Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 5 - The Cerulean Storm

Most men called it shadow, that dark stain visible only as an absence: the cold gloom cast
upon the ground when their bodies blocked the light of the crimson sun. Wiser minds
referred to it as the Black, and they knew that it separated everything that existed from
everything that did not. It lurked just beneath the surface in all things, like the
leathery shell of some great egg, buried shallow and about to hatch. Outside lay the
barren mountains, the endless sand wastes, and the bleak, windswept plains that were the
world of Athas. Inside lay the Hollow, filled with the languid albumin of nothingness.

Within this colorless ether floated the bones of an ancient skeleton. It lay curled into a
tight ball, its shoulder blades fused into a large hump and its gangling arms wrapped
around its knees. The skull seemed remotely human, though the slender jawbones, drooping
chin, and flat cheekbones insinuated that this was not entirely true.

The skeleton filled the Hollow completely, but it would have been wrong to call the thing
huge. In this place, size had no meaning. Only existence mattered, and by the mere fact
that it
was,
the skeleton occupied all of the vast emptiness inside the egg.

The skeleton scratched at the murky shell with long barbed talons, dreaming of the day it
would be reborn. For the first time in an eternity, it felt confident of escaping its
timeless prison. Forks of lightning circled its misshapen skull like a crown. Sparks
danced in the empty sockets where once it had possessed eyes.

Beneath the scratching talons appeared a pair of blue embers and a long slitlike mouth.
The features were all the skeleton ever saw of its servants. The shadow people were part
of the Black, as trapped within the dark shell as their master was inside the emptiness of
the egg.

We felt your summons, Omnipotent One.

The servant used thought-speech to report, for sound did not exist within the skeleton's
eternal prison.

I have been thinking, Khidar,
the skeleton replied. It slowly twisted its oblong skull around to stare more directly
into the shadow's eyes.
The sorcerer-kings must be near when the Usurper frees me.

That's too dangerous! The servant's eyes grew larger and brighter. The six of them have
grown stronger than you know, Rajaat. They'll destroy us!

A ball of lightning formed above Rajaat's head. They won't destroy me! he snarled. If you
hesitate to sacrifice a few lives so I may return Athas to its greater glory, perhaps you
should remain in the Black.

Khidar winced, his eyes and mouth sliding down the inside of the black shell.
Our fates are bound together,
he said, with more regret than enthusiasm.
We have no concern except the future of Athas.

Never forget that, Rajaat hissed, the blue rays in his empty eye sockets flickering in
ire. Think of all that I have sacrificed to return the world to your people, and follow my
example.

We are most grateful, Khidar assured him. We'll see to whatever you wish.

Good. It would be best to avenge the sorcerer-kings' betrayal before proceeding with the
Restoration, Rajaat said. The lightning began to crackle more steadily and calmly over his
head. After that, we'll cleanse Athas of the most profane strains of the degenerate races.
The half-breeds shall die first.

Which ones?
asked the servant.

All of them: half-elves, mills, half-giants, every filthy abomination produced through an
unnatural union. We must kill them as soon as possible.

As you wish.

The New Races come next,
Rajaat continued, knotting the barbed talons of both hands into tight fists.
There are so many! It may take us a century.

We must expect opposition, Khidar warned. Sadira and Rikus-

Are half-breeds. They'll die with the others! the skeleton pronounced. I'll destroy them
as soon as I finish with the sorcerer-kings.

What of the Usurper? asked Khidar. Will you make him a sorcerer-king?

Yes, I'll keep my promise, provided he honors the cause of the Pristine Tower, Rajaat
answered.

And if he betrays us like Borys and the others?

My new champion will never do such a thing, the skeleton replied. After he witnesses the
fate of the other traitors, he will not dare. would have been wrong to call the thing
huge. In this place, size had no meaning. Only existence mattered, and by the mere fact
that it
was,
the skeleton occupied all of the vast emptiness inside the egg.

The skeleton scratched at the murky shell with long barbed talons, dreaming of the day it
would be reborn. For the first time in an eternity, it felt confident of escaping its
timeless prison. Forks of lightning circled its misshapen skull like a crown. Sparks
danced in the empty sockets where once it had possessed eyes.

