Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  "Yet.

  "Only when I have an alternative to the wild magic beyond the borders will I feel myself free to slay them all."

  He opened his eyes and met Rime's gaze. "Now, are you satisfied?"

  "Entirely," Rime said. "If you need any assistance I will be happy to aid you in your experiments when you have once obtained the venom, and should you achieve your goal I will applaud as loudly as anyone as you exterminate the dragons once and for all."

  "As will I," Lilsinir agreed. "Thank you, my lord."

  Arlian nodded an acknowledgment, and swept out of the room. He would need to notify the Duke that he was leaving the city to obtain the materials for his experiments, but more importantly, he would need to determine his destination. The summer was rapidly fading into autumn, and if he wanted to find his venom this coming winter he needed to search the records and locate a likely site without further delay.

  B O O K

  III

  The Experiments

  Into the Lair of the Dragon

  31

  Into the Lair of the Dragons

  H e h a d b e e n t h r e e w e e k s u p o n t h e i c e , h i g h i n t h e S h o u l d e r b o n e Range of the Sawtooth Mountains, when he finally stumbled upon the opening.

  The centuries-old reports he had followed here were maddeningly vague; all agreed that a pair of dragons had swept down from these peaks long ago and destroyed towns in the valleys below, but no one had seen just where the creatures had emerged from the rocks. Arlian had had years of experience in locating caves and tunnels, but the windswept snows here had smoothed over the sort of cracks and crevices that would ordinarily have provided clues, and he had brought no other scouts or sorcerers to aid him. He had wandered almost aimlessly from one slope to the next, guided by little more than the assumption that the cave mouth was not directly visible from any of the inhabited regions, hoping tor some sign.

  He was farther to the west than he had ever been before, far enough from the center of the Lands of Man that sometimes, when he was on the higher slopes and looked to the west, he could see the distant movement of unnatural clouds and strange colors on the horizon. He knew that he was seeing magic in the wilderness beyond the western borders, and he wondered whether it had ever been visible from these peaks before he began slaughtering dragons.

  That distant wild magic was not what he sought, though, and after the first few glimpses he ignored it and concentrated on matters closer at hand.

  His food supplies were running dangerously low, and he had seen no game nor even tracks in over a week, when he noticed the shadow.

  The snow cover on this particular mountainside was smooth and white, shining bright in the afternoon sun—but one spot seemed slightly less bright

  He turned toward that spot and pressed onward, his boots throwing up a cloud of glittering crystals with every step as he shuffled forward through the ankle-deep powder.

  As he drew nearer and the sun descended toward the western ridge that fainter spot grew into a pale gray streak in the whiteness, then into a blue shadow. It was a depression in the snow a few inches deep, with smoothed but definite edges.

  The surface was undisturbed; nothing had been digging here, nor had the wind shaped this particular form. From the look of it, the snow here had sagged.

  Arlian smiled, cracking the ice on his mustache.

  The snow cover had sagged because an underlying layer had fallen; no other explanation was possible. Wind would not have carved such a depression, and would have filled it in if it had been there before the snow fell. He did not know what had fallen, or why, but the mere fact of a fall meant there was someplace for it to fall into.

  No one had ever built anything up here, in the wildest part of the Sawtooth; he was dozens of miles from the mines and quarries, far from the highest pastures. For the snow to fall in, there must be an opening in the mountainside itself.

  That did not mean it was a dragon's lair, of course, but the reports did indicate a lair in this area. He stumbled forward eagerly.

  He paused at the edge of the depression; he did not want to risk plunging through the snow into a cave, perhaps injuring himself, perhaps awakening whatever occupants might lurk therein. He pulled his gloved hands from his pockets and opened the front of his outer cloak.

  His long, obsidian-tipped spear was strapped to his back; at times he had carried it and used it as a staff to help in walking through the deep snow, but today was cold enough that he had preferred to keep his hands tucked away. Now he struggled with the icy bindings, cursing into his frozen beard until he was finally able to free the weapon.

  When the heavy spear pulled loose the shift in weight threw him off balance, and one foot slid in the snow, almost sending him sprawling; he went down on one knee but caught himself before tumbling over completely.

  When he was stable again, rather than stand up he bent his other knee and knelt at the edge of the depression. Then he jabbed the butt of the spear into the snow, pressing it down as far as he could.

  It sank in a good three feet, much farther than he had expected; the powdery snow he knelt in was little more than a foot deep, though of course there was a layer of hard-packed snow and ice underneath.

  That three feet was satisfying; it meant there was indeed a hole of some sort. He began digging, being careful not to let himself slide forward.

  The sun was below the ridge and the eastern sky indigo when he finally broke through the packed snow and fragments of ice into the cave, a good eight feet below the drifted surface.

  Snow trailed down the sloping passage, a tapering whiteness on the dim floor; the stone walls were coated with a thin layer of black ice.

  Arlian crouched in the opening, peering down into the darkness, considering his next move.

  Always before when he had found a dragon's lair he had then

  retreated to gather his forces, and had returned with at least half a dozen men, all heavily armed and bearing torches, before entering.

