The Amber Enchantress

FOUR THE ANCIENT BRIDGE

Had her throat not been so parched, Sadira would have screamed for joy. A short distance ahead, the red sands ended abruptly, dropping into a dark chasm stretching in both directions as far as she could see. On the other side of the gorge, the road climbed a scarp of brush-flecked ground, then faded out of sight against the olive hues of the morning horizon.

Between the dunes and the scarp hung a magnificent bridge, nearly a hundred yards long. Built from huge blocks of stone in seven different colors, the structure spanned the chasm in a great arch that resembled nothing quite so much as a man-made rainbow. Its roadway was paved with yellow cobblestones, save for a single black stripe where the edifice’s massive keystones had been laid. To Sadira, the ancient trestle was as much an omen of good fortune as any harbinger of rain.

“Carry me to the other side, that’s all I ask,” the sorceress said, speaking to her kank in a croaking voice that even she barely understood.

Sadira tapped the creature’s antennae with her cane, urging it to greater speed, but the kank could not obey. Last night, the beast had begun their flight with a powerful, six-legged gallop that had set the sorceress’s hair to waving in the wind. As she had hoped, Nok had followed immediately, leaving the caravan to mourn the death of its captain. At first, Sadira had been confident of escaping, for halflings were no match for a kank’s speed. Yet, as the night wore on, the chief and his warriors had kept a steady pace, and she had never left them behind for long. By dawn, the gait of her exhausted mount had diminished to a jittery scramble that even she could have matched for a short distance. The halflings, showing no signs of tiring, had been slowly catching up to her ever since.

Sadira twisted around to look back. The effort sent waves of agony shooting through her hips, for the jarring ride had been almost as hard on the sorceress as it had on the kank. From the knees to the collarbone, her muscles burned with exhaustion. Her stomach had been aching for hours, and now it was seized by painful cramps that threatened to double her over at any moment. Even her head hurt, throbbing with a terrible ache caused by a dozen hours of mortal fear.

Behind her, Sadira saw that the halflings were moving up for the kill, pumping their knees hard in an effort to catch her before she reached the bridge. They were close enough that she could see they had pushed themselves beyond the point at which normal men would have collapsed. The warriors’ faces were drained and gaunt, with their mouths hanging open and their sunken cheeks working like bellows. Their hair, usually bushy and wild, lay plastered against their skulls, dripping precious body water in the form of cloud-colored sweat.

Far behind the warriors came a single speck, moving at what appeared a relaxed pace. Though the figure was too distant to see in detail, Sadira did not doubt it to be Nok. Even from this far away, the mere sight of him filled her with terror. The one who had created her cane and the Heartwood Spear was no person to offend.

Still, the sorceress did not regret keeping her cane. She had decided long ago to do whatever was necessary to keep Tyr free. So, after Kalak’s death, Sadira had kept the cane. With it, she could defend her beloved home from many terrible threats, and the sorceress had been willing to risk her life for that privilege. Even now, with Nok closing in, she had no intention of returning the cane-at least not while she lived.

A halfling warrior hurled his bone javelin at Sadira. It fell short, but by less than a yard. The next one, she guessed, would clatter off the carapace covering her kank’s abdomen … There was little use picturing where the one after that might strike.

“What keeps them going?” Sadira muttered.

Even as she asked, she knew the answer to be Nok’s magic. Otherwise, no halfling could have kept pace with a kank. Only elves could do such a thing.

The sorceress faced forward again and whipped her cane across her mount’s antennae. If anything, the kank went slower.

The bridge still lay too far ahead. Sadira was just beginning to see the lichens growing on its massive stone blocks. By the time her kank actually set foot on it, she would be lying in the sand with a dozen barbed spear tips in her body.

“Time for some magic of my own.”

Bracing her cane beneath her leg, the sorceress reached into the satchel slung from the kank’s harness. After a moment of searching, she extracted a pinch of yellow sulfur. She turned her free hand palm down and held it out, summoning the energy for a spell.

A javelin rattled against the kank’s abdomen, and Sadira halted her mount, bringing it around to face the halflings. In trancelike unison, the warriors gave a breathless war cry. Two of them broke stride to throw their spears. At the same time, Sadira flung the sulfur at her pursuers and uttered her incantation.

