. Within instants, it had devoured the Tyrian’s ambushers and was plunging freely toward the center of the king’s mind. It did not even bother to flap its wings and break the fall.

  A short time later, there was a deafening reverberation as the lion’s iron body struck the bottom of the pit. It gave a great roar, and golden beams began to shine from its eyes. “Let’s see what you’re hiding down here, shall we?”

  The lion ran its glowing eyes over the pit walls, until it found a single, winding tunnel opening to one side. With a low growl of satisfaction, it bounded away. Venomous lizards leaped out of the shadows and clamped steel-toothed jaws around the beast’s legs, while blood-drinking scorpions dropped onto its head to stab at its eyes with dripping barbs. The construct countered by crushing the reptiles underfoot and flinging the arachnids off with vigorous head shakes, but many attacks still found their marks.

  The attackers’ venom did not slow the lion down at all. Beads of syrupy fire dripped from the wounds on its legs, and tears of acid poured from the eyes. Both fluids neutralized the poison long before it could cause any damage to the beast.

  The tunnel opened into a chamber supported by hundreds of ebony pillars. On each column hung a single torch, burning with a black flame that absorbed light instead of casting it. The only sound was of a man chuckling in a soft, maniacal voice.

  The fur along the lion’s spine stood fully erect. It dropped to its belly and slunk through the murk until it reached the front of the room. There, in a throne of human bones, sat King Tithian of Tyr. In one hand, he cradled the obsidian scepter of a sorcerer-king, in the other, the disembodied head of his only friend: Agis of Asticles.

  “Now you know what Borys promised: my heart’s desire,” said Tithian’s figure. A purple light glimmered deep within his scepter’s pommel, then Agis’s head spoke. “You may leave now. His Majesty prefers to be alone.” To reinforce the command, Tithian pointed the scepter at the unwelcome intruder’s head.

  The lion opened its maw as if to roar, but the sound that filled the little room was a deep, booming laugh.

  The Castoffs swarmed over Agis, pressing their ethereal mouths to his skin wherever it was exposed. Each touch sent a searing pain deep into his flesh, raising a ghastly red welt that continued to burn long after the agonizing kiss had ended. Although most of the lips pressing against him belonged to children, they were easily two or even three times the size of his own, and the blisters they left were enormous.

  Agis rose. “Stop it!” he yelled, almost losing his balance as Fylo’s stomach shifted beneath his feet. “Leave me alone!”

  The Castoffs rushed away from him, staring in astonishment at his upright form. “How can he stand the pain?” gasped one.

  “He must have a strong mind,” said another.

  “No, it’s something else,” replied the face of a button-nosed woman, one of the few visages that appeared to be an adult. “It might be wiser to leave this one alone.”

  As the faces voiced their opinions, Agis climbed toward Kester and had his first clear view of the pit. The shaft had an irregular, rectangular shape varying greatly in width. As he had noted earlier, the walls were covered with huge quartz crystals, and from the interior of each one shined a silvery light. By this pale glow, Agis saw more than a hundred yellowed giant skulls hanging on the walls, each carefully positioned on the tip of a crystal.

  When Agis reached the tarek’s side, the Castoffs descended on the noble again. They began to rub their cheeks against his skin, causing long streaks to turn brown and slimy. The putrid stains filled him with a dull anguish, and he felt instantly queasy and feverish.

  Agis closed his eyes and focused his concentration on the core of his being, letting the sickening anguish of decay wash over him without fighting it. He focused all his thoughts only on the mystic truths of the Way; truths that allowed him to accept his pain and use it to transcend his mortal body.

  Once he felt in control of his agony, the noble said, “Enough games. Leave us alone, or you shall regret it.”

  A few Castoffs stared at him in amazement, but most continued to assault both him and his friends. Agis closed his eyes and drew energy from his spiritual nexus. Soon, his tortured body buzzed with the power he needed. In his mind, the noble visualized more than a hundred open hands, then opened his eyes and projected one from inside his head to each spirit’s cheek. The palms struck their targets with resounding slaps, melding into the face and leaving behind black impressions of themselves.

  Once he had marked the Castoffs, the noble said, “That’s to let you know I can carry out my threats. If I must defend us again, I won’t be so lenient.”

  Crying out in alarm, the Castoffs rose into the air and hovered above his head.

  Agis knelt down to examine Kester. Where the glowing faces had been rubbing against her back and shoulder, her thick hide had shriveled into a desiccated, wrinkled mass. The noble turned her over and found her front side in even worse condition. She had long since fallen unconscious, but her face remained racked with pain. The hide covering her neck and breasts was as grotesquely creased as that on her back, save that the outer layers of skin were falling away in a dusty powder.

  Agis used a few strands of scraggly beard to secure her beneath Fylo’s chin, then turned his attention to the giant. The half-breed’s face had become as grossly misshaped as that of any Saram child. One of the eyes had nearly doubled in size and now bulged from its socket with all the precariousness of
a ball at the edge of a shelf. The other had grown smaller, sinking so far beneath his brow that it was barely visible. His nose had somehow been rearranged so that it had a separate passage running down to each nostril, with a long cleft in between. Even his buckteeth had not escaped alteration, and now splayed out in opposite directions like the two branches of a forked stick.

  Agis looked up at the faces hovering over his head. “Why have you done this?” he yelled.

  The Castoffs descended toward him in a slow circle, their immaterial visages twisted into bizarre masks of regret or rancor, he could not quite tell which. Ghostly sobs poured from the lips of several children, while ethereal tears streamed down their cheeks and vanished into the black air.

  “We’re scared!” wailed a little girl.

  “And lonely!” added a boy.

  “Why did they put us down here?”

  With each cry, a pang of anguish pierced Agis’s breast, filling him with a deep sense of regret. Every complaint added to his sorrow, and his heart grew heavy and weak. Soon, he felt like a terrible weight was pressing down on his chest, and it hurt to breathe.

  Still, the Castoffs continued to pour grief into him, until he felt so gorged with misery that he feared he would burst.

  “Stop it!” Agis yelled.

  The noble summoned the energy to use the Way and closed his eyes again, this time seeing a hammer with white-feathered wings on its handle. Once he had it locked firmly in his mind, he looked toward the highest hanging skull and projected the image there. It appeared an instant later, its white wings keeping it aloft with slow, graceful arcs.

  “This is your last warning!” the noble said.

  When the Castoffs continued to wail, he drew the hammer back. Before he could strike, the face of the button-nosed woman who had spoken earlier descended in front of him. She looked more like a Joorsh than a Saram, with no obvious deformities and almond-shaped eyes that had a surprisingly gentle quality to them.