by Troy Denning
Er'Stali looked up from his tablet to add an explanatory note. "The Book of Kings did not name all of these champions, but from what I can tell, each was to annihilate an entire race, much as Borys tried to destroy the dwarves. I have seen references to Albeorn, Slayer of Elves, and Gallard, Bane of the Gnomes."
"Gnomes?" asked Rikus.
"The book doesn't say what they are," answered Er'Stali The old man looked back to the tablet, then continued reading. "Fo'orsh and Sa'ram left the Citadel of Ebe and traveled with their retainers into the wild lands beyond the Great Lake of Salt until they sighted a spire of white rock in the distance. Here, all manner of horrid guardians appeared. They left their squires and retainers in a safe place, then continued to the white mountain alone. When they entered the Pristine Tower, they found that, like the Citadel of Ebe, it was abandoned, save for the shadow giants—"
Sadira noticed Rikus's face go pale, so she asked, "What do you know of these shadows?"
The mul shrugged. "Maybe nothing, but during the war with Urik, Maetan sometimes summoned a shadow-giant that he called Umbra," the mul said. "The thing wiped out an entire company by himself?"
As Rikus spoke, Er'Stali began to wheeze. He feebly clutched at his bandages, as if they were squeezing his ribs and making it difficult to breath.
"I'll get Caelum," Rikus said, starting for the door.
"No," Er'Stali croaked, waving him back. "He's done all he can today."
Fearing that the stress of their visit had weakened the old man, Sadira said, "Perhaps we should let you rest and come back later."
Er'Stali shook his head, uttering, "Later, I might be dead—just give me a minute to catch my breath."
They waited several moments for the old man to regain control of his breathing. Finally, pausing at short intervals to gasp for air, he began to read again.
"Here Sa'ram met the shadows, whom he bribed with obsidian. They told him that Rajaat and his champions had argued over the annihilation of the magical races, then fought a terrible battle against each other. By the time it had ended, Rajaat ruled the Pristine Tower no more. He was taken to the Steeple of Crystals and forced to use its arcane artifacts to make Borys into the Dragon."
"To make Borys into the Dragon?" Rikus gasped.
Er'Stali nodded. "Now you know all the Book of Kings says about the Dragon."
"It's not much help," said Rikus.
"What happened to Rajaat and the other champions after Borys became the Dragon?" asked Agis.
"The book did not say," Er'Stali answered, wearily. "Jo'orsh and Sa'ram left the tower and sent their squires home. They were never seen again, but, obviously, they did not slay Borys."
"That's all?" asked Agis, incredulous. "The champions helped Borys become the Dragon, then disappeared without resuming their attacks on the other races?"
Er'Stali shrugged. "Who can say? You already know that after Rajaat's fall, Borys returned as the Dragon to attack Kemalok. It also seems that Gallard destroyed the gnomes—I have never seen one, have you?" When Agis shook his head, the old man continued. "Perhaps the other champions fell against Rajaat, or perhaps they were too weak to fight any longer. All I can say is that the book ends with the disappearance of Jo'orsh and Sa'ram."
The old man returned the tablet to its place.
Rikus turned to Sadira and Agis. "I'm sorry," said the mul. "It was a wasted trip."
Sadira frowned. "How can you say that?" she demanded. "We don't have the answers we need, but we know where to look."
"The Pristine Tower?" queried Rikus.
Sadira nodded. "If we are to learn more of Borys, we will learn it there."
"Don't be ridiculous," said Agis. "Even if we knew where to find it, we can't be sure the place still stands."
"The Pristine Tower still stands, far beyond Nibenay," said Er'Stali. "The elves know where."
"What makes you so certain?" asked Rikus.
"Because the shadow-giant you mentioned came from there," Er'Stali explained. "In exchange for Umbra's services, Maetan hired a tribe of elves each year to lead a caravan loaded with obsidian balls to the Pristine Tower. The caravan drivers never returned, but Umbra always appeared when Maetan summoned him. I assume the obsidian reached the tower."
