The Cerulean Storm

by Denning, Troy

  On the afternoon of the third day, Caelum finally woke. With a great deal of care, more from Sadira than Neeva, the dwarf soon felt well enough to call on the sun. After that, the women left him to his own resources, and he quickly grew better, using his healing powers to mend his terrible wound. Other than the dwarf’s recovery, the routine never changed. Jo’orsh’s head periodically rose out of the dust, his glowing orange eyes serving as beacons in the darkness of the night. Sacha stayed atop the mast day and night, never leaving his post—which was probably wise, since neither Rikus nor any of the others had quite forgiven him for pulling the scouts into the well to feed Tithian.

  Deep into their fifth night, with a steady wind blowing from the west and a dust curtain clinging to the sea, Sacha suddenly drifted down from the mast. “Lights,” he reported. The head’s voice was so hoarse that Rikus could barely understand him. “Behind us.”

  The mul glanced over the stern and saw nothing but the impenetrable blackness of the dust curtain. “I don’t see anything.”

  “You weren’t sitting on top of the mast,” Sacha countered. “There were a dozen clusters of them, spread out across the horizon. It’s a fleet coming up behind us.”

  Tithian cursed.

  “What do you know about this?” Rikus touched the tip of his sword to the king’s throat. “If you’ve betrayed us—”

  Tithian slapped the blade away. “This is no trick,” he sneered. “It’s the fleet of the sorcerer-kings.”

  Rikus moved his sword back toward the king and said nothing.

  “What do I have to gain by lying?” growled Tithian. “When the sorcerer-kings came to meet Borys in Samarah, they arrived on a fleet of Balican schooners. It appears they’ve been summoned to Ur Draxa.”

  “Why?” asked Neeva.

  “To find us, I suspect,” said the king. “From my experience, Balican fleets sail in tight formations. If they’ve spread out, they must be searching for us.”

  Neeva went forward to wake Caelum and Sadira.

  “Bring me the Dark Lens,” said Tithian.

  Rikus shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You stupid mul!” hissed Sacha. “It’s our only chance.”

  “Our only chance to get killed,” Rikus countered. “Even with the Dark Lens, we can’t sink a fleet of ships carrying all the sorcerer-kings of Athas—at least not at night, when Sadira’s powers are so limited.”

  “We can’t outrun them, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Tithian. “They have too much sail.”

  “Then we’ll do the next best thing—we’ll hide,” said Rikus. “The dust curtain will conceal us.”

  “It won’t,” said Tithian. “They have magic cones of glass—king’s eyes—that they use to see through the silt haze.”

  “And what do they use to see through the dark?” asked the mul. When the king did not have an answer, Rikus smiled. “I thought so. The next time we top a dust swell, swing us around so we’re sitting across the slope, near the bottom of the wave.”

  The mul sheathed his sword and went forward to the mast. He waited until Tithian started to bring the dhow around, then he lowered the sail, furled it to the boom, and undid the lashings holding the whole assembly to the mast. By the time he had pulled the rigging free and had laid the boom and sail aside, Neeva had awakened Caelum and Sadira. The dwarf helped Rikus unstep the mast, fold the long yardarm down, and lay the whole thing in the bilge.

  “Cover the boat with silt,” suggested Tithian.

  Rikus frowned. “Won’t that sink us?”

  The king shook his head. “Why should it? I’m holding us aloft,” he said. “We won’t be able to move very fast, but with our mast down, we’re not going anyplace anyway.”

  Rikus nodded, then he and the others began pulling dust from the upslope into the dhow. Soon only their bodies and the tops of the gunnels—made of weathered bone almost as gray as the silt—showed above the sea. The mul instructed the others to lie down, then he began covering them with powdery loess, leaving only their faces exposed so they could see and breathe.

  “This should hide us from the fleet,” said Neeva. “But what about Jo’orsh? We could lose him.”

  “Perhaps, but he hasn’t changed direction in days,” said Sadira. “And if the sorcerer-kings are behind us, I suspect we’re still traveling toward the Dragon’s home.” “Right,” agreed Rikus. “But I am worried that the banshee will stick his head up at the wrong moment. His glowing eyes would be hard to miss on a night like this.”

