Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 5 - The Cerulean Storm (40 page)

Staying submerged, the king swung under his log and came up on the other side, looking
toward the top of the arch. He saw the small figure of a halfling male. The man was
peering into the tangle of logs, no doubt searching for Tithian's body, and at the same
time slipping a cone-shaped pellet into the groove of a tiny crossbow.

Tithian ducked back under the water, knowing from experience how deadly the little
crossbows could be. During his short float trip down what had once been Ur Draxa's
processional avenue, he had seen dozens of halflings using the weapons, indiscriminately
killing the former residents of the city. They seemed entirely determined to murder every
non-halfling in sight.

Once the king judged the floodwaters had carried him safely out of range, he pulled
himself onto his log and gasped for breath. Although he was using the Way to augment his
strength, the effort of clinging to the tree in roiling floodwaters was wearing on his old
man's body. If this chase did not end soon, he feared he would be in no condition to steal
the lens back from Sadira.

Tithian propped himself up on his log and looked ahead. All he could see in front of him
was a bizarre, watery city that had once been Ur Draxa. The stern architecture had been
replaced by flowing bends and gentle curves, with not a sharp corner in sight. The granite
arches and marble buildings were now made of colorful rockstem, while the monuments lining
the avenue depicted mild-mannered halflings. Instead of axes and swords, these small
heroes held writing quills and vials of peculiar shapes, their placid expressions and
serene smiles strangely at odds with the murderous behavior of the bloodthirsty warriors
now roaming the canals.

Finally, Tithian spotted Rajaat's looming form at the end of the avenue, a walking storm
of cerulean clouds. Once again, a crown of lightning crackled around his head and gales of
rain poured from his hands. As Tithian watched, the ancient sorcerer lifted a foot and
kicked open the enormous gates. Rajaat ducked beneath the keystone and vanished from the
king's sight. The flood-waters rushed after him, pouring onto the plain beyond.

* * * * *

Sadira descended toward the crater and saw that the lake of bubbling black goo had
evaporated from the basin, leaving the interior as smooth as a glass bowl. In places, the
sheen rose almost as high as the rim, reflecting the rays of the blue sun back into the
center of the valley. There, the azure beams gathered in an ethereal ball that the
sorceress found as discomfiting as the new color of the heavens. As beautiful as they
were, blue skies and blue suns had no place above the deserts of Athas. They harkened back
to a gentler age, an age that could only be restored by killing most of what now lived on
the dusty planet. As much as Sadira longed for a better world, she would not pay the price
that Rajaat demanded. She had to stop him.

As the sorceress circled the basin, cold fingers of apprehension spread through her chest,
for she saw no sign of Neeva's hiding place. The rocks where Rikus had concealed the
warrior were gone, fused into the lustrous veneer of the caldron. Sadira tried to stay
calm by reminding herself of Rkard's strength. The boy was more than strong enough to
carry his mother to safety-assuming that whatever had scoured the crater clean had allowed
him the chance.

With an increasingly heavy heart, Sadira crossed to the outside slope of the rim and
continued her search. She did not call out. A gentle breeze was blowing toward the city,
and it would not do to have it carry her voice across the plain. She could already see
that Rajaat's towering form had left Ur Draxa and was coming toward her, and the last
thing she wanted was for him to hear her calling for Rkard and Neeva.

Sadira landed on the north side of the crater, where a high section in the opposite rim
would shelter her from Rajaat's view. She climbed up to a notch in the crest and deposited
the Dark Lens in the nook. She filled the gaps around the orb with dirt and rocks, her
magic-enhanced strength making quick work of the task. The sorceress was not trying to
hide the lens so much as prop it up and camouflage it well enough to keep it from being
seen at first glance.

After pausing to look around the area one last time, Sadira climbed up to the rim's crest.
She slowly circled back toward Ur Draxa, scanning the exterior slope of the crater and
forcing herself to resist the temptation to call the young mul's name.

The sorceress did not know what she would do if the boy had left or died. She was counting
on his spell to do what she could not: exterminate Rajaat. Sadira's powers, based as they
were on the ancient sorcerer's own magic, would be of little use in the coming battle. But
Rkard's powers were the opposite of Rajaat's. They were based in the element of fire,
while the ancient sorcerer was closely allied with the element of water. If anything could
destroy Rajaat, it would be Rkard's magic.

