The Obsidian Oracle

by Denning, Troy

  Despite her anger, Tithian noticed that she was keeping one eye fixed on him. Smiling, the king stepped over to where she could see him more easily, clasping his hands behind his back. He turned his gaze on the dagger lying at the edge of the pit, the one with which Kester had attacked Sacha, and opened a pathway to his spiritual nexus. Being careful not to alarm the tarek by moving even slightly, Tithian visualized the knife resting in his hand. A prickle of energy rose from deep within himself, then he felt the cold weight of the weapon’s hilt in his palm.

  “Now that you’re here,” Tithian asked, “is our friend going after Fylo?”

  The king leaned forward as if to look over the tarek’s shoulder. Instead of peering down at Agis, however, he began counting down the prominent row of vertebrae showing between Kester’s muscular shoulders. This had to be done exactly right, Tithian knew, for he had seen enough gladiatorial contests to realize that tareks often fought for many seconds after death. If his strike did not paralyze as well as kill, Kester could easily take him with her.

  “He’s climbing down now,” Kester said, frowning at the king’s proximity.

  Tithian’s arm flashed, plunging the dagger deep into Kester’s back. The tip entered exactly where he intended, low and between the shoulder blades, so that the blade severed the spinal cord on its way to the heart. The tarek’s astonished cry died in her throat, and her body went limp without so much as a reflexive twitch.

  “We should have left when I wanted to,” Tithian said.

  The king shoved Kester’s shoulders into the narrow crack, then jumped on her back to force her farther down. If he could jam her body in the crevice securely enough, Agis would not be able to free it before growing too exhausted to keep the lid’s magic from sealing itself.

  Once he felt convinced that it would be impossible to dislodge the body within the necessary time, Tithian leaped off the dark circle. His feet had barely touched solid ground before Agis’s muffled voice sounded from beneath Kester’s body. “Tithian!”

  The king turned around. He could see Kester’s back jerking as Agis tried to pull her free.

  Yes, Agis? he asked, using the Way so his words would not be muffled by the pit cover. You haven’t changed your mind about my offer of immortality, have you?

  Don’t flatter yourself, the noble replied.

  You could have tried lying, you know, Tithian said. There’s a chance that I might have wanted to believe you enough to fall for it.

  Sacha and Wyan floated over to his side and started to urge him to leave, but the king raised a hand to keep them silent.

  Whatever else you are, you’re not stupid, Agis observed. Besides, I’m not the liar around here.

  True, but look what your honesty’s earned you, the king said. You’re too noble for your own good. There was a note of genuine remorse in the statement.

  When Agis did not respond, Tithian kept a watchful eye on Kester’s body, knowing that his old friend was trying to stall him until the passage could be cleared.

  Agis took a moment before answering. I’m not as virtuous as you think, said the noble. If I was, your talk of the Dark Lens would never have diverted me from my original purpose.

  The lens is real enough! Tithian objected.

  I know—but so is my promise to return you to Tyr, Agis said. By putting that off, I’ve stained my honor and broken my word, in principle if not in deed.

  I wouldn’t know about such distinctions, replied the king. Perhaps that’s the reason you’re doomed to fail, while I’m destined to become a sorcerer-king.

  I thought that wasn’t possible? Agis inquired, the tone of his question betraying both distress and suspicion.

  Come now, do you think I’d betray you for anything less? Tithian asked. He started toward the exit, motioning for Sacha and Wyan to follow along. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, my friend, but I have an Oracle to find.

  Don’t think you’ve won, Tithian! This isn’t over!

  The king paused and studied Kester’s body for a moment. The tarek’s body was still jerking as Agis tried to clear the exit, but Tithian saw no sign that his friend was close to dislodging the corpse.

  The king smiled. Of course it’s not over, he allowed. I still have plans for you.

  TWELVE

  THE FIRST

  GIANTS

  A JAGGED BOULDER SAILED OVER THE WALL, SMASHING the chitinous plate between the sparkling, many-faceted eyes of a mantis-headed warrior. The giant bellowed and raised his hands to the wound, stumbling backward until he tumbled off the ramparts and crashed headfirst atop a rock pile. The Saram’s neck snapped with a loud crack, then his enormous body rolled onto a pair of boys who had been passing stones up to their elders.

