The Cerulean Storm
Page 1
PRISM PENTAD
THE VERDANT PASSAGE
THE CRIMSON LEGION
THE AMBER ENCHANTRESS
THE OBSIDIAN ORACLE
THE CERULEAN STORM
Prism Pentad • Book 5
The Cerulean Storm
©1993 TSR, Inc.
©2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC
©2011 Wizards of the Coast LLC
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC.
DARK SUN, D&D, WIZARDS OF THE COAST, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. Hasbro SA, Represented by Hasbro Europe, Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Cover art by: Brom
Map by Robert Lazzaretti
eISBN: 978-0-7869-6117-7
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v3.1
DEDICATION
For Jim Lowder
for his many contributions to the series
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Prologue
Chapter One: Samarah
Chapter Two: Pauper’s Hope
Chapter Three: The Council of Advisors
Chapter Four: The Cloud Road
Chapter Five: The Gray
Chapter Six: The Dark Canyon
Chapter Seven: The Banshees
Chapter Eight: Crimson Dawn
Chapter Nine: Abalach-Re
Chapter Ten: The Forsaken Village
Chapter Eleven: The Dhow
Chapter Twelve: The Shoals
Chapter Thirteen: The Spirit Lords
Chapter Fourteen: The Gate of Doom
Chapter Fifteen: The Broken Plain
Chapter Sixteen: The Blue Age
Chapter Seventeen: Ur Draxa
Chapter Eighteen: The Cerulean Storm
Chapter Nineteen: Flood Waters
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
PROLOGUE
MOST MEN CALLED IT SHADOW, THAT DARK STAIN visible only as an absence: the cold gloom cast upon the ground when their bodies blocked the light of the crimson sun. Wiser minds referred to it as the Black, and they knew that it separated everything that existed from everything that did not. It lurked just beneath the surface in all things, like the leathery shell of some great egg, buried shallow and about to hatch. Outside lay the barren mountains, the endless sand wastes, and the bleak, windswept plains that were the world of Athas. Inside lay the Hollow, filled with the languid albumin of nothingness.
Within this colorless ether floated the bones of an ancient skeleton. It lay curled into a tight ball, its shoulder blades fused into a large hump and its gangling arms wrapped around its knees. The skull seemed remotely human, though the slender jawbones, drooping chin, and flat cheekbones insinuated that this was not entirely true.
The skeleton filled the Hollow completely, but it would have been wrong to call the thing huge. In this place, size had no meaning. Only existence mattered, and by the mere fact that it was, the skeleton occupied all of the vast emptiness inside the egg.
The skeleton scratched at the murky shell with long, barbed talons, dreaming of the day it would be reborn. For the first time in an eternity, it felt confident of escaping its timeless prison. Forks of lightning circled its misshapen skull like a crown. Sparks danced in the empty sockets, where once it had possessed eyes.
Beneath the scratching talons appeared a pair of blue embers and a long slitlike mouth. The features were all the skeleton ever saw of its servants. The shadow people were part of the Black, as trapped within the dark shell as their master was, inside the emptiness of the egg.
We felt your summons, Omnipotent One.
The servant used thought-speech to report, for sound did not exist within the skeleton’s eternal prison.
I have been thinking, Khidar, the skeleton replied. It slowly twisted its oblong skull around to stare more directly into the shadow’s eyes. The sorcerer-kings must be near when the Usurper frees me.
That’s too dangerous! The servant’s eyes grew larger and brighter. The six of them have grown stronger than you know, Rajaat. They’ll destroy us!
A ball of lightning formed above Rajaat’s head. They won’t destroy me! he snarled. If you hesitate to sacrifice a few lives so I may return Athas to its greater glory, perhaps you should remain in the Black.
Khidar winced, his eyes and mouth sliding down the inside of the black shell. Our fates are bound together, he said, with more regret than enthusiasm. We have no concern except the future of Athas.
Never forget that, Rajaat hissed, the blue rays in his empty eye sockets flickering in ire. Think of all that I have sacrificed to return the world to your people, and follow my example.
We are most grateful, Khidar assured him. We’ll see to whatever you wish.
Good. It would be best to avenge the sorcerer-kings’ betrayal before proceeding with the Restoration, Rajaat said. The lightning began to crackle more steadily and calmly over his head. After that, we’ll cleanse Athas of the most profane strains of the degenerate races. The half-breeds shall die first.
Which ones? asked the servant.
All of them: half-elves, muls, half-giants, every filthy abomination produced through an unnatural union. We must kill them as soon as possible.
As you wish.
The New Races come next, Rajaat continued, knotting the barbed talons of both hands into tight fists. There are so many! It may take us a century.
We must expect opposition, Khidar warned. Sadira and Rikus—
Are half-breeds. They’ll die with the others! the skeleton pronounced. I’ll destroy them as soon as I finish with the sorcerer-kings.
What of the Usurper? asked Khidar. Will you make him a sorcerer-king?
Yes, I’ll keep my promise, provided he honors the cause of the Pristine Tower, Rajaat answered.
