Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  At first Arlian thought either his eyes or his memories were deceiv-ing him; the walls seemed higher than he remembered, more shadowed, and they glittered in the late-afternoon sun in a way he had never noticed before.

  But then he looked more closely, and understood.

  The walls were higher. The blacknesses were not shadows, and the glittering was sunlight refracted by black volcanic glass.

  Great obsidian spikes had been set into the battlements, hundreds of them; the black iron frameworks of dozens of catapults rose above the spikes, and thousands of wooden shafts tipped with still more obsidian bristled from the catapults.

  The Duke might have made a bargain with the dragons, but that did not mean he trusted them; he clearly intended to assure that whatever else might happen, Manfort itself would never fall to the beasts.

  "Idiot," Arlian muttered to himself. "What does he plan to eat if he lets the dragons destroy everything else?"

  "What?" Poke asked, jerking upright. He had been drowsing, half-asleep, on the bench at Arlian's side.

  "Nothing," Arlian said. "But look, we're almost home." He pointed.

  Poke looked, then blinked.

  "What did they do to it?" he asked.

  Arlian laughed. "Added to the defenses," he said.

  Poke did not reply, but stared open-mouthed.

  By the time they rolled through the gates Arlian was staring somewhat himself. The Duke must have set his entire army to the task within days of Arlian's departure; the city's defenses were truly astonishing.

  Arlian had not realized there was so much obsidian in all the world; the deposits on the Smoking Mountain must have been stripped clean.

  The Duke of Manfort obviously took the possibility of a dragon attack very seriously indeed, despite the truce. Arlian wondered why.

  The dragons had not dared to attack Manfort itself in more than seven hundred years; why would His Grace feel the need for such elaborate defenses?

  Once through the gates the streets of Manfort were much as Arlian remembered them, paved in stone and bustling with humanity—but the crowds seemed even thicker, and there were new shadows on them. The sounds of hammering and men shouting echoed from the stone walls.

  Arlian's gaze rose to the rooftops.

  More catapults. More obsidian—though Arlian noticed that the

  spearheads on the shafts here were smaller, more delicate, and some appeared to be steel heads with mere chips of obsidian set into them; dearly, supplies of the black stone were running low. Some shafts, in fact, had no heads at all yet. And workmen were still installing more frameworks, more counterweights, more spearshafts, as if the intent was to place at least a dozen shafts atop every building in the city.

  Arlian had intended to request an audience with the Duke in any case, but he had not felt any great urgency about it; now he did.

  First, though, he needed to stop at the Grey House, to clean himself up and hear the news. He had been gone for two years, more or less, and obviously things had happened in his absence, the city going on about its business without him.

  He hoped that Black, Brook, and the children were all well—and that Lady Rime had not passed away. She had seemed healthy enough when he left, but she was not a young woman.

  Arlian snorted slightly at that thought; Lady Rime was more than four hundred years old. "Not a young woman" hardly began to describe it! Most of those years had passed while she was contaminated with dragonspawn, and left her untouched; Arlian could not hope to judge accurately her natural age.

  The streets were thronged; whatever else might have taken place, the city's population had clearly not decreased. Their progress was slowed by the crowds of pedestrians.

  At last, late in the afternoon, the wagon rolled up to the gate of the Grey House. Arlian leapt from the bench, leaving Poke and Double to unload and to attend to the oxen.

  He had scarcely handed his hat and cloak to the footman in the foyer when Black appeared. He wore his customary black leather, but incongruously, he held a baby in his arms, a bright-eyed child perhaps a year old, swaddled in fine linen. Black was smiling broadly, beard bris-ding, and the infant was staring up at him in wide-eyed wonder.

  "Ari," he said. "Welcome back."

  "Thank you," Arlian replied. "It's good to see you." He glanced at the baby. "Who is this?"

  "My son," Black said proudly, displaying the gaping, gurgling child.

  "Dirinan"

  "I see I have missed a great deal."

