Well, he told himself, he would just have to bear it—or find some other means of defending the Lands of Man from the wizards and monsters.
Perhaps there was some means; perhaps he would find it. After all, Enziet had found the secret of the dragons' vulnerability to obsidian.
And as a dragonheart, he had plenty of time.
A Visit from Lord Zaner
13
A Visit from Lord Zaner
Arlian was not surprised when a footman brought word that his din-Arlian was not surprised when a footman brought word that his dinner guest had arrived at the Grey House; he was startled to discover that the arrival was Lord Zaner, still masked and calling himself Tooth, and not Lady Tiria.
They met in the passage by the foyer. "My dear Tooth!" Arlian said, taking his hand. "A pleasure to see you!"
"Is there somewhere we could speak privately, my lord?" Zaner asked nervously.
"Of course." He gestured to Wolt, the footman who had escorted Zaner from the gate. "Where might we speak undisturbed without inconveniencing anyone?"
The footman glanced down the passage toward the kitchens, where the household staff was bustling about preparing the evening meal, then toward the gallery, where Amberdine could be heard laughing gaily over some new game her sister had devised. "Perhaps upstairs, my lord? Your study?"
Arlian had left Isein and Black in his study, where they were going over some of Enziet's old papers on sorcery in hopes of finding some hint about just how the dragons kept other magic beyond the borders.
With Isein there, Qulu still not returned from Arithei, and Lilsinir up at the Citadel comparing notes with Tiviesh and Asaf, the third floor was uninhabited for the moment—and a sudden whim struck Arlian.
"This way, my lord," he said, momentarily forgetting that he was not supposed to know Lord Zaner's identity or status. He led the way up two flights, his white-masked guest close behind; at the top he took a lit candle from one of the wall niches, and then marched down the length of the corridor to a heavy wooden door set with black iron brackets.
The bar that had once rested in those brackets was gone, but Arlian had deliberately kept the room otherwise much as he had found it upon first inheriting the Grey House. He opened the door and gestured for Zaner to precede him.
Zaner started in, then stopped. "What is this, Arlian?" he asked.
"This is a room where we may speak undisturbed," Arlian replied.
"It looks like a prison!"
"And so it was, when Lord Enziet owned this house. Now it is a memorial." He stepped into the room himself, his free hand taking Zaner's arm and urging him forward.
Once inside, Arlian closed the door and set the candle atop a crude, massive table that stood nearby. The candlelight vividly illuminated several dark stains on the table's rough surface.
The room they had entered was good-sized and appallingly bare; the only furnishings besides the table were two large chests pushed up against one wall. A long-unused fireplace filled one end of the chamber, and the opposite wall had two sets of heavy chains bolted to it. The walls were stone, and the floor bare and ancient planks, stained in several places.
"Why is this here?" Zaner asked. "What did Enziet want with it?"
"You might say he used it as a playroom," Arlian said, leaning against the table. "When I first saw it he had two women imprisoned here—one still alive, though he had already poisoned her, and one very, very dead. Both of them were my friends, one of them perhaps more than a friend; they are now buried in the garden of the Old Palace."
Zaner shuddered, the movement plainly visible despite the mask, even in the dim light. "That's horrible."
"Worse than you know—but I will spare you the details. This was one reason I pursued Enziet with such determination, into the Desolation and to the cave where he died."
"Why did you bring me up here? Surely there must have been another room we could have used!"
"Oh, most likely, but I thought it fitting to show you this, to remind you that I have very real and personal reasons for loathing the dragons and their pawns."
"There I think I can equal you, Arlian. Just as you haven't told me everything, there are things I haven't told
"I hope you don't simply mean your identity, my lord; I recognized you at the Citadel this morning. Please, my dear Zaner, feel free to remove your mask; I can't believe it's comfortable."
"I thought you might have," he said, as he pulled the mask up and off. "But no, that's not what I meant."
