Dragon Venom, page 19
Those raids had turned into full-fledged invasions two years ago. All the lands beyond the new border had now been usurped by one foreign power or another—Shei and Furza and Tirikindaro had been especially greedy. The Blue Mage, a uniquely powerful wizard who had never before bothered to establish permanent rule over a specific place but had simply moved about, occupying whatever settlement took her fancy, had now taken a fancy to Pon Ashti and settled into the council palace there, establishing a miniature kingdom. She had had the iron stripped from the walls, and reports from the city spoke of inhuman creatures freely roaming the streets, and handsome youths who caught the Mage’s eye vanishing into the palace, never to be seen again.
The Darambar River, which flowed through Pon Ashti on its way to its tangled and swampy delta, had always been clean and natural upstream of the city; now there were strange many-eyed fish in it that would stare up at anyone who came near, and the water seemed to glow at night. The true border was now judged by some to be a good three miles north of the city.
Other towns and villages had fallen as well, dozens of them, but the people of Orange River considered the loss of Pon Ashti to be the most significant disaster, since that had been their major center of trade. The river for which their town was named joined the Darambar just a day’s travel to the south.
It was widely feared throughout the Borderlands that the wild magic’s advance would continue until it reached the Desolation, and all the inhabitants would be forced to either flee or subject themselves to the whims of some wizard.
The reason for the border’s retreat, which had seemed so obvious in Manfort, was unknown here; these people simply didn’t think about the dragons. No dragon had been seen in the Borderlands for three hundred years, and the stories that came from the north of villages burned and dragons slain in their lairs were merely stories that had no connection with the world these people lived in. No one here understood how a catapult worked, nor saw any reason to want one built in their village.
In fact, careful questioning led Arlian to conclude that the people of Orange River had never heard of dragonhearts, had no idea how dragons reproduced, and knew of no uses for dragon venom. They knew that obsidian had been discovered to be effective in piercing draconic armor, but found this of purely academic interest—after all, none of them had ever seen obsidian or had a clear idea what it was, nor had any of them ever seen a dragon.
Arlian took a moment to show them the obsidian dagger he carried, which was passed around and marveled at.
“I want to see Pon Ashti for myself,” he said. “How can I get in?”
The villagers looked at him and at one another, puzzled; then the tall woman said, “Just walk in. They won’t stop you.”
“They don’t guard the walls?”
“The gates stand open day and night, now that the Blue Mage rules there; after all, what’s left to keep out?”
“Ah, I see,” Arlian said.
“Of course, it’s dangerous. Wear gloves, lest a haunt or night-thing bite you, and keep your back to a wall whenever you can. A plastered wall, if you can, as some things can seep through the cracks between stones or boards.”
“Indeed.” He hesitated, then said, “Many years ago I crossed the Dreaming Mountains to Arithei; should I expect anything worse in Pon Ashti than I faced there?”
Again the villagers exchanged glances.
“I suppose not,” the short woman reluctantly admitted.
“Good!” Arlian said, slapping the table and pushing back his chair. “Then I will leave for Pon Ashti in the morning!”
18
The Gates of Pon Ashti
Arlian studied the terrain ahead with interest; he had never seen anything quite like it.
Directly ahead, to the southeast, his view was blocked by the golden-brown walls of Pon Ashti, speckled and striped by the marks where the protective iron had been stripped away, leaving snapped rivets, streaks of rust, and discolored stone.
To either side of the city, though, marshland stretched out to the horizon. At the moment the tide was out, and the gray-green marsh grasses lay stretched out flat, drawn seaward and woven into graceful patterns by the retreating waters. Here and there creatures of one sort or another flickered in and out of the grass blades—some of them the normal coastal wildlife, others shadowy or sparkling in ways that made Arlian quite sure they would not ordinarily be found in the Lands of Man. Every so often a wave of unnatural color flashed across the marsh to the south, and the southern sky was seething with magic. The air smelled of salt and storms.
The marshes were what made any sea trade here impractical, forcing merchants to send caravans across the Desolation instead. Arlian knew that somewhere to the east lay the sea, near enough that the tides washed up to the walls of Pon Ashti and raised those grasses up, but he could not see it; the marsh grass seemed endless.
