Troy Denning - The Obsidian Oracle

“That’s but a small taste of the Oracle’s power,” the Saram said. “Do not call on the Way again-or the anguish you feel will be a hundred times worse.”

The pain vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving Agis soaked in cold sweat and gasping for breath. A freezing chill ran through his body. He opened his eyes and found himself half-submerged in rock crystal. One side of his body had already passed through the translucent cover. It was visible only as a pinkish blur, and it was as numb as ice. The noble looked up and was surprised to see Tithian watching him with a remorseful expression, then he dropped into the abyss.

Agis plunged downward for what seemed like forever, his gaze fixed on the translucent cover above, his terrified screams breaking against huge quartz crystals growing out of the granite walls. The Castoffs streamed after him, their masklike faces strangely detached from any semblance of a head and glowing in the darkness like a hundred moons.

Agis crashed into something pulpy and warm, stopping with a terrifying abruptness that sent a fiery ache burning through his abdomen. His head smashed into a bony rib and his limbs slapped against hairy flesh, then a deep grunt echoed off the walls of the pit.

Agis found himself cradled in Fylo’s midriff, more than a dozen yards below the pit’s crystal cover. As he looked around, he glimpsed Kester’s motionless form draped over the giant’s shoulder, a dozen Castoffs teeming over her body. The giant’s head was also being swarmed, with several glowing faces jostling for position as they each tried to slip over his visage.

The noble rolled onto his stomach, preparing to stand, and found himself peering past Fylo’s hip into the crystal-lined depths of a black shaft. It occurred to Agis that the half-breed had gotten lodged far above the abyss bottom, then the searing nettle of the Castoffs’ touch erupted all over his body.

Bawan Nal allowed Tithian a moment to contemplate Agis’s fate, then pinched the king between a massive thumb and finger. “Tell me what reward you expected in return for stealing our Oracle,” the Saram ordered. He pressed his fingertips toward each other, painfully compressing Tithian’s chest. “Or must I squeeze the answer from you?”

“What does it matter to you?” the king asked. “You have no choice except to yield the Oracle.”

The Saram’s ears twitched several times, and he brought Tithian closer to his eye. “You’re the one without choices.”

As Nal’s beak closed, the king heard the soft hiss of a deep breath. The bawan’s eye suddenly grew cold and still, and Tithian found his attention riveted on the yellow orb. He tried to look away and could not.

Realizing that his mind was about to be attacked, Tithian visualized his defense: an unbreakable net of transparent energy, so fine that not even a gnat could slip through the mesh. At its edges, the strands were fused to the feet of a dozen huge bats, with red flame where their eyes should have been and mouths filled with venom-dripping fangs.

Tithian had barely managed to move his trap into position before a glimmering white lion with wings came roaring into his mind. The creature hit at a full charge, filling the dark grotto with sizzling echoes and flashing blue sparks. The beast stretched the net across half the cavern before Tithian’s bats managed to catch up and close their web tightly enough to bind the immense wings to its sides.

The lion roared in rage, then plummeted straight for the deepest, darkest abyss in Tithian’s mind. The king sent his bats up toward an exit. As they struggled to obey, Nal’s construct changed from flesh to rock, growing heavier and heavier, dragging its captors deeper into the Tyrian’s intellect.

Tithian summoned more energy to enlarge his bats. The effort wore on him, but he did not stop until each bat was the size of a kes’trekel. If he let the lion escape, he knew it would require so much energy to recapture it that he would be too weak to counterattack.

The lion’s fall slowed for a moment, then the construct changed from rock to iron, doubling in weight all at once. The beast passed out of the main grotto, dragging Tithian’s huge bats along into the black pit at the base of his mind.

The lion opened its mouth, but it was Nal’s voice that came out. “Fool!” he chortled. “You cannot overpower me. I have the Oracle!”

The construct began to claw at its net, pulling the bats down toward its reach. Calling on the last of his strength, Tithian tried to dissolve the mesh and let Nal’s construct fall free, but he was too late. The beast had the bats by their legs, and as it continued through the darkness, it clawed and gnawed at their stomachs. Within instants, it had devoured the Tyrian’s ambushers and was plunging freely toward the center of the king’s mind. It did not even bother to flap its wings and break the fall.

A short time later, there was a deafening reverberation as the lion’s iron body struck the bottom of the pit. It gave a great roar, and golden beams began to shine from its eyes. “Let’s see what you’re hiding down here, shall we?”

The lion ran its glowing eyes over the pit walls, until it found a single, winding tunnel opening to one side. With a low growl of satisfaction, it bounded away. Venomous lizards leaped out of the shadows and clamped steel-toothed jaws around the beast’s legs, while blood-drinking scorpions dropped onto its head to stab at its eyes with dripping barbs. The construct countered by crushing the reptiles underfoot and flinging the arachnids off with vigorous head shakes, but many attacks still found their marks.

The attackers’ venom did not slow the lion down at all. Beads of syrupy fire dripped from the wounds on its legs, and tears of acid poured from the eyes. Both fluids neutralized the poison long before it could cause any damage to the beast.

The tunnel opened into a chamber supported by hundreds of ebony pillars. On each column hung a single torch, burning with a black flame that absorbed light instead of casting it. The only sound was of a man chuckling in a soft, maniacal voice.

The fur along the lion’s spine stood fully erect. It dropped to its belly and slunk through the murk until it reached the front of the room. There, in a throne of human bones, sat King Tithian of Tyr. In one hand, he cradled the obsidian scepter of a sorcerer-king, in the other, the disembodied head of his only friend: Agis of Asticles.

“Now you know what Borys promised: my heart’s desire,” said Tithian’s figure. A purple light glimmered deep within his scepter’s pommel, then Agis’s head spoke. “You may leave now. His Majesty prefers to be alone.” To reinforce the command, Tithian pointed the scepter at the unwelcome intruder’s head.

The lion opened its maw as if to roar, but the sound that filled the little room was a deep, booming laugh.

The Castoffs swarmed over Agis, pressing their ethereal mouths to his skin wherever it was exposed. Each touch sent a searing pain deep into his flesh, raising a ghastly red welt that continued to burn long after the agonizing kiss had ended. Although most of the lips pressing against him belonged to children, they were easily two or even three times the size of his own, and the blisters they left were enormous.

Agis rose. “Stop it!” he yelled, almost losing his balance as Fylo’s stomach shifted beneath his feet. “Leave me alone!”

The Castoffs rushed away from him, staring in astonishment at his upright form. “How can he stand the pain?” gasped one.

“He must have a strong mind,” said another.

“No, it’s something else,” replied the face of a button-nosed woman, one of the few visages that appeared to be an adult. “It might be wiser to leave this one alone.”