Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 4 - Obsidian Oracle (2 page)

An immense boulder sat in the middle of the trail, blocking the entire gorge. Its shape
resembled that of a seated man, save that it was larger than the gatehouse guarding the
entrance to Agis's estate. Batswheeled high over the monolith's crown, silhouetting
themselves against the haze-shrouded moons, and a flock of golden dustgulls roosted on one
shoulder, their forms softened by distance and blowing silt. The nobleman could just make
out two huge males pecking at each other with rapierlike beaks.

As Agis watched, the pecking contest erupted into a true battle. The angry birds rose into
the air, slashing at each other with beaks and talons. The larger gull used his bulk to
good advantage, relentlessly driving his foe back until the bird was trapped against the
crag above their roost.

For the second time since Agis had spied it, the boulder shifted, and the noble knew that
his eyes had not deceived him earlier. A massive hand rose from the dark silhouette to
slap at the gulls. It caught both birds in its palm, smashing them against the shadowy
crag. The blow landed with a resounding crack that made the ground tremble and sent
runnels of sand cascading off the canyon walls. With a mad chorus of screeching and
squawking, the rest of the flock launched itself into the air and fluttered about in
anger, only to return to their roost as soon as the enormous hand crashed back to the
ground.

The noble remained where he was, his kank's carapace quivering beneath him. The insect was
twice the size of a man, with six canelike legs, a jacket of chirinous black armor, and a
pair of bristly antennae on its blocky head. Although the drone's bulbous eyes were so
weak it could hardly focus on the ground beneath its mandibles, Agis was not surprised by
its alarm. The beast's drumlike ear membranes would be rumbling painfully from the
thunderous slap that had killed the two gulls.

Agis urged the mount forward by tapping its antennae. “I don't care if that is a giant,”
he said, keeping his brown eyes fixed on the bulky form ahead. “We must get past him.”

As the kank scurried forward, the details of the hulking silhouette became more clear. The
giant's body was lumpy and stout, covered with gravelly skin and gnarled muscles that
resembled nothing quite so much as the crags of a cliff. Long braids of greasy hair hung
from his head, while scattered tufts of coarse bristle sprouted on his chest and back. The
enormous face seemed a peculiar mix of human and rodent, with a sloped forehead, drooping
ears, and a pointed nose ending in two cavernous nostrils. His eyes were set deep beneath
his brow. Even under their closed lids, they bulged out of their sockets. A dozen jagged
incisors protruded from beneath his upper lip, while a mosslike beard dangled from his
recessed chin. All in all, Agis found the giant the ugliest individual he had ever set
eyes upon.

Upon reaching the figure's side, the noble halted his drone and dismounted. The entire
gorge stank of unwashed flesh, and each time the giant exhaled, the fetid draught of his
breath made Agis gag. The titan sat squarely on the road, with a massive elbow resting
against one wall of the canyon. His feet were pressed against the other.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Agis yelled, “You're blocking the road!”

The giant's only response was a gusty wheeze that made the noble's long black hair wave.

Agis drew his sword, a magnificent cutlass as ancient as the dry of Tyr, with a basket of
etched brass and a long steel blade engraved with the weapon's history. He stepped forward
and gently pushed the tip into the enormous thigh blocking his way.

A sonorous growl rolled from the giant's throat, then the behemoth lifted his hand. Agis
barely had time to jump away before an enormous palm slammed into the leg he had pricked.
The giant scratched his thigh, then his hand dropped back to the ground. He did not open
his eyes.

Agis stepped over to the hand. The palm alone was the size of a large shield, while the
fingers were almost as long as the sword in his hand. The noble took a deep breath and
brought the flat of his blade down on the thumb joint, striking with all his strength.

A surprised bellow echoed off the canyon walls, then the hand shot high into the air. The
giant's eyes opened. He sniffed at his thumb with his cavernous nostrils, then licked the
joint with a carpet-sized tongue.

“Pardon me for disturbing you,” Agis shouted, prepared to leap away if the giant attacked.
“But you're blocking the road. I must get past.”

The giant glared down at Agis. His enormous eyes looked like a pair of moons, white with
deep craters of darkness at the center.

“Fylo sleep,” he said in a booming voice. “Go 'round.” The giant folded his hands across
his stomach and closed his eyes.

