The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2) (21 page)

Were they listening, even now? Arlian did not know what the dragons knew, or how they knew it; they had certainly known what befell Nail, but could they hear everything a dragonheart said, everything a dragonheart heard?

Even if they could, they couldn't listen every moment of every day. Surely Enziet could not have lived his entire life under draconic surveillance, or he would never have been permitted his studies into obsidian's properties, nor the drugs that staved off his death for a few years.

They might be listening now—or they might not.

Wither was standing there, his bad arm tucked against his side, waiting for Arlian's answer.

"My lord, to speak frankly, I did not think you would believe me," Arlian said.

Opal had caught up in time to hear this, and said, "I
still
don't believe it! It's lies and trickery; everyone knows you have Aritheian magicians in your employ!"

Wither said without turning his head, "Ignore her; she's distraught. You may be right that I would not have accepted your unsupported word, but we will never know, will we? What's done is done, Obsidian, and I would appreciate it if you could join me at my home this evening, and bring some of those stone knives and spears—I wish to purchase a few."

Arlian pursed his lips and glanced at Opal, who was obviously furious, but knew better than to argue with Wither just now. Horn, behind her, was utterly calm, unruffled by any of this.

It was not too late to lie, to tell Wither that it was all a trick. If he did not, even if the dragons were not listening now, they would surely realize soon enough what had happened when they found obsidian weapons in Wither's possession.

Wither had no doubts at all of the evidence of his own eyes; perhaps he was close enough to his own death to sense the monster within himself. Arlian might be able to convince him, all the same...

But that would be shameful, to lie to this man.

Wither deserved better.

Besides, Wither could be an important ally against the dragons. Wither was now the senior member of the Dragon Society, a position that carried some authority.

With his support, Arlian could bring most of the dragonhearts into the fight against the dragons, when it eventually came.

And it
would
come—Arlian knew that. He could not restrain himself forever. He did not have Enziet's patience, Enziet's cold-blooded acceptance of the situation—and Enziet had not had Arlian's need for vengeance.

He had to fight the dragons eventually—and when he did, he needed all the help he could get If he lied to Wither and the others now, why would they believe him later ?

But he was not
ready
to fight an open war against the dragons.

But would he be ready later, if he tried to keep the dragons' secrets? If he spread the news now, then instead of one lord and his household preparing for war, all the city might be readying itself.

And another possibility occurred to him. What if he, himself, died? What if a dragon came and killed him, and perhaps the others who had been in Nail's bedchamber? The dragons had never killed Enziet, but Enziet had had time to prepare for such a possibility—

he might well have hidden documents somewhere explaining everything.

Or he might have merely
told
the dragons he had—

could they tell truth from falsehood?

And Enziet had never let the secret slip out, as Nail and Arlian had. The dragons might decide that the spread of the information had to be stopped.

They might not even need to come themselves.

What if they used human representatives, as they did long ago, and hired assassins? That would make it possible to blame Arlian's death on Drisheen or Enziet or Toribor, so that no questions of
why
a dragon had sought him out would arise.

The present situation, with the secret half-in, half-out, was clearly untenable for both sides.

All that ran quickly through Arlian's mind, but in the end, what decided him was simply his respect for Lord Wither. Wither had sent Horn to his aid outside the gate, and had always behaved honorably, if not politely, toward him. It was Wither who had first told him about the Dragon Society, and encouraged him to join.

Arlian owed Wither a debt, and did not want to he to him; he wanted Wither as an ally in his impending war.

He would not lie to Wither, and he would provide Wither with weapons that could fight dragons, and if that brought a new Man-Dragon War down on them all, then so be it. At least everything would then be out in the open.

"You wish to be prepared for every eventuality, I take it?" Arlian asked. 'To be armed against unpleasant possibilities?"

"Indeed. Will you come tonight, then?"

"I would be honored to come, and I will bring the weapons—but as a gift, not to sell." He bowed again, more fully this time, and added, "Let me do this much to repay your past kindnesses, and to make amends for any distress I may have caused you." He gestured in Horn's direction.

Wither snorted. "I won't argue, just so you bring them." He turned away, and called back over his shoulder, "After supper, then—your cook is surely better than mine, but I can promise you some very fine brandy."

"As you please," Arlian said, "though the pleasure of your company would surely compensate for any imagined failings in your staff's hospitality." He straightened from his bow and watched Wither march away, Horn at his heels.

Lady Opal did not follow the pair immediately; instead, as they moved out of earshot, she looked Arlian in the eye and said, "Damn you, Obsidian!" Her tone was astonishingly bitter.

A few of the other mourners overheard and turned, startled, to see who was speaking.

Arlian looked at her with mild surprise. "I am most certainly damned, my lady, but I must wonder why you say this, here and now."

"You
did this!" She thrust a pointing finger under Arlian's nose. "You have him so upset there's no telling what he might do, and there is
no
way now that he'll give me this mysterious potion! I should have wiped the venom from the bedclothes last night, when I had the chance."

"You would have scarred your hand had you attempted it, my lady."

"It might have been worth it!"

Arlian owed Lady Marasa no debt at all, but he had determined on the truth. "My lady," he said, "you saw what became of Lord Stiam as the result of this elixir you seek."

"You say that was what killed him!"

She, unlike Wither, clearly
was
willing to reject the evidence of her own eyes, which amazed Arlian. "Can you really doubt it?" he asked.

