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

As the giant's strange harbinger glided down toward the memory, Tithian's image solidified
into the full form of a man's thin body, then stood. Fylo stopped his descent just out of
arm's reach and slowly circled the figure.

“That look like Tithian,” the giant said, pointing his harbinger's slender tail at the
memory. “But maybe you make him lie to Fylo.”

“No,” the noble said. “I'll release him. You can take control of the memory. That way, you
can examine him as carefully as you want, and you'll know that I'm not interfering.” When
Fylo continued to circle without responding, Agis pressed, “If you're afraid of what
you'll discover, Tithian can't truly be your friend.”

“Fylo not afraid. Let go.”

Agis created a small falcon from one of the figure's hands. After transferring his own
consciousness into it, he fluttered off and landed a short distance away.

Fylo descended on Tithian's figure, completely engulfing it. The harbinger began to
pulsate as he examined the memory, apparently confirming that Agis had truly yielded
control of it. Several moments later, the giant finally seemed satisfied. He unfurled his
harbinger and let it dissolve, transferring his consciousness into Tithian's form. ' As
Agis watched, Tithian became a young boy of no more than six or seven, with short-cropped
auburn hair. His squarish ears stuck out from the sides of his head like half-opened
hinges, and his hawkish nose seemed much too large for his small head. He had one hand
raised as if an adult were holding it.

“This is Agis,” said a man's voice, which the noble dimly recognized as that of Tithian's
father. “You and he are going to be friends.”

Young Tithian ran his eyes up and down, as if inspecting a doll, then he scowled. “Father,
if you can't afford the best, I don't want a friend.”

The image aged a decade. Now, Tithian was a young man, with a somber brow that always
seemed furrowed in anger, wearing his hair in a long braided tail. He was dressed in the
gray robe that he and Agis had worn as novices when they had studied the Way at the same
academy. His eyes were glazed with exhaustion and pain from a particularly rigorous lesson
with their master.

“I don't know what happened, Agis,” said Tithian. “When the agony became more than I could
bear, I thought of how well you were doing. Then my pain just vanished. Honestly, I didn't
know I was transferring it to you!”

Again the image aged, this time only a couple of years. Tithian was wearing the red robe
of a midlevel student. In his hand was a spiny faro branch, a symbol of passage to denote
that he had succeeded at an important test of his abilities. “You're my best friend, Agis.
Of course I shifted some of my pain to you,” he said. “Besides, it's not really cheating.
After all, we didn't get caught.”

The image continued to age, showing a constant stream of the king's earlier years. Tithian
appeared in the black cassock of a king's templar, denying that he had been responsible
for the murder of his own brother. Later, wearing the gilded robes of a high templar, he
came to Agis's estate under the pretext of friendship-only to confiscate the noble's
strongest field slaves. Another time, Tithian admitted, without any trace of shame, that
he had been using Agis's most trusted servant to spy upon the noble.

After this last scene, Fylo separated from the figure of Tithian, forming a new construct
that resembled his own body. “No!” he bellowed, swinging a huge fist at the object of his
anger. “Tithian liar!”

The blow knocked the king's image to the ground. Fylo began to kick and trample it,
apparently determined to destroy the memory altogether.

“Wait!” Agis cried, through his construct's break. “I need that!”

Still in the form of a falcon, Agis quickly returned to the king's figure and merged with
it. He allowed Tithian to melt into the cracks between the cobblestones, then raised
another construct shaped like himself.

“Do you believe me now, Fylo?”

The giant did not answer. Instead, his harbinger turned away and began to walk across the
deserted plaza. With each step, he grew more translucent, and vanished completely after a
dozen paces.

Agis barely had time to turn his attention outward before he felt himself being plunked
onto his kank's. back. “Go!” boomed the giant, raising his legs to let the noble pass.
“Leave Fylo alone.”

Agis urged his mount forward. Once he was safely out of reach, he stopped and looked back.
“Fylo, don't be so glum,” he called. “Tithian's fellowship was false, but you have a good
heart. Someday you'll find a true friend.”

“No,” the giant replied. He gestured at his homely face. “Fylo half-breed. Too ugly for
father's tribe, too dumb for mother's tribe.”