The javelins struck, hitting the kank mid-thorax. One spear sliced past Sadira’s thigh and bounced off the insect’s carapace. The other sank deep into its middle leg socket, sending a violent shudder through its body.

In the same instant, a crackling wall of fire appeared between Sadira and the halflings. The flames, stretching many yards to both sides of the road, completely obscured the warriors from view.

Her heart pounding a little less forcefully, the sorceress picked up her cane again and tapped her mount’s right antenna, signaling it to turn. As it obeyed, the rancid smell of kank flesh came to her nose. Sadira nearly retched, unaccustomed to the foul odor the beasts emitted when they were injured. Now she understood why few creatures preyed on the giant insects.

A series of bloodcurdling screams sounded from the firewall. The sorceress looked back to see a half-dozen halflings rushing out of the flames. Their faces were contorted in agony, with flakes of charred skin falling from their bones and streamers of ash hanging off their heads. They stumbled a few steps forward, then hurled their spears in the sorceress’s direction before collapsing into smoking heaps.

Sadira pressed her body flat against the kank’s back, simultaneously urging it into a gallop. Three of the spears clattered off the beat’s carapace and fell harmlessly away, and the others did not even reach it.

Spurred onward by the rattle of spears against its shell, the kank bolted forward in a lop-sided sprint, carrying its injured leg off the ground. Sadira dared to sit up and glance back. To her relief, no more halflings had been rash enough to charge through the firewall, but it would not be long before they began to pour around its ends.

The kank suddenly slowed. Fearing that it was about to collapse, Sadira looked forward again. To her relief, she saw that the beast had only swerved off the road, where the soft sand made running more difficult. She tapped the outside of its antenna to guide the pained beast back to the caravan path, confident she still had plenty of time to reach the far side of the chasm. The bridge was so close now that she could make out the individual cobblestones lining its roadway.

The kank did not obey. Instead, it veered further off course, then stumbled and fell, pitching Sadira from its back. She landed face-first, the air shooting from her lungs in a painful rush. She tumbled over and over, dropping her cane and entangling herself in the straps of her waterskin. Finally, the sorceress came to a rest half-buried in hot, rust-colored sand.

Less than ten paces away, the kank lay cowering on it belly, its antennae pressed flat against its head and the black spheres of its eyes staring vacantly into the sky. The beast’s shell shook in violent spasms, its legs as limp as worn-out rope.

Grimacing in pain, Sadira pulled herself to her feet. She picked up her cane and retrieved her satchel from the kank’s harness. “Sorry to leave you behind,” she said, patting its carapace.

A sputtering hiss sounded from the direction of the halflings. When Sadira turned around, she saw that Nok had turned the center of her firewall to steam. From out of the white vapor rushed her pursuers, their spears poised to throw.

Shouldering her satchel and waterskin, Sadira ran for the bridge. She still had not recovered from her fall and found herself gasping for air, but, in her terror, did not let that slow her down.

As the sorceress ran up the gentle slope leading to the center of the arched bridge, the halflings went wild, shrieking and screeching at each other in their strange language. Spears clattered off the stones at her heels, falling just inches short of their target.

Sadira kept her eyes fixed on the crest of the bridge, concentrating only on using her longer stride to open the distance between herself and the weary halflings. By the time the sorceress reached the top of the arch, she had moved far enough ahead that the halflings were no longer throwing spears at her. She stopped and tossed her cane a dozen yards down the roadway. Next, she ripped her waterskin from her shoulder and tore it open, then withdrew a handful of clay from one of the pockets inside her satchel.

The halflings reached the edge of the bridge and started after her. Sadira ignored them and rushed from one side of the bridge to the other. At the same time, she poured the last of her water over the clay in her hand, dripping the resulting sludge across the bridge’s black keystones.

Summoning the energy for a spell, Sadira backed away from the crest of the bridge. The lead halfling, who had already thrown his spear, reached the top of the arch and pulled his bone dagger. Sadira pointed at the line of sludge beneath his feet and uttered her incantation.