  "Come and join us, and we'll discuss it."

  Several minutes later Arlian, Black, and Brook were seated in the gallery, with Dirinan safely in his mother's arms after having demonstrated his eagerness to walk half a dozen wobbly steps before falling, and his ability to make noises that could generously be interpreted as words; these remarkable accomplishments had been appropriately admired by the master of the house. A footman set a tray of wine and cakes on the table before vanishing, leaving the four alone.

  Arlian was eager to hear the news, but the others, just as eager to hear an account of his journey, outvoted him, and he spent the next hour giving an account of his explorations beyond the Desolation—

  though he provided very little detail regarding what he had learned of the nature of magic, emphasizing instead the strange lands and fearsome creatures he had encountered. He did not care to say much about his own plans—or even make those plans—until he knew more about the situation in Manfort.

  Finally, though, after he had spoken enough to satisfy his listeners temporarily, Black provided a quick summary of how matters had progressed in his absence.

  The discovery that killing dragons allowed wild magic to encroach upon the Lands of Man had not merely forced the Duke to negotiate with the Dragon Society; it had shaken the very foundations of his beliefs. He had inherited his title in a time of peace and plenty, when the dragons were rarely seen and no other great dangers threatened his realm. When Enziet's death and Arlian's actions had spurred the dragons to greater activity he had seen it as a temporary problem; Arlian's killing of the dragon that destroyed the Old Palace had brought His Grace to believe that this ancient evil could finally be obliterated, restoring the peace and inaugurating an even greater age of plenty.

  The knowledge that destroying the dragons would instead plunge the land into chaos had convinced the Duke that the entire world outside Manfort was, by its very nature, inimical to humanity. He now looked back on those peaceful days before Enziet's death as a lost golden age, a historical fluke, one that was gone forever; he had said as much on many occasions, making no secret of his beliefs.

  The dragons, through their human puppets in the Dragon Society, had made demands, and the Duke, rather than struggle against the inevitable, had yielded to most of them. The dragons had agreed to reduce their attacks if no more towns and villages were armed with obsidian weapons, and the Duke had done them one better, withdrawing all the existing defenses outside Manfort itself, in exchange, the dragons had promised that no more than one village would be destroyed each year.

  The dragons had wanted the defenses destroyed entirely, but the Duke had balked at that. He had resolved that there must be at least one place kept free of the dragons, one place where men could live without fear of the supernatural evils that dominated the rest of the world, and he intended to insure that Manfort would be such a place.

  Word of this had apparently spread; the crowded streets Arlian had noticed were the result of an influx of dragon-wary people who had decided to take refuge within the re-fortified walls.

  "I'm impressed," Arlian remarked. "I had not thought His Grace had the will to carry out such a scheme in the face of the Dragon Society's objections."

  "The Duke has the unyielding support of his advisors," Black replied. "It was Lord Zaner who proposed making Manfort an impene-trable fortress, and who has overseen the elaboration of the city's defenses. As your representative, I gave him my full cooperation in providing obsidian from the Smoking
Mountain; I trust this pleases you."

  "Lord Zaner?"

  "He is now chief advisor to His Grace," Brook said. She had one finger in Dirinan's mouth, and he had fallen asleep sucking gently on it; Brook had seemed to focus her attention on the baby throughout much of the conversation, but clearly she had been listening, and now she looked up at Arlian as she spoke.

  Arlian blinked, but swallowed further comment.

  He had wondered for an instant whether Lord Zaner might be part of some elaborate plot to undermine the Duke's position—after all, Zaner had sided with the dragons for fourteen years. But then he remembered that Zaner had given up centuries of life, had had himself cleansed of his draconic taint. That could not be a ruse; the dragons would never have allowed one of their offspring to be destroyed as part of a political ploy. No, Zaner could unquestionably be trusted, and his vigorous defense of Manfort was probably the zeal of the convert in action.

