The Obsidian Oracle

by Denning, Troy

  Wyan stopped chewing, then drifted down to look into the noble’s eyes. “If you don’t want to drop, give me Tithian and the Oracle.”

  “What makes you so sure I have them?”

  “I’m no fool,” replied Wyan. “I saw what happened when you opened the satchel. The magic of the Dark Lens spilled out to repair the crystal lid. And if the Oracle’s in there, Tithian must be, too. He wouldn’t let himself be separated from it.”

  “That may be,” said Agis. “But I’m taking him and the Oracle back to Tyr.”

  “You’ll find that difficult with a broken neck,” countered Wyan. He started to drift upward.

  “Wait!”

  The head opened his mouth in the parody of a smile. “Change your mind?”

  “No,” Agis said, locking gazes with Wyan’s colorless eyes. “But I’m sure you’ll change yours.”

  As he spoke, the noble created a mental image of a carrion-eating kes’trekel, and a surge of energy rose from deep within his body. He sent the gray-feathered raptor sailing toward his tormentor. Agis felt a slight tingle as the probe left him, then he saw its ragged wings flash against the gray irises of Wyan’s eyes. In the next instant, it disappeared into the darkness beyond, carrying with it a part of its creator’s intellect.

  Agis was astounded by what he found. The interior of Wyan’s mind was the most desolate thing he had ever seen, a vast plain littered from one end to the other with the corpses of tiny men and women. They were about half the size of halflings, with silver, mothlike wings growing from their backs. They all had slender, sharp-featured faces, pointed ears, and pale, lifeless eyes.

  There was nothing else inside Wyan’s intellect; in all the sweeping expanse beneath the kes’trekel, the noble could not see a single animate thought. Agis dropped his kes’trekel down to the corpses. As befitted its nature, the raptor dug into the grisly feast, swallowing the little bodies almost whole.

  When there was no response, the noble began to feel confused. The dead flesh was the substance of Wyan’s mind, and to have it devoured should have caused him such unbearable pain that he could not help but counterattack. Yet the disembodied head seemed quite content to let the kes’trekel gobble down all it wished.

  After allowing the bird to gorge itself, Agis pictured the kes’trekel changing into Fylo’s animal-brother. He felt a surge of energy deep within himself, then the raptor’s narrow back broadened into that of the bear, and its feathers changed to bony armor. The beast began pawing at the little corpses, throwing them aside and digging a great, deep pit.

  The bear had dug down more than a dozen yards, and still Agis could see nothing but more dead, winged bodies. By this time, the noble had burned up so much spiritual strength that he doubted he could win a battle even if he did find an animate thought.

  He cut off the flow of energy, withdrawing his probe.

  “Satisfied?” Wyan asked, his gray eyes twinkling with amusement.

  Agis took several slow, deep breaths. “Why couldn’t I force you to come out?”

  In a smug voice, the disembodied head replied, “My mind is at rest. I fulfilled my life’s desire long ago—when I killed the last pixie.” Wyan drifted closer to the satchel in the noble’s hand, asking, “Now, will you give me the sack?”

  “No,” Agis replied, clutching it more tightly.

  As he did so, the noble made sure to keep the mouth of the satchel open and pointed toward the cover below, so that the Oracle’s energy continued to flow into the crystal. Until he was free, he intended to keep the lid intact, on the chance that Mag’r had survived his fall.

  Wyan sighed in mock disappointment, then gnashed his teeth together and began to rise again. “You leave me no choice,” he said. “Tithian will be disappointed, though. I think he intended to kill you himself.”

  “He’ll never have the chance,” Agis replied. “If I hit that lid, both my body and this satchel will melt through before you can get to us.”

  To illustrate his point, Agis put the hand of his broken arm into the satchel. Next, he pictured something he was sure Tithian would have stored inside: a silver coin. An instant later, his palm was full of them. The noble withdrew his hand and let the coins slip from between his fingers. They hit the lid with a glassy chime, then melted through and dropped into the pit.

  “After the rope breaks, do you really think you can streak down to the lid and tear this satchel from my death grasp before I slip through?” Agis asked.

  “No,” the head admitted. “But I won’t release you until I have the satchel.”