Beneath the scratching talons appeared a pair of blue embers and a long slitlike mouth.
The features were all the skeleton ever saw of its servants. The shadow people were part
of the Black, as trapped within the dark shell as their master was inside the emptiness of
the egg.

We felt your summons, Omnipotent One.

The servant used thought-speech to report, for sound did not exist within the skeleton's
eternal prison.

I have been thinking, Khidar,
the skeleton replied. It slowly twisted its oblong skull around to stare more directly
into the shadow's eyes.
The sorcerer-kings must be near when the Usurper frees me.

That's too dangerous! The servant's eyes grew larger and brighter. The six of them have
grown stronger than you know, Rajaat. They'll destroy us!

A ball of lightning formed above Rajaat's head. They won't destroy me! he snarled. If you
hesitate to sacrifice a few lives so I may return Athas to its greater glory, perhaps you
should remain in the Black.

Khidar winced, his eyes and mouth sliding down the inside of the black shell.
Our fates are bound together,
he said, with more regret than enthusiasm.
We have no concern except the future of Athas.

Never forget that, Rajaat hissed, the blue rays in his empty eye sockets flickering in
ire. Think of all that I have sacrificed to return the world to your people, and follow my
example.

We are most grateful, Khidar assured him. We'll see to whatever you wish.

Good. It would be best to avenge the sorcerer-kings' betrayal before proceeding with the
Restoration, Rajaat said. The lightning began to crackle more steadily and calmly over his
head. After that, we'll cleanse Athas of the most profane strains of the degenerate races.
The half-breeds shall die first.

Which ones?
asked the servant.

All of them: half-elves, muls, half-giants, every filthy abomination produced through an
unnatural union. We must kill them as soon as possible.

As you wish.

The New Races come next,
Rajaat continued, knotting the barbed talons of both hands into tight fists.
There are so many! It may take us a century.

We must expect opposition, Khidar warned. Sadira and Rikus-

Are half-breeds. They'll die with the others! the skeleton pronounced. I'll destroy them
as soon as I finish with the sorcerer-kings.

What of the Usurper? asked Khidar. Will you make him a sorcerer-king?

"Yes, I'll keep my promise, provided he honors the cause of the Pristine Tower, Rajaat
answered.

And if he betrays us like Borys and the others?

My new champion will never do such a thing, the skeleton replied. After he witnesses the
fate of the other traitors, he will not dare.

King Tithian of Tyr gnashed his teeth in vexation, accidentally crushing the sweet chadnut
upon which he had been sucking. The pulp filled his mouth with sour, peppery seeds that
burned his tongue and made his eyes water. He swallowed the kernels in a single gulp,
hardly noticing the fiery aftertaste that chased them down his throat.

“It's a whole damned fleet!” His old man's voice was hoarsened by the spicy chad seeds.

The hunch-shouldered king stood behind a low stone wall, peering through a curtain of
swirling dust. A thicket of masts had just appeared in Samarah's tiny harbor. While the
thick haze prevented a reliable ship count, Tithian could see so much billowing canvas
that the flotilla looked like a cloud bank rolling in from the Sea of Silt.

“Why should the fleet anger you, Mighty One?” asked Korla, clinging, as always, to
Tithian's arm. She was the fairest woman in the village, with ginger-colored hair and a
sultry smile. That did not mean she was beautiful. A life of heat and dust had framed her
brown eyes with deep-etched crow's-feet, while the sun had baked her skin until it was as
creased and rough as a man's. Korla clasped the king's elbow more tightly. “Your retainers
wouldn't dare come for you with anything less than a dozen ships.”

Tithian pulled free and straightened his shoulder satchel.

She frowned. “Soon you'll show me the wonders of Tyr-won't you?”

“No.” Tithian fixed a disdainful glare on her weather-lined face.

“You can't leave me behind!” Korla objected. She glanced at the small crowd of villagers
gathered behind the wall. “After what I've been to you, the others will-”

“Quiet!” Tithian ordered. He waved a liver-spotted hand toward the harbor. “That isn't my
fleet. Rikus and Sadira will come by land, not ship.”

Korla lowered her eyelids and sighed in relief.

“Don't be too relieved,” said Riv, Korla's brawny husband and Samarah's headman.

