Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 5 - The Cerulean Storm (23 page)

The rope slackened as Rikus took his weight off it. The mul groaned in disgust, then
cried, “You!”

A muffled thump echoed up from the well, then a bloated head came flying out of the pit.
He had coarse hair pulled into a tight topknot, with puffy cheeks, eyes swollen to narrow
dark slits, and a mouthful of broken teeth. His leathery lips were caked with fresh
blood-no doubt licked from Caelum's head wound.

“Sacha!” Sadira cried.

The head regained his equilibrium and hovered in the air, regarding them with a malevolent
sneer. “It's high time you arrived,” he said. “Your king has nearly starved to death!”

Neeva ignored the head and leaned over the pit. “What'd you find down there, Rikus?”

“Our scouts-dead,” came the reply. Neeva heard the mul grunt, then there were several
splashes as he pushed their bodies aside. “And Tithian-at least I think it's him-with
something that could be the Dark Lens.”

Although this news should have delighted her, Neeva could not rejoice yet. “Anyone else?”

“Rkard's not down here,” answered the mul.

“Of course not,” Sacha sneered, drifting over in front of Neeva. “If you want to see Rkard
again, you'd better hurry and get Tithian out of that hole.”

Neeva lashed out, catching the head by his topknot. “Why?”

The head slowly spun around, facing the Sea of Silt. “Because the Dragon is taking him to
Ur Draxa, and I don't think Jo'orsh is going to wait very long for you to follow.”

Neeva followed his gaze. Having returned his gnarled head to his lumpy shoulders, Jo'orsh
was moving toward Samarah's harbor in long, silent strides.

As the dhow left Samarah's harbor, a gust of wind skipped across the swells ahead. Silvery
columns of dust swirled skyward, forming a chain of featherlike silhouettes against the
yellow horizon. For a moment, they hung like clouds above the pearly sea, then the bluster
died. The plumes slowly melted back toward the surface, forming a low-hanging dust curtain
that shrouded Jo'orsh's distant figure in a mantle of gray.

Tithian braced his arm on the tiller and pulled himself upright, sitting squarely on the
floater's dome. He peered out toward the open sea and cursed his lack of a king's eye.
With Jo'orsh wading through chest-deep silt, it had been difficult enough to see him
before the gust came up. Now, keeping the banshee's lumpy head in sight would be
impossible.

The effort of sitting upright was almost too much for the king. His time in the well had
reduced him to something of a skeleton. The pallid skin dangled from his sticklike arms in
loose folds, and each time he exhaled, his breath filled the air with the stench of
starvation. He had little desire for solid food, and the few morsels his former slaves had
forced him to eat sat in his distended stomach like rocks. The king thought that Sacha's
approach to helping him recover, trickling warm blood down his throat, had been much more
sensible.

After a few moments of peering into the dust haze, the king let his elbow slip over the
tiller and slumped back down. He was careful to keep his bare foot pressed against the
Dark Lens, which lay in the open bilge in front of him. He was drawing the lens's energy
through his body, using it to feed the dome and keep the ship afloat.

Tithian looked toward the top of the mast, where Sacha had positioned himself to serve as
a lookout. “I've lost sight of the banshee,” he called. “Can you see him?”

“Through this haze?” the head scoffed.

As Sacha replied, Neeva ducked under the low-hanging boom of the lateen sail and stepped
back toward him. Since her days in the gladiator pits, her skin had grown darker and less
sensitive to the sun, as demonstrated by the fact that she wore nothing but a leather
breechcloth and halter to protect her from its blistering rays. To Tithian's eye, she also
seemed more beautiful. Motherhood had given her a fuller figure, while her muscles were
more sinuous and less manlike. Her emerald eyes, however, remained as fiery and angry as
they had been when the king owned her-especially when they were looking at him.

Tithian met her glare. “What are you staring at?”

Without answering, Neeva picked her way toward the stern. It was not an easy task. They
had just entered the open sea, and the dhow was pitching badly as it rode across the dust
swells. To complicate matters, the small boat was crowded to overflowing. In the open
bilge lay Caelum, crammed in next to a dozen kegs filled with chadnuts and water. His head
had been bandaged, but he had not yet regained consciousness. To Tithian's way of
thinking, he was just taking up limited cargo space. Sadira stood along the port side,
braced between a barrel and the gunnel, holding the line that controlled the set of the
sail. On the opposite side of the boat sat Rikus, his bald head and pointed ears barely
visible over the cask tops.