  “Then it seems we’re at a standoff,” the noble suggested.

  “I think not,” said Wyan, looking toward Fylo’s unconscious form. “I think it’s time for a snack.”

  With that, he streaked down to the giant’s neck.

  “Don’t!” Agis yelled. “I swear—”

  “You’ll do nothing—as long as you’re hanging up there,” Wyan said, settling down on Fylo’s gullet.

  The head’s long tongue slipped from between his teeth and felt along the side of the giant’s neck. After a moment, it stopped probing, and Wyan drifted over to where it touched.

  “A nice, strong pulse,” the head called. “I’d say this is definitely his jugular.”

  With that, the disembodied head sank his teeth into the giant’s skin, ripping away a mouthful of bloody flesh. A dull moan escaped Fylo’s lips. He rolled his head toward Agis, but stirred no farther.

  “Stop!” Agis demanded.

  Wyan looked toward the noble. “Certainly not. A few more bites, and I’ll have my biggest feast in centuries—unless, of course, you give me the satchel,” he said.

  The noble shook his head. “You’ll never finish your meal,” Agis threatened. “Without you here to harass me, it won’t take me very long to get free of these bindings.”

  “I realize that,” said Wyan. “But by then, this compound will be awash in a lake of your precious giant’s blood. It’s a pity Sacha won’t be here to share it with me.”

  With that, he buried his teeth in Fylo’s neck and ripped away another mouthful of flesh. Again, the giant groaned, and this time his eyes flickered. Still, Agis doubted that Fylo would wake in time to save himself.

  In his own mind, the noble pictured himself as an arrow in a flexed bow, summoning what remained of his spiritual energy to animate the image. Once it was ready, he looked toward Fylo, waiting for Wyan’s next bite and hoping it wouldn’t be the one that sent the giant’s blood shooting into the air like a geyser.

  Wyan spit out the flesh, then started to lap at the wound with his tongue. “Tasty,” he called. “I’ll enjoy this.”

  Agis loosed the arrow, shooting his probe straight into the dark pupil of the giant’s eye. Inside, the noble found himself adrift in a black fog, illuminated only by distant, flickering flames of pain. “Fylo!” Agis screamed. “You must wake up—you’re in terrible danger!”

  The giant’s head, taking the form of the morning sun, poked up from the eastern horizon. “Go ‘way,” he said, his voice rumbling across the darkness like an earthquake. “Fylo hurt.”

  The sun sank below the horizon, plunging the giant’s mind back into complete darkness. Agis felt himself crash into something hard and rocky, then he tumbled down a stony slope and finally came to rest on the broken ground of a narrow ledge.

  “Fylo, come back!” Agis yelled, using the Way to make his own voice as loud as the giant’s. “This is your friend, Agis.”

  A halo of red light suddenly appeared above the horizon, and the noble dared to think he had roused the slumbering giant. His hope was short-lived. The glow faded a moment later, without so much as the crown of Fylo’s head appearing this time.

  “Fylo, I need your help!” Agis yelled. “You must wake up and help me.”

  This time the halo appeared more gradually, followed by the glowing disk of Fylo’s head, and soon even his eyes showed above the dark horizon. Finally, an entire glowing face rose into the sk
y. It illuminated an archipelago of craggy thought-islands jutting out of the dark, whirling sea of the giant’s anguish.

  “What Agis need?” Fylo asked, peering down at the mountainous island into which the noble had crashed.

  The giant’s voice whistled through the archipelago like a windstorm, stirring up shadowy spouts of dust and raising a dark haze that obscured his beaming face.

  “I need you to wake up,” the noble replied. “Wyan is trying to bite your neck open, and I’m hanging from a trestle over the crystal pit. If you don’t open your eyes, we’ll both die—” The noble was cut off in midsentence as the stone vanished from beneath his feet. A blinding light burst over the archipelago, and his probe turned to ash in a flash of pain. Agis found himself completely outside Fylo’s mind. At first, he feared the giant’s death had caused his ejection.

