Troy Denning - The Obsidian Oracle

Castoffs began to leave their perches on the yellowed skulls. They streamed out of the crack in a wild flock, chortling and screaming loudly in mad delight as they escaped into the open air. Even through the crystalline lid, the morbid and spiteful tone of their muffled voices made Kester’s hide prickle.

“Once more, Fylo!” she urged, climbing toward the exit. “That’s wide enough for us, but not for you.”

The giant glanced down at Tithian, who now had a steady trickle of sweat dripping from the tail of his long auburn hair. The king gave the half-breed a reassuring nod and returned his eyes, bulging with strain, to the platform. Fylo drew his hand back for another blow.

A pair of familiar voices spoke from the area beneath his feet. “You’re not leaving without us!” declared Wyan.

“You should know better than to play games with us, Tithian,” added Sacha. “We taught you everything!”

The sallow faces of Sacha and Wyan rose from beneath the platform. They drifted up past Fylo’s fist and hovered near his head, causing him to hold his blow.

“Get out of the way,” Tithian said. “We weren’t going to leave without you.”

“Don’t lie to us!” Sacha hissed.

The head clamped his teeth down on one of Fylo’s dangling earlobes and began to pull, drawing a pained howl from the giant. Wyan bit the other one, also tugging on it. To avoid having his ears ripped away, the half-breed was forced to turn in a circle.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tithian demanded.

“Stop at once!” Agis commanded.

The only answer the heads offered was to pull harder. Blood began to stream down the sides of Fylo’s head, and he had to spin on his heels to keep up with his attackers. The giant slapped at the pair madly, but succeeded only in battering his own head more than theirs.

Although Kester did not understand the reason for their vicious attack, she did not let that deter her from responding. She pulled a dagger from her chest harness and flung it at the bloated head. The blade hit its target in the temple, sinking clear to the hilt. Sacha cursed through his clenched teeth, but did not fall dead, nor did he release the giant.

Kester looked to Tithian, stunned that her dagger had not dropped the head. “They’re your heads. Do something!”

“Like what?” the king replied. “Let the platform fail?”

She lifted her eyes to Agis and found the noble balanced precariously on the end of a crystal. He was trying to reach out to snatch one of the heads away from Fylo’s ears, which were at about the same level as he was. Above him, the black circle that he had created earlier was slowly turning gray. Worse, the magic of the crystal lid was flowing across the cracks that Fylo had opened, and the star-shaped breach was slowly beginning to seal itself.

“Agis, no!” Kester cried, pointing at the black circle overhead.

The noble glanced at the graying circle. Then, without a second’s hesitation, he returned his attention to the giant. He barely missed as he snatched at Wyan’s topknot.

The two heads whipped their chins harshly to one side, giving Fylo’s ears a terrific yank. The half-breed spun around quickly, and one foot slipped off the platform. For several moments, he tottered precariously on the edge of falling. Kester reached for another dagger.

Sacha and Wyan gave their chins another sharp jerk, and Fylo stepped off the narrow platform completely. He fell with his back down, his confused cry echoing through the pit. The two heads finally released his ears and darted for the exit.

Kester threw her dagger, and it sliced through Wyan’s cheek. Other than knocking him temporarily off course, it had no effect. Agis nearly fell from his perch trying to grab them, but they dodged his perilous lunges and slipped through the exit, along with a small stream of Castoff stragglers.

“Don’t let it close, Agis!” Kester yelled, pointing at the crack.

The noble stared after Fylo for an instant, then pulled himself upright and reached up to touch the graying circle. When it began to darken and the crack stopped filling, Kester breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did she look toward the bottom of the abyss to see what had become of the giant.

Fylo lay in the narrow place where he had gotten lodged before, the bloody tip of a sharp crystal poking through his shoulder. His eyes were glassy and vacant, though it was obvious that he had survived by the rise and fall of his rib cage as he breathed.

Kester had a sinking feeling in her twin stomachs. If she knew Agis, the giant’s condition was sure to interfere with what little chance they had of opening the gates in time to save the Shadow Viper .

Tithian’s voice broke the uneasy silence. “I should have had Borys throw them into the fire pits of Urik!” he shouted, climbing past the crystal where Sona’s glowing visage still clung to a yellowed skull. “I should have had Fylo stand on their faces until their bones crumbled into dust!”

As the king reached her level, Kester asked, “Why did your heads do this? It makes no sense.”

“They’re treacherous ingrates!” Tithian snarled, hardly pausing as he continued his climb.

From the top of the pit, Sacha sneered, “Flattery won’t help you now.”

He was peering down through the crack. Kester could see that her dagger was gone from his temple, leaving a bloodless, gray-edged wound in its place.

“True,” added Wyan, who still had a knife lodged in his cheek. “We’ve already decided who we’re going to let out-and who we’re not.”

The tarek was up and climbing instantly, her powerful arms pulling her from one crystal to another with ease. When she reached Agis’s side, she did not pause even long enough to lean out and grab the edges of the hole. Instead, she simply leaped from the highest crystal, thrusting her gangling arms up through the breach and slapping her hands down on the freezing stone outside.

The tarek drew herself into the breach, barely able to force her broad shoulders into the small opening. The sharp edges scratched and scraped at her hide, but she was more aware of the crushing pain in her chest as she tried to squeeze through. Nevertheless, through a determined combination of squirming and pulling, her massive torso soon emerged on the top side of the cover.

Sacha and Wyan had already retreated out of sight. Kester found it much easier to pull her hips through, and soon found herself standing atop the crystalline cover. There was no magic running through the lid inside the area protected by Agis’s black circle, so the footing there was as solid as granite. The edge of the pit lay just a short leap away, and a few feet beyond that lay the dagger that had pierced Sacha’s temple.

Kester slowly turned around, searching for the heads. The sky now glowed with the full radiance of early dawn, casting a harsh yellow light over the ground. The tarek found Sacha and Wyan hovering beneath Sa’ram’s Bridge, where even her long arms could not reach them unless she first crossed a wide expanse of shimmering crystal. The rest of the enclosure was deserted. Even the Castoffs had already gone, though their maniacal chortles were drifting back over the crystal walls. There were no sounds to suggest that the Joorsh attack had begun, and the tarek dared to hope that Mag’r would not sink her ship before they could get the gates open.

“I’m sending Tithian up next,” called Agis, his voice rising through the narrow crack beneath her feet. “Keep a close watch on him, and kill him if he tries anything.”

The king’s gaunt hands reached through the narrow opening and began searching for a hold on the cold stone. Kester grabbed his wrists and pulled. As he rose out of the narrow crevice, the sharp edges of the pit marked him with a trail of red abrasions.