The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2) (11 page)

Of course, most of them probably hadn't tried, since it was the dragon's venom in their veins that kept them all alive; even so, he knew that Enziet had delved deep into sorcerous methods of holding the venom's effects at bay, and had only managed to extend his span by a few years—no more than fifty, at most. If that was the best Enziet had done in centuries of work, Arlian did not see how he could hope for much better.

And that meant that the dragonhearts would have to die if the dragons were to be exterminated.

Which also meant that he, Arlian of the Smoking Mountain, would have to kill them all.

Furthermore, as a member of the Society Arlian was sworn to share any information he might acquire about the dragons, and he was not yet ready to reveal the great secrets he had learned from Enziet, any more than Enziet had. Enziet had found it expedient to ignore that part of his own member's oath; Arlian did not like to think himself similar to his late foe, but he could certainly understand why Enziet had held his peace. In time Arlian thought he would find it necessary to reveal the truth, but he hoped it would not be soon; he needed time to think, to plan, to prepare himself and anticipate the actions of the others. Fortunately, the oath did not say that he must reveal what he learned
immediately.
He would tell them all eventually, if only to explain why he was killing them.

To walk into their hall now and pretend that all was as before, to face their questions about how Enziet had died, to look at them and talk to them in full knowledge that someday he would kill them... Arlian was not ready for that

He did not go to the Society's hall, nor did he invite any of the Society's members to his home—not even Rime—nor did he call on any. Had anyone come to call at the Old Palace he would have admitted his visitor and been as polite as he could contrive, but he could not bring himself to seek out the company of men and women he meant to kill.

He did wonder what was being said among them, whether Nail and Belly were concerned about their fates—they
knew
he meant to kill them someday, where the others did not. He did not seek them out, but he did listen when his guests or his servants gossiped, and he asked a few questions intended to elicit the latest news about them.

Since the members of the Society were all among the city's wealthy and powerful, gossip did circulate—

Cricket and Stammer seemed to be the best sources, though Arlian could not imagine how Cricket, newly arrived and confined to the palace by her inability to walk, heard as much as she did.

Arlian was interested to learn that Lord Drisheen had named no heir. This was hardly surprising in a man with no family who had intended to live forever, but it was interesting, nonetheless.

Thus neglected, under ancient custom Lord Drisheen's estates had therefore fallen to the Duke of Manfort, and once a decent period was allowed for notice to be circulated, and for the Duke's representatives to sort through and remove anything that they thought the Duke would prefer to keep for himself, the residue was to be auctioned off at the Duke's convenience.

That convenience happened to occur some nineteen days after Arlian's return to Manfort, when the novelty of Vanniari's presence was beginning to wear thin, but before Arlian was ready to return to the tedium of sort-ing through the remainder of Lord Enziet's belongings, or to venture out of the city to visit Deep Delving.

While Drisheen's lack of an heir did not startle Arlian, this date struck him as a pleasant surprise; he had assumed, until learning otherwise, that Drisheen's estates had long since been dealt with, since Lord Toribor and the others had brought word of the man's death back to Manfort long ago. Drisheen's hired assassin had certainly known his employer was dead, so the news was hardly secret.

Arlian supposed he had underestimated the time needed to prepare for the auction, but whatever the reason for the delay, it suited him. The discovery that matters were not settled meant he would have a chance to see whether Drisheen, who had been one of Enziet's closest companions, had left anything relevant to Arlian's own inheritance—perhaps Enziet had used one of his ciphers to send messages to Drisheen, and Drisheen had kept a key; or perhaps Drisheen had a diary recording observations about dragons, or about Enziet.

Enziet had known where at least one nest of dragons lurked; perhaps Drisheen had known others. And Arlian admitted to a certain curiosity regarding any record Drisheen might have left of hiring an assassin.