Sadira gave Agis a haughty smile. "You see?" she asked. "We'll go to Nibenay and hire a guide in the Elven Market."
"The journey could take a month, even longer!" Rikus objected.
"Which is why we must hurry," Sadira countered. "We don't know how soon the Dragon will come to Tyr, and it would be best if we returned to the city as quickly as possible."
"And what do you hope to accomplish at the tower?" Agis demanded.
"What we failed to accomplish here," Sadira answered. To learn enough about the Dragon to defy him. Besides, if we're lucky, we might even find some relics in the Steeple of Crystals that can help us."
"Forgive me for saying so," said Agis, "but I suspect that's the real reason you want to go to the Pristine Tower."
Sadira frowned. "What do you mean?"
He means that when you smell magic, nothing else matters," Rikus said. "Not even Tyr."
"That's not true!" Sadira retorted. "I love Tyr more than my own life!"
The mul shook his head. "It's magic you love," he said pointing at the cane in Sadira's hand. "Otherwise, you'd have returned Nok's staff by now."
"We'll need it to deal with the Dragon," the sorceress countered angrily. "And if you had kept the Heartwood Spear-"
"I promised to return it to Nok," Rikus interrupted, his tone sullen and final. "Just as you promised to return the staff."
"And I will keep that promise—when Tyr is safe from the Dragon," Sadira said. She moved to the door and flung the curtain open. "Now, when do we leave for the Pristine Tower?"
TWO
Separate Ways
Upon cresting the scarlet dune, the kank lurched to a halt. The beast twisted its blocky head from side to side, searching for a route down that Sadira saw it would not find. The wind had scoured the crest into a sheer face that dropped more than a dozen yards to the steep slip face below.
In the valley between Sadira's dune and the next one, the hard-packed sand of a caravan road snaked its way toward the mountains of the Tyr Valley. In the distance, just coming around an outcropping of yellow sandstone, were the dark specks of a caravan's outriders.
Sadira looked over her shoulder, to where the kanks of Rikus and Agis were continuing to struggle up the slope. 'The way's blocked by a scarp here," she called, waving her hand toward the west. "The descent looks easier over there."
After the two men signaled their acknowledgement, Sadira returned her attention to her own mount. When she tapped its antenna to make it turn left, the kank merely fixed one globular eye on her face and did not move.
The sorceress frowned at the strange look, wondering if the beast could sense the disquiet in her heart.
It had been two days since she and her companions had left Kled, and the sorceress had spent most of that time asking herself why Neeva's pregnancy disturbed her so. Her friend's condition made Sadira feel as though the world had become a prison, as if someone were forcing her into subtle bondage more inescapable than any she had known in Tithian's slave pits.
The sorceress knew such feelings had no basis, for she was not the one who would soon be entwined by the chains of parenthood. She suspected her uneasiness had more to do with her own family history than with Neeva's child.
In the days before Tyr's liberation, Sadira's mother, an amber-haired woman named Barakah, had supported herself through one of the city's few illegal occupations. King Kalak had declared it unlawful to buy or sell magical components in Tyr. Naturally, a thriving trade in snake scales, gum arabic, iron dust, lizard's tongue, and other hard-to-acquire items had sprung up in the notorious Elven Market. Barakah had made a living as runner between the secretive sorcerers of the Veiled Alliance and untrustworthy elven smugglers. She had also made the mistake of falling
in love with an elf, a notorious rogue named Faenaeyon.
Shortly after Sadira had been conceived, Kalak's templars had raided the dingy shop where Faenaeyon traded. The elf had escaped into the desert, leaving the pregnant Barakah behind to be caught and sold into slavery. A few months later, Sadira had been born in Tithian's pits, and that was where she had been raised.
Given this history, it was no wonder that Sadira did not trust the bonds of family love. Neeva might be happy living the rest of her life with Caelum and their child, but such domestic bliss was unthinkable for the half-elf. Deep inside, she would always be expecting the man to abandon her, as Faenaeyon had abandoned her mother. For Sadira, it was better to love two men at once. That way, she would never need either one so much that his departure would destroy her.
