The Cerulean Storm

by Denning, Troy

  At the other end of the arch, Andropinis cursed. He and the other sorcerer-kings started forward, yelling incantations and gesturing madly. The shadow giant turned and spewed a black mist in their direction. The passage filled with a thick, impenetrable fog. The vapor quickly rolled back to engulf the mul and his companions in its bone-chilling murk.

  “How am I supposed to f-fight in this?” Rikus demanded. His teeth were already chattering, and his flesh was growing numb from the cold.

  “You won’t have to,” Sacha answered. “The sorcerer-kings know better than to enter the Black.”

  Rikus saw a pair of blue eyes drifting toward him, then he felt an icy hand close over his wrist.

  The Dragon turned his remaining hand toward the ground. Sadira saw the telltale shimmer of magic rising into the palm. With both hands injured, she could not imagine he intended to cast a spell, any more than she could imagine where the energy was coming from. The obsidian globes in his stomach were shattered, so the sorceress knew he could not be drawing the power from any animals that might be lurking in this wasteland. That meant Borys was drawing the energy from foliage. Sadira did not see so much as a blade of grass anywhere on the desolate plain, but she knew there had to be plants somewhere. She turned her own palm toward the ground and began to draw. Even when the sun was down, she was a powerful sorceress and could rely on the normal energy sources to cast her spells.

  It took a moment, then she felt the familiar tingle of magic rising through her arm. The energy seemed to be coming from the cliffs at the edge of the plain. She would have to be careful not to draw too much power too rapidly, for fear of robbing all the life force from the unseen plants and destroying them.

  Before the sorceress’s eyes, the gash on Borys’s forearm slowly began to seal itself.

  “We’ll never kill Borys if he can heal himself!” Rkard exclaimed. The boy stood at her side, staring in horror at the Dragon’s closing wounds.

  “We’ll find a way,” Sadira replied, infusing her voice with more confidence than she felt.

  The sorceress closed her hand to the flow of energy and pulled a small piece of brown tuber from her pocket. Keeping one eye on the Dragon, the sorceress uttered an incantation over the root, then held it out to Rkard.

  “Eat this. It’ll make you so fast, Borys won’t catch you.” As Sadira spoke, she saw the fingers on Borys’s useless hand begin to wiggle.

  The boy refused to take the root. “You should eat it,” he said. “I tried to tell you before—I’m not supposed to kill the Dragon.”

  Sadira frowned. “What are you saying? Of course you are.”

  Rkard shook his head. “Jo’orsh told Borys that I decided to kill the Dragon,” the boy explained. “But that’s wrong. When he and Sa’ram came to Agis’s house, I asked them why they were giving me the Belt of Rank and King Rkard’s crown. They said it was because I was going to kill the Dragon—so I thought—”

  “They were telling you it’s your destiny,” Sadira interrupted.

  Rkard did not answer right away, and the sorceress watched the fingers of Borys’s hand close into a fist. She thought he might come after them then, but the Dragon summoned more energy and did not move. Apparently, he intended to leave them no weaknesses to exploit when he attacked.

  After a moment, Rkard said quietly, “Borys told Jo’orsh there’s no such thing as destiny. I didn’t believe him at first, but then Jo’orsh said people choose their destinies.” He paused, then added, “Only, I never chose mine.”

  “Then how come he and Sa’ram gave you the belt and crown?”

  Rkard shook his head. “I don’t know,” the boy replied. “And I’m not sure how they got them in the first place. The belt and the crown were stolen from our treasuries when the slavers raided Kled.”

  “Tithian!” the sorceress hissed. For some reason, the king had made up the whole story about Rkard being destined to kill the Dragon—and had used the belt and crown to convince the banshees that it was true. “I’ll kill him!”

  “Only if you kill Borys first,” Rkard answered. “So eat the root yourself.”

  “No, I want you safe.”

  “You can’t make me safe,” answered the boy. “Besides, Borys isn’t as worried about me. He’ll come after you first.”

  The Dragon was still drawing energy from the ground. The wound on his leg had already healed, and the nub of a hand had appeared on the stump of his severed wrist.

  “Go see what you can do for your mother,” Sadira said.

