Dragon Venom (Obsidian Chronicles Book 3) (25 page)

Arlian's hand finally slid into his blouse, groping for the hilt, but then blue light flooded over the pair, and all motion ceased.

Arlian found himself staring upward into the spy's eyes, and he could see utter terror there—but he could not move. The pressure on his throat was less—though not gone.

Then gray, inhuman hands, the furred hands of the Mage's ape-

things, closed on the spy's arms and shoulders and legs, and he was lifted off Arlian and carried away, the strangler's cord still in his hands.

Arlian tried to turn his head to see where the man was taken, and who or what had taken him, but he could not; the Mage's magic held him where he was, staring upward at a sky where all the stars were now-deep blue.

The pain in his throat was gone—but now his head was throbbing again.

Obviously, the Blue Mage had returned.

And then he heard her voice, that rich and beautiful voice.

"Did you think I would not know what was happening in my own home?" she asked.

"I hoped," the spy replied. "I thought perhaps the dragons' magic..

"The dragons have no power here!" she shouted, and Arlian felt an involuntary tremor run through him, and through the broken plants upon which he rested. "And the dragons have no magic in you—it is he.

Lord Obsidian, who is seething with their essence! It pains him merely to be near me because I have rejected your bestial masters and shut their power away from me; he suffers intensely, while you stand there unscathed!"

That, then, explained the headache, Arlian thought.

Her voice seemed to echo from the courtyard walls, but then the echoes died away and silence descended. Arlian was beginning to wonder whether the spy and the wizard were still there when she spoke again, in a quiet, musing tone.

"I find it curious," she said. "This Lord Obsidian is ablaze with draconic magic, destined for a thousand years of life, and when that millennium is passed his heart and soul will go to nourish one of the mightiest magical beings to walk the earth since the days of the dead gods—yet he is sworn to destroy the dragons, to cast them down and prevent this fate.

You, in turn, are untouched by magic in any form, though you have learned a few of the simple tricks you call sorcery, and yet you serve the dragons."

"I want what he has," the spy said.

"Yet he rejects it; what if, upon receiving it, you, too, reject it?"

"I won't. There are many who do not, and I would join them."

"Can you be sure?"

"I think so."

"And what if, rather than allow you your brew of human blood and dragon venom, I were to take you deep into the southern wilds, and arrange for you to be saturated with the wild magic of earth and fire?

Would it please you as much to engender a wizard as to inculcate a dragon?"

Arlian could hear the uncertainty in the man's reply. "How long would that take? I mean, how long would I live?"

"For a year and a day you would live, though the magic would manifest itself about you in various ways—you might grow wings or scales or horns, you might gain the gift of second sight or a healer's touch. And then the mature wizard would emerge and cast your body aside."

"A year? Just one year?"

"And a day. Did you think you might have found another way to claim a thousand years of existence?"

" I . . . Maybe."

"No. Duration and longevity and continuity are the dragons' greatest magics. No one knows how long they live—thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands, perhaps forever, while we wizards have only fifty years of existence, sixty if we are very fortunate, before we dissolve back into the chaos from which we sprang. And our spells dissolve with us—I could not grant you eternal life even if I wanted to, for any invulnerability I might bestow would vanish when I do."

Arlian listened to this carefully—this was important information, and fascinating in its own right.

It was especially noteworthy since he knew that the Blue Mage had been active well before he was born, probably at least a dozen years before, and he was thirty-seven. If it was true that she could expect only fifty years of life, then she was nearing the end of her time.

Then he felt cold hands closing on his arms, and he was pulled upright, heaved up and over the bench until he was standing on the pavement, ape-things supporting him on either side. He remembered that the Mage had said she had made them from squirrels, but their grip was as strong as any man's.

The spy stood a dozen feet away, similarly restrained, and the Blue Mage stood between them. She was looking directly at Arlian. Even though he knew she was a sterile, inhuman thing, he could not help thinking of her as female; save for their color and luminescence, her face and body were those of a beautiful woman.

