by Troy Denning
"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.
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.
"You have the strength of a half-giant!" Magnus gasped.
"It's not strength," Sadira said. "It's the sun. As long it's above the horizon, I'm steeped in its power."
"So you've become a sun-cleric?" he asked.
Sadira shook her bead. "No," she said. "The shadows explained it to me like this: the sun is the source of all life. All magic comes from life-force—whether it's drawn from plants or animals. Sorcerers get their mystical energy from plants, the Dragon gets his from animals. From now on, I'll get mine from the sun—the most powerful source of all."
Magnus remained doubtful. "The shadow people did this for you?" he asked. "It doesn't make sense that shadows would know so much about the sun."
"Who else would understand more about light?" Sadira asked. "Without light, you can't have shadow."
Instead of answering, Magnus tilted his ears forward and looked over the sorceress's shoulder. "There's something over there," he whispered.
Sadira turned around just as a sarami-swaddled body rose from the brush about fifty yards away. Even from this distance, the sorceress could see that his red nostrils were flaring with hatred, and his bulbous eyes were fixed on her face. He raised a hand and pointed it in her direction.
The sorceress shoved Magnus aside, sending him sailing through the air in a long arc.
Dhojakt's lips moved as he uttered his incantation. The glowing form of a giant owl appeared above his head, then streaked toward Sadira. Where there should have been eyes, the magical beast had orange flames, and instead of claws, it had a pair of sizzling lightning bolts.
Sadira did not even try to avoid the attack. Instead, she remained motionless and allowed the bird to swoop down upon her. When it reached striking distance, the raptor assaulted in a storm of sparks and flame, its silver talons crackling harmlessly against her skin and streams of fire shooting from its eyes and washing off her with no effect. Sadira allowed the attack to continue for a moment, then laid her hand against the raptor's body. She began to pull energy from it, much as she had once drawn the life-force of plants when she wished to cast a spell. The owl's attacks ceased and its body steadily dwindled away, until nothing at all remained of the magical bird.
Looking toward Dhojakt, Sadira turned her hand downward and expelled the energy. As it returned to the soil from which it had come, she moved toward him. "I was wondering what had become of you, Prince," she yelled.
Behind her, Magnus returned to his feet and followed at a safe distance. "What are you doing?" he whispered "Let's run for it—at least until we're out of sight of the tower. If he even scratches us—"
"He won't!" Sadira hissed.
As they approached, Dhojakt did not retreat. "You were fortunate at Cleft Rock," he said. "It took quite some time to work free—especially since the grotto rock made it impossible to use magic."
"I had hoped to destroy you," she answered, stopping a few paces from the prince. Magnus circled around to the side, taking care to stay well out of arm's reach. "This time I will."
"I think not," the prince replied, paying no attention to the windsinger. "Just because I didn't dare follow you into the tower doesn't mean I can't kill you now."
Sadira started to raise a hand to collect the energy for a spell, then thought better of it and let her arm drop back to her side. She wanted to know more about why Dhojakt had been afraid to follow her into the Pristine Tower.
"You're a liar," Sadira said. "If you were too weak to go to the tower, you're too weak to hurt me now."
The comment did not provoke the angry response for which the sorceress had hoped. Instead, Dhojakt gave her a confident smile. "It's not that I was too weak to enter the tower. But what good would it have done me to chase you into the midst of my father's oldest enemies? I would have been so busy fighting them that there would've been no time to kill you."
"You and your father have no reason to be enemies with the shadow people ... or me," the sorceress said, puzzled by the prince's willingness to talk. He had never before struck her as the type who wasted much time conversing with enemies, and she did not like the fact that he was doing so now. "After all, the Dragon is as much an enemy to your father as to the shadow people."
This caused a nimble of laughter to roll from the prince's throat. "What makes you think that?"
"Even your father couldn't enjoy paying his levy every year," Sadira countered.
"No, but he does it willingly," chuckled Dhojakt. He glanced westward, to where the sun's disk had settled only halfway below the horizon. Looking back to Sadira, the prince added, "I thought the shadows would have told you—my father helped create the Dragon."
