Dragon Weather (70 page)

Arlian held his breath and listened intently.

He could hear the wind blowing through the rocks, far behind him—and he could hear something very, very faint ahead, something that might be a person breathing.

“Lord Enziet!” he called. “I know you're there—strike a light, and we'll talk.”

“Talk?” Enziet laughed bitterly—and the sound was closer than Arlian had expected. “You want to
talk,
Obsidian? Isn't it too late for that?”

“I'm not sure,” Arlian replied, speaking more quietly—and moving as he spoke, sidling to his left, so as not to invite a sword-thrust by sound alone. “Toribor told me I must speak to you before trying to kill you, that there were secrets I should know before I strike you dead, and I swore I would listen if the opportunity arose.”

For a long moment Enziet made no reply, and Arlian moved cautiously farther down the steps, as silently as he could. Then that cold voice spoke again.

“Belly got that out of you? I suppose it was his dying wish.” He sounded almost regretful—the first time Arlian had heard anything like honest emotion in his enemy's voice.

“I didn't kill him,” Arlian said. “Not yet. Drisheen is dead, though, and Shamble, and Stonehand.”

“You're a thorough son of a poxy whore, aren't you? Why did you let Belly live?”

“Because with my sword at his throat, he was still more concerned with
your
life than his own,” Arlian replied. He was fairly sure, now, of where Enziet stood—the stairs widened out just a foot or two below his own position, and Enziet was to his right at that level.

A sword-thrust at full extension should reach him, but the chance of hitting anything vital was still small—and there were still things to be said.

“You admired his loyalty?”

“Not loyalty,” Arlian said. “Shamble was loyal to you with his dying breath, and I cut his throat without a qualm. Belly, though—he was
concerned.
It was compassion, not loyalty, and I couldn't find it in me to kill a man so concerned with the well-being of others.”

“Even when
I,
the man you're sworn to kill, am the other?”

“But you aren't,” Arlian said. “That's why I'm talking to you, instead of trying to kill you right now. Toribor said you hold secrets, and that when you die the effects will be far more than I could ever guess.”

And then Arlian ducked. He was not sure exactly what he had sensed—whether he had heard cloth rustle, or felt the air move, or seen something in the lingering trace of light that reached this far into the earth, but he had somehow known that Enziet was about to strike.

Perhaps it was sorcery, but he
knew,
and he ducked, and therefore he lived; Enziet's blade swished over his head and rapped against the stone wall behind him. He slashed with his own sword, not seriously trying to hit Enziet, but only to force him back.

It worked; he heard the crunch of retreating footsteps, and when Enziet spoke again his voice came from farther away, and a different angle. He had moved deeper into the cave.

“Very good,” Enziet said. “You move well, even in the dark.”

“So do you, unfortunately,” Arlian replied.

“So Belly told you my death will have consequences,” Enziet said. “Did he say any more than that?”

“Somewhat,” Arlian said. “I prefer not to go into detail, though; I would rather hear your account first, so that I might compare the two.”

For a moment Enziet didn't answer; then he said, “Come down here, off the stair.”

“Why?”

“Because if I am to tell you my secrets, then only one of us will leave this place alive—at most. I promise you that, my eager young enemy—if I reveal the truth, then at least one of us
must
die. I would much prefer that it be you, but if I speak, and you escape up the stairs before I can slay you, then my own life is forfeit.”

“Why?” Arlian demanded.

“Step down away from there, and I'll tell you. And then you'll see why I say one of us must perish, and it's possible you'll choose to die yourself, rather than slay me.”

“And what if I come down there, and you flee up the passage?”

“Then the pursuit will continue—but you're young and strong, and I'm a thousand years old, and right now I feel every day of it. And have you no companions aboveground who might apprehend me?”

Arlian considered that.

His companions were probably still miles away, and although they were following him, guided by Thirif's magic, they might never find this place. But why should he tell Enziet any of that? And he had caught up to Enziet this time; he could do it again, if he had to.

“Move away, then, and I'll come down,” he said.

He heard the scuffing of boots on stone; Enziet was, indeed, moving back. Arlian stepped down into the chamber and felt his way along the wall.

When he had gone seven or eight feet he stopped.

“Tell me, then, what this dread secret is that you hold, that makes you so important.”

“It's simple enough,” Enziet said. “I know how the dragons reproduce.”

For a moment Arlian stared uncomprehendingly into the featureless darkness. Then he asked, “What?”

“I know how dragons reproduce—and how to stop them from doing so.”

“But … but don't they … I mean, the dragons are still animals, are they not?”

“No, they are not,” Enziet said calmly. “They are the magic of the Lands of Man made flesh, a primal force drained from the earth and given shape; they only
appear
to us as beasts, as the reptiles we see. That is not what they are.”

Arlian took a moment to consider this. He remembered the terrifying image of the dragons above the Smoking Mountain, the sight of that immense face peering into the ruined pantry, all the tales he had ever heard about the dragons.

He remembered Black asking him, long ago, if he knew male from female, or whether dragons laid eggs. He remembered seeing the belly of one dragon as it flew over Obsidian—it had been bare and sexless.

Creatures of sheer magic, like those things in the Dreaming Mountains, but vastly larger and more powerful—it all fit.

“And that's why they can't be killed, then?” he asked.

Enziet snorted. “I don't know whether they can be killed in their mature form,” he said. “I think it's possible. I was working on that—for more than six hundred years I've worked on finding a way, and I believe I was very, very near when you came to Manfort and cast my life into chaos. But yes, their true nature is why we have no record that any man has ever killed one.”

“Why didn't you
tell
anyone?” Arlian asked. “Why did you conceal this from the Dragon Society? It's so
basic,
so
essential,
yet you hid it for all these years!”

“I had sworn that I would,” Enziet said.

