Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 4 - Obsidian Oracle (23 page)

Tithian groaned and tried to rise. Then, his eyes rolling back in his head, he fell
motionless. Agis slipped down Fylo's chest and touched his finger to the king's throat. He
felt a strong, regular pulse.

“It would probably be better for Athas if I killed you right now,” Agis said, using a
finger to lift one of the king's eyelids.

Tithian opened his eyes, then pushed Agis's hand away. “You don't have the nerve to murder
me,” he sneered. “But it makes no difference. Athas no longer has anything to fear from
me.”

“Why's that?” Agis asked, examining the king's head for signs of a serious blow. “Surely
you don't expect me to believe you've decided not to go after the Oracle?”

“What you believe makes no difference!” Tithian yelled, grabbing Agis by the shoulders. He
pulled the noble's face dose to his and gasped, “That worm lied to me!”

“What worm?” Agis asked. “About what?”

“The Dragon!” Tithian cried. “Nal told me. Borys can't make anyone a sorcerer-king-not
even with the Dark Lens!”

Fylo's knuckles landed on target, in a blackened corner of the translucent cover. A sharp
crack rang off the pit walls, and the impact reverberated through the shimmering platform
upon which he stood. The lid did not break. The giant drew back his fist to try again,
then suddenly cried out in alarm as the temporary floor dissolved beneath his feet. He
plunged, screaming, into the abyss.

Kester heard Agis call, “I've got him.”

A black silhouette resembling the
Shadow Viper's
foresail appeared just below the giant, stretched taut across the shaft and bound at each
corner to a stout quartz crystal. Fylo plunged through the shadow without slowing,
vanishing beneath its dark form.

Agis's curse rang off the cavern walls, then the ineffectual net dissolved. Kester saw the
giant clawing and kicking at the jagged walls, ripping deep gouges into his palms and
feet. One crystal broke off, sending a glittering spray of silver and crimson light
shooting across the shaft.

Finally, Fylo passed through a narrow section of shaft and managed to bring himself to a
stop. He hung motionless over the abyss, his ribs heaving and his limbs pressed against
opposite sides of the pit. After regaining his composure, he looked up and fixed his gaze
on Tithian. One of his eyes was still much larger than the other, but both orbs were
slowly returning to normal-as were the other facial defects caused by the Castoffs.

“Tithian liar!” Fylo snarled, beginning the long climb back up. “Promise to hold Fylo!”

“It was a mistake,” the king replied. He sat upon a large crystal twenty-five feet below
the lid, at the height of the platform upon which Fylo had been standing. All around him
hung discarded Saram skulls, each covered with the translucent, masklike visage of a
Castoff. “What do I have to gain by dropping you?”

'If you can float a ship, you can give Fylo a place to stand,“ Agis growled, glaring down
from his perch at the top of the shaft. ”You let him fall on purpose."

“Yer letting yer temper think for ye,” Kester snapped. She had positioned herself midway
between the two, where it would be easy to intercede if their quarreling erupted into a
full-blown fight. “Yer king wants out of here as much as we do. If he says it was an
accident, it was.”

“Tithian doesn't make those kinds of mistakes,” Agis insisted. “He must have thought
Fylo's blow cracked the lid. That's why he dropped the giant.”

“Ye couldn't know what Tithian was thinking- unless ye were using the Way on him instead
of doing yer own job,” Kester said. She paused and pointed at the pit's crystalline cover,
which was already tinged green with predawn light. “If the two of ye don't work together,
we'll never get out of here before dawn-and if ye let Mag'r sink my ship because we don't
have those gates open, ye won't have to kill each other. I'll do it for ye.”

When the noble protested no further, Kester turned to Tithian. “Can ye give Fylo a steady
place to stand or not?”

“He's heavier than I thought,” Tithian replied.

Kester nodded. “I thought as much,” she said. “We'll have to find another way out.”

“Such as?” asked Tithian.

The tarek furrowed her heavy brow, absentmindedly rubbing her fingers over her leathery
neck. The act loosened a small shower of dusty flakes, which fluttered into the darkness
below. The tarek pulled her hand away from her throat, reminded that until she fully
recovered from the injuries inflicted by the Castoffs, scratching what itched was a bad
idea.