As the black stones changed to mud, the halfling rushed after the sorceress. Cursing, Sadira unsheathed her own dagger, but kept backing down the bridge. When her spell turned the last of the bridge’s keystones to mud, the entire structure would collapse, and she did not want to be on it when it happened.

The halfling stopped just short of an arm’s length away from Sadira and circled her, looking for an opening. His fellows reached the crest of the bridge and began to wade through the deepening pit of mud. The warriors did not throw their javelins, for it was obvious the sorceress could not flee with one of their number so close.

Sadira lunged straight at the halfling with the dagger. He slashed his bone blade across her arm, opening a deep gash. The sorceress cried out, then used her superior reach to drive her steel blade deep into the warrior’s throat.

Although blood poured from the halfling’s mouth, his eyes did not seem to register the fact that he had been wounded. He struck again, this time driving his dagger into Sadira’s upper arm. She screamed and opened her grip, stumbling away from the warrior. Once again he lashed out, this time harmlessly, and finally fell dead at the sorceress’s feet.

Sadira turned and ran, blood streaming from her wounded arm. Passing by her cane, she stooped and picked it up with her uninjured hand. The halflings behind her did not hurl their spears, no doubt confident they would soon catch the injured half-elf.

The bridge trembled beneath her feet. The halflings began to chatter in alarm, then Sadira heard several grunt with the effort of throwing their spears. Though still a short distance from the end of the bridge, the sorceress dived forward.

A tremendous crash sounded behind her. Sadira felt the air resonate against her belly, then smashed onto the stone roadway and rolled forward. Tendrils of fiery pain shot down her wounded arm, and the sorceress glimpsed halfling spears bouncing off the stones all about her.

When Sadira stopped rolling, she found herself at the edge of the bridge. Where the great edifice had once stood, there was only a plume of dust so thick that she could not see the far side of the chasm.

The sorceress collected her cane and satchel, then crawled off the last few feet of cobblestones, fearing that even the bridge abutment might collapse. For several moments, she lay on the ground breathing in shallow gasps, too shocked and exhausted to move.

After a while, Sadira sat up. She felt dizzy and weak, and her thoughts came slowly. When she examined her wounds, she saw that her cuts were bleeding profusely. Realizing that the more she bled, the more groggy she would become, the sorceress tried to rip the bandages from her dusty robe. She could not, for only her uninjured hand had the strength to tear the cloth. Sadira reached for her dagger, but found only an empty scabbard.

Of course, the blade was somewhere in the bottom of the chasm, still buried in the throat of the halfling she killed. Without the dagger, it would be difficult to survive in this wasteland for more than a few days.

Sadira chuckled at her own muddled thoughts. The loss of the knife was the least of her problems. If she didn’t bandage her wounds soon, she would die in a matter of minutes, not days. Even if she stopped the bleeding, she would be too weak to walk more than a few miles. And if she was going to walk, she would need plenty of water-water that she had used to destroy the bridge.

Still, things had not turned out so badly. She had the cane, and that was what really mattered. If she could stop the bleeding, she might live a half-day longer and travel perhaps five miles. A half-day was not much time to find an oasis in strange ground, but it was possible.

Determined to make the most of the time she had left, Sadira took off her belt and wrapped it around her savaged arm. The sorceress tightened it until the flow of blood stopped, then fastened it in place. She took her cane and stood, peering up the steep slope ahead of her. Both sides of road were flecked with all manner of gnarled cacti, some as tall as trees and others creeping over small circles of rocky ground like thorn-rugs.

It was then that she remembered Nok.

In the halfling forest, she had seen him step off a high pyramid and drift to the ground like a leaf. If he could do that, he could float over the chasm. Sadira looked across its gaping depths.

The dust had dispersed and she could see to the other side. To her relief, no one hovered above the canyon, but standing on the opposite rim were two dozen halfling warriors. Behind them, on a slope of rust-colored sand, stood Nok. From his shoulders fluttered a cape of colored feathers, and around each ear hung a band of hammered silver, glimmering scarlet in the crimson sunlight. In one hand he gripped a double tipped lance that Sadira recognized as the Heartwood Spear. He held the other hand before him, supporting a small globe of obsidian. From inside the orb glowed a ghostly green light.

