The Dragon Society (Obsidian Chronicles Book 2) (9 page)

And then, when all that was done, it would be time to begin the extermination of his draconic foes—or to die trying.

Arlian wondered, as he turned the dusty pages of yet another encrypted notebook, whether Enziet had accumulated secrets deliberately, as another man might collect gems or concubines, or whether it was simply a natural consequence of living for so very long.

Ferrezin had completed a rough inventory of Enziet's major holdings, and the list was impressive, but for die most part Arlian had only scanned it briefly. He was not interested in farms or taverns, or mines in the western mountains. Mines in Deep Delving, especially one particular mine, were another matter, but he could not tell from the list whether Enziet had had any finan-cial interest in the Old Man's mine there. There were properties in Deep Delving, some of them clearly related to mining, bat their exact nature was not stated.

Ferrezin had assured him that two trusted men were already on their way to inquire further.

An inn in Westguard was also of some interest, since Arlian knew that it had been built from the burned-out ruins of the House of Carnal Society. It was odd to think that he now owned Enziet's share of the buikhng where he had spent months hidden in the attic.

And Enziet, using the Duke's ancient right to bestow abandoned property upon his retainers, had laid claim to the ruins of the village of Obsidian, on the Smoking Mountain, and to the obsidian workings there. No one had contested the claim, so that Arlian now owned what remained of his own childhood home, as well.

In a way it was almost comforting to know that Enziet had at least taken the trouble to keep what he had stolen, rather than casting it aside after looting it. And it was oddly satisfying to know that it had now returned to the village's only survivor and rightful heir.

Those emotional interests aside, Arlian thought that owning the ruined village might be useful, since sooner or later he would need obsidian.

Those properties were all of interest, in their way, and stood out on the long list of holdings, but for the moment Arlian was more concerned with the contents of the Grey House itself—Enziet's walled estate here in Manfort, the ancient fortified home where Arlian now sat at one of Enziet's desks, looking through his dead foe's notebooks, hoping to find further information about just what Enziet's arrangements with the dragons had been.

There were innumerable books, and several sealed chests—Ferrezin had worked with sorcery enough to know better than to open any—and an amazing collection of miscellany. Poor Dove's bones were still in a box on the third floor, and Arlian intended to give those a proper burial eventually.

For now, though, he was going through Enziet's journals and accounts, trying to puzzle out the dead man's systems.

Enziet had had an annoying habit of using ciphers and codes and other tricks, and of course no one had the keys to any of them, but Arlian was able to puzzle out some things, and there were often hastily written entries in plain Man's Tongue scattered among the in-decipherable material.

While most of the writing in the notebooks might not be readily understandable, it was quite clear to Arlian that Enziet had gathered a great many secrets, only a few of which had anything to do with dragons.

Many of them appeared to be related to blackmail or scandal of one sort or another—but then, Enziet had been active in politics, so that was hardly surprising.

Several notebooks appeared to describe die misdeeds of various long-dead courtiers, and Arlian wondered why Enziet had bothered to preserve them.

Enziet had also been a sorcerer, and there were notes on many of his experiments. While Arlian's own knowledge of magic was severely limited, and mostly concerned the wild southern magic rather than the subtle sorcery of the Lands of Man, he was fairly certain that some of the things Enziet's notes described went beyond what the other sorcerers of Manfort knew to be possible.

It had already become clear to Arlian that if he wanted to recapture Enziet's knowledge of the dragons, he would need to study sorcery. And he
did
want to recapture that knowledge, so that he could use it in exterminating the monsters and eliminating their threat forever. He knew how to destroy their offspring by killing the human hosts, and he knew that weapons of obsidian could pierce the hides of young dragons, but he did not know how to find all the deep caverns where the dragons slept. He did not know just how effective obsidian blades would be against full-grown dragons. An obsidian dagger had slain the beast that emerged from Lord Enziet's corrupt heart, but that dragon had been a mere hatchling, not very much larger than a man, its hide still soft and red, while the three that had destroyed Arlian's birthplace had measured at least fifty feet, and perhaps as much as a hundred, from snout to tail, and had been black and hard and ancient. Arlian did not think a mere dagger, no matter what its substance, could kill such a creature.

A spear might, if thrust directly into the heart...

He reached the last page of the notebook and slapped it shut, stirring a flurry of dust He sneezed, and wiped his nose with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.

He had had enough of poring over these frustrating tomes, at least for the moment, he decided as he slid the notebook back into its place on the shelf. The secrets he needed might be right here in front of him, lost amid the hundreds for which he had no use, hidden by Enziet's codes and ciphers—or they might be somewhere else entirely, or perhaps Enziet had only carried them in his head.

He rose from his seat, brushed dust from his linen blouse, and turned his attention to the row of three trunks that stood against the wainscotting to the left of Enziet's desk. According to the inventory, these chests contained sorcerous apparatus—Ferrezin had not been any more specific than that.

Ferrezin had not dared to open them.

Sorcery did not generally require much in the way of apparatus. Sorcery was subtle. The Lands of Man, all the lands that had been taken from the dragons centuries ago, were poor in magic, and required that subtlety. In the lands beyond the borders, places like Arithei and Tirikindaro and Pon Ashti, magic ran wild, raging across the sky and flowing through the earth, and all the power a mage could want was there for the taking; in fact, Aritheian magicians Arlian had spoken with had explained to him that the hardest part of wielding magic in their homeland was restraining the sheer raw energy that would, if given any leeway, destroy or transform the magician and everything else in the area. Roads and cities in Arithei had to be protected by elaborate networks of wards and cold iron to keep wild magic in check. Silver and iron and certain stones, not just amethysts but a variety of gemstones, were used to contain the wild magic, and spells involved the use of a wide variety of symbols and talismans to bind the mystic energies.

