Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) (27 page)

Whatever it is, even if it is a godling of some sort, what can it do to me that a dragon could not?"

"Anything it wants to. Any ghastly thing you can imagine."

"And is that any more than the Blue Mage could do?"

"Yes!"

Arlian stopped his work, closed his eyes, and sighed.

"I'm not going to fight it," he said. "I bear it no ill will—well, no, I lie; I do think its tyranny over its people an evil thing that should be ended. Aside from that, however, I do not hate it, I do not seek any sort of vengeance against it; I merely wish to speak to it, ask a few questions."

"And if an ant crawls up your arm, do you worry about whether it means you harm or was simply exploring, or do you flick it aside, perhaps squash it, without troubling yourself about its motives?"

"Ants do not ask questions in any tongue a man can hear; surely, the thing in Tirikindaro can hear its supplicants?"

"When it bothers to listen, perhaps."

He sighed again. "However mad you think it, Isein, I am going to Tirikindaro to speak to the ruler of that land. I do not expect you to accompany me, and I have ordered Double and Poke not to, but I am going."

"I thought you came south to go to Arithei, not Tirikindaro!"

"If I survive Tirikindaro, I intend to continue on to Shei and Arithei and Stiva and Baratu and Skok's Falls, and wherever else my quest may take me, until I find the answers I seek."

She stared at him for a moment, then said, "I had not truly realized until now what you seek."

Puzzled, he glanced at her. "I have said it often enough. I seek a means whereby the Lands of Man may exist free of hostile and dangerous magic, whether that magic is the dragons or the wild magic from beyond the borders."

Isein shook her head. "You seek death, Arlian," she said. "Whenever you accomplish one impossible task without dying, you begin another.

You set yourself the task of escaping from slavery7, though it was far more likely you would die in the mines. You set out to become wealthy, though it was first more likely you would be caught stealing Lord Kuruvan's gold and put to death, and then more likely you would die on the journey to Arithei. You determined to avenge your lost childhood by slaying Lord Enziet and his partners and hirelings—and what were the chances you would survive that? You tried to exterminate the dragons, walking into their very lairs, knowing they could easily kill you. You went to face the Blue Mage, and now Tirikindaro..."

"It is all the same task, Isein; I want to rid the world of the dragons to avenge my murdered family and ensure that no more innocents will be slaughtered as they were. That is what I seek."

"I think you seek to join your family, not avenge them—and that Fate has let you live this long, and come as close to success in your insane quest as you have, out of sheer perversity."

"If I wanted to die, Isein, I could have done so a hundred times over.

I could have sought out a dragon's lair in summer, rather than winter; I could have let Enziet or Toribor run me through."

"You want to die without accepting the responsibility; you don't want to admit you want to die. Fate is playing with you until you admit that you seek death—and confronting the thing in Tirikindaro may well be admission enough."

"I think I know my own motivations better than you know them, Isein. I do not fear death, but neither do I seek it; I seek a better world for us all, one free of dragons. Tirikindaro may hold the knowledge I need to bring such a world into being."

"It very well may, but what makes you think you can take it thence?"

Arlian frowned at her. "Believe what you will, then. I see no reason I should not bring forth that knowledge. I am going to Tirikindaro; you are free to come or not, as you please, but I am going." He set his foot in the stirrup.

"Then I will never see you again, and I regret that."

Arlian swung himself onto the gelding's back. "Do not be too certain; I have survived the impossible before. Wait here a month, and if I have not returned, then go back to Arithei or to Manfort, as you choose.

If you return to Manfort with Poke and Double, then be sure at least one of you tells Black of my fate, and urges him to continue my campaign."

"I will wait a month," she agreed. "No more."

"Good enough." He shook the reins and urged his mount forward.

He glanced back a moment later and saw Isein still standing in front of the inn, watching him. A second look, as he drew away from the village of Orange River, found the street empty, with no indication where she had gone.

