The Cerulean Storm

by Denning, Troy

  On the foredeck, four ballistae sat ready to fire, massive harpoons nocked in their skein cords, with a pair of lumbering half-giants standing nearby. Two sorcerers stood in the prow, inspecting the dust-swells ahead of the ship for signs of buried obstacles. To aid in the search, each man held the base of a large glass cone to his eyes. The glass cones, Tithian knew, were king’s eyes, unique lenses especially enchanted so the viewer could peer through the dust hazes so common to the Sea of Silt.

  To the king’s surprise, there did not appear to be any slaves on the main deck. Half-giants stood next to every catapult, while the crew struggling to turn the capstan wore the plain togas of low-ranking Balican templars. Even the men and women crawling over the yardarms showed no whip scars on their bare backs.

  When Tithian’s gaze fell on the quarterdeck, his stomach coiled into a tight knot. “In the name of Rajaat!” he cursed. “It can’t be!”

  Behind the helmsman stood Andropinis, sorcerer-king of Balic. He was muscular and huge, with a fringe of chalk-colored hair hanging from beneath his jagged crown. He had a slender face, a nose so long it could almost be called a snout, and dark nostrils shaped like eggs. His cracked lips were pulled back to reveal a mouthful of teeth filed as sharp as those of a gladiator. Beneath his sleeveless tunic, a line of sharp bulges ran down his spine. Small pointed scales covered his shoulders and the backs of his arms.

  What disturbed Tithian more than the sight of Andropinis were the five people standing silently at the sorcerer-king’s side. Two were male, two female, and one of uncertain gender. All stood close to Andropinis’s height and appeared just as menacing. One man, with slit pupils and the heavy nose of a lion, had a thick mane around his neck. The other seemed remotely avian, with a scaly, beak-shaped muzzle and recessed earslits on the sides of his head.

  The taller woman appeared as cold as she was beautiful, with long, silky hair, dark skin, and narrow eyeslits extending from the bridge of her nose around to her temples. She had a small, oval-shaped mouth, with dainty fangs pressed against the flesh of her lips. The other woman was of lighter complexion. Her huge eyes constantly roamed about and never seemed to focus on anything. Save for the curled claws at the ends of her fingertips, she looked more completely human than anyone else with Andropinis.

  The last figure stood half-again as tall as the others. It seemed a miniature version of the Dragon, with a gaunt build neither male nor female. A glistening hide of leather and chitin covered its willowy limbs and androgynous body, while huge claws with knobby-jointed fingers hung from the ends of its skeletal arms. At the end of its serpentine neck was its head, little more than a slender snout with a glassy, bulbous eye on each side and a bony horn at the end.

  “Who are they?” asked Korla, coming to stand at Tithian’s side. She held her hands out to shield her face from the blistering heat of the Lens.

  “The six sorcerer-kings and -queens of Athas,” supplied Sacha.

  The head had hardly spoken before Korla glanced toward her husband. “Riv!”

  Sacha faced Tithian and growled, “You should have killed the half-breed when you decided to bed his wife.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Riv objected, joining them. Over at the well, the children had formed a neat line and were working efficiently to fill their waterskins. “The last things I want in Samarah are sorcerer-kings. Most of my villagers are slaves who came here after escaping the cities.”

  “I’ve seen jealous fools risk more,” pressed Sacha.

  “Riv didn’t summon this fleet,” Tithian said. Inside the Dark Lens, he could see Andropinis’s ship passing between the two spits of land that formed the mouth of the harbor. “Even if Riv has a way to contact the sorcerer-kings, he has no reason to think they’d be interested in me—unless you told him, Sacha.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” snapped the head.

  “They must have found a way to track the Lens,” the king surmised.

  “Impossible,” Sacha said. “As long as Jo’orsh and Sa’ram still walk Athas, their magic prevents any sorcerer-king from finding the Lens—by any method.”

  “Then what are all six doing here?”

  When the head didn’t answer, the king shifted his attention from Andropinis’s flagship back to the whole fleet. He felt a surge of energy course through his body, then his field of view expanded to take in the entire armada. The ship in the lead was furling its sails and slowing to a stop under the shouted guidance of the first mate. The end of Samarah’s single quay lay just a short distance ahead of the bowsprit.