  “You needn’t worry about Jo’orsh,” said Tithian. He pushed a liver-spotted hand under the dust to maintain contact with the floater’s dome. “He can take care of himself.”

  With that, the king slid down into the bilge, accompanied by Sacha, who had carefully remained out of everyone’s reach during the preparations. Rikus covered the pair with dust, then took a moment to inspect the dhow. When he was satisfied that everything was covered as well as it could be, he drew his sword and lay down, taking care to position himself between the king and the Dark Lens.

  They waited in the silt-heavy gloom for what seemed an eternity, listening to their own heartbeats and the wind hissing across the silt. The hollow that they had carved from the dust swell slowly filled in, and loess gathered around Rikus’s nose and mouth. At first, he tried to keep a clear air passage by blowing the stuff away, but this did not work, and he eventually had to move his hand up to fan the stuff away. He began to doubt that Sacha had really seen any lights, and occupied his time by trying to think of possible reasons for the disembodied head to lie. Aside from Sacha’s malevolence, he could not see what the head might gain by making the dhow sit motionless in the dark.

  Rikus was just about to rise when he heard the distant creak of straining masts. The others heard it, too, for the dhow fell even more silent, as if everyone had drawn a deep breath and had held it. The sound grew louder and steadier, until at last the mul recognized in it the rhythmic cadence of a ship sliding over dust swells.

  Far to the dhow’s stern, the flickering beams of huge oil lamps began to dance across the silt. The rays roved back and forth in great arcs, creating long columns of bright, windborne silt that pierced the darkness like spears. Even with the lights, the dust was so thick that Rikus doubted the Balican searchers could see more than a few yards beyond their gunnels—at least they couldn’t have, if not for the magical king’s eyes Tithian had mentioned.

  The lights danced ahead to the next swell, then the schooner itself slipped into the trough. If not for the muffled voices of its crew and the halos of its deck lamps hovering far above the dust, Rikus would hardly have known it was there. It took many moments for the ship to pass. From the lights shining on the various decks and portholes, the mul formed a fair picture of its size and shape. The thing was huge, at least three times the size of the mighty war wagons Hamanu had sent to attack Tyr during the war with Urik. It seemed entirely possible that the whole village of Samarah could have fit on one of its decks. By the time the schooner’s stern lights faded into the dusty night, Rikus felt more certain than ever that he had made the right decision in electing to hide. Fighting the schooner would have been like battling an entire legion.

  The ship had hardly passed when the glow of another schooner’s lantern stabbed through the darkness overhead. Rikus heard his companions gasp, then the light illuminated a small circle on the crest of the next dust swell. The yellow disk began to sweep slowly down the slope, coming in their direction.

  Rikus gripped the Scourge more tightly, preparing to leap up and fight. As his companions tensed to do the same, he heard dust rustling all around him. “Stay still,” he whispered. “Don’t move unless I say to.”

  The light continued to come toward them. Rikus guessed the beam would sweep across the ship just about where he lay.

  A loud hiss sounded from just in front of their dhow. An instant later, a huge bowsprit drifted over the crest of the dust swell in which they had bur
ied themselves. The spar was as long as a tree, and it gleamed with the reflected rays of an oil lamp. It was passing so close that Rikus could have jumped off their little craft’s bow and caught hold of it.

  The schooner’s lantern beam approached to within an arm’s length of the dhow. At the same time, the prow of the Balican schooner burst through the dust swell, spraying a thick plume of silt high into the air. Rikus closed his eyes and ducked down beneath the dhow’s gunnel, pulling himself toward the bottom of the bilge.

  The mul felt the bow rise as the schooner’s wake pushed their little craft aside. The dhow spun toward the bottom of the swell and began to slip down the slope. It moved easily for it was still being levitated by Tithian. Fighting the urge to sit up, Rikus opened his eyes to the burning silt. He saw yellow light illuminating the silt over his head. He could do nothing except remind himself that this was the reason they had camouflaged their boat, and to hope that his companions also remembered that.

  An instant later, the amber glow vanished. The mul pushed himself up. He thrust his head out of the dust, gasping for breath and expecting to hear an alarm cry rising from the schooner.

