The Obsidian Oracle

SEVEN TABLE OF CHIEFS

Bathed in the full fury of the crimson sun, Tithian and Agis stood on a slate-topped table more expansive than a Tyrian plaza. The heat shimmered off the black surface in torpid waves, blistering their feet and scorching their lips, leaving their parched throats bloated with thirst. Nymos lay half-conscious at the king’s side, his reptilian body unable to cool his blood in the face of the scalding temperature. At the jozhal’s side stood Kester, swaying and perilously close to collapsing herself.

The ship’s crew cowered a short distance away. Despite the helmsman’s efforts to keep them quiet, the terrified slaves murmured anxiously among themselves and cast nervous glances over their shoulders, where the end of the table overhung a sheer cliff that dropped a thousand feet into the Sea of Silt’s pearly haze.

The walls of a mountain canyon flanked the table on both sides. A pair of stone benches, as tall and broad as Tyr’s ramparts, had been carved into each of these rocky slopes. On these benches sat a dozen giants, all with blocky, humanlike heads marked by lumpy features and rough skin. Each wore the crude figure of his tribe’s totem-a sheep, goat, erdlu, or similar domestic animal-tattooed on his sloped brow. Most wore their hair and beards in the long, snarled braids coveted as raw material by Balican rope makers. Their angry shouts rumbled back and forth over the table like thunder, so loud that Tithian could understand only half of the words.

“We’ve been ignored long enough,” Tithian growled.

The king started across the broken slate toward the head of the table, where a round-faced giant sat upon a throne of black basalt. Carved from the shoulder of a volcanic peak, the great chair was as large as the Golden Palace itself. On the titan’s clean-shaven head rested a circlet of tree boughs woven into a brown-leaved garland of royalty, identifying the wearer, Tithian supposed, as the monarch. The giant’s eyes were witless and dull, with puffy lids and brown irises that showed life only when they flashed in anger or malice. From his bloated cheeks sagged great jowls, hanging well over his fleshy neck and trembling like a loose sail whenever he bared his jagged teeth to sneer or laugh.

Tithian had taken only a half-dozen steps when Agis’s fingers gouged into his arm. “What are you doing?” the noble demanded.

“Saving us,” the king replied.

“Ye’ve done enough already,” hissed Kester, her eyes narrowed in anger as she joined the pair. “We wouldn’t be here if ye hadn’t killed my floaters.”

“I wouldn’t have had to, if you hadn’t locked me in the brig-but here we are,” Tithian hissed. He looked back to Agis and locked gazes. “I warned you it would be impossible to recover the Dark Lens without me. Now I’ll show you why.”

The king pulled free and continued forward, stopping next to a clay tankard as high as his chest. The giant in the throne paid him no attention, but continued to bellow at a tribesman near the middle of the table, more than thirty paces away. Tithian casually turned his palm groundward and summoned the energy to cast a spell.

On the rocky hillsides above the giants’ heads, grassy clumps of daggerblade and balls of yellow tumblethistle began to wilt as Tithian drained the life force from their roots. Within an instant, every plant within the reach of a giant had turned to ash, leaving the canyon walls as black and lifeless as the surface of the slate table.

The giant’s hand descended like a kes’trekel on a sun-bloated corpse. He grabbed his tankard and flipped it over, spilling five gallons of golden mead over Tithian’s head, and placed the vessel over the king’s shoulders.

“No magic!” he boomed.

Inside the mug, the muffled voice echoed painfully in Tithian’s ears.

“Too late!” Tithian hissed.

The Tyrian brought his hands up and plucked a stray thread from the hem of his cassock, then wrapped this around the tip of his index finger. Pointing the digit at the giant, he uttered a spell and pulled the thread down past his first knuckle.

Again, the giant’s voice reverberated through the tankard, this time screaming in surprise as his crown slipped down around his throat and began to constrict. Cries of alarm erupted all around, and the table began to shake as giants to both sides leaped to their feet. Tithian smiled to himself and twisted the ends of the thread, tightening the loop until his finger began to throb from having the blood cut off.

Tithian felt the tankard being lifted from his head. “Is this your idea of help?” Agis demanded, tossing the vessel aside. “You’ll get us killed!”

“Do I strike you as someone with so little regard for his own life?” Tithian replied.

“You strike me as a maniac,” sneered Nymos. The little jozhal teetered at the noble’s side, holding himself upright by clinging to Agis’s belt with a three-fingered hand. “Now cancel your magic, before-”

“Too late for that!” said Kester, pulling Nymos and Agis away by their arms. “Stand aside, unless ye want to get mashed with him!”

Tithian looked up to see several giants stretching their arms toward him, their palms stretched out to smash him flat.

