Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) (10 page)

Stone walls and obsidian blades guarded him, but might the dragons be attempting something subtler, something these defenses could not stop?

Well, if they were, he carried steel and silver and amethyst, as well.

Long ago, an Aritheian mage had told him that creatures of darkness feared silver, creatures of air could not pass cold iron, and the creatures of dream could not approach amethyst; his studies in sorcery since then had confirmed the virtues of silver and steel, though no one in the Lands of Man had known of amethyst's value. He knew how to place sorcerous wards that would warn him of an enemy's approach, and thus he was guarded against magic, as well as against men and dragons.

But there were a thousand other ways to strike at him, and he knew it. He had faced more than a score of assassins over the years without even counting the ones as ineffectual as Wren, and he had survived a dozen other challenges of one sort or another, but he knew he was not safe, was never safe.

When he had slain all the dragons and dealt with the dragonhearts, that did not mean the Lands of Man would be safe. There were always other menaces. Perhaps the problems in the Borderlands were something new that had no connection with the dragons or himself.

Well, he would not learn any more standing here looking out the window; he turned, then marched back along the corridor and down the stairs.

On the ground floor he found Black and Brook in the little gallery, talking quietly; Brook was back in the wheeled chair Black had built for her. She looked up at the sound of his approach, and Black turned.

Arlian bowed to Brook. " T i s as always a delight to see you, mistress," he said.

"The pleasure is mine, my lord," Brook said; she made no pretense of bow or curtsy. Her feet had been amputated long ago, when she was a slave, to prevent any attempt at running away—and to add a certain exoticism to her services in the brothel that had owned her. She was free now, but she would never be free of her mutilation; even the most learned of Aritheian magicians had denied knowledge of any method that might make her whole or allow her to walk again. Inspired by the wheeled carriages of Arlian's first catapults, Black had devised and built her chair and given her some mobility, but she could still not manage the ceremonial expectations of polite society, and saw no reason to attempt an approximation.

"Where are your daughters?" Arlian asked. "I had thought they would be eager to see their father, and I would like to see how they have grown in my long absence." His specification of daughters, rather than children, was an attempt at tact on his part; Brook had delivered two stillborn sons since her second child's birth, as well as suffering a few miscarriages over the years. "Kerzia is now . . . thirteen, is it?"

"Her fourteenth birthday was a few days ago, my lord," Brook said.

"She and her sister have gone up to the Old Palace—they have friends among the children there."

"Do they?" Arlian shot Black a questioning glance; the steward shrugged in reply. "Perhaps we should go see if we can find them; I would not mind visiting the old grounds myself."

"I had intended to do exactly that, Ari," Black said.

"Then let us be off! And worry not, my dear Brook; I assure you I will bring both husband and offspring back to you in short order, and will not undertake any new ventures, nor allow any distractions, until our return."

Brook just nodded at that.

A moment later the two men were walking up the street toward the site of the Old Palace, on pavement that was drying rapidly in the sunlight that fought through the scattering clouds.

The Palace itself was gone, of course, burned fourteen years earlier, but Arlian still owned the land. He had neither the time nor the inclina-tion to rebuild; instead, when people fleeing villages destroyed by the dragons or the battles between the Duke's men and the Dragon Society began to pour into Manfort, Arlian had announced that he would allow these refugees to camp on the grounds and in the ruins until more permanent homes could be found for them. Furthermore, he decreed that no slavers would be permitted on the grounds, so that the homeless and destitute need not fear capture there.

Most of the refugees did indeed find places after a few months, but some did not, and a steady trickle of new arrivals continued; the original tents and crude huts had gradually been replaced by more extensive structures, built from the ruins of the Old Palace.

These people were called "Lord Obsidian's guests"; the name had originally been applied derisively, but it had become the accepted term.

After all, they were his guests, and Arlian welcomed them as such. If he had never disturbed the dragons, the refugees would not have come to Manfort; he felt that providing this temporary accommodation was the least he could do for them.

