“Did you notice,” said Kern, “that when the black ships appeared, the sky was not marred by the swirling maelstrom that was seen at Niliph and, before our arrival, near this continent?”
“Perhaps that only occurs when Surok himself is present,” Parnasus posited.
“Then it is that for which I must hunt,” Cerah said, decisively.
The two wizards looked at her. “The scouts have all been told to watch for it,” Parnasus said. “They will inform you if the clouds appear.”
“Their diligence is a paramount asset to me,” Cerah replied, nodding her head. “But waiting to spot the disturbance once again places us in a position of reaction.”
“What is the alternative?” Kern asked.
“I must focus the Greater Spark. I must appeal directly to Ma’uzzi for direction. I would know Surok’s next move before he makes it, not after.”
They had stopped walking and stood together at the edge of the pier. Parnasus moved close to Cerah and looked her squarely in the eyes. “Can you?” he asked, his voice heavy with concern.
“I…I do not know,” she replied.
Parnasus put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close to him as they resumed their walk. “My dear Cerah,” he said. “So bright the Spark burns in you. It has ignited your strength and your power. It has enkindled your bravery and resolve.”
She turned to face her teacher.
“But,” he said, “it has not yet fully set alight your self-confidence.”
“Elder, I feel the blood of my ancestors course through my veins. And I feel the heart of Ma’uzzi beat within my chest. But far too many times I see the child-like face of Cerah Passel when I look into the water. I see an angry, petulant brat, not the promised savior of Quadar.”
“Ah, but you are Cerah Jacasta! You are the Promise of Ma’uzzi! Of course, the child still dwells within you as well. It is ever so for all of us.”
Kern nodded in agreement. “It is one of the greatest gifts that Ma’uzzi gives to each of us,” he said. “No matter how aged we become, he lets our child-spirit live on, so that we may never fail to see the wonder of his hand upon the Universe.”
“Well said, my young student,” Parnasus said to the three-hundred-year-old wizard. “Cerah, a wizard of a thousand years sees problems and personalities. He sees the direction in which his race must go in order to fulfill the destiny chosen for us by Ma’uzzi. He sees traitors among his ranks. He sees the ravaging hand of the Anger of Pilka.”
Cerah’s eyes began to fill as she, too, felt the full weight of responsibility upon her shoulders, just as Parnasus described his own burden.
“But the child within me still cheers when I see a golden queen dragon try to embarrass my Dardaan, and he will have none of it! I can still be elated by the bloom of a pink angelbrow in a vast field of clover. I can still be abashed by my own mistakes. Do not look upon your uncertainty as failure, Cerah. Look upon it as the promise of eternal youth and wonder. Not to be outgrown, but rather to be celebrated. No, you do not yet know if the Greater Spark will allow you to anticipate the movement of Surok,” he said, his violet eyes blazing with love. “But you will learn the answer soon enough.”
Now Cerah allowed herself to weep freely, burying her head on her counselor’s shoulder. She recalled how only a few moments before she had smiled at Parnasus’s child-like nature when he had been wrong about the wind direction. Now he wrapped her in his arms and held her.
But at that moment, the air was torn by a dragon’s jubilant trumpet. Cerah’s head snapped up as she both recognized Tressida’s voice and felt her erupting emotion within her. In the distance, far out over the churning waves of the Mayduk, she saw a small speck, ever growing.
“He’s here!” she literally screamed as she ran to the shore. As she stood there, jumping up and down like a child on her birthday, Tressida soared to a skidding halt in the sand beside her. As the speck resolved itself into the form of a green dragon, Kern and Parnasus ran to be with her.
A moment later, Valosa dropped to the ground in front of them. The dragon was exhausted, but he returned Tressida’s trumpet of joy. She rubbed her head up and down his neck, both welcoming and thanking him. From his back dropped Yarren and, to Cerah’s unbearable elation, Slurr.
“Oh, my soul! My soul is whole once more,” she said, running into his arms.
Slurr grabbed her. He looked at her face as if seeing it for the first time. “You are even more beautiful than I remember!” he said.