As Neeva came abreast of the mast, she stopped to grab her battle-axe from between two
water barrels.

Tithian raised a brow. “I'd advise you to remember that without me, this boat will sink,”
the king said. “And with it, all hope of rescuing your child.”

“I don't care if we sink,” countered Neeva. “We've hardly left the harbor and already
we've lost sight of Jo'orsh. We'll never catch up to him-or my son.”

“The dhow is a sensitive craft,” Tithian replied. “We'd be traveling faster if Sadira had
left Caelum in Samarah with the other dwarves-as I suggested.”

“I doubt Caelum's weight is slowing us down that much.” Neeva raised her axe. “Besides, it
doesn't matter. We may have lost Rkard, but I want you to die before he does.”

“Don't be foolish, Neeva.” Sadira laid a restraining hand on the warrior's arm.

The action caused a subtle shift in the sail's trim and the dhow slowed. The sorceress let
a little line slip through her ebony fingers, returning the boom to its original position.

Once the dhow had returned to speed, Sadira looked back to Neeva. “Jo'orsh is showing
himself because he wants to help us track Rkard,” she said. “When he sees us falling
behind, he'll wait.”

“And let Borys escape with my son!” Neeva spat back.

That won't happen,“ Tithian said. ”Borys wants the banshee to follow. That's why he took
the boy."

“Explain yourself,” Rikus ordered. He rose and peered at the king over a water barrel. “If
you had something to do with the Dragon seizing him-”

“I wasn't even conscious,” Tithian spat. “But I do know Borys wants the banshees alive. In
Ur Draxa-his home-he has a way to make them dispel the magic that hides the Dark Lens from
him and the sorcerer-kings. The Dragon needs Rkard alive because Jo'orsh was sent to
protect the boy.”

Neeva frowned. “Sent?” she asked. “By whom?”

Tithian swallowed hard and found himself gripping the tiller so hard his gnarled joints
turned white. Nevertheless, the blunder did not cause the king to panic. He simply looked
Neeva in the eye and lied: “Agis sent them.”

“You don't expect us to believe that!” Sadira snapped.

“Not really, but it's the truth,” Tithian said, silently cursing the sorceress. Did she
have some way to tell that he was lying? “Jo'orsh and Sa'ram were guarding the Dark Lens
when we found it. They were going to kill both of us, until Agis told them about Kemalok
being uncovered. Then they left, saying something about the return of the king.”

“How'd they come by the Belt of Rank and Rkard's crown?” demanded Neeva.

“Why don't you tell me?” Tithian returned, dodging the question.

This was the moment the king had been dreading since Rikus pulled him from the well. In
the hurry to pack the dhow and start after Jo'orsh, there had not been time for his
temporary allies to interrogate him. But now, he sensed the questions would begin. As weak
as he was, Tithian feared it would be difficult to keep himself free of his own tangle of
lies.

Neeva picked up her axe again. “Your raiders stole those treasures from Kemalok.” She
stopped a pace in front of him, holding her weapon level with his neck.
“I
know that much, and ifs enough to warrant your death.”

Tithian did not flinch. “Do you really expect to frighten me? I know you won't strike-not
while you need me to rescue your son.”

Neeva's gaze burned with a profound hatred such as the king had never seen before, and he
had seen many, many kinds of hate. The warrior's arms began to tremble and tears of
frustration welled in her eyes. For a moment, the king feared she would actually lose
control of herself and strike. Then she gave a tremendous scream and spun away. Sighing in
relief, Tithian committed her expression to memory as a reminder of what would happen if
he allowed her to live a moment too long.

As Neeva returned to the front of the dhow, the king noticed Sadira staring at him.
Instead of blue-glowing embers, her eyes now resembled a pair of sapphire-colored suns,
each blazing with a radiance that nearly blinded him. The sorceress did not move or speak,
but merely continued to watch him. In that moment, Tithian understood why she had not
asked about Agis: she knew that her husband had been murdered by him.

“You won't kill me, either,” Tithian said, not as sure of his words as he would have
liked. “We want the same thing.”

