Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 5 - The Cerulean Storm (31 page)

Borys's howl shook the ground.

Neeva dove away. She rolled across her shoulders and came up facing the Dragon's flank,
her axe still in her hands. Ignoring the agony of her many burns, the warrior charged,
aiming her blade at the leg she had mangled before.

Borys pivoted away. Neeva found herself crossing the open plain without protection. The
Dragon fixed an eye on her, and white blazing pain filled her head.

“No!” She used her last act of free will to hurl the axe at him.

Borys's eye widened, and he shifted his gaze to the weapon. The axe tumbled through the
air end over end, flying straight toward his abdomen. He brought his good hand-the hand
holding her son and Sadira- down to block. The blade sliced across his forearm and bounced
toward the arch, drawing a whirling spout of yellow blood after it.

The Dragon's claw sprang open, allowing Sadira's legs to dangle free. Before the sorceress
could fall out, Borys flipped his hand palm-up. Neeva saw her son peering out from beneath
Sadira's sheltering form.

Borys's fingers twitched but did not close. He glanced down at them, curling the lip of
his long snout into a snarl. His claws trembled some more, and Neeva knew her blade had
severed a tendon.

“Sadira, get Rkard out of there!” the warrior yelled. When she saw that the sorceress was
already reaching for a pocket, Neeva sprinted toward her axe.

Borys cut her off with a single step. “I promised your cur of a child that he would see
you die.”

The Dragon fixed his eye on Neeva. Again, a terrible pain filled her head as he forced his
way into her mind. She continued to run-then a crimson glow lit the field. It was bright
enough to cast shadows on the ground, and she knew that Rkard had cast his sun-spell. The
agony in her head vanished. She looked up to see Borys's head swaddled in a globe of red
light.

Sadira pointed up at the Dragon's face. A bolt of blue energy crackled from her finger,
blasting away a large chunk of hide. Then the sorceress gathered Rkard up and leaped into
the air. Borys recovered quickly, lashing out at the flying escapees with both maimed
hands.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Neeva darted between the Dragon's legs. He lifted his
injured leg to stomp her. She dove for her axe, and saw the shadow of a huge foot falling
around her. Her face and chest scraped across the rough stone, then the warrior's hands
dosed around the handle of her weapon. Borys's heavy heel settled across her back. A
sickening crack sounded down near her waist, sending a searing wave of agony through her
hips.

Neeva screamed and tried to pull herself from beneath the beast's foot, but her legs would
not come free. Her toes went cold, then an icy tide of numbness rose through her feet, up
past her knees, and spread into her hips. To the warrior, it felt as if her legs had
vanished. Her own flesh and bone seemed as remote as the stone upon which she lay.

Growling in anger, Neeva used one hand to swing her axe over her back. She managed only to
strain her shoulder and strike a weak, glancing blow. The weapon slipped from her grip and
fell to the ground beside her.

Borys stepped away without reacting.

Neeva rolled herself over and tried to sit up. The muscles of her legs and hips would not
help her do even that much. She picked up her axe and braced the handle against the
ground. As the warrior pushed herself up, the ebony stain suddenly drained from the
weapon's blade. The bone hilt faded from black to its natural ivory color, and the light
falling over the plain dimmed from angry crimson to murky scarlet.

Neeva heard her son cry out in surprise, then Sadira cursed in anger. The warrior looked
across the plain and saw the pair crashing to the ground from a low height. Their limp
forms went tumbling across the broken plain. His head still encased in the fiery globe of
Rkard's sun-spell, the Dragon turned toward them and watched as the pair came to a stop.

“Get up!” Neeva yelled.

Rkard jumped to his feet and rushed to the sorceress's side. He started to pull her up,
but Sadira stood and pushed him behind her. When she turned to face the Dragon, Neeva saw
that the sorceress's skin was as white as alabaster.

* * * * *

Rikus and Tithian stepped between the pillars of the great arch, Sacha floating a few
steps behind. The edifice looked as though it had been shaped from a single block of
stone, for if there were any seams in the construction, they were not visible in the
polished face of the black granite. They walked farther down the passage. Rikus counted
thirteen empty alcoves lining the interior walls, the same number as the golems he had
destroyed. They reached the back of the arch and peered into the fiery sea.