After a moment's thought, Kester started to descend the pit wall, swinging from one
crystal to the next on her gangling arms. “If we can't go up, we'll try down,” she said.

“No! You mustn't!” cried Sona, the button-nosed woman who served as the nominal leader of
the Cast-offs. She floated over to block Kester's descent. “The bones of the sacrificed
animals rest down there. You can't disturb them.”

Kester eyed Sona warily, remembering the anguish the spirits had inflicted on her after
she had first fallen into the pit. “Out of my way,” she ordered.

“No, Kester,” said Agis. “We must respect Sona's wishes. I'm sure Fylo can smash this lid,
if Tithian gives him a sturdy place to stand.” He cast a bitter glance at the king.

Kester raised a brow at the noble. “And how many jails have ye escaped from?”

“I've never seen the inside of a prison,” the noble replied, taken aback. “Why?”

“'Cause I've escaped from dozens. Let me do the thinking,” Kester replied. “We've got to
take every chance we've got, and even then we might not find a way out.”

“There's nothing down there to help you,” Sona insisted. “You'll only disturb what should
be left to rest.”

“Thanks, but I'll look for myself,” the tarek said.

“It's too dangerous!” Sona protested. “The animals-”

“Are a pile of old bones. They won't stop me from finding a way out of here,” the tarek
sneered. She reached for the next crystal.

Sona darted forward and closed her mouth around Kester's wrist. A sizzling pain shot up
the tarek's thick arm, then her fingers closed against her will. Her fist banged into the
crystal for which she had reached, and she narrowly saved herself from falling by grabbing
another with her free hand. A foul smell rose to Kester's nostrils, and she looked down to
see a putrid green stain spreading from beneath the spirit slips.

“Get this thing off me!” she yelled, lifting her stinging arm toward Agis.

“You've made your point, Sona,” said the noble. “I'm sure Kester has changed her plans.”

“In a varl's eye!” the tarek hissed, clenching her teeth against the pain.
“I'm
not going to let anything keep me from lookin'. If we don't find a way out, we'll die
anyway.”

The noble shrugged. “Then I can't help you,” he said. “This is Sona's home, and we must do
as she asks.”

“Ye faithless snake!” Kester yelled, climbing toward Agis. “By me ship's name, I'll rip
yer arms off and beat ye dead with 'em!”

“You can't reason with him, Kester.” said Tithian. “When it comes to questions of honor,
he really is a stubborn boor.” The king reached into his satchel. “However, I might be
able to suggest a compromise.”

Tithian pulled forth a pair of iron cages connected by a heavy chain. Inside the little
prisons sat the disembodied heads of two men, their hair pulled into long topknots. One
had sallow skin and sunken features, while the other was grotesquely bloated, with puffy
eyes swollen to dark, narrow slits.

“Sacha! Wyan!” Agis gasped. He looked to Tithian, then demanded, “Where have you been
hiding those two wretches?”

“That's none of your concern,” Tithian replied. “But perhaps we should have them levitate
down to the pit bottom. They could look for an escape route without disturbing any bones,
then report back to us. That way, we'd know whether or not there's any point to this
argument.”

“We'd rather see you die here,” said the bloated head, licking his chin with a long gray
tongue. “At least we could make a decent meal of you.”

“Sacha's right,” agreed the other. “What makes you think we'd help you?”

Tithian fished a key from his satchel. Both heads fell instantly silent, fixing their eyes
on the tiny piece of carved bone.

“I'm willing to set you free,” said Tithian. “After all, we no longer have reason to
remain enemies.”

“Your personality is reason enough,” sneered Sacha.

“His character can be overlooked, if he lets us out of here,” objected Wyan. “But what
about Borys? As I recall, he told you never to let us out of these cages.”

“I think you know about Borys,” replied Tithian. “As do I, now. You could have saved me a
lot of trouble by telling me he was lying.”

A cruel smile creased Sacha's lips. “And ruin our fun?” he asked. “Watching you play at
being a sorcerer-king was too amusing.”

“Besides, would you have believed us?” asked Wyan. “You had to discover the truth for
yourself.”

“Then you'll help us?” demanded Kester, growing impatient with the searing pain in her arm.

“They will,” answered Tithian, unlocking their cages. “If Sona agrees to my suggestion.”

