Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 5 - The Cerulean Storm (38 page)

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 consistently, 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 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.

* * * * *

Sadira peered over the tangle of floating logs, studying the looming figure she took to be
Rajaat. He stood twice as tall as any giant, with a crown of lightning crackling around
his head. A constant crash of thunder belched forth from his fang-toothed mouth, and
whenever he exhaled, billowing blue fog shot from his gaping nostrils and dissolved in a
torrent of rain. His entire body was swaddled in roiling clouds the color of turquoise,
and great torrents of salty water poured from the claws at the end of his gangling arms.
Even his shadow was part of the tempest, causing the water to chum and froth wherever it
fell.

“How're we going to kill that?” asked Rikus, crouching at Sadira's side. “He's a walking
storm.”

The sorceress shook her head. “I don't know, but we'd better think of something fast,” she
said. “This water isn't getting any shallower.”

Using the log tangle as camouflage, Sadira and the mul were wading through a shallow lake
that, not long before, had been a vast grove of trees. It was filled with fish and
strange, scuttling creatures that vaguely resembled scorpions. The sorceress pushed the
heavy load of timber before them instead of Rikus, since her ebony skin and magical powers
had returned with the peculiar blue dawn. The mul devoted most of his efforts to his axe,
trying to keep it out of the water without letting it show above the logs. Glowing eddies
of red and green light swirled over the blade, the result of a magical spell Sadira hoped
would prove effective against Rajaat's vapor-covered form.

“There's Tithian,” Rikus said.

The mul pointed at a jumble of logs, about fifty yards away and sticking out of the lake
at all angles. In the center of the heap sat the king, resting cross-legged atop the Dark
Lens. The black orb seemed strangely dark and murky, with only a single flicker of blue
light showing deep within it. At Tithian's side hovered Sacha. Both the king and the
disembodied head were watching Rajaat, and so far they seemed oblivious to the presence of
Sadira and Rikus.

Sadira pushed the log tangle in Tithian's direction, sending a school of fish with
squarish heads and writhing tentacles scurrying away. “We'll take the lens first.”

“Good thinking. That'll keep Tithian out of the fight,” agreed Rikus. “Then what?”

“I'll try fire,” Sadira said.

“It makes sense, given what Rajaat's made of,” Rikus agreed. “Still, I'm beginning to wish
the sorcerer-kings were doing this, instead of us.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Sadira said. “A little thing like being trapped under a
collapsed wall isn't going to kill the sorcerer-kings.”

Rikus frowned. “I suppose that's true,” he said. “Maybe we should wait and let them attack
first.”

“So they can send Rajaat back to his prison and make another Dragon to keep him there?”
Sadira scoffed. “I'd rather take our chances attacking him ourselves.”

Rikus gave a reluctant nod, and they continued toward Tithian in silence. As the pair
approached, they saw that the logs around the king were covered with a lumpy brown crust
of minerals and shells. Sadira cursed silently. They had seen several areas where the tree
trunks were covered by similar crusts. Such places were usually surrounded by hedges of
submerged rockstem, brightly colored plants that grew in fingerlike formations as hard as
rock and as sharp as obsidian.

Sadira heard a muffled clack as one of her logs hit a finger of the rockstem. She and
Rikus ducked down, watching through the tangle as Tithian and Sacha spun around. The king
and the head peered in their direction for several moments.

Finally, Tithian's voice drifted across the water to Sadira's ears. “It's nothing, just
floating logs,” the king said, facing Rajaat again.

Sadira motioned for Rikus to ready himself, then pulled a splinter of a log and held it in
her open palm. As she whispered her mystic syllables, the sliver floated out of her hand,
growing to the size of a war lance. Red smoke poured from all along its shaft, and scarlet
sparks shot from its end. The sorceress leveled her finger at the king's head and the
spear sizzled away.

The lance had hardly passed out of the log tangle when Rajaat's head snapped around. A
blue spark flashed in his eyes as his gaze fell on the sputtering shaft, then he flicked a
finger toward it. An enormous bug-eyed fish leaped out the lake and snatched the weapon
from midair. The spear exploded in the creature's mouth, blowing its head into a thousand
small bits.

“Tithian is my servant,” boomed the ancient sorcerer. “Only I may destroy him.”

Rajaat stepped toward Sadira and Rikus, crossing two dozen yards of water with a single
stride.

“Go, Rikus!” As she spoke, Sadira slipped a hand into the pocket of her wet cloak.

