The Cerulean Storm

by Denning, Troy

  Creatures began to appear in this forest: horn-covered lizards, bright-feathered birds, and graceful herd-beasts such as Rikus had never seen, with racks of white horns and long thin limbs. Some of the animals perished almost immediately, falling prey to the great hunting cats that prowled the newborn wilderness, while others lived long enough to create others of their kind.

  The flowering of this new paradise did not come without pain. As the halflings traveled across plain, the weak collapsed and were abandoned where they lay. Their bodies began to transform into strange shapes. One grew stocky and hair-covered, while another tripled his height without gaining much bulk. Still others became both thicker of limb and taller, and some developed scales, sprouted feathers, or even grew carapaces. By the time the surviving halflings had reached the distant mountains, they had left more races behind than Rikus could count. He recognized many of them, such as the dwarves, elves, and humans. Others, he had never seen, or he only knew about from legends. There were frail, winged characters even smaller than halflings, and ugly swine-faced beings that could scarcely be called people. Like the animals, many of these individuals perished quickly, while others went on to populate the world with whole races of their own kind.

  “Realizing their own vanity had destroyed their civilization, the halflings seeded Athas with the beginning of a new world,” said the Oba. “This is the Green Age, the age before magic, when the Way dominated the world.”

  As she spoke, villages and castles sprang up in the forest, rapidly growing into walled towns and cities connected by an intricate series of cobblestone roads. Powerful mindbenders wandered the wooded lanes on floating ivory platforms, traveling from their majestic towers to the sylvan citadels of the elves and the gloomy cities of the dwarves.

  Andropinis gestured, and the scene shifted to an isolated turret in one of the smaller villages, where a single figure sat by a glass window, poring over a stack of books. There was no way to describe the man’s appearance except as hideous, for he had a huge head with a flat, grossly elongated face. His eyes were half-covered by flaps of skin, while his long nose, lacking a bridge, ended in three flaring nostrils. He had a small, slitlike mouth with tiny teeth and a drooping chin. His body was contorted and weak, with humped shoulders and gangling arms.

  The figure looked up from his book and held his palm over a potted lily growing in the windowsill. The plant quickly withered and died. He tossed a pinch of dust into the air, and a gray fog filled the room.

  “Rajaat came to us early in the Green Age, one of the many hideous accidents spawned from the Rebirth,” said the Oba. “His only blessing was a supreme intellect, which he used to become the first sorcerer. He spent centuries trying to reconcile his brutal appearance with his human spirit. In the end, even his powerful mind could find no answer. He came to revile himself as nothing but a deformed accident.

  “Soon, Rajaat turned his hate outward. He declared the Rebirth a mistake and proclaimed all the races it had spawned to be monsters. He dedicated himself to wiping the blight of their existence from the world, so that he might return Athas to the harmony and glory of the Blue Age.”

  The gray haze faded. Rajaat stood atop the Pristine Tower, looking out through a crystal cupola. He seemed immeasurably older, with long shocks of gray hair, a wrinkled face, and white, burning eyes. A company of armored figures marched out of the base of the keep. They descended the tower’s spiraling staircase and went into the wilderness. Soon, great patches of forest began to wither and die as they waged a terrible war.

  “He created us—his champions—to lead the armies of the Cleansing Wars,” said the Oba. “Rajaat told us to destroy all the new races, or they would spawn monsters like him and overrun the world.”

  The forests steadily vanished, leaving most of Athas the barren and lifeless place that Rikus knew so well. Then, abruptly, the destruction ceased, and the champions returned to the Pristine Tower.

  “We had almost won,” said Andropinis. “Then we realized Rajaat was mad.” He sounded regretful, perhaps even angry, that they had not finished the war. “We stopped fighting.”

  “You didn’t stop because Rajaat was mad. That had to be clear all along,” Sadira said. “You stopped because you learned the truth about who would survive when he returned the world to the Blue Age.”

  “That’s right,” admitted the Oba. “All during the Cleansing Wars, Rajaat told us that humans would be the only race left when we finished. We didn’t learn that he was lying until it was almost too late.”