Cerah leapt into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist, but Slurr stumbled under her weight. She immediately realized that he was still weak from his ordeal and dropped to the ground. She did not let go of him, however. “I shall never stop hugging you!” she said, as he looked at her, laughing and crying at the same time.
“Yarren!” came a cry from the pier. Russa, who had been helping with the work there, came running to the small group. As he saw her approach, Yarren sprinted toward her. They met in a passionate embrace. The handsome wizard kissed his betrothed deeply, even as Slurr kissed Cerah.
For a moment, Kern and Parnasus began to feel as though they were intruding. But just as they were turning to leave, Kern felt a large hand on his shoulder.
“Not so fast!” Slurr said. “I am elated to see you again as well, my dearest friend!” The wizard turned to face the young man and was enveloped in his arms. Even as Slurr embraced him, however, Kern felt the weakness in the young general’s body.
“You need to be tended to,” he said. “You are not well.”
“Cerah will revitalize me,” Slurr said, smiling at the wizard. “She has become as great a healer as even you, Kern.” With a sly smile, Slurr whispered into his friend’s ear, “And she has medicine that you cannot give me.”
“Behave, boy!” Kern chided him, laughing as he did.
“Come with me, Lug,” Cerah said, smiling mischievously herself. “I must see to your infirmities at once.”
“See what I mean?” Slurr said to Kern as he and his wife began to walk away.
A moment later, Kern and Parnasus stood alone, as both young couples went off to enjoy their reunions.
“I feel as though a tide just shifted,” said Kern.
“Yes,” said Parnasus. “Very much in our favor!” He clapped his student on the back, and they went to find something useful to do.
Cerah had taken residence in a modest home, the occupants of which had abandoned the city even before the wizards had arrived. She led Slurr there and brought him inside. Even as she drew the bolt across the door, Cerah began removing her husband’s clothes. He reached out and started to undo the hooks on her Riddue armor. Cerah’s heart was pounding in her chest as she pulled off his shirt. But when she did her hands flew to her mouth.
“Slurr, you are skin and bones. Have you eaten at all?”
“Yes, my love, I have. But for most of the time that I was lost I did not. Had Yarren taken much longer to find me I fear I would have perished.” He went on to tell her the story of being found by the snow beast and of waking up in a pile of frozen corpses. Cerah gasped as he relayed the tale. When she ran her fingers down his prominent ribcage, Slurr shuddered at her touch.
“Well, at least you still seem able to react to my presence,” she said, smiling at him. “But I must help you regain your strength.” She reached for her staff, moving it to the left and right in front of her husband’s depleted body. As she did, it began to glow a soft hue of sky blue. “Replenish,” she whispered.
Slurr felt a warmth spread through his muscles, starting at his neck and rushing downward to his feet. Even as he looked at his outstretched arms, his body began to lose its skeletal appearance. His gaunt face began to fill out. His arms regained some of their former size and tone. After a moment, Cerah set the staff aside as it returned to its natural metallic color.
“You are going to need some time to fully regain your perfectly chiseled physique,” she said, “but you already look much be
tter.”
“I feel much better too. For the first time in weeks my arms and legs feel as though they may be of some use to me, rather than just hanging from my withered frame.” He returned his attention to Cerah’s armor, and in a few moments, it lay in a heap beside them.
Cerah’s blood felt hot in her veins as she stared at her husband’s naked form in front of her. “I see not all of you has wasted away,” she whispered.
“How I’ve longed to hear your voice,” the young man said, “But now speak to me with your body!”
A full day’s flight on dragon to the north of Oz Qanoti lay the continent of Sejira. Much like Kier to the west, it contained vast stretches of cultivated land. Unlike Kier, however, it also held a good deal of untamed grasslands, upon which dwelt herds of the gigantic bovine creatures known as chivats, highly regarded and protected by Sejirians. There were five large cities spread out over the landmass. At one time, there had been six, but the city of Gelesta had been an early victim of Surok’s hunt for the Chosen One and his slave collecting, and had vanished in a blinding flash.