  The sorceress put the root in her mouth and fixed her eye on the crimson globe encasing Borys’s head. Given that Rkard’s spell had prevented the Dragon from using the Way, she suspected that he would dispel it when he recovered the full use of his hands. Sadira turned her palm toward the ground, wondering if the beast would find it any easier to use his mental powers from inside a sphere of darkness.

  It seemed to Rikus they had been floating in the Black forever, the shadow giant’s icy fingers entwined around their wrists and icy strands of gossamer filament brushing across their faces. The mul ached to the bones with cold, and only the vibrations of his constant shivering kept the ice crystals from completely encasing his body. Save for the red shimmer of the Dark Lens, glimmering a short distance to his side, Rikus could see nothing.

  “It’s t-taking t-too long,” Rikus said, hardly able to speak because his teeth were chattering so badly.

  “In the Black, time has little meaning,” the shadow giant replied. Earlier, he had introduced himself as Khidar. “But I will deliver you to the other side in a matter of instants in your time—provided Sacha was not mistaken about the light. Normally, we cannot approach Ur Draxa because there are no shadows in this land.”

  “A few instants is still too long,” the mul worried. “If the sorcerer-kings know the arch’s password—”

  “That knowledge will do them no good,” replied Khidar. “My people will keep the arch filled with the Black until you have killed Borys. If the sorcerer-kings step into it, they will never leave.”

  Rikus still wasn’t convinced. “They have powerful magic,” he said.

  “Which they will eventually use to dispel the fog in the arch’s passage,” Khidar replied. “But even for them, the shadow people are not easy to battle, and they were not prepared to meet us. You may believe me when I say that by the time they follow, your battle with the Dragon will be won—or lost.”

  A crimson globe appeared in the darkness ahead, partially obscured by a thick wisp of blackness that reminded Rikus of a sand streamer blowing across the face of a moon.

  “Now you must be quiet,” Khidar urged. “That’s our destination.”

  As they drifted closer, the wisp of blackness grew thicker and more substantial, until it resembled a pair of gnarled tree boles rising up to meet high above ground. Only after studying the image for another moment did Rikus identify the dark band as a pair of huge legs. Khidar was bringing them up directly beneath Borys.

  In the next instant, Rikus emerged from the Dragon’s shadow and found his head protruding above a vast plain of broken scoria. As his eyes adjusted to the red light of Rkard’s sun-spell, he reached up with sword in hand and braced his arms on the ground. He started to pull himself up, leading the way out of the Black.

  The mul made it as far as his waist before Borys’s voice cried an incantation. The red light of Rkard’s sun-spell abruptly vanished, and a terrible, crushing agony gripped Rikus’s hips as he found himself clamped in solid stone.

  Biting back the urge to scream, Rikus looked around and saw no shadows anywhere. Below the ground, he could feel Tithian tugging at his cold-numbed legs.

  The mul raised his sword and stretched toward Borys’s foot but held his blow when he heard Sadira’s voice behind him. Rikus looked over his shoulder. He saw a black sphere leave her hand and shoot up toward Borys’s head.

  The mul cursed silently, then stretched out to slash at the back of the Dragon’s ankle. The blade struc
k with a mighty clang, spraying blue sparks in all directions, then red smoke and yellow blood poured from the wound.

  Borys howled and stumbled away, his head engulfed in a sphere of darkness. He turned a palm downward, then Rikus felt an eerie tingle as magical energy sizzled through the ground around him.

  Sadira made her second attack, firing a storm of flaming blue ice at the Dragon. The pellets scoured long, smoking scars into his thick hide but did not penetrate. Borys growled in frustration and dodged, apparently expecting another attack and fearing that it would have more effect.

  “Over here, Sadira!” Rikus called, waving his sword in the air.

  “Rikus!”

  The sorceress rushed toward him. She moved with incredible swiftness and was at his side in an instant, reaching into her robe for a spell component.

  “Where have you been?” The words came so fast Rikus could hardly understand her.

  “That’s not as important as where I am now—trapped halfway in the Black!” the mul growled. “We need a light.”