  And when they had entered, it was with the intent of killing everything they found inside; attempts at stealth had been purely to avoid waking the creatures before they could be slain, and if one did wake—as sometimes happened—it simply meant that that one was the first to die.

  Here, though, he was alone, and armed with only the single spear—

  he had not cared to burden himself with any additional weaponry.

  He did have assorted other supplies, of course. He was reluctant to provide any sort of heat, since dragons craved warmth and a flame might well wake them, but he would obviously need light. He put down his spear, threw back his woolen cloak, and swung his pack around.

  A moment later he had a battered brass lamp filled with oil—he had carried the battle of oil under blouse, vest, scarf, coat, and cloak, with only his shirt separating it from his flesh, so that his body's heat had prevented it from congealing. He found flint, steel, and tinder, and removed his gloves to strike a spark.

  By the time the lamp's wick finally flared up his fingers were trembling with cold; he paused for a moment to warm them over the flame before pulling his gloves back on and tugging his cloak around his shoulders.

  Then he stood and lifted the lamp high.

  Icy stone walls gleamed dimly on either side of a high, narrow passage slanting downward into the earth, so narrow that he wondered how a dragon could fit through it—but then, dragons were not natural beasts. They were magic given solid form, and could compress themselves in a thoroughly unnatural manner.

  Of course, he supposed it was possible that this was the wrong cave.

  He sniffed the air, the cold stinging his almost-numb nostrils.

  He could not be entirely sure, but he thought he could smell it: dragon venom.

  He smiled, dislodging half-melted ice from his beard. He hefted his spear, raised his lamp, and began moving down into the tunnel as quietly as he could.

  The passage was long, and often steep, the floor uneven; it seemed a
s if the mountain had cracked, and enough dirt and gravel had tumbled down die crack to form a rough surface at the bottom. It was not quite as small as he had first thought; the height had exaggerated its narrow appearance, and the actual width, once he was well inside, averaged seven or eight feet. There was no evidence that anyone human had ever before set foot here, but as he made his way downward the stink of dragon venom became ever more certain, growing stronger with every step. Here and there, particularly in the narrower stretches, distinctive grooves marred the walls or floor—claw marks left by the monsters as they made their way to the surface.

  The air grew warmer as he descended into the earth; naturally, the dragons would not have nested there if the cave itself were as cold as the mountainsides above.

  He had no way of judging time once the opening to the outside world was out of sight, but he was reasonably certain he had been walking and climbing for an hour or more, and he was beginning to wonder whether his lamp's oil would hold out, when the left-hand wall ended abruptly, half the floor fell away, and the cavern suddenly opened out before him.

  It was a jagged, angular space formed by broken layers of granite, without any of the water-smoothed forms of more familiar caves. There were no true verticals or horizontals, but only varying diagonals; he stood at one end of a narrow ledge where one almost-vertical plane had sheared across, and the upper portion had somehow been pressed back.

  He could not see the full extent of the cave, as various sections angled off in odd directions, but the far side of the visible portion was perhaps forty yards away. The air here was only slightly cool; he had long since opened his cloak and unbuttoned his coat, but his shoulders were soaked with sweat and his beard wet with melted ice. The reek of dragon venom was so thick that for some time now he had been breathing through his mouth, to minimize its effects, and the lamp sometimes flared wildly as wisps of vapor touched its flame.

  And on one gently sloping surface thirty feet below him slept the dragons. The light of his lamp between flares was dim, and the distances dispersed it, but the gleam of sleek, scaly black hide was unmistakable; the humped, motionless shapes could be nothing else but Arlian's ancient foes.

  The records Lord Wither had left him, records carefully collected and compiled over almost a thousand years, had only reported two dragons dwelling in the Shoulderbone Range; in fact, he had chosen this particular area to search in part because the fewer the dragons, the less the risk that one would wake while he was present, and the less damage done if he did find it necessary to kill them.

  As Arlian looked down into the lair below, though, he remembered what Lord Zaner had told him at the Grey House more than two years before: The dragons had allowed him to find and slay their old and weak, while the young and strong had retreated to more secure hiding places.

  He had never before approached this lair because a mere two dragons had not seemed worth the effort while larger groups remained in more accessible locations. He had chosen it this time not only because there were supposed to be only two occupants, but because it was so isolated that he had no need to worry about mistaking innocent locals for Dragon Society assassins, or vice versa—anyone else up in the Sawtooth Mountains in midwinter must be an assassin pursuing him.

  It would seem that the dragons had anticipated his logic in choosing his previous targets, but had not anticipated his current mission. He turned the brass knob that extended the wick and raised the lamp higher, trying to count; a sudden venom-flare momentarily blazed up, briefly lighting a much larger area.

  At least a dozen dragons lay upon the stone below—at least a dozen.

  When the flare died away he could not see far enough into the shadows and corners to be sure, but he thought he could make out fourteen, and what might be either a fifteenth or an unusually dark and curving piece of granite lurked deep in a nook to one side. Still more might easily be sleeping out of his sight.