“No. I want to kill the Dragon. You want to free a monster.” As Sadira spoke, a cloud of
black fumes shot from her mouth and coated Tithian's body, bringing with it a fearsome
cold that chilled his bones to the marrow. 'Tell me what you'll gain by helping Rajaat
escape," she ordered.

“Wh-what makes you think I want to?” Tithian gasped, his teeth clenched. The contrast
between the Dark Lens's heat and Sadira's cold made his bones feel as if they were
melting. He expected to burst into flame, or shatter like a block of ice, at any moment.
“I thought the champions killed Rajaat.”

“Don't lie to me!” Sadira hissed.

Again, the black fumes. “Stop it, wench!” Tithian's teeth chattered so badly he could
hardly force the words from his mouth. He wanted to use the lens and counterattack, but to
use the Way now, he would have to let the dhow sink. He could not allow that. The king
needed both Sadira and Rikus alive, at least until Borys no longer stood between him and
freeing Rajaat. “I c-c-command it!”

“You don't have to answer,” the sorceress said. “I'm enjoying this.”

“I'm too exhausted,” Tithian warned, fighting back the waves of darkness descending over
him. “The dhow will sink.”

“I don't think so,” said Sadira.

Tithian heard the sorceress whisper an incantation. The dhow suddenly rose out of the
dust, lifting its weight off the king's spirit. The boat's speed increased by half, and it
began to slice through the air as smoothly as an arrow.

“You still need me!” Tithian said. Hoping to use the Way to defend himself, he tried to
lock gazes with Sadira-but could not bear to look into the blazing blue suns of her eyes.
“What will you do if we don't catch Rkard before dark?”

“I won't kill you yet,” the sorceress replied. “You haven't suffered enough.”

An inky cloud boiled from between Sadira's blue lips, engulfing the king in cold vapor. He
opened his mouth to scream, but his frozen voice did not rise to acknowledge the pain. He
felt his feet slip from the Dark Lens, then sank into a bitter slumber more icy and black
than his own heart.

Later, after what seemed an eternity of bone-deep aching, Tithian returned to awareness,
not so much waking as crawling from beneath a terrible, crushing blackness. His body hurt
worse than it had before, as if that were possible, and he wondered-not idly-if Neeva had
beaten him while he slept. Slowly, the king came to realize that he was lying on the floor
of the dhow, stuffed between the side and the water casks. He heard voices, and the
speakers did not seem to realize he had returned to consciousness. Always one to spy,
Tithian kept his eyes closed and listened.

“I'm not saying we should let the Dragon keep Rkard,” said Sadira. “But I'm not so sure we
should kill him. I'm certain that Tithian's helping us destroy Borys only because it'll
make it easier to free Rajaat-and we know how much worse than Borys he would be.”

“So we should let the Dragon keep collecting his levies?” Rikus asked. “Never!”

“Rikus, that's not what I said-and you know it,” Sadira shot back.

The voices of both Sadira and Rikus seemed more harsh than necessary, leading Tithian to
suspect they were angry with each other-and wondering if he could use that fact to his own
advantage.

“We have the Dark Lens now,” Sadira continued. “Borys knows better than anyone how
powerful it is. We can force him to return Rkard and forsake his levies.”

“But what about the prophecy?” Neeva demanded. The banshees said Rkard would
slay
the Dragon. We can't just ignore them."

“Why not?” Sadira challenged. “They also said he'd do it at the head of an army of dwarves
and humans. Where is that army now? It took Borys and his sorcerer-kings about as much
effort to destroy all our warriors as it takes a mekillot to smash a jackal.”

“We must have misunderstood what they said about the army,” said Neeva. “If Jo'orsh and
Sa'ram said that Rkard will slay the Dragon, I have faith he will.”

Tithian had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing. The so-called prophecy was nothing
more than an elaborate ruse he had invented. Faced with the difficult task of overcoming
Jo'orsh and Sa'ram before he could steal the Dark Lens, the king had instead lured the
banshees away from their duties by convincing them their thousand-year-old ruler had been
reincarnated as a mul child.

It had never occurred to Tithian that his deception would dupe anyone other than the two
spirits, but it appeared his former slaves were bigger fools than he imagined. He could
hardly wait to see what happened when a six-year-old boy tried to kill the Dragon. The
entertainment might even be enough to repay him for the indignities he was suffering at
the hands of the child's mother and her friends.