“That just won't do,” Agis called.

Fylo ignored him. Within moments, deep snores were rumbling at regular intervals from the
giant's mouth, grating over the noble's eardrums and shaking the entire canyon. Realizing
that courtesy would get him nowhere, the noble sheathed his sword and stepped to his
kank's side.

Agis closed his eyes and focused his mind on his nexus, that space where the three
energies of the Way-spiritual, mental, and physical-converged inside his body. He
visualized a tingling rope of fire sprouting from this nexus and running up into his
throat, creating a pathway for the mystic power of his being.

When he felt his neck pulsing with energy, Agis opened his mouth and shouted, “Move!”

The word broke over Fylo's sleeping form with the force of a thunderclap, scattering the
dustgulls on the giant's shoulder and reverberating down the canyon in a series of
earsplitting barks. The titan sat bolt upright and peered into the murky canyon, his weak
chin hanging slack in bewilderment and fear.

“Go 'way!” he yelled, addressing the receding echoes of Agis's voice. “Fylo strong as
wind!”

“There's nobody in the canyon,” called Agis, this time yelling in his normal voice. “I'm
over here.”

The giant looked toward Agis and breathed a sigh of relief, blasting the noble with a gust
of foul breath. “Fylo say go 'round,” he snarled. “Tune for sleep.”

Agis shook his head. “Not until you let me pass. I'll keep you awake all night if I must.”

The giant frowned. “Fylo smash you like bear.”

Agis raised his brow. “You mean like a ... Never mind,” he said. “It'd be much easier to
let me pass. All you need do is raise your legs so I can lead my kank underneath.”

The giant shook his head stubbornly.

Agis reached for his purse. “I'll pay double the normal toll.”

“Toll?” Fylo echoed. He tugged at his beard, obviously puzzled by the term.

“To let me pass,” Agis said, pulling a coin from his purse. “I'm sure a silver is enough.”
Holding the glimmering disk before him, he moved forward until he stood at the giant's
side. “Here. Take it.”

After Fylo lowered a massive hand, the noble tossed his coin into the center of the palm.
The disk disappeared into the dark ravine of a massive lifeline, and Agis feared the giant
would not see it. Fylo seemed accustomed to handling small objects, however. He licked a
fingertip and pressed it onto the silver, then held the disk up to his eye.

“Fylo let you go-for this?”

Agis could not be sure of the giant's tone, but it almost seemed the bribe had insulted
him. “If I've offended you, please forgive me,” he said. “But in these circumstances, my
assumption is only natural.”

The giant considered this for a moment, then scowled. “What us-amp-gin, er, as-shump-ten,
er, ass-” Unable to pronounce the word Agis had used, Fylo rephrased his question. “What
d'you mean?”

Agis ran his hand through his long hair, stalling for time. If the dull-witted giant did
not already realize that this was an ideal location to coerce money from travelers, the
last thing the noble wanted to do was suggest it to him. “I mean you don't look very
comfortable,” Agis said. He pointed toward the open desert behind him. “Why don't you
sleep over there- and let me pass?”

“Fylo not sleep,” the giant said, an unexpected air of pride in his voice. He stuck the
finger with Agis's coin into a satchel made from the untanned hides of a half-dozen sheep,
then looked down at the noble. “Fylo guard road for friend.”

“What friend?” Agis asked.

Instead of answering, the giant lowered his head to peer more closely at the noble and
began whispering to himself. “Black hair, straight nose, square jaw...” As he listed each
feature of Agis's face, he extended a finger as though he were counting. When his gaze
fell on the noble's brow, he frowned. “What color eyes?”

“What does it matter to you?” the noble replied, hoping the moonlight was still pale
enough so the giant could not see that they were brown. Someone had obviously taken pains
to be sure Fylo would recognize him-and Agis suspected that he knew that person's
identity. “Does your friend happen to be called Tithian?”

“No!” the giant replied, much too quickly. His eyes darted from side to side, and he
pressed his jagged incisors over his lower lip. “Friend not called Tithian.”

The obvious lie made Agis smile, not because the giant's ineptness amused him, but because
it confirmed that he was on the right trail. Seven days ago, Neeva and a small party of
dwarves had arrived at his estate, demanding that Tithian answer for sending slavers to
raid their village. The noble had been unable to grant the request, for the king had
mysteriously slipped out of the city a few days before the raid had taken place.