  Fifty paces away, Borys uttered an incantation and touched his hand to his head. The sphere of darkness evaporated instantly.

  “Light, Sadira!” Rikus urged. “Now!”

  Sadira spoke a mystic syllable and touched the Scourge. A brilliant glow flared on the blade, casting a long shadow behind Rikus. He felt his waist come free. Before the mul could pull himself out of the ground, a pair of arms shot out of the Black and grabbed the rocky plain. Rikus felt Tithian’s shoulders pushing him up from beneath, then the mul was free of the cold murk.

  Rikus stood and held his sword steady. Tithian’s head and torso emerged from the mul’s shadow. Sacha came with him, cleaving to a mouthful of long, gray hair. The king stopped climbing when he noticed Sadira staring at him with a murderous light in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded.

  “Ask later,” Rikus said. “We’re in enough trouble—”

  Sadira’s head snapped toward the Dragon. She launched herself forward, giving Rikus a hard shove. Rikus heard the sizzle of a magic bolt crackle from Borys’s direction, then everything went dark. An instant later, the mul found himself standing near the brink of the abyss, staring back toward the center of the plain. Where he had been standing a moment earlier, there was now a smoking crater the size of the Golden Palace. Rikus could not see how deep the hole was, for it was surrounded by a rim of broken stone as high as Tyr’s city wall.

  “By Ral!” The mul was so shocked, he could do little but gape at the immense hole. “Sadira!”

  “What are you doing, giving up?” asked a familiar voice.

  For the first time, the mul realized that he was standing near an arch similar to the one on the other side of the lava sea. Lying near its base, her head cradled in Rkard’s lap, was Neeva. Though Rikus could not see any injuries, her motionless legs revealed all he needed to know.

  “Neeva!” he gasped.

  “Go.” She pointed toward the crater. Borys was already limping down into it. “I’ll be fine with Rkard looking after me. See what happened.”

  The mul started forward, then heard a strange voice at his feet. “St … ning … oaf!”

  Noticing that he only heard the voice when his feet touched the ground, Rikus halted and looked down. Out of the shadow cast by his sword came Tithian, followed immediately by Sadira’s pale form.

  “How did you—”

  “It was the only place to go,” Sadira replied, cutting him off before he finished the question. “Where’s the Dragon?”

  Rikus pointed toward the crater.

  “We’d better hurry,” Tithian said. Still in serpent form, the king started to slither toward the crater.

  “Wait,” Sadira said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “It’d better be a good one,” Tithian said. “We don’t have long before Borys realizes we’re not in that crater.”

  The sorceress took the Scourge, then touched the blade to the Dark Lens. A flash of crimson light flared from beneath the enchanted steel. The sword began to glow red, and Sadira gasped in pain.

  “What are you doing?” Rikus asked, horrified at the thought of what the heat might do to the temper of his blade.

  “Remember what happened the first time you broke the Scourge?” she asked. “And how terrified Abalach-Re was in the Ivory Plain?”

  The mul smiled, then looked to Tithian. “Weaken the blade,” he ordered.

  “Are you mad?” the king gasped.

  “If you want to kill Borys, do it!” Rikus ordered.

  Tithian frowned but directed his gaze at the weapon. His brow furrowed in concentration. Where the Scourge’s blade touched the Lens, a white flame danced over the steel. Sadira cried out and dropped the sword.

  Rikus tore a strip off the hem of the sorceress’s robe, then wrapped it around the Scourge’s hilt and picked the sword up. About midway down the blade, a black scorch mark stained the steel.

  “That’ll do fine,” the mul declared.

  Rikus led the way back to the hole, Sadira sprinting at his side. Tithian crawled behind them, holding the Dark Lens in his tail. When they reached the crater, Rikus signaled the others to hide, then climbed to the top and peered down on Borys. The Dragon was on all fours, still digging through the rubble at the bottom of the pit. The mul picked up a rock, intending to let it drop on Borys to get his attention.

  There was no need. The Dragon drew himself up to his full height, and Rikus found himself standing eye to eye with the beast.

  “Where’s my Lens?” Borys demanded.

  The Dragon raised his hands but resisted the temptation to strike, obviously aware that Rikus would vanish if he did.