He devised his route to avoid the city of Talolo, which Lord Naran had reported fallen to Tirikindaro's hordes, as he did not care to get involved in any of the conflicts likely to be taking place there; instead he directed his steps toward Tirikindaro's heartland. This detour meant the journey should have taken seven or eight days to reach the border, but it was only the fifth when he saw the sky overhead, as well as ahead, streaked with magic and obscured by clouds.

It was early in the afternoon of the sixth day when he found a dozen naked men working a field, men who ignored his shouted greeting. He had heard that the enslaved people of Tirikindaro often went without clothing, as their master did not care to waste resources on unnecessary garments, but he had never seen this at first hand until now. It seemed the stories were true—and the presence of these men meant that he was now past the new border, out of the Lands of Man and in Tirikindaro.

He was fairly certain that this area had still been a part of the Borderlands when last he traveled through the region, but it clearly was no longer.

He did not halt his mount, but rode on past, keeping one eye on the road and one on the men. They ignored him as they hacked at weeds with crude wooden hoes, and picked through their crop, as if looking for something. The stalks around them sometimes rippled in odd branch-ing patterns that Arlian did not think were made by any natural wind.

He reached a deserted village early on the seventh day, and took a few moments to look through some of the roofless buildings. This had evidently been a small border town, one where travelers or caravans could stop and rest and regroup before entering Tirikindaro, but now the caravanserai was a burned-out shell, and the dozen houses surrounding it stood empty and abandoned.

At least, he thought as he looked down into the rubble-filled pit that had been the inn's cellar, he saw no bones, no corpses, nothing to indicate that anyone had died here. The beer barrels had been stove in, and there were several broken wine bottles, but the devastation was far less complete than dragons would have left. With any luck, the villagers had all fled safely to the north.

He looked up, and the sky above him was dark gray streaked with vivid pink, rolling and throbbing as if it were alive; he had trouble focus-ing on it.

He rode on. He passed more fields, more workers—some clothed, some naked—and a few oddly proportioned barracks. There were no more villages as such, no inns; Tirikindaro's people did not bother with such niceties as families, or individual homes, or accommodations that distinguished between resident and traveler. Their ruler saw no need for any of these things.

No one spoke to Arlian as he rode by, and when at last he reached a fork in the road where he could not be certain of his route simply by looking at the sky and directing his horse toward the highest concentra-tion of magic, he had to dismount, grab a man from a nearby field, pry the two-foot cane-cutter from his hand, and put a choke-hold on his throat before he would respond to a simple question.

The man struggled, but made no attempt to recover his blade or use it as a weapon. None of the other workers moved to intervene as Arlian dragged his captive to the fork, one arm around the man's neck, and pointed with his free hand at the roads.

"Which road leads to your master?" Arlian demanded again, in Man's Tongue—he had previously tried both Man's Tongue and pidgin Aritheian, without response. It was possible the man simply had no language in common with him, but Arlian was not yet willing to admit that.

"Let me go," the man replied, speaking at last. "I have work to do."

His accent was odd, and his voice husky, as if he was not accustomed to using it

"So do I," Arlian said, "and it requires a meeting with the thing that rules this land." The air around him seemed to ripple at the sound of his voice, and blue sparkled at the edges of his vision.

The man pointed at the left-hand path, and Arlian released him; he quickly hurried back to the field, picked up his blade, and resumed chopping at the brownish stalks. Arlian did not recognize the crop being grown here, and did not think he wanted to.

He looked at the two branches of the road ahead, then back at the field-workers. The man could have been lying, or could have chosen randomly if he didn't know which way to go—but he hadn't said that he didn't know, and he seemed too mechanical to be capable of subtlety or deception.

Arlian looked at the sky, where midnight-blue clouds seethed constantly, streaked with half a dozen bright colors that flashed and twisted through them; the density might be a little greater to the left.

He swung himself back into the saddle and urged his horse forward, along the left-hand road.