"Yes, I am nearing my end," she said. "And yes, I can hear your unspoken thoughts, under certain circumstances." Her head tilted as she studied him. "You intrigue me, Lord Obsidian."

He could not bow while the squirrel-apes held him, but he nodded a polite acknowledgment. "I am pleased to entertain you in whatever way I might, my lady,"

"This man was willing to risk my ire to kill you, yet I sense in you no anger at his actions, no hatred of him."

"He sought what he mistakenly sees as a great reward, my lady; he does not hate either of us. Why, then, should I hate in return?"

"The dragons did not hate your family, but slew them merely because they were there—yet you hate the dragons with a rare intensity.

This distinction puzzles me."

"I loved my family. They had done no harm to anyone; they were innocents. The dragons had no right to kill them." Arlian was startled to hear the vehemence in his own voice.

"And this assassin has a right to kill you?"

Arlian fought down his anger, then shrugged. "He has a reason, in any case, and I can make no claims of innocence. I have assisted in the slaying of more than fourscore dragons; I have killed a dozen men. Nor is my life so very precious to me, in any case. I must in time yield it up, and while I am in no hurry to do so, neither do I believe it would be so very great a loss."

"Such resignation!" Wonderment was plain in the wizard's voice.

"Can you teach it to me?"

"My lady?"

"My own dispersal draws near, Obsidian—my death, insofar as a being like myself can die. I dread it, but I know I cannot prevent it; already I feel myself becoming less focused, less cohesive. My light escapes me whether I will it or no, and there is nothing I can do to alter this. I cannot drink blood and venom and imbue myself with an extended existence, as a human might; I am neither human nor

dragon, nor can I become either one. I came to Pon Ashti in hopes that the environment here, far poorer in wild magic than my native land while still outside the dragons' reach, might serve to prolong my time a little, but I can detect little or no improvement. It may even have worsened my situation; it is a very difficult thing to judge. So whether here in Pon Ashti, or roaming the wilderness, I am dying—

and I do not want to die. If I could learn not to care, as you have, it would ease my passage."

"I am sorry," Arlian said, sincerely. "I am what I am because I have lived the life I have lived; I have nothing I can teach you in the time remaining." He hesitated, unsure why he was considering assisting this creature, then said, "I have heard of a wizard in Arithei, long ago, that attempted to transfer its essence into another body when its own was destroyed. Might you be able to perform such a transference, and thereby extend your life?"

The Blue Mage laughed unhappily.

"I could take a new body," she said. "I could put myself into one of those creatures holding you, or into one of the demons I have created, or even into the body of this man who tried to kill you—we wizards are not tied to a single form. It would not help. It's not my body that is weakening." She raised her arms and shifted her weight to one leg, displaying her not-inconsiderable charms. "Does this look like a body about to die of old age? No, it is my soul that now verges on disintegration, my magical essence, and transferring it to another, less familiar form would only hasten that dispersal."

"Maybe the dragons . . . " the spy said from behind her.

She whirled, one hand thrust out, and he was flung back against the courtyard wall; one of the two ape-things that held him was carried with him, the two of them slamming against the stone side by side, while his right arm was pulled from the other ape's grasp, leaving ragged, bleeding claw marks and sending the ape tumbling to the pavement.

The Blue Mage had grown as she turned, and now towered twice a man's height, glowing more brightly than ever. "The dragons will not help me," she bellowed, in a voice that was terrible and inhuman, far deeper than her previous tones, yet still beautiful. "The dragons are by their very nature the foes of all wild magic. We are the creatures of chaos and change, while they are the essence of order and stagnation!

We and they cannot exist in the same realm—no wizard nor other magical creature can set foot in the Dragon Lands without suffering for it, nor can the dragons cross the borders into our territory."

So much, Arlian thought, for any possibility of some compromise whereby the dragons might be allowed to live somewhere other than the Lands of Man. The only comfort he found was that at least this meant any alliance of dragons and wizards against him and the rest of humanity was unlikely in the extreme.

