Troy Denning: The Obsidian Oracle

The sound had barely died away when a familiar, antagonistic voice sounded from Fylo’s direction. “Well done. I didn’t think you were that smart,” said Wyan, rising into view from behind the unconscious half-breed. He began to drift toward Agis, his eyes fixed on the stream of shimmering energy pouring from the mouth of Tithian’s satchel. “Am I to take it that it was the Oracle’s power that sealed the pit?”

To Agis, the gnawing sounded like a faro-rat clawing at the stones of a thorn silo-though he stood to lose something far more valuable than a few bushels of needles. Each time Wyan’s teeth closed on the rope, the resulting vibration grew increasingly sharp. It would not be long before the line snapped, plunging the noble headfirst onto the crystal pit’s pellucid cover.

“Letting me drop will do you no good,” Agis warned.

The noble struggled to hold back the black curtain of unconsciousness. Even without the burden of a broken arm, he had been hanging upside-down, sweating in the sun, for too long. His dehydrated body was near the limit of its endurance. No matter how accustomed he was to pain, the time would soon come when he simply fainted.

Wyan stopped chewing, then drifted down to look into the noble’s eyes. “If you don’t want to drop, give me Tithian and the Oracle.”

“What makes you so sure I have them?”

“I’m no fool,” replied Wyan. “I saw what happened when you opened the satchel. The magic of the Dark Lens spilled out to repair the crystal lid. And if the Oracle’s in there, Tithian must be, too. He wouldn’t let himself be separated from it.”

“That may be,” said Agis. “But I’m taking him and the Oracle back to Tyr.”

“You’ll find that difficult with a broken neck,” countered Wyan. He started to drift upward.

“Wait!”

The head opened his mouth in the parody of a smile. “Change your mind?”

“No,” Agis said, locking gazes with Wyan’s colorless eyes. “But I’m sure you’ll change yours.”

As he spoke, the noble created a mental image of a carrion-eating kes’trekel, and a surge of energy rose from deep within his body. He sent the gray-feathered raptor sailing toward his tormentor. Agis felt a slight tingle as the probe left him, then he saw its ragged wings flash against the gray irises of Wyan’s eyes. In the next instant, it disappeared into the darkness beyond, carrying with it a part of its creator’s intellect.

Agis was astounded by what he found. The interior of Wyan’s mind was the most desolate thing he had ever seen, a vast plain littered from one end to the other with the corpses of tiny men and women. They were about half the size of halflings, with silver, mothlike wings growing from their backs. They all had slender, sharp-featured faces, pointed ears, and pale, lifeless eyes.

There was nothing else inside Wyan’s intellect; in all the sweeping expanse beneath the kes’trekel, the noble could not see a single animate thought. Agis dropped his kes’trekel down to the corpses. As befitted its nature, the raptor dug into the grisly feast, swallowing the little bodies almost whole.

When there was no response, the noble began to feel confused. The dead flesh was the substance of Wyan’s mind, and to have it devoured should have caused him such unbearable pain that he could not help but counterattack. Yet the disembodied head seemed quite content to let the kes’trekel gobble down all it wished.

After allowing the bird to gorge itself, Agis pictured the kes’trekel changing into Fylo’s animal-brother. He felt a surge of energy deep within himself, then the raptor’s narrow back broadened into that of the bear, and its feathers changed to bony armor. The beast began pawing at the little corpses, throwing them aside and digging a great, deep pit.

The bear had dug down more than a dozen yards, and still Agis could see nothing but more dead, winged bodies. By this time, the noble had burned up so much spiritual strength that he doubted he could win a battle even if he did find an animate thought.

He cut off the flow of energy, withdrawing his probe.

“Satisfied?” Wyan asked, his gray eyes twinkling with amusement.

Agis took several slow, deep breaths. “Why couldn’t I force you to come out?”

In a smug voice, the disembodied head replied, “My mind is at rest. I fulfilled my life’s desire long ago-when I killed the last pixie.” Wyan drifted closer to the satchel in the noble’s hand, asking, “Now, will you give me the sack?”

“No,” Agis replied, clutching it more tightly.

As he did so, the noble made sure to keep the mouth of the satchel open and pointed toward the cover below, so that the Oracle’s energy continued to flow into the crystal. Until he was free, he intended to keep the lid intact, on the chance that Mag’r had survived his fall.

Wyan sighed in mock disappointment, then gnashed his teeth together and began to rise again. “You leave me no choice,” he said. “Tithian will be disappointed, though. I think he intended to kill you himself.”

“He’ll never have the chance,” Agis replied. “If I hit that lid, both my body and this satchel will melt through before you can get to us.”

To illustrate his point, Agis put the hand of his broken arm into the satchel. Next, he pictured something he was sure Tithian would have stored inside: a silver coin. An instant later, his palm was full of them. The noble withdrew his hand and let the coins slip from between his fingers. They hit the lid with a glassy chime, then melted through and dropped into the pit.

“After the rope breaks, do you really think you can streak down to the lid and tear this satchel from my death grasp before I slip through?” Agis asked.

“No,” the head admitted. “But I won’t release you until I have the satchel.”

“Then it seems we’re at a standoff,” the noble suggested.

“I think not,” said Wyan, looking toward Fylo’s unconscious form. “I think it’s time for a snack.”

With that, he streaked down to the giant’s neck.

“Don’t!” Agis yelled. “I swear-”

“You’ll do nothing-as long as you’re hanging up there,” Wyan said, settling down on Fylo’s gullet.

The head’s long tongue slipped from between his teeth and felt along the side of the giant’s neck. After a moment, it stopped probing, and Wyan drifted over to where it touched.

“A nice, strong pulse,” the head called. “I’d say this is definitely his jugular.”

With that, the disembodied head sank his teeth into the giant’s skin, ripping away a mouthful of bloody flesh. A dull moan escaped Fylo’s lips. He rolled his head toward Agis, but stirred no farther.

“Stop!” Agis demanded.

Wyan looked toward the noble. “Certainly not. A few more bites, and I’ll have my biggest feast in centuries-unless, of course, you give me the satchel,” he said.

The noble shook his head. “You’ll never finish your meal,” Agis threatened. “Without you here to harass me, it won’t take me very long to get free of these bindings.”

“I realize that,” said Wyan. “But by then, this compound will be awash in a lake of your precious giant’s blood. It’s a pity Sacha won’t be here to share it with me.”

With that, he buried his teeth in Fylo’s neck and ripped away another mouthful of flesh. Again, the giant groaned, and this time his eyes flickered. Still, Agis doubted that Fylo would wake in time to save himself.

In his own mind, the noble pictured himself as an arrow in a flexed bow, summoning what remained of his spiritual energy to animate the image. Once it was ready, he looked toward Fylo, waiting for Wyan’s next bite and hoping it wouldn’t be the one that sent the giant’s blood shooting into the air like a geyser.