The sorceress stepped around a jagged crag and the ramparts of Ur Draxa came into sight,
glowing scarlet and emerald with the brilliant hues of living rockstem. Rajaat had already
crossed most of the plain. As he came forward, forks of lightning shot down from his crown
to strike at the ground, and torrents of rain poured from his hands. Thunder rumbled from
his mouth, and dark, seething plumes of vapor shot from his nostrils. On his heels came a
frothing wall of water, rolling across the broken ground and rapidly flooding the whole
plain.

Sadira ducked back behind the crag to prepare for the coming battle.

“Where's Rikus?” whispered a familiar voice.

Sadira bit her tongue to keep from yelling and spun around. Rkard stood a few steps away,
crouching behind a small boulder. The sorceress went to his side.

“I was afraid-I thought you had left,” she whispered, hugging him tight.
“Is
your mother safe?”

The boy nodded. “The black stuff started to boil, and we had to move. She sent me up to
get you,” he said. “Where's Rikus?”

“We'll look for him later,” Sadira said, standing. “Right now, I need your help.”

Tears welled in Rkard's eyes. “Rikus isn't coming back, is he?” he asked. “He's dead, just
like my father!”

Sadira kneeled in front of the boy. “We don't know that, Rkard!” she snapped, grasping his
shoulders tightly. “But we have to worry about ourselves and your mother now. Rajaat's
coming, and I need your help to stop him.”

Rkard looked away and bit his lip, gathering himself together. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing you haven't done many times before.”

Sadira guided him toward the Dark Lens, explaining her plan as they walked. When she
finished, she made the young mul repeat it twice. The sorceress did not think Rkard would
have trouble understanding what she required, for the task was simple and he was a smart
boy. She just wanted to make sure he knew that the plan would work even if she were killed.

After helping Rkard find a good hiding place, Sadira climbed a quarter of the way around
the crater. When she came to a place where the outside slope fell away in a sheer drop,
she stopped. This would be a good place to wait. She could jump behind the crater rim to
shelter herself from Rajaat's magic, while her ebon-skinned body would not be harmed by
the plunge to the sharp rocks below.

Rajaat's flashing crown appeared above the opposite rim, filling the caldron with echoes
of crackling lightning. The entire basin shook with the power of his thunderous bellows.
The ancient sorcerer started to climb, and frothing floodwaters began to whirl around the
base of the crater.

Sadira turned a palm toward the ground, summoning the power to cast a normal spell. As the
energy flowed into her body, she pulled a stick of incense from her pocket and watched
Rajaat's head appear above the far crest. His vaporish skin hung from his face in
billowing folds, with dark creases that gave him a fierce and sinister appearance. From
the size of his eyes and the diameter of his crown, she guessed the ancient sorcerer was
about the size of a giant.

Sadira waited until Rajaat had stepped onto the crest of the ridge, then pointed the
incense at him and uttered her incantation. The end of the stick flared and started to
burn. As the smoke rose into the air, plumes of steam began to trail off the ancient
sorcerer's misty flesh. Long gashes and round holes quickly opened, exposing the yellowed
bones beneath.

Rajaat waved a wispy claw over his body and muttered a counterspell. The incense in
Sadira's hand went out, and the steam stopped rising from the wounds on his body. The
ancient sorcerer stepped into the crater. When his feet slipped on the slick sides, he
spread his arms and floated down the steep slope like fog. He never took his eyes off
Sadira.

“I created sorcery,” Rajaat hissed, stepping across the basin. “How can you think your
pitiful skills a match for mine?”

Rajaat pointed a curved talon at her head. Sadira spun away, confident her plan would work
as she intended. Another step forward would bring her foe into perfect position for
Rkard's spell.

A string of mystic syllables rumbled from Rajaat's mouth. The throbbing roar of a mighty
whirlwind howled over the basin, and a spout of dark clouds shot from the ancient
sorcerer's finger. It streaked toward Sadira, hurling lightning and pounding columns of
water at her side of the crater.