The spirit released Kester's arm and drifted away, leaving an ugly band of rotting flesh
on the tarek where Sona's mouth had been. “As long as they're careful to touch none of the
bones,” she said. “Otherwise, everyone in this pit will have reason to regret our
compromise.”

The doors to their cages were barely open before the two heads floated out. They dropped
into the depths of the abyss instantly, as if they feared Tithian would change his mind
and return them to their cages.

“Are ye sure ye can trust those two?” Kester asked, scowling at the pair's quick escape.

“I
don't trust them at all,” Tithian replied, hanging the empty cages over a small crystal.
“But if they don't come back, we'll know they found a way out.”

This drew a frown from Sona. “If they don't come back, it'll be because they disturbed the
bones,” she said, returning to her perch. The spirit narrowed her eyes at Agis, then
added, “Until then, I suggest you work on keeping your promise. You know how limited the
patience of children is.”

Agis looked down at Tithian. “If you fail again-”

“I won't,” the king interrupted. He returned the noble's gaze with a hint of pain in his
eyes. “Your treatment of me really is unwarranted,” he said. “Especially considering what
I intended to offer you, had my hopes of becoming a sorcerer-king not been dashed.”

“I wouldn't have wanted it,” the noble said.

“Really?” the king asked. “You wouldn't have been interested in an offer of life?”

“For that offer to have any value, you would have had to threaten me in the first place,”
the noble replied. “You could hardly expect me to be grateful for that.”

Tithian smiled patiently. “Of course not,” he replied. “But you misunderstand me. I had
meant to offer you life in a different sense-in the sense of living forever.”

Agis narrowed his eyes. “Now is no time for games,” he said. “And you should know me
better than to think you could buy me with such tactics.”

A crooked smile creased Tithian's thin lips, and he clucked his tongue at Agis. “So
suspicious,” he said. “It's no wonder our friendship has always been strained.”

“Our relationship has been strained because you're a liar and a thief,” the noble
countered.

“And a murderer, as well,” Tithian added. “But I've never betrayed you.”

“How about when you abandoned your duties to the citizens of Tyr?” Agis replied.

Tithian rolled his eyes. “You've always placed too much value in the banal tools of
appearance,” the king sneered. “I speak of life without end, and you are more concerned
with a few promises we made to a bunch of ex-slaves and paupers.”

“That's right,” Agis said, without hesitation. “And with bringing you to justice.”

“That'll be enough arguing,” said Kester. She looked up at the green hues glimmering
through the crystal ceiling. “Think about the job at hand. If we're going to open those
gates before Mag'r sinks my ship, we'd better make this try a good one-or hope Sacha and
Wyan find a tunnel down below.” She glanced at Sona and pulled her muzzle back in a
defiant snarl.

The trio waited in silence as Fylo completed his climb, then Kester directed the giant to
wait near Tithian. Agis pressed a fingertip to the pit's translucent cover and closed his
eyes, tracing a wide circle. A black line appeared on the shimmering quartz, outlining the
pattern he had traced.

Kester nodded to Tithian, who closed his eyes and swept his hand across the pit. A plank
of psychic energy appeared where he had gestured, anchored directly into the base of two
massive crystals. The platform was about as broad as the king was tall, constantly
changing from one translucent color to another.

Fylo eyed the platform cautiously, then advanced one foot onto its surface. The plank
sagged beneath his weight, crackling and hissing blue sparks beneath his heel. The giant
retreated to the crystals to which he had been cleaving.

“More solid!” he ordered.

Tithian opened one eye and glared at the giant. “I will-but you must be fast. I can't
support your bloated carcass for long.” The king returned his concentration to the
platform, which settled on an opaque, granite red color and ceased to shimmer.

At the same time, the circle Agis had traced above his head began to fill in, darkening to
jet black. Wisps of cold fog trailed beneath it, writhing about like street dancers in the
Elven Market.

“Now, Fylo!” Agis gasped, already growing pale from the effort of holding his circle's
form against the tides of mystic force flowing through the crystal cover.

Casting a wary eye at Tithian's face, the giant stepped onto the platform and squatted
down with his hand next to his hip. There was a great rush of air as he filled his lungs,
then he fixed his eye on the black circle Agis had created. Inside that circle, there
would be none of the magic that flowed through the rest of the crystal lid and made it
impossible to break.