  The death went almost unnoticed amidst the chaos of the battle. All along the wall, Saram tribesmen stood silhouetted against the yellow sky of dawn, hurling stones and insults at the enemies surrounding Castle Feral. The Joorsh were responding with a barrage of their own. From every corner echoed the sound of boulders shattering against the ramparts, a steady cadence of resonant booms that rumbled through the citadel like an exploding volcano.

  Along with Sacha and Wyan, Tithian watched the fighting from the relative safety of the citadel floor, where they were moving across a small stretch of open ground in the company of a dozen terrified goats. Although far from giant-sized, the beasts were huge for their species, and the king needed to stoop just a little so that his head would not protrude above their shoulders. Hundreds of such creatures—sheep, goats, even erdlus and kanks—had broken free of their pens with the thunder of the first Joorsh volley. For the last quarter hour, they had been charging around the castle floor in panicked herds, turning the whole granite plane into a maelstrom of hoofed mayhem.

  The domestic animals were not the only source of confusion. The Castoffs had spread throughout the castle and were flitting from one beasthead to another, searching for the bodies to which their heads had once been attached. Whenever they paused for more than a moment near a Saram, the warrior turned away and fled, crying for Bawan Nal, who was nowhere in sight, to save them.

  A few spirits had apparently located the correct bodies. Their ethereal visages adhered to the Sarams’ beastly faces like masks, causing the victims unbearable pain. In one place, a stone-hurler had forsaken his duties to bang his reptilian head against the wall. Another warrior stood over a cart of spilled boulders, screaming in agony as she plucked the feathers from her ternlike face.

  As the bird-headed woman tore at her avian features, a small boulder came soaring high overhead. It did not drop until it was well inside the citadel walls, falling just a short distance ahead of Tithian’s herd. The projectile shattered instantly, filling the air with mordant-smelling rock dust and blasting the herd with pieces of rock. Bleating madly, the goats reversed direction and fled, nearly bowling Tithian over in their terror. When they were gone, the king and his disembodied companions found themselves alone, a hundred yards of open granite between them and the silvery enclosure they had been trying to reach.

  Two dozen burly, vicious-looking Saram came rushing from the compound’s gate. All had the heads of fanged and venomous beasts: vipers, spiders, and centipedes of all kinds. One of the giants even had the bony skull of a death’s head bat, while the distinctive fangs of a needle-toothed shrew protruded from the narrow snout of another. In their hands, the warriors carried steel-tipped lances as tall as trees, while their bodies were covered by plates of mekillot-shell armor.

  The king turned and sprinted after the goats.

  “Are you ready, Fylo?” Agis asked, peering down the sparkling shaft.

  The giant still lay with the crystal jutting up through his shoulder, blood oozing from the wound and dripping steadily into the abyss. Although his eyes were only half-open, they were attentive and turned in the noble’s direction. In his good hand, he held the end of a rope stretched taut between himself and Kester.

  Agis had used a dagger from the tarek’s ch
est harness to cut the length of cord off the rope Kester had draped through the crack before dying. Given the effort it had required to saw through the sturdy giant-hair fibers, he felt certain that the giant could pull as hard as he wanted without breaking the line.

  “Fylo ready,” the giant reported, his voice a strained croak.

  “Then pull!”

  The giant gave the line a hard tug. Kester’s body remained stuck for a moment, then abruptly popped out of the crack and dropped limply into the abyss. After a long fall, it landed in the half-breed’s lap, causing his body to jerk from the impact. Even at the top of the shaft, Agis heard the eerie sound of shoulder bone grinding against quartz crystal, and a deep groan of agony rumbled from between the giant’s clenched teeth.

  The sound had not even died away before Fylo pointed at the pit cover. “Go. Catch traitor Tithian.”

