Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) (19 page)
Read Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) Online
Authors: Lawrence Watt-Evans
"And what if we could find some way to hold the magic back, without the dragons?"
"Why, that would be the best of both worlds, surely—but how can it be done? My people have struggled for centuries to keep Arithei safe, and their success, while real, is a very limited one. Arithei is a very small land, and the Lands of Man are vast—all of Arithei would fit easily into the Borderlands, which are the merest corner of your nation. Every town, every city, every farmstead would need magicians protecting it; every road would require iron warding posts along its entire length. And the Desolation—no one can live there, so how could it be protected? It would become your equivalent of the Dreaming Mountains, the vast haunted wasteland that would be forever spilling its horrors down upon its neighbors."
Arlian knew she spoke the truth, but he refused to accept it.
This was hardly a new experience for him. He had sworn vengeance on the dragons when he was a mere boy, and for years he had been told he was mad, reminded that no man had ever slain a dragon—but he had found a way, all the same. Lord Enziet's six hundred years of research into sorcery and the nature of dragons had paid off in the identification of obsidian as the one substance that could pierce a dragon's flesh, and Arlian had put that discovery to good use.
Surely, there had to be some way to drive both the dragons and the wild magic from the Lands of Man!
And he had somewhere between nine hundred and a thousand years to And it.
And he knew where to start looking; Isein had told him. The
Aritheians surely knew more about defending against hostile magic than anyone else. They had not yet found the one great key that would let them keep their land completely safe, but they could still tell Arlian what would not work, what would provide a partial solution.
He would go to Arithei. He would talk to the magicians. If necessary, he would learn their language so he could speak to them in their own tongue—at present he knew only a few half-remembered words in Aritheian. He would learn as much as he could, and he would seek some final solution.
And if the people of Arithei could not provide it, he would go to Stiva, or even to the wizards of Furza and Shei. In time, if all else failed, he might approach the Blue Mage, or perhaps even the master of Tirikindaro.
Somehow, he would find a way to defend the Lands of Man against hostile magic.
And when he had, he would resume where he had left off. He would exterminate the dragons once and for all.
Plans and Preparations
The long-overdue Qulu never returned from Arithei, and after a month's stay in Manfort, Arlian reluctantly concluded that he probably neve would. Even in the best of times the road was hazardous, and these times were anything but the best.
That month had been an odd and troublesome one, Arlian had carried through on his intention to retire Ferrezin, though the old man had protested. In the end he had accepted the pension, packed up his few possessions, and departed though he would not say where he was bound.
Lord Zaner had carried through on his promises, as well. In one of the upstairs rooms in the Grey House Lilsinir had removed Zaner's heart, driven the dragon taint from it, and then restored the purged organs to Zaner's body. Arlian had watched the whole thing, and had killed the misshapen horror thus expelled from Zaner's heart; the loathsome little thing, still five centuries short of its full growth, was no larger than a kitten and barely recognizable as a dragon when it took form from the bloody talisman Lilsinir had placed in Zaner's chest to draw out the poison in his blood. It mewed piteously as it crawled across the bedclothes and tumbled awkwardly to the floor, and it had scarcely struck the carpet when Arlian drove an obsidian dagger through it reducing it to broken shards in a puddle of blood, venom, and offal.
The carpet, as well as the ruined bedding, was burned in the courtyard; die resulting stench took several days to fade.
Despite the stupefying herbs the Aritheians had provided, the procedure had been agonizing, and Lord Zaner had lost consciousness.
When he awoke he wanted nothing more to do with Arlian—apparently the mere sight of him was now associated with unbearable pain.
The Duke of Manfort, although generally preoccupied with negotiations with the Dragon Society and reports from the Borderlands, had formally pardoned Lord Zaner for any offenses he might have committed while in the thrall of the dragons, and had furthermore restored to him all his lands and properties that had been confiscated during the fourteen years he was outcast from Manfort.
