Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  He circled to the right, following the dragon's neck, and found its loathsome head resting upon its right foreleg and the tip of its tail.

  And venom dripped slowly from its jaw.

  This was not a particularly large dragon; Arlian pulled the brown bottle from his vest and set it carefully on the stone below that dripping jaw, setting it on a handful of dust and turning it to make it as stable as possible on the sloping floor. He carefully held the lamp as far from the venom as possible, to avoid sending a flare into the dragon's unmoving nostrils and waking the monster.

  A drop of venom struck his glove as he maneuvered, and a cloud of stinking smoke hissed into being as the fluid burned through the leather. Arlian snatched off the glove and scraped it against the floor until the hissing stopped and the smoke dissipated.

  That done, he stepped back and looked at his contrivance.

  Venom was gathering along the ridged black lip; as he watched, a drop formed, and fell—missing the mouth of the bottle by inches.

  Arlian sighed. He looked at the dragon's face, to be sure there was no sign that the creature's sleep had been disturbed.

  He did not recognize this particular dragon. Like all its kind, its face was strong-featured and unique—perhaps it was a part of their magic, but each dragon's face was memorable in a way no other species, not even humanity, could match. No dragon could ever be mistaken for another, if one once saw its face. Arlian could remember every detail of every dragon he had ever seen face-to-face, regardless of what the circumstances might have been, and regardless of whether he wanted to.

  This particular dragon was not one he had seen before—but then, the vast majority he had seen were dead. The dragon that had spoken to him sorcerously through a bowl of bloody water was dead; the dragon that had contaminated Lady Rime's blood and destroyed the Old Palace was dead. All the dragons he had found in their lairs were dead. Only the one that had slain his grandfather and sired the abomination growing in Arlian's heart, and its companions in the destruction of the village of Obsidian, still lived.

  Another drop of venom fell, and this one struck the rim of the bottle's mouth and split. Half of it trickled down the bottle's side; the other half fell inside.

  Light and smoke flared up as the venom ignited the traces of oil lingering in the bottle; Arlian stepped back, startled. He glanced at the dragon's face, then at his spear, lying thirty yards away.

  The dragon did not stir.

  Arlian let out his breath in a slow sigh of relief, and a second drop of venom fell into the bottle.

  There was no second flare, though smoke swirled upward from the bottle's mouth. Arlian guessed there was no longer enough good air in the bottle to feed actual flame.

  He left that bottle where it was, and turned his attention to finding a place for the other. He resolved not to simply choose the nearest dragon this time, but to find one producing the best flow of venom. He raised his lamp and began to explore the population of the cave.

  The next dragon he passed was unremarkable, and had arranged its jaw on its foreleg in such a way that the venom trickling from its mouth never dripped, but ran down over the black scales to the floor. The third lay with its jaws on the floor itself. The fourth might have served, but Arlian chose to look further.

  And when he looked at the face of the fifth dragon, he stopped dead in his tracks, trembling.

  He knew that face.

  He had seen it looking at him through the burning ruins of his parents' pantry long ago, as a boy of eleven; he had seen it casually spit venom at his grandfather, burning the man's face away.

  This was the face that had haunted his dreams almost every night as he slaved in the mines of Deep Delving, that had lingered in his dreams and memories ever since.

  This was the dragon he had sworn to kill, all those many years ago.

  This was the true target of his lust for revenge. This was the focus of all his hatred, the monster that had destroyed his family and twisted his life into its dark and loathsome form. This was the creature that had casually robbed him of the capacity for love and joy, wiped out any possibility of human descendants, and tainted his blood with its own vile spawn.

  He stood frozen for a moment, too numb with shock and hatred to think or act; then he turned and ran for his spear, dropping the wine bottle as he neared.

  His hand had closed on the shaft, and he was lifting the weapon, when he stopped.

  He could kill the beast, here and now; he knew that. He could kill it, and the others would almost certainly wake, and he might kill one or two others before he died. If the other two that destroyed the village of Obsidian still lived, they might even be among those he slew—but he would never know if he had found all three, since he had never seen one of their faces.

  He could kill the dragon. He could avenge his grandfather, his parents, his brother, and himself—and die.

  For most of his life, that had been all he hoped for.

  But if he died now, the other dragons would survive. The Lands of Man would suffer under their dominion, a village destroyed every year.

  Black and Brook and their children would live out their lives in a world corrupted by the dragons; Vanniari and Rime and all the others, as well.

  He looked at the spear, its obsidian head glistening in the lamplight, then lowered it to the floor.

  "Later," he whispered to himself. "There will be time later." He released the spear and stood up, then turned to look at the sleeping dragon.

  "I know where you live now," he said. "I can find you—and I will."

  He picked up the blue bottle. "But I have something else to do first—

  something to live for."

  He smiled.

  "And I'll use your venom to do it."

  33

  Out of the Caverns

  Arlian awoke to total darkness.

  At first he did not remember where he was. The possibility that he had gone blind occurred to him, or that he had died, but in reality he thought that he was back in the mines of Deep Delving, a slave asleep in his little tunnel, about to be called out for his shift. His escape, his journeys to the Borderlands and beyond, his life in Manfort as Lord Obsidian, his elaborate revenge and his years of dragon-slaying, all seemed nothing more than a fantastic dream.

