Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 5 - The Cerulean Storm (20 page)

In the middle of the confusion stood Rkard, gaping at the dying company with wide,
frightened eyes and showing no sign of physical distress. In his hands he dutched the
sword tip that Rikus had given him earlier-which Sadira assumed to be the source of his
good fortune. Apparently, the shard afforded him the same protection that the Scourge
bestowed on Rikus. As long as he held the enchanted steel, the sorcerer-queen could not
harm the young mul with any sort of attack, whether physical, mental, or magical.

Thirty paces beyond the boy stood Abalach-Re. The Raamin queen was an ivory-skinned
beauty, with peaked eyebrows and huge, round eyes as baleful as they were dark. Her narrow
nose ended in a sharp point. She had full lips as red as rubies, a slender chin, and a
neck so long and thin it was almost serpentine. The queen's only weapon was a small
scepter, which had an eerie green light glimmering deep within its obsidian pommel.

Abalach raised a slender finger and beckoned to Rkard. The claw at the end of the digit
was as long as a dagger. “Come here, child,” she said, a forked tongue flicking over her
red lips. “I only want the banshees. I won't hurt you.”

Rkard shifted his grip on the broken blade. “Liar.”

Abalach's eyes flared, and she stepped toward the boy. “Then I'll come to you,” the queen
said. “The banshees will arrive soon enough-when I start breaking your little bones.”

Sadira could not tell whether the threat was a bluff or if Abalach did not realize the
nature of the shard in Rkard's hands, but the sorceress did not want to put the matter to
a test. She directed her palm at the pommel of the queen's scepter, which she knew served
as a sort of mystic lens. Through it, Abalach could pull the life-force from men and
animals, using it to power her mightiest spells.

Sadira forced a stream of the sun's energy from her hand. The beam was almost invisible as
it left her palm, a pink ripple in the hot desert air. With her attention fixed on Rkard,
Abalach-Re did not notice the faint shimmer as she drew it, along with the life energy she
was taking from Sadira, into her scepter's pommel.

The beam sank into the obsidian ball with a loud hiss. A crimson light flared in the heart
of the dark orb, and Sadira felt the outflow of her life-force cease. The pommel burst
into shards with a brilliant flash of scarlet, spraying jagged pieces of obsidian in all
directions. A ball of scintillating lights hovered briefly at the end of the scepter, then
sank into the salt-crusted soil like water.

Abalach-Re threw her useless scepter aside. She scowled at Sadira, then said, “That will
not save the child-or you!”

The
yaltnus
of the Bronze Company and two dozen warriors, all that remained conscious, pushed
themselves to their feet. Looking pale and nauseated, they stepped forward and attacked.
Their steel axes bounced off Abalach's ivory flesh without opening a single gash.

The queen began to slap them aside, her claws ripping through their breastplates as though
they were flesh. The
yalmus
landed at Rkard's feet, his armor torn open to reveal a gory mess beneath. The young mul
backed away, his eyes wide with horror as he watched Abalach savaging the rest of the
company. Sadira started forward to protect him.

As soon as Rkard stepped away from the Bronze Company, two lumps of gnarled bone appeared
at the boy's sides. They did not arrive so much as wink into existence, emerging from
empty air in the flicker of an eye. The figures were as large as giants, and so twisted
they could not even be called skeletons. One even lacked a head, though both had long gray
beards dangling from where their chins should have been.

Abalach broke the last dwarf's neck, then smirked up at the two apparitions. “Jo'orsh,
Sa'ram!” she said. “Come.”

Sadira stepped between the banshees and the Raamin queen. “What do you want with them?”

It was one of the banshees who answered. “The lens. Our magic hides it from the Dragon and
his minions.”

“Only until Borys's spirit lords finish with you,” said Abalach. The queen cast a spiteful
glare at Sadira, then lashed out, her daggerlike daws arcing at the sorceress's throat.

Sadira twisted away and ducked. The talons raked across her shoulder, tearing away wisps
of black shadow. The sorceress struck back, her hands cupped together and glowing scarlet
with the power of the sun. The fists caught Abalach square in the jaw. The queen's head
snapped back, and her feet came off the ground. She landed half a dozen paces away, among
the dwarves she had killed earlier, and immediately started to rise.