"Then what is it that you've come to tell me? I confess to some surprise that you came; I had thought you would want to keep your face hidden, which is hardly possible at the dinner table. What is so urgent that you gave up your secret for it, and wanted to assure our privacy before revealing it to me?"
"I want you to cure me," Zaner said. "That's what's urgent, and why I don't care if you see my face—I'm taking you and the Duke up on your offer. And I came early and alone so Lady Tiria wouldn't find out."
This was not at all what Arlian had expected; he had assumed that it would be he who yielded, thanks to the situation in the Borderlands.
"You mean you want your heart to be cleansed of its taint? You want the Aritheian magicians to restore you to mere humanity, and remove the dragonspawn in your blood?"
"Yes, exactly."
"You know what's involved?"
"Not every little detail, but I think I have the gist of it. What does that matter?"
"I'm told it's excruciatingly painful."
"I don't care."
"You could have arranged this more easily by other means," Arlian said. "You could have surrendered to the guards at the Citadel today."
"But I wanted to talk to you," Zaner said. "I needed to talk to you."
"Now, my lord, I confess myself confused. Suppose we sit down upon these chests—I'm sorry now I did not choose a room with better seating—and you tell me everything you came to tell me. I admit I am very curious about your motives—after fourteen years of war, why do you decide now, when it appears that your compatriots in the Dragon Society have found a way to sway the Duke and compel a truce in your favor, to surrender yourself?"
"I don't think of it as surrendering," Zaner protested. "I'm asking to be purified. That's hardly the same thing."
"As you will, then. Tell me, in your own words, what brings you here today."
"I will." He looked around, but despite Arlian's suggestion he remained standing, while Arlian remained where he was, leaning against the table. He took a deep breath and began.
"You understand, Arlian, that I know the dragons are monsters.
They killed everyone in Oginathi while I watched, more than five hundred years ago—I was a merchant, passing through town on my way home to Lorigol, and I hid in the watering trough in the stable beside the inn. I cut my forehead on the rim one time when I was ducking back down out of sight, and venom from the burning inn had gotten into the water, and here I am, centuries later, still alive—but I remember what I saw there. Men and women and children burned to death, or torn apart..." He shuddered again.
Arlian had never heard of Oginathi—but then, it had been destroyed five hundred years ago. Towns that the dragons chose were only rarely rebuilt; after all, whatever had drawn one attack might draw another.
"Go on," he said.
"I thought they were beasts," Zaner said. "Like cats playing with mice. When I found out they were intelligent, and could communicate with us—well, I was horrified, but it didn't really change anything." He gestured at the hanging chains. "By then I had seen what my fellow man could do. I didn't understand it, but I had seen it, and how could I blame the dragons for inhumanity when I had seen what Drisheen and Horim did for amusement?" He glanced at the chains. "I hadn't known Enziet did that sort of thing, though—he was a little more discreet."
"Lord Enziet had many secrets," Arlian said.
"Indeed he did! And you seem to have discovered most of them."
A
rlian nodded an acknowledgment. uHe named me his heir."
Zaner grimaced. "I was shaken, you know, when you told us all how dragons reproduce—but at the same time, it seemed to explain a great deal. I thought that explained why they attacked villages, and killed all those poor people—they were trying to impregnate a few."
"If that were it, they were hardly efficient," Arlian remarked.
"Yes, I know, I realize that now, but I didn't see it then. I don't think I wanted to see it. And Pulzera had her theories about how all we dragonhearts by rights should be on the dragons' side, and how we weren't really even going to die, how we would be transformed into dragons, and it all seemed to make sense at the time, and you weren't being very convincing. Killing Horim and Enziet and Drisheen and the rest, and saying right out in the open that you wanted to kill all of us—how was I supposed to work with you?"
"I may have been excessively blunt," Arlian agreed. "I was young and foolish." He grimaced. "I am still young and foolish, but not quite as young, and perhaps not quite as foolish."
