Troy Denning - The Cerulean Storm

Sadira smiled. She was coming up directly behind Rajaat. The sorceress hoped to lift the Dark Lens out of his grasp as her cloud passed through his shadowy body. But if her tactic resulted in a collision instead, she would have a better chance than anyone of recovering the Dark Lens. With her body imbued by the sun’s power, the impact would not harm her, and at least she was anticipating it.

Rajaat faced Nibenay, raising the Lens in both hands. “For you, a thousand years of torment.”

Rajaat stepped toward the sorcerer-king, causing Sadira to pull up the front of her cloud and execute a tight bank. She rose along the side of the ancient sorcerer’s shoulder. For an instant, the sorceress feared he would glimpse her in his peripheral vision, then she was staring up at the Dark Lens.

The cloud lifted the heavy orb out of Rajaat’s hands-then abruptly dived as the extra weight pushed the nose down. Sadira found herself dropping straight toward the dark sphere in which Rikus and Tithian were imprisoned. Behind her, Rajaat cried out in surprise, and sorcerer-kings began shouting orders. The sorceress hardly heard them, for she was too busy trying to pull the Dark Lens toward the rear of the cloud so the nose would rise.

As Sadira approached the Black, a surge of searing energy rushed up from the depths of the Dark Lens. Forks of blue lightning crackled over her body, and she began to suffer muscle spasms. Surprised, she could not prevent her cloud from continuing its dive, and it crashed straight into the murky sphere the sorcerer-kings had created.

Sadira saw a black flash. The explosion that followed was not as large as the one that had destroyed the Dragon’s sanctum, for the Lens was only partially charged. Still, the sorceress found herself soaring through the air backwards. She splashed into the shallow lake some distance away, with the Dark Lens pressing down on her chest and water filling her lungs.

Rikus kicked off the hipbone of a massive skeleton and sailed through the colorless ether. He grabbed Tithian by his long braid of gray hair and used it to pull them together, then slipped an arm around the king’s throat and squeezed. The king coughed and rasped for breath, digging his fingers into the mul’s arm in a futile attempt to free himself. Rikus only tightened his grip.

The mul, the king, and Sacha were floating inside a black sphere with a huge skeleton Rikus assumed to be Rajaat’s. It was impossible to tell the size of their prison. The place seemed entirely filled by the ancient sorcerer’s yellowed bones, yet Tithian had tried several times to push off an ankle or hand and float out to the dark walls. He had never seemed able to reach them, and when Rikus caught up with him, they had always seemed to be next to the skeleton.

Rikus glimpsed Sacha floating toward his back from behind a thighbone. The mul gave his torso a sharp twist but used too much power and spun himself past the disembodied head. More accustomed to maneuvering through the air, Sacha took advantage of the mistake to streak forward. He clamped his teeth around the warrior’s ear and began to rip.

Screaming in pain, Rikus shoved Tithian away, and with a stomp-kick to the back, sent the king tumbling toward the skeleton’s skull. The mul reached up, grasping Sacha by the nose with one hand and by the chin with the other. He snapped his attacker’s mouth open, drawing a loud crack from the lower jaw, then brought his knee up and smashed Sacha against it. Sacha’s eyes went glassy and blank, then brown, foul-smelling ooze began to pour from his nostrils and ears.

Rikus tossed Sacha’s crushed skull aside then turned back toward Tithian. The king was floating near the skeleton’s head, his dark eyes locked on the mul. Fearing that the king was preparing to attack with the Way, Rikus ducked under the skeleton’s leg.

As Rikus started to pull himself forward, crooked lines of lightning began dancing across the walls of the black sphere. His first thought was that Tithian was responsible. He peered over the skeleton’s torso and found the king staring in confusion at the dark shell of their prison.

The lightning cords suddenly connected with each other, forming a crackling net of energy. With a shrill hiss, the black walls dissolved into wisps of shadow. A blinding blue flash filled the sphere, then the mul felt himself being drawn upward.

Rikus tumbled through the air for what seemed a long time, his eyes filled with spots. Finally, he began to arc downward, and through his erratic vision, he saw turquoise clouds and a blue sun above him. He hit the water so hard that it felt as if he had slammed into a granite plain instead of splashing into a lake. The air rushed from his lungs, and he went under.

Rikus felt himself touch bottom, then he pushed off and shot back to the surface of the lake. He came up coughing water and flailing his arms. Somehow, he managed to keep his head above water long enough to see a floating tree trunk, then swam toward it with choppy, uneven strokes.

When he reached his goal, Rikus threw his arms over the log and spent several moments clearing his lungs of water. His flesh stung and his joints ached from the impact of the fall, but he did not feel any serious injuries.

A loud boom echoed across the lake from behind Rikus. Fearing a magical attack from Tithian, the mul twisted around. More than fifty paces away, he saw a black orb streaking into the sky. Sitting on top of it was the figure of an ebony-skinned woman, her long amber hair waving in the wind. Sadira had recovered the Dark Lens.

Rikus started to call out for her to come back but stopped when he saw the figures of three sorcerer-kings rising from the lake to go after her. He could hear their voices shouting but was too distant to understand their words. Two of them turned their palms downward, and frothing spouts of water rose toward their hands as they summoned the energy to cast spells.

Rikus cursed his inability to aid Sadira, then he watched as the sorcerer-kings closed their hands and pointed toward his wife.

“Sadira, watch yourself!”

As the mul called the words, Rajaat’s skeleton rose out of the lake between the sorcerer-kings and Sadira. It was not as large as when Rikus had first seen it, now standing only about as high as a full giant.

“No!” boomed Rajaat’s angry voice. “You shall wait here for your punishment.”

The skeleton pointed three of its curled talons at the sorcerer-kings. Glittering blue bubbles shot from the digits, and each engulfed one of the figures flying after Sadira. The shimmering balls of water brought their prisoners to a quick halt. They began to drift over the lake in a lazy circle, small bulges appearing in their liquid walls as the occupants tried to free themselves with magic spells, the Way, and physical blows.

After watching them for a moment, Rajaat’s skeleton turned around. Sadira had already disappeared with the Lens. The ancient sorcerer stared after her for a moment. Finally, he plucked a cloud from the sky and began to flatten it into a sheet of vaporish skin, walking after Sadira as he worked.

Rikus pushed himself to the end of his tree and began to kick his legs but quickly realized there was no need. A brisk tide was flowing after Rajaat, carrying the mul and an ever-growing jumble of logs along with it. Rikus tried to raise himself above the debris, searching for a glimpse of what he hoped would be Tithian’s dead body.

Rikus saw no sign of the king, and soon he could not afford to look. The current was beginning to froth and bang logs against each other. It took all of his strength just to keep his head above water and not lose his grip on his makeshift raft.

As the current carried Tithian out of the shadows, a sharp crack sounded from the roof of the arch. The king ducked under the frothing waters, narrowly escaping before a shower of splinters erupted from his log. The river throbbed with the pulse of the blast, battering his ears with terrible pangs of agony.