  Through a thick cloud of dust, Rikus saw the dark wall of an immense hull looming high above them. The mul looked toward the schooner’s bow and saw the beam of the lantern sweeping away from their dhow. From his angle below the gunnel, he could not see the lookouts. Nevertheless, he did not think they had seen the dhow. There was no sign that anyone was attempting to shine a light in their direction, nor did he hear anyone shouting an alarm. It seemed that their camouflage had kept the dhow concealed, at least for the brief instant that the lantern had flashed over it.

  Rikus saw the heads and shoulders of his companions showing above the dust around him. Neeva was biting her finger to keep from coughing. Sadira and Caelum were both prepared to cast spells, the sorceress holding the dark lump of a spell component in her hand, and the dwarf touching his fingers to the sun-mark on his forehead. Only Tithian seemed calm, leaning against the floater’s dome and smirking at them with an air of condescension.

  It took only a moment longer for the schooner’s stern to hiss past and disappear behind the next dust swell, leaving the dhow alone in the vast, inky darkness of the Sea of Silt. They all breathed a sigh of relief and began to scoop the silt out of the bilge.

  TWELVE

  THE SHOALS

  THE CHAIN OF SHOALS STRETCHED ACROSS THE ENTIRE horizon. In the dusk light, they appeared to be true islands, covered with tangles of water-loving ferns and vine-draped trees. From every copse trilled the warbles of strange birds, underscored at regular intervals by the chilling roar of some colossal reptile. Most of the flats even had a beach of sorts: a broad expanse of crusty, sunbaked mud that ringed the fertile groves in the center.

  In the past two weeks, however, the dhow had passed enough shoals for Neeva to know the truth. The inviting isles ahead were little more than a chain of muddy swales, created by water seeping up from springs buried deep beneath the dust. The ground beneath the trees was a thin, sticky sludge only slightly less treacherous than the powdery loess filling the Sea of Silt.

  “There’s no way the Balicans took their schooners through that,” growled Neeva. She leaned over the gunnel and peered into the shadowy labyrinth of channels between the shoals. “We’ve lost their course.”

  “We haven’t,” Caelum called back. The dwarf kneeled in the bow, his eye fixed on an arrow of crimson flame gliding through the silt just ahead of the prow. “Our sun-guide still points straight ahead. Judging by how brightly it glows, I’d even say we’re catching up to the fleet.”

  The dwarf cast the spell several times a day, alternately using it to track the Balicans and Rkard. So far, the arrow always pointed in the same direction, though it always glowed much more brightly when Caelum directed it at the fleet.

  Neeva looked across the boat to Rikus. “What do you think? Could the Balican schooners squeeze through those channels?”

  The mul shrugged. “There’s enough space between the trees,” he said. “But the shipfloaters would have to lift their hulls high enough to clear the mud crusts at the shoal edges. It wouldn’t be easy.”

  “Or the sorcerer-kings might know of a hidden passage,” said Sadira. The sorceress sat in the stern, using her magic to fly the dhow. “If not, their magic is certainly powerful enough to see them through.”

  When Neeva did not respond, Sadira added, “We’ll catch up to Borys and your son.”

  “How?” Neeva snapped. “We don’t know the way through there. It could take days to find a passage.”

  “We don’t have to go through the shoals,” suggested Rikus. “We could fly over them.”

  “No!” Caelum objected. “The Balican fleet is too near. Their lookouts might see us.”

  Sadira glanced over her shoulder at the setting sun. “Besides, it’ll be dark soon,” she said. “My powers will fade before we travel far.”

  Neeva cursed. “We’ve got to do something,” she said. “The last time Caelum’s sun-guide pointed at Rkard, it was so faint we could hardly see it.”

  Rikus stepped over Tithian, who was sleeping in the bilge, and took Neeva by the shoulders. “You’re right, Neeva,” the mul said. “We don’t know how far away the Dragon and your son are, but we’re doing everything we can to catch them.”

  “What if that’s not enough, Rikus?” she demanded. “We’ve already seen that the Dragon’s magic is just as powerful as Sadira’s. And if he knows we have the Dark Lens, he’s probably trying to hide Rkard from us.”