  Then the noble heard Fylo’s angry voice booming off the enclosure walls and knew that wasn’t the case. At the edge of the crystal pit, the half-breed suddenly sat up and plucked Wyan off his throat. The head’s teeth were clamped on the gray wall of a thick vein, and Agis feared that in pulling his attacker off, the giant would tear it open.

  Before that happened, Fylo stopped pulling and squeezed. Wyan opened his mouth, and the giant flung his attacker away. The disembodied head struck a distant wall with an impact that would have cracked the skull of a normal man. Wyan simply bounced off and bobbed through the air, wobbly but uninjured.

  Fylo shook his head clear, then raised his hand to the ghastly wound where his shoulder had been impaled. As his fingers explored the cavernous hole, he winced in pain and gazed up at the noble with a dazed expression.

  Agis cast an anxious eye toward Wyan and saw that the head was already recovering his equilibrium. “Fylo, get me down from here!”

  Squinting at the noble’s form, the giant pushed himself to his hands and knees. He crawled over to the bridge footings and, with a loud groan, used his uninjured arm to pull himself to his feet. He reached for the noble, then abruptly drew his hand back and braced himself against the bridge. His eyes closed. He began to sway, and Agis thought he would fall.

  Wyan drifted toward the pit along a weaving, bobbing path. “Fylo, hurry!” Agis called.

  The giant opened his eyes, then thrust out a shaky hand and grabbed the noble’s rope off the trestle. When he tried to pull the noble to him, however, the rope went taut against its anchor, almost unbalancing him. With an angry growl, Fylo threw himself away from the pit, giving the line in his hand an angry jerk. Agis heard the clatter of stone, then the railing to which the rope was tied broke away. Fylo tumbled back and flailed his arms wildly in an attempt to keep his balance.

  The rope slipped from the giant’s grasp, and Agis sailed away. He crashed to the enclosure’s granite floor a short distance away, rolled more times than he could count, and came to a stop against a crystal wall. Despite the sharp pangs throbbing through his broken arm, Tithian’s satchel remained clutched firmly in his good hand. Somehow, he had even managed to keep the mouth pointed in the general direction of the crystal pit.

  Wyan came streaking down on Agis. The disembodied head clamped his teeth firmly onto the edge of the satchel mouth, then began trying to tear the sack free.

  “Wyan!” gasped Sacha.

  “I can see who it is,” Tithian snarled. “Tell him not to move!”

  Like Sacha, the king was staring at the sallow-skinned head that had just emerged from the gray mists ahead. It was visible only from the upper lip to the brow, as if it were peering at them through a narrow opening. More importantly, at least to Tithian’s way of thinking, it had appeared straight ahead—which suggested he was still flying in the right direction.

  Sometime earlier, a stream of mystic energy had begun to pour from the Dark Lens. Tithian had started to fly in the same direction as the flow, hoping it would lead him to the exit. As hard as he had flapped his wings, however, he never seemed to reach the end of the glimmering beam. He had almost stopped following it, fearing that the effort was as pointless as every other attempt he had made to escape this place.

  Then the beam flickered several times, and now here was Wyan, peering in at them. It could only mean they were approaching the exit. Tithian beat his wings harder, dragging the lens and Sacha through the gray as fast as he could.

  “Wyan, can you see us?” Tithian asked.

  Who? the head replied. Instead of speaking, he used the Way to ask his question.

  “Tithian and Sacha, you fool!” Sacha snapped. “We’re in the sack.”

  I thought so, he answered. Come out.

  “We’re trying!” Tithian yelled.

  In spite of the king’s best efforts, he and Sacha appeared to be no closer to Wyan than they had a few moments earlier.

  Hurry! I can’t fight him much longer, the head replied.

  “Who are you fighting?” Tithian demanded. “What’s happening?”

  Agis has the bag, Wyan reported. I’ve got a bite on it, and I’m trying to pull it away, but he has a tight grip. And Fylo will be coming over to help him soon.

  “Then get us out of here,” Tithian ordered.

  How? demanded Wyan. The way this fight is going, I’ll be joining you.

  “No!” Tithian and Sacha screamed in unison.

  “Whatever happens, don’t let him push you in here. We’ll all be stuck,” the king added.

  What do you want me to do? the head demanded.

