Troy Denning - The Obsidian Oracle

The heated response gave the noble pause. From the cruel comments floating around in Fylo’s memory, it seemed likely that the ugly fellow had led a lonely life. Tithian, as adept at exploiting emotions as anyone Agis knew, had no doubt sensed this and cynically extended his friendship to the lonesome giant.

“Once, I thought Tithian was my friend,” Agis said, laboring against Fylo’s tight grip to draw breath. “But it’s not true. Tithian has no friends.”

“Me!” bellowed the giant. “Fylo Tithian’s friend.”

Agis shook his head. “No-Fylo is Tithian’s pawn,” the noble said. “And after you’ve done his will, he’ll never trouble himself over you again.”

“Liar!” Fylo screamed. “Tithian come back soon!”

“Poor Fylo. Your loneliness has blinded you,” Agis said. The noble gasped as his captor’s fist tightened, then he added, “I can prove what I say.”

Fylo relaxed his grip. “How?”

“I’ve known Tithian since we were boys,” Agis said. “I’ll let you send your harbinger into my mind, and you can see what he’s like for yourself.”

“No,” the giant replied. “This trap to hurt Fylo.”

“We’re both too tired for another thought-fight,” Agis said, shaking his head. “Besides, by letting you inside my mind, I’m taking the greater risk. If you think it’s a trap, all you have to do is withdraw.”

As he spoke, Agis pictured a vast, deserted plaza inside his mind, trying to create an open terrain where the giant would not be concerned about ambushes.

Fylo studied Agis for a moment, then the giant’s harbinger appeared inside the noble’s mind. It had a flat, disk-shaped body that undulated like a cloth in the wind, with a long tail that ended in a sharp point. The thing’s mouth was on the underside of its body, while there were a dozen eyes spread along the rim of the top side.

Waving its flexible body like a pair of wings, Fylo’s construct began to fly over the vast plaza inside Agis’s mind. “Where Tithian?” the harbinger demanded.

Agis summoned his memory of the king. A foul, brown liquid seeped up from between several cobblestones. The stain formed itself into the shape of a man, then Tithian’s gaunt visage appeared on the head. The face was not so different from that of the eel Agis had created earlier, with bony cheeks, a slender hooked nose, and a small puckered mouth. The eyes were beady and brown, at once wary and probing.

As the giant’s strange harbinger glided down toward the memory, Tithian’s image solidified into the full form of a man’s thin body, then stood. Fylo stopped his descent just out of arm’s reach and slowly circled the figure.

“That look like Tithian,” the giant said, pointing his harbinger’s slender tail at the memory. “But maybe you make him lie to Fylo.”

“No,” the noble said. “I’ll release him. You can take control of the memory. That way, you can examine him as carefully as you want, and you’ll know that I’m not interfering.” When Fylo continued to circle without responding, Agis pressed, “If you’re afraid of what you’ll discover, Tithian can’t truly be your friend.”

“Fylo not afraid. Let go.”

Agis created a small falcon from one of the figure’s hands. After transferring his own consciousness into it, he fluttered off and landed a short distance away.

Fylo descended on Tithian’s figure, completely engulfing it. The harbinger began to pulsate as he examined the memory, apparently confirming that Agis had truly yielded control of it. Several moments later, the giant finally seemed satisfied. He unfurled his harbinger and let it dissolve, transferring his consciousness into Tithian’s form.

As Agis watched, Tithian became a young boy of no more than six or seven, with short-cropped auburn hair. His squarish ears stuck out from the sides of his head like half-opened hinges, and his hawkish nose seemed much too large for his small head. He had one hand raised as if an adult were holding it.

“This is Agis,” said a man’s voice, which the noble dimly recognized as that of Tithian’s father. “You and he are going to be friends.”

Young Tithian ran his eyes up and down, as if inspecting a doll, then he scowled. “Father, if you can’t afford the best, I don’t want a friend.”

The image aged a decade. Now, Tithian was a young man, with a somber brow that always seemed furrowed in anger, wearing his hair in a long braided tail. He was dressed in the gray robe that he and Agis had worn as novices when they had studied the Way at the same academy. His eyes were glazed with exhaustion and pain from a particularly rigorous lesson with their master.

“I don’t know what happened, Agis,” said Tithian. “When the agony became more than I could bear, I thought of how well you were doing. Then my pain just vanished. Honestly, I didn’t know I was transferring it to you!”

Again the image aged, this time only a couple of years. Tithian was wearing the red robe of a mid-level student. In his hand was a spiny faro branch, a symbol of passage to denote that he had succeeded at an important test of his abilities. “You’re my best friend, Agis. Of course I shifted some of my pain to you,” he said. “Besides, it’s not really cheating. After all, we didn’t get caught.”

The image continued to age, showing a constant stream of the king’s earlier years. Tithian appeared in the black cassock of a king’s templar, denying that he had been responsible for the murder of his own brother. Later, wearing the gilded robes of a high templar, he came to Agis’s estate under the pretext of friendship-only to confiscate the noble’s strongest field slaves. Another time, Tithian admitted, without any trace of shame, that he had been using Agis’s most trusted servant to spy upon the noble.

After this last scene, Fylo separated from the figure of Tithian, forming a new construct that resembled his own body. “No!” he bellowed, swinging a huge fist at the object of his anger. “Tithian liar!”

The blow knocked the king’s image to the ground. Fylo began to kick and trample it, apparently determined to destroy the memory altogether.

“Wait!” Agis cried through his construct’s beak. “I need that!”

Still in the form of a falcon, Agis quickly returned to the king’s figure and merged with it. He allowed Tithian to melt into the cracks between the cobblestones, then raised another construct shaped like himself.

“Do you believe me now, Fylo?”

The giant did not answer. Instead, his harbinger turned away and began to walk across the deserted plaza. With each step, he grew more translucent, and vanished completely after a dozen paces.

Agis barely had time to turn his attention outward before he felt himself being plunked onto his kank’s back. “Go!” boomed the giant, raising his legs to let the noble pass. “Leave Fylo alone.”

Agis urged his mount forward. Once he was safely out of reach, he stopped and looked back. “Fylo, don’t be so glum,” he called. “Tithian’s fellowship was false, but you have a good heart. Someday you’ll find a true friend.”

“No,” the giant replied. He gestured at his homely face. “Fylo half-breed. Too ugly for father’s tribe, too dumb for mother’s tribe.”

“You may not be handsome, but I’d say you’re far from dumb,” said Agis. “You recognized your mistake with Tithian. That’s pretty smart.”

This seemed to cheer the giant. A thoughtful look came over his face, then he fixed his eyes on the noble. “Maybe Fylo and Agis could be friends?”

“Perhaps, when we have more time to spend together,” the noble allowed. “But right now, I must catch Tithian-before he hurts someone else.”

Fylo smiled, then reached down and laid an open palm in front of the noble’s kank. “Let Fylo carry you,” he said. “Catch Tithian together.”