Troy Denning - The Cerulean Storm

As he surveyed the devastation, the king saw that he still sat in the plaza where he had found Rajaat’s prison. The Dark Lens lay on the cracked cobblestones at his feet, murky and cold. Tithian remembered using his serpent’s tail to cling to it when the Black exploded, anchoring himself to the ground and calling upon its energy to keep himself from being torn apart by the blast. The effort had finally proven too much for his body, and he had fallen unconscious as the storm began to subside.

On the other side of the Dark Lens lay the marble basin that had held Rajaat’s prison. The bowl was now filled with a bubbling, foul-smelling ichor as black as obsidian. In the center, the yellowed bones of a hand protruded above the pool. Its crooked digits looked more like talons than fingers, slightly curled and ending in barbed tips.

“What are you waiting for?” snarled a familiar voice.

Tithian looked over his shoulder and saw Sacha floating toward him. The head was badly battered, with deep lacerations on his scalp, a smashed nose, and yellow bruises covering his face.

“Pull him out!” Sacha demanded.

Tithian lay down at the edge of the basin and stretched an arm across the bubbling soup. He closed his fingers around the hand’s naked bones and tried to draw the thing out but only succeeded in pulling himself toward the ichor. The king opened his grip-then hissed in pain as the hand dug its barbed talons into his palm. It dragged him forward, until his shoulder and head both hung over the dark sludge.

Tithian saved himself by thrusting the fingertips of his free hand into a cracked paving stone. He stopped his slide and slowly drew himself back onto the plaza. Once he had anchored himself securely in place, he began pulling the hand toward him. First the arm, then the shoulder, and finally the head rose from the ichor.

The skeleton had a flat, grossly elongated skull with a sharp ridge crest and a sloped forehead. Beneath its heavy brow, crooked forks of blue light glimmered deep in each eye socket. Wisps of white mist puffed from its nasal cavity. Its jaws were lined with curved yellow needles, while a huge mass of knobby bone formed a long, drooping chin.

“Rajaat?” Tithian gasped.

“Who else?” answered Sacha.

Rajaat sank the talons of his free hand into the stone. He ripped his other claw free and drove it down on the other side of the king, pulling himself to the basin’s rim. Tithian scrambled back on all fours, barely saving himself from being stepped on as Rajaat pulled himself from the dark pool. The ancient sorcerer’s frame was about as tall as an elf and completely skeletal, with hunched shoulders, gangling arms, and ivory-colored thighbones as twisted as they were thick.

The creature’s eyes lingered on Tithian’s face for an instant, then flickered over the barren trees lying around the plaza’s edge, and finally returned to the Dark Lens. Rajaat stared at the black orb for several seconds before finally looking skyward. The fleshless jaws parted in a crude imitation of a smile, then Rajaat opened his mouth wide.

“Free!” he bellowed, his voice rumbling over the sanctum like thunder. Streamers of blue fog gushed from his mouth, condensing into tiny droplets and falling to the ground like rain. “Let the traitors tremble and wail! I have returned, and my retribution shall be bloody and painful!”

As Rajaat spoke, a strange ripple ran through his warped thighs, then through his ribs, arms, and the rest of his bones. Before Tithian’s eyes, his yellowed skeleton grew to the size of a half-giant.

The king gathered himself up, then took a deep breath and walked forward. He stopped before Rajaat and bowed. “I am Tithian,” he said, not looking up. “I opened your prison.”

Rajaat stepped over the king’s head without answering. The black ichor trailed after his heels, rising out of the basin and spreading itself over the ground like a shadow. Tithian leaped back, not wanting to have any contact with the foul-smelling stuff, then spun around to request his reward.

“Wait,” advised Sacha, staring at Rajaat with an astonished expression.

The ancient sorcerer now stood at least two full heads taller than any half-giant. Although he had only a skeleton for a body, the ichor serving as his shadow had arranged itself into the silhouette of a manlike figure, fully fleshed and with an immensely powerful build.

As Tithian watched, Rajaat raised an arm into the sky as though reaching for something. Far above, a turquoise cloud vanished from sight, then reappeared in his grasp. The ancient sorcerer began to work it with both hands, flattening it out like bread dough, then stretching it into a thin sheet. Once he seemed satisfied with its consistency, he stooped down and pressed it over his foot. The misty fabric stretched over his bones like flesh.

Sacha’s jaw fell open. “He’s changed.” A knowing smile crept across the head’s lips, and he said, “This time, he won’t fail. Athas shall return to the Blue Age.”

Another wave of ripples rolled through Rajaat’s yellow bones, and he grew to the height of a ship mast. The ancient sorcerer took a few more steps, positioning himself beneath another cloud, then he reached up and plucked it from the sky. He began to work it like the first, fashioning another piece of skin.

Behind Rajaat, the ground became porous and white wherever his shadow passed. A moment later, circles of brilliant color-scarlet, sapphire, saffron, emerald, and a dozen others-burst across the surface, rising from somewhere deep inside the stone. In the center of these vibrant circles sprouted round nubs, like the seedlings of some strange plant.

Rajaat continued to walk around the sanctum, plucking cloud after cloud from the sky and using them to cover his skeleton. Soon, he stood half-again the height of a giant, with no indication that he would quit growing any time soon. Tithian waited until the ancient sorcerer wandered back near him, then moved boldly forward to present himself. He turned a palm toward the ground to prepare a spell that would amplify his voice.

Before the king could begin to draw energy, Rajaat looked down at him and boomed, “No! Not here.” The ancient sorcerer waved an enormous hand at the strange rock plants that had sprouted from his shadow. “Never in the Blue Lands.”

Tithian closed his hand, satisfied that he had finally won Rajaat’s attention. “I am King Tithian of Tyr.”

“I know who you are,” the ancient sorcerer replied. He looked away from Tithian and plucked another cloud from the sky, then began to work it without paying the king any more attention.

“And do you also know of the promises that were made to me?” Tithian asked in a polite voice.

Rajaat fixed his diamond-shaped eyes on the king and said nothing. Another series of ripples rolled through his body, and he grew even larger.

“Can I expect you to honor those promises?” Tithian called.

“If you wish to serve me, you must learn patience,” Rajaat said, stepping away.

“Serve him!” Tithian hissed quietly. He turned to Sacha. “That wasn’t part of our bargain.”

Rajaat surprised the king by turning around. “You do not wish to serve me?” he asked, a malicious light glimmering in his eyes.

“I wish what I was promised,” Tithian said, swallowing nervously. “The powers of an immortal sorcerer-king.”

The gleam in Rajaat’s eyes grew warmer. “In time,” he promised.

The sorcerer held a closed fist far above Tithian’s head. The king looked up and saw the hand open high above. A cascade of salty water poured down from the enormous palm, hitting with such force that it swept him off his feet. The deluge did not stop for many moments, until Tithian felt a frothing tide of water rising beneath him.