  Allowing some of his very real fear of the beast to show through, Rikus replied, “I d-don’t have it.”

  Rikus raised the Scourge as if to strike, then pretended to slip on the treacherous ground. He flailed his arms wildly, flinging the Scourge down the slope below. The instant the sword left the mul’s hand, Borys’s mouth gaped open, and his head darted for ward. Rikus hurled himself down the hill backward, watching the Dragon’s snapping jaws snake after him.

  Tithian struck first, slipping from behind a boulder to make contact with one of Borys’s beady eyes. Rikus saw the psionic image of a winged serpent striking from the Dark Lens toward their foe. The Dragon swiveled his huge head around. The glowing figure of a lava golem shot from the beast’s eyes and intercepted the viper. The snake bit into the burning giant, then erupted into flames.

  The serpent continued its attack, coiling its body around the figure and constricting. The two constructs began to wrestle, shifting forms into birds, lirrs, lions, and a dozen other ferocious creatures. The battle raged with such fervor that tongues of real flame came flying off the two images, scorching stones and searing Rikus’s flesh.

  Leaving his construct to carry on the battle against Tithian by itself, Borys looked back to Rikus. The mul was still sliding down the hill, grasping madly at the Scourge. Wisps of smoke began to ooze from the Dragon’s nostrils, and his mouth opened to exhale.

  Sadira leaped from her hiding place. She lunged at the beast’s eye with a dagger of hissing blue smoke. Borys closed his mouth and looked away. The sorceress’s blade missed its intended target but still slashed down across the Dragon’s snout. The attack drew only a trickle of blood, but it bought Rikus enough time to find the Scourge and spring to his feet.

  Borys’s hand flashed from behind the crater rim and closed around Sadira. Now that she was no longer protected by the power of the sun, his claws sank deep into her abdomen. She screamed in pain. Blood began to seep from between the beast’s fingers.

  Still holding the sorceress, Borys swung his head back toward Rikus. The mul charged up the hill and drove his sword down through the Dragon’s snout.

  The blade sank through both jaws, drawing a spray of boiling yellow blood. Borys threw Sadira down and snapped his head high into the sky, trying to flip Rikus off. The mu
l hung on tightly, locking his legs around the Dragon’s snout and desperately trying to snap the blade.

  He heard Sadira yell from the crater rim, “Keep fighting, damn you!”

  Rikus looked down and saw that Tithian had ceased his mental attack. Instead of combating Borys with the Way, the king was slithering away with the Dark Lens in his tail.

  One of the Dragon’s gnarled claws rose into sight, blocking the mul’s view of the scene below. Rikus cursed, knowing that if he allowed his enemy to strike at him, he would find himself standing near the arch—and away from the combat. Gripping the Scourge’s hilt with both hands, he flung himself away from the claw and braced his feet against the other side of the snout. He pulled with all his might. The blade flexed with a resilient chime but did not break.

  Far below, Sadira called Tithian’s name. Rikus looked down and saw the sorceress throw something. The king ducked behind the Dark Lens, then a web of sticky white filaments formed in the air above him and began settling over his head.

  Tithian laughed.

  Borys whipped his head around in an angry attempt to shake Rikus loose. The Scourge snapped with a sour twang, and the mul fell away. As he dropped, he saw a fountain of black syrup spraying from the blade still half-buried in the Dragon’s snout.

  Rikus slammed into the crater rim. His body exploded into pain, and the Scourge’s hilt slipped from his grasp. He tumbled down the slope, the Dragon’s roars filling his ears. Soon, he managed to bring himself to a stop. Everything hurt so badly that he could not tell whether he had broken all his bones or none of them.

  The mul rolled over and, grasping a boulder, pulled himself to his feet. To Rikus’s relief, attacking him was sure to be the last thing on Borys’s mind. A huge fountain of black fluid was shooting from the Scourge’s broken blade and had already coated the Dragon’s head with a thick layer of ebony slime. With angry red plumes of smoke pouring from his nostrils, the beast was madly scratching at the steel shard lodged in his snout. He accomplished little, save to coat his claws with the same dark sludge that covered his face.