Troy Denning - The Cerulean Storm

Nibenay backed away then turned and ran after the other sorcerer-kings.

His serpent’s body coiled tightly about the Dark Lens, Tithian lay beneath a looming wall of granite, just outside the tunnel he had bored through an enormous foundation block. Before him stood a silent thicket of trees, with supple trunks that quietly swayed in the moonlit night, like slave dancers welcoming him to the city. Each had only a single blue leaf, as large as a sail and stretched tight over a dome-shaped network of branches. Neatly groomed paths curved through the shadows beneath their boughs, suggesting he had entered some sort of park.

Tithian hardly noticed the beauty of the place; his attention remained fixed entirely on the Dark Lens. When he had emerged from his tunnel, a surge of energy had risen from the ground, through him, and into the Lens. Dozens of smoky tendrils had begun to dance over the top of the orb. They had twined themselves together in a crackling spout of force and had risen into the sky, parting the red storm raging overhead.

“Get moving,” said Sacha, floating through the tunnel. As the head’s words carried into the thicket ahead, they faded without an echo. “The sorcerer-kings are flying across the plain.”

Tithian gestured at the black spout. “Something’s wrong.” he said. “I didn’t do this.”

Sacha rolled his sunken eyes. “Try not to be such a cretin.” he said. “Rajaat’s watching.”

Tithian began to uncoil himself, keeping the Lens gripped in his tail. “What’s happening?”

“The Lens is overloaded, so it’s discharging its excess energy.”

“Overloaded?”

“You’re near Rajaat’s prison. The Lens is drawing energy from the spell that keeps it intact,” Sacha explained, his tone deliberately patronizing. “Did you think the Lens took its power from the sun alone?”

As a matter of fact, that was exactly what Tithian had thought, but he did not give Sacha the pleasure of hearing him confess his mistake.

“Which way now?” he asked, looking deeper into the silent park.

“How would I know?” demanded Sacha. “How many times do you think I’ve been to Ur Draxa?”

A man slipped from behind one of the trees ahead. He wore a peculiar suit of armor fashioned from brightly painted human ribs, with a massive helmet carved from the squarish skull of some fanged race of half-man. The stranger carried a steel halberd with an ornately shaped blade that looked more suitable for displaying on a palace wall than fighting. Though the man moved with no particular care, his footsteps fell as softly as those of an elven hunter-leading the king to suspect the wood’s eerie silence had more to do with magic than tranquility.

The newcomer pointed his weapon at Tithian and motioned for him to lie on the ground. When the king did not obey, the man raised his halberd, and a hundred more warriors stepped from behind the trees. Their leather armor was not so fine as that of their leader, but the spears they carried looked much more practical than the man’s halberd.

“We don’t have time for this,” Sacha snarled. “Kill him.”

Deciding to take a lesson from the Dragon, Tithian visualized a great storm of fire erupting from his mouth. An incredible surge of energy gushed from the Dark Lens, blazing through the king’s body with such ferocity that he feared he would explode. A blinding white cone of flame erupted from his mouth, engulfing the officer and the warriors behind him. Tithian did not even see the thicket burn. The huge leaves and the branches vanished in a flash, then the ground was littered with scorched boles and blackened skulls. Only the edges of the small wood had escaped the instant devastation, and even they were starting to burn.

“Well done,” said a voice at Tithian’s side.

The king whipped his head around. At first, he did not see the speaker, then he glimpsed a pair of flickering blue eyes. They were looking up at him from the faint shadow his moonlit body cast on the ground. As Tithian watched, the silhouette slowly peeled itself off the dirt and changed into a more manlike form-though it was only about the size and shape of a halfling.

“Who are you?” Tithian watched a nose and a pair of lips form on the thing’s face.

“How quickly you forget,” the silhouette responded. “I led you through the Black less than an hour ago.”

“Khidar?” Tithian gasped. “I thought you were a giant!”

“Of course not, you imbecile,” Sacha chided. “The shadow people are descended from the last of Rajaat’s halfling servants.”

“Shadows play strange tricks with size, do they not?” Khidar added, grinning. He now had a fully featured face, with short-cropped hair, blue eyes, an upturned nose, and bright white teeth. “Your ignorance is understandable. There weren’t many of our people. Most halflings of the Green Age wanted nothing to do with the Cleansing Wars.”

Tithian ran his eyes over the devastated park, not at all interested in the history of the shadow people. “I don’t suppose you can tell me where to find Rajaat.”

Khidar pointed a black finger toward the edge of the burning thicket. Although the halfling’s head was now completely solid, the rest of his body remained a mere shadow. “Rajaat has told me you must look for him in the heart of Ur Draxa,” Khidar said. “When those trees are gone, you’ll see a great boulevard running toward the center of the city. My scouts tell me that it ends beneath a great arch embedded in the inner wall.”

“What then?” Tithian asked.

“By the time you reach it, we will know for certain whether Rajaat lies beyond,” he said. “If so, one of us will take you to the other side.”

Tithian shook his head. “If I slither down a major street with the Lens in my tail, I’m going to attract a lot of attention.”

The king illustrated the problem by sending a series of squirms down his serpentine body.

“So disguise yourself,” snapped Sacha.

“As what?” Tithian countered. “Anything large enough to carry the Lens will draw attention. I can probably destroy whatever they send at me, but it’ll take time we don’t have.”

“Don’t worry about a disguise,” said Khidar. “I’ll make certain the Draxans are too busy to concern themselves with you. Besides, until you destroy Rajaat’s prison completely, my people can emerge from the Black only partially. With us wandering through the city, you’ll be only one of many strange things loose in the streets.”

The halfling led the way toward the burning trees at the edge of the park.

Crossing the plain took longer than Sadira had expected. She and Rikus ran until her breath came in painful gulps, filling her lungs with fire and racking her ribs with agony. They slowed their pace, continuing until fatigue so numbed the sorceress’s legs that she could hardly stumble along.

“We’d better walk for a while,” she said, breathing hard. “If I turn an ankle, we won’t catch Tithian at all.”

The mul slowed his pace and came to her side. “I don’t suppose you’ve any magic left?”

Sadira shook her head. “I’ve already used the enchantments that could help us.”

During the day, when she was imbued with the sun’s power, Sadira could shape her magic with little more than a thought. But at night, she was like any other sorceress. She could use only spells whose mystic runes she had impressed on her mind through hours of rigorous study. Unfortunately, speaking an enchantment’s incantation erased its runes from the mind, so the caster could not use the spell a second time until she studied it again.

“There’s no use worrying,” said Rikus. “Before he can free Rajaat, Tithian’ll have to find him-and with the sorcerer-kings after him, that could take some time.”