  Well, he certainly ought to be able to find plenty of venom here!

  Familiar Faces

  32

  Familiar Faces

  The ledge on which Arlian stood narrowed ahead of him; he turned his back to the wall and crept along, looking for a way down. The thirty-foot slope below the ledge was not vertical, but it was far too steep to climb; if he slid down that way he would probably reach the bottom unhurt, but he would never be able to make his way back up.

  But then the ledge ended, or at any rate took a sudden downward step—about a four-foot drop to a lower, slightly wider ledge. After a brief hesitation, Arlian lowered himself. Clambering back up would not be especially difficult; if he were fleeing a waking dragon, though, it would be a very unwelcome delay.

  This second ledge sloped downward more steeply than the first, and the floor of the main chamber sloped upward; this gave Arlian hope that they met, somewhere in the darkness ahead.

  This hope was dashed when he finally came within sight of the cavern's far end—but by then the drop was a mere ten or twelve feet, and he could see a break in the wall below, a crack a few inches wide. With a running start he was fairly certain he would be able to jump up, catch his fingers in that crack, and boost himself up to the ledge.

  He eyed the stone carefully, to make sure he was not fooling himself about the distances; he studied the floor below to make certain that his running start would not require stepping on dragons' tails or in pools of venom.

  It would not be easy—but he had not come this far to be stopped by so small an obstacle. He sat down, swung his feet out over the edge, and set the lamp on the stone beside him, thinking.

  Carrying a lit lamp down would not be easy, but it would be very useful to have it while he collected venom. Leaving it on the ledge would only light this end of the chamber, but would be far safer.

  While he considered alternatives he swung his spear over the edge, lowered it down as for as he could, then let it fall; it clattered on the stone below, louder than he had expected.

  He paused, waiting to see if any of the dragons stirred, but the only sound he heard was his own breath, the only movement he saw the flickering of his lamp.

  He took off his cloak and laid it on the ledge, then unslung his pack and lowered it over the edge, reaching down as far as he could before releasing it. He removed his coat and dropped it onto the cloak.

  Then he picked up the lamp, took a deep breath, and jumped.

  The lamp's flame flared up wildly as he fell, as much from the wind of his fall as from any drifting clouds of venom, but it did not go out. He landed hard, and sprawled forward, but kept his grip on the brass handle. Hot oil splashed across his glove, but did not ignite.

  He lay still for a moment, then pulled himself up and knelt on the sloping stone, raising the lamp high.

  His spear and pack lay a few feet away, and the nearest dragon was a looming black presence a few yards beyond.

  He got to his feet, reached for his spear—then stopped.

  He was not here to kill dragons. He was here to collect venom.

  Reluctantly, he left the weapon where it was and instead opened his pack, finding the blue glass bottle he had carried all the way from Manfort. It had contained wine originally, but he had drunk the last of that a month before, then rinsed the bottle thoroughly to prepare it for its new purpose.

  He also fished out the smaller brown bottle that had held his lamp oil; he guessed he would have no trouble filling both, given how many dragons slept here.

  When he stood upright again he had the blue bottle in one hand and his lamp in the other, the brown bottle thrust into his vest. He stepped forward toward the dragons, leaving spear and pack where they lay.

  He would have preferred to find puddles of accumulated venom he could dip the mouth of his bottles into, or to collect it from dripping wall formations, but the smooth, sloping surfaces of this unusual cave had not allowed pools to form, and did not drip. Instead the venom that dripped, spattered, or condensed on the floor and walls trickled down in shallow streaks, t
oo thin to dip into—though their paths had been etched into the stone by the venom's corrosive nature.

  He followed the slope downward across a good forty yards of slanting floor, hoping to find a pool at the bottom, but instead discovered that the venom was seeping down into a crevice only an inch or two wide, far too narrow to admit his gloved hand or either bottle.

  Tired and annoyed, he made his way back up the slope toward the slumbering dragons.

  They did not, he thought, look very magical, nor did the trickle of venom oozing down the floor look like the very essence of magic that he believed it to be, that he needed it to be. Yes, the black scales shimmered in the lamplight, and the venom gleamed, but no more than any number of natural substances. Simple water would have shone more brightly than the venom.

  He could have sponged mere water off the stone with a cloth, and wrung it into a container—but venom was far too corrosive for that.

  Glass would hold it, as Lord Rolinor's brandy flask had demonstrated, but cloth would disintegrate at its touch.

  The only way he could get venom into his two bottles would be to catch it as it dripped from the dragons' jaws.

  He moved carefully up to the nearest dragon. The beast lay curled up, catlike, with its back to him; the ridge of its spine was even with his chin, its unmoving flank far above his head. There was no discernible rise and fall as it breathed—but then, Arlian was not entirely certain that dragons did truly breathe. They were not natural beasts, despite their appearance, but magic made flesh. They ate not meat nor fruit nor grain, but human souls; they were born not of womb nor egg, but from human hearts and blood; why, then, would they breathe? Arlian supposed that whatever analogue of breath they might have would partake of magic, rather than air.