The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2) (4 page)

It was in Manfort that Lord Toribor and Lord Nail lived. It was in Manfort that Lord Enziet had served as chief adviser to the Duke. It was in Manfort that the Dragon Society, the sorcerous secret masters of the Lands of Man, met—and it was inside Manfort's walls that the members were sworn not to kill one another. If Arlian stayed elsewhere, his enemies in the Society could send assassins after him, but here, they could not.

It was in Manfort that his potential allies dwelt, as well. If he hoped to wipe out the dragons, he would almost certainly need a great deal of assistance, and the Dragon Society—at least, those members, like Lord Wither or Lady Rime, who had no reason to hate or fear him—seemed a likely source for that aid.

Though there were complications.

And it was in Manfort that he had a household awaiting him—his hired servants, and four of the women he had saved from the House of the Six Lords.

He held no slaves, of course; after his years in the mines Arlian could hardly allow slavery in his own home. His four guests had been brothel slaves for years, their feet amputated to prevent any attempt at flight, but he had freed them.

He had freed those four—but it should have been more. Arlian's gut knotted at the memory of poor Sweet, who had died in his arms; of Sweet's friend Dove, whose bones still lay in Lord Enziet's house; and of Sparkle and Ferret, whom Lord Drisheen had hanged out of spite rather than permit Arlian to rescue them.

There were the two in the wagon, Cricket and Brook, which made six in all, but still, the House of the Six Lords had had sixteen unwilling occupants.

Arlian had been unable to save ten of them.

He sat, silently remembering, as the wagon moved slowly up the street, and then dozed briefly and unhappily, the faces of dead women drifting through fragmented dreams.

He jerked awake again as the wagon bumped across a gutter as it crossed an intersection. He glimpsed the familiar outline of the Old Palace ahead, a black shape barely distinguishable from the black night sky behind it. The windows were dark, and no lantern hung at the gate or in the forecourt.

"We're almost there," he remarked.

"Almost," Black agreed.

"I hope someone's awake to admit us."

"I have the keys," Black said.

Arlian nodded. He should have expected as much, he told himself; Black was always prepared. A man of great foresight; Arlian knew he had been very lucky to stumble into such a companion, and even luckier that Black had stayed with him for so long.

Oh, he paid Black a generous salary, and Black was moderately susceptible to the superhuman charisma of anyone possessing the heart of the dragon, but there was no question that Black had the willpower and common sense to leave if he chose.

That he did not so choose flattered Arlian immensely. He wondered sometimes whether he deserved such an honor.

"I think the postern would be appropriate," Black suggested, breaking into Arlian's thoughts. "Given the hour."

"Of course," Arlian agreed—though if he had been driving in his current weary state he would have taken the wagon directly to the front gate without thinking about it.

Black clucked and pulled at the reins, and the oxen turned in to the alley, bound for the kitchen entrance.

A moment later the wagon creaked to a stop, and Black leapt to the ground. "You wake the others," he said. "I'll unlock the doors and see if there's a fire."

Arlian, who had been poised to jump down after his steward, caught himself. "Of course," he said. He turned and ducked down into the body of the wagon, dodging the arrow that still stood in the floorboards.

The Arithean magicians were curled up on one side, Lady Rime on the other; at the back, sleeping on cushions atop the luggage, were Cricket and Brook.

There was no sense in waking the younger women until someone was available to carry them; Arlian turned to the magicians, Thirif and Shibiel, first. He shook Thirif's shoulder gently. The Arithean stirred and sat up, then awakened his companion while Arlian turned his attention to Lady Rime. Rime came awake instantly and stared up at him.

"We're at the Old Palace," he told her. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like, or we can take you to your own home once we have the others safely inside."

Rime shot a glance at the sleeping women, and another at the magicians. "I'll stay here tonight," she said.

"It's almost dawn," Arlian said.

"Then I'll stay the morning," Rime replied. She twisted around, pulled her wooden leg from the corner where she had secured it, and set about strapping it onto the stump of her left leg.

"Good," Arlian said. He turned toward the others, and found Cricket already stirring, her sleep disturbed by their voices.

A moment later Black returned to announce that the postern was open, the kitchen fire burning, and the staff alerted. "Will you want breakfast, my lord?" he asked.

Arlian blinked at him.

"I want sleep," he said. "Have my bed readied, and places found for all of us. Anything else can wait."

"As you will, my lord," Black said.

Arlian stared at him for a moment. Black had slipped easily back into his formal role as steward after months of casual equality on the road; Arlian, in his exhausted condition, could not make the adjustment so readily. "Let us fetch the women," he said, gesturing toward Cricket and Brook.

Black nodded.

Everyone was awake now, and the Aritheans lent a hand in getting Brook and Cricket down from their perch and out of the wagon.

Brook stared at the arrow, but said nothing. The others seemed not to notice it. Arlian suspected that Rime had been awake for at least a portion of their encounter with Drisheen's assassin, and had already seen it.

"We're really here?" Cricket asked sleepily, as Black lifted her and started for the postern. "I'll really see Lily and Kitten and Hasty and Musk?"

"You really will," Black assured her.

She smiled happily. "That's wonderful! What else could I ask for?"

"Feet," Brook said grumpily as Arlian hoisted her in his arms, the stumps of her ankles waving in the air.

And on that note, Lord Obsidian re-entered his home.

Arlian came awake with the odd impression that he had coughed. His throat felt entirely fine, however. He blinked up at the plaster nymphs on the dimly lit ceiling.

"Ahem."

That explained it, he realized.
He
hadn't coughed; someone else had, to awaken him. He lifted his head.