  Agis nodded, knowing that without help, he could not pull the heavy giant free of the crystal. “I’ll be back when I find some way to get you out,” Agis said, climbing into the star-shaped crack. “I won’t leave you here.”

  The giant nodded. “Fylo know.”

  “You’re a brave friend,” Agis said. He pulled himself up into the yellow light of dawn.

  The noble’s chest had barely risen out of the cracked lid before he felt himself being pinched between an immense thumb and forefinger. He was plucked out of the hole, then lifted high into the air.

  “How fortunate we were to arrive just as you were leaving,” hissed a sibilant voice.

  Agis’s captor turned him around, and the noble found himself staring at the face of a Saram giant. The warrior had enormous fur-covered ears, wrinkled nostrils, and huge scarlet eyes set into the gnarled, fleshless skull of a death’s head bat.

  “Take me to Bawan Nal,” Agis said, noticing that another two dozen beastheads stood behind his captor. Most seemed to have the heads of serpents, spiders, and insects. “It’s important that I speak to him at once!”

  This drew a malevolent chuckle from the entire company.

  “Bawan Nal also thinks it important to speak with you,” the warrior replied. “It’s not often that he calls the Poison Pack away from its duties in the Mica Yard.”

  The tip of the forked wand glowed yellow and bowed downward ever so slightly, pointing toward the center of the enclosure, where a single Saram giant guarded the entrance to a subterranean passage. Armed with a bone battle-axe as tall as a faro tree, the sentry had a hairless head more or less conical in shape, with beady eyes and small, peaked ears. His pointed muzzle ended in a pair of flaring nostrils, with a pair of venom-dripping tusks hanging from beneath his upper lips. He hardly seemed able to contain himself as he bustled to and fro, swinging his axe in great, exuberant arcs and testing the cool breeze for the scent of intruders.

  Tithian allowed himself to peer at the giant for only an instant, then backed away from the corner, fearing the guard would be alerted to his presence by the awful stench of goat offal clinging to his clothes. The king moved a short distance down the enclosure wall, a huge sheet of silvery mica that sprang directly out of the bedrock, then returned his divining wand to his shoulder satchel.

  “The lens is in there—and they left only one sentry to guard it,” he announced, pulling a tiny crossbow and a quiver of a dozen dartlike quarrels from his pouch. “This is going to be too easy. I had expected ten times that number.”

  “You’re overconfident,” said Sacha, hovering close to his ear. “So far, you’ve inspired me with nothing but doubt.”

  “Only a fool could have believed that pack of giants was chasing us,” agreed Wyan. “You jumped into a dung-filled pothole for nothing.”

  “If I’m such a fool, how come you two were hiding there when I arrived?” Tithian countered, fitting a tiny quarrel into its slot on the crossbow.

  That done, the king turned his free palm toward the ground, preparing to cast a magical spell. The energy came to him slowly, and all from the direction of the citadel’s gate, for he had to draw it all from the isle of Lybdos itself. If any plants had ever grown on the peninsula’s barren granite, they had long since been devoured by the domestic flocks of the Saram. Finally, Tithian had enough energy to use his magic. He started toward the enclosure entrance, hunched over and moving slowly.

  He had taken no more than three steps when the muffled clatter of a ballista echoed over the walls on the far side of the castle. A pained roar followed, and

  Tithian looked toward the gate. He saw a lion-headed giant fall from the wall, clutching at a long harpoon piercing his chest. The king smiled, for the sight suggested Mag’r had not yet sunk the Shadow Viper, and that could simplify matters greatly when the time came to escape.

  Returning his attention to the task at hand, Tithian shuffled forward and stepped around the jagged corner of the mica wall. He held his hands in front of his stomach, folded over each other and with the crossbow concealed beneath them.

  The sentry’s nostrils sniffed at the breeze, and he squinted in the king’s direction. “You’re a funny-looking goat,” he said. He started forward, adding, “Don’t run. It’ll only make me mad.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tithian snickered. “The last thing I have in mind is running.”