“Stop!” Tithian yelled. “If I die, so does your chief!”

Tithian pointed toward the basalt throne. The ruler’s crown had all but disappeared into the folds of his corpulent neck, and the giant’s filthy nails were scratching great rifts into his flesh as he tried to work a fingertip beneath the constricting boughs.

“You’re lying!” growled one of the giants, a lanky fellow with red beard and hair. “How can you kill our sachem if you’re dead?”

“Magic,” Tithian replied, raising the finger with the thread looped around it. “If I die, this string will tighten until it cuts the tip of my finger off. Your sachem’s crown will do the same thing, except that it will cut off his head instead of his fingertip.”

Several giants lowered their heads and eyed the digit raised toward them. Their breaths washed over Tithian like a stale-smelling wind, but they made no move to attack.

The king smiled. “That’s better,” he said. “Now-”

He was interrupted by a rumbling voice from the far end of the table. “Let Sachem Mag’r go, or I’ll sweep your friends off the Table of Chiefs.”

Tithian glanced over his shoulder to see that a giant had laid his massive arm across the width of the table, and was ready to sweep Kester’s cowering slave crew over the edge into the Sea of Silt.

“I don’t care what you do with them,” the king said, looking back to Mag’r. The sachem’s face color had deepened from red to purple, and his eyes were bulging from his head. “They’re no friends of mine.”

“But they’re me crew!” Kester growled, stepping toward the king. “I need ’em to sail the Shadow Viper.”

“Crews can be replaced.”

“Not out here,” observed Nymos, standing several paces away. “If this is your idea of saving us, you’re a fool.”

“The crew is a liability,” Tithian retorted. “If we let the giants think they’re important to us, Mag’r will use them against us.”

“I won’t allow you to sacrifice them,” Agis warned. “They’re living beings, just like any citizen of Tyr.”

The noble’s hand dropped to his side, where his sword still hung in its scabbard. The giants, no more concerned with human-sized blades than a mul gladiator would have been with a child’s wooden dagger, had not even bothered to take their weapons away.

“You’ve always placed too high a value on other people’s lives, Agis,” Tithian said, loosening the string on his finger. “But if that’s what you want.”

As the circlet loosened, Mag’r slipped a finger behind the boughs and ripped the crown off his neck. He flung the broken garland into the mountainside, then grabbed his throat, wheezing and hacking. With each cough, he sprayed gusts of gale force wind down the canyon.

At the other end of the table, the giant withdrew the arm with which he had threatened to sweep Kester’s crew away, drawing a relieved murmur from the slaves. Sparing them no more than a glance, Tithian drew a live firefly from his satchel and crushed it over the blade of his dagger, then quickly summoned the energy to cast another spell.

By the time he finished, Mag’r’s face had returned to its normal color, and the giant had recovered his breath. The sachem looked down at Tithian. “I’ll pluck your arms and legs off-one each day!” he growled, his eyes flashing yellow in his anger. “You’ll wish you had died fast, like your friends!”

The giant reached out, and the king tossed his dagger into the air, at the same time uttering his incantation. The knife intercepted Mag’r’s hand, burying itself in a finger and causing the sachem to jerk his hand back to his chest. A greenish yellow glow rushed outward from the wound, drawing a rumble of astonished comments from all along the Table of Chiefs.

Mag’r tried to pluck the dagger from his finger, but Tithian flicked his wrist and the blade withdrew itself. It hovered in the air a few feet from the sachem, ready to strike again.

“My dagger is like the sunwasp,” Tithian lied. He kept his gaze fixed on Mag’r, who was staring at his glowing finger in stunned silence. “The first bite causes no true harm, but the second makes you sick for weeks.” He paused to let Mag’r consider the words, then added, “And the third-well, let us hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Mag’r moved his finger to the side, holding it far away from his body. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Why do you come to Mytilene?”

Before Tithian could answer, the titan to Mag’r’s left growled, “Them beasthead spies!” He was what passed for a venerated elder among the giants, with ribbons of gray hair tangled in his snarled braids, heavy folds of skin hanging over his milky eyes, and a few ivory-colored nubs where he’d once had teeth. On his head was an amorphous tattoo that might have been a lizard, an eagle, or even a snake. The giant swept his wrinkled hand over the captives. “Them come to Mytilene to spy on our army.”

The giant to Mag’r’s right peered down at the trio and said, “They’re spies all right.” He was much larger than the others at the table, with a hooked nose as big as a kank saddle and a black shawl draped over one eye. “What do we do with them, Chief Nuta?” he asked, looking back up. “Smash their arms and legs?”