Rikus stepped forward, swinging his axe at the rock-stem. The blade's enchantment sent
great geysers of water spiraling into the sky, and the mul smashed a large notch into the
top of the hedge.

Tithian leaped off the Dark Lens and disappeared into the tangle of crusted trees.

Sadira pulled a ball of wax and sulfur from her pocket and threw it toward Rajaat, crying
out her spell. The yellow ball erupted into a huge sphere of flame. It streaked up to
Rajaat's face and engulfed his head-then began to sputter as soon as it contacted the
clouds serving as the ancient sorcerer's skin. The fireball died away without raising so
much as a puff of steam.

Rajaat reached for Sadira with his claw-fingered hand.

Rikus stepped away from the-submerged hedge and swung his axe at the ancient sorcerer's
wispy wrist. The steel passed through harmlessly, with no geysers of vapor or swirling
fountains of cloud to suggest that Sadira's magic was working. In fact, it came out the
other side clean and shiny, the enchantments on its blade dispelled.

Sadira tried to dive away, but Rajaat's fingers closed around her waist before she could
submerge herself. The enormous hand felt wet and soft, yet as unyielding as her own dark
flesh. The ancient sorcerer lifted her up before his blue eyes and studied her.

From the high vantage point, Sadira could see much of Ur Draxa. It was a huge city of
forests and magnificent buildings, with a wide band of destruction encircling the dear
waters of Rajaat's spreading lake.

“Stupid half-breed,” hissed the ancient sorcerer, pelting her with a gale of cold rain.
“Did you really think to use my own magic against me?”

He squeezed, filling Sadira with pain. She pushed against his crushing grip with both
arms. It was all she could do to keep her ribs from collapsing. As strong as her
sun-enhanced muscles were, Rajaat's were far more powerful.

Sadira looked down and saw Rikus far below, thrashing about madly in the crystalline
waters as he vainly chopped at her captor's ankle. It was like trying to cut smoke, save
that the blade did not even cause an eddy as it passed through. She tried to yell at him
to run, but could not expand her chest far enough to draw air into her lungs.

Rajaat continued to squeeze for several more moments, forks of lightning dancing in his
diamond-shaped eyes. Then, as Sadira's muscles began to quiver with fatigue, he relaxed
his grip. He looked away from his prisoner and gazed down at the lake below. A school of
five huge fish were slipping through the gap Rikus had opened in the rockstem hedge and
swimming toward the Dark Lens.

Rajaat smiled and, in a voice so soft Sadira could hardly hear it, whispered, “Finally,
the traitors have come!”

The sorceress felt Rajaat's hand tense and realized he was about to throw her. She dug
both hands into her captor's vaporish flesh, then the ancient sorcerer hurled her down
toward the Dark Lens.

A wisp of turquoise cloud came away in Sadira's hand. As she spoke the single word of her
incantation, the vapor spread out beneath her, stopping her fall at the height of Rajaat's
waist. The ancient sorcerer took an absentminded swipe at her, sending her cloud drifting
away on an invisible tide of air, then fixed his attention on the water at his feet. The
crown of lightning around his head began to crackle and dance more madly.

Sadira peered over the edge of her cushion, and saw King Tec rising from beneath the
waters with the Dark Lens balanced on his back. He turned toward Rajaat and stared up at
the ancient sorcerer, his beak clattering. A short distance away, the water boiled around
Nibenay and Hamanu as they summoned the energy to cast a spell, leaving a huge expanse of
rockstem colorless and defiled in the process. The Oba and Andropinis stood nearby,
staring intently into the lens as they prepared to use the Way.

Tithian and Sacha abandoned their hiding places and started toward the Dark Lens. Rikus,
who had continued hacking at Rajaat's ankle until Sadira was freed, stepped away from the
ancient sorcerer and moved to attack the king.

“Rikus, no!” Sadira reached into her cloak pocket.

From the way Rajaat had reacted when he first saw the sorcerer-kings, the sorceress
suspected he would attack before “the traitors” could execute their plan. She did not want
Rikus near the Dark Lens when that happened.

The ancient sorcerer's crown of lightning suddenly fell silent. His gaze went vacant, and
a tempest of sapphire hailstones began to build in his diamond-shaped eyes.

Sadira tossed the tough belly scale of a rock adder toward her husband, uttering her
incantation as it fell. A shimmering gray shield appeared over the entire area surrounding
him.

Two streams of smoking hailstones hissed down from Rajaat's eyes. With a deafening roar,
the pellets crashed off the sorceress's shield and bounced away. They dropped into the
lake many yards away, sending steaming plumes of water high into the air.