Troy Denning - The Cerulean Storm

Sadira cast a contemptuous eye upon the two advisors she had just shoved aside. “The lady fancies herself the leader of the noble faction in Agis’s absence, and the templar is one of several who claim to speak in Tithian’s name,” the sorceress explained. “Because I asked the legion to stand ready this morning, they must think we’re going to find Agis and Tithian. Neither one would like that; they enjoy playing leader too much.”

“Never mind them,” interrupted Rkard, Neeva’s mul son. “What about Rikus?”

Though only six years old, the boy already stood as tall as most dwarves, with long graceful limbs, a sturdy frame, and cords of muscle running across his chest and arms. Like Rikus, he had sharply pointed ears and a hairless body, but he also had the distinguishing marks of a young sun-cleric: red eyes and a crimson sun emblazoned on his forehead.

“Both Rikus and Magnus are fine,” Sadira said. “They’ll be coming along later.”

“What happened?” Rkard pressed. “If Rikus needed help, it must have been bad trouble.”

“We can talk about that later, son,” said Caelum. He had the blocky features, pointed ears, and hairless body typical of a dwarf, with the same red eyes and crimson mark his son, Rkard, bore. In his hands, the dwarf grasped a closed ironwood box that Sadira had asked him to hold during the council meeting. “Right now, we have business to conduct.”

Caelum offered the box in his hands to Sadira. “Do you need this?”

“Not yet.”

Sadira climbed onto the podium and peered over the heads of her fellow advisors. The nobles and templars quickly grew silent, for Lady Laaj and Cybrian already stood on the respective pulpits for their two factions. But the guildsmen did not stifle their contentious discussions for several moments, until a bony, slender-faced man climbed onto the last platform. With the sooty apron of a blacksmith strapped over his chest, he looked as though he had come to the meeting straight from his shop.

“Charl Birkett to speak for the guilds,” he declared. “Gar won’t be coming today.”

“Then we can begin,” said Cybrian.

The templar raised his arm toward the murkiness of the vaulted ceiling, as did Lady Laaj. Their hands were closed, save that they held their index fingers open enough to form a small circle with their thumbs.

“What are you doing?” Sadira demanded.

“You may have convened the meeting, but any orator has the right to call for the wrab,” replied Lady Laaj.

“Surely you haven’t forgotten,” added Cybrian. “The tradition’s as ancient as Tyr itself.”

“I remember council practice better than you remember common courtesy,” Sadira replied, thrusting her own hand into the air. “Since Kalak’s death, it’s always been the one who called the meeting who controls the floor first.”

A shrill screech echoed off the stone arches. A tiny winged serpent dropped out of the ceiling’s shadowy coves. The creature glided around the room, barely distinguishable from the gloom above it. Everything about the flying snake was black: the leathery wings, the huge eyes, even the scaly body and barbed tail.

The wrab passed low over Sadira’s hand and circled back once. She thought it would perch on her finger, but its tongue suddenly flickered in Cybrian’s direction. It flapped its wings and sailed over to the templar. After coiling up on his hand, it thrust its tiny head down inside his curled fingers and remained motionless.

Sadira lowered her hand, not entirely discouraged. Cybrian would control the meeting’s agenda for now, but the wrab was notoriously restless. A natural user of the Way, it was trained to sense whether or not the assembly approved of the speaker’s topic. When the crowd’s interest began to ebb, it would seek a new roost from the upraised fingers, and control of the session would pass to the person it chose.

“Sadira, will you explain why you were late to your own meeting?” Cybrian asked, smirking.

“Perhaps later,” said the sorceress.

Her refusal to answer the question was in disregard for council rules, but it was also a common tactic used to gain control of the wrab. If she could interest the other advisors in her topic quickly enough, the creature would leave Cybrian’s hand and roost on her finger before he could call for a vote of censure and ask her to leave the chamber.

The sorceress motioned for Rkard to come up and stand with her, then continued, “I think my fellow councilors will be more interested in hearing how this boy is going to kill the Dragon.”

The advisors greeted her statement with snorts of derision and even a few guffaws, but her tactic worked. As skeptical as they were, the councilors were also curious. The wrab quickly left Cybrian’s hand and came to Sadira’s. The creature weighed almost nothing, and if not for its damp scales tickling her flesh, the sorceress would hardly have noticed its presence.

Cybrian glared at Sadira but did not object. He had used the same technique too many times to cry foul. “By all means, tell us,” he sneered. “I’m certain my fellow advisors will appreciate a good jest.”

The templar’s tactic was an effective one, playing on the crowd’s skepticism to such an extent that the wrab raised its black wings as if to leave Sadira’s hand.

“Perhaps you would waste the council’s time on a jest, Cybrian. You’ve certainly wasted it on many things just as trivial,” Sadira said sharply. “But I assure you, I would never do such a thing.”

The wrab folded its wings and pushed its tiny head down into her fist. Seeing that she had won the assembly’s support, at least for a time, Sadira laid her free hand on Rkard’s shoulder. The boy stood straight and tall, looking out over the volatile throng with an unflinching gaze.

“This mul boy is the son of Neeva, whom many of you will remember from her days as a gladiator, and of Caelum, son to the late uhrnomus of Kled,” Sadira said.

“Ten days ago, Rkard was visited by a pair of dwarven banshees, Jo’orsh and Sa’ram,” the sorceress continued. “Those of you who are familiar with the Book of the Kemalok Kings will recognize the names as those of the last two dwarven knights, who died before they could avenge the Dragon’s destruction of their city.”

“And they told the child to do what they could not-kill Borys?” asked Charl, incredulous.

“Not exactly,” replied Sadira. “They said that he would kill the Dragon.”

“And who heard them say this?” asked Lady Laaj.

“I did,” Rkard replied.

This prompted the noblewoman to give Sadira a patronizing smile. “My dear, since you have no children, you may not realize that young boys create make-believe friends,” she said. “Why, when my own sons were his age-”

“He did not make up Jo’orsh and Sa’ram,” Neeva reported. “I also saw the banshees.”

“And we have another harbinger as well,” Sadira said. She raised her hand, displaying the ring on her finger. “Last night, a messenger arrived bearing my husband’s signet.”

“Which husband? Agis, Rikus, or someone we haven’t heard about yet?” mocked Cybrian. “Maybe that dwarf?”

The comment drew a few crude laughs from the same pedants who always thought ill of Sadira for loving two men, but it failed to shake the crowd’s interest enough to dislodge the wrab.

“The signet is Agis’s,” Sadira said patiently. “With it came the message that he had found the Dark Lens.”

For the first time that day, the room fell completely quiet. Despite the efforts of Sadira and her husbands to keep the nature of the Dark Lens secret, they had spent five years searching for it, and word of what they were seeking had eventually leaked out. By now, most of the advisors knew not only what the Lens was, but why Sadira was seeking it. She intended to kill Borys, thus ending his practice of collecting a thousand slaves a year from each city of Athas. If the sorceress and her friends succeeded, not only would they save untold numbers of lives, they would also eliminate the greatest danger to Tyr itself: that the Dragon would attack the city for refusing to pay his gruesome levy.