Troy Denning - The Cerulean Storm

Rikus dropped behind a boulder and signaled for Sadira to come over. She slipped behind the crest of the crater rim, trying to stay out of sight as she ran over to join the mul. Her precautions were of little use. The sorcerer-kings stepped from beneath the arch and walked across the plain toward the crater.

By the time Sadira reached Rikus’s side behind the boulder, the sorcerer-kings stood at the rim’s base, directly in front of the pair’s hiding place. The five figures were less than twenty paces away and perhaps half that distance lower.

Hamanu stepped forward and looked up the slope. “You fools,” he growled, angrily shaking his mane. “What you have unleashed may destroy us all.”

“In your case, the loss will be a welcome one,” called Sadira. She rose to peer over the boulder.

Rikus joined her. If the sorcerer-kings attacked, a few feet of stone was not going to save them.

“Give us the Dark Lens, and your deaths will be mercifully quick,” said the Oba.

“I’m in no hurry to die.” The mul looked at Sadira. “How about you?”

“I’ll take my time,” the sorceress replied. She glanced down at their enemies, then said, “If you want the Lens, you’ll have to find it and take it.”

Hamanu started forward, but the Oba caught him by the shoulder. “Wait. They’re too anxious.”

“They’re blustering,” the sorcerer-king snarled.

“Perhaps, but they did kill Borys,” she countered. The Oba pointed at the dark stain on the slope below the mul. “Do you really want to take the chance that they haven’t set a trap?”

Hamanu’s huge nostrils flared, but he stepped back. “You have something else in mind?”

The Oba nodded, then called up the slope, “How much do you know of Rajaat?”

“Enough to know that you betrayed him, which, at the moment, makes him our friend,” Rikus replied.

The Oba chuckled, though she sounded more nervous than amused. “Rajaat would slay you two as soon as he finished with us.”

“His shadow people have proven helpful so far,” Sadira replied.

“Of course. They wanted you to kill Borys,” said Andropinis, shaking his fringe of white hair. “But if you knew the truth about Rajaat, you would know better than to rely on his gratitude.”

“Why don’t you enlighten us?” requested Sadira. Andropinis glanced at his fellows.

“Go ahead,” suggested the Oba. “After hearing the truth, they’ll yield the Dark Lens without a fight.”

Andropinis turned his palm toward the ground.

“No magic!” Rikus yelled.

The sorcerer-king fixed an icy glare on the mul and drew the energy for his spell. “Watch and learn,” he said, waving his hand across the sky.

An image of the Ringing Mountains appeared above the horizon, but they were not the barren crags Rikus knew from his life in Tyr. A howling wind tore great plumes of snow off the highest peaks, while large sheets of ice ran off their lofty shoulders. Lower down, the slopes resembled the wild forests of the halflings, with thick, verdant timberlands clinging to the steep slopes. Pearly clouds of mist hung low over valleys filled with gurgling streams and thundering rivers.

As majestic as the mountains were, they interested Rikus little compared to what he saw at their base. Between two ranges of foothills lay a hollow about the size and shape of the Tyr Valley. There the semblance ended. Instead of the barren waste of rocks and thorns the mul knew, the vale was filled with a vast swamp of vine-draped trees and floating islands of moss.

At the edge of the valley a strange, beautiful city of graceful sweeps and brilliant colors rose directly out of the swamp. The buildings seemed not so much constructed as grown, for they were marked by an architecture of gentle curves and elegant spires, with no straight edges, sharp points, or abrupt corners. The material was a uniformly porous stone that radiated blazing crimson, emerald green, royal blue, deep purple, or any of a dozen other hues. Where there should have been streets were canals filled with long slender boats guided by child-sized figures with adult faces. If not for their elegant tabards, their short-cropped hair, and their handsome features, the mul would have sworn they were halflings.

At the city’s edge, the swamp gave way to the sparkling waves of an immense blue sea. It appeared to stretch clear to the horizon and beyond, covering ground that Rikus knew to be nothing but sandy wastes and rocky barrens.

“Tyr, during the Blue Age,” said Andropinis.

“Blue Age?” Sadira was studying the scene intently.

“Before your time or ours, when only halflings lived on Athas,” explained the Oba. Making no effort to conceal her admiration for the halflings, she continued, “They were the masters of the world, growing homes from a rocklike plant that lived beneath the waves, harvesting the sea for everything they needed to maintain a vast, splendorous society, able to create anything they needed by manipulating the principles of nature itself.”

As the sorcerer-queen spoke, a fetid brown tide spread over the blue sea. It crept into the swamp surrounding Tyr, causing the floating moss islands to shrivel and sink. The vines went next, withering into the brown sludge like the sloughed skin of a serpent. The trees themselves died last, dropping their leaves and losing their bark. Before long, the grove stood naked in the swamp, an army of gray boles mired in a valley of putrid slime.

“Despite their vast knowledge, or perhaps because of it, one day the halflings made a terrible mistake that destroyed the life-giving sea,” the Oba continued.

“A good story, but don’t assume I believe it just because Andropinis spreads it across the sky,” Rikus said.

“Believe it,” said Sadira. “On my way to the Pristine Tower, I saw halflings and stone just like that. So far, they’re telling the truth.”

“We’ve no reason to lie,” snapped Andropinis. “We care nothing for your opinion.”

The sorcerer-king waved his hand. The Ringing Mountains receded into the distance, until they looked like no more than blue clouds hanging low on the horizon. In their place stretched a vast, featureless plain of mud, as brown as dung and as thick as clay. In the center of the flat rose a single spire of porous white stone, capped by a beautiful citadel with alabaster walls and a keep of white onyx.

“The Pristine Tower!” Sadira gasped.

A long file of halflings left the citadel, descending the narrow staircase that spiraled down the outside of the spire. Their tabards hung off their bodies in dingy strips, while their hair cascaded over their shoulders in tangled snarls. Their features had grown haggard and wild, and they gestured with the quick, darting movements typical of the feral race Rikus had known during his own time.

The halflings started across the brown plain toward the Ringing Mountains. The mud cleaved to their feet like torch pitch, and soon they could not take a step without also raising a huge clump of brown earth. In their wake sprouted tall grasses, leafy bushes, and magnificent trees that loomed above the tableland like towers. Soon, the plain became a verdant paradise, teeming with foliage of every sort.

Creatures began to appear in this forest: horn-covered lizards, bright-feathered birds, and graceful herd-beasts such as Rikus had never seen, with racks of white horns and long thin limbs. Some of the animals perished almost immediately, falling prey to the great hunting cats that prowled the newborn wilderness, while others lived long enough to create others of their kind.

The flowering of this new paradise did not come without pain. As the halflings traveled across plain, the weak collapsed and were abandoned where they lay. Their bodies began to transform into strange shapes. One grew stocky and hair-covered, while another tripled his height without gaining much bulk. Still others became both thicker of limb and taller, and some developed scales, sprouted feathers, or even grew carapaces. By the time the surviving halflings had reached the distant mountains, they had left more races behind than Rikus could count. He recognized many of them, such as the dwarves, elves, and humans. Others, he had never seen, or he only knew about from legends. There were frail, winged characters even smaller than halflings, and ugly swine-faced beings that could scarcely be called people. Like the animals, many of these individuals perished quickly, while others went on to populate the world with whole races of their own kind.