“You may not be handsome, but I'd say you're far from dumb,” said Agis. “You recognized
your mistake with Tithian. That's pretty smart.”

This seemed to cheer the giant. A thoughtful look came over his face, then he fixed his
eyes on the noble. “Maybe Fylo and Agis could be friends?”

“Perhaps, when we have more time to spend together,” the noble allowed. “But right now, I
must catch Tithian-before he hurts someone else.”

Fylo smiled, then reached down and laid an open palm in front of the noble's kank. “Let
Fylo carry you,” he said. “Catch Tithian together.”

Tithian stood in the anteroom of the White Palace, peering through a casement, counting
the number of ships in Balk's harbor. The port lay at the edge of the city, where a haze
of silvery dust lingered over the bay, drifting as far inland as the inns surrounding the
dock area. Still, the Tyrian king found the task an easy one, for the masts rose out of
the murk like the charred boles of a burned forest.

“What's your interest in King Andropinis's armada?” inquired Tithian's escort, a young man
wrapped in the cream-colored toga of a Balican templar. He had a haughty chin, an upturned
nose, and short hair as white as his robe. “Surely, at Tyr's distance from the Silt Sea,
you've no reason to worry about our navy.”

“I've no particular interest in the fleet,” lied Tithian, continuing with his silent
count. “But I had not imagined your port would
be so
crowded. How many craft does your king have?”

“That's not something we discuss with strangers,” replied the templar, taking Tithian by
the arm. “Nor do we allow them to count our sails.”

Tithian jerked his arm free of the young man's grasp. “In my city, you'd be flogged for
such impudence!”

The templar showed no sign of concern. “We are not in your city, and you are not a king in
Balic,” he replied. “Now, step away from the window.”

“I will-when King Andropinis is ready to receive me,” said Tithian, struggling to keep his
temper under control. “If you touch me again, I'll kill you- and I assure you, Andropinis
will do nothing about it.” He slipped his hand into the satchel hanging from his shoulder.

The templar's guards, a pair of flabby half-giants standing almost as high as the ceiling,
leveled their wooden spears at the Tyrian's chest. Dressed in leather corselets with white
capes pinned over their stooped shoulders, the hairy brutes had slack-jawed expressions
that did little to belie their slow wits. Tithian gave them a contemptuous sneer, then
returned his attention to his escort.

“Give this to your master,” said Tithian. He withdrew a small medallion of copper that had
been molded into an eight-pointed star. It was the crest of Kalak, the sorcerer-king from
whom Tithian had usurped the throne of Tyr. “Tell him I have grown tired of waiting.”

The templar remained unimpressed. “I'll relay your message-and you shall wish I hadn't.”

With that, the man spun on his heel and left, leaving his charge in the custody of the
half-giants.

“You made a big mistake, Tyr-king,” said one of the brutes. “That was Maurus, Chamberlain
to His Majesty.”

Tithian gave the guard a wry smile. “I think Maurus is the one who made the mistake.”

The king returned his attention to the masts. From what he could tell through the haze,
the harbor seemed unusually full, with no empty dock space available and dozens of craft
moored offshore. To fulfill his needs, he would require only a small portion of the armada
gathered in the bay.

Now that he felt certain he'd be able to procure enough troops and ships, Tithian allowed
his gaze to wander over the rest of Balic. The city shimmered with a pearly light, for its
blocky buildings were faced in blond marble and its avenues paved with pale limestone.
Encircling the White Palace's fortified bluff were the pillared emporiums of the
Merchants' Quarter, as striking in their size as in the clean lines of their architecture.
Beyond this district lay the dingy warrens of the Elven Market, the stadium, the workshops
of the artisans, and the chamberhouses where most of the city's population lived. All in
all, Balic seemed a prosperous and pleasant metropolis, one which Tithian would have been
glad to call his own.

One day, he chuckled silently, I might.