The sorceress jumped off the cliff. The spinning winds hit behind her, ripping the rim
into an explosion of broken rock. The storm caught Sadira before she hit the ground and
lifted her into a swirling tempest of boulders and water. Lightning bolts stabbed at her
from every direction. When they struck, they did not die away, but crackled over her body
in an endless loop. She was quickly enclosed in a sizzling cage of energy, which flashed
twice around the whirlwind and disappeared into the dark clouds. The cyclone sped out
across the flooded plain.

A quarter of the way around the crater, Rkard peered over the Dark Lens and watched the
storm disappear. His breath came in gasps, and his heart was pounding so hard his chest
hurt, but he forced himself to stay calm and concentrate on what he had to do.

Rkard turned his gaze into the crater, where Rajaat's cloud-wrapped figure stood in the
middle of the basin. The ancient sorcerer's shadow lay against the western rim, looking
distinctly insignificant. Resisting the temptation to attack-and not at all certain he was
doing the right thing-the young mul waited. He did not take his eyes off his target for
even an instant, and hardly dared to blink.

Sadira had said that Rajaat would chase her, and that Rkard should not cast his spell
until the ancient sorcerer's silhouette fell across the bottom of the crater. It was the
shadow they wanted to destroy, not the cloud body.

Rajaat did not go after Sadira. Instead, he remained in the crater, pulling blue clouds
out of the sky and using them to patch his wounds. Rkard watched with an open mouth, more
in wonder than fear.

The ancient sorcerer continued to heal himself for several moments, stopping only when he
had covered all the holes on his body. Rkard braced himself for the attack, ready to call
on the sun's power as soon as his foe moved to follow Sadira. Rajaat did not cooperate.
Not even glancing toward the distant cyclone, the sorcerer ran his gaze over the interior
of the crater, searching for the Dark Lens.

Rkard touched his hand to the sun-mark on his forehead, not trusting the strange blue orb
in the sky to supply the magic he needed. He considered casting his spell at that moment,
before his enemy's glowing eyes could fall on the lens. Then he remembered what Sadira had
told him about how the sorcerer-kings had imprisoned the cloud, only to be attacked by the
shadow a few moments later.

“Rajaat isn't like us. He doesn't give form to his shadow,” she had said. “It shapes him.”

Rkard studied his foe's shadow more carefully. From the other side of the Dark Lens, he
could angle his spell to strike the silhouette where it lay now. Hoping this small change
wouldn't ruin Sadira's plan, but seeing no other way to do as she had instructed, he
crawled across the hot surface of the lens to the other side. He would have gone around
the bottom of the orb, but it was so big that he would not have been able to see
Rajaat-and no matter what happened, he was determined not to take his eyes off his prey.

Rajaat locked his eyes onto Rkard's face and stepped toward him. Although the boy could
still see most of Rajaat's shadow, one flank and part of a leg were hidden behind the
sorcerer's body.

“Give me my lens, filthy child,” Rajaat growled. He gestured at the Dark Lens with a
clawed finger.

The young mul pressed his palm to the warm obsidian and cast his sun-spell. Rajaat's eyes
flared white, though the boy could not say whether it was with alarm or anger, then a ruby
light flared deep inside the orb.

Rkard did not expect what happened next. The lens flashed scarlet, then searing red flames
spread over the surface. The boy cried out in alarm and backed away as the Dark Lens
erupted into a miniature version of the crimson sun.

Neeva heard a booming voice from inside the crater. “I created sorcery,” it said. “How can
you think your pitiful skills a match for mine?”

The warrior looked up. From her hiding place on the uphill side of a boulder, she could
see both Sadira and her son. The sorceress stood on top of a small cliff, about a quarter
of the way around the crater rim from where Rkard hid with the Dark Lens. Neeva could not
see the speaker, though she felt certain from what she had heard that it was Rajaat.

A string of mystic syllables rumbled from inside the crater, then Neeva heard the
throbbing roar of a whirlwind. Sadira jumped off the cliff. Her feet had barely left the
rim before a dark cyclone ripped it apart. A ball of lightning formed around the sorceress
as the spinning winds swallowed her up, then the storm raced away over the flooded plain.