“When did Borys vanish?” Tithian asked. “As he passed beneath the front of the arch, or as
he stepped out the back?”

“On the front side,” Rikus replied. “A sheet of orange fire covered the opening, and he
stepped through it.”

Tithian cursed. “He must have touched something, or spoken a word.”

“He growled for a second or two,” Rikus replied. “That's all.”

“That's it!” the king said, growing excited. “The arch must be controlled by a command
word. Repeat it exactly.”

“If I could sing like a lirr,” the mul replied, growing annoyed with the king. “My
throat's not built for sounds like that.”

“You must-or your friends are doomed,” Tithian said. He motioned across the molten sea,
then raised the leathery wings he had grown to lower them from the top of the hill. “It'll
take hours-maybe days-to fly across that.”

“Use the Way to transport us.” Rikus raised the Scourge menacingly.

Tithian shook his head. “I'd have to know what our destination looks like,” he said. “We
don't even know for sure that we want to emerge directly opposite this point.”

“Are you blind?” sneered Sacha. “That must be some kind of signal over there.”

Rikus peered closer and saw a crimson dot shining on the edge of the cliff. It was so tiny
and faint that he could hardly separate it from the orange glow rising from the molten
rock in the abyss, and for a moment he feared he was imagining it. Then he noticed that
despite the speck's tendency to shift positions in the rippling heat waves of the lava
sea, its brightness remained markedly steadily.

“I see it.” Rikus pointed the Scourge at the dot. “That's Rkard's sun-spell.”

Tithian shook his head. “It doesn't matter if I know where they are,” he said. “Unless I
can visualize the place itself, I can't take us there.”

“You incompetent!” snarled Sacha. “Must I do everything myself?”

“You couldn't teleport us across a door threshold, much less that.” The king gestured at
the boiling sea with one of his half-giant's arms.

Sacha ignored him, drifting around in front of Rikus. “I assume the boy's spell is bright
enough to cast a shadow?” When the mul nodded, the head swiveled around to look at
Tithian. “If you can do as well as a six-year-old mul, then I can get us to the other
side.”

Raising his brow, Tithian closed his eyes to concentrate-then a tremendous blast sent him
skidding toward the brink of the precipice. He scratched at the ground with all six claws,
barely saving himself from sailing into the sea of molten rock.

The king managed to back two steps away from the edge, then a shaft of golden light
flashed behind him.

His tail and wings disintegrated into a hundred tiny bits. The Dark Lens rolled off his
back and dropped to the ground. As soon as he lost contact with the lens, Tithian howled
in pain and began the change back to human form. His carapace shrank into a pair of
shoulder blades, while the stump of his bleeding tail retracted to become a tailbone and
his shredded wings folded down to form the flanks of his torso.

Rikus grabbed Tithian and hurled him toward the lens. Paying little attention to where the
king landed, he whirled around to face the front of the arch. At the entrance stood two
figures: a silky-haired woman with dark skin and a fang-filled mouth, and an imposing,
androgynous figure that resembled a miniature version of the Dragon. Both of their gazes
were fixed on Tithian, and it seemed likely to the mul that they were responsible for the
spells that had nearly destroyed the king.

Rikus assumed the woman to be Lalali-Puy, the Oba of Gulg, since Sadira had killed the
only other sorcerer-queen on Athas. He did not know the identity of the dragonlike figure.

The mul started forward to meet them. Three yellow runes streaked down from the face of
the arch and exploded on the ground, spraying rock and dust high into the air. When the
haze cleared, three more figures stood outside the edifice: a remotely avian man with a
scaly, beak-shaped muzzle and recessed earslits; another man with a muscle-knotted body
and a fringe of chalky hair; and a tall figure with the slit pupils, heavy nose, and thick
mane of a lion.

Recognizing this last figure from the war with Urik, Rikus gasped, “Hamanu!”

The sorcerer-kings ignored the mul, but the bird-featured man at Hamanu's side said,
“Perhaps I should not have doubted this plan of Borys's. It seems to be working well
enough.”

“Divide and conquer,” responded the chalky-haired sorcerer-king. “When will you learn,
Tec?”

“Andropinis, you will address me by my full name,” Tec hissed. “I am King Tectuk-”

“Your name is too long,” Jiamanu interrupted. “We have more important things to do.”