Mag’r slammed his fist down on the table so hard that Agis and Kester were knocked off their feet. “No, Patch!” he thundered, his worried eyes fixed on Tithian’s floating dagger. “We won’t torture or kill them. I have a better idea.”

The giants fell silent and looked to their sachem, waiting for him to explain. When Mag’r said nothing and began to appear uncomfortable, Chief Nuta narrowed his eyes and asked, “What idea?”

Deciding the time had come to do the giant a good turn, Tithian said, “As I’m sure Sachem Mag’r realizes, we are not beasthead spies.”

Mag’r smiled and nodded. “That’s right,” he said, sneering at Nuta. “They’re Balican spies.”

An excited murmur rolled through the canyon, and Mag’r smiled triumphantly.

“So what now?” demanded Patch. “Do we skin the spies alive, then level Balic?”

“No!” boomed Nuta. He slammed his great hands down on the edge of the table, sending a terrific shock wave through Tithian’s feet. He pushed himself to his feet and leaned over to press his face closer to Patch’s. “Balic don’t have our Oracle. It’s the beastheads who want to keep our Oracle from coming back to us.” Nuta gestured at Tithian and his companions, then said, “We kill them spies, then we attack Lybdos.”

Patch recoiled from the older giant’s sudden anger, then recovered his wits and scowled at Nuta. Slamming his own hands down on the slate surface, he rose and also leaned over the table, pressing his face to Nuta’s. For the first time since being placed on the table that morning, Tithian and his friends were shaded from the harsh rays of the crimson sun-though, judging by the angry expressions on the monumental faces overhead, they were in the shadow of a storm.

“The Balicans aren’t supposed to take sides,” growled Patch, his one good eye burning with anger. From his peevish tone, it seemed to Tithian that Patch was more interested in arguing with Nuta than presenting his own point of view. “We’ll cut the feet and hands off these spies, then attack Balic.” A wicked smile crossed his lips, and he looked down the table at the other chiefs gathered there. “We’ll sack Balic and steal all the good stuff there,” he said, drawing a chorus of agreement from the other giants.

“No!” Nuta snarled.

Tithian glimpsed an enormous fist rising from Nuta’s side. Only after crouching safely out of the way did he think to warn his companions, and by then he was too late. Chief Nuta’s fist brushed past Agis and Kester, sending them sprawling, and caught Patch squarely under the jaw. The younger giant’s teeth clapped together with the crack of a firing catapult, and his chin snapped back. He tottered on the brink of falling backward, then his head slumped forward. Boulder-sized teeth and bucketfuls of blood spilled from his mouth to shower down on the king and his companions.

“Look out!” Tithian yelled.

He grabbed Nymos by the arm and threw himself toward Mag’r’s end of the table, glimpsing Agis and Kester as they rolled in the opposite direction. Patch’s immense head slammed into the table with a deafening crash. Tithian and the jozhal were bounced several feet into the air, and when they came down, the slate was still reverberating.

“You saved me!” Nymos gasped, his tone more surprised than thankful. “Why?”

“Because I had nothing to gain by letting you die,” the king answered curtly. He returned to his feet, adding, “Besides, it serves my purposes to keep you alive. I can’t reach Lybdos alone any more than Agis can.”

Without further comment, Tithian turned around and saw Patch’s unconscious form sprawled across the table. The shawl across his bad eye had shifted down to cover the good one, and the only thing visible beneath the giant’s hairy brow was the scarred pit where his missing eye had once been. His cracked lips gaped open more than a foot, revealing a mouthful of broken teeth and allowing frothy blood to stream down the side of his mouth.

“Agis?” Tithian called. “Are you all right?”

Kester peered over the giant’s back. “He isn’t over there?”

Tithian studied the area on his side of the unconscious giant, looking for an arm or leg sticking out from beneath the immense torso. Already, the searing tabletop was heating Patch’s blood, filling the air with a thick, coppery smell. In the red pond lay mice, varls, and other stunned vermin thrown off the titan’s body by the impact of the fall. Nowhere did the king see a sign of his friend.

“I can hear someone groaning, over there,” said Nymos. He was holding a small, spiral-shaped shell to his ear slit and pointing in the direction of Patch’s head.

Kester disappeared from sight, then the giant’s head began to rock back and forth as she tried to raise it. From the strained sound of her grunts and groans, Tithian did not think she would ever lift it high enough, even with his help.

Looking up at Nuta, Tithian ordered, “Lift Patch’s head so we can recover our friend.”

Nuta sneered at him. “Nuta squish you,” the giant scoffed, reaching out to make good on his threat.