His wealth and welcome renewed, and any fondness for Arlian
destroyed, Lord Zaner was now recovering in his own old mansion—
which had been standing empty for fourteen years, and was therefore badly in need of extensive repairs, repairs Zaner was supervising from his sickbed.
Zaner made it known that no dragonhearts, nor any of the servants of the Dragon Society, were welcome there—though those he called
"my fellow victims of the southern witches" were cordially invited to call. Rime accepted that invitation, and reported back to Arlian that all in all, Zaner seemed to be adjusting to his altered circumstances quite well.
He had, for one thing, hired old Ferrezin as his steward. Whether Zaner had ulterior motives or simply wished to have an experienced man heading his staff, Arlian could not guess.
While the Duke was publicly pleased about Lord Zaner's submission, in private he informed Arlian that he and his magicians were not to solicit any further purifications.
"Your Grace's will is my own, of course," Arlian replied, bowing,
"but I do wonder why that will should take such a direction."
"Because I'm in the middle of trying to make peace with the dragons and convince them to drive the invaders out of the Borderlands, and they don't like it when we abort their children!"
"Your Grace, might I suggest that further cleansings would serve to put pressure on the dragons, and convince them to agree to your terms?"
"Obsidian, I don't dare do that! We need them. I can't risk the possibility that they might simply abandon the negotiations and resume the war, or worse, join forces with the monsters beyond the border. Yes, you've been remarkably successful against them thus far, and I truly do commend and admire your actions, but Lady Opal tells me that the surviving dragons have retreated to new, deeper lairs where you cannot find them . . ."
"I can find them," Arlian broke in. "One way or another, I can find them."
"Perhaps you can, and perhaps you cannot," the Duke replied, annoyed by the interruption, "but my point, my lord, is that I want the war against the dragons to end, so that we can deal with those nightmares in the south."
"Perhaps, Your Grace, there is some other way to defend the Borderlands without giving in to the dragons."
"And perhaps there isn't. I don't know of any; do you?"
"No, Your Grace, but I am contemplating a journey to Arithei to discuss the possibility with the magicians there."
"Well, you're free to do that, my lord—I grant you leave. Your presence here does complicate the negotiations, as I'm sure you can imagine."
Arlian could indeed imagine it. He had a few uncomfortable
encounters in the Citadel over the weeks of preparation; he and Lady Opal had been bitter foes for a decade and a half, and now she had been acknowledged as the Dragon Society's envoy to the Duke and given the freedom of the city, so it was not unexpected that they ran into each other on occasion, in the corridors of the Citadel or on the surrounding streets.
He remembered the first such meeting; he had rounded a corner while hurrying, deep in thought, through the Citadel, and had found himself staring directly into Opal's green eyes.
They had both stopped dead in their tracks, and stood face-to-face, scarcely a yard apart. Arlian had been only dimly aware of the guard at Lady Opal's elbow as he met her gaze.
He recalled how when he had first met her, over Lord Nail's
deathbed, he had thought her eyes dull and lifeless; that was certainly no longer the case. She had not yet tasted venom then, had not yet gained the heart of the dragon. Now her eyes shone.
The silence between them had begun to grow awkward, his staring rude; he forced himself to bow slightly and say, "My lady Marasa."
"Lord Obsidian," she replied, her voice strained.
"Your pardon; my thoughts were elsewhere."
"Of course." She did not smile, nor make any of the customary flir-tatious responses an unmarried woman might ordinarily offer in such circumstances—but then, this situation was not ordinary.
Arlian thought of any number of things he could say, subtle in-sults he could direct at her, but as both were the Duke's guests in the Citadel, protocol required them to be polite to one another.
No warmth was called for, and no one expected a pair of known enemies to express pleasure in each other's company, but civility was still necessary.
"If you will forgive me, I have business I must attend."
"Of course," she said again. She nodded, and he bowed again before stepping aside and striding past her.
That was not their only meeting, but it set the tone for all that followed. They continued to coldly acknowledge each other, but no more than that.
Even such minimal politeness required a considerable effort, apparently from both of them. Arlian did not enjoy those occasions, nor did he believe Opal liked them any better.
