Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 5 - The Cerulean Storm (33 page)

“Light, Sadira!” Rikus urged. “Now!”

Sadira spoke a mystic syllable and touched the Scourge. A brilliant glow flared on the
blade, casting a long shadow behind Rikus. He felt his waist come free. Before the mul
could pull himself out of the ground, a pair of arms shot out of the Black and grabbed the
rocky plain. Rikus felt Tithian's shoulders pushing him up from beneath, then the mul was
free of the cold murk.

Rikus stood and held his sword steady. Tithian's head and torso emerged from the mul's
shadow. Sacha came with him, cleaving to a mouthful of long gray hair. The king stopped
climbing when he noticed Sadira staring at him with a murderous light in her eyes.

“What's wrong with you?” he demanded.

“Ask later,” Rikus said. “We're in enough trouble-”

Sadira's head snapped toward the Dragon. She launched herself forward, giving Rikus a hard
shove.

Rikus heard the sizzle of a magic bolt crackle from Borys's direction, then everything
went dark. An instant later, the mul found himself standing near the brink of the abyss,
staring back toward the center of the plain. Where he had been standing a moment earlier,
there was now a smoking crater the size of the Golden Palace. Rikus could not see how deep
the hole was, for it was surrounded by a rim of broken stone as high as Tyr's city wall.

“By Ral!” The mul was so shocked he could do little but gape at the immense hole. “Sadira!”

“What are you doing, giving up?” asked a familiar voice.

For the first time, the mul realized that he was standing near an arch similar to the one
on the other side of the lava sea. Lying near its base, her head cradled in Rkard's lap,
was Neeva. Though Rikus could not see any injuries, her motionless legs revealed all he
needed to know.

“Neeva!” he gasped.

“Go.” She pointed toward the crater. Borys was already limping down into it. “I'll be fine
with Rkard looking after me. See what happened.”

The mul started forward, then heard a strange voice at his feet. “St... ning... oaf!”

Noticing that he only heard the voice when his feet touched the ground, Rikus halted and
looked down. : Out of the shadow cast by his sword came Tithian, followed immediately by
Sadira's pale form.

“How did you-”

“It was the only place to go,” Sadira replied, cutting him off before he finished the
question. “Where's the Dragon?”

Rikus pointed toward the crater.

“We'd better hurry,” Tithian said. Still in serpent form, the king started to slither
toward the crater.

“Wait,” Sadira said. “I've got an idea.”

“It'd better be a good one,” Tithian said. “We don't have long before Borys realizes we're
not in that crater.”

The sorceress took the Scourge, then touched the blade to the Dark Lens. A flash of
crimson light flared from beneath the enchanted steel. The sword began to glow red, and
Sadira gasped in pain.

“What are you doing?” Rikus asked, horrified at the thought of what the heat might do to
the temper of his blade.

“Remember what happened the first time you broke the Scourge?” she asked. “And how
terrified Abalach-Re was in the Ivory Plain?”

The mul smiled, then looked to Tithian. “Weaken the blade,” he ordered.

“Are you mad?” the king gasped.

“If you want to kill Borys, do it!” Rikus ordered.

Tithian frowned but directed his gaze at the weapon. His brow furrowed in concentration.
Where the Scourge's blade touched the lens, a white flame danced over the steel. Sadira
cried out and dropped the sword.

Rikus tore a strip off the hem of the sorceress's robe, then wrapped it around the
Scourge's hilt and picked the sword up. About midway down the blade, a black scorch mark
stained the steel.

“That'll do fine,” the mul declared.

Rikus led the way back to the hole, Sadira sprinting at his side. Tithian crawled behind
them, holding the Dark Lens in his tail. When they reached the crater, Rikus signaled the
others to hide, then climbed to the top and peered down on Borys. The Dragon was on all
fours, still digging through the rubble at the bottom of the pit. The mul picked up a
rock, intending to let it drop on Borys to get his attention.

There was no need. The Dragon drew himself up to his full height, and Rikus found himself
standing eye-to-eye with the beast.

“Where's my lens?” Borys demanded.

The Dragon raised his hands, but resisted the temptation to strike, obviously aware that
Rikus would vanish if he did.

Allowing some of his very real fear of the beast to show through, Rikus replied,
“I
d-don't have it.”