  The king thought for a moment, then said, “Before I got trapped in here, I heard the Shadow Viper’s catapults. Is it still dustworthy, and is the crew still alive?”

  Probably, replied Wyan. Mag’r’s been very busy since the battle ended. I don’t think sinking the ship would have been a priority for him.

  Tithian smiled, then ran his liver-spotted fingers over the serpent-headed dagger in his belt. “Good,” he said. “Make sure Agis sees them before he leaves, Wyan.”

  And?

  “That’s all,” answered the king. “Agis will do the rest for us.”

  Wyan suddenly released his hold on the satchel. “You win,” he said, backing away. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “What?” Agis demanded. “You’re giving up?”

  “For now,” the head acknowledged. “After the way Fylo screamed when I bit his throat, we don’t have long before the Joorsh arrive. Now be still, and I’ll bite you free.” Wyan floated over to Agis’s side and began gnawing on the rope.

  When the line slackened, the noble began to untwine himself. “That’s enough,” he said.

  Wyan drifted away, waiting patiently while the noble untied his legs and stood.

  “Don’t come too close,” Agis said. “I don’t trust your change of heart.”

  “Of course not. You know me better than that,” sneered the head. “But it will be easier to take the satchel from you than from the giants.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that,” Agis replied.

  Fylo came over to join them. The giant looked only a little better than he had a short time ago, though he had apparently recovered enough of his balance to stand on his own. “What now, friend?” he asked.

  “We leave,” Agis answered, glaring at Wyan suspiciously.

  “I’m the least of your troubles,” sneered the head, looking away.

  Agis followed the head’s gaze and saw that Mag’r’s young assistant, Beort, had finally tracked down his master. The youth stood in the gateway, staring at Agis and the others.

  “Where’s Sachem Mag’r?” he demanded.

  “Not here.” Fylo shrugged and looked around the compound.

  The boy pointed at Agis. “He must be here. That’s his prisoner.”

  Fylo seemed at a loss to answer, so Agis spoke up. “The sachem told him to watch me.”

  The youth scowled at Fylo, then asked, “Who are you, ugly?”

  “Me Fylo,” the half-breed answered, his tone sharp.

  “I’ve never heard of any Fylo.…”

&nb
sp; The youth let his sentence trail off and backed out the gate, his eyes going wide. Fylo tore a crystal from the wall and started to hurl it after him.

  “No! He’s just a child,” Agis yelled. “Besides, attacking him outside the compound would raise the alarm anyway. Just pick me up, and let’s get out of here.”

  The giant did as asked and limped out the gate. Once they were outside, the noble saw Beort scrambling toward the far end of the compound, where Chief Nuta continued to expound on the evils of keeping the Oracle past the proper time. The young giant was screaming for help, and Joorsh warriors were already turning to see what was wrong.

  “Where go?” Fylo asked, his eyes searching the citadel for a likely escape route.

  “In your condition, there’s only one way out of here,” said Wyan. “You’ll have to go through the gate.”

  Fylo’s eyes went wide. “Sachem Mag’r smart,” he objected. “Put guards there.”

  “Wyan’s right,” Agis said. “Neither one of us is in any condition to be climbing over walls or down cliffs. I’ll tell you how to get past the guards on our way.”

  By the time they reached the path descending into the courtyard, Chief Nuta was leading a dozen giants after them. The pursuers were still near the back of the citadel, but their angry shouts echoed throughout Castle Feral. In every corner of the fortress, exhausted Joorsh warriors were rousing themselves from their campsites and looking toward the source of the disturbance.

  Fylo remained calm, as the noble had instructed, and brushed his hand over his beard. Agis grabbed onto a greasy braid of hair and clung there, with Wyan hovering close by. Then, without looking back toward his pursuers, the giant picked up a large boulder and lumbered down into the rubble-strewn gateyard.

  On the other side, two weary sentries guarded the great breach where the gates had once hung. They seemed more puzzled than concerned by the commotion above. Although they had risen from the stone blocks on which they had been sitting, their heavy clubs still leaned against the shattered remains of the wall. One of them was not even watching Fylo, but instead kept his attention fixed on something outside the castle, in the Bay of Woe.