Sadira's thoughts came to an end when the kank began clacking its mandibles, then tried to back away from the edge of the bluff. When the sorceress tried to make it turn left instead, the beast froze in its tracks.
From the sands beneath the beast's feet rose a sigh, so deep and quiet that Sadira did not hear it so much as feel it in her stomach. The ground shuddered, then the kank squealed in alarm. The sorceress felt herself falling.
Sadira screamed and leaped from her bone saddle. She landed at the kank's side in a choking cascade of sand. She and the beast tumbled down the steep slope head over heels, a blood-colored cloud of grit billowing around them. In the whorl of sand, legs, and antennae, the sorceress lost all sense of direction. It was all she could do to hold onto her cane.
The half-elf glimpsed the kank's gray body crashing down upon her, sticklike legs flailing madly in the air. She cried out in alarm and kicked at its carapace with both feet. A painful jolt shot through her body and she rolled away from the massive beast, descending the rest of the slope in a wild series of backward somersaults.
Sadira came to a rest in a tangle of hair and limbs, buried to the waist and spitting bitter grit. The kank slid to a stop within a mandible's reach of her head, and the roar of avalanching sand continued to sound from above. Fearing she would be buried alive, the sorceress pointed her cane at the descending wall of sand.
"Nok!" she cried, speaking the word that activated the cane's magic.
A purple light glimmered deep within the weapon's obsidian pommel. Sadira felt an eerie tingle in her stomach then started to grow queasy. Beside her, the kank hissed in alarm as it, too, felt a cold hand reach inside it and draw away a portion of its life-force. Normal sorcery drew the energy for its spells from plants, but the cane utilized a more powerful kind of wizardry, one that drew its power from the life spirits of animals.
"Mountainrock!" she cried.
The sorceress moved her arm across the slip face. A vaporous wave of energy issued from the cane's tip. It settled over the slope like a net, catching the cascade in its golden light and bringing the avalanche to a quick halt. Crackling and hissing, the yellow haze lingered on the surface for several moments. Finally, it began to drain away, leaving a sheet of sandstone in its wake. By the time the fog was entirely gone, the unstable dune looming above had become a butte of solid rock.
Sadira breathed a sigh of relief and began digging herself out. The kank also began to claw itself free. With its six legs, it finished the task much more quickly than the sorceress, then dropped to its belly and lay trembling with its antennae pressed back against its head. It closed its formidable mandibles and plunged them deep into the ground, splaying its legs out to the side in a display of total submission.
"You don't have to be afraid," Sadira said, finally pulling herself free. "The spell is permanent."
From above, Rikus yelled, "Sadira, are you hurt?"
The mul came plunging down the rocky slope, his tough hide scoured red from sliding over the sandstone. In his hand he held the Scourge of Rkard, a magical sword that Lyanius had given him during the war with Urik. Behind Rikus followed Agis, his expensive wool burnoose hanging from his shoulders in tatters.
As soon as they reached the bottom of the butte, Rikus pointed toward the caravan Sadira had seen earlier. "Did they cause the avalanche?" he demanded.
Sadira shook her head. "The bluff just collapsed," she said. "Put your sword away. We don't want the drivers to think we're raiders."
As the mul complied with her request, Sadira turned her attention to the approaching caravan. The entourage had come close enough for the sorceress to see that its members were mounted on inixes. Most of the fifteen-foot lizards carried ingots of raw iron on their broad backs, though several were burdened with a rider's howdah instead. As they trundled along, their serpentine tails swished back and forth, sweeping up a small cloud of sand that kept the next beast in line from following too closely. They had long horny beaks, with pincerlike jaws that looked powerful enough to clip a man in half with a single snap.
"I wonder if they're bound for Nibenay?" Sadira asked.
Rikus and Agis gave each other a forbearing look. Since leaving Kled, they had been trying to talk Sadira out of going to the Pristine Tower.
"I thought we'd decided against that plan," Agis said, his tone overly patient and paternalistic.