An army of just over fifteen thousand was divided among the cities, the southern-most of which was called Thresh. It was from this city that a wizard named Wert had flown in the early morning hours. His match-mate, a stout black dragon named Ratha, now soared far out to sea. Wert was one of three scouts that had gone out at Cerah’s request, and they had been flying along the coastal areas of the continent for many days now but had seen nothing out of the ordinary. He was just over fifty years old—still considered young by wizard reckoning. If the truth were to be told, he was more than a little immature, even though he had been practicing the craft for over thirty years. He was a little pudgy, with bright blue eyes and cherub-like rosy cheeks.
“I just need a little time away from everything,” Wert said to Ratha as the stately black sailed leisurely above the slate-colored waves. “Patrolling is important, and the Chosen One’s trust in us must be honored. But by the Under Planes, looking at the same stretch of coastline day after day is boring! It is good to be surrounded by nothing but sky and water, if only for a few hours.”
The dragon chirped in response to his match-mate’s rambling. Ratha looked down at the water and saw a large school of ocean fish swimming along. He chirped again, this time indicating that he wouldn’t mind a meal.
“Go ahead,” said Wert. “Grab yourself some lunch.” Happily, the dragon dipped down toward the water and snatched a huge fish in his claws. He tossed it into the air and caught it in his great mouth. It was gone in three bites. “That’s not going to fill you,” said Wert. “Take another.”
Again, the dragon thrust its claws into the ocean, coming out once more with a shimmering fish. As before, he tossed it skyward, but when he opened his mouth to catch it, the fish did not come down.
At that moment, Wert’s blood ran cold, as he and his dragon were suddenly surrounded by an enormous bank of twisting black clouds which blotted out the sun and obscured the ocean from view, even though they were no more than thirty feet above the water. The portly wizard looked upward, to where the fish should have arced back down into Ratha’s waiting jaws.
At first, he saw nothing but boiling black sky. Then suddenly a massive form seemed to blink into existence before his horrified eyes. As he looked, he saw what appeared to be a dragon. But it was like no dragon he had ever seen. It was easily over a hundred and fifty feet from its snout to the tip of its tail. Its scales were a shimmering topaz in color. Wert saw that the behemoth held Ratha’s fish in one of its claws. The huge fish looked like a tiny shale-guppy in the grasp of the immense creature. The beast hovered above him, its wingspan as wide as Ratha’s entire body.
But far more terrifying than the dragon was the being that rode upon it. Wert had never set eyes upon it before, but he knew instantly who it was.
“Surok,” he said, his voice trembling like a frightened infant.
The huge black demon glared down at him, its red eyes shining through the gloom that surrounded them. Lightning flashed in the ebony clouds, splitting the ether and framing Surok’s fearsome form.
Beneath him, Wert felt Ratha’s muscles tense. Then, without any prompting from the astonished wizard, the black dragon banked hard and attempted to flee. Amid the crashing thunder that filled his ears, Werth could hear Surok’s laughter. It sounded like death on holiday, gleeful and ghastly at once.
Ratha had managed to fly maybe fifty feet from the hovering monster when Wert felt a gust of wind. At first, he thought it part of the unnatural storm which brewed around him, but, far too late, he realized it was caused by the beating of the massive dragon’s wings. Surok drove his monster after them, and, an instant later, to Wert’s heart-stopping horror, the creature stretched its neck and easily bit off Ratha’s head.
As the dead dragon began to plummet toward the waves, Wert felt his entire soul torn into shreds. Many a dragon had to bear the loss of a match-mate. It was far rarer that a wizard had to suffer the same loss. But even as he mourned Ratha’s passing, Surok’s dragon reached out a claw and firmly caught the mage. Then, just as Ratha had done to his fish only moments before, the dragon tossed Wert high into the air. But it was not the dragon’s mouth into which he fell.
It was Surok’s. His lower body slid into the demon’s maw, and the last thing Wert’s eyes saw were Surok’s fangs closing around him. As he bit down, Wert’s upper torso began to tumble toward the ocean, but Surok stretched out his black arm and caught the wizard’s remains. Smiling, he opened his jaws wide and finished his meal.