When Maurus did not return for several more minutes, the king allowed his thoughts to
wander to the man who had been stalking him in the desert. Tithian had first learned of
his pursuer when his spy, an elven desert runner hired to watch his backtrail, reported
that a Tyrian noble of Agis's description had been asking about him at an oasis. Despite
the reasonable fee the elf had quoted for murdering the noble, the king's heart had sunk.
Of all the men who might have come after him, Agis was the only one he could not bring
himself to kill.

It was a flaw in his character Tithian did not under- stand. He made many excuses for his
weakness, telling himself it would be foolish to assassinate such a valuable statesman.
When that did not seem enough, the king reminded himself of Agis's superior knowledge of
agriculture, which made Tyr's farms more productive than those of any other Athasian city.
Other times, he thought of the riots that would be caused by the noble's death, or of any
of a dozen other equally valid reasons for leaving Agis alone.

Still, Tithian knew he was lying to himself. Agis had incited the Council of Advisors to
defy the king in a hundred matters, from letting paupers drink free at city wells to
converting royal lands into charity farms. Such insolence would have cost anyone else his
life, but Tithian had always stopped short of murdering his old friend.

Even now, when Agis's meddling endangered the most important endeavor Tithian had ever
undertaken, the king could not bring himself to kill the noble. Instead of telling Fylo,
whom Tithian had found seeking employment as a caravan cargo bearer, to kill Agis, the
king had merely asked the oaf to detain the noble.

Tithian hoped he would not regret the decision. Agis had demonstrated many times that he
could be as resourceful as he was determined, and even a giant might not hold the noble
for long.

Given that possibility, the king thought it might not be such a bad thing if Fylo ignored
his instructions and killed Agis. Then, at least his friend's blood would not be on
Tithian's hands.

He banished the hope from his mind as quickly as it came. Such an accident hardly seemed a
fitting end for a king's only friend. Agis had not always been a political enemy, and
there had been times that the noble had stood by Tithian when nobody else would. If the
time came when his friend had to die, Tithian decided, it would be by the king's own hand.

Agis deserved that much.

The chamberlain's officious footsteps echoed down the hall, putting the king's concerns
about his friend out of his mind. When he turned away from the window, Tithian found a
smug grin on Maurus's narrow lips.

“King Andropinis normally addresses the Chamber of Patricians at this time,” the
chamberlain said, a malicious glint flashing in his eyes. “He asks that you meet him
there.”

Maurus and the guards led Tithian down a corridor lined by the lifelike statues of ancient
statesmen, then across a broad courtyard to the White Palace's marble-faced assembly hall.
The building was perfectly square, with a colonnade of fluted pillars supporting an ornate
entablature. Without awaiting an invitation, Tithian marched up the stairs, but before he
could enter the building, the chamberlain scrambled past and blocked his way.

“Allow me to hold that for you,” said Maurus. Being careful not to touch his guest, he
motioned at the satchel on Tithian's shoulder.

Tithian opened the sack and displayed its interior. “As you can see, ifs empty,” he
replied. “No reason for concern.”

Maurus did not move. “Nevertheless, I must insist,” he replied. “Things are not always
what they seem, are they?”.

“They seldom are,” Tithian allowed.

He reluctantly took the bag off his shoulder. Maurus's suspicions were well-founded, for
it was a magical satchel that could hold an unlimited number of items and still appear
empty. Before leaving Tyr, the king had placed inside an ample supply of food, water,
coins, and many other items he expected to need on his journey. Of course, the supplies
also included
a
broad selection of weapons, but that was not why Tithian wanted to keep the sack in his
own hands. He had something else inside that would convince the Balkan ruler to give him
what he wanted, and he had wanted to keep the bag so he could time the appearance of the
items for maximum effect.

Tithian handed the satchel to the chamberlain, silently cursing the man's caution and
efficiency. “Now may I go inside?”

Maurus slipped the satchel over his shoulder, then waved his guest through the doorway.
Tithian passed into a small anteroom, where a half-giant sentry stood in front of a pair
of massive doors. After raising his hand to salute the chamberlain, the guard pulled a
door open and stepped aside.

Tithian entered the next chamber. The air felt hot and moist against his skin, and it
reeked of perfumed flesh. Save for the soft scrape of his own sandals on the floor, the
place remained so quiet that the Tyrian wondered if he had entered an empty room.