Troy Denning - The Obsidian Oracle

“Of course. I heard him tell it to Navarch Saanakal,” the reptile replied. “It’s Lybdos, the Forbidden Isle.”

As they approached the ladder, Agis heard a woman speaking in the tavern below. “The Tyrian, where is he?” It was the voice of the sour-faced templar who had accosted him on the quay.

“Tyrian?” came the innkeeper’s reply. “There’s no Tyrian here. As you can see, we’re closed.”

“Don’t lie,” growled Salust’s coarse voice. “Marda sent him to see your blind pet.”

“Pet!” hissed Nymos, pulling Agis away from the opening. “I’ll show them who’s a pet!”

The reptile turned his hand toward the rooftop, preparing to cast a spell. The air beneath his palm began to quiver as a surge of energy, barely visible to the naked eye, rose into his hand. Although it appeared Nymos was drawing his magic from the ground beneath the building, Agis knew that was not the case. Most sorcerers could tap Athas’s life-force only through plant life. The power for the reptile’s magic came not from the land, but from the ratany hedge along the edge of the bay. The ground, and the building which sat upon it, were only the medium through which the energy passed.

From the room below, Agis heard the sound of an open hand striking the innkeeper’s face. “Where have you hidden the Tyrian?” demanded the templar.

“The roof,” replied the innkeeper. “Nymos sleeps up there.”

Nymos continued to draw the energy for his spell. Agis was surprised, for if the reptile took too much power, the ratany would wither and die. The ground holding the roots of the plants would become sterile, staying barren until the blood and sweat of hundreds of slaves restored the soil. Despite the length of time the jozhal spent drawing his power, however, Agis knew he would not destroy the hedge. The Veiled Alliance was dedicated to preventing such desecrations, and no member of the group would do such a thing lightly.

The top of the ladder jiggled as someone began to ascend. Nymos closed his hand, cutting the flow of magical energy into his body. He grabbed a pinch of silt and spit on it, then daubed the mixture onto the corner of the hole. At the same time, he uttered his incantation. The dab expanded into a sheet of orange clay and sealed the opening, drawing a muffled cry of surprise from below.

“That should hold them,” said Nymos, motioning for Agis to follow him.

The sorcerer led him to the other side of the roof, where a bone ring had been set into the wall, with one end of a coiled rope tied into it. As Nymos threw the cord over the side, a series of dull thumps sounded from the clay sheet blocking the opening to the roof.

“Always knew I’d have to leave in a hurry,” the jozhal said, tucking his cane under his arm. “We don’t have much time before they hack through my stopper.”

Agis grabbed Nymos’s arm and did not let him climb onto the rope. “One moment,” he whispered, peering into the cramped lane below.

The sorcerer’s rope hardly seemed necessary, for the alley was half-clogged by drifts of silt that would serve to cushion any fall. A single, hard-packed path ran down the street, winding its way past dust heaps, rubbish piles, and the few back entrances that determined shopkeepers kept clear. In one direction, the trail led deeper into the harbor district, a maze of lanes similar to the one below.

The alley ran about fifty yards in the other direction before opening onto the harborside street, where the hulking figure of a half-giant blocked the exit. The brute towered almost as high as the roofs surrounding him, with a helmet of albino kank shell covering his head. For armor he wore a corselet of bleached leather, leaving his loins concealed by nothing more than a dingy gray skirt. He carried only one weapon, a bone club spiked with obsidian shards.

“Which way are we going?” Agis asked.

The sorcerer hesitated before answering. “I’m not really sure,” he said. “It’s been years since I’ve been off this roof.”

“Then how are we going to find our ship?” Agis demanded, watching the half-giant lumber down the alley.

“I’ve heard that it’s docked in front of the Red Mekillot.”

“Which is where?”

“Just down the street from the Blue Cloud, which is around the corner from the Gray King, which is two blocks past the-”

“Just go-but not toward the harborside street,” Agis said, releasing the jozhal’s arm. “There’s a guard coming from there.”

Nymos nodded, then climbed onto the rope. Agis hazarded a glance back toward the center of the roof. The clay stopper remained in place, but the sound of the templars hacking at it had grown less muffled. He summoned the spiritual strength to use the Way. As before on the quay, the energy came to him slowly, and the noble began to worry that his pursuers would clear the plug before he was ready to attack.

The half-giant’s voice drew Agis’s attention back to the alley. “In the king’s name, stop!”

The order boomed through the narrow lane like thunder, shaking the dust off the walls and causing a four-foot rubbish slug to slither out from beneath a pile of trash. The half-giant broke into a run, his massive legs spraying plumes of silvery dust into the air as he plowed through silt drifts.

Nymos’s feet touched the ground, and the jozhal turned away, sprinting down the alley as fast as a kank, waving his cane back and forth to detect unexpected obstacles. Had Agis not known better, he would have sworn the reptile could see.

“Stop!” the half-giant boomed, smashing his spiked club into the back wall of a tackle shop. The blow knocked a melon-sized hole in the clay bricks.

Agis glanced back at the center of the roof and saw a lump of clay fly up from the plug, then he jumped into the alley. He landed in a pile of silt, sinking to his waist and sending a billow of dust boiling across the lane. The noble waded out of the drift, his legs burning with the effort and his lungs choking on the cloud of loess. Once he was free, he did not turn to follow Nymos, but faced the sorcerer’s pursuer.

The half-giant shifted his dull eyes from the fleeing sorcerer to the Tyrian, then rushed forward with a renewed burst of speed. To Agis, he resembled nothing quite so much as a rampaging dust spirit. The massive guard was lost from the waist down in a roiling curtain of silt, with each step sending silvery columns of loess shooting up past his head.

Agis focused his attention on the dust still billowing around his own feet.

The half-giant stopped at Agis’s side and reached down toward the noble. “Got you now,” he growled, keeping his club ready in the other hand.

“No, I have you,” Agis replied, dodging the clumsy lunge.

He used the Way to inject his spiritual energy into the whirling cloud of dust at his feet, then dived away. The small whirlwind increased tenfold, swallowing the half-giant in gray whorls and filling the alley with the shrill whistle of a gale-force wind. The guard roared in anger as the storm swept him off his feet. He crashed into the back wall of the Furled Sail, spraying Agis with shards of brick and filling the air with more dust.

The noble sprinted down the alley after Nymos, coughing and choking. Behind him, the giant flailed about madly, smashing holes into walls and trying to dodge away from the suffocating whirlwind that had engulfed him. His efforts were in vain, for the maelstrom followed him wherever he went.

Agis glanced over his shoulder, worried that the templars would be coming after him. To his relief, he saw that their task would not be easy. His whirlwind had engulfed the entire tavern, rendering it as impossible for them to see him as it was for him to see the building.

The noble turned his attention to catching Nymos. As he had hoped, it was a simple matter to track the sorcerer. The morning was still young, and not many feet had trod the back alleys. Agis soon picked out the jozhal’s three-clawed footprints, then followed them through the maze of crumbling shanties that constituted the harbor district.