The prince had clearly intended his comment to startle Sadira, and he had succeeded. Fortunately, the sorceress was not so shocked that she had missed the significance of Dhojakt's glance toward the sun. He was trying to stall her until night fell, which suggested that he had deduced the nature of her new powers—and that could only mean that he had a thorough knowledge of the Pristine Tower. To Dhojakt, Sadira said, "What you claim is impossible. The Champions of Rajaat changed Borys into the Dragon—"
"And when the
y were finished, each claimed one of the cities of Athas, and they became the sorcerer-kings," the prince finished. "My father was Gallard—"
"Bane of the Gnomes," Sadira finished, recognizing the name from her conversation with Er'Stali. "Yes," Dhojakt replied, once again looking westward. Sadira did not bother to follow his glance, for she had heard enough. As incredible as it seemed that the champions could survive for so many centuries, what the prince told her made sense. It explained his knowledge of the tower, the sorcerer-kings' willingness to pay the Dragon's levy, and the reason his father had sent him to stop her from reaching the tower in the first place.
Deciding she had learned all she would from the prince, the sorceress raised a hand toward the sun. From the slowness with which energy came to her, she could tell that well past half its disk had sunk below the horizon.
"Watch yourself!" Magnus yelled.
The windsinger had barely spoken when Dhojakt flexed his two dozen legs and sprang forward. As the prince descended on Sadira, his bony mouthparts shot from between his lips and darted for her throat. The sorceress allowed the venomous mandibles to close around her neck, then staggered a single step backward as Dhojakt's heavy body slammed into her. For a moment, they stood face to face, a faint smile upon Sadira's lips as she felt her enemy's poisonous pincers trying in vain to puncture her skin.
Finally, Sadira lowered the hand that she had been holding up to the sun. "You should have listened to me," she said. "I said you were too weak to hurt me."
The sorceress slammed the heels of both palms into Dhojakt's ribs. She heard a series of muffled cracks, then the prince's mandibles released her neck and the breath shot from his lungs in an agonized bellow. The human part of his torso snapped back against the part that was cilops, smashing the back of his skull into his own carapace.
Dhojakt shook his head, then spun around to flee. Magnus came rushing out of the brush and grabbed the prince's rear segments. Bracing his massive feet against the ground, the windsinger locked his arms around Dhojakt's squirming body and did not let go.
"Hurry, Sadira!" Magnus gasped. "The sun's almost down!"
Sadira glanced over her shoulder and saw that the windsinger was right. Only a thin crescent remained above the horizon.
With his rear legs, Dhojakt scratched madly at the arms holding him. When his claws could not tear the windsinger's thick hide, he spun around and lunged toward Magnus with his pincers. Sadira slipped between the two and slapped the mandibles aside.
"Let go, Magnus," she said. "I don't want you getting hurt this close to dark."
"Don't worry about me," the windsinger objected. "If he gets away—"
"He won't!" Sadira said, holding her palm toward the narrowing crescent of the sun. "Let go!"
Magnus did as she ordered. As the sorceress expected, Dhojakt immediately tried to bolt, but she caught him by the arm and held fast. With her free hand, Sadira extended a single glowing finger toward the prince's head.
"Wait!" he cried.
"What do you take her for, a fool?" Magnus scoffed.
"No, of course not," said Dhojakt. "But there's something she should know before she attacks the Dragon. After I tell you, kill me if you like—but hear me out first."
Sadira glanced at the sun. It was no more than a sliver, its red light wavering uncertainly in the hazy sky.
"He's stalling," Magnus warned. "No," the prince said, looking at Sadira. "Even as powerful as you've become, you'll never kill the Dragon—but by fighting him, you might be endangering Athas itself." Sadira stopped short of touching the prince with her finger. "Explain yourself—and speak quickly!"
"The Dragon is powerful, but not as powerful as seven sorcerer-kings," Dhojakt said. "Ask yourself why they have paid his levy for so many millenniums."
The sorceress touched her finger to his face. The prince howled in pain and the air was instantly filled with the stench of charred flesh. "I don't have time for riddles," she hissed.
"They do it because the Dragon is Athas's protector," the prince said. "He needs the levy so that he remains strong enough to keep a great evil locked away."
"What evil?" Sadira demanded.
Dhojakt shook his head. "I cannot say—even to save my own life."
"Now, Sadira!" Magnus yelled.
"Who?" the sorceress demanded, pressing her finger to Dhojakt's face again. "The shadow people?"
The prince screamed in pain and flung himself to the ground. An instant later, clumps of broompipe and stems of milkweed began to wither all around him.
The glow in Sadira's finger began to fade, and the last rosy light of the evening spread across the darkening sky like a sheet of fire. Dhojakt spun around, his pincers extended and his fingers already working to cast a spell.
"Die, defiler!" Sadira screamed.