  “Maybe,” the mul allowed, his black eyes holding hers steady. “But you know we won’t stop searching.”

  “Like Borys hasn’t stopped searching for the Dark Lens?” she asked. “My son won’t live a thousand years. He might even be dead now.”

  “Yes, he could be dead,” Rikus allowed. “But should we do anything different because of it?”

  Neeva shook her head, folding herself into the mul’s arms. “Damn you,” she whispered. “You always were too honest with me.”

  She had only been there an instant when she felt her husband’s hands prying her away. “Are you cruel or just stupid, Rikus?” the dwarf demanded, interposing himself between her and the mul. “The last thing she needs to hear right now is that Rkard might be dead.”

  Rikus scowled, more confused than angry. “How do you know he’s not?”

  “That’s not the point,” Caelum fumed.

  “Then what is?” demanded Neeva. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to believe anything else?”

  “Of course not,” the dwarf said. “But don’t you see what he’s doing?”

  “What?” demanded Neeva.

  “Now that Sadira’s spurned him, he wants you back,” said Caelum, his red eyes burning with anger. “And he’s preying on your emotions.”

  “I was only trying to calm her down!” Rikus shook his head in disbelief.

  Caelum stepped toward him. “I know what you were doing!” The dwarf turned his palm toward the sun. “And if you try it again—”

  Neeva slapped her husband’s arm down. “That blow to your head must have shaken your brains loose.” She jerked him away from the mul. “Apologize to Rikus.”

  “He’s the one who should apologize,” Caelum said. “He’s already come between us, whether you admit it or not. You think I haven’t noticed how distant you’ve been?”

  Neeva released her husband’s arm. “This has nothing to do with Rikus, except that I keep thinking Rkard should have been with him instead of you,” she said. Her throat suddenly felt as dry as silt. “I can’t help blaming you for what’s happened to our son. It’s unfair, but I just can’t get over the fact that Borys took Rkard from you. I’m sorry.”

  Caelum’s face paled from bronze to ivory. Even his eyes seemed to fade from red to pink. “Don’t apologize. I feel the same way,” he said. “I’ve gone over the fight a hundred times, and I still don’t know how I could have stop
ped Borys. I just wish he had finished the job and killed me.”

  “The fault is more mine than yours,” said Sadira. “When I used my magic to move you and Rkard to the well, I played right into Borys’s plans.”

  The dwarf shook his head. “You moved both of us so I’d be there to protect him if anything went wrong,” Caelum replied. “But I couldn’t. What good is a man who can’t defend his own son?”

  Neeva felt sorry for her husband but could not bring herself to offer him consolation. The simple fact was that she could not answer his question. What good was a man who couldn’t protect his own son?

  Caelum turned toward the bow then paused and faced Rikus. “Please accept my apologies, my friend,” he said. “What I said to you was terrible.”

  The color rose to the mul’s cheeks. “Think nothing of it.” He tried to shrug in a good-natured manner but succeeded only in looking uncomfortable. “We’ve all been touchy for the past few days. Tithian must be using some mind trick to make us argue.”

  As if he really believed what he had suggested, the mul planted a sharp kick in the sleeping king’s ribs.

  Rkard woke, gagging on the rotten stench of sulfur fumes and faintly aware that the Dragon still held him. They had stopped flying. Borys stood on a broken hillock of basalt overlooking a vast valley of dust and fire. Before them lay a plain of loose cinders and black stone laced with yellow channels of molten rock. Scattered geysers spewed ash and fire high into the sky while cascades of lava poured from the steaming fissures of distant cliffs. A cloud of red ash boiled overhead, and the air tasted as hot as flame.

  “Where are we?” Rkard croaked. “Inside the sun?”

  “No, Rkard,” answered a familiar voice. “Borys has carried you into the heart of the Sea of Silt—his personal lands.”

  Jo’orsh appeared at the Dragon’s side. As always, the banshee arrived instantaneously, as if he had emerged from the vacant air itself.

  “Jo’orsh!” Rkard cried. He twisted around to face his friend, fighting against the Dragon’s incredibly tight grip. “You found me!”