Accordingly, on the appropriate morning Arlian made his way through the cold gray streets to Drisheen's mansion to attend the first session of the auction; the quantity of goods involved meant that several days would be needed to dispose of everything, with each day's proceedings including a mix of personal effects, furnishings, and business property, and continuing until the auctioneer judged the buyers to be losing interest

Arlian went alone; Black was busy with the household and took no interest in what he called ghoulish proceedings, and Arlian had no one else suitable to accompany him on such an errand. He had had no contact with Lady Rime since returning to Manfort, and his female houseguests could hardly manage an event where people were expected to stand while bidding, and to walk from room to room. Arlian realized he had no other friends in Manfort—a rather depressing discovery—so he walked down the hill to Drisheen's estate alone, his cloak wrapped about him.

The gate and door stood open when he arrived, attended only by one harried footman. Arlian handed this fellow his cloak, and did not wait to be shown to the auction; he found it easily enough by following the sound of the auctioneer's chant. He made his way through the foyer, down a passage walled in white stone, into a good-sized but overcrowded parlor, where at least a dozen potential buyers clustered around the auctioneer.

Other buyers were wandering through the various rooms, Arlian saw, and as he had no interest in parlor furniture he strolled on into a mirror-lined gallery where assorted lords and ladies were scattered, looking over die furnishings. No one acknowledged his presence, and he did not intrude, but studied the attendees.

Most were unfamiliar. He knew all the members of the Dragon Society, and had met a good many of Manfort's wealthiest and most powerful residents at the ball he had held in the Old Palace, but the people here to lad were mostly a little lower on the social scale, looking to acquire cheaply things they could not properly afford.

He moved through the gallery to the door of a salon, and stopped without entering.

The Duke of Manfort was in the salon, chatting with a portion of his court Arlian thought better of intruding, and turned away.

It made sense that the Duke himself would be here, since the auction was for his benefit; presumably he had come to oversee the sales and ensure that adequate prices were paid. It made sense, but Arlian had not really thought about it. He cursed himself for this oversight—this might have been a chance to sound out the Duke's attitude about aiding Arlian's planned war against the dragons. Simply walking in unprepared might well end in disaster if he said the wrong thing...

But he would have time to consider, while the auction continued. Perhaps he could work out a sound approach.

For now, he decided to join the main body of bid-ders. He returned to the parlor, only to find that they were moving on to the drawing room beyond.

Arlian followed, joining the crowd for the next hour, but for the most part he made only a few desul-tory bids, and those only on books and certain personal effects, in hopes of acquiring information about Drisheen's sorcerous pursuits. He had no use for second-hand furnishings, and nothing with any discernable connection to Enziet was offered.

He purchased nothing in the drawing room but a bundle of papers that, upon investigation, proved to be household accounts, all utterly useless.

From there the auctioneer moved on into Lord Drisheen's large and elegant library, and Arlian followed—

but the transition made him acutely uncomfortable. He found his gaze drifting from the auctioneer to the comer where Sparkle and Ferret had been hanged. The bodies had been removed months ago, but to Arlian the image was still painfully clear:

He forced himself to focus on the auctioneer, and a moment later on the Duke's own little party. The Duke said his half dozen courtiers had climbed up a concealed stair to the balcony behind the auctioneer and now stood there, looking out at the crowd, the better to observe the bidding.

That brought the memory of the hanged women back even more forcefully. A lordling in pale green satin, the farthest of the party from the Duke, stood with his elbow not six inches from where the noose that killed Ferret had been looped across the balcony rail. Arlian tried not to think about that as he looked over the Duke's party.

About half of the Duke's companions were dragonhearts, Arlian saw. The crowd of potential buyers on the floor below included a handful more of these. The Dragon Society controlled most of the wealth and power in Manfort, after all; Arlian had suspected at least a few of them would attend.

As in the gallery, none of them acknowledged his presence, even though the dragonhearts, unlike those others, unquestionably knew who he was. He was unsure whether they were caught up in the bidding and had honestly not noticed him, or whether they were deliberately ignoring him. Snubbing the man who had killed four prominent lords, three of them dragonhearts, was not unreasonable, Arlian supposed—but it might be that his presence had truly been unobserved, as he was not making himself obvious and had come without retinue.

