The Amber Enchantress

by Denning, Troy

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sadira said, her eyes fixed on the brown stain spreading across the pool. “This is the last time I’ll ask you to stop.”

  “Ask all you—”

  Rhayn did not have a chance to finish. Sadira dropped to a knee and spun around, using the lower part of her leg to sweep her sister’s feet. With an astonished scream, the elf lost her balance and fell into the pool of brown water.

  A half-dozen shadows slipped into the pond without creating so much as a ripple. They glided over to Rhayn’s struggling form and clamped their hands onto her arms. As they dragged her into the pool’s depths, a black shroud slowly spread over the elf’s body. She turned toward Sadira and opened her mouth to scream. That was the last the sorceress saw of her sister.

  For a moment, Sadira could only stare into the water, morose and somber. She did not feel guilty, however, for Rhayn had been defiling the garden. As Sadira had learned in Nibenay, not even the shadows’ betrayal could justify ruining fertile soil. In exacting her petty vengeance on the shadow people today, the elf had been willing to condemn an untold number of future generations to an existence of pain and misery.

  As Sadira pondered her sister’s fate, an icy hand touched her shoulder. “Come, we must hurry,” said Khidar’s voice.

  “Why? So you can betray me, too?” demanded Sadira.

  “We did not betray the elf,” answered Khidar. “We merely honored the word of our promise—”

  “Instead of the spirit,” Sadira said. She rose and looked up into the blue cinders that served as the shadow’s eyes. “Would it have been so difficult to give her what she asked?”

  “No, but then we couldn’t have given you what you want,” Khidar answered. “Would you have preferred that?”

  “At least I would have a reason to trust you,” Sadira answered, dodging an answer to this difficult question.

  “Whether you trust us or not does not matter,” the shadow said. “Now come. We must hurry, or you will change into a mindless beast and run off before we can aid you.”

  He pointed at the stones where sorceress’s knee had dropped when she swept Rhayn off her feet. There was a faint smear of blood on the limestone. Sadira looked down and saw that she had scraped her kneecap. Already, a yellow carapace was forming around the edges of the abrasion.

  As Khidar guided her toward the tower at the center of the pond, Sadira asked, “Why are you helping me—if that’s really what you’re doing? It would have been an easy matter to find a pretense and betray me, as you did Rhayn.”

  “I told you, we are honoring our agreements to the word,” the shadow insisted, though his tone suggested that he was not telling her the whole truth.

  Sadira stopped. “There’s more to it than that.” She clenched her teeth as a painful muscle spasm ran up her leg. “You have some reason for wanting me to defy the Dragon.”

  “What do you care?” Khidar asked. “We’re willing to help you. That’s all that matters.”

  “If I’m to stand a chance of defying the Dragon, I must learn everything I can about him and this place.” Sadira answered. “Otherwise, you might as well let me die here.”

  “I suppose it will do no harm to tell you, and perhaps it may even help.” Khidar said, starting toward the tower. “You were powerful and resourceful enough to reach the tower on your own—and that is a good portent for the struggle you’ve taken upon yourself.”

  “This is all very interesting, but it still doesn’t answer my question,” Sadira answered, not allowing the shadow to sidetrack her with flattery.

  Khidar sighed. “How much do you already know of the Pristine Tower?”

  “Enough to guess that you’re taking me into the Steeple of Crystals,” the sorceress began. She quickly repeated what Er’Stali had told her: that the Champions had rebelled against Rajaat and that they had forced him to make Borys into the Dragon. Sadira and Khidar reached the Steeple of Crystals just as she came to the story of how Jo’orsh and Sa’ram had tracked Borys to the Pristine Tower.

  As soon as she mentioned the dwarves’ names, Khidar burst out, “May the ghosts of the little thieves never find rest!”

  Sadira frowned. “What did they steal?”

  “You shall see soon enough,” the shadow said, holding out his hand. “You must take my arm for a moment.”