And somewhere to the south the Darambar made its way through a hundred shallow, twisting channels in the marshes to the sea—but it also passed through miles of territory that had always been outside the borders, even when the dragons had been at their mightiest. Foreigners sometimes sailed their little flat-bottomed boats up through that maze, but no northern merchant had attempted it in centuries.
Beside Arlian the Darambar flowed smoothly over polished stone, water and stone glittering in the afternoon sunlight; behind him the land and the road rose up gently, well above the marshes, and houses and cultivated fields lined the road and covered the land.
Those farms were almost ordinary, while the marshes were utterly strange. Arlian reined in his mount for a moment, to take a better look.
He was astride the chestnut gelding, approaching Pon Ashti alone, and he did not care to ride directly into some sort of magical trap or ambush. He wished once again that Isein had accompanied him, but she had flatly refused.
“I came south with you because you said you were going to Arithei,” she said. “I have no interest in Pon Ashti or the Blue Mage, except as things best avoided.”
He had tried to persuade her, to convince her that knowing more about the Blue Mage could help Arithei, but she would have none of it.
Once that was settled, the decision to leave the wagon and his two men behind had been easy; without a magician along, his best course was to be unobtrusive. One man on a horse was less noticeable than three men in a wagon.
No one seemed inclined to notice him, however; he could see no guards on the ramparts of Pon Ashti, and several of the houses he had passed on the way had been standing empty and deserted, while the inhabitants of the others were going about their business and ignoring the passing horseman.
This lack of interest could be a problem, he thought. Despite what the people of Orange River had told him, the city gates were closed—at least, the set directly ahead of him; he knew there were others, and in fact could see the next to the west, on the far side of the river. If there were no guards to open the gate, how was he to enter the city?
He supposed he could wade out into the Darambar and scale the great stone lattice that allowed the water to flow freely through the wall, but the openings were not large enough for a man his size to squeeze through, and the overhanging rampart at the top would make climbing over a challenge—not to mention that his horse could hardly take that route.
Well, perhaps there were guards concealed somewhere, watching him. He shook the reins and urged the horse forward with his knees.
Sure enough, the gates swung open as he approached, and a man’s voice called, “State your business in Pon Ashti!”
Arlian still did not see anyone manning the defenses; he could see a few people on the street beyond the gate, hurrying about their own affairs, but he could not see who spoke, nor anyone on the ramparts or moving the gates.
“I’m here to discuss trade agreements,” he replied. He had settled on this as his best approach, and it was arguably true—he wanted information, and was willing to trade his own knowledge for it.
“Discuss with whom?” the voice asked—though the tone gave no indication that the speaker actually cared about Arlian’s answer.
“With anyone interested,” he replied.
“Do you carry cold iron or steel?”
Arlian blinked at the sudden change in subject. “I have a sword,” he said. “And a swordbreaker, and a knife, and, oh, some of my mount’s harness, and a steel with my flint…” He suspected he was about to be asked to surrender them all, and he did not like the idea—but it was not entirely unexpected.
“Do you carry silver?”
“A few coins, and the chain about my neck.”
“Then there are places in the city forbidden to you—but enter freely, and of your own will, and be welcome in the name of Her Majesty the Blue Mage.”
That was interesting. “Her Majesty?” Parts of the city forbidden, but not all of it?
He noticed no one had asked about amethysts or obsidian; was that because those substances had no power against the Blue Mage and her minions, or simply because they were so rare that travelers were assumed not to carry them?
He carried them; he had an obsidian dagger in his blouse, a large amethyst on the silver chain about his throat, and a smaller amethyst in his pocket. He saw no need to say so, however.
He rode forward through the gates, and still saw no guards until at last, as the gates started to close behind him, he saw something from the corner of one eye. He whirled as best he could in the saddle and caught a fleeting glimpse, and then it was gone again.
He was unsure what it was, but it was big and yellow, with wings and horns, and oddly insubstantial. It moved impossibly fast—but then, it was clearly magic.
“You are forbidden the water steps, and the Mage’s palace,” the voice said from somewhere behind him. “The granaries and fisheries you may only approach if you have first disarmed and given up flint and steel, but you may keep your silver in those.”
“Thank you,” Arlian called back, still unsure who he was addressing; then he rode on, into the empty plaza inside the gate.
This, he thought, should have been a busy market, but instead it was a bare expanse of brown brick pavement, bounded to the north by the city wall, to the west by the river, and to the south and east by tall, narrow houses. Three streets led out of the square, one along the waterfront, the others piercing the rows of houses.