  But the sheared granite wall beside him did not have the familiar texture of hewn limestone or galena, and his memories flooded back. He was in a dragon lair deep beneath the Shoulderbone Range, and the pack pillowing his head held flint and steel, while a lamp with a little oil still in it lay nearby.

  He had allowed several hours to fill the bottles. For most of that time Arlian had slept as soundly as the dragons, curled up in a corner with his extinguished lamp placed far enough away that he would not acciden-tally spill it in his sleep, but close enough he could find it in the dark.

  He sat up, pulled the pack to him, then groped for the lamp.

  A moment later the wick caught from a sliver of glowing tinder, and he could see his surroundings once more. He hastened to inspect his collections, and found the brown bottle overflowing, the blue nearly so.

  Setting the lamp down for a moment, he capped both bottles

  securely, wrapped them in extra clothing, and buried them deep in his pack, as well protected as he could make them. Retrieving the lamp, he looked around at the sleeping dragons, which seemed completely undisturbed by his stay among them.

  The temptation to plunge the lamp into a trickle of venom and set as much of the cave ablaze as possible was very strong, but he resisted it; it would not harm the monsters, perhaps not even seriously annoy them, but it would alert them to his presence.

  Plunging his spear into the black heart of his family's murderer was an even greater temptation, but he resisted that, as well, telling himself that a better time would come. Instead he returned to the corner where he had descended into the cave, where the ledge reached its lowest point He set the lamp on the cavern floor, then hoisted his pack up abov
e his head and leapt upward, shoving the pack two-handed up and over the edge before falling back.

  The heavy pack barely made it, and the noise he made upon landing worried him; he paused and looked around at the dragons.

  They had not stirred.

  He picked up his spear and looked at it, tempted anew; then he sighed, backed up, and with a two-step running start jumped for the ledge again, tossing the spear up beside the pack.

  It bounced and rattled, and came to rest with the butt end sticking a few inches out over the edge.

  That left Arlian himself, and the battered oil lamp. The lamp was a problem—but it was also on the verge of running dry; it flickered every time he moved it, the remaining oil splashing faintly in the reservoir. It wouldn't last for the entire journey back to the surface, in any case.

  He could find his way in the dark if he had to, and he could not throw the lamp around as he had the pack and spear—it would spill, and Arlian might find himself awash in flaming oil, or worse, flaming venom. He stepped away from the lamp, preparing to leave it behind. Its glow would see him up the ledge and into the tunnel, and he could find his way from there in the dark- The lamp would bum itself out harmlessly in a short while . . .

  He paused.

  If he left it then in the spring, when the dragons awoke, they would know someone had been here. They might well abandon this lair—and that would mean at least fifteen dragons (he never had made an exact count, and was not about to waste his remaining oil doing it now) he would need to track down all over again.

  That was unacceptable.

  He couldn't fling a lit lamp up onto the ledge, though, and would need both hands to climb up. He doubted he could make the jump in the dark, so extinguishing the lamp for transport would not work, either. He had to carry the lamp somehow, and do it without using his hands.

  He wished he had thought all this out before tossing his pack up where he couldn't reach it; he had nothing with which to improvise a carrying strap.

  Finally, though, he devised an arrangement where he buttoned his vest through the lamp's handle, fastening it to his chest. That put the open flame uncomfortably close to his collar and beard, but he thought he could manage it for the few seconds it would take to get back up to the ledge.

  He turned the flame down as low as he could without risking extinguishing it, then paced off a reasonable distance, turned, and ran. At the right moment he jumped, catching his fingers in the crevice in the wall.

  He slammed against the stone, and felt the lamp's heat on his chest; his knees struck the granite hard, and he was sure he would have painful bruises there. He had a solid grip, though, several feet off the cavern floor, and the ledge was just a foot or two higher, to his right.

  But there was a burning in his fingertips, one that simple strain could not account for; he could see wisps of smoke that did not seem to be coming from the lamp.

  Hastily, he scrabbled his feet against the granite, swinging himself to the right; as his right foot found temporary purchase he pulled his right hand from the crack and grabbed for the ledge.

  The fingers hooked over the edge, and he heaved himself upward; when he felt his hold was secure he snatched his left hand free and lunged for the ledge.

  Then he was hanging by his fingers, the sharp granite edge cutting into the joints, the toes of his boots scraping at the wall below; he heaved again, and got first his right elbow, then his left, onto the ledge.

  From there it was easy, despite the burning in his fingers, the smoke swirling in his face, the burn on his chest, and the dim, flickering light; a moment later he stood upright on the ledge, unbuttoning the battered lamp from his scorched and twisted vest.

  He stared at it ruefully; the impact with the walls had bent the little lamp out of shape, smashing it almost flat, and the wick adjustment no longer functioned at all. The flame still burned, though, and the remaining oil had not all spilled, and he had left no evidence behind on the cavern floor—that was what mattered.

