The Cerulean Storm

by Denning, Troy

  “No!” She used her last act of free will to hurl the axe at him.

  Borys’s eye widened, and he shifted his gaze to the weapon. The axe tumbled through the air end over end, flying straight toward his abdomen. He brought his good hand—the hand holding her son and Sadira—down to block. The blade sliced across his forearm and bounced toward the arch, drawing a whirling spout of yellow blood after it.

  The Dragon’s claw sprang open, allowing Sadira’s legs to dangle free. Before the sorceress could fall out, Borys flipped his hand palm-up. Neeva saw her son peering out from beneath Sadira’s sheltering form.

  Borys’s fingers twitched but did not close. He glanced down at them, curling the lip of his long snout into a snarl. His claws trembled some more, and Neeva knew her blade had severed a tendon.

  “Sadira, get Rkard out of there!” the warrior yelled. When she saw that the sorceress was already reaching for a pocket, Neeva sprinted toward her axe.

  Borys cut her off with a single step. “I promised your cur of a child that he would see you die.”

  The Dragon fixed his eye on Neeva. Again, a terrible pain filled her head as he forced his way into her mind. She continued to run—then a crimson glow lit the field. It was bright enough to cast shadows on the ground, and she knew that Rkard had cast his sun-spell. The agony in her head vanished. She looked up to see Borys’s head swaddled in a globe of red light.

  Sadira pointed up at the Dragon’s face. A bolt of blue energy crackled from her finger, blasting away a large chunk of hide. Then the sorceress gathered Rkard up and leaped into the air. Borys recovered quickly, lashing out at the flying escapees with both maimed hands.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, Neeva darted between the Dragon’s legs. He lifted his injured leg to stomp her. She dived for her axe and saw the shadow of a huge foot falling around her. Her face and chest scraped across the rough stone, then the warrior’s hands closed around the handle of her weapon. Borys’s heavy heel settled across her back. A sickening crack sounded down near her waist, sending a searing wave of agony through her hips.

  Neeva screamed and tried to pull herself from beneath the beast’s foot, but her legs would not come free. Her toes went cold, then an icy tide of numbness rose through her feet, traveled up past her knees, and spread into her hips. To the warrior, it felt as if her legs had vanished. Her own flesh and bone seemed as remote as the stone upon which she lay.

  Growling in anger, Neeva used one hand to swing her axe over her back. She managed only to strain her shoulder and strike a weak, glancing blow. The weapon slipped from her grip and fell to the ground beside her.

  Borys stepped away without reacting.

  Neeva rolled herself over and tried to sit up. The muscles of her legs and hips would not help her do even that much. She picked up her axe and braced the handle against the ground. As the warrior pushed herself up, the ebony stain suddenly drained from the weapon’s blade. The bone hilt faded from black to its natural ivory color, and the light falling over the plain dimmed from angry crimson to murky scarlet.

  Neeva heard her son cry out in surprise, then Sadira cursed in anger. The warrior looked across the plain and saw the pair crashing to the ground from a low height. Their limp forms went tumbling across the broken expanse. His head still encased in the fiery globe of Rkard’s sun-spell, the Dragon turned toward them and watched as the pair came to a stop.

  “Get up!” Neeva yelled.

  Rkard jumped to his feet and rushed to the sorceress’s side. He started to pull her up, but Sadira stood and pushed him behind her. When she turned to face the Dragon, Neeva saw that the sorceress’s skin was as white as alabaster.

  Rikus and Tithian stepped between the pillars of the great arch, Sacha floating a few steps behind. The edifice looked as though it had been shaped from a single block of stone, for if there were any seams in the construction, they were not visible in the polished face of the black granite. They walked farther down the passage. Rikus counted thirteen empty alcoves lining the interior walls, the same number as the golems he had destroyed. They reached the back of the arch and peered into the fiery sea.

  “When did Borys vanish?” Tithian asked. “As he passed beneath the front of the arch, or as he stepped out the back?”

  “On the front side,” Rikus replied. “A sheet of orange fire covered the opening, and he stepped through it.”

  Tithian cursed. “He must have touched something or spoken a word.”

  “He growled for a second or two,” Rikus replied. “That’s all.”