"We can hope, eh, Arlian? A little less foolish every year, perhaps."
He leaned against the table, a foot or so from his host. "Well, I went with the others to Sarkan-Mendoth, and I used my ships and coaches and warehouses to do my part in the war, and when Hardior and Shatter and Pulzera finally managed to talk to the dragons with that sorcery of yours I thought that we would be able to settle everything peacefully—
make a deal, the way Enziet did seven hundred years ago."
"What sort of a deal?" Arlian asked, honestly puzzled. "The secrets are out, and cannot be called back—everyone knows now how dragons are born, and what a dragonheart is, and the names of the lords of the Dragon Society. What could you offer?"
"That's simple enough; we could offer their lives. We could find you and stop you, and agree that humans would kill no more dragons, and in exchange the dragons would promise to kill no more humans.
What could be easier?"
"Indeed," Arlian agreed. "And if you had offered such a bargain after those first massacres, after Bentbridge and Kandarag and Upper Toniva, I believe the Duke would have taken it. I might have agreed myself, and if I did not, the Duke could have had me killed easily enough. The carnage that first summer . . . "
"I know," Zaner said. "I was sick about it. I think we all were. But the dragons were adamant. Even when we said that if they agreed to a truce we would use their venom to make more dragonhearts for them, all the dragonhearts they wanted, they wouldn't have it. Oh, they wanted us to use the venom, if only sparingly, and they wanted us to kill you—you know about that..."
"All too well," Arlian agreed dryly. "I know of about thirty assassins; were there others who failed without my knowledge?"
Zaner shrugged. "I don't know; that wasn't my concern. Hardior was the enthusiast for assassins. But my point is that no matter what terms we offered, the dragons would not agree to stop the killing. Ever."
"What?"
"Arlian, they didn't want a deal. They wouldn't hear of it. They wouldn't agree."
"But that's . . . but we've killed more than half of them since then.
Why would they refuse a truce that could have prevented that?" He suddenly remembered the day's audience at the Citadel. "And why would they accept one now?"
"They were hungry. And now they aren't."
Arlian stared at him; then he reached down and shifted the candle to better illuminate his guest's face. "Hungry for what?" he asked. "What do dragons eat? There is no food in their lairs. When they emerge they burn their victims to death, or tear them to pieces, but they do not eat them—I know that, whatever the folktales may say. And what else could you mean? I had assumed they did not need to eat, that that was a part of their magic."
"That was what we all thought," Zaner agreed. "But it's not true.
They eat souls."
"What?" Arlian said again.
"I only found out about six weeks ago. Hardior said something, and I asked, and I..
"They eat souls?"
Zaner nodded. "That's why they would never give up their attacks entirely, in all those years since Enziet bargained with them. They would have starved. They devour the souls of everyone they kill, and that sustains them. They fasted for a very long time during the Years of Man, waiting for Enziet to die, only emerging at long intervals, when they could stand no more, and even then restricting themselves to small, obscure villages—such as Oginathi or Obsidian. But then Enziet did die, and they came out to feast. First Kirial's Rocks and Tiapol, and then the next year, after you slew that first one, they went to Bentbridge, and . . .
well, you know the rest as well as I do."
"But they told me . . . They offered to continue Enziet's bargain with me! They said they would stay in their caves if I agreed!"
"They lied, Arlian. They move slowly, and had not yet decided what to do about you, but they wanted you to keep their secrets secret until they were ready, so they told you what they thought might achieve that."
"And they let me destroy so many of their comrades?"
"Oh, they tried to stop you often enough! Those thirty assassins weren't all just friends of Lord Drisheen or Lord Hardior, you know.
And after that first year you never spent a single warm day more than fifty yards from a dozen obsidian-tipped spears and heavy catapults, so they didn't want to go after you themselves. Not after what happened at the Old Palace."
"Yes, but to allow me to kill so m a n y . . . "
"Arlian, you had the old records, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course."