  Fearing that a Balican watchman would soon be able to see him, Tithian searched the sky over the harbor for the silhouette of a mast or crow’s nest. To his relief, he found nothing but a pearly sky full of blowing dust.

  Samaran mothers began to pour into the plaza with heavy satchels of household belongings slung over their shoulders. The fathers waited at the edge of the square, clubbing their goraks with bone spears in a futile effort to keep the flocks from drifting.

  “Where are your villagers going, Riv?” Tithian asked.

  “If we stay here, the Balicans will seize everything we have—even our children,” the headman reported. “We’ll scatter into the desert until the fleet leaves.”

  “We’d better do the same,” urged Sacha.

  “And forgo a chance to spy on my enemies?” The king shook his head. “We’re staying.”

  “We can’t eavesdrop on sorcerer-kings!”

  “Of course we can,” Tithian replied. “You said yourself they can’t find us as long as we have the Dark Lens.”

  The king returned his gaze to the black orb, then gasped. Several schooners had come to a dead halt in the middle of the harbor, but that was not what had alarmed him. Borys had appeared next to the flagship, his willowy frame so gaunt, it would have made an elf seem stout. Though the Dragon stood waist-deep in silt, his slender head loomed as far above the ship’s deck as the highest mast, with a spiked crest of leathery skin running up the back of his serpentine spine. A menacing light glowed in his tiny eyes, and wisps of red fume rose from the nostrils at the end of his slender snout.

  Andropinis stood at the gunnel, conversing with Borys. “How can you be certain Tithian is here, Great One?” the sorcerer-king asked.

  “I’m not,” the Dragon replied. “But my spies in Tyr inform me that Rikus and Sadira are preparing to leave for Samarah. Why would they come so far, if not to meet the Usurper and retrieve the Dark Lens?”

  “And you summoned us to help you ambush them?”

  “Perhaps, if my agents in Tyr fail to stop them,” Borys said. “But first, I want you and the other sorcerer-kings to find Jo’orsh and Sa’ram.”

  “The dwarven knights?” asked Andropinis.

  “The dwarven banshees,” Borys corrected. “Now that the Usurper has stolen the Lens from them, they should not be so difficult to find. Bring them to me, and my spirit lords will force them to undo the magic hiding the Dark Lens.”

  “Perhaps it would be easier to destroy the banshees where we find them,” suggested Andropinis.

  “These banshees cannot be destroyed by you—or even me,” said Borys. “Only my spirit lords can do that—which is why you must bring them to me.”

  “You’ll be here?”

  The Dragon nodded. “Waiting for Tithian.”

  With that, Borys stepped away from the ship. The crew began to lower the skiffs, and the sorcerer-kings prepared to disembark.

  “Now will you leave?” asked Sacha. He was hovering near Tithian’s shoulder, watching the scene inside the Lens.

  “No. It wouldn’t do any good,” Tithian’s heart was pounding, pumping fear and panic through his body, and it was all he could do to keep control of his thoughts. “Running into the desert won’t save me, not from Borys and his sorcerer-kings.”

  “So you’ll fight them?” Korla asked in an anxious voice.

  Tithian looked up from the Lens and glared at her. “Don’t be absurd,” he spat. “One or tw
o sorcerer-kings, I could kill easily. But not all of them, and not with Borys here. Even I can’t kill the Dragon alone.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d do us the courtesy of surrendering outside Samarah?” requested Riv. “It might spare my people some trouble.”

  “Why should I care about your people?” growled Tithian. “I have no intention of surrendering.” “I’m happy to hear that,” said Korla.

  Smirking at her relief, Riv scoffed, “Why? If he’s not going to run or fight, what else can he do?”

  “The last thing Borys expects: hide in the very place he’s trying to ambush me.” Tithian was untroubled by Riv’s obvious delight at his plight. The headman would pay for his insolence soon enough.

  Tithian thought his plan stood a good chance of seeing him through until help arrived. If Borys thought his agents could stop Rikus and Sadira, the Dragon was underestimating them badly. As long as the pair believed they were coming to meet Agis, they would find a way to reach Samarah. Once they did, they would have no choice but to help him slay Borys.