"You decided," countered Sadira, turning toward her kank. The beast still lay in the sand trembling, but did not shy from her approach.
"Don't be a fool," growled Rikus. "Even if we find something to help us, we have little chance of returning in time to help Tyr."
"And we have even less chance of stopping the Dragon with what we know now," Sadira answered, climbing onto her mount's back. "Do you two have a better idea?"
Rikus looked to Agis, and the nobleman said, "Yes. There are many sorcerers and mindbenders in Tyr. Perhaps together we can find the strength to defy the Dragon."
"And if not, we can oversee the filling of the levy," added Rikus.
"You mean give up," Sadira said bitterly.
"I mean deal with the reality," said Rikus. "Thousands of people perished when I attacked Urik, and their deaths accomplished nothing except to annoy King Hamanu. If an entire army is only a minor irritant to a sorcerer-king, I don't see how we can stop the Dragon."
"What are you suggesting?" Agis demanded.
"That we limit ourselves to what is possible" Rikus answered. "Unless we stop him, Tithian will send only the poor to the Dragon. If we return to Tyr, at least we can be sure he fills the levy fairly."
"Fairly?" Sadira shrieked, forgetting herself. The kank began to shudder more violently. "How can you be fair about sending someone to his death?"
"You can't," Agis admitted, biting his thin lips. "Let us hope it won't come to that. A single person using magic or the Way can often succeed where a hundred strong men have failed. Perhaps a hundred sorcerers or mindbenders can succeed where Rikus's army could not.'
"And if you fail, you'll destroy the entire city," the mul countered. "It would be better to go to the Pristine Tower than to fight the Dragon. If we don't fight, only a thousand will die, instead of all."
Agis considered the mul's words, then offered a compromise. "I'll organize a council of the most powerful sorcerers and mindbenders in the city," he said. "If they cannot develop a plan for defying the Dragon, we'll do as you suggest."
"A committee isn't going to defeat the Dragon," Sadira growled. "For that, you need power and knowledge."
"Perhaps there is more of both in Tyr than we realize," the noble countered. He turned to Rikus. "What do you say?"
"How will we choose those who are to die?" the mul asked.
"You're assuming that my plan will fail, and it won't," Agis said. "But if it comes to that, we'll do our best to case the burden. We'll exclude the last bearers of a household name and the parents of young children—"
"So people like Rikus and me are dispensable, but people like you aren't?" Sadira demanded.
Agis frowned. "That's not what I said."
"But it's what you meant," Sadira spat. "How often have you said you need a child so the Asticles name won't die?"
"That's between Sadira and me," Agis replied.
"Hardly!" Rikus roared. "I love her, too!"
"Not that it has anything to do with the present situation, but the time has come for her to choose between us," the noble countered, not flinching in the face of Rikus's anger. "We should all be getting on with our lives."
"What makes you think Sadira will choose you?" the mul demanded.
Sadira awaited Agis's answer with a growing sense of outrage angered by his assumption that only Rikus stood between Agis and his wish that she bear him a child.
"Why should she choose you?" Rikus demanded again, this time in a menacing voice.
"Because you're a mul," the noble answered, anger and pity clashing on the patrician features of his face. "You can't give her children."
"Sadira's life is full without children. She has Tyr to think of?' Rikus said, looking toward the half-elf. ''Isn't that right?"
Sadira did not answer. Instead, she tapped the inside of her kank's antennae. As the beast rose to its feet, Rikus and Agis moved to her flanks.
"What are you doing?" demanded Rikus.
"I'm not chattel, to be taken by the winner of some childish contest," Sadira said.
"Of course not," said Agis. "We didn't mean to imply that you were. But the time is coming when we must settle our lives. It was well enough to put off painful decisions when we didn't know if we would live to see tomorrow, but—"
"That has not changed," Sadira interrupted angrily. "Or have you forgotten the Dragon?"
"The Dragon is something we'll always have to live with," said Rikus. "After wandering Athas for thousands of years, he's not going to disappear just because Tyr has been liberated."