"How often did they say there were more dragons than you found?"
"Often," Arlian admitted. "The last lair had four where I expected six, the one before that three where four were reported."
"They had moved. The younger ones. They left the old and tired ones, the ones who scarcely wake at all anymore, while the youngest and strongest moved to new lairs, safer lairs that aren't in your lists and maps."
"Still, to give up so many . . . " Then he stopped, and stared at Lord Zaner. "Those counts were accurate?"
"Probably. Most of them, anyway."
"But we were assuming that if the count was off, those others did not exist. That means . . . " He stopped again.
That meant that his estimate of forty-six remaining was horribly short of the truth. He had believed he had slain at least three-fifths of the world's dragons, but the actual fraction might be no more than half—perhaps less than half!
And the ones he had slain had been the old and feeble?
"Go on with your tale," he said.
"They never expected you to do so well," Zaner said. "You should be proud of that."
"Go on," Arlian repeated.
"They knew about the powers beyond the borders," Zaner said.
They knew all of it. They didn't tell us much, but things gradually leaked out. They didn't want peace until they could make it on their terms. They feasted and feasted and feasted, and let you kill their old and sick until the decline in their numbers let the border magic decay, and then they sent us all here to Manfort."
"All?"
"The messenger—she's called Wing, and once she's safely back in Sarkan-Mendoth she'll be paid for this with a dose of blood and venom.
Assuming, of course, that any venom is to be had. And Lady Tiria, of course..."
"Another assassin."
"Yes, but not for you," Zaner said. "She's been sent to kill as many of the Aritheian magicians as she can, to earn her dose of elixir. That's part of the dragons' price—not for you or the Duke, but for us, the Dragon Society. We are to bear their young to term, whether we like it or not, and anyone who might prevent that must die. All your Aritheian magicians are targets."
Arlian stood up straight. "And did you come here to the Grey House to kill Lilsinir, then?"
"Who?" Zaner looked baffled. "Oh, no, I'm no assassin. I'm just in Manfort as an overseer. We never trust anyone with a
nything this important without a dragonheart along to keep an eye on things.
"So you're distracting me, while your Tiria seduces Asaf or Tiviesh and stabs him in the back?"
"I hope not," Zaner said. "When you showed up in the waiting room we changed our plans—or, well, I had already been hoping to meet you somewhere and arrange to speak with you. When you came to the Citadel, it was the perfect opportunity. I thought I would have to ask Tiria to set up a meeting, but then you invited me, as well, and here we are."
"And where is Tiria?"
"Probably on her way here, after getting some last-minute instructions. I told her that talking to you was more important, and lolling the magicians could wait. Frankly, I don't think she has what it takes to be an assassin, in any case; I doubt she could have killed any of them even if I weren't working to make it more difficult."
"Let us hope you judge her correctly," Arlian said coldly. The Aritheians came here at my behest, and I do not want my guests murdered"
"Don't worry" Zaner said, slapping Arlian on the back. "They'll be fine. She won't dare do anything tonight—the whole Citadel is in an uproar about the news from the Borderlands."
"And that uproar might provide excellent cover."
"But it won't. I told you, Arlian, I'm here because I want the magicians to cure me, and they can't do that if they're dead. I've done everything I can to slow Tiria down and make her job difficult without giving myself away, and I really don't think she'll try anything tonight. She may be waiting downstairs right now."
"And where is the last member of your party, this Wing? Is she an assassin, too?"
"No, she's a messenger, and she probably has a dozen guards watching her every move. But who said she's the last? There were five of us."
Arlian closed his eyes and put his fingertips to his forehead."Five,"
he said. "You, Wing, Tiria—who else?"
"Lady Opal," Zaner said. "She was chosen to oversee this expedition, and I had to speak fast and well to have myself included. I pointed out that a party of three women and a mere boy might draw unwelcome attention, and a mature man would look well..."
Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) Page 12