Realizing there was no time to cast a spell, Sadira moved to attack again. Abalach locked
gazes with her, and the image of a lirr appeared in the queen's dark eyes. It resembled a
large lizard with tough, diamond-shaped scales and a tail covered with thorny spines.
Sadira realized instantly that the thing was a mental construct, that Abalach was
attacking with the Way.

The lirr flared its magnificent neck fan and opened its pink gullet, then flashed across
the space separating the two women. It tore into Sadira's mind with such force that the
sorceress cried out in pain and actually tumbled over backward, slamming the back of her
skull into the salt plain.

The saurian appeared on the shadowy plain of Sadira's intellect, then began to rip great
gobs of spongy black matter from the ground. The sorceress's head exploded into pain, and
she could hardly believe that it was only her thoughts that the beast was gulping down.
She had never felt a mental attack this powerful.

Nevertheless, remembering what her husband Agis had taught her, Sadira focused her
thoughts on fighting the terrible beast. She opened a pathway to her spiritual nexus,
imagining a dark cord running down to deep within her abdomen. She concentrated on the
black matter of her mind, and visualized it hardening into granite. A seering wave of
energy rose from deep within her body. The shadowy material hardened into rock, catching
the creature in the process of ripping away another large hunk of ground and encasing its
claws in solid stone.

A mad cackle erupted from the beast's throat. “How many wenches like you have I killed?”
it chortled, speaking in Abalach's voice. “A thousand years of battle, and you dare to
think you can stop me!”

With that, the lirr rose to its hind legs, its trapped claws ripping away two great chunks
of Sadira's mind. White flashes of pain erupted all through the sorceress's head. The
beast dropped back down, smashing the rock encasing its talons, and began to tear away
great chunks of black stone. Sadira heard someone screaming and realized it was her. She
summoned more spiritual energy, hoping to counterattack, but the only thing that rose in
response was a wave of bile.

The sorceress continued to fight, trying to create a wyvern or a baazrag to counter
Abalach's construct. She simply did not have the power. The lirr continued to rip through
her mind, until at last rays of white radiance began to flood her head, and she knew she
would fall unconscious.

Then, from somewhere, she heard Rkard yell in anger as he attacked Abalach. The lirr
screeched, then went limp and faded away as rapidly as it had come. Sadira found herself
alone inside her wounded mind, lost in a white fog of pain.

“Help!” the young mul called.

Though she did not remember closing them, Sadira opened her eyes. She found Abalach-Re
five paces away, thrashing wildly and trying to shake young Rkard from her back. Sa'ram
stood at her side. With the rigid shards of bone that served him as arms, the banshee was
ineffectually trying to pluck the young mul off the Raamin queen.

Sadira pulled a tiny bead of silver from her pocket and yelled, “Rkard, let go!”

At the sound of her voice, Abalach spun around. Rkard opened his hand and sailed away,
crashing down on an unconscious dwarf. He left the Scourge's broken tip planted in the
queen's back.

Sadira spoke her incantation and flicked the silver bead at the shard, hoping to drive it
through Abalach's heart. The pellet streaked straight to its target, striking the jagged
blade at a shallow angle. There was no blast of magical power, as the sorceress had
expected. Instead, a pearly aura spread over the steel and it began to hum with a
high-pitched chime.

Abalach's eyes went wide. She twisted a hand around behind herself, trying to reach the
blade. Sa'ram stepped closer, lowering his skeletal arm to attack the queen's back. Before
the banshee could touch her, the Scourge stopped chiming. A huge geyser of black fluid
shot from the shard's jagged end and splattered Sa'ram's gnarled form.

The inky liquid spread quickly, coating the banshee beneath a thick layer of ebony slime.
Wherever the fluid stained Sa'ram's twisted bones, they untwined and rearranged themselves
into a less contorted skeleton. The back grew round and hunched, while the arms became
long gangling things that ended in barbed talons. The banshee's gray beard disappeared,
then a skull of sable bone rose from the shoulders in its place. The head seemed remotely
human, with a drooping chin, a small jawbone, and a pair of rather flat cheekbones. Blue
sparks replaced the banshee's orange eyes, while a crown of yellow lightning crackled
around his skull.

“Rajaat!” Abalach gasped, facing the apparition.

“Uyness of Waverly, Ore Plague!” The skeleton stared down at the queen, billows of black
fume shooting from its nostrils. “I have come for you, traitor!”