Opal did not argue with that directly, but instead said, a little more calmly, "Whether I believe it or not, that elixir bought him another, what, seven hundred years? Eight hundred? Nine? I'm thirty years old, and at best I can expect twice that again before I die a drooling, shriveled imbecile. Your elixir would multiply that tenfold! Yes, you'll say it leads to a horrible death in the end, but what assurance do I have that I'll not die one equally horrible centuries sooner without it?" "None, my lady," Arlian said. "None of us can know the manner of his death until the time for it has come.

That said, I do not choose to aid in unleashing another dragon upon the Lands of Man, now or a thousand years from now."

"You
say that was a true dragon! I say it was Aritheian illusion, no more real than the songbirds at that ball you held!"

"Believe me, I wish that were true." The dragon wanted him to say it was, he recalled, but he no longer cared. The secret was out, and he would not be party to the dragons' attempt to bottle it up again. "I give you my word it is not."

"Your
word"
she said, and spat.

Several murmuring voices were suddenly stilled as others saw this, and turned to observe the confrontation.

"My lady, as Lord Wither said, you are distraught,"

Black said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Please ..."

He did not finish the sentence, as she snatched his hand off her shoulder and turned. "Don't you touch me,"

she said, her voice cold. "Bad enough to be a scheming fraud, but the
lackey
of a scheming fraud...!"

Black and Arlian exchanged glances. Then Arlian looked down at the front of his shirt, damp with her spit. "It appears I must return home to change my shirt yet again," he said. "Good day to you, Lady Marasa."

He bowed, gesturing with his hat, then turned away.

"Come, Black," he said.

The two men walked away, neither the first nor the last to leave the graveside.

As they approached the coach Black remarked,

"She really hates you."

"I have snatched away her chance at a life so long it appears eternal to her," Arlian said thoughtfully. "Of course she hates me. I should have realized she would."

"You haven't given
me
this mysterious beverage, either, I note."

"Would you want it, knowing what you now know?" Arlian asked, staring at the ground as he walked.

Black did not answer immediately, and as the silence grew longer Arlian looked curiously at his steward. He had expected instant agreement, but instead Black was giving the matter serious thought.

But then,
Black
had not seen his home burned, his family slaughtered.
Black
had not sworn vengeance on the dragons. He did not have Arlian's visceral hatred of the creatures.

"I'm not sure," Black said at last, as they came up to the coach. "As I said, what does it matter how I die?

But
when
I die is of some very great personal interest."

"Of course," Arlian said, "but would you buy that thousand years of life by creating another ravaging monster?"

"I might," Black said, "if the opportunity presented itself. Lord Wither is preparing for his fate by taking your obsidian blades; why could I not do the same?"

He shook his head. "It's not an easy question you've posed."

Arlian had been thinking of Wither's interest in terms of fighting off dragons that might attack, but Arlian suddenly realized that was foolish. Wither had no reason to think dragons would attack Manfort. He wanted weapons to be on hand to slay the dragon growing in his own chest, when it emerged. Black had seen that immediately.

Black was no fool, and missed little.

"The venom does more than preserve life," Arlian pointed out

"Oh, of course, how could I forget?" Black said sarcastically. "It bestows health and glamor and vigor, grants one the power to bend lesser wills to your own—how utterly repulsive a prospect!"

"It makes you cold and hard, robs you of any hope for a family," Arlian pointed out.

"Enziet was a coldhearted bastard, I'll give you that—but perhaps he was even before he received this elixir. Wither certainly still has his passions."

"Wither is an exception—think of Drisheen."

"Think of Rime."

Arlian stepped up into the coach, then glanced back down at Black- "Perhaps you should talk further with Lady Rime. Ask her about her great-granddaughter Rose."

"I may do that," Black said. "I very well may."

That ended the conversation, and a moment later they were rolling back toward the Old Palace.

Arlian had not seen the inside of Lord Wither's estate before, though he had passed by it several times. The outside was a magnificent structure in the grandiose style of some five centuries before, when the Man-Dragon Wars were long over and Manfort was finally abandoning the cheerless and functional wartime architecture that still made up much of the city in favor of blatant ostentation—towering pillars supported an elaborately carved architrave, and heroic statues, twice life-size, adorned a dozen niches. The walls and pillars were still of the ubiquitous gray stone, but the statuary and ornamentation were red and white and black.

Black had served as Arlian's coachman; a stableman met them at the gate and took charge of their equipage, but no other servants were initially in evidence. Black, slightly puzzled, knocked at the massive front doors of verdigrised bronze.

A footman admitted Atiian and Black swiftly at Black's knock, and escorted them in, taking their hats and cloaks. Arlian looked around, curious about what the interior of so vast an edifice would look like.

He immediately noticed an architectural oddity. In every other great house he had seen, whether built before or after this one, the front doors opened into a small foyer, where guests could be relieved of coats and weapons, and that served to keep the chill of winter or the heat of summer out of the interior; here the doors opened directly into a series of opulent, high-ceilinged rooms—opulent, but unlit. Arlian was startled at the obvious neglect and decay in these grand rooms—even by the meager light of the oil lamp the footman carried, he saw mildewed hangings, stained carpets, and cobwebs in the fancywork on every side, gilt peeling from the carvings, and the odor of rot was unmistakable. As he followed the green-clad footman who had admitted them he remarked quietly to Black,

"I would have thought Lady Opal would see to the up-keep, even if Wither no longer cares."