  The king studied Riv’s brawny form for a moment, then used the Way to visualize himself growing as large and strong as the headman. A torrent of searing energy rushed from the Lens into his body. The king’s arms burst into agony as his muscles began to swell, taking on a knotted, bulging shape. After his arms came his shoulders and neck, then his chest, back, and stomach. Each transformation brought with it a fresh surge of pain. Tithian clenched his teeth and waited for the Dark Lens to change his thoughts into reality, until at last his legs felt as thick and bandy as Riv’s.

  The king slipped his arms, now as sinewy as those of a half-giant, around the heavy Lens. He lifted it easily, then moved toward the center of the plaza, shuffling to keep from banging his knees on the huge orb. The crowd of Samaran children backed away, their half-filled waterskins dribbling precious liquid onto the dusty ground.

  “Where are you going?” Sacha demanded, floating at Tithian’s side.

  “I told you: to hide,” the king replied.

  “What good will that do?” the head whispered into Tithian’s ear. “There isn’t a villager here who’d hesitate to tell the Balicans where you are.”

  “I’ve thought of that already,” Tithian replied.

  As he spoke, the king concentrated on the people ahead, fixing their faces firmly in his mind. He used the Way to visualize them clasping at their throats, choking and gasping for air. He felt the energy of the Dark Lens flow through his body and into the ground. A column of brown mist whooshed from the well, spreading over the plaza with the fetid, caustic odor of charred flesh. The sound of coughing and gagging filled the air, then Samarans started to drop, their strangled voices calling for help. The instant a body hit the ground, its flesh grew ashen and began to wither.

  Heavy steps sounded behind Tithian. The king turned and saw Riv charging, his muzzle twisted into a snarl of rage. “Murderer!” The headman flung himself into the air.

  Tithian shifted the Dark Lens to one hand and raised his other arm. He opened himself to the Lens’s power. He felt a streak of mystic energy rush through his body, then Riv’s chest hit his hand. A dark flash erupted from beneath the king’s palm, engulfing his attacker in a pall of absolute blackness. The headman howled in pain, but the cry was strangely muted, as if the ebon fire of the Lens had swallowed it. Riv’s scorched bones clattered to the ground, trailing wisps of greasy, foul-smelling smoke.

  Hardly seeming to notice her dead husband or any of the other dying villagers, Korla stumbled to Tithian’s side. “I’m choking,” she croaked. “Save me!”

  Tithian shook his head. “You must die as well.”

  Korla’s eyes widened in disbelief. “No!”

  “If Borys finds you, he’ll tear your mind apart with the Way,” Tithian explained. “You’ll tell him where to find me.”

  “I would never,” Korla said, stepping back in fear.

  Tithian caught her hand and pulled it to the Lens. A flame flashed beneath her fingers, then her body erupted into a column of crimson fire. The blaze died away quickly, and all that remained where Korla had stood were her bones, a pearly heap of ash, and a handful of cracked teeth. Recalling that they had once nibbled his ear and made him feel young, the king stooped over and picked up the incisors, slipping them into his shoulder satchel for safekeeping.

  As Tithian glanced around the square, he saw that most of the people near the well had already died. Their bodies were shriveling into piles of dust and white bone that even Borys would find impossible to interrogate. Farther away, the mist had just reached the edge of the plaza. The stunned fathers were thrashing about on the ground, their purple tongues hanging out. The goraks accepted their fate with more dignity, dropping to their bellies and turning their yellow eyes away from the sun.

  The king did not worry that the Balicans would find it strange that an entire village had perished, for such catastrophes were far from rare on Athas. When the sailors walked among the bones, it would be coins and chadnuts they sought, not answers.

  Tithian grabbed Sacha and slipped the head into the satchel, then walked over to the well and peered back toward the harbor. Above the huts of Samarah, he could see the faint outline of dozens of masts showing through the heavy silt curtain. From outside the village came muffled Balican voices demanding that the gate be opened.

  The king stepped into the well, using the Way to lower himself and the Dark Lens gently into the pit. The gloomy depths swallowed them both, and Tithian settled into the tepid waters to await Rikus and Sadira.