  “That’s it!” the king said, growing excited. “The arch must be controlled by a command word. Repeat it exactly.”

  “If I could sing like a lirr,” the mul replied, growing annoyed with the king. “My throat’s not built for sounds like that.”

  “You must—or your friends are doomed,” Tithian said. He motioned across the molten sea, then raised the leathery wings he had grown to lower them from the top of the hill. “It’ll take hours—maybe days—to fly across that.”

  “Use the Way to transport us.” Rikus raised the Scourge menacingly.

  Tithian shook his head. “I’d have to know what our destination looks like,” he said. “We don’t even know for sure that we want to emerge directly opposite this point.”

  “Are you blind?” sneered Sacha. “That must be some kind of signal over there.”

  Rikus peered closer and saw a crimson dot shining on the edge of the cliff. It was so tiny and faint that he could hardly separate it from the orange glow rising from the molten rock in the abyss, and for a moment he feared he was imagining it. Then he noticed that despite the speck’s tendency to shift positions in the rippling heat waves of the lava sea, its brightness remained markedly steadily.

  “I see it.” Rikus pointed the Scourge at the dot. “That’s Rkard’s sun-spell.”

  Tithian shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if I know where they are,” he said. “Unless I can visualize the place itself, I can’t take us there.”

  “You incompetent!” snarled Sacha. “Must I do everything myself?”

  “You couldn’t teleport us across a door threshold, much less that.” The king gestured at the boiling sea with one of his half-giant arms.

  Sacha ignored him, drifting around in front of Rikus. “I assume the boy’s spell is bright enough to cast a shadow?” When the mul nodded, the head swiveled around to look at Tithian. “If you can do as well as a six-year-old mul, then I can get us to the other side.”

  Raising his brow, Tithian closed his eyes to concentrate—then a tremendous blast sent him skidding toward the brink of the precipice. He scratched at the ground with all six claws, barely saving himself from sailing into the sea of molten rock.

  The king managed to back two steps away from the edge, then a shaft of golden light flashed behind him. His tail and wings disintegrated into a hundred tiny bits. The Dark Lens rolled off his back and dropped to the ground. As soon as he lost contact with the Lens, Tithian howled in pain and began the change back to human form. His carapace shrank into a pair of shoulder blades, while the stump of his bleeding tail retracted to become a tailbone, and his shredded wings folded down to form the flanks of his torso.

  Rikus grabbed Tithian and hurled him toward the Lens. Paying little attention to where the king landed, he whirled around to face the front of the arch. At the entrance stood two figures: a silky-haired woman with dark skin and a fang-filled mouth, and an imposing, androgynous figure that resembled a miniature version of the Dragon. Their gazes were fixed on Tithian, and it seemed likely to the mul that they were responsible for the spells that had nearly destroyed the king.

  Rikus assumed the woman to be Lalali-Puy, the Oba of Gulg, since Sadira had killed the only other sorcerer-queen on Athas. He did not know the identity of the dragonlike figure.

  The mul started forward to meet them. Three yellow runes streaked down from the face of the arch and exploded on the ground, spraying rock and dust high into
the air. When the haze cleared, three more figures stood outside the edifice: a remotely avian man with a scaly, beak-shaped muzzle and recessed earslits; another man with a muscle-knotted body and a fringe of chalky hair; and a tall figure with the slit pupils, heavy nose, and thick mane of a lion.

  Recognizing this last figure from the war with Urik, Rikus gasped, “Hamanu!”

  The sorcerer-kings ignored the mul, but the bird-featured man at Hamanu’s side said, “Perhaps I should not have doubted this plan of Borys’s. It seems to be working well enough.”

  “Divide and conquer,” responded the chalky-haired sorcerer-king. “When will you learn, Tec?”

  “Andropinis, you will address me by my full name,” Tec hissed. “I am King Tectuk—”

  “Your name is too long,” Hamanu interrupted. “We have more important things to do.”

  With that, Hamanu walked beneath the arch. Tithian shoved Rikus forward to meet him. “Go on,” the king said. “With the Scourge, they can’t touch you.”

  Though Sadira had told him the same thing before, Rikus frowned as he advanced. “Something’s wrong with that theory,” he said. “I fought Hamanu in the war with Urik. He struck me then—in fact he almost killed me.”

