The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2) (12 page)

Not long after that Arlian grew bored, and turned to leave. Nothing of interest was for sale, so far as he could determine, and he had seen what he came to see in other matters—the elite of Manfort seemed to have accepted the loss of Lord Enziet and Lord Drisheen without any great disruption, and it was plain that the Duke of Manfort remained an easily guided fool securely in the grip of die Dragon Society.

And no one had been openly hostile toward him; in fact, Hardior and the Duke had seemed quite friendly.

If anyone intended to avenge the men Arlian had slain, they were not being obvious about it That would make his life easier; there would be no distractions as he prepared his campaign against the dragons. He had half expected to find that Lord Toribor, perhaps with the aid of Lord Nail, had stirred up the Society against him, making him an outcast—but there was no sign of any such thing.

Neither Toribor nor Nail had been present at the auction, however, nor had most of the other dragonhearts.

Arlian reminded himself that he could not allow himself to be
too
confident of his own safety. They might well still have plans to deal with the man who had sworn to slay them. Wither wanted him alive, but no one else had sent anyone to stop Drisheen's assassin.

He paused in die doorway to pull his cloak about him; the sky outside was leaden gray, as gray as the stone streets beyond the gate, and the air was chill, as the dying winter managed one last gasp. He was about to step out and let the footman close the door when he heard a footstep and a polite cough behind him.

He turned to find Lord Hardior standing at the far side of the little foyer, one arm draped gracefully against the doorframe.

"My lord Hardior," Arlian said. "A pleasure to see you!"

"Lord Obsidian," Hardior said, stepping forward, out of the doorway. "I had hoped to catch you."

Arlian glanced at the waiting footman, and said, "I was just leaving; shall I stay, then?"

"Oh, pray don't let me keep you—but might I walk with you as far as the gate, perhaps? A few words make any journey more pleasant, no matter how brief, don't you think?"

"Indeed," Arlian said. "I would be glad of your company." He bowed slightly, then turned and stepped outside. He took two paces down the path toward the gate, then paused until Lord Hardior appeared at his side.

"Is your coach waiting?" Hardior asked.

"I walked," Arlian said. "And yourself?"

"I rode with His Grace," Hardior replied. "Since I have forgone the pleasure of his company for the remainder of the afternoon, 1, too, am on foot."

Then if you like, our stroll need not end at the gate I take it that if you abandoned His Grace in my favor, there was some fairly urgent matter you wished to speak of With me?" Arlian set out down the path at a leisurely pace as he spoke, and Hardior accompanied him.

This was a perfect opportunity to sound out Lord Hardior, to learn a little of how he was viewed in the Duke's court and in the Dragon Society. Arlian tried not to grin, limiting himself instead to a polite little smile.

Hardior smiled as well. "Perhaps not urgent, my lord, but of some importance, yes."

'Then tell me of it, I pray."

"It's simple enough. I wish to know your intentions."

Arlian glanced sideways at him. This was a more direct approach than he had expected. "My intentions?"

"Indeed. You have deprived His Grace of two trusted advisers, and while he does not doubt your honor or question your justification, he is concerned lest you remove more. He wonders whether perhaps it is your intent to gain power in Manfort by thus removing rivals."

The two had reached the gate, where a gatekeeper stood by watching silently as they passed. He had not been there when Arlian arrived, and Arlian would have preferred it had he not been there now.

Arlian said, "My dear Hardior, I am not interested in gaining power at all, by any means. I know you were not present at my .. . arrival on the Street of the Black Spire, but surely you heard some of what was said there?" He did not think it wise to mention the Dragon Society by name while the gatekeeper was still within earshot, but he was sure Hardior would recognize the reference.

"One hears so many tales, Obsidian, that one scarcely knows what to believe. I would prefer you tell me directly why you came to Manfort, and what you hope to accomplish."

"I came in pursuit of vengeance, my lord," Arlian said. He could see no reason to evade the question; his purposes were hardly secret within the Society, and they were now too far down the street for the gatekeeper to overhear. The street was not utterly deserted, but the other citizens abroad on this gloomy day were few, and all seemed more concerned with getting home out of the damp chill than with listening to the conversation of the two lords. "As a child I was wrongly sold into slavery in the mines of Deep Delving
,
and I swore to find and slay the seven people who participated in that shameful act. Later I befriended women who were maimed and then murdered at the whim of six lords, and further swore to avenge those poor dead souls, as well as my own enslavement"

Thirteen men, then," Hardior said.

Arlian shook his head. "No," he said. 'Ten men, and two women, for one of the six lords was Lord Enziet, who was also the man who sold me into slavery."

"And have you disposed of them all, then?"

"I have found all the ten men," Arlian said, "and eight of them are dead. Two of the lords, Nail and Belly, still live, and I have been unable to locate the two women—one is thought to have died years ago, and die other fled Manfort and has never returned."

He belatedly remembered Lampspiller—his envoys to Deep Delving had not been instructed to inquire after the overseer, so he had no idea whether Lampspiller still lived.

If he did... well, it was a minor matter compared to the dragons, and he was unsure whether he would pursue it or not He decided not to mention it

"And where does this leave you, then?" Hardior asked. "As a member of the Dragon Society you are sworn not to kill Nail and Belly within the city walls; do you propose to hunt down these two women?"