In Manfort, though, and throughout most of the Lands of Man, there was so little magic that most people could not sense or use it at all, and the delicate art of sorcery had developed to exploit the tiny trace that remained Anything that would restrict the flow of magic would be useless in sorcery, and anything that might confine it would be impossible to use with any frequency. Most sorcery relied on the sorcerer's own skill, and a few common objects.

It took a normal man's lifetime to learn to coax any significant effects from so limited a resource—but because dragonhearts lived many times longer than normal men, many of them were adept in the sorcerous arts. Enziet had been very adept indeed. He had used sorcery in this very house to communicate with the dragons in their caverns—but the only visible tool he had used for that, according to the only witness Arlian had heard describe the feat, was a bowl of water. He had maintained spells of warning and protection, but those had required nothing but words, gestures, and the stones of the house and wall to anchor them.

What, then, was in the chests?

Arlian took from his belt the ring of keys that Ferrezin had provided, and knelt before the first chest, eyeing the lock. He lifted an oil lamp down from the desk and turned up the flame to provide more tight.

The lock appeared ordinary enough, but sorcery was usually invisible. Arlian debated sending for Thirif or Shibiel or Isein, or perhaps inviting a local sorcerer to take a look at it, to see whether there might be some sort of sorcerous trap—but that would take too long.

Pawing through dozens of incomprehensible notebooks had left him impatient, and after all, he did have the key, and Enziet was dead. Sorcery was delicate work, so delicate that much of Enziet's lesser magic might well have died with him, and Arlian certainly could not sense anything magical about the lock.

Besides, he simply did not think Enziet would have bothered with traps. It did not seem his style.

Arlian judged the size and shape of the keyhole, then looked at the three dozen keys to find one that would fit.

There were several that looked possible, but Arlian chose one immediately, for a very simple reason—it was black iron banded with silver, where the others were brass or steel. Iron and silver were protections against magic.

Sure enough, the key slid easily into the lock and snugged tightly against the wards; when Arlian turned it he heard a satisfying series of clicks, and the hasp sprang free.

No magic manifested itself; whatever protective sorcery the trunk might have had placed upon it either was gone or had yielded before the key. Smiling, Arlian lifted the lid unhindered, and peered into the chest, holding the lamp high.

For a moment he didn't recognize what he saw; the gleaming black shapes refused to resolve into intelligi-ble forms. He shifted the lamp, and saw its light glitter on sharp, curved edges.

At last, though, he realized what he was seeing.

The chest was full of obsidian.

This was what Lord Dragon had looted from the Smoking Mountain all those years ago. This was what he had been seeking when he found young Arlian, trapped in the cellars of his ruined home—and sold the boy into slavery.

For an instant that long-ago scene came back to Arlian in all its terrifying detail. He remembered the sight of the dragon's face as one of the three monsters looked directly at him. He remembered the horrible warm weight of his grandfather's corpse, and the pressure of the hot stone floor beneath him, as he lay pinned at the foot of the fallen ladder. He remembered the unspeakably hideous taste of blood and venom dripping into his open mouth, and his stomach wrenched at the memory.

And he remembered being pulled from the cellar to see his home in flaming ruins, the entire village destroyed, while Lord Dragon, with his fine clothes and scarred face and cold voice, directed half a dozen looters in stripping away what few valuables remained. He remembered Enziet demanding to know where the workshops were, where the obsidian was.

And he, Arlian, had shown him, to escape a beating, so as not to risk being crippled—because a cripple would never be able to avenge the wrongs done that day.

He stared at the black glass shards in that trunk in Manfort and felt all the cold hatred he had nursed for years rise up afresh in his bosom, all the thirst for justice, all the lust for bloody vengeance.

He had slain Enziet, or at least the dragon Enziet had become. He had let Cover die of a fever, had let Hide be murdered. He had killed Shamble and Stonehand.

Dagger and Tooth might still live; Arlian had been unable to locate them. Dagger had fled from Manfort years ago, and Tooth simply vanished. Tracking them down would probably require sorcery, if it could be done at all, and if they still lived—which Arlian thought unlikely.

The looters, then, had been dealt with; all were dead or gone.

But the dragons still lived.

And here, in this chest, was the material Arlian needed to make weapons that could kill them.

This was a part of what Enziet had left him, part of the legacy—surely a part that Enziet had intended to be used when he named Arlian as his heir. Despite his dealings with them, despite his betrayal of the old Order of the Dragon that had fought them, Arlian knew that Enziet had hated the dragons even as he was becoming one. For centuries, he had sought a way to destroy them.

He had found one—but had never had a chance to use it. Clearly, he had hoped Arlian would do it in his stead.

Arlian grimaced. Lord Obsidian, he called himself.

This volcanic glass was his namesake—and his destiny. He reached down and picked up a piece, and realized that it had already been shaped into a fine long spearhead. Beside it lay a black stone dagger, and a broken shard that appeared to have been intended as a sword-blade—but obsidian did not have the strength to make a sword.

Knives and spears. That would be enough. A good sword was a nobleman's weapon, meant for honest combat—and Arlian did not want to
fight
dragons. He wanted to
slaughter
them, as they had slaughtered his family and townsfolk.

He had been thinking that killing Enziet had been enough to satisfy his lust for revenge, and that he would continue his campaign against the dragons simply for the greater good of humanity, but now he realized that it had merely been enough
human
blood. He still wanted to see the dragons die for what they had done.