As she spoke, she spewed a cloud of dark fumes from her mouth. The vapors spread out above the prince's prone form, then coalesced into a fine mist and settled over him in a black pall. From inside came the sizzle of a misfired spell. As the murky shroud absorbed all the warmth from Dhojakt's body, there followed a series of blood-chilling screams. By the time the last glimmer of dusk had faded from the sky, all that remained of the Nibenese prince was a shadow upon the grass.
Magnus stepped to Sadira's side. "Why didn't you wait any longer to kill that thing?" he demanded, gesturing at the ground where Dhojakt had fallen. "You had at least another half-second."
"I'm sorry I pushed things so close," the sorceress answered. As the evening grew darker, her skin was losing its ebony luster and fading back to its usual coppery tone. "But it was worth the risk."
"How so?" Magnus demanded, his ears twitching uncomfortably at the changes occurring in Sadira's appearance.
"Dhojakt was right, I'm not ready to kill the Dragon," the sorceress answered. "But I am ready to stop him from sacking Tyr. Now I know his weakness."
NINETEEN
Borys
The argosy lay toppled on its side, cracked into two pieces and half-buried in rust-colored sand. The mekillots that had once pulled the huge fortress wagon remained in their harnesses, as motionless as hills and just as lifeless. Scattered for hundreds of yards around were the bodies of the outriders and their kanks, while the guards and merchants had been pulled from inside the argosy and heaped into a great pile on its shady side.
Despite the blazing heat of the day, only a faint stench of decay hung in the air. The corpses were too shriveled and desiccated to rot, for their bodily fluids had evaporated when the life-force was drawn out of them.
As she passed the scene, Sadira slowed her pace and allowed Magnus to catch her. So the windsinger could keep up, the sorceress had taken three kanks from the Silver Hand elves. Still, even though he rode his mounts in shifts, it was such a struggle for the beasts to match Sadira's pace that they often lagged behind.
When Magnus finally caught up, he asked, "The Dragon again?" Since rejoining the caravan trail at Silver Spring, they had encountered a string of similar sights.
Sadira nodded. "We're getting close to Tyr, and I'd like to know how far behind we are," she asked. "Is there any way you can tell?"
Magnus shook his head. "Normally, I could hazard a guess based on how much the corpses had decomposed, but with the bodies like this . . ." The windsinger let the sentence trail off and turned his ears toward the argosy. "There's something behind those bodies," he whispered, pointing toward the corpse pile. "I think it's just an animal."
"Let's look anyway," Sadira replied.
Without waiting for Magnus to dismount, the sorceress crept over to the body heap. As she approached, she heard the sound of gnawing and slurping coming from the far side. Trying to imagine what kind of carrion eater would make such noises, she paused long enough to point a hand toward the sun and draw the energy for a spell.
Before she could step around the pile, the gnawing stopped. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping watch?" demanded a grouchy voice. "I smell something!"
&nb
sp; "You're the one who's supposed to be watching," snarled a second speaker. "What if she comes by?"
Sadira stepped around the corpse pile to peek at the speakers. At first, she could not find them in the tangle of limbs and torsos. After a moment of searching, however, she saw a pair of disembodied heads resting on the withered flesh of a mul's leg. Both had coarse hair tied in long topknots, and the bottoms of their necks had been sewn shut with black thread. From the condition of the nearby bodies, it appeared they had been treating themselves to a gruesome feast. Although Sadira did not know the pair well, she had seen them often enough to know they were the advisors King Tithian had inherited from the sorcerer-king Kalak.
"Who are you waiting for?" she asked.
The heads spun around. "You, my dear," said one, whom Sadira recognized as Sacha. He had bloated cheeks and narrow, dark eyes. "We came out here to see you."
"Why?" Sadira demanded. Suspicious of their motives, she raised her hand to show that she was ready to defend herself.
"There's no need for threats," said Wyan, the second head. He twisted his cracked lips into the mockery of a smile and fixed his sunken eyes on the sorceress's crimson-glowing hand. "We're on your side in this."
"Why does that fail to reassure me?" asked Magnus, coming up behind Sadira.
Sacha looked at the windsinger. "Is this is a friend of yours, Sadira?" he asked, running a long, ash-colored tongue over his lips.
"He is," the sorceress replied, scowling.
"How unfortunate " sighed Wyan, glancing in distaste at the desiccated corpse upon which he had been gnawing. "I could use something fresh to drink."
"Don't even think about it," Sadira warned. "Now, tell me what you want. I'm in a hurry."
"Then you should thank us for saving you an unnecessary trip," said Wyan. "We've come to tell you that Borys is not going to Tyr—at least not right away."