And if he betrays us like Borys and the others?
My new champion will never do such a thing, the skeleton replied. After he witnesses the fate of the other traitors, he will not dare.
ONE
SAMARAH
KING TITHIAN OF TYR GNASHED HIS TEETH IN vexation, accidentally crushing the sweet chadnut upon which he had been sucking. The pulp filled his mouth with sour, peppery seeds that burned his tongue and made his eyes water. He swallowed the kernels in a single gulp, hardly noticing the fiery aftertaste that chased them down his throat.
“It’s a whole damned fleet!” His old man’s voice was hoarsened by the spicy chad seeds.
The hunch-shouldered king stood behind a low stone wall, peering through a curtain of swirling dust. A thicket of masts had just appeared in Samarah’s tiny harbor. While the thick haze prevented a reliable ship count, Tithian could see so
much billowing canvas that the flotilla looked like a cloud bank rolling in from the Sea of Silt.
“Why should the fleet anger you, Mighty One?” asked Korla, clinging, as always, to Tithian’s arm. She was the fairest woman in the village, with ginger-colored hair and a sultry smile. That did not mean she was beautiful. A life of heat and dust had framed her brown eyes with deep-etched crow’s-feet, while the sun had baked her skin until it was as creased and rough as a man’s. Korla clasped the king’s elbow more tightly. “Your retainers wouldn’t dare come for you with anything less than a dozen ships.”
Tithian pulled free and straightened his shoulder satchel.
She frowned. “Soon you’ll show me the wonders of Tyr—won’t you?”
“No.” Tithian fixed a disdainful glare on her weather-lined face.
“You can’t leave me behind!” Korla objected. She glanced at the small crowd of villagers gathered behind the wall. “After what I’ve been to you, the others will—”
“Quiet!” Tithian ordered. He waved a liver-spotted hand toward the harbor. “That isn’t my fleet. Rikus and Sadira will come by land, not ship.”
Korla lowered her eyelids and sighed in relief.
“Don’t be too relieved,” said Riv, Korla’s brawny husband and Samarah’s headman.
An elf-tarek crossbreed, Riv had a square, big-boned face with a sloped forehead and a slender nose. Standing so tall that the village wall rose only to his waist, he cut an imposing figure. Normally, Tithian would have killed such a rival outright, but the headman had taken pains to make himself indispensable as an intermediary to the villagers. Besides, the king enjoyed flaunting Korla’s adultery in front of him.
“Your reign as whore-queen will end soon enough.” Riv glared at his wife.
“Why’s that?” Tithian demanded, shuffling around Korla to confront the huge crossbreed. “Is there a reason I should fear those ships?”
Riv shrugged. “Everyone should fear Balican armadas. But I see no reason they should concern you especially,” he replied. He raised the thin lips of his domed muzzle, showing a mouthful of enormous canine teeth. “I only meant that Korla shouldn’t expect to go with you when the time comes. I’ve seen enough of Athas to know she’d only be an embarrassment in the city.”
“You may have seen the brothels of Balic, but you know nothing of life in Tyr’s royal court,” Korla spat back. She regarded her husband suspiciously, then continued, “Now answer the king’s question. We haven’t seen a Balican fleet for more than a year. Why now?”
Riv sneered. “Ask your lover,” he said. “He’s the mindbender.”
“I’ll know the answer soon enough,” Tithian said, thrusting his hand into his shoulder satchel. “And if you ever again refer to me as anything but King or Mighty One, you’ll beg for your death.”
Riv blanched. The king had pulled spell components from the sack often enough that the headman recognized the gesture as a threatening one. What Riv did not realize was that Tithian could also withdraw a venomous viper, a vial of acid, or any one of a dozen other tools of murder from inside. The sack was magical, and it could hold an unlimited supply of items without appearing full.
Riv glared at Tithian for a moment, then hissed, “As you wish, Mighty One.”
Tithian spun toward the center of the village, signaling for Korla and Riv to follow him. As they moved through the dust haze, they passed a dozen stone huts shaped like beehives. Inside most buildings, haggard women furiously packed their meager possessions—sacks of chadnuts, stone knives, clay cooking pots, and bone-tipped hunting spears. Outside, the men gathered the family goraks, knee-high lizards with colorful dorsal fans. It was a slow, difficult process, for the stubborn reptiles were engrossed in overturning rocks and catching insects with their long, sticky tongues.
The king and his companions reached the village plaza. In the center was the communal well, a deep hole encircled by a simple railing of gorak bones. A small crowd of children surrounded the pit, arguing in panicked voices and elbowing each other out of the way as they struggled to fill their waterskins.
On the far side of the plaza, outside the hut the king had confiscated from Riv, lay an obsidian orb larger than a man, with languorous streaks of scarlet swimming over its glassy surface. It was the Dark Lens, both the source of Tithian’s power and the means through which he would achieve his greatest ambition: to become an immortal sorcerer-king.
The Dark Lens had once belonged to Athas’s first sorcerer, Rajaat. Thousands of years ago, the ancient sage had started a genocidal war to cleanse Athas of races he considered impure. To assist him, Rajaat had used the Lens to make a group of immortal champions, each dedicated to destroying one race.