  The sorceress grasped his frigid hand. She had to stifle a pained cry as his touch began to draw the heat from her body, leaving her shivering with a cold agony such as she had never before experienced. Khidar stepped forward, melting into the onyx wall. He pulled Sadira after him, and a shudder of nausea ran through her body as she also passed through the barrier. A moment later, the shadow released her hand.

  “Welcome to the Steeple of Crystals,” he said. It was here that Rajaat imbued his champions with the power to carry out his will, and here that the traitors forced him to make Borys into the Dragon.”

  At first, the sorceress could see nothing but a fierce crimson glow whirling around her like a windblown fog. When she grew accustomed to the strange light, Sadira saw that the tower housed only a single gloomy room. A dome-shaped mirror served as the floor, while sheer white walls soared high overhead to support the crystal cupola that she had seen from the walkway outside.

  A shaft of pink light descended from the cupola to the center of the mirror, where a dozen obsidian spheres of various sizes had been gathered. At first, it seemed to Sadira that the balls should have rolled away, but then she noticed that they were held in place by tiny wedges of marble. Inside each globe, a wisp of blue light slowly whirled about, as if some living thing were swimming through the black glass.

  “What are those?” Sadira asked. Her leg began to itch madly. When she reached down to scratch, she discovered that an articulated yellow shell had entirely encased it.

  “Eggs,” Khidar replied, motioning the sorceress toward the murky orbs.

  As she stepped away from the wall, limping slightly, Sadira saw that there were dozens of shadow people standing along the edge of the floor-mirror. Each time they exhaled, streams of dark vapor rose from their blue mouths and drifted toward the ceiling, joining the murk that already filled the room. The sorceress did not know whether the shadows had been there all along or had only recently come into the chamber, for with their mouths and eyes closed, they would have been indistinguishable from the gloomy walls.

  “We must incubate our young in isolation, transferring, them from smaller balls to larger as they grow,” Khidar explained, waving his shadowy hand at the obsidian globes. “Before Jo’orsh and Sa’ram came, this was not necessary. We grew them all together, inside the dark lens.”

  “The dark lens?” Sadira asked.

  “Rajaat used the dark lens to perform his magic,” he said, “Without it, we cannot make you as powerful as you would like. But if you can steal the Scourge of Rkard from this Rikus, you will have two of the three things you need to kill the Dragon.”

  “Could you explain this a little more clearly?” Sadira asked. “Why do I need the Scourge of Rkard?”

  “Because it was forged by Rajaat,” Khidar answered. “Not only is it one of the few blades that will injure the Dragon, it will protect you from his blows. No champion—even traitors—can strike someone bearing a weapon forged by Rajaat.”

  “I can get the sword,” Sadira answered confidently. “Now, what is it that you’re doing for me?”

  “You will understand better after we have finished,” Khidar said. “But basically, we’ll open a new source of magical energy to you—one that has not been used since the days of Rajaat.”

  “And the third thing?” Sadira asked.

  Khidar pointed halfway up the tower. “The dark lens,” he said. “You’ll never kill the Dragon without it.”

  Sadira followed the shadow’s finger and saw that there was an enormous steel ring attached to the walls. In it were set seven different gems, each as large as a half-giant’s head. Six bars protruded from the inner wall of the
ring, supporting another steel collar centered directly above the middle of the floor. From the size of this empty band, Sadira guessed the crystal it had held to be the size of a kank. Now the setting was empty, save for the crimson shaft of light descending through it to bathe the eggs below.

  “Where do I find this dark lens?” she asked, wondering how she would move it once she had located it.

  “That’s something you’ll have to discover for yourself. We have no idea where Jo’orsh and Sa’ram went after they left the tower,” he said. “Now, you’ll have to endure my touch one more time.” Khidar reached for the sorceress’s hand. “I must take you up there, where we can focus the magic of the sun on you.”

  “Not yet,” Sadira said, pulling away. Although she was frightened by the change occurring in her leg, the sorceress was determined to learn everything she could about the Pristine Tower and the Dragon. Besides, she assumed Khidar would be able to return her leg to normal, at least if the shadow people had been telling the truth when they offered to heal Magnus. “What do you get by helping me?”