  “And then you rebelled, imprisoning Rajaat,” finished Sadira.

  Andropinis allowed his spell to fade. “I see you know the rest of the story.”

  “Not all of it,” said Sadira. “How did Borys lose the Dark Lens? I’d think he would be more careful with something so valuable.”

  “The transformation into a Dragon is a difficult one,” answered the Oba. “Shortly after we changed him, Borys lost his mental balance and went on a rampage. No one realized the Lens had been stolen until he recovered—a century later.”

  “I don’t believe this tale of yours,” Rikus said. “If Rajaat was trying to give the world back to the halflings, why did he make his champions humans? Why didn’t he use halflings?”

  “He couldn’t make them sorcerers,” answered the Oba. “Because their race harkens back to the Blue Age, before the art of sorcery existed, they cannot become sorcerers.”

  “You’re lying,” Rikus said. “I’ve seen halflings use magic.”

  “Elemental magic, yes—like Caelum’s sun-magic or Magnus’s windsinging,” said Sadira. “They draw their powers directly from the inanimate forces of the world: wind, heat, water, and rock. But normal sorcery draws its power from the life force of plants and animals.”

  Rikus started to object that Sadira drew her power from the sun, then thought better of it. Her sorcery could no longer be considered normal.

  “I think the sorcerer-kings have told us the truth,” Sadira said.

  “Then give us the Lens,” said Hamanu, moving forward. “It’s the only way we can keep Rajaat imprisoned.”

  “The Dark Lens isn’t here,” replied Sadira. “Tithian took it.”

  “Sacha and Wyan told Tithian that Rajaat would make him a sorcerer-king,” the mul added. “We think he’s on his way to free Rajaat.”

  “How unfortunate for you,” sneered Nibenay. The sorcerer-king stepped toward the slope, emboldened now that he was sure they did not have the Dark Lens. “Then there’s nothing to stop me from repaying the mul for my injury.”

  The Oba grabbed him by the stub that had sprouted from his severed arm. “Leave them for later,” she ordered, looking toward the cliff rising above the edge of the plain. “If the Usurper frees Rajaat, we’ll need your help. It would be a shame if we didn’t have it because they were lucky enough to kill you.”

  Nibenay jerked away, leaving his freshly grown stub in the Oba’s hand. “It wasn’t your arm he cut off!”

  “Then attack if you wish, but you’ll do it alone.” The sorcerer-queen pointed at the distant cliff, where a dark spout of energy was rising into the sky. It had punched a hole in the stormy red clouds of the ash storm. Through this breach poured the golden light of the Athasian moons, casting eerie shadows over the edge of the plains. “The rest of us have other concerns.”

  Andropinis cursed. “The fool Usurper has taken the Lens into the city.”

  Andropinis started toward the city at a run, simultaneously preparing to cast a spell. The other sorcerer-kings turned and followed. Only Nibenay lingered behind, his palm turned toward the ground.

  “This won’t take a moment,” he hissed.

  Rikus grabbed the Scourge’s hilt and hurled the broken sword at the sorcerer-king. The weapon tumbled end over end, beads of black resin flying off the blade and creating a line of dark spatters down the slope. Nibenay lunged away, rolling over his shoulder across the coarse scoria. The shard clanged to the ground two paces behind him.<
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  The sorcerer-king jumped to his feet and looked toward Rikus. He started to speak an incantation but suddenly stopped and stared at the hillside in horror. The black bubbles from the Scourge had connected with each other and had stretched into a long thin line. The two sides pulled apart like lips, revealing a mouthful of huge fangs.

  “Soon, Gallard,” the mouth said. It was using the name by which Nibenay had gone when he had been a champion. “Very soon.”

  A long, green tongue shot from the dark fissure, lashing out for the sorcerer-king. Nibenay cried out in alarm and pointed his finger at the thing, screaming his incantation. A red bolt streaked from his finger, blasting the appendage into a hundred pieces. The mouth laughed, and another tongue snaked out from between its lips.

