Troy Denning - The Obsidian Oracle

Tithian opened his eyes, then pushed Agis’s hand away. “You don’t have the nerve to murder me,” he sneered. “But it makes no difference. Athas no longer has anything to fear from me.”

“Why’s that?” Agis asked, examining the king’s head for signs of a serious blow. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe you’ve decided not to go after the Oracle?”

“What you believe makes no difference!” Tithian yelled, grabbing Agis by the shoulders. He pulled the noble’s face close to his and gasped, “That worm lied to me!”

“What worm?” Agis asked. “About what?”

“The Dragon!” Tithian cried. “Nal told me. Borys can’t make anyone a sorcerer-king-not even with the Dark Lens!”

Fylo’s knuckles landed on target in a blackened corner of the translucent cover. A sharp crack rang off the pit walls, and the impact reverberated through the shimmering platform upon which he stood. The lid did not break. The giant drew back his fist to try again, then suddenly cried out in alarm as the temporary floor dissolved beneath his feet. He plunged, screaming, into the abyss.

Kester heard Agis call, “I’ve got him.”

A black silhouette resembling the Shadow Viper’s foresail appeared just below the giant, stretched taut across the shaft and bound at each corner to a stout quartz crystal. Fylo plunged through the shadow without slowing, vanishing beneath its dark form.

Agis’s curse rang off the cavern walls, then the ineffectual net dissolved. Kester saw the giant clawing and kicking at the jagged walls, ripping deep gouges into his palms and feet. One crystal broke off, sending a glittering spray of silver and crimson light shooting across the shaft.

Finally, Fylo passed through a narrow section of shaft and managed to bring himself to a stop. He hung motionless over the abyss, his ribs heaving and his limbs pressed against opposite sides of the pit. After regaining his composure, he looked up and fixed his gaze on Tithian. One of his eyes was still much larger than the other, but both orbs were slowly returning to normal-as were the other facial defects caused by the Castoffs.

“Tithian liar!” Fylo snarled, beginning the long climb back up. “Promise to hold Fylo!”

“It was a mistake,” the king replied. He sat upon a large crystal twenty-five feet below the lid, at the height of the platform upon which Fylo had been standing. All around him hung discarded Saram skulls, each covered with the translucent, masklike visage of a Castoff. “What do I have to gain by dropping you?”

“If you can float a ship, you can give Fylo a place to stand,” Agis growled, glaring down from his perch at the top of the shaft. “You let him fall on purpose.”

“Yer letting yer temper think for ye,” Kester snapped. She had positioned herself midway between the two, where it would be easy to intercede if their quarreling erupted into a full-blown fight. “Yer king wants out of here as much as we do. If he says it was an accident, it was.”

“Tithian doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes,” Agis insisted. “He must have thought Fylo’s blow cracked the lid. That’s why he dropped the giant.”

“Ye couldn’t know what Tithian was thinking-unless ye were using the Way on him instead of doing yer own job,” Kester said. She paused and pointed at the pit’s crystalline cover, which was already tinged green with predawn light. “If the two of ye don’t work together, we’ll never get out of here before dawn-and if ye let Mag’r sink my ship because we don’t have those gates open, ye won’t have to kill each other. I’ll do it for ye.”

When the noble protested no further, Kester turned to Tithian. “Can ye give Fylo a steady place to stand or not?”

“He’s heavier than I thought,” Tithian replied.

Kester nodded. “I thought as much,” she said. “We’ll have to find another way out.”

“Such as?” asked Tithian.

The tarek furrowed her heavy brow, absent mindedly rubbing her fingers over her leathery neck. The act loosened a small shower of dusty flakes, which fluttered into the darkness below. The tarek pulled her hand away from her throat, reminded that until she fully recovered from the injuries inflicted by the Castoffs, scratching what itched was a bad idea.

After a moment’s thought, Kester started to descend the pit wall, swinging from one crystal to the next on her gangling arms. “If we can’t go up, we’ll try down,” she said.

“No! You mustn’t!” cried Sona, the button-nosed woman who served as the nominal leader of the Castoffs. She floated over to block Kester’s descent. “The bones of the sacrificed animals rest down there. You can’t disturb them.”

Kester eyed Sona warily, remembering the anguish the spirits had inflicted on her after she had first fallen into the pit. “Out of my way,” she ordered.

“No, Kester,” said Agis. “We must respect Sona’s wishes. I’m sure Fylo can smash this lid, if Tithian gives him a sturdy place to stand.” He cast a bitter glance at the king.

Kester raised a brow at the noble. “And how many jails have ye escaped from?”

“I’ve never seen the inside of a prison,” the noble replied, taken aback. “Why?”

“ ’Cause I’ve escaped from dozens. Let me do the thinking,” Kester replied. “We’ve got to take every chance we’ve got, and even then we might not find a way out.”

“There’s nothing down there to help you,” Sona insisted. “You’ll only disturb what should be left to rest.”

“Thanks, but I’ll look for myself,” the tarek said.

“It’s too dangerous!” Sona protested. “The animals-”

“Are a pile of old bones. They won’t stop me from finding a way out of here,” the tarek sneered. She reached for the next crystal.

Sona darted forward and closed her mouth around Kester’s wrist. A sizzling pain shot up the tarek’s thick arm, then her fingers closed against her will. Her fist banged into the crystal for which she had reached, and she narrowly saved herself from falling by grabbing another with her free hand. A foul smell rose to Kester’s nostrils, and she looked down to see a putrid green stain spreading from beneath the spirit’s lips.

“Get this thing off me!” she yelled, lifting her stinging arm toward Agis.

“You’ve made your point, Sona,” said the noble. “I’m sure Kester has changed her plans.”

“In a varl’s eye!” the tarek hissed, clenching her teeth against the pain. “I’m not going to let anything keep me from lookin’. If we don’t find a way out, we’ll die anyway.”

The noble shrugged. “Then I can’t help you,” he said. “This is Sona’s home, and we must do as she asks.”

“Ye faithless snake!” Kester yelled, climbing toward Agis. “By me ship’s name, I’ll rip yer arms off and beat ye dead with’em!”

“You can’t reason with him, Kester,” said Tithian. “When it comes to questions of honor, he really is a stubborn boor.” The king reached into his satchel. “However, I might be able to suggest a compromise.”

Tithian pulled forth a pair of iron cages connected by a heavy chain. Inside the little prisons sat the disembodied heads of two men, their hair pulled into long topknots. One had sallow skin and sunken features, while the other was grotesquely bloated, with puffy eyes swollen to dark, narrow slits.

“Sacha! Wyan!” Agis gasped. He looked to Tithian, then demanded, “Where have you been hiding those two wretches?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Tithian replied. “But perhaps we should have them levitate down to the pit bottom. They could look for an escape route without disturbing any bones, then report back to us. That way, we’d know whether or not there’s any point to this argument.”