Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  "Perhaps I should take them to Lady Rime . . . "

  "No, leave them here!" Stammer said, looking up. " I . . . I . . . I mean, I . . . " She stammered herself into silence, gazing pleadingly at him.

  Arlian smiled. "They can stay here," he said. "I can bring Lady Rime up to study them here. And I'm sure all the children would be glad to see them, once they're old enough to play with."

  "If they live that long," Brook said.

  "Indeed," Arlian agreed. "That's hardly a certainty, is it?"

  "I'll f . . . f . . . find them some milk," Stammer said.

  A few hours later, when the sun was down, Arlian found himself momentarily alone with the kittens in the kitchen of Obsidian House, staring at the tiny animals again. They had emphatically refused the warm milk Stammer had offered them; in fact, they had not eaten nor drunk since their birth, yet they seemed as strong and alert as ever—

  more alert, in fact, as they gazed back at him knowingly.

  Lady Rime had not yet replied to his message, but somehow Arlian suspected her sorcery would yield little useful information about these strange little creatures. They had clearly escaped poisoning, yet had received at least a portion of the venom's magic.

  The possibility must therefore exist of creating thousands of such kittens, thereby soaking up the magic of the Lands of Man and allowing the dragons to be slain, but Arlian was by no means ready to celebrate.

  This would appear at first to be exactly what he sought, but the kittens made him uneasy. While it seemed absurd that magical cats could be as bad as wild magic or dragons, he was not comfortable with these unnatural little creatures.

  And how many dozens or hundreds or thousands of such tiny creatures would it take to equal one dragon? Did the magic consumed cor-respond to body weight? Would they grow to the size of ordinary cats, or to the size of dragons?

  They were a mystery, an enigma, and whether they were a solution remained to be seen.

  "Do you know what you are?" he murmured, staring at the gray and white kitten's strange blue eyes.

  Do you? came the reply.

  Arlian started back.

  He had heard that sort of voiceless communication before, in sorcerous conversation with the dragons; he had not expected it from a kitten.

  These were clearly not true kittens at all.

  What they were remained to be seen.

  It was at that moment that Black walked in; he had been absent for most of the day, but had finally concluded his negotiations with the drapers and taken care of whatever other business had seemed urgent.

  He found Arlian staring at the kitten, and followed his employer's gaze.

  "Kittens," he said. "Stammer told me you had brought a pair of kittens here." He looked at the pair, who looked back, unafraid. "About two weeks old, are they, or three? Stammer said they were newborn."

  "They are," Arlian said. "Born this very day."

  Black threw him a sharp glance. "You're certain of that?"

  "Completely certain. I saw the birth with my own eyes."

  "This was one of your damnable experiments, then?"

  "Rather, an inadvertent side effect of one. I hadn't known their mother was pregnant until after I administered the elixir."

  Black looked back at the kittens and shuddered.

  "They're abominations," he said. "So vigorous and alert, eyes already open, in less than a day? It's not natural."

  "Indeed, it is not," Arlian agreed.

  "Destroy them," Black said.

  Just then the door thumped, and Brook rolled in in her wheeled chair. Black glanced at her, then repeated, "Destroy them, Ari."

  "These may be the best hope we have," Arlian protested. "These are the only living results of all my tests and trials. They may well hold the solution I seek!"

  "Then keep them at the Grey House. You assured us all your experiments would be conducted there."

  "And they will be—but I cannot care for these there, and I cannot risk their intrusion upon further experiments. Although it was built by your order and to your design, this is my house, Black, built with my money, on my land, and I want these kittens kept here, at least for the present."

  "The children adore kittens," Brook interjected.

  Black whirled to face her. "I don't want these things around my children!"

  "They're just kittens," Brook replied. Arlian, aware that they were not truly just kittens, said nothing.

  "They're magical, unnatural kittens," Black said, "and even ordinary kittens have claws and teeth."

  "We will keep a careful watch on them, Black."

  Black looked from his wife to his employer and back. "It seems I am outnumbered," he said. "I have never been able to refuse you, Brook. If you wish these furry little pests to stay, then they will stay, and so shall we—but we will indeed keep a close watch on them, and the children will not handle them without one of us present."

  "Agreed," Arlian said, relieved that the matter had been resolved to his satisfaction. "Take whatever precautions you like—but the kittens stay here."

  36

  The Spawn of Magic

  The Spawn of Magic

  The kittens were only ten days old when their strangeness became so obvious that even the doting children could not deny it. The specific occasion was when the gray-and-white, now known as Patch, stretched out what should have been tiny paws and instead revealed fingers—thin, furless fingers, with knuckles and nails, utterly unlike anything a cat should possess.

  That was enough to send Amberdine shrieking from the room, crying for her father.

  A few moments later it seemed as if half the household was crowded into the kitchen, watching intently while Black and Arlian studied the two little creatures.

  "Toes," Arlian said, holding out Smudge's hind foot.

  "And fingers," Black agreed, holding Patch.

  "No scales, though," Arlian said, looking down at the squirming kitten-thing. "But the fur ..."

  "The fur's thinning," Black said, "but why would there be scales?"