  Nibenay backed away then turned and ran after the other sorcerer-kings.

  SEVENTEEN

  UR DRAXA

  HIS SERPENT’S BODY COILED TIGHTLY ABOUT THE Dark Lens, Tithian lay beneath a looming wall of granite, just outside the tunnel he had bored through an enormous foundation block. Before him stood a silent thicket of trees, with supple trunks that quietly swayed in the moonlit night, like slave dancers welcoming him to the city. Each had only a single blue leaf, as large as a sail and stretched tight over a dome-shaped network of branches. Neatly groomed paths curved through the shadows beneath their boughs, suggesting he had entered some sort of park.

  Tithian hardly noticed the beauty of the place; his attention remained fixed entirely on the Dark Lens. When he had emerged from his tunnel, a surge of energy had risen from the ground, through him, and into the Lens. Dozens of smoky tendrils had begun to dance over the top of the orb. They had twined themselves together in a crackling spout of force and had risen into the sky, parting the red storm raging overhead.

  “Get moving,” said Sacha, floating through the tunnel. As the head’s words carried into the thicket ahead, they faded without an echo. “The sorcerer-kings are flying across the plain.”

  Tithian gestured at the black spout. “Something’s wrong.” he said. “I didn’t do this.”

  Sacha rolled his sunken eyes. “Try not to be such a cretin.” he said. “Rajaat’s watching.”

  Tithian began to uncoil himself, keeping the Lens gripped in his tail. “What’s happening?”

  “The Lens is overloaded, so it’s discharging its excess energy.”

  “Overloaded?”

  “You’re near Rajaat’s prison. The Lens is drawing energy from the spell that keeps it intact,” Sacha explained, his tone deliberately patronizing. “Did you think the Lens took its power from the sun alone?”

  As a matter of fact, that was exactly what Tithian had thought, but he did not give Sacha the pleasure of hearing him confess his mistake.

  “Which way now?” he asked, looking deeper into the silent park.

  “How would I know?” demanded Sacha. “How many times do you think I’ve been to Ur Draxa?”

  A man slipped from behind one of the trees ahead. He wore a peculiar suit of armor fashioned from brightly painted human ribs, with a massive helmet carved from the squarish skull of some fanged race of half-man. The stranger carried a steel halberd with an ornately shaped blade that looked more suitable for displaying on a palace wall than fighting. Though the man moved with no particular care, his footsteps fell as softly as those of an elven hunter—leading the king to suspect the wood’s eerie silence had more to do with magic than tranquility.

  The newcomer pointed his weapon at Tithian and motioned for him to lie on the ground. When the king did not obey, the man raised his halberd, and a hundred more warriors stepped from behind the trees. Their leather armor was not so fine as that of their leader, but the spears they carried looked much more practical than the man’s halberd.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Sacha snarled. “Kill him.”

  Deciding to take a lesson from the Dragon, Tithian visualized a great storm of fire erupting from his mouth. An incredible surge of energy gushed from the Dark Lens, blazing through the king’s body with such ferocity that he feared he would explode. A blinding white cone of flame erupted from his mouth, engulfing the officer and the warriors behind him. Tithian did not even see the thicket burn. The huge leaves and the branches vanished in a flash, then the ground was littered with scorched boles and blackened skulls. Only the edges of the small wood had escaped the instant devastation, and even they were starting to burn.

  “Well done,” said a voice at Tithian’s side.

  The king whipped his head around. At first, he did not see the speaker, then he glimpsed a pair of flickering blue eyes. They were looking up at him from the faint shadow his moonlit body cast on the ground. As Tithian watched, the silhouette slowly peeled itself off the dirt and changed into a more manlike form—though it was only about the size and shape of a halfling.

  “Who are you?” Tithian watched a nose and a pair of lips form on the thing’s face.

  “How quickly you forget,” the silhouette responded. “I led you through the Black less than an hour ago.”

  “Khidar?” Tithian gasped. “I thought you were a giant!”