The gelding clearly did not want to go any farther; it kept trying to turn, but Arlian kept forcing its head back in line, and eventually the beast yielded and resumed its steady walk.

And then, with no feeling of transition or change, Arlian was riding down a marble-walled corridor, beneath painted arches. Ahead of him a golden glow obscured the far end of the passageway.

"Whoa," he said softly, tugging at the reins.

The horse stopped, but Arlian did not dismount immediately; he looked around at his surroundings.

The corridor seemed to extend perhaps sixty feet ahead of him, and an infinite distance behind; the walls were of fine marble of various hues, arranged in pleasing patterns of varying stripes—a broad expanse of black would be bordered by red or yellow or green, then a comple-mentary border would be followed by a broad expanse of white. The floor was of some utterly black stone Arlian did not recognize, one that seemed to give back no light at all. Plastered arches a dozen feet above that floor were decorated with painted vines and flowers, and the ceilings between the arches depicted scenes of robed men and women lounging in sunlit gardens. While the only visible source of light was that golden glow for ahead, there were no shadows anywhere; everything was plainly visible.

Arlian suspected that that meant none of this was real.

"I would be honored if you would show yourself, dear host," he called.

I show myself now
, said unspoken words,
but you do not see
.

24

Conversing with That Which

Has No Name

Conversing with That Which

Has No Name

Arlian looked about, but still saw only the bright palace walls. He saw no movement, no sign of life, nothing that could be the master of Tirikindaro—unless it meant the palace itself, or that glow ahead of him.

The voice that had addressed him had been plain enough, though.

Arlian had encountered a variety of magical means of communication over the years, from the sorcerous transmissions of dragons to the wordless commands of the Blue Mage's demonic doorkeeper, and whatever had spoken to him now had been as clear as any of them.

"I beg your pardon," Arlian said. "My perceptions are feeble, I know. As you say, I do not see. How can I do better?"

You see what I choose
, the unspoken voice said.

"And you have chosen to show me a passageway of stone, leading to a formless golden light." Arlian swung himself out of the saddle, dropping to the black stone floor. "If this is the shape in which it pleases you to be seen, I have no quarrel with that. I would not ordinarily ride through such a corridor, so I take it you wish me to dismount."

It matters not
.

His horse was suddenly gone, along with his remaining supplies, and be was alone on the black stone floor, completely at the mercy of his magical host.

At least he had no headache this time.

"I see," he said. "It doesn't matter, but my mount is gone."

The steed lives. Your belongings exist. You do not need them here.

"It would appear I need nothing here but your sufferance."

Precisely. While I choose, you live.

"And you choose to let me live? My thanks, O mighty being."

Say rather, I have not yet chosen to destroy you.

"Ah. Is there, perhaps, some means by which I might ensure that you do not make such a choice? Some method by which I might earn your sufferance? Shall I beg and plead? Shall I bluster and threaten, or bargain? I am here as your humble petitioner, seeking knowledge, but I have no guidance in earning your generosity. You have me utterly in your power. What can I do to gain your favor?"

It is traditional, I suppose, to set a supplicant a task, one where successful
performance means you may live a while longer, and where failure means swift
and painful death. Is this not what the stories report?

"I have heard such tales," Arlian admitted cautiously, "though not about you, in specific."

It suits my whim to play the role on this occasion.

"Indeed—then how can I please you? What task would you have me perform, what test to prove me worthy of your tolerance? How can I demonstrate my valor?"

For a moment there was no response; then the being answered.

Sing to me.

Arlian blinked; his mouth opened, then closed.

"What?" he asked.

Sing to me. Sing songs of praise and thanksgiving, perhaps, as the priests of
old sang to their gods, or songs of mourning for what you have lost and what
more you may lose. I see that you are strong and swift, that Fate has favored
you, and you have slain many foes, overcome many obstacles, so I would not
waste our time by sending you into combat; any merely physical feat would be
uninteresting. Instead I charge you to please me with songt as if I were your god.