Arlian had made his hospitality dependent upon certain conditions, however; foremost among these was an insistence that a portion of the old garden, and the graves therein, remain undisturbed. So far that require-ment had been met, but he still wanted to check while he was in town , and make certain that all was well. Finding Kerzia and Amberdine provided a perfect justification for undertaking this inspection immediately.

They rounded the corner and came in sight of the old gateposts.

The gate itself was gone, but the gateposts and most of the wall still stood.

The soot had washed away after all these years of rain, but the stone gateposts were still lightly stained, streaked with dark gray where dragonfire had struck them.

Arlian took off his hat and paused to kneel by one post; this was where Lord Toribor had died, luring the dragon into position to be killed by the first of Arlian's catapults. For most of the time Arlian had known Toribor the two men were enemies; Arlian had sworn to kill the older dragonheart, and had twice faced him in duels. Nonetheless, when the dragon came, Toribor had worked closely with Arlian to defeat it.

"If your spirit lingers, Belly," Arlian murmured, "I want you to know that I have not forgotten—without your aid all would have been lost. I would be long dead, and eighty-some dragons would still live.

Thank you."

Then he got to his feet and brushed mud from his breeches before turning to look into the refugee camp.

The houses had improved since his last visit; in fact, some showed every sign of being permanent. The floor of his great mirrored gallery, where once the nobility of Manfort had danced, was now serving as a street, and the structures on either side, while eccentric, seemed quite substantial.

He would, he supposed, want to start collecting rents on them—

these were no longer a refugee camp, but cottages. He would keep the rents minimal, but if he did not assert his claim to the land beneath he might eventually lose it.

No children were immediately in evidence; he marched across what had been his forecourt, past the spot where he had first slain an adult dragon and where its bones had long lain exposed, to the guardhouse that stood where his cloakroom once was.

"Ho!" he called.

A young guard in the Duke's livery appeared at the door, obsidian-tipped spear in hand. He peered at Arlian's face, clearly not recognizing it, and said, "This is private property, my lord."

Black snorted. "We're aware of that, boy," he said.

"Black?" The soldier started, then straightened.

"And this is Lord Obsidian, the owner of this private property,"

Black replied, gesturing at Arlian.

"Your pardon, my lord," the guard said, bowing.

Arlian acknowledged the bow with a nod of his head, but he studied the young man for a moment before he spoke. Greeting a wealthy stranger with a warning about trespassing seemed a peculiar thing to do, and Arlian tried to guess why the soldier had done it.

No obvious explanation occurred to him, and in the end he simply asked, "Alight I inquire, sir, why you felt it necessary to assert that this is private property?"

The soldier flushed slightly. "Slavers, my lord. We have had some difficulties with the slavers. Refugees rarely have any money or family, after all, and sometimes the temptation is too great, despite your orders.

Slavers slip in at night, when the guards are dozing, or climb over the wall in areas out of our sight."

"Surely, you did not mistake me for such a slaver."

"No, certainly not, but on occasion lords like yourself have come here to have a look at potential victims before sending in their hirelings."

" N o t lords like myself," Arlian said. "I own no slaves, and have no truck with slavers."

"Of course not, my lord," the guard said, flushing more deeply and bowing again. "And you show your face—the slave takers are usually masked. But the brim of your hat hid your features at first, and . . . "

" N o need to say more," Arlian interrupted. "I understand, and you acted rightly. N o w that we have that out of the way, however, perhaps you could direct us to where we might find children at play? My steward's daughters are reported to be in this vicinity."

"Oh, back that way, in the gardens, my lord." He pointed. "I saw them come in this morning, and I believe they've been there ever since."

"Thank you." Arlian nodded, and led the way.

He did not speak as they walked through what had once been his home; he was deep in thought.

No one had ever mentioned slavers defying the ban to him before, and he wondered whether this was a recent development. He could have asked the guard—but he did not want to question the man as if he were judge and jury determining his fate; the young fellow was doing his job well enough, but seemed a trifle unsure of himself, and Arlian had no wish to add to that uncertainty.