In any case, Arlian found himself with an opportunity to observe the dynamics of the city's elite, the Duke's entourage and the Dragon Society, that was probably more use than any chance to buy anything.

What he immediately saw was that Lord Hardior, who had been out of favor not long before, had obviously taken up the role of chief adviser now that both Enziet and Drisheen were gone.

Lady Rime, once also a senior adviser, was not present, and the other courtiers in attendance were clearly not significant. Hardior alone stood at the Duke's side, rather than a respectful step back.

Ariian had first met Lord Hardior at the elaborate ball held to introduce Lord Obsidian to Manfort's rulers, but had not dealt with him much after that. Lord Hardior was a member of the Dragon Society, of course—the Society, working behind the scenes, held almost all real power in Manfort—but had not been present for Ariian's initiation, and had therefore not participated in the ritual questioning there. Ariian thought he might have exchanged a few polite words with Hardior on various other occasions, though.

He remembered that Lord Hardior had reportedly been cast out of the Duke's inner circle a year or two back, and that Lord Enziet had been rumored to be responsible. Now, though, Enziet was dead, and here was Lord Hardior, impeccably dressed in white lace and brown velvet, pressed close up beside the Duke, whispering jokes into the Duke's ear, unobtrusively pointing out the prettiest women in the crowd, while the other advisers maintained a respectful distance and the Duke smiled and chuckled in response; clearly, Lord Hardior had seized on the opportunity presented by Enziet's absence.

At that moment, as the auctioneer droned on about a tedious volume of genealogy, Hardior happened to glance out at the crowd and notice Ariian looking up at him.

Their eyes met, and Hardior smiled.

Ariian wondered what that smile meant; it seemed friendly enough, but he knew better than to trust any dragonheart to be what he appeared. This was not the cold smile of an enemy sighting his prey, or the ironic disdain Ariian had often seen Enziet display ; it seemed a sincere display of warmth.

That warmth could be false, of course, intended to deceive Ariian into thinking he had an ally until the jaws of a trap closed around him. It might well be that Hardior was preparing to arrest Ariian for the murder of Lord Drisheen, and found it ironically satisfying to see Arlian here in Drisheen's home.

If he were to be charged with any crime it would probably be Drisheen's death, since Arlian's other significant killings had all been in fair and honorable combat. He had slain Drisheen in cold blood, Drisheen's sword undrawn, before witnesses; if Hardior wanted to destroy Arlian, that would be the best accusation to bring to bear.

On the other hand, it could be that Lord Hardior did indeed feel some appreciation for Arlian's actions in removing Enziet and Drisheen permanently, and taking Rime out of the city for several months, leaving the Duke virtually unattended by those he trusted.

That could be useful. A political ally might be very helpful indeed in making preparations to destroy the dragons and the Dragon Society. Arlian cocked his head and smiled back.

For a moment the two men stood smiling at one another; then Hardior leaned over and whispered in the Duke's ear. He pointed at Arlian.

The Duke's gaze followed Hardior's finger until it found Arlian, whereupon the Duke smiled and waved.

Arlian made a small bow in response. A few heads turned his direction at this, but no one commented. He thought he saw a few surprised faces among the dragonheads, but any such expression was quickly suppressed.

Then all of them returned their attention to the auction as the genealogy sold for a mere seven ducats, and a volume of Lady Arinia's infamous erotic tales, the cause of much scandal three centuries before, was put up for bid.

The Duke had seemed favorably disposed toward him, and Arlian wondered whether there was any way to take advantage of this—but he was down here, pretending to bid, and the Duke was up on the balcony, watching, and he could not see any way to get close enough to speak without violating the etiquette of the occasion.

Besides, there was no chance of speaking with the Duke here without Lord Hardior being a party to the conversation, and Arlian did not know enough of Hardior's intentions and attitudes to risk that.

He frowned, and tried to politely ignore the men on the balcony—and the unwanted image of Ferret, dangling there...