  “Of course not, you imbecile,” Sacha chided. “The shadow people are descended from the last of Rajaat’s halfling servants.”

  “Shadows play strange tricks with size, do they not?” Khidar added, grinning. He now had a fully featured face, with short-cropped hair, blue eyes, an upturned nose, and bright white teeth. “Your ignorance is understandable. There weren’t many of our people. Most halflings of the Green Age wanted nothing to do with the Cleansing Wars.”

  Tithian ran his eyes over the devastated park, not at all interested in the history of the shadow people. “I don’t suppose you can tell me where to find Rajaat.”

  Khidar pointed a black finger toward the edge of the burning thicket. Although the halfling’s head was now completely solid, the rest of his body remained a mere shadow. “Rajaat has told me you must look for him in the heart of Ur Draxa,” Khidar said. “When those trees are gone, you’ll see a great boulevard running toward the center of the city. My scouts tell me that it ends beneath a great arch embedded in the inner wall.”

  “What then?” Tithian asked.

  “By the time you reach it, we will know for certain whether Rajaat lies beyond,” he said. “If so, one of us will take you to the other side.”

  Tithian shook his head. “If I slither down a major street with the Lens in my tail, I’m going to attract a lot of attention.”

  The king illustrated the problem by sending a series of squirms down his serpentine body.

  “So disguise yourself,” snapped Sacha.

  “As what?” Tithian countered. “Anything large enough to carry the Lens will draw attention. I can probably destroy whatever they send at me, but it’ll take time we don’t have.”

  “Don’t worry about a disguise,” said Khidar. “I’ll make certain the Draxans are too busy to concern themselves with you. Besides, until you destroy Rajaat’s prison completely, my people can emerge from the Black only partially. With us wandering through the city, you’ll be only one of many strange things loose in the streets.”

  The halfling led the way toward the burning trees at the edge of the park.

  Crossing the plain took longer than Sadira had expected. She and Rikus ran until her breath came in painful gulps, filling her lungs with fire and racking her ribs with agony. They slowed their pace, continuing until fatigue so numbed the sorceress’s legs that she could hardly stumble along.

  “We’d better walk for a while,” she said, breathing hard. “If I turn an ankle, we won’t catch Tithian at all.”

  The mul slowed his pace and came to her side. “I don’t suppose you’ve any magic left?”

  Sadira shook her head. “I’ve already used the enchantments that could help us.”

  During the day, when she was imbued with the sun’s power, Sadira could shape her magic with little more than a thought. But at night, she was like any
other sorceress. She could use only spells whose mystic runes she had impressed on her mind through hours of rigorous study. Unfortunately, speaking an enchantment’s incantation erased its runes from the mind, so the caster could not use the spell a second time until she studied it again.

  “There’s no use worrying,” said Rikus. “Before he can free Rajaat, Tithian’ll have to find him—and with the sorcerer-kings after him, that could take some time.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Sadira glanced at the sky ahead. The black spout still rose from the top of the cliff, and she could see by the lengthening gap in the red clouds that it had begun to move. The sorceress returned her gaze to the ground, picking her way across the jagged stones as quickly as she could.

  After a few steps, Sadira said, “There’s something I need to say, Rikus.”

  The mul raised an eyebrow but kept his attention fixed on the broken ground. “What is it?”

  “I owe you an apology,” Sadira said. “When I found out Agis was gone, I felt guilty for letting him die without the heir he wanted. I’ve been using you as a scapegoat for those feelings, telling myself that the only reason I didn’t carry his baby was because it would make you jealous.”

  Rikus continued forward. “Was that the reason?”

  Sadira hesitated before answering. She had made her apology, as she had promised Neeva, and did not know if it was necessary to discuss her feelings any further.

  “Then I’m the one who owes you an apology,” said Rikus. “If I stopped you from giving Agis something so important—”

  “That wasn’t why I refused,” Sadira interrupted. “I didn’t want a baby because I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?” the mul scoffed. “How can the woman who braved the Pristine Tower, who faced down the Dragon, be frightened of something as common as childbirth?”