Rikus raised the Scourge as if to strike, then pretended to slip on the treacherous
ground. He flailed his arms wildly, flinging the Scourge down the slope below. The instant
the sword left the mul's hand, Borys's mouth gaped open, and his head darted forward.
Rikus hurled himself down the hill backward, watching the Dragon's snapping jaws snake
after him.

Tithian struck first, slipping from behind a boulder to make contact with one of Borys's
beady eyes. Rikus saw the psionic image of a winged serpent striking from the Dark Lens
toward their foe. The Dragon swiveled his huge head around. The glowing figure of a lava
golem shot from the beast's eyes and intercepted the viper. The snake bit into the burning
giant, then erupted into flames.

The serpent continued its attack, coiling its body around the figure and constricting. The
two constructs began to wrestle, shifting forms into birds, lirrs, lions, and a dozen
other ferocious creatures. The battle raged with such fervor that tongues of real flame
came flying off the two images, scorching stones and searing Rikus's flesh.

Leaving his construct to carry on the battle against Tithian by itself, Borys looked back
to Rikus. The mul was still sliding down the hill, grasping madly at the Scourge.
Wisps
of smoke began to ooze from the Dragon's nostrils, and his mouth opened to exhale.

Sadira leaped from her hiding place. She lunged at the beast's eye with a dagger of
hissing blue smoke. Borys closed his mouth and looked away. The sorceress's blade missed
its intended target, but still slashed down across the Dragon's snout. The attack drew
only a trickle of blood, but it bought Rikus enough time to find the Scourge and spring to
his feet.

Borys's hand flashed from behind the crater rim and closed around Sadira. Now that she was
no longer protected by the power of the sun, his claws sank deep into her abdomen. She
screamed in pain. Blood began to seep from between the beast's fingers.

Still holding the sorceress, Borys swung his head back toward Rikus. The mul charged up
the hill and drove his sword down through the Dragon's snout.

The blade sank through both jaws, drawing a spray of boiling yellow blood. Borys threw
Sadira down and snapped his head high into the sky, trying to flip Rikus off. The mul hung
on tightly, locking his legs around the Dragon's snout and desperately trying to snap the
blade.

He heard Sadira yell from on the crater rim, “Keep fighting, damn you!”

Rikus looked down and saw that Tithian had ceased his mental attack. Instead of combating
Borys with the Way, the king was slithering away with the Dark Lens in his tail.

One of the Dragon's gnarled claws rose into sight, blocking the mul's view of the scene
below. Rikus cursed, knowing that if he allowed his enemy to strike at him, he would find
himself standing near the arch-and away from the combat. Gripping the Scourge's hilt with
both hands, he flung himself away from the claw and braced his feet against the other side
of the snout. He pulled with all his might. The blade flexed with a resilient chime, but
did not break.

Far below, Sadira called Tithian's name. Rikus looked down and saw the sorceress throw
something. The king ducked behind the Dark Lens, then a web of sticky white filaments
formed in the air above him and began settling over his head.

Tithian laughed.

Borys whipped his head around in an angry attempt to shake Rikus loose. The Scourge
snapped with a sour twang, and the mul fell away. As he dropped, he saw a fountain of
black syrup spraying from the blade still half-buried in the Dragon's snout.

Rikus slammed into the crater rim. His body exploded into pain, and the Scourge's hilt
slipped from his grasp. He tumbled down the slope, the Dragon's roars filling his ears.
Soon, he managed to bring himself to a stop. Everything hurt so badly that he could not
tell whether he had broken all his bones or none of them.

The mul rolled over and, grasping a boulder, pulled himself to his feet. To Rikus's
relief, attacking him was sure to be the last thing on Borys's mind. A huge fountain of
black fluid was shooting from the Scourge's broken blade and had already coated the
Dragon's head beneath a thick layer of ebony slime. With angry red plumes of smoke pouring
from his nostrils, the beast was madly scratching at the steel shard lodged in his snout.
He accomplished little, save to coat his claws with the same dark sludge that covered his
face.