  Then he turned his gaze elsewhere, with unhappy results. The fingertips of his gloves had been burned to smoking tatters; that seam in the wall had apparently collected venom in the bottom, and he had thrust his fingers right into it while climbing up.

  If he had known that that reservoir of venom existed, he might have contrived a way to collect it there and never needed to go down among the dragons at all—but in that case, he would never have known that his grandfather's killer lurked here.

  The front of his vest had been pulled, twisted, and blackened, and the blouse beneath bore a large black burn. He brushed black soot from his beard, as well; he would need to see a barber at the first opportunity.

  Of course, he would have needed that in any case, after so long a journey in the wilderness.

  At least his spear and pack seemed undamaged; he glanced in the pack to be sure the two bottles of venom were still intact and unopened, then secured everything as best he could, retrieved his coat and cloak, and made his way up the slope, easily heaving himself up to the higher, narrower ledge, and then leaving the cavern behind and starting up the long tunnel to the surface.

  The temperature dropped steadily as he climbed; he paused at one point to eat a hasty meal of crumbling cheese and dried salt beef, and had scarcely finished when the lamp gave a final flicker and went out. He finished repacking in the dark, working by feel, then pulled on his coat and cloak; he did not really need them yet, but he knew he would soon.

  He had brought no water, and was thirsty after his long sojourn in the cave, his dry meal, and his various recent encounters with flames, but he knew that once he was back on the surface he could find all the snow he wanted. Drinking water was never a problem in the Shoulderbone Range in winter; he merely needed to get out of the tunnel.

  At least there was no danger of getting lost, of taking the wrong passage or the wrong direction; there was only the one long crevice, sloping steadily upward. He set out again.

  He could not judge how long it took; counting his steps or heartbeats seemed pointless. Instead he simply marched onward, until at last he glimpsed a lessening of the darkness ahead.

  He pressed on, and several minutes later found himself scrambling up through snow and ice onto the blinding whiteness of the snow-covered mountainside in full daylight. The sky above was intensely blue, the air cold and sharp; his fingertips, unprotected by the ruined gloves, stung with the cold.

  He scooped a generous handful of snow into his parched mouth to slake his thirst, then pulled his cloak tight, his hands stuffed securely into the warm inner pockets, and began the long trek back toward Manfort.

  34

  Obsidian House

  Obsidian House

  Arlian suspected that an ordinary man might well have lost a few fingers and the tip of his nose to frostbite on the way back down from the mountains, but he was a dragonheart, immune to poison and disease—

  his nose and fingers ached for days even after he reached the warmth of civilization, but did not blacken or rot.

  Winter's hold had begun to weaken by the time he reached Man-

  fort; the streets were clear of ice, and at midday the patter of water dripping from icicles was a constant ripple of sound throughout the city, as if rain were falling from invisible clouds in the clear and sunny skies.

  The icicles were more numerous than at any time in Arlian's memory—the forest of rooftop catapults had provided them a myriad of new places to form.

  When Venlin ushered him into the Grey House Arlian soon discovered that Black and his family had indeed moved out, and were not there to welcome him; he accepted this without comment, and made no effort to contact his steward immediately. Instead he took a day to bathe, rest, and recover from his travels. He had paid a tavern girl in a village in the foothills of the Sawtooth Mountains to trim his hair and beard, but she had not been trained to the standards of Manfort, and at any rate the journey from there to Manfort had allowed them to grow out again, so he spent his f
irst evening sprawled comfortably in the tub while Wolt struggled to restore a veneer of civilization.

  That also served to avoid any wearisome conversation; Wolt was not much of a talker, and no one else dared intrude while the master was bathing. Arlian had already picked up some news on the road, enough to be reasonably certain that nothing earth-shaking had occurred in his absence, and he was not in a mood to describe his adventures or cope with household affairs. That could wait.

  In fact, he decided as he lay in the tub with Wolt neatly shaving his throat, he did not want to waste any time on household affairs at all. He wanted to proceed directly to his research, and for that he wanted the Grey House to himself, so that the only life at risk would be his own.

  But that could wait until morning; he closed his eyes and enjoyed the comforting warmth of the bath.

  Accordingly, after he had breakfasted the following day he first sent word to the Duke that he had returned safely with the materials for his experiments, and asked that he be excused from any duties at the Citadel so that he might proceed immediately with his research. That done, he summoned his remaining guests and the entire staff from the kitchens and servants' hall and upstairs offices, and informed them that the household was to be evacuated.

  "Where shall we go, my lord?" Lilsinir asked. "Tiviesh tells me that the Citadel is not particularly welcoming these days."

  "Are we all to take up residence in your new establishment, then?"

  Wolt asked.

  Arlian had been about to answer Lilsinir, but now he stopped dead, then turned to stare at Wolt.

  "New establishment?" he asked.

  "Yes, of course," the footman said, plainly puzzled. "The house your steward has been building for you on the grounds of the Old Palace."

  Arlian considered that for a moment.

  "Black is building a new house for me?"

  Wolt apparently realized now that this was news to his employer, but was not yet certain how it was being received. "Yes, my lord," he said noncommittally.

  "Is he, indeed?"

  "Yes, my lord. Is this not by your own orders?"