Troy Denning - The Obsidian Oracle

“Good-then I’ll be able to take him by surprise,” snickered the king. “Now, tell me how we get out of here.”

“When you put Wyan and me in here, there’s only one way we ever found,” Sacha replied, laughing bitterly.

Tithian scowled. “And what’s that?”

“We wait-until someone takes us out.”

Agis looked up the tunnel and saw the blocky silhouette of a small Joorsh crawling toward him. Although the figure was not large enough to be an adult, it filled the corridor completely. The noble could see that, even had the giant been willing to let him pass, there was no room to squeeze between the lumpy body and the passage’s slick walls-much less to do so without alerting the warrior to his presence.

The Joorsh stopped crawling, and Agis feared that the giant had glimpsed him peeking around the corner. Although his heart began to pound like a Gulgian war drum, the noble forced himself to remain motionless. If the Joorsh was not sure of what he had seen, the last thing Agis wanted to do was draw attention to himself by making a careless move.

To the noble’s immense relief, the giant peered back over his shoulder. “I see the Oracle, Sachem Mag’r!” he called. His voice was that of a boy, but it was so loud that it shook the narrow tunnel. “A red glow, just like you said! It’s real bright!”

“What?” Mag’r’s coarse reply thundered down the passage with a deafening rumble. “You see a bright glow, Beort?”

Beort nodded. “Very bright,” he said. His tone was not as enthusiastic as it had been a moment before.

“Something’s wrong!” the king growled.

Before the youth could look down the tunnel in Agis’s direction, the noble backed away from the corner. He picked up Tithian’s satchel and slung it over his uninjured shoulder, then he crossed the tiny chamber to where the crevice in the ceiling met the far wall. He paused there to pull his injured arm from its makeshift sling.

The limb was in no shape for a climb. From the elbow down it was grossly swollen and discolored, with a huge purple lump directly over the break itself. The noble tried to lift it and discovered that the muscles would not obey his will. The injured arm had become a dead weight.

A quick glance at the wall’s sheer surface confirmed Agis’s suspicion that it could not be climbed with a single functioning arm. The noble closed his eyes and visualized a healthy, fully functioning limb in its place. He opened his spiritual nexus and felt a surge of power rise through his body, then he guided this energy into his injured arm.

A pang of agony shot from the point of the break back through his arm and even into his chest. Agis concentrated on the image of an oasis pond, keeping his muscles and mind relaxed, allowing his suffering to flow through him like the wind. The edge quickly faded from his pain, and soon the anguish tapered to a dull ache.

Agis opened his eyes again and tried to lift his arm. A surge of spiritual energy flowed into the limb, bringing with it a fresh wave of agony, but his hand slowly rose into the air. He flexed his fingers, curled them into a fist, and opened them again. Then, convinced that his arm would serve in spite of his injury, he stepped over to the wall. Using thick sheaves of mica for handholds, he climbed.

Agis had not healed his arm; he had merely used the Way to animate it, much as he had animated the dead bear when they entered the castle. To move the limb he had to summon energy from deep within himself, then consciously direct it to do what he wished. Each time he did so it sent a fresh wave of pain rushing through him, but the noble hardly noticed. He was accustomed to pain. Besides, he felt certain that letting the giant catch him would result in agony much more severe than what he was suffering now.

Just a short distance from the ceiling, as Beort’s knees were scraping along the floor outside the chamber, the noble heard a soft hiss from one of his handholds. The mica peeled away from the wall, and Agis felt himself beginning to fall. The satchel slipped off his shoulder, landing on the floor below. He paid it no attention and thrust his good arm up into the crevice, his fingers madly grasping for another grip. He found the edge of another sheet, clutched at it, and pulled.

His fingertips scraped along the surface of the crevice, finding purchase in a rough-edged hollow. Agis quickly transferred his weight to this arm and pulled himself up into the crevice, bracing his back against one wall of the fissure and his feet against the other.

As soon as he felt secure in his new perch, the noble looked down at the satchel he had dropped. Although he didn’t know what Tithian had stored inside, it seemed too valuable an item to leave behind. He closed his eyes, preparing to retrieve it with the Way.

In the same moment, a rush of hot breath filled the room, and Beort crawled inside. Agis opened his eyes again and found himself looking down on a mass of greasy braids, as large as a kes’trekel’s nest and just as tangled. The Joorsh boy’s shoulders were so broad that he had to turn them sideways to fit through the chamber entrance, and his arms were as long as a normal man was tall.

“There’s nothing here!” Beort yelled. His gaze fell on the satchel, and he reached across the room to grasp it. “What’s this?”

The noble began to climb, leaving the sack to the young giant. Although he tried to move as quietly as possible, he was more concerned with speed. Even if the Joorsh heard him, Beort would have to turn over on his back before he could thrust one of his long arms up into the rift. The noble ascended quickly and quietly, pushing his back up the fissure a short distance, then bringing his feet up. By the time the young giant had pulled Agis’s binding off the satchel and peered inside, the noble was already halfway up the crevice.

Stuffing Tithian’s satchel into his belt, Beort craned his neck and peered up into the crevice. Although safely out of the youth’s reach, Agis climbed even faster. The youth squinted in the noble’s direction, trying to shield his eyes against the sunlight with a massive hand. “What’s that?” he asked, rolling onto his back. “Come down, you!”

His heart pounding from the hard climb and the exhilaration of escape, Agis returned his attention to his ascent. He had neared the top of the shaft, where the silvery mica reflected the sun’s crimson rays with such intensity that even the air seemed to glow blood-red. Just a few more moments, he told himself, and I’ll be safe.

The ruddy light was suddenly replaced by a shadow. Agis looked up and saw one of Mag’r’s brown, puffy eyes peering down into the rift.

“What’s wrong, Beort?” he demanded. “Where’s the Oracle?”

“Ask the man,” came the reply.

The youth pointed toward the corner of the rift, where Agis had halted his climb, his legs trembling as much from fear as from the strain of keeping his back pressed against the wall of the crevice. His broken arm, no longer needed for the climb up the narrow fissure, hung limply at his side.

The sachem’s eye shifted to the noble, then his fleshy lips curled into a fiendish smile. The giant thrust his pudgy hand into the crack. He pinched Agis between his thumb and forefinger, plucking the noble from the crevice. Mag’r was a mess, with dried blood caked around the wound where Nal had gored him. The gash across his huge stomach had been sewn shut with what looked like sail rope.

When he looked past the giant, Agis saw that they were in the southern end of the compound, where the mica walls formed a cul-de-sac around the rift from which he had just been plucked. Although the rift ran east-west, directly beneath the sun’s path, the silvery sheets of mica surrounding it were all angled so that they would reflect any stray rays down into the cleft.