The Dragon bellowed in horrid pain. He sprayed a fiery red cloud high into the sky, and
his hands dropped limply to his sides, his beady eyes glazing over in agony. A series of
convulsions ran through his slender face. With each spasm the snout grew shorter and
thicker, until the thing looked more like a nose and drooping chin than a beast's muzzle.
The spiked crest on top of his head broadened into a sloping forehead. Borys gave one last
roar, then fell silent and dropped behind the ridge.

Feeling fairly confident that the Dragon would not return to attack him, Rikus looked
across the slope. He found the king bound tightly to the Dark Lens by a sturdy mesh of
silver filaments. As the mul watched, a huge red spider emerged from the depths of the
lens. The creature lowered its head to the web and drew the glistening strands into its
mouth. Once Tithian was free, the creature sprang at Sadira. It sailed across the
intervening distance in a flash, then landed square on the sorceress's face and began
savaging her with its maw.

Rikus started forward to help her. As he stumbled across the slope, he watched helplessly
as four lacy wings sprouted from Tithian's back. Still holding the Dark Lens in his tail,
the king rose into the air and flew toward the cliff on the far side of the plain. His
size dwindled rapidly, and the mul knew that he would quickly pass out of sight.

Tithian flew away, and Sadira rolled down the slope and pinned the spider beneath her. She
pulled her head away from its maw. Her face was covered with red welts that looked like
burn marks, but there were no punctures to suggest that the thing had been injecting
poison into her body. The sorceress grasped her attacker in both hands and picked it up
high over her head. She brought it down on a sharp rock. The thing vanished in a fiery
flash.

Sadira screamed in shock and covered her face.

Rikus reached her side. “Let me see,” he said.

“I'm not seriously hurt-which is more than Tithian will be able to say when I catch up to
him,” Sadira said. She lowered her arms, revealing a face with singed eyelashes and
reddened skin. Rikus was relieved to see that there were no critical burns.

“What about the Dragon?” Sadira asked.

The mul pointed toward the top of the rim. “I snapped the sword,” he said. “What's left of
Borys fell inside.”

“We'd better have a look,” Sadira said.

They climbed the slope and peered cautiously over the top. In the bottom of the crater, a
huge skeleton of black-stained bones lay curled into a fetal ball. Its shoulder blades
were fused into a single large hump, and its gangling arms were wrapped around its knees.
The thing's face was the remotely human visage that Rikus had seen replace Borys's, with
the Scourge's shard still lodged in the nose and spewing dark slime into the air.

As they watched, sparks of blue energy began to dance in its empty eye sockets. From its
fleshless mouth came a sibilant voice.

“Borys of Ebe, Butcher of Dwarves, Leader of the Revolt,” the voice hissed. “Your master
has claimed his punishment.”

Inky fluid began to bubble up between the skeleton's teeth. The ribs broke open and began
to gush ebony syrup from the jagged ends. The arms and legs separated at the joints, then
the pelvis split down the center, and finally the spine collapsed into a line of
disconnected vertebrae, With each separation, more dark slime poured into the basin, until
the skeleton itself disappeared beneath a pool of bubbling, frothing black sludge.

A stone shifted beneath Rikus's foot and went tumbling down to the boiling black pond
below. The mul's legs went out from beneath him, and he dropped to his seat, landing hard
on the crest of the crater's rim. He managed to keep Neeva cradled tight against his
chest, but she groaned anyway.

Rkard was at their side in an instant. “Careful!” The boy scowled at Rikus. “We're not
even supposed to move her.”

“I'm
sorry. We have no choice,” said Rikus.

Sadira came over the rim and joined them. “The sorcerer-kings might come through the arch
at any moment,” she said, bracing herself on Neeva's axe to rest. Rkard had sealed the
punctures in her stomach and dressed the burns she had suffered when Tithian used the lens
against her, but the sorceress still looked pained and fatigued. “You don't want our
enemies to find her, do you?”

“I want you to kill the sorcerer-kings,” said the boy.

Neeva took her son's arm. “Haven't we talked about this?”

“But they killed Borys,” the boy retorted.

“And maybe they'll kill the sorcerer-kings later,” Neeva said. She winced with pain, then
added, “But they can't do it now, not with the Scourge broken and Sadira's powers gone
until morning.”

“This is dangerous, Mother,” Rkard protested. “I'm supposed to heal you at least one more
time before moving you. Otherwise, you might not walk again.”