Then his laughter again mingled with the other-worldly thunder. And just as suddenly as he had appeared, Surok vanished from sight, the black clouds quickly shrinking, until a moment later they dissipated altogether. The bright sun returned and winds calmed. There was no evidence that anything had happened at all, except a wide stain of blood on the ocean’s surface, where the lifeless body of a great black dragon named Ratha had sunk beneath the waves. As it spread, the smear attracted a horde of ocean scavengers, which dove to tear at the headless creature’s sinking form.
A passing kreel flew over the scene, flapping its white wings and briefly considering the discolored water. As it lingered, the sound of disembodied laughter echoed over the ocean. “KREEL!” the bird cried, as it flew away…as fast as it had ever flown.
Chapter 16
The Death of Anger
Slurr awoke before sunrise. He looked to his left and smiled. Cerah was still sleeping. He loved to watch her do so. He also loved to watch her walk, speak, laugh, and just about anything else a person can do. The room was dark, but in the corner Cerah’s staff glowed gently, casting a yellow light that allowed him to make out a little of their surroundings.
The bed in which they had spent the night was very comfortable. Slurr deduced that the people who lived in the house, while not wealthy, were much better off than anyone who dwelt in the Softer region of Kamara, where he and Cerah had grown up. There were two matching chests, one each for the husband and wife. A large mirror hung on the wall, which was covered in paneling made of a pale wood. In the Softer, no one owned a mirror this size. It was even bigger than the one that hung in their cottage back on Melsa, which had, along with all the house’s contents, been a wedding gift from the wizards. On a small table of polished black hardwood next to the side of the bed where Cerah was asleep there was a porcelain wash basin and pitcher, with a fruit motif baked into the finish.
Slurr thought about the family that had abandoned this house. It was not fair to hold them in any contempt for fleeing the city. Right up until the armada had arrived, the fate of Kal Berea was very much in doubt. Not even “in doubt,” Slurr thought. The city was doomed.
Thinking back over the weeks he’d spent lost, Slurr had two major regrets. First, of course, was being apart from his wife. But secondly, and almost as important, he regretted not being with the army, both when they had made the gruesome discovery of the fate of Niliph, and when th
ey had arrived in the nick of time at Oz Qanoti.
When Cerah had informed him that he was to be General of the Army of Quadar, Slurr had been anything but confident in his ability to fill that rank. He still felt phenomenally inadequate, but he trusted his wife and her judgment. And after he had led the men and women who had left their homes to fight for Quadar across the frozen plain and up the monstrous Mount Opatta, then back down with the freed human slaves in tow, he definitely thought of them as his people, his warriors.
Now the army was to be divided, as Cerah sent reinforcements to the defenders of Jenoobia and Illyria. He wished he could be in both places at once to oversee them. But he knew that there were capable commanders leading the warriors. They would be able to handle Surok’s forces in his absence.
Suddenly Cerah sat bolt upright in the bed.
“What is it, Cerah? Have you had another of your dreams?” he asked, rubbing his hand on the flesh of her back.
“No. One of the wizards I sent to Sejira has gone missing. Both he and his dragon have not been seen since late last night.”
“That could mean many things, or nothing at all,” Slurr said. “I wouldn’t let it upset you yet. What did the message say?”
Cerah sat quietly for a moment, trying to bring her mind into focus. The projection had been quite clear, but there was still sleep around the edges of her consciousness. She sought the Greater Spark within her and using that she called the projection back to the center of her awareness.
“Werth and Ratha left Thresh last night. Werth wished to clear his head. Neither dragon nor rider have returned,” she said in a somewhat monotone voice as if she were reading a letter.
“Again, I would stress that there is actually no indication that anything is truly wrong. If he felt he needed to get away for a bit, perhaps he’s still just unwinding.”
Cerah turned and faced her husband. “There’s more,” she said. “The projection also said that black clouds had been briefly spotted off the southern coast.”
Many Hidden Rooms (Cerah of Quadar Book 2) Page 24