With that, Hamanu walked beneath the arch.

Tithian shoved Rikus forward to meet him. “Go on,” the king said. “With the Scourge, they
can't touch you.”

Though Sadira had told him the same thing before, Rikus frowned as he advanced.
“Something's wrong with that theory,” he said. “I fought Hamanu in the war with Urik. He
struck me then-in fact he almost killed me.”

Hamanu chuckled. “This time, I won't fail.”

The sorcerer-king leaped at the mul. Knowing better than to meet the charge head-on, Rikus
threw himself to the ground and rolled. He passed beneath his foe and slashed up at the
belly. A blue aura flashed around Hamanu's body as the Scourge sliced through the magic
defense, but that was as far as it sank. As it had nearly a decade ago in Urik, the blade
simply stopped cutting when it hit the sorcerer-king's flesh.

Rikus rolled once more, then brought his legs around beneath him. As he returned to his
feet, he slashed at the sorcerer-king's waist. Again, Hamanu's aura flashed, and the blade
clanged off his flesh without biting. The mul did not even see his foe's counterstrike. He
merely felt the sorcerer-king's heel smash into his chest, then found himself sailing
toward the front of the arch.

Rikus landed on his back, gasping for breath. Throwing his legs over his head, he rolled
on his shoulder and glimpsed the other four sorcerers close by. He sprang to his feet and
spun, slashing at the androgynous figure that resembled the Dragon.

A golden aura flared around the sorcerer-king's body, and green sparks sputtered high into
the air. The Scourge bit deep into the figure's withered shoulder.

The gaunt arm dropped to the ground, sickly brown blood spewing from the wound.

The figure howled in pain and lashed out at Rikus. The mul experienced an instant of
blackness, then found himself standing back at Tithian's side. The king had assumed the
form of a human-headed viper, with his giant tail wrapped around the Dark Lens. Along his
spine were several nasty burns, where he had used the lens's heat to cauterize the wounds
he had suffered from the first attack. Tithian and Hamanu had locked gazes, and appeared
to be engaged in a battle of the Way.

Rikus felt more relieved than disoriented by his sudden change of location. This was not
the first time the blade had moved him. Once before, when he had helped Sadira chase the
Dragon away from the village of Kled, it had simply transported him out of harm's way
whenever Borys struck.

“Hamanu!” screamed the wounded sorcerer-king, raising the stump of his arm. “This is your
fault!”

The distraction did not seem to affect the battle between Hamanu and Tithian. Both men
remained motionless, staring into each other's eyes.

Sacha appeared at Rikus's side, gripping Tithian's slender dagger between his teeth. The
head dropped the weapon into Rikus's hand.

“Hamanu wasn't one of the original champions,” Sacha whispered. “Rajaat created him to
kill the idiot Troll Scorcher, Myron of Yoram, so the Scourge's magic works backward
against him. The blade won't injure him, and while you're holding it you can't defend
yourself against his blows. Use plain steel against him.”

Rikus glanced back at Hamanu. The sorcerer-king remained locked in mental combat with
Tithian. His contorted face showed the strain of the long battle, with flaring nostrils
and beads of cloudy red sweat pouring off his leonine brow.

The mul slipped the dagger into his belt and started forward. As he advanced, he kept a
careful watch on his enemies and held his sword directly in front of him.

The injured sorcerer-king moved back. Rikus guessed that he was Nibenay, since that was
the only sorcerer-king's name the mul had not yet connected to a face.

The other three sorcerers hissed spell incantations. Rikus cringed, uncertain as to
whether the sword would protect him from their magic. A black shield appeared on
Andropinis's arm, while a cylinder of golden light rose up around the Oba of Gulg. King
Tec's flesh turned to bronze.

“What's wrong with you?” Sacha screeched, catching up with the mul. “Attack Hamanu.”

“No. It makes more sense for me to attack the others,” the mul said. “They can't injure
me, and Tithian has Hamanu under control.”

“Idiot! That's what they want!” Sacha hovered close to Rikus's head and hissed the words
into his ear. “Why do you think they're waiting instead of helping Hamanu? They're trying
to waste your time while Borys deals with Sadira. Then, after you're tired from fighting
the sorcerer-kings, the Dragon will come back and finish what they started.”