Besides, he did not really want to speak of these matters aloud-—or not yet, at any rate. He wanted to think.

He hated slavers and slavery. He had spent seven years as a mine slave, and slavery was what he loathed most in all the world after the dragons.

Perhaps, if by some miracle he were to succeed in exterminating the dragons and survive the experience, he would then turn his attention to eliminating slavery entirely—though that would be a far more difficult task, in truth. Slavers were not venom-spitting monsters, easily recognizable by their size and scales, but instead hid in the skins of men and women, pretending to humanity. Many people believed that slavery was a natural part of the world's order, that some men and women were destined, by the weakness of their minds and spirits, to serve the whims of others, and that this was as it should be, that those weaklings would otherwise starve in the streets at great detriment to public sanitation. Lord Toribor had thought as much and considered slavery just, until Arlian had convinced him to listen to the tales some slaves told of their lives.

That had planted seeds of doubt, but Belly had died before they grew into a conviction that slavery was inherently wrong.

T h e dragons were, however magical they might be, tangible and finite; they could be destroyed, and the destruction seen to be certain.

Slavery was an idea, hidden and mutable, something that might lurk in any soul, might spread from one to another overnight, might lie dormant for years or decades only to spring forth anew.

Still, an idea could be countered, could be fought, and Arlian could think of nothing better to do with his life should he somehow survive the last dragon and the last dragonheart.

T h a t slavers were intruding on bis land, preying on bis guests, in defiance of the law, was disturbing.

And they came wearing masks. T h a t damnable fashion had arisen years ago, and Arlian hated it. Its advocates excused it on several grounds, including history—supposedly in the latter days of the old Man-Dragon Wars, those brave men and women w h o resisted the dragons' rule and defied the human servants who oversaw the dragons' empire had sometimes gone masked so that their identities would not be reported to the dragons, and their families would not be harmed in retaliation. T h e present-day masks were alleged to be worn in tribute to those heroes of old, as a reminder that humanity was once again openly at war with its ancient foe.

Those rebellious forefathers had also used false names to disguise their identities and protect their kin. That custom had survived all the intervening centuries, down to Beron being known to all and sundry as Black, and Arlian's own use of the name Obsidian, but the masks had been cast aside when the dragons retreated to their caves.

Now the masks were back—but Arlian suspected that this time they were not protecting the dragons' foes, but their allies. Someone who knew the signs could tell a dragonheart from an ordinary mortal merely by a good look at the eyes, the face, the movements—and masks hid the face and eyes, enabling dragonhearts, at least in theory, to move freely among the people of Manfort despite the Duke's edict requiring them to undergo the Aritheian cleansing. Magical disguises known as glamours could accomplish the same thing, but a simple mask was far cheaper, and much easier to maintain.

Unfortunately, Arlian had, so far, been unable to convince the arbiters of style of the significance of this point. New fads and fashions were notoriously difficult to discourage, and masks, with their air of intrigue and mystery, were simply so much fun for many people that Arlian's protests were as useless as steel against dragonhide.

The two men rounded the final hut, following the sounds of squeal-ing, and found half a dozen girls chasing each other madly across an area of plowed ground that would probably be someone's vegetable patch in a few weeks.

"Kerzia!" Black bellowed, in a voice he usually reserved for issuing orders to armed men.

One of the taller girls stopped dead, and whirled on one foot; another smaller one stumbled, then also stopped and turned, somewhat less abruptly. Then the two of them shrieked in unison, "Daddy!" and began running toward Black.

Arlian watched silently as the pair jumped the low fence and sprang into their father's waiting arms. He stood, waiting, as they babbled cheerfully and Black listened intently.

The other girls paused long enough to acknowledge that their play-mates were departing, then continued their game, whooping wildly as they charged around the old ash tree and headed for the gallery-floor street.