  A black cloud left Khidar’s mouth. “Our reward is simple,” he said. “Our race was born of the magic which made Borys into the Dragon. We’re the descendants of the loyal servants of Rajaat—of the men and women whom the champions sacrificed in order to complete the betrayal of their master. When Borys dies, our race will be released from its fate.”

  “Thank you,” Sadira said, nodding to the shadow. “Now I’m ready.”

  Khidar took Sadira in his arms. A terrible chill ran through her body, stinging her skin and freezing her flesh to the bone. A black stain spread outward from where the dark arms enclosed her, bringing with it an icy, deathlike numbness. The sorceress felt her knees buckle, then she collapsed into the shadow’s grasp.

  Khidar rose into the air, carrying Sadira’s shivering body with him. Below them, the rest of the shadow people moved toward the center of the room, flitting about in a wild, rhythmic dance. Scintillating flashes of light began to shoot off the mirror, passing through the gems set into the steel ring that had once supported the dark lens.

  Khidar took Sadira almost to the crystal cupola before he stopped. The sorceress saw that her body now resembled his: a black silhouette, with no hint of her wiry frame or womanly figure. Below her, a varicolored spray of light danced off the walls of the tower, rising from the gems of the lens to lap at her feet like flames with no heat.

  As Sadira watched, the dancing rays came together in a prismatic blast of light. The eruption that followed formed itself into a simmering cloud of color, which came boiling up beneath her feet. A peal of deep, sonorous thunder rumbled from the heart of the storm. Golden rays of brilliance and black streaks of darkness flashed out to strike her, sending searing waves of pain and icy bolts of torment shooting through her body. Sadira felt herself slipping from Khidar’s icy grip. As she sank into the storm of colors, she heard herself scream in agony.

  When her voice echoed back to her, it was filled with jubilation and triumph.

  EIGHTEEN

  SONG OF THE

  LIRRS

  AS THE SUN TOUCHED ITS CRIMSON DISK TO THE western horizon, Magnus raised his weary voice to join the lirrs in yet another of their morbid beast-songs. The saurian creatures were all around him, standing on their hind legs and stretching out their thorny tails to balance the weight of their scale-covered bodies. When they sang, they flared their magnificent neck fans, opening their mouths so wide that they seemed nothing but pink gullet and fangs.

  Magnus had been singing with the lirr pack since shortly after midday, when they had come trotting through the field. At first, the windsinger had hoped that they would mistake him for a tree and continue on. Unfortunately, the branches that had sprouted on his upper body had begun to quiver in fear, giving him away. One of the lirrs had come over and began clawing at his trunk.

  At that moment, Magnus had realized the pack would eventually devour him, but, determined not to die easily, he had cracked the creature’s skull, with a huge fist. The rest of the pack had immediately returned and begun circling, bellowing the eerie notes of their hunting song. It was then that he had hit upon the idea of joining them.

  The tactic had worked well, for his voice was more than versatile enough to duplicate the notes of their keening. The saurians had been circling him since, confused as to whether he was prey, a tree, or some kind of strange lirr. There was a limit to how long Magnus could keep stalling the predators, however, and the windsinger knew that he was fast approaching it. Already, he could hear his voice cracking with hoarseness, and before the night was finished he knew it would fail entirely.

  To Magnus’s relief, the lirrs suddenly stopped singing. In unison, they dropped to all fours and turned eastward, their amber eyes gleaming hungrily. An instant later, they bounded away together. Following them with his eyes, the windsinger saw that they had gone to attack a solitary figure returning from the Pristine Tower. At this distance, and in the obscure light of dusk, Magnus could not tell whether he was looking at Sadira or Rhayn.

  “Watch yourself!” he yelled. “Lirrs!”

  The warning came too late, for the beats were already upon their prey. They launched themselves at her, snapping at her throat with sharp fangs and raking her abdomen with long claws. Magnus’s leafy boughs shuddered with horror and he tried to avert his lidless eyes, but constrained as he was by his trunk, he could not turn far enough away to avoid seeing what followed.

