Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 4 - Obsidian Oracle (25 page)

“Minutes that are not
as
precious as my life,” the noble's muffled voice replied. “I'll wait until Kester returns.”

“As you wish,” Tithian said.

As the king spoke, the last of the Castoffs, Sona, drifted into view. She stopped at the
noble's side, casting a faint glow over his weary face, and began to thank him for freeing
her and the others. Tithian, even less interested in her gratitude than in saving Fylo,
stepped away to prepare his escape.

The king found Sacha and Wyan waiting for him, hovering at the edge of the black circle.
He snatched them by their topknots and slammed their faces into the crystal lid.

“Why'd you do that?” demanded Sacha.

“Because I want to!” Tithian replied. He plucked the throwing dagger from Wyan's cheek,
then shook it at the two heads. “Just be thankful I'm not using this to pluck your eyes
out!”

This is not the way to treat your saviors," objected Wyan, spitting out the broken nub of
a gray tooth.

“Saviors!” Tithian roared. “By attacking Fylo you almost got me stuck down there.”

“A small risk to take,” said Sacha, speaking in a voice quiet enough that no one beyond
Tithian's earshot could hear it. “You can't have Agis or anyone else around when you
recover the Dark Lens.”

Tithian held the heads up and frowned suspiciously. “Why not?” he asked. “After the way
the Dragon lied to me, I'd just as soon let Agis kill Borys.”

“That would be acceptable,” replied Sacha. “Except that I'm sure Agis would want to keep
the lens afterward-and you don't want that.”

“Why not?”

“The lens is a tool,” explained Wyan, also speaking in a soft voice. “Like any tool, it's
only as powerful as the person using it. In Borys's hands, it could never make you a
sorcerer-king. But in the hands of someone else, someone even more powerful, it could.”

“No one's more powerful than the Dragon,” Tithian scoffed.

“Wrong,” said Sacha. “There is one who could give you what you want: Rajaat.”

“Stop wasting my time with your stories,” the king hissed. “Rajaat's dead.”

“Gone, but not dead,” Wyan replied. “What do you think Borys does with his slave levy?”

“He uses their life energy to keep the Shadow People imprisoned in the Black-at least
that's what Agis and Sadira think, according to my spies in the Asticles household,”
replied the king. He cast a nervous glance down at the crack where Agis waited, but saw no
sign that the noble could hear or see any of what was happening on top of the lid.

“What makes you think a fool noble and his slaves know what they're talking about?” asked
Sacha.

In a fawning voice, Wyan added, “Rajaat is not dead, he's locked away-and Borys uses his
levy to maintain the spells that keep him imprisoned.”

Tithian accepted the news with little emotion, for he had not yet confirmed its
significance to him. “If I take the Dark Lens to him, Rajaat will make me a sorcerer-king?”

“It's not our place to promise that,” Wyan said. “We're only his spies in the city of Tyr.”

“But, through the Shadow People, we've told Rajaat of your ambitions,” said Sacha. “And
we've received word back that if you aid him, you'll be pleased with your reward.”

Tithian smiled and released his grip on the pair's topknots. “What do I have to do?”

Before the heads could answer, Kester came rushing back from the bridge. She stopped at
the edge of the pit, about two yards from the blade that had pierced Sacha's temple. In
her hands, the tarek held the last pair of throwing knives from her harness. Her eyes were
fixed on the dagger in Tithian's hand.

Inside his mind, Tithian heard Wyan's voice.
Get rid of her. She's sided with Agis.

“What's going on here?” Kester demanded.

“Not what you think, apparently,” Tithian replied, slowly extending the handle of his
dagger to Kester. “I thought you might want this back.” When the tarek made no move to
accept the weapon, the king shrugged and laid it on the ground. “I see Agis's paranoia is
catching.”

Kester seemed to relax, but did not sheath her own weapons. “What about them?”

“We came to apologize,” said Wyan.

“Sometimes our jokes get carried away,” added Sacha.

“That was no joke,” the tarek said, fangs half-bared.

“It certainly wasn't. Fylo was hurt badly,” agreed Tithian. With scornful look, he waved
the heads back from the circle, then returned his attention to Kester. “You should come
back over here. Agis doesn't trust me to keep the crack open, and he won't take the rope
down to Fylo until he sees you.”

“What?” the tarek shrieked, sheathing her daggers. “He's wasting time waiting for me?”

“He hasn't moved,” Tithian said with a smirk. He leaned down and plucked the slack rope.
“See? No weight.”

Kester leaped onto the black circle. She collected the dagger that Tithian had laid down a
few moments before and knelt beside the crack. She started to put her face down to speak
to Agis, then abruptly drew back as Sona's glowing visage rose from the hole. Once the
Castoff had drifted away, she leaned down and said, “I've had enough waiting, Agis!”

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.
I'll 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.

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 rumbled 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 plain 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 i 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 chest 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.