  "Because it was dragon venom that made them into whatever they are," Arlian said.

  "Dragon venom and blood," Black corrected him. "What kind of blood did you use?"

  "Human," Arlian said. "Wolt's, I believe."

  Several of the observers turned to look at the footman, who was watching from the doorway.

  "You drew some of my blood that morning, my lord," Wok acknowledged. "But you took blood from all of us at one time or another."

  "Hold out your hands," Black ordered.

  Wolt complied. Black held up Patch's tiny paw, fingers spread, and looked from the kitten to the footman and back.

  "Fingers are fingers," Brook said."I can't tell whether they're alike."

  "But Mother, cats aren't supposed to have fingers!" Amberdine replied.

  "Obviously, these two aren't true cats," Arlian said, looking at Smudge's inscrutable little face. The cat looked back, but no voiceless words appeared in Arlian's mind.

  Neither of them had repeated that stunt of speaking silently since that first instance, on the night they were born, and Arlian had begun to wonder whether he had imagined the whole thing. He was not given to flights of fancy, but it hardly seemed reasonable that a newborn creature of any kind, even a magical one, should be able to communicate in such a fashion.

  He set the kitten-thing back in the box, then straightened up.

  "Whatever they are," he said, "I am responsible for them, and I want to know everything out of the ordinary that any of you might observe.

  Please keep me informed of any abnormalities—but for now, let us all return to our usual concerns." He gestured at the surrounding throng.

  Most were reluctant to leave, and of course some had legitimate business in the kitchen, but eventually he managed to coax a semblance of normality.

  He and Black made their way to Arlian's still-unfinished study, where they settled onto a pair of out-of-place chairs that had been brought f
rom the Grey House.

  "You know," Black said, "those things have done more than all your warnings to convince me that I do not, in fact, want to taste that elixir."

  "Then at least some good has come of my experimentation," Arlian replied.

  "Experimentation you had agreed to keep at the Grey House. This may be your house, Ari, but as I told you the night you brought them, I do not appreciate having those two little monstrosities here, reminding me of what you were doing half a mile away, and possibly endangering my family."

  "I needed help in caring for them!"

  "Did you? They seem to be thriving without food or water; if starvation has no effect, I wonder whether anything can kill them."

  "A good question," Arlian asked, glancing uneasily in the direction of the kitchens. He had not yet considered the matter—but then, he had still been thinking of them as kittens, and killing kittens was so very easy that the idea that these two might be difficult to dispose of, should they prove dangerous, had seemed absurd.

  "At least you seem to have abandoned your experiments, and have brought no more furry little horrors here."

  Arlian shook his head. "I have not abandoned anything," he said. "I am merely waiting until the results of this trial are complete before beginning the next."

  "You intend to continue?"

  "Oh, certainly—I am obviously getting close to a solution! These strange little catlings may be just what we need. Create an army of them to drink up the natural magic of our homeland, then exterminate the dragons, and we have ..."

  "You have an army of strange little monsters," Black interrupted.

  "You can't possibly mean to trust these things, can you? Ari, they're cats—sneaking, bloodthirsty little thieves. And that's the part we know; we have no idea what form their magic may take."

  "They're not cats, though," Arlian protested. "You saw that as well as I did. They're partially human."

  "Or partially dragon," Black retorted. "There are no scales yet, and those fingers and toes were the color of yours or mine, but they could easily become a dragon's claws in time."

  "Those fingers looked human to me."

  "And are humans any more to be trusted than cats?"

  "If born of good parents and brought up properly..

  "As Lord Hardior was, or Lord Enziet?"

  "I know nothing of their parentage or upbringing, Black, and neither do you."

  Black conceded the point with a wave. "Nonetheless," he said, "it would seem we have at least four parents for these kittens of yours—

  their mother, the torn that covered her, the dragon whose venom you stole, and poor Wolt. Even if we grant both the felines to be of good character, and have faith in Wolt's reliability, it would seem to me that their magic comes directly from a notorious monster."

  "The magic derives from the earth and air itself," Arlian protested.

  "The dragon was merely its previous possessor."

  "And do you know that it will not have taken on some part of that possessor's nature?"

  I do not ," Arlian acknowledged. "And that is why further experi-

  " I d o n o t , " A r l i a n a c k n o w l e d g e d . " A n d t h a t i s w h y f u r t h e r e x p e r i -

  mentation is required. These two appear to be acquiring human traits, rather as dragonhearts acquire draconic traits, but far faster, it will be interesting to see how far the process goes. And dearly, another experiment is called for to determine what will happen if another litter is subjected to a similar transformation, but with cat's blood rather than human."

  "I would recommend that you not create any more monstrosities until you are certain you can destroy the two you already own."

  "I have no intention of destroying those two."

  "I doubt you can. Enziet needed six hundred years to find a blade that could pierce a dragon's hide; we may well need as long to find a weakness in these kittens of yours."

  "Black, they're kittens. Or rather, they . . ." He frowned, and left the

  " Black, t h e y ' r e kittens.. O r r a t h e r , t h e y . . . " H e f r o w n e d , a n d l e f t t h e sentence unfinished.

  "They appear to be mostly kitten," Black corrected. "We don't know what they are."