  Gnashing his tusks together, the sentry hefted his axe and charged. Tithian waited a moment for the guard to build momentum, then raised his crossbow and fingered the trigger, speaking his incantation at the same time. The bowstring clicked softly, launching the tiny bolt at the giant. As soon as the needle cleared the groove, it began to sputter and hiss, spewing blue sparks from its tail.

  As the needle streaked away, the giant came into range for his own attack, leveling his axe at the king’s head. Tithian threw himself down, and the blade clattered against the granite bedrock at the king’s side, so close that the impact sprayed his face with hot shards of chipped blade. In the same instant, the tiny quarrel pierced its target’s chest.

  The sentry slapped at the puncture as though stung by an insect. Then, absentmindedly scratching at the wound, he sneered at the king’s prone form. “It’ll take more than a blue flash to kill Mal.”

  A wisp of grayish smoke shot from the tiny wound, then Mal’s rib cage gave a great heave. A muted discharge sounded inside his chest. His beady eyes bulged in surprise, and a horrid gurgle, half growl and half groan, rasped from his throat. The axe slipped from his grasp, his knees already buckling.

  Tithian rolled. He heard the crash of the bone axe handle striking the granite floor, then saw the dark shadow of an axe head spreading outward around his body. The flat of the blade fell squarely on him, sounding a sharp crack inside his skull. An instant later, the sentry’s lifeless corpse fell on top of the axe, and the king’s body erupted into agony.

  The ground began to spin, and a terrible ache throbbed from his skull clear down to his legs. It hurt to breathe, and he felt his mind drifting off into the gray arena of nothingness. With a start, the king realized he was falling unconscious, allowing his mind to retreat from the fiery pain flaring inside his head. He could not allow that, for to sleep now would be to die. Worse, it would be to fail, with the Oracle all but in his grasp.

  “Stand, you miserable cur!” yelled Sacha.

  “Die now, and the Shadow People shall have your spirit as their slave—until Rajaat is free!” threatened Wyan.

  Tithian seized on their angry words, visualizing his fingers closing around a burning rope. He began pulling hand over hand, hauling himself out of the darkness, into the blinding light and searing agony that was his body. Within moments, he was once again fully possessed by his pain.

  For a moment, Tithian tried to accept his physical anguish, to let it wash over his body like a searing wind, uncomfortable, but sufferable for short periods of time. It was no use. He had never been good at enduring pain, and he was no better at it now. If he was to survive this, he would have to rely on an old trick, one that he had found useful since his adolescence.

  Mars
haling his spiritual energy, the king used the Way to form an image of his friend Agis. His own pain he viewed as a bottomless vial of syrupy brown poison, and this he tipped toward the noble’s open mouth. Tithian felt better immediately. He could still feel the agony of the giant’s crushing weight, but it went straight into the brown vial, and from there down Agis’s throat. The king’s ribs still ached, and his head still throbbed, but no longer was the pain overwhelming.

  Slowly, the king dragged himself from beneath the axe blade’s crushing weight, then rose and stood at the dead giant’s side.

  “You’re looking better,” observed Sacha. “More fit to be one of Rajaat’s servants.”

  “What happened?” inquired Wyan.

  “Agis is bearing my pain for me,” Tithian replied. “Remind me to reward him when we return from freeing Rajaat.”

  “He’ll never survive that long,” replied Sacha. “Our task will take months.”

  “Agis will find a way,” the king said absently, studying the interior of the enclosure.

  It was roughly rectangular in shape, surrounded by ragged slabs of mica that rose from the granite bedrock like a tall, silvery hedge. In the center of the enclosure, a pearly film shimmered over the entrance to a dark tunnel, just large enough for a Saram giant—or a small Joorsh—to crawl through. The passage tilted to one side, so that anyone passing down it would be forced to lean sharply to the right.

  Tithian started toward the tunnel, saying, “Besides, it hardly matters if Agis isn’t alive when we return. If he’s not, I’ll just raise him from the dead.” When neither of the heads said anything in reply, Tithian asked, “Rajaat will grant me such powers, won’t he?”

  “Rajaat can bestow you with magic,” replied Wyan. “What you learn to do with it is not for him to determine.”