  Or perhaps he feared for his soul, and wanted to ensure that when his time came to die he would not feed the hideous appetite of a dragon.

  "Dragonhearts are forbidden admission to Manfort, lest they sabo-tage the defenses," Black continued. "Lady Opal has been expelled. A limited number of untainted ambassadors and representatives are permitted inside the walls, but kept under close watch. Your old friend Lord Rolinor serves as a go-between; the Duke and Lord Zaner prefer not to speak directly to any agent of what they consider the powers of darkness. Restrictions on dragonhearts outside the walls have been lifted, however—not that the Duke was ever able to enforce them effectively in any case."

  "Had he been, matters would have gone rather differently," Arlian commented.

  "Indeed."

  "Then the Dragon Society's members have been restored to full control of their properties and enterprises, and the Lands of Alan once again unified?"

  Black snorted. "Not at all," he said. "The Dragon Society has openly established their own government in Sarkan-Mendoth, and dropped all pretense of allegiance to the old order. They claim the Duke has gone mad—but they will not fight him openly, save to defend themselves."

  "They're waiting for him to die," Brook said. "He has no heir, after all; the line of Duke Roioch ends with him. His wife is still barren, despite Asaf's attempts at treatment."

  "I had thought there was a nephew . . . ?"

  "There was," Black said. "Lord Balorac. Murdered a year ago by an assassin, a young woman—like his uncle, he had a weakness for a pretty face."

  "Though this one was masked," Brook added.

  "Lady Tiria?" Arlian suggested.

  "Perhaps; she was sought, but not found. To the best of our knowledge Tiria is no longer in Manfort."

  Arlian nodded thoughtfully.

  He had assumed that he would not find himself welcome in the

  Citadel, that the Duke and the Dragon Society would have made a real peace that would have cast him as a pariah for his slaughter of so many dragons. From Black's account, though, his position was far better than he had expected—Zaner and the Duke were still defying the dragons as best they could, and would presumably accept him as an ally.

  And if he could find some way to bind the land's magic in something other than a dragon, something less powerful, less dangerous . . .

  "There are experiments I must conduct," he said.

  "Experiments?" Brook asked. She glanced at Black.

  "More diabolic machinery?" Black asked. "We have catapults now, Ari—probably far more than we need."

  "Not catapults," Arlian said. "Nor sorcery, nor obsidian, nor anything else I have experimented with in the past. I intend to experiment with magic."

  Brook said, "True magic cannot be made in Manfort, I thought."

  "Southern magic cannot be made here, but sorcery, while subtle, is still magic, and likewise dragons are magic, and all the inhuman traits of the dragonhearts."

  "But you said it would not be sorcery," Brook persisted.

  "Nor will it be. I intend to experiment with the magic of the dragons themselves."

  "And just how did you intend to accomplish this remarkable feat?"

  Black asked.

  "With their venom," Arlian replied. "I will need a considerable supply." He smiled crookedly. "And yes, I am aware of the irony in this, given how much of that foul stuff I have deliberately burned over the past several years. As we all know, Fate is fond of these little jokes."

  "I hardly think this is a fit subject for jokes," Brook replied—but before she could say anything more Dirinan awoke and began crying, delaying further conversation.

  29

  The Disposition of the Household

  The Disposition of the Household

  Arlian's brief explanation of his intentions was interrupted by Brook's departure to attend to Dirinan's needs, but when she had wheeled herself away Arlian finished outlining what he would need.

  Black immediately refused to aid in Arlian's attempts to acquire a supply of dragon venom. "The whole enterprise is mad," he said.

  "You think all my enterprises mad," Arlian retorted.

  "Indeed, and this one is madder than most, and I'll have no part in it."

  "As you please, then," Arlian said. "Will you at least be so kind as to acquire the other materials I require, then? Traps, cages, livestock, and a husbandman to attend them?"

  "I can hardly object to that," Black said. "I will endeavor to have everything prepared for your return."