An elf-tarek crossbreed, Riv had a square, big-boned face with a sloped forehead and a
slender nose. Standing so tall that the village wall rose only to his waist, he cut an
imposing figure. Normally, Tithian would have killed such a rival outright, but the
headman had taken pains to make himself indispensable as an intermediary to the villagers.
Besides, the king enjoyed flaunting Korla's adultery in front of him.

“Your reign as whore-queen will end soon enough.” Riv glared at his wife.

“Why's that?” Tithian demanded, shuffling around Korla to confront the huge crossbreed,
“Is there a reason I should fear those ships?”

Riv shrugged. “Everyone should fear Balkan armadas. But I see no reason they should
concern you especially,” he replied. He raised the thin lips of his domed muzzle, showing
a mouthful of enormous canine teeth. “I only meant that Korla shouldn't expect to go with
you when the time comes. I've seen enough of Athas to know she'd only be an embarrassment
in the city.”

“You may have seen the brothels of Balk, but you know nothing of life in Tyr's royal
court,” Korla spat back. She regarded her husband suspiciously, then continued, “Now
answer the king's question. We haven't seen a Balkan fleet for more than a year. Why now?”

Riv sneered. “Ask your lover,” he said. “He's the mindbender.”

“I'll know the answer soon enough,” Tithian said, thrusting his hand into his shoulder
satchel. “And if you ever again refer to me as anything but King or
Mighty One,
you'll beg for your death.”

Riv blanched. The king had pulled spell components from the sack often enough that the
headman recognized the gesture as a threatening one. What Riv did not realize was that
Tithian could also withdraw a venomous viper, a vial of acid, or any one of a dozen other
tools of murder from inside. The sack was magical, and it could hold an unlimited supply
of items without appearing full.

Riv glared at Tithian for a moment, then hissed, “As you wish,
Mighty One.”

Tithian spun toward the center of the village, signaling for Korla and Riv to follow him.
As they moved through the dust haze, they passed a dozen stone huts shaped like beehives.
Inside most buildings, haggard women furiously packed their meager possessions-sacks of
chadnuts, stone knives, clay cooking pots, and bone-tipped hunting spears. Outside, the
men gathered the family goraks, knee-high lizards with colorful dorsal fans. It was a
slow, difficult process, for the stubborn reptiles were engrossed in overturning rocks and
catching insects with their long sticky tongues.

The king and his companions reached the village plaza. In the center was the communal
well, a deep hole encircled by a simple railing of gorak bones. A small crowd of children
surrounded the pit, arguing in panicked voices and elbowing each other out of the way as
they struggled to fill their waterskins.

On the far side of the plaza, outside the hut the king had confiscated from Riv, lay an
obsidian orb larger than a man, with languorous streaks of scarlet swimming over its
glassy surface. It was the Dark Lens, both the source of Tithian's power and the means
through which he would achieve his greatest ambition: to become an immortal sorcerer-king.

The Dark Lens had once blonged to Athas's first sorcerer, Rajaat. Thousands of years ago,
the ancient sage had started a genocidal war to cleanse Athas of races he considered
impure. To assist him, Rajaat had used the lens to make a group of immortal champions,
each dedicated to destroying one race.

After dozens of centuries of fighting, the champions had learned that their master
intended to strip them of their powers. They had rebelled, using the Dark Lens to lock
Rajaat into a mystical prison. Then they had transformed their leader, Borys of Ebe, into
the Dragon, appointing him to guard the prison forever. The other champions had each
claimed one of the cities of Athas to rule as immortal sorcerer-kings.

Tithian intended to kill the Dragon and free Rajaat. In return, he had been promised that
the ancient sorcerer would bless him with the immortal powers of a champion.
Unfortunately, the Tyrian king could not hope to kill his prey alone. Borys was a master
of the Way, sorcery, and physical combat, and the Dark Lens would make Tithian powerful
enough to challenge the Dragon only in the Way.

The king knew who could help him: his former slaves Rikus and Sadira. A champion
gladiator, Rikus carried a magical sword that had been forged by Rajaat himself, while
Sadira's body had been imbued with the magical energies of Rajaat's mystic castle.
Together, the three of them would have the power to destroy Borys.