Tithian dived away, somersaulting twice and coming up next to Patch’s motionless forearm. He pulled a glass rod from his satchel, preparing to cast a spell, but was stopped by the feel of a human hand on his shoulder.

“That won’t be necessary,” said Agis’s winded voice. “And I don’t see how you’re going to keep your promise to save us by angering the giants.”

The king looked over his shoulder to see the noble standing in the crook of the giant’s elbow. He was covered with blood, but other than that he was apparently none the worse for wear. “You’re uninjured?”

“Thanks to Kester,” the noble replied. “She raised Patch’s head high enough for me to crawl free. Any longer, and I would’ve suffocated.”

From the other side of the giant, Kester cried, “Watch yerselves!”

Agis drew his sword, and Tithian glanced upward to see Nuta’s hand descending toward his head. The noble’s weapon flashed up to intercept the attack, driving deep into the huge palm. The giant let out an earthshaking bellow and pulled away.

Agis’s sword became lodged in the giant’s thick sinews and would not slip free. Clinging to his weapon, the noble was lifted off his feet. Tithian grabbed him by the ankles, and even then they rose several feet into the air before the blade came free. They dropped back to the table, accompanied by Nuta’s roaring curses and the even more thunderous guffaws of his fellow giants.

“You see?” Tithian asked, picking himself out of the blood pool into which he had fallen. “It takes both of us to handle these giants.”

“I’d hardly say you’re handling them,” observed Nymos, his muzzle wrinkled in distaste as he waded through Patch’s blood. “So far, you’re barely staying alive.”

Tithian started to make a sarcastic retort, but Nuta’s thunderous voice interrupted him.

“Laugh, fools!” the chief yelled, glaring down the table at the giants who were snickering at him. “If we attack Balic instead of Lybdos, beastheads keep our Oracle locked on Lybdos forever!”

This quieted the crowd instantly, and the giant at the table’s far end said, “Nuta’s right. It’s our turn to keep the Oracle, our turn to get smart, but those Saram beastheads want the Oracle to stay with them. They just want to make us Joorsh dumber and dumber-until even the dwarves are smarter than us!”

Agis’s brow rose, and Tithian knew his friend also found the tribe names oddly familiar. Jo’orsh and Sa’ram were the dwarven knights who had stolen the Dark Lens from the Pristine Tower. The similarity between their names and those of the two tribes could hardly be coincidence, but the king did not have time to puzzle over the relationship.

Another giant pointed at Tithian and Agis. “What about them?” he asked. “We can’t just kill Balic’s spies. We must also punish the city for sending them.”

Tithian turned to face the giant. “I can solve that problem for you,” he said. “We aren’t Balican spies-or even Saram spies. We came to help you.”

This sent the giants into hysterics. The tempest of rumbling laughter did not sound so different from a massive rockslide.

“What do ye think yer doing?” Kester demanded, climbing over Patch’s neck. “Getting them to spare us will be hard enough without fillin’ their heads with such nonsense.”

“It isn’t nonsense,” the king hissed. “And we stand a better chance with my strategy than by begging for our lives like terrified slaves.”

“What do you know about bargaining with giants?” asked Nymos.

“More than you know about negotiating with monarchs,” Tithian replied. “I doubt any of you could have talked King Andropinis into lending him a fleet.” When no one rebutted his claim, he looked to Agis and added, “If you want to leave here alive, let me handle this.”

The noble gave a reluctant nod, then followed close behind Tithian as the king moved toward Mag’r. The sachem raised a hand to silence his laughing tribesmen, then asked, “Do you have any more jokes to tell before I kill you?”

“Considering the circumstances, I would think the clans of the Joorsh would welcome help,” Tithian countered.

“What can you do to help us?” chuckled the giant, waving a massive hand at Tithian’s glowing dagger. “Drill a hole in the Saram castle with your flying needle?”

“Of course not,” Tithian replied. “I have already done much more than that. Haven’t you heard how my fleet lured the Saram into the Strait of Baza, where we slew many beastheads?”

A giant seated to Nuta’s left called, “You lost many ships!” He raised all the fingers on both hands for his companions to see, then looked back to Tithian. “The Ewe Clan watched the whole battle. You didn’t win.”

The chief who had spoken was far from a powerful specimen of his race. He had limbs as skinny as the trunks of faro trees, and the sunken cheeks of one who seldom went to bed with a full belly. The tattoo on his brow depicted the scrawny figure of a sheep.

“Our goal was not to win,” Tithian said. “It was merely to draw the beastheads into battle, so a stronger force could ambush them outside the protection of their castle. Apparently, we erred in thinking the Ewe Clan would be brave enough to take advantage of our plan.”