“And you swore to the Society that you would
reveal
what you knew about dragons! What oath did you swear that took precedence over that?”

“Haven't you guessed?” Enziet's voice dripped sarcasm. “I thought you were such a
clever
boy!”

“No, blast you, I haven't guessed! Some ancient duke? Your father or mother?”

Enziet laughed. “You're a fool. Why would I care about an oath to someone long dead? No, I swore my oath to a power greater and older than the Dragon Society or anyone in it.”

“Some sorcerer, then?”

“Don't be a fool, Arlian,” Enziet spat. “I swore to the dragons themselves.”

59

The Sword of Lord Enziet

For a moment Arlian stared silently into the gloom, wishing he could see Enziet's face—that he could see
anything
other than black emptiness. Then he said, “You mean you swore
by
the dragons.”

“No,” Enziet said. “I swore an oath
to
the dragons themselves, when I drove them from the Lands of Man and bound them, by
their
oath, into the caverns.”

“
You
bound them? You, yourself?”

“I have that honor, yes.”

“But they come out sometimes,” Arlian said.

“In dragon weather, yes. They're
dragons,
boy—they can't be bound entirely by anything human, not even an oath. But they would speak to me, when the temptation grew strong, and we would agree on what would be permitted them.”

“Such as my home and family,” Arlian said bitterly.

“Such as that, yes,” Enziet agreed. “I chose your village for reasons of my own. I had not intended that anyone would survive, and that error has cost me. I should have known better—dragons are not to be trusted.”

“What, you think they left me alive
deliberately?
”

“Yes, boy, I do. I know more about dragons than anyone alive, and yes, I believe they knew you were there, and that they let you live intentionally.”

“Why? I've sworn to destroy them!”

For a moment Enziet didn't reply; when he did speak Arlian could hear genuine mirth in his voice. “
Have
you? As you swore to destroy me?”

“Yes! They killed my mother, my father, my grandfather, my brother—if a mortal man
can
destroy a dragon, I will!”

“No dragon would fear your vengeance, Arlian,” Enziet said. “They fear no one but me. A boy of ten or twelve, as you were—pah! They'd consider you no more threat than a kitten!” He laughed. “They don't know you as I've come to.”

“Can they be killed, then?” Arlian asked eagerly.

“The black dragons? The elders? I don't know. I believe it's possible.”

“You said they fear you.”

“They do. I know how they reproduce—and I know how to prevent it. Dragons don't live forever, any more than we who they've polluted do. We live centuries, and they live millennia, but we all die in the end, and they want their kind to live after them, as we do. I may not be able to kill a grown dragon, but I can kill their unborn young, and they know it, and fear me in consequence.”

“How did you learn this?” Arlian asked. “Did you stumble on it by chance?”

“Does it matter?”

“It might. If you learned it, might others not be aware of it as well, without your knowledge?”

“And then you'd have no compunctions about killing me, eh?” Enziet laughed again. “No dragon has been born in a thousand years, Arlian. How could anyone else have learned what I know?”

“Then you've prevented births?” Arlian asked. “And the dragons permit it?”

“No, Arlian,” Enziet said—and Arlian realized his foe's voice had moved closer; he had become so caught up in the conversation he had let his enemy creep closer unnoticed. Now he slashed at empty air and took three quick paces to the side. “It was not I who prevented the creation of new dragons for all those years. The gestation of a dragon takes a millennium, and the first new ones should be arriving within the next century, I would say. Only a very few of them will be born in the next thousand years—but there have been
none
in the thousand just ended.”

“Why?” Arlian demanded. “If you're the only one who knows…”

“I was not always the only one who knew the secret,” Enziet interrupted. “The Man-Dragon Wars were fought not simply because humans dared to resist draconic rule, but because humanity had discovered the hope of destroying the dragons entirely. The true nature of that knowledge was kept hidden by a secret society, and I was just one member of that original Order of the Dragon. The Dragon Society you know is a sick parody of the Order, Arlian—a parody I created after I betrayed the Order to save my own life. And when the Order was gone, I alone was left in possession of the Order's secret, and was able to do what the Order had not—free humanity of the dragons, not by warfare, but by an exchange of oaths.”

“And if you die, the dragons are free of their oath?”

“Of course.”

“And they'll emerge and reassert their rule over all the Lands of Man?”

“I don't know what they'll do, Obsidian,” Enziet said wearily. “I don't understand them so completely as that. I only know they'll be free of constraint when I'm gone, when the secret of their origins is lost.”

“You've told no one? Never written it down?”

“You
are
a naive young fool,” Enziet said. “I don't want to die, and I don't care very much what becomes of all the rest of you once I'm dead. There are other reasons, as well—but no, I have told no one, nor have I written down my deepest secrets. There is no one I would trust with this knowledge, and documents can be stolen, or copies, or simply read by the wrong people. So, do you still want to kill me, knowing what you might unleash?”

“You'll die someday in any case,” Arlian said.

“Indeed I will,” Enziet agreed. “As will you. I might have an hour left to me—less, if you manage to slay me—or I might have a century. Is not the chance of a century's delay in the return of the dragons worth forgoing your revenge?”

“No,” Arlian said. “Not when it might be only an hour, and not when you've said we won't both leave this place alive. I don't know that any of what you've told me is true—you could be making it all up to trick me!”

“I swear, by all gods living and dead, that what I have told you is true.”

“And I cannot accept your word,” Arlian said unhappily. “If it's the truth, you are already forsworn in your oath to the Society.”

“The Dragon Society is a sham!” Enziet shouted.

“Yet you swore,” Arlian insisted.

“Then you don't believe me,” Enziet said.

“No,” Arlian said. “If it's true, then tell me your secret, if you want it to survive—because
you
won't survive, if I can prevent it.”