He saw at once that the light in his chamber was only dim because the curtains were drawn. The narrow gap where one pair failed to close completely allowed a beam of sunlight, like a bright golden screen, to cut across the far end of the room at a steep angle.

From that, Arlian judged it to be roughly midday.

It was good to be home, he thought, where he could sleep away the morning in a real bed, untroubled by innkeepers or the exigencies of travel. He stretched beneath die covers, enjoying the feel and smell of the fine linen sheets, then looked around for the source of the cough.

Old Venlin, Arlian's chief footman, was standing at his bedside, carefully not looking at his lord and master. "Good morning, Venlin," Arlian said. "Assuming, of course, that it
is
still morning."

"It is, my lord," Venlin said, "though in another hour or so the sun will indeed be past its zenith."

"Then it's time I was up and about my business, wouldn't you say?"

'It's not my place to instruct you, my lord," Venlin said.

"Of course," Arlian said, flinging aside the sheet and counterpane and swinging his bare feet over the side of the bed. "Still, I won't fault you for offering your opinion when asked. And right now, I wouldn't fault you for fetching my robe."

"As you wish, my lord," Venlin said, stepping to the wardrobe. "Might I suggest, if you do indeed welcome my opinion, that you might wish to dress immediately? You have a visitor waiting."

"Ah!" Arlian smiled as he stood, clad only in his shirt. "That's why you're here at my bedside, then. I thought perhaps the kitchen staff had simply become impatient about keeping my breakfast warm. Who is it, then? Lord Wither?" Horn had said Wither would wait until Arlian had had time to recover from his journey, which should have meant at least a day or two, but Arlian supposed Wither might have yielded to impatience.

"No, my lord."

"Oh? Then one of our unfortunate female guests, perhaps?"

"No, my lord—your steward has explained to them that you need to rest after your journey, and they are accordingly restraining their eagerness to see you.

Your visitor is a gentleman who says he represents Lord Enziet."

Arlian's smile and good mood vanished; for one nightmarish instant he thought he had dreamed his long pursuit of his enemies southward along the caravan road, had imagined that horrific final battle with Lord Enziet, most appropriately also known as Lord Dragon...

But he could feel the scar on his cheek, could remember it all far more clearly than any dream, and he knew Enziet was in fact dead.

But the people of Manfort, and of Enziet's household and estates, might not know it yet. And even if they did, they might well still have posthumous mis-sions, as Drisheen's hired assassin had.

He did not think Enziet had hired assassins—he would have left that to Drisheen. Presumably this visitor was some servant of Enziet's, here on some long-delayed business—or to demand any news Arlian might have of Enziet's whereabouts. Whatever he wanted, Arlian could not see how it could be good.

The news of Arlian's return must have spread quickly, even more quickly than he had expected, if someone from Enziet's household had already heard of it and come to call. Perhaps Drisheen's assassin—

Arlian wished he had thought to get the archer's name—had carried the word.

"I'll meet him in the small salon in ten minutes,"

Arlian bowed, and departed.

This meeting with the dead man's representative seemed to demand a certain degree of formality, so it was actually closer to twenty minutes before Arlian strode into the small salon, washed and brushed, re-splendent in his best black velvets, his vest and jacket trimmed with white lace and worn over a white silk blouse.

Just outside the door of the salon he had passed a pair of his servants, a woman called Stammer and a youth named Wolt, obviously planning to eavesdrop; he pretended not to be aware of their presence. He doubted anything would be said that he didn't want them to hear, and he could always chase them away later if it became necessary.

In the salon he found two men waiting for him. One was Black, of course, in the white-piped black livery of the household. The other was a thin, gray-haired man Arlian had seen before, also dressed in black. His coat was trimmed with gold, however, rather than with white.

Arlian knew those colors, and after a second he recognized the face, as well—this was Enziet's own steward. He had been expecting a mere messenger, not the head of Enziet's staff.

Arlian stopped dead.

Enziet's steward bowed, and said, "My lord Obsidian."

"Good day, sir," Arlian said. "I understand you wish to speak to me." He kept his tone formal, but not openly hostile; after all, this man was a mere hireling.

"Indeed, my lord. I am here at the direction of Lord Enziet—who, I am told, is dead." He glanced at Black.

"He is," Arlian said. "I saw him plunge his swordbreaker into his chest and tear out his own heart, in service of dark sorcery."

The steward swallowed. "Ah," he said.

"Did you think I had killed him, then?" Arlian asked mildly. "We fought, yes, but in the end it was his own blade that slew him." This was technically true, but highly misleading; Arlian had no intention of explaining the actual circumstances of Enziet's demise. He did not want to encourage any sort of retribution.

He wished he could have denied killing Lord Drisheen, as well, but alas, there had been several witnesses to that. And of course, Lord Drisheen had arranged his own attempt at retribution.

"I am not unduly concerned with the manner of his death, my lord," Enziet's steward replied. "Merely the certainty that it occurred."

"It did," Arlian said. "In a cave beneath the Desolation. I witnessed it, as I have said, and my man Black saw the body as well, and can attest that the heart had been ripped out and that Lord Enziet is no more."

The steward nodded. "We had reason to believe that my lord Enziet was dead some time ago," he said.

"Through sorcerous means."

"That does not surprise me," Arlian said. "Lord Enziet was a sorcerer of renown."

"Yes." The steward's reply was a flat acceptance of Arlian's statement, with nothing of surprise or flattery or displeasure in it.

"And why does this bring you here?" Arlian asked.

"Did your master leave a message for me, to be delivered upon my return? A threat, perhaps, or a curse?"

It occurred to him that there had been time for a message to be delivered before he left Manfort in pursuit of Lord Enziet; he had not rushed out on the other man's heels, but days later. Whatever brought this man here was something intended to follow Enziet's death.