The chief of the Ewe Clan scowled at the affront, then tore a boulder off the slope behind him. “The Ewes are as brave as any clan!” he thundered, raising his arm.

“Your insults will get us all killed!” Agis hissed.

The noble crouched with flexed legs, preparing to dive for cover, but Mag’r was on his feet instantly. “Orl!” the sachem bellowed. “Put that rock down!”

Tithian pulled Agis back to his full height. “You mustn’t show fear,” he said, smirking at the noble. “It makes us look weak.”

With that, Tithian gave Orl an imperious stare. The giant looked away, then hurled the boulder down the length of the canyon and out over the Sea of Silt.

“Nobody told me to help the Balican ships,” Orl grumbled, giving Mag’r a repentant glance. “But we would have. We’re not afraid to fight.”

Mag’r grunted his acceptance of the apology, then returned to his seat and fixed his gaze on Tithian. “King Andropinis promised to stay out of our war,” he said. “Why did he attack the Saram?”

“He didn’t,” Tithian replied.

Mag’r frowned at this. “But you said-”

“That my fleet attacked the Saram,” Tithian corrected. “And I’m not Balican.”

“He’s lying, Sachem,” said Orl. “That was a Balican fleet, or I’m the chief of the Iguana Clan.”

“They were Balican ships,” Tithian admitted. “I hired them from King Andropinis. But it was a Tyrian fleet, since it was under my command, and I am King Tithian of Tyr.”

“Them ships sailed from Balic,” said Nuta. “So them ships Balican, no matter what you are.”

“Maybe, and maybe not,” said Mag’r, raising a hand for the chief to be quiet. “Let’s say the fleet was Tyrian, King Tithian. What interest does Tyr have in attacking the Saram?”

“Yours is not the only tribe they have robbed,” the king replied. “They have something as valuable to my city as the Oracle is to the Joorsh.”

“What?” demanded Nuta.

Tithian smiled. “I’d be a fool to tell you that. You might decide you want it for yourself,” he replied. “But from what I’ve heard here today, it seems clear the beastheads are hoarding people and artifacts that possess powerful magic. What for, I wonder? So they can rule the Sea of Silt?”

A hush fell over the canyon, then Mag’r leaned down to inspect the king and his companions more closely. “No one rules the Sea of Silt,” he said.

“Not now, perhaps,” replied the king. “But with what they stole from Tyr …” He let the sentence trail off. After a moment’s pause, he added, “Let’s just say it would be better for both your tribe and my city to work together to make sure they don’t keep it.”

The giant chiefs muttered quiet comments to each other, studying Tithian and shaking their heads suspiciously. Mag’r allowed the murmur to continue for a moment, then said, “Good story, but I have no reason to believe you.”

“Perhaps you’d believe us if you knew the artifact had come from the Pristine Tower,” said Agis.

Tithian cringed, for the noble was gambling that just because their tribes were named after the thieves who had stolen the Dark Lens from the Pristine Tower, the giants would know what the Tower was. Agis’s strategy seemed to work, however. A squall of concerned whispers rose from the entire gathering of giants, and Mag’r scowled at his captives suspiciously. “What do you know of the Pristine Tower?” he demanded.

“Very little, save that the legends claim my amulet came from there,” Tithian lied. He cast an annoyed glance at Agis, then used the Way to send a message: Your gamble was a bold one, but unnecessary. I have matters well under control.

I’ll believe that when they let us go, the noble replied. Despite his acerbic comment, Agis did not voice any further doubts.

When Sachem Mag’r accepted Tithian’s explanation without further inquiry, the king continued, “Andropinis loaned me a fleet because he believed what I said. If he was concerned enough to risk his ships, perhaps you should worry, too. The Saram must conquer you before they capture Balic.”

“No one will conquer the Joorsh!” protested Orl.

Several other giants voiced their agreement, but Mag’r remained thoughtful and studied his chiefs for several moments. Finally, he raised his hand for silence and looked at Tithian with something other than spite in his eyes.

“If we let you live, how will you help us beat the Saram?” the sachem asked.

Tithian smiled. “That’s for us to decide together,” he said smoothly. “Perhaps your army can lure the Saram out to do battle while we sneak into their castle. We’ll steal what we came for, as well as rescue the Oracle for you.”

Mag’r shook his head. “We’ll have to think of another plan,” he said. “You’re too small to carry the Oracle.”

Tithian breathed a sigh of relief. “Don’t worry about that. Together, Agis and I can lift even the largest giant here,” he said, laying a hand on Agis’s shoulder. “Isn’t that right, my friend?”

“If we have to,” the noble replied, stepping away from the king’s grasp. But that doesn’t mean we’re friends.