Abalach stumbled away. “No! You can't be free!”

Sadira sprang at the queen's back. Slipping one arm around Abalach's throat, she used her
other hand-and all her supernatural strength-to drive the Scourge's tip deeper into the
queen's body. She felt the steel grate against a bone, then pass into a lump of softer
tissue.

Abalach howled in pain, but abruptly fell silent when Sadira twisted the blade. A
convulsion ran through the queen's entire frame, and she fell limp. Brown smoke began to
pour from her nostrils and mouth. Her limbs went stiff, and the muscles of her stomach
started to quiver. A terrible heat poured off her body, and her clothes began to smoke.

Sadira turned and hurled Abalach away, not bothering to extract the Scourge's tip. The
queen spun through the air with her arms and legs splayed stiffly at her sides. She
dropped to the ground a dozen paces away, landing with a hollow thud. For a moment, the
body just lay there, staring blankly into the sky while brown fumes rose from its nose and
mouth. Finally, the corpse folded in on itself, then burst into a column of bronze flame.
The explosion left nothing behind except a salt crater stained brown with soot.

When Sadira looked back toward the black skeleton, she found it melting into a pool of
bubbling sludge. The only recognizable feature was the head, and even it was quickly
dissolving. The sorceress saw no sign that the ebony mass would reassemble itself into
anything resembling Sa'ram. She silently spoke a few words of gratitude for the banshee's
efforts to protect Rkard.

A moment later, Rkard took her hand and tugged at her arm. “Come on,” he said. “Jo'orsh
says that stuff's dangerous.”

The sorceress opened her eyes and allowed the boy to lead her to Jo'orsh's massive figure.
“I'm sorry about your friend,” she said, craning her neck to look into the banshee's
orange eyes.

“There is no need for sorrow,” said Jo'orsh. “A banshee can hope for nothing except to
find rest, and now Sa'ram has.”

“And what of that?” Sadira asked, gesturing toward the black pool. “Was that really
Rajaat?”

“Yes,” the banshee replied. “Your spell allowed his essence to escape the Scourge's shard.”

The sorceress swallowed and stared at the bubbling fluid. “How do we put it back?”

“You cannot,” Jo'orsh replied. “But there is no need for worry. Like Rajaat himself, it is
locked inside the Black. It can harm only those foolish enough to touch it of their own
wills.”

A shiver of terror ran down the sorceress's spine. “Then the sorcerer-kings didn't kill
Rajaat?” she asked, turning back to the banshee.

Jo'orsh did not answer, for he had vanished as quickly as he had arrived.

“What happened to your friend?” Sadira asked, taking Rkard's hand.

“He's still here-like always,” the boy said. He scowled thoughtfully, then looked up
Sadira. “It's okay that I helped you, isn't it?”

Sadira furrowed her brow and pretended to consider his question seriously. “I don't know.
Didn't your mother tell you no heroics?”

“She did,” the young mul grumped. “But I don't see why. Rikus gets to be brave.”

He pointed toward the oasis. When Sadira turned around, she saw her husband charging up
the hill on the heels of the Raamin army, waving his sword and cursing his enemies for
cowards. The sorceress could not help laughing. The mul did not seem to realize that
Caelum had bridged Abalach's chasm with an arc of flickering flame, or that Neeva was
leading four hundred warriors-all that remained of the Tyrian legion- across the trestle
to help him.

Sadira started toward the chasm. “Come on,” she said. “We'd better let Rikus know the
battle's over.”

The two imxes stood in the center of the dusty plaza, their saddles empty and their reins
hanging loose. Having battered down the bone railing that enclosed the village well, the
great lizards had stuck their horny beaks into the dark hole as far as their stocky necks
allowed. Apparently, they could not reach the water, for they were bellowing angrily and
snapping their serpentine tails from side to side. The beasts' riders, four Tyrian scouts,
were nowhere in sight.

Magnus stood at the edge of the plaza, his dark eyes searching for some sign of the
missing riders. He counted fifty-two stone huts ringing the plaza, each shaped like a
beehive and covered with a scaly roof of gorak hide. He did not see any villagers peering
out of the doorways, nor any of their herd-lizards roaming the dirt alleyways between the
shacks. The place looked deserted. Even the scouts seemed to have disappeared without
leaving any footprints by which to track them.