  Arlian blinked at him, and said mildly, "Return? Am I going somewhere?"

  "Are you not?"

  "I was not aware of any such intention."

  "Then how do you propose to obtain dragon venom? I had assumed you would find another lair from your list, and dispose of its occupants."

  "Permit me to remind you that His Grace has asked me to refrain from any further killing of dragons until further notice. He may rescind that order when next we speak, but I have no reason to expect that."

  " B u t . . . very well, then, how do you propose to obtain your venom?"

  "I had thought to purchase it, here in Manfort; it was my understanding that a thriving black market exists."

  For a moment Black was silent; at last he said, "Oh."

  "Does this alter your decision to refuse me aid?"

  "No," Black said.

  "Very well, then. Please obtain my experimental subjects, then, and I will see if I can manage the venom without you." Arlian rose, and started toward the door.

  "Ari," Black said.

  He paused. "Yes?"

  "Where are you going? The Duke has outlawed all trade in dragon venom, and you have been two years away; how do you propose to contact the black market?"

  "I thought you wanted nothing to do with it."

  " I . . . Black stopped. Then he began again. "Ari," he said, "we have spent most of the past twenty years together. I am your employee, yes, but I like to believe I am also your friend. In either role, friend or servant, I am concerned for your welfare. I know very well your skill with a blade, your knack for improvisation, your determination, and your sheer luck. Nonetheless, you are neither infallible nor invulnerable, and you have just announced your intention of committing a capital crime in a city with which you are no longer entirely familiar. I have refused to aid you in perpetrating this lunatic act, yes—but I can still offer advice on not getting yourself killed in the process, and warn you away from the most obvious threats."

  Arlian smiled. "I appreciate your concern, Beron—and yes, I do consider you my friend first, and my steward only incidentally. Likewise, I acknowledge that I have often been reckless. In this instance, however, I assure you I do not plan to take any great risk. I am not entirely a fool—and you are not my only employee, nor the only one who I might expect to have some knowledge of Manfort's criminal element. I am on my way not to the gate, nor the stable, but to the kitchens, to speak with Stammer in regard to both our supper, and whether she might be able to supply the venom I seek."

  "Oh," Black h
esitated, then admitted, "That would seem sensible enough." Both men were well aware that Stammer had once lived among Manfort's thieves and beggars, and still maintained an extensive network of contacts among her old friends in that unsavory community.

  In the ordinary course of events she drew on those contacts only to gather news and gossip, but neither Black nor Arlian doubted that she could put them to other uses.

  "I am gratified by your reassurance," Arlian said dryly.

  Black hesitated again, then said, "My lord, I request permission to remove myself and my family from the Grey House for a time."

  Arlian glanced toward the exit Brook had taken. "You are concerned for your children's safety? Perhaps you have a point. In fact, perhaps I should find somewhere else to conduct my experiments."

  "No, I . . . " Black stopped.

  Arlian looked at him thoughtfully. "I would not want to leave Manfort," he said. "If these experiments succeed in creating an alternative—

  well, I think the dragons themselves might take an interest, and His Grace has conveniently guarded Manfort against the dragons as thoroughly as I can imagine possible. Nor would I care to operate on anyone's premises but my own, and I own only two parcels here—the Grey House and the grounds that once held the Old Palace."

  "Another could be bought."

  "Oh, I hardly think it worth that much effort and expense," Arlian said. "No, I think it better after all to follow your own suggestion, and ask the staff to vacate the Grey House temporarily."

  "Thank you, my lord."

  Arlian studied Black; it was obvious from the formal address that something remained between them.

  "I can hardly use the grounds of the Old Palace," he said. "Lord Obsidian's guests make it impossible. To evict them now, after all these years—well, it can't be done without great upset and turmoil."

  "Ari—it's not the danger that concerned me," Black admitted. "I hadn't even thought of that at first."

  "Are you that appalled, then, that I dare to handle the venom at all?"