Of the others in her entourage, only Wing was openly acknowl-
edged as her companion; Ferret and Lady Tiria were allegedly simple travelers, unconnected with the Society or Lady Opal. Tiria, however, could hardly help but realize that Lord Zaner had betrayed her identity and mission to Arlian, and she now avoided him—but not always successfully. That, too, caused some awkward moments.
Arlian had, of course, warned the Aritheians of Tiria's presence, and provided them with all the guards they wanted—or really, more than they wanted; he took the threat more seriously than did the Aritheians.
Tiviesh, in particular, found the idea of an assassin targeting him absurd, and none of Arlian's protestations could sway him. Arlian hoped that the Aritheian would never realize that his food was being surreptitiously tested for poisons, his apartments carefully observed and occasionally searched for infernal devices.
Arlian had also set spies upon all of Opal's party, so that he might receive warning of any noteworthy activities. This yielded little, in truth, but some of the reports proved interesting.
For one, it seemed that Lord Rolinor had developed an infatuation with Wing, and was also spending what Arlian considered an unhealthy amount of time with Lady Opal in private conversation. This caused Arlian to doubt, more than ever, that Rolinor's earlier involvement with Wren had been entirely innocent; it was clear the young nobleman could not be trusted, and might well be hoping, even now, to earn a cup of blood and venom.
Not that Opal or Wing could necessarily provide one readily; while the dragons did communicate with the leaders of the Society, they did so only by sorcerous means over long distances, never face-to-face, and they did not freely supply their followers with venom. The dragonhearts were always eager to obtain more venom from any source they could find, to use in rewarding their followers—that had been part of Wren's assignment, after all.
Wing and Opal were reasonably attractive women, of course, as was Wren, so Lord Rolinor might attribute his interest in all of them to a normal young man's lusty nature, but there were plenty of comely young women in Manfort who did not have such unfortunate connections. Rolinor did not seem to spend an inordinate amount of time pursuing those others.
Whatever the reason for Rolinor's current attachments, Arlian was not pleased. "I should have killed the young fool there in the cave," he muttered.
"It wouldn't have mattered in the long run," Black pointed out.
"There will be hundreds of eager buyers once it becomes generally known that the Duke is no longer having dragonhearts put to death on sight. Where there is a demand, there will be those who find ways to supply the desired goods."
"I know," Arlian conceded. "I still should have killed him."
Rolinor's activities aside, other reports led Arlian to conclude that Lady Opal had been sent as the Society's representative because the Society's leaders—Lord Shatter, Lord Hardior, and Lady Pulzera—
considered her expendable; had she been killed, it would have been seen as no great loss. Now that she had succeeded, her position in the Society was, despite her youth, enhanced.
For centuries, rank within the Dragon Society had been determined by seniority; Lady Opal, as the youngest known dragonheart, should have been the lowest of the low. Instead, because she was the first to deliberately choose the heart of the dragon, and because she had been active and ambitious in pursuing the Society's ends, she seemed to have built up considerable influence.
Fourteen years before, Arlian, then the youngest dragonheart, had broken the Society into several factions with his actions and discoveries; the current reduced Society was the only surviving one of those factions, and now it appeared that Opal's actions might be splitting it anew.
That was not really surprising. The situations were complex, and the individuals involved varied. There were never simply two sides anymore. The Dragon Society nominally served the dragons, while the Duke and all Manfort nominally opposed them, but there were always complications, ways in which the Society's wants diverged from the dragons, ways in which the Duke's needs converged with the dragons, reasons for divided loyalties in individuals on either side.
Arlian hated that. He wanted the dragons dead, gone, abolished; he wanted vengeance for what they had done to his family, and he wanted to spare all the other villages the dragons would destroy in the future, if they were permitted to survive. He wanted to save those souls the dragons would devour, if Zaner was right in his understanding of the beasts diet. Arlian did not want any complications to this simple, albeit extremely difficult, goal.