  To his amazement, the charging beats did not bowl the woman over. Instead, she simply stopped walking and they slipped, clawing and snapping, off her body. Once the lirrs reached the ground, they changed tactics, savaging her legs in an attempt to topple their quarry.

  The distant figure stopped and pointed a hand toward the setting sun. By the time she pulled it away, her whole body glowed with a crimson light. She kicked at the voracious lirrs with her feet, trying to drive them away before she unleashed her magic. This act suggested to Magnus that he was looking at Sadira, for no elf would have treated one of the saurians with such kindness.

  When the lirr did not avail themselves of her mercy, the sorceress waved her hand at them. A brilliant flash of red flared from beneath her palm. Once the spots had faded from Magnus’s eyes, he saw that the beasts had vanished. As powerful as she had been before entering the tower, the windsinger realized that Sadira had returned with her abilities much enhanced.

  The sorceress strolled toward Magnus as though nothing had happened, and soon he could see the highlights of her amber hair glistening in the evening light. Her face, however, remained swathed in shadows until she was almost upon him.

  When she finally came close enough, to see, the windsinger could not stop himself from gasping. Where the lirr had raked her, there was not even the faintest sign of a wound. But it was not the sorceress’s immunity to injury that shocked the windsinger the most. Although she was as beautiful as ever, her skin had turned jet black. Her eyes now had no pupils and glowed like burning embers. Whenever she exhaled, a wisp of black steam rose from between her lips, which had changed color to match her blue eyes.

  “What’s wrong, Magnus?” Sadira asked, giving him a warm smile. “Don’t you like women in black?”

  “As long as you’re still Sadira, I don’t mind,” the windsinger replied, giving her a nervous grin.

  This brought a smile to the sorceress’s lips. “It’s me—more or less,” she said. Sadira’s expression saddened, then she added, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Rhayn won’t be coming back.”

  The windsinger nodded. Choking back a lump in his throat, he said, “That’s okay. It’s not like I’d be going anywhere with her.” He shook his branches for emphasis.

  Sadira was quiet for a moment, then she asked, “Maybe you’d like to come with me, instead?”

  “Don’t mock me,” Magnus said. “It’s going to be difficult enough watching you leave.”

  “I’m not mocking you,” Sadira answered.
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  With that, she moved forward and began plucking branches off the windsinger’s body.

  “That hurts!” Magnus objected, trying to push the sorceress’s arms away. To his surprise, he found that he could not. It was not that they were strong, but they just did not yield to force. “Stop it!”

  Sadira continued to pluck, ripping even large branches off his body as though they were only shoots. “I suppose you want to spend the rest of your days with leaves all over your back?” she asked, ripping the last bough off.

  “That is what trees look like,” the windsinger replied, staring sadly at the pile of limbs she had scattered about his trunk.

  “Well, you’re not a tree,” Sadira said, laying her hands on his trunk. “You’re an elf—more or less.”

  Deep inside his bole, Magnus felt a strange tingle where his legs had once been. He tried to move his feet and felt muscles responding to his command, though his lower body remained locked in wood.

  “Brace yourself,” Sadira said. “This will hurt.”

  “What’s going to—”

  Magnus’s trunk erupted into flames. He screamed, sending a loud, echoing howl rolling across the field in all directions. For several moments, he writhed about madly, choking on acrid smoke and trying to bat out the fire consuming his lower half. Searing pain filled his entire body, and he began to think Sadira had decided it would be kinder to kill him than to leave him here, trapped and alone.

  Then his legs came free and he fell forward, landing at the sorceress’s feet. “How did you do that?” he gasped, running his hands over his still-smoking legs.

  “A legacy from the shadow people,” the sorceress said, holding a hand down to the windsinger. “Among other things, I’ve gained quite a lot of control over most forms of magic.”

  Magnus flattened his ears doubtfully. “What kind of nonsense—”

  “It’s not nonsense,” Sadira responded.

  To prove her point, she pulled the windsinger’s immense bulk off the ground. He came up as though he weighed less than a child. His jaw dropped open and he stared at her arms in frank astonishment.