  Hamanu chuckled. “This time, I won’t fail.”

  The sorcerer-king leaped at the mul. Knowing better than to meet the charge head-on, Rikus threw himself to the ground and rolled. He passed beneath his foe and slashed up at the belly. A blue aura flashed around Hamanu’s body as the Scourge sliced through the magic defense, but that was as far as it sank. As it had nearly a decade ago in Urik, the blade simply stopped cutting when it hit the sorcerer-king’s flesh.

  Rikus rolled once more, then brought his legs around beneath him. As he returned to his feet, he slashed at the sorcerer-king’s waist. Again, Hamanu’s aura flashed, and the blade clanged off his flesh without biting. The mul did not even see his foe’s counterstrike. He merely felt the sorcerer-king’s heel smash into his chest, then found himself sailing toward the front of the arch.

  Rikus landed on his back, gasping for breath. Throwing his legs over his head, he rolled on his shoulder and glimpsed the other four sorcerers close by. He sprang to his feet and spun, slashing at the androgynous figure that resembled the Dragon.

  A golden aura flared around the sorcerer-king’s body, and green sparks sputtered high into the air. The Scourge bit deep into the figure’s withered shoulder. The gaunt arm dropped to the ground, sickly brown blood spewing from the wound.

  The figure howled in pain and lashed out at Rikus. The mul experienced an instant of blackness then found himself standing back at Tithian’s side. The king had assumed the form of a human-headed viper, with his giant tail wrapped around the Dark Lens. Along his spine were several nasty burns, where he had used the Lens’s heat to cauterize the wounds he had suffered from the first attack. Tithian and Hamanu had locked gazes and appeared to be engaged in a battle of the Way.

  Rikus felt more relieved than disoriented by his sudden change of location. This was not the first time the blade had moved him. Once before, when he had helped Sadira chase the Dragon away from the village of Kled, it had simply transported him out of harm’s way whenever Borys struck.

  “Hamanu!” screamed the wounded sorcerer-king, raising the stump of his arm. “This is your fault!”

  The distraction did not seem to affect the battle between Hamanu and Tithian. Both men remained motionless, staring into each other’s eyes.

  Sacha appeared at Rikus’s side, gripping Tithian’s slender dagger between his teeth. The head dropped the weapon into Rikus’s hand.

  “Hamanu wasn’t one of the original champions,” Sacha whispered. “Rajaat created him to kill the idiot Troll Scorcher, Myron of Yoram, so the Scourge’s magic works backward against him. The blade won’t injure him, and while you’re holding it, you can’t defend yourself against his blows. Use plain steel against him.”

  Rikus glanced back at Hamanu. The sorcerer-king remained locked in mental combat with Tithian. His contorted face showed the strain of the long battle, with flaring nostrils and beads of cloudy red sweat pouring off his leonine brow.

  The mul slipped the dagger into his belt and started forward. As he advanced, he kept a careful watch on his enemies and held his sword directly in front of him.

  The injured sorcerer-king moved back. Rikus guessed that he was Nibenay, since that was the only sorcerer-king’s name the mul had not yet connected to a face.

  The other three sorcerers hissed spell incantations. Rikus cringed, uncertain as to whether the sword would protect him from their magic. A black shield appeared on Andropinis’s arm, while a cylinder of golden light rose up around the Oba of Gulg. King Tec’s flesh turned to bronze.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sacha screeched, catching up with the mul. “Attack Hamanu.”

  “No. It makes more sense for me to attack the others,” the mul said. “They can’t injure me, and Tithian has Hamanu under control.”

  “Idiot! That’s what they want!” Sacha hovered close to Rikus’s head and hissed the words into his ear. “Why do you think they’re waiting instead of helping Hamanu? They’re trying to waste your time while Borys deals with Sadira. Then, after you’re tired from fighting the sorcerer-kings, the Dragon will come back and finish what they started.”

  Rikus stopped and turned sideways, so he could see both into the ravine and back toward the chasm. He was near the front of the arch, less than a dozen paces from the sorcerer-kings.

  “This isn’t working,” growled the Oba. “We’ll have to kill the Usurper!”