The Mage turned, looking down over her shoulder at Arlian—

though her shoulder seemed somewhat lower again.

"My lord," she said, in a voice returning gradually to its normal tones, "while you do not hate this man, do you see any reason I should let him live?"

"He is a human being," Arlian said.

"You think that reason enough?" Arlian opened his mouth to reply, but before he could speak she continued, "I do not!"

Blue light flared, and the dragons' hireling was smashed against the wall; Arlian could hear the crunch of breaking bones, could see blood, deep purple in the blue light, spurt from the man's mouth and the back of his skull. His face distorted as his head was flattened.

For an instant he hung there, as if pinned in place, then slid down the stone, leaving a smear of blood and hair, and lay in a heap at the bottom of the wall.

"If I cannot live," the Mage said, "why should he?" Then she turned back to face Arlian. "Now, tell me, Lord Obsidian—if I cannot live, why should you?"

22

A Change of Regime

I am your enemy's enemy," Arlian said calmly—though he did not feel calm. He suspected he had erred in coming to Pon Ashti. The spy's death had convinced him that in all likelihood he was about to die. The prospect did not frighten him, but neither did it please him. "While that need not make us friends, nor even allies," he continued, "surely it means I can be useful to you, and am not a tool to be lightly cast aside?"

The Blue Mage stared at him, shrinking slowly. "You are not frightened," she said. "You truly are not frightened by death."

"I truly am not," Arlian agreed. "I have despaired of ever being able to live free of the burdens that weigh perpetually on my spirit and pre-clude all happiness; what terrors, then, lie in death?"

"The unknown," the wizard replied. "Dissolution. The loss of self.

How can you not fear these? Everything that lives fears death!"

Arlian turned out empty palms. "I do not," he said.

The Mage, once again the size of an ordinary woman, gestured; the squirrel-apes released Arlian and stepped away, and the wizard drifted nearer. Glancing down, Arlian noticed that she apparently had no feet, or at any rate none that extended below the hem of her gown; she was floating a few inches above the paving stones. He was almost certain he had seen feet before, feet in blue velvet slippers, but there was no sign of them now.

"Yet there are things you want," she said. "Things that you need, things you urgently desire."

"Indeed there are," Arlian agreed. "And those that are not simply impossible often contradict one another. I want the dragons destroyed, yet I do not want the Lands of Man to be overrun with the wild magic that prevails elsewhere. I want my friends to be safe and well, yet I endanger them constantly by my actions in opposing the dragons. I want justice, yet I know that true justice is impossible in this life, that justice for one is cruelty to another."

"I want the impossible, too," she said, hanging a few feet away. "I want to be what I am, the mightiest of wizards, and yet I want to live forever—and wizards cannot. We are creatures of chaos and change, of death and renewal—so I must die. If I must die, I want to not fear it so.

There are things I want, and if I die, I will never have them. If you die, here and now, you will never have your revenge, never destroy the dragons, never find justice for your family—do you not dread such a thing?"

"My lady," Arlian said, "I have never truly believed I could have justice, and I have learned that revenge is not enough. To destroy the dragons would be satisfying, but it would lay the Lands of Man open to you and your kind, and can you honestly say that would be an improvement for the ordinary villager or townsman? I will never have what I want, regardless of whether I live or die. I have accepted that."

"Then why do you live? Why do you bother? Why did you not allow the assassin to strangle you, to squeeze the life from you?" Her hands moved uneasily, and Arlian suspected she was on the verge of blasting him, as she had the spy.

He did not want to die, but he had no clever answer to give her, and simply spoke the truth.

"Because I have made promises," he said.

"Merely that?"

"Merely that. That, and perhaps a lingering hope that things can be better than they are, that while I cannot ever fully achieve my goals, I may yet achieve something,

"Other than life itself, I have achieved my goals in this life," the wizard said. "I have done as I pleased; I have taken Pon Ashti and made it mine, as I did a dozen other realms. I have cast down those who opposed me, and exalted those who honored me. I have shaped the world around me to suit my whims. I have no unmet goals, save my own preservation.