Beyond the plaza people were moving about the streets, clad in the loose robes common in the southern lands, though the robes here were cut longer than the Aritheian style, and bleached to white or pale, subtle hues where the Aritheians preferred vivid reds and oranges. Arlian noticed that most of the city’s inhabitants seemed to be barefoot; he had expected to see sandals. Any more solid footwear was scarce this far south, but sandals were common.
Some of the people glanced at him, then quickly looked away.
That seemed odd; was it not permitted to look upon strangers here? If strangers were allowed into the city, it hardly seemed reasonable to expect the natives to ignore them.
He directed the gelding toward the river, thinking that would give him the best view.
“Remember, the water steps are forbidden!” the voice he thought belonged to the yellow creature called from behind.
“I remember,” Arlian called back. He was not sure just what these “water steps” were, but he assumed he would recognize them when he saw them. The name and the timing of the guardian’s shout implied that there was a connection with the river. He peered ahead, looking for some indication.
Soon enough the gelding’s steady walk brought him around the corner, where he could see down the street and down the river, and the name was suddenly clear.
The Darambar cut straight through the center of the city, paved streets along either bank; Arlian counted four arched stone bridges crossing it, all of them in the upper half, where the river was perhaps thirty or forty feet across.
Beyond the fourth bridge, however, the river widened—and dropped down over a low fall, perhaps three or four feet. Below that, although it was hard to make out the details at such a distance even from horseback, he could see that it widened more, and more, and more, descending more sudden drops, all of them even shallower than the first …
Steps. The river, Arlian realized, flowed down an immense staircase, spreading out as it went, until at the very bottom, where it vanished through several hundred pipes through the city wall and flowed out into the marsh, it was half a mile wide and no more than a few inches deep.
And people were wading on these water steps, walking about, or crossing the river with no need of bridges, or going about other business, or simply standing in the cool water. Arlian could see men talking, gesticulating as they spoke, ignoring the greenish water eddying around their ankles; he could see women rinsing clothes in the steady flow, and children splashing each other as they ran shrieking through the water. Here was the life of the city that the plaza at the gate had lacked.
And he was forbidden to set foot in the water, by command of the Blue Mage. He frowned.
Well, perhaps if he disarmed himself, and left his steel and silver somewhere safe, he could join the natives—or perhaps he could accomplish his purposes on dry land.
That reminded him that he needed to find somewhere to stay, an inn or guesthouse; he had rented floor space from farmers on the ride from Orange River, but wanted something a little more formal inside the city. He had intended to ask at the gate, but had been so distracted by the guardian’s discussion of cold iron and silver, water steps and palaces, that he had forgotten.
That was easily remedied, though. He called to a nearby woman as she passed, “Your pardon, my lady—is there an inn nearby?”
She looked up at him, then pointedly looked away and walked faster.
Puzzled and annoyed, Arlian let her go, then chose another pedestrian and repeated his question, with similar results.
It wasn’t until his fifth attempt that he got an answer.
“You’re human, then?” the man asked.
Arlian considered this question for a moment before replying, “I believe so, yes.” He doffed his broad-brimmed hat, thinking that sunlight illuminating his features might be helpful.
“And that’s just a horse?”
“To the best of my knowledge, yes,” Arlian said mildly. “It was certainly sold to me as such back in Stonebreak, and I’m not aware of any change in species it might have undergone since then.”
The Pon Ashtian looked quickly to either side, then stepped closer and asked in a loud whisper, “How did you get in?”
“I rode in, not half an hour ago,” Arlian said. “The gate opened, and a voice challenged me, and was satisfied with my answers. I’m not to enter the palace, the fisheries, or the granaries, nor set foot on the water steps, but otherwise I am unfettered.”
“But you wear a sword.”
“Indeed I do, and as a gentleman in the service of the Duke of Manfort I am entitled to do so.”
“Not here,” the man said. “She doesn’t like steel.”
There was no need to ask who “she” was. “I presume that is why the palace is forbidden me.”
“Yes.” The man looked Arlian over, from his black-haired bare head to his black leather boots. “You’re a northerner,” he said.
“That fact had not escaped my attention,” Arlian said dryly.
“I don’t understand why the demon let you in.”
“Demon?” Arlian glanced back toward the gate. “That yellow creature?”