After dozens of centuries of fighting, the champions had learned that their master intended to strip them of their powers. They had rebelled, using the Dark Lens to lock Rajaat into a mystical prison. Then they had transformed their leader, Borys of Ebe, into the Dragon, appointing him to guard the prison forever. The other champions had each claimed one of the cities of Athas to rule as immortal sorcerer-kings.
Tithian intended to kill the Dragon and free Rajaat. In return, he had been promised that the ancient sorcerer would bless him with the immortal powers of a champion. Unfortunately, the Tyrian king could not hope to kill his prey alone. Borys was a master of the Way, sorcery, and physical combat, and the Dark Lens would make Tithian powerful enough to challenge the Dragon only in the Way.
The king knew who could help him: his former slaves Rikus and Sadira. A champion gladiator, Rikus carried a magical sword that had been forged by Rajaat himself, while Sadira’s body had been imbued with the magical energies of Rajaat’s mystic castle. Together, the three of them would have the power to destroy Borys.
Of course, Tithian realized that it would not be easy to induce his ex-slaves to help. For their own reasons, they were as anxious to kill the Dragon as the king was, but they were also smart enough not to trust the Tyrian ruler. So, to lure them into helping him, Tithian had sent them a fraudulent message in the name of their friend Agis of Asticles. In it, he had claimed that Agis had recovered the Dark Lens and had asked them to meet the noble in Samarah. To convince them the summons was real, he had included the Asticles signet ring. Once they arrived, he would make up a lie about how the noble had died after sending the message. Then the king would convince them to let him take Agis’s place and help them kill Borys.
Tithian had reached the far side of the village square. The sentry the king had left to watch the Dark Lens showed himself. He was a disembodied head with grossly bloated cheeks and narrow, dark eyes. He had a mouthful of broken teeth and wore his coarse hair in a topknot. The bottom of his leathery neck had been stitched shut with black thread.
“What’d you find in the harbor?” the sentry asked, floating toward Tithian.
“It’s a fleet, Sacha,” the king reported.
Sacha’s dark eyes opened wide. “That’s impossible.” He glanced at the obsidian orb. “As long as we have the Dark Lens, Andropinis can’t find us.”
“Then what are his ships doing in the harbor?” Tithian growled.
“How should I know?” sneered the head. “You’re the one who controls the Lens. I suggest you use it.”
Tithian lashed out to snatch Sacha’s topknot, missed, and silently cursed. His slow reflexes still surprised him occasionally, for his body had grown frail and old just a few weeks earlier. In the course of stealing the Dark Lens from the giant tribes in the Sea of Silt, the king had been forced to outwit its guardians: a pair of dwarven banshees named Jo’orsh and Sa’ram. Before he could send them away, the spirits had stolen what remained of his youth, burdening him with aching joints, shortness of breath, and all the other afflictions of old age.
Leaving Korla and Riv behind, Tithian spread his arms and stepped toward the Dark Lens. As he approached, waves of blistering heat rose off the glassy orb and seared his old man’s body clear to the brittle bones. Clenching his teeth
, he laid his hands on the scorching surface. From beneath his palms came a soft hiss, and the smell of charred flesh filled his nostrils. The king did not cry out. He looked past the surface and gazed into the utter blackness of the Dark Lens.
Tithian opened himself to the power of the black orb. His hands seemed to meld with its surface, and its blistering heat ceased to bum his flesh. A torrent of energy rushed from the Lens into his arms, flowing down into his spiritual nexus, the place deep within his abdomen where the three energies of the Way—mental, physical, and spiritual—joined to form the core of his being.
Tithian focused his thoughts on Samarah’s harbor, concentrating on what he would see there if the dust haze were not obscuring his vision. In the black depths of the Dark Lens rose an image of twenty schooners, each depicted clearly in ghostly red light. The first ship was just sailing into the narrow strait that served as the harbor’s mouth. Inside his mind the king heard the creaking of masts and the pop of flapping canvas. The visual image was so clear that he could see the gaunt slaves shuffling along with yardarm ropes as they furled the sails. On the main deck, hairless dwarves labored around a capstan as they struggled to raise the keel boards, and in the stern the shipfloater stared into a black dome of obsidian. From his own experience aboard Balican schooners, Tithian knew that the shipfloater was using the Way to infuse the dome with the spiritual energy that kept the ship from sinking into the dust.
“Find out if Andropinis is with them,” suggested Sacha, hovering at Tithian’s side. “If he isn’t, even an incompetent like you can destroy the fleet.”
“And if he is?” Tithian demanded.
Sacha did not answer.
Tithian shifted his attention to a particularly large schooner near the center of the fleet. Unlike the other ships, this one had narrow banners snapping from the top of its masts, identifying it as the flagship. The king focused all his attention on the craft, closing the others out of his mind. He felt a surge of mystical energy rush from deep within his body, and the ship’s image gradually enlarged until it was the only one visible.