  She locked her eyes on Tithian, as did King Tec and Nibenay. Andropinis stepped to the front of the arch, positioning his black shield between Rikus and his fellow sorcerer-kings.

  Tithian groaned, then his tail slackened and began to come untwined from around the Dark Lens. Blood trickled from his nostrils and ears, and his eyes bulged from their sockets. His jaw began to quiver, and Rikus knew that even with the Dark Lens, the king of Tyr was no match for the sorcerer-kings.

  Shifting the Scourge away from his throwing hand, Rikus drew the dagger Sacha had given him and hurled it at Hamanu. The blade sailed straight for the sorcerer-king’s back, and it looked like it would be a clean kill. Behind the mul, Andropinis spoke the syllable of a mystic incantation.

  Rikus spun and leaped, slashing his sword at the sorcerer-king’s rising hand. Reacting impossibly fast, Andropinis brought his shield up to intercept the blow. The Scourge hit without so much as a thud and stopped cold.

  Andropinis’s spell misfired, and a silent burst of silver light flashed between the sorcerer-king and Rikus. The mul felt a tremendous force pushing on his chest, not so much an impact as overwhelming pressure, and his feet left the ground. He sailed a dozen paces through the air before he crashed down, rolling head over heels and coming to a rest at Hamanu’s side.

  To Rikus’s amazement, the sorcerer-king still stood, even with the dagger planted deep in his back. His teeth were clenched in pain, and sweat soaked his entire body, but the injury had not forced him to break off the combat with the Tyrian king. In contrast, Tithian looked ready to collapse, with tears of blood running from his bulging eyes and his serpentine tail barely contacting with the Dark Lens.

  Rikus glanced toward the front of the arch and saw that Andropinis’s misfired spell had hurled him into the Oba. They were both picking themselves off the ground. The other two sorcerer-kings were still helping Hamanu, their gazes locked on Tithian’s face.

  Leaving the Scourge on the ground, Rikus leaped up and reached for the dagger in Hamanu’s back. Without looking away from Tithian, the sorcerer-king lashed out. The attack was as fast as a viper strike, but at least this time Rikus saw it coming. He twisted sideways, trying to slip past the blow, and felt a hard fist skip along his jaw. Normally, the mul would hardly have noticed a glancing blow, but Hamanu’s strike snapped his head around.

  Rikus spun with the impact, tur
ning around in a complete circle. He stopped directly behind his foe and grabbed the dagger, pushing it in to the hilt. When the sorcerer-king still did not fall, he twisted the blade and forced it upwards, driving toward the heart. Hamanu screamed and stumbled back, as if Tithian were driving him away.

  A kes’trekel came streaking out of the Dark Lens, its curled talons and hooked beak poised to strike. The giant raptor seemed as real as any Rikus had ever seen—which surprised him. The mul was not a complete stranger to the Way, and he knew that battles between mindbenders were fought inside their minds.

  When the bird hit, any doubts about its reality vanished. The kes’trekel’s talons sank deep into Hamanu’s shoulders, bowling him over. The mul released his hold on the dagger, then watched the great bird carry the sorcerer-king’s screaming form toward the front of the arch.

  As he realized what he was seeing, Rikus did not know whether to rejoice or be sick. With the Dark Lens, Tithian could create physical versions of his mental constructs. While that ability was proving useful now, the mul knew that when the time came to kill the king, it would be every bit as dangerous to him and his friends as it was to the sorcerer-kings.

  Rikus rolled across the ground and grabbed the Scourge, then returned to his feet in time to see the kes’trekel hurl itself into the midst of the sorcerer-kings. The mul started forward, knowing he did not have long to attack before his enemies recovered.

  “No, Rikus, wait!” Sacha ordered. Then, to Tithian, the head said, “Give me a light!”

  As the king uttered an incantation, Rikus watched the sorcerer-kings counterattack the kes’trekel. They made short work of the raptor, reducing it to a cloud of feathers in an instant.

  A bright white light flared behind the mul, causing him to cast a dark shadow. A pair of burning blue eyes and a gashlike mouth appeared in the silhouette’s head. The limbs began to thicken, and the figure peeled itself off the ground.

  Sacha had summoned a shadow giant.