Neeva and the dwarves had declared that they would track the king down themselves, but
Agis had insisted that only a Tyrian should bring the ruler to justice. Given Tithian's
popularity in the city, any attempt by Kled to punish him could easily lead to war. After
a contentious argument, they had come to a compromise. Neeva would wait at Agis's estate
while the noble and a dozen other Tyrian agents fanned out to search for their errant
king. If they did not bring the king back within two months, the dwarves were free to take
matters into their own hands.

Fortunately, it appeared that Agis would return the king within the allotted time-provided
he could get past the giant. He retreated to his mount, wasting no time pondering how his
quarry had discovered that he was being followed. Tithian was a cautious man who had no
doubt left a network of spies to watch his backtrail.

To Fylo, Agis said, “It doesn't matter who your friend is. You've taken my money, and now
you must let me pass.”

Fylo made no move to obey. “No,” he said. “You Agis.”

“What makes you say that?” the noble asked.

A cunning sneer crept across the giant's face. “You look like him.”

“There must be a hundred men who look like Agis,” the noble replied, tapping his kank's
antenna. As the nervous beast shuffled forward, he added, “Now kindly lift your legs-or
return my silver.”

Fylo touched the satchel into which he had slipped Agis's coin, then frowned and scratched
his head in indecision. Finally, he shrugged and raised his legs, bracing his feet against
the canyon wall.

Agis guided his mount forward. His heart was pounding like a stonecutter's hammer, and a
dusty taste had suddenly filled his mouth. Keeping his hand away from his waterskin only
through a conscious exertion of will, the noble looked straight ahead and ducked under
Fylo's knee.

No sooner had he passed beneath it than the giant's second leg dropped to the ground,
blocking the way. “Let Fylo see eyes,” the giant said, reaching for the noble.

Agis's hand strayed toward his sword hilt, but he quickly realized that his meager blade
could do no more than slice the tip off an enormous finger. Instead, he allowed the
giant's hand to clasp his body.

With surprising gentleness, Fylo lifted him into the air, leaving the noble's trembling
kank corralled between legs as thick as tree boles.

Two dustgulls swooped down to see what the giant had plucked off the ground. They were
hideous birds, with scaly red heads, hooked beaks filled with teeth as sharp as needles,
and talons dripping filth and ichor. As
the pair sailed past on their tattered wings, they watched Agis with red, rapacious eyes,
clattering their beaks in gluttonous delight. “Go away,” the noble whispered. “There'll be
no scraps for you tonight.”

After lifting Agis to the height of his own head, Fylo raised his captive into the pale
light of Athas's two moons. The giant bent his head forward, squeezing a platter-sized eye
into a squint, and tried to peer beneath the noble's shadowed brow. Agis closed his eyes
and began to summon spiritual energy from his nexus.

The hand tightened, making it difficult for the noble to draw breath. “If Fylo squeeze,
head pop off like lion's,” the giant warned. “Open eyes.”

Agis did not obey. Instead, he visualized his own face, though with blue eyes instead of
brown, and with dun-colored hair instead of black.

“Let Fylo see!” the giant insisted.

“If that's what you want.”

When Agis complied, he found himself looking into a huge pupil. Immediately, he tried to
lock gazes with the giant, but the distance between Fylo's eyes was so large that he could
not look into both of the great orbs at once. Instead, the noble focused on the closest
one. At the same time, he concentrated upon the image inside his mind, using the Way to
make the giant see the effigy instead of his true face.

Scowling in confusion, Fylo crossed his eyes, and Agis knew that his ruse was not working
well. He had not penetrated the giant's intellect deeply, for that required more time, and
by then Fylo would know the color of the noble's eyes. Instead, Agis was using his talents
to contact only the part of the giant's mind that controlled his vision. Apparently, since
he could look into only one eye at a time, the titan was seeing a different image in each
one.

Fylo turned his face to the side, trying to look at his captive with just one orb. A
moment later, he snapped his head around to study the noble with the other. When Agis
smoothly shifted his attention from the first eye to the second, the giant whipped his
head back and forth in an ineffectual attempt to glimpse his prisoner's face without
locking gazes. At last, it became apparent that this would not work, and Fylo gave up,
once again fixing both crossed eyes on his captive.