"I have had enough of vengeance against men and women, my lord. It may well happen someday that I will kill Nail and Belly—Nail has agreed to meet me outside the wall when I have dealt with Belly, and I may take him up on that or I
may not. Belly and I have fought before, and I think we have each other's measure; at this point I think it might be possible to let the matter end there, but it may be that we will fight again at some point." The memory of that duel in the night-dark streets of Cork Tree, which had ended with Toribor lying bleeding in the dirt, rushed back, and Arlian found himself thinking that he should pay Lord Toribor a visit, and discuss matters left unresolved between them. He should have done so sooner, in fact, but since his return to Manfort he had been distracted—by Enziet's legacy, by Isein's news about the dearth of magic, by Wither's visit, by Vanniari's birth.

He did not particularly want to kill Lord Toribor anymore, but he had said, there in the streets of Cork Tree, that their dispute was not finished—and of course, he intended to kill all the dragonhearts eventually. It might be wise to find out Toribor's intentions.

Would it be necessary to fight him again, fairly soon?

He remembered that he had made a promise to Toribor, there in Cork Tree—that he would hear Enziet out before killing him. Toribor had believed that Enziet's death would unleash all the dragons upon the Lands of Man, and end the peace between humanity and the dragons that had lasted seven centuries now.

That had actually been a fairly reasonable belief—it had been Enziet's bargain that had ended the old Man-Dragon Wars. Enziet had been dead for months, though, and Arlian had heard no reports that the dragons had emerged from their caves. It would seem that the predicted catastrophe had not come. Arlian wondered what Toribor thought of that.

These were definitely matters to be discussed.

None of them were anything he wished to discuss with Hardior, though. His concerns with Toribor were his own affair, and none of Hardior's business.

"Those two women, if they live, I no longer think worth the trouble of pursuit," he added as an after-thought. "Though if I happen across them, I will deal with them as seems appropriate at that time." Dagger and Tooth had merely been tools of Enziet, of Lord Dragon; with their master gone they were no more than two scoundrels in a world awash with their like.

"Then when you have met and slain Belly and Nail, assuming you do contrive to accomplish this and survive, what will you do?" Hardior asked. "Have you plans beyond this vengeance you've pursued so dili-gently?"

Arlian smiled crookedly. "Indeed I do, my lord, for I have not yet mentioned the greater revenge I seek.

The men are my lesser foes. My family was slain by three dragons when I was a boy, and I have sworn to find and destroy those dragons, or die in the attempt."

He did not mention that he intended to kill
all
the dragons; that would sound far too grandiose.

"Ah!" Hardior spread his hands. "I had heard this, my lord, but I could scarcely credit that the man who slew Lord Enziet could be so mad."

So much for restraint in declaring his intentions. Arlian threw Hardior a quick, wary glance. "Lord Enziet cut out his own heart," he said. "I have not said I killed him, merely that he is dead."

"I am not seeking to trick a confession from you, Obsidian. There are obviously mysteries here I do not understand—that fact is written on your cheek, for no blade made that mark. I do not ask you to explain. I may never truly know what happened to Lord Enziet, and this does not greatly trouble me. From my own point of view it is enough that be is gone, and that you do not seek to take his place."

"I have no interest in replacing him in the Duke's court," Arlian said. "He did, however, name me heir to his possessions and estates, and I have accepted that role."

"And you are welcome to it. Better to have them in your hands than disputed, or auctioned to fill the Duke's overflowing coffers as Drisheen's are."

Arlian stopped walking and turned to face Hardior.

"My lord," he said, "let us speak plainly. You said you wished to speak to me of a matter of some importance, yet you ask only about my own intentions.

While plainly these are of importance to
me,
I fail to see their significance to
you.
Were I truly hoping to usurp your position at court, or subvert your influence in some other way, surely I would not
tell
you? You would not trouble yourself solely to hear my protesta-tions of innocence—what
else
could I say? Why, then, are we having this conversation?"

Hardior grinned at him.

"As blunt as Enziet, aren't you?" he said. "Very well, then. Yes, I expected you to deny any aspirations to power here in Manfort, but I thought myself capable of judging your sincerity. Furthermore, since you do indeed appear to be mad, I thought you might voluntarily provide me with a list of whom you still intend to murder, so that I might plan accordingly. You appear to have done so. You have named Nail and Belly and said there are no others, and I believe you.

Nail is of no political consequence whatsoever, having withdrawn from court before the present Duke was even born; Belly is committed to no faction since Enziet's death, and indeed appears to be almost a broken man, one who can be easily dealt with, spending his time practicing swordplay rather than politics. I have hopes, my lord, that you, as Enziet's heir and a very wealthy man in your own right, can be convinced to openly support my position at court—it would strengthen my standing, and in exchange I would ensure that there will be no investigation into Lord Drisheen's death in a Cork Tree tavern."

"Indeed," Arlian said. He had to admit to himself that such a bargain would have its advantages, freeing him of any worries about the Duke's interference in his affairs, but he could not resist adding sarcastically,

"And how do the dragons figure into your calcula-tions?"

"As yet they do not," Hardior said. "While it's true that Belly has babbled about secrets and bargains that Lord Enziet had made, I expect that matters will go on much as they have for centuries—the dragons will stay in their caverns much of the time, emerging once in a while when the weather is right to destroy some unfortunate hamlet, and we will ignore them and go about our business. If you seriously do attempt to destroy them you will, of course, die in the attempt, which will be unfortunate, but the rest of us will continue without you—I only hope that you do not thereby stir them sufficiently to provoke the destruction of a village or two. If, as I rather expect, you find it expedient to spend a good many years in planning and preparation, then we will have the pleasure of your company that much longer "