  "Indeed. But if we create another litter with no human blood involved, and observe whether they grow fingers, we will have more information to work with."

  "And if you create kittens imbued with pig's blood, will they root and grunt before they rip your throat out? Will horse's blood give us hoofed kittens standing fifteen hands at the shoulder? What new abominations do you propose to create?"

  "I don't know," Arlian admitted. "I intend to experiment, and let the results of each trial guide the next."

  Black sat back and considered Arlian for a long moment. Then he said, "I have told you almost since we first met that you're mad, but I always tolerated that madness. I understood your loathing for the dragons, and your carelessness of your own life, or at any rate I believed I did. This willingness to plunge headfirst into the unknown, though, and tamper with powerful magic you do not even begin to understand—this madness is beyond my comprehension. That venom you waste in your experiments is worth a fortune; it could allow a hundred men, women, and children to extend their lifetimes tenfold or more, and instead you are feeding it to cats and cattle. What's more, you are draining their very blood from your friends and servants to feed to these beasts." He shuddered. "It sickens me, Ari. These experiments belong in the Grey House; they're very much in Lord Enziet's tradition."

  "Lord Enziet's experiments gave us the secret of obsidian," Arlian pointed out.

  "And cost us Dove and Sweet, and probably any number of others, not to mention Enziet's own humanity."

  "He lost that to the dragons long before," Arlian said.

  "Because he was tainted with the same elixir you now use to create fingered kittens—yet you expect these kittens to be harmless and cooperative?"

  "They show no trace of dragon nature," Arlian insisted. "Only cat and human. I believe the dragon's evil was filtered out by their mother's womb."

  "On what do you base this belief?"

  "There are no scales. Only fur and skin."

  "They do not purr, Ari. They do not care to be petted. There is no love in them, any more than there is in an ancient dragonheart."

  "They're only ten days old!"

  "Then wait and see whether I am right."

  Arlian rose to his feet. "How long must I wait, then? Months? Years?

  No, better to experiment further, and watch them develop simultaneously."

  "Better to leave well enough alone!" Black retorted, also standing up.

  "Black, if you think those catlings so dangerous, why do you allow your children to play with them?"

  "Because I am a softhearted fool who can deny his women nothing, no matter how much I know I should I" Black shouted. Then he turned on his heel and marched out.

  Arlian watched him go, surprised and dismayed; then he shrugged.

  "You'll see," he said. Then he began gathering up his notes and preparing to return to the Grey House to resume his experiments.

  Kittens from Hell

  37

  Kittens from Hell

  Finding more pregnant cats in the spring did not prove particularly difficult, especially when one was willing to pay extravagant sums for them. Managing to be present when one began to deliver her get proved trickier; nonetheless, Arlian eventually succeeded.

  A mixture of cat's blood and dragon venom poured into one

  queen's mouth between the arrivals of the first and second kitten in her litter resulted in the death of the mother and all the kittens but the first.

  Several further attempts were made, trying other variations, and fared no better. Arlian discovered that any mixture containing dragon venom, but not containing human blood, was swiftly and invariably fatal to both mother and offspring. The presence or absence of cat's blood, pig's blood, bull's blood, wine, or beer proved i
rrelevant; venom and human blood formed the magical elixir, while venom without human blood remained an incredibly virulent poison.

  He had not expected that, but it did fit with what he had been told by the thing in Tirikindaro—men and dragons were somehow interre-lated. The elixir could be made only with human blood; any other sort simply diluted the poison without altering its nature.

  His methodology in this series of experiments had the side effect of producing numerous ordinary kittens, born before the venom mixture was administered and therefore unaffected by the elixir. At first he tried to bring these kittens to Obsidian House to be raised in the kitchens there, but it soon became clear that Patch and Smudge did not approve, and he instead began delivering them to Lady Rime's home, where her adoptive grandchildren were delighted by these new pets, and happily gave them the careful attention they needed.

  Not all of them survived, but Arlian felt he had done his best for them, and told himself that most would surely have died in the alleys and cellars of Manfort if he had never intervened in their mothers* lives.

  That the mothers would have lived—well, he preferred not to think about that. The importance of his efforts made such losses tolerable.

  As he continued his experiments at the Grey House he also walked up the hill to Obsidian House periodically to check on the results of his earlier trials, and confer with Black and Brook regarding their own observations. He watched as Patch and Smudge grew into misshapen parodies, miniature cat-men like nothing ever seen in Manfort, though there were certain similarities to the gaunts and nightmares of the south.

  The pair ceased to be cute—quite an accomplishment in creatures that had begun life as kittens, and were not yet two months old. They walked awkwardly on either two legs or four, and gracefully not at all; their tails shrank to mere stubs, their ears moved down the sides of their heads, and their fur grew thin and patchy everywhere but the tops of their heads.

  They did retain some kittenish traits, though—they were active, impulsive, and inquisitive, frequently startling the inhabitants of Obsidian House by turning up in unexpected places or suddenly dashing across the floor in front of unsuspecting humans. They were given the run of the house, since their agile little fingers could defeat almost any lock or barrier, but they stayed mostly in the kitchen and pantries.