  TWO

  PAUPER’S

  HOPE

  A DEEP BOOM RUMBLED OVER THE BUTTE, AND GOLDEN cascades of sand spilled down the bluff’s waferlike ledges. The sound passed over the road, rolling across a salt-crusted lakebed until it echoed off the craggy flank of a distant mountain.

  Rikus looked up and frowned. The sky remained clear, the crimson sun blazing through the olive-tinged haze of dawn. To the west, Athas’s twin moons hung low over the Ringing Mountains, silhouetting the distant peaks against golden crescents. A harsh wind hissed over the top of the butte, but there was not a thunderhead in sight.

  The mul passed his hand over his kank’s antennae, bringing the mount to a halt. The insect was twice the size of a man, with a chitinous body and multifaceted eyes bulging from the sides of its head. The wicked mandibles protruding from its maw made it look as though it could have destroyed a pack of lirrs, though in truth it was a timid and rather gentle creature.

  Rikus sat astride the kank’s thorax, his feet dangling among its six legs and almost touching the ground. With a rugged, heavy-boned face and a hairless body that seemed nothing but knotted sinew, the warrior looked even more dangerous than his mount. In his case, however, appearances were not deceiving. He was a mul, a dwarf-human half-breed, created to live and die as a gladiator. From his father, he had inherited the incredible strength and endurance of the dwarves, while his mother had bestowed on him the size and agility of the humans. The result was an ideal fighter, combining both power and nimbleness in a single frame.

  When another boom did not sound from behind the butte, Rikus lowered his hand to the Scourge of Rkard. As his fingers touched the hilt, the sword’s magic filled his ears with discordant sounds: the roaring wind, the rasp of falling sand, and the pounding of his own heart. From the shadowed cracks of the butte cliffs came the clamor of chirping crickets. Somewhere out on the lakebed, a snake’s belly scales whispered across the rough surface of a hot stone.

  Rikus also heard something that disturbed him more: the drone of human voices, no doubt coming from a faro plantation that lay on the other side of the butte. The words were muffled by distance and the high bluff. Still, the mul could tell that many of the farmers were yelling, some even screaming. As he listened, a loud, sonorous laugh drowned out the human voices, and he knew that something was terribly wrong at Pauper’s Hope.

  Rikus took his hand away from his sword and faced the
inhuman figure at his side. “Do you hear that, Magnus?”

  Though Magnus called himself an elf, he did not resemble one. Born in the magical shadows of the Pristine Tower, he had been transformed into something that looked more akin to a giant gorak than an elf. He had a hulking, thick-limbed body that was covered by a knobby hide and had ivory-clawed toes and hands the size of bucklers. His face was all muzzle, with an enormous, sharp-toothed mouth and huge round eyes set on opposite sides of his head.

  “The boom? It wasn’t thunder,” Magnus answered.

  “It doesn’t take a windsinger to know that,” Rikus replied. “What about the voices? Use your magic to find out what’s going on.”

  Magnus turned his elegantly pointed ears toward the butte and listened. After a moment, he shook his head. “The butte’s too high for me to understand their words,” he said. “Even a windsinger cannot listen through rock.”

  Rikus cursed. He and Magnus were due at a meeting of the Tyrian Council of Advisors by midmorning. Normally, it would not bother him to make the council wait, but today he and Sadira were asking for a legion of warriors to take to Samarah. Being late would not put the advisors in a mood to grant his request.

  A damson-colored shadow fell across the road. The mul looked up to see a cloud of ivory dust drifting over the summit of the bluff. Although the wind carried most of the undulating mass out over the dry lake, some of the powder fell toward the road like a soft rain.

  Rikus held out a hand and caught a light dusting in his palm. The stuff was the color of straw, with the silky texture of finely ground flour. Rikus touched his tongue to the powder. It tasted dry and bland.

  “This is faro!”

  The mul held his hand out toward the windsinger.

  “It looks freshly ground,” Magnus observed. “The boom we heard could have been a collapsing silo. That would explain all the excitement.”

  “I don’t think so,” Rikus said, remembering the deep laugh that he had heard over the concerned voices. “We’d better have a look.”