“Why flee, Sadira?” asked the chieftain. Though they were separated by the width of the chasm, his voice came to the sorceress as though he stood at her side. In it, there was no hint of kindness or forgiveness. “You know you cannot escape me.”

Nok hefted the Heartwood Spear and threw it in Sadira’s direction. The shaft sailed across the chasm as though it were a bird. The sorceress screamed and backed away, but the lance did not come near her. Instead, it struck a few feet below the canyon rim, sinking deep into the stone.

“Leave me alone,” Sadira called. “I have killed too many halflings already. I’ll kill more if you force me.”

Nok laughed, the sound pitiless and cold. “Their lives belong to the forest,” he said, “As does yours. Or have you forgotten your pledge?”

Sadira had not forgotten. After journeying deep into the halfling forest, she and her friends had fallen prey to a party or warriors they had never even seen. The group had awakened on Nok’s Feast Stones, only to discover that the chieftain and his advisors were preparing to eat them alive. The sorceress and her companions had survived only by swearing their lives to the forest-which was the same as pledging them to Nok himself.

“It was pledge or die,” Sadira objected.

“Still, you pledged,” Nok said.

With the hand holding the obsidian ball, the chieftain gestured at the Heartwood Spear. A tendril of emerald light left the globe and drifted across the canyon. When it touched the lance, a layer of scaly bark grew over the entire length of the weapon. Before Sadira’s eyes, the spear grew into an oak tree, stretching more than a quarter of the way across the chasm in a matter of moments.

“I beg you, let me keep the cane a while longer,” the sorceress said. “The Dragon has threatened Tyr. I’m going to his birthplace, hoping to discover some way to kill him.”

“No! If you kill the Dragon, who will protect Athas from you?” demanded the halfling. “You’ll return the staff, as you promised … Now!”

“I can’t do that,” Sadira answered quietly. Her gaze was fixed on the oak tree. It had grown impossibly large, with thick branches sprouting in every direction.

“You have no choice,” Nok answered.

The oak tree had almost grown across the chasm now, and Nok’s warriors were standing at the far rim waiting to come across. Sadira fixed her eyes on the chieftain. At this distance, he seemed no more than a child’s doll.

“If I return the cane, will you protect Tyr from the Dragon?” Sadira asked.

“No,” the halfling answered. “The levy must be paid, or the Dragon will hunt in the forest.”

“And what about the people of Tyr?” Sadira demanded. “They’re as important as your trees!”

Grasping her cane in the crook of her wounded arm, Sadira turned the palm of the other toward the ground. With all the gnarled cacti hugging the slopes of the scarp above, the energy rushed into her body in a flood. This time, when she felt the surge begin to weaken, she did not close her fist. To counter Nok’s magic, she would need all the life-force she could summon. She spread her fingers wide and pulled harder, drawing every last bit of power she could from the plants within her reach.

“It does no good to kill these warriors,” Nok said, waving his hand at the halflings before him. “You’ll only tire yourself!”

“You don’t even care for your own people!” Sadira hissed, angered by Nok’s callousness.

Even had the sorceress been uninjured and fresh, the halfling would have been more than her match in personal combat. Yet, he chose to send his men to his deaths solely to wear her down. Could it be that he feared her, or perhaps the cane she held in her blood-soaked hand? As unlikely as it seemed, the sorceress clung to that hope.

“What about your warriors?” Sadira demanded. “Aren’t their lives worth saving?”

“No,” Nok answered flatly.

Sadira kept her hand open. One after the other, the cacti drooped, then browned and withered. Within moments, they all shriveled into empty husks and tumbled to the ground. The sorceress continued to pull, sucking the life from their roots, from the seeds lying dormant in the sand, even from the lichens clinging to the rocks. Even then, she did not stop, until the soil itself turned black and lifeless.

Nok watched with dispassionate eyes. Only the tree he had created from the Heartwood Spear survived Sadira’s desecration, though even its lobed leaves were wilted and drooping.

The tree finally reached the far rim of the canyon. Nok’s remaining warriors leaped onto the trunk and rushed forward. The sorceress reached into her satchel and withdrew a tiny glass rod, then went to the edge of the canyon and kneeled beside the great oak.

“I was mistaken to entrust you with the cane,” Nok said. “The forest would have been safer had Kalak become a dragon.”

“Call them back!” Sadira yelled, giving the chieftain one last chance to save his warriors.

When Nok did not, she laid the glass rod on the oak and stepped away, speaking her incantation. A clap of thunder roared off the walls of the abyss, and a bolt of white energy flashed down the length of the bole. The halflings disappeared in puffs of greasy smoke. The great tree split down the center, belching fire and acrid fumes, then the leaves fell away with a sad murmur. A groan echoed through the canyon as the weight of the oak’s tremendous branches twisted the two halves of the trunk away from each other. Finally, the tree wrenched free and tumbled into the abyss, its roots pulling a spray of rock and earth down after it.

Sadira sank down upon the earth she had blackened. It smelled of soot and something mordant, not decay or death, but the absence of life. For a hundred yards in each direction, the soil had turned as black as a cave, and there was not a living plant in sight. The corrupted ground wafted over her like ash, coating her with an inky stain of grit.

A lump of bile formed in the sorceress’s stomach, threatening to rise into her throat and choke her. Had her mentor Ktandeo been alive to see what she had done, the old man would have tried to kill her with his own hands. To his eyes, she had committed a vile act from which there could be no redemption. It did not matter that she had done it for the sake of Tyr, or even to save the lives of a thousand people who would be sacrificed to the Dragon. She had become a defiler, and nothing under the two moons could make her anything else.

But Sadira had not always listened to Ktandeo in life, and, just because he was dead, she felt no greater compulsion to heed his words now. All sorcerers drew their energy from some form of life, usually plants. To her, the difference between defilers and other wizards was only one of degree: most sorcerers stopped short of ruining the soil when they drew energy for spell, but defilers did not. Sadira did not believe that it was always wrong to defile the land, not when something good could be accomplished by doing so. To her, an acre or two of ground was a small loss in comparison to her life-and an insignificant price to pay for the chance to save a thousand lives.

Across the valley, Nok stepped off the side of the dune into midair. He floated toward Sadira leisurely, his only visible weapon the obsidian ball dangling from his neck. Sadira picked up her cane and rose, determined to meet Nok with the few tools she had.

The chieftain wasted little time in making his attack. Before he was halfway across the chasm, he fixed his black eyes on the sorceress’s face. In the next instant, Sadira smelled wet, musky leaves and ripe, sweet-scented fruits. Her ears rang with the raucous cries of jungle birds and the steady drone of insects, while the air felt moist and humid against her skin. All around her, she saw towering hardwood trees with waxy red leaves slanting over her head and casting shadows so thick it seemed like dusk.

Sadira’s stomach knotted in panic. Nok had attacked with the Way, and she could not hope to fight him mind-to-mind.

A huge, batlike beast soared out of the forest shadows. Beneath its red eyes and square ears, a hideous pug-nosed muzzle gaped open to reveal a mouthful of fangs, all dripping yellow bile. At the elbows of its wings were four long fingers, each ending in a claw coated in filth.

Sadira forced herself to swallow her panic. Agis had shown her how to fight mental attacks, so she was far from defenseless. As the beast soared down upon her, Sadira pictured her good arm becoming an X-shaped blade, each edge as sharp as a razor. She thrust it upward, at the same time ducking her body out of the creature’s path. The bat-thing swerved, narrowly avoiding the wicked blades.

“No!” Sadira yelled, lashing out.

Her arm was nearly ripped from its socket as it sliced through the beast’s wing. The impact swept her from her feet, and the bat-thing crashed to the ground nearby.

The forest vanished from Sadira’s mind. She found herself lying on the blackened rocks of the canyon rim. Nok lay a few feet away, face-down, with his left arm twisted awkwardly behind his back.

The sorceress leaped to her feet immediately, activating her cane by calling Nok’s name. The pommel began to glow with its familiar purple light, and she felt the customary tingle of life-force being drawn from her body.

The chieftain rolled onto to his back. His left arm hung useless at his side, but in his right hand he held his own obsidian ball. “Do not think to kill me with my own magic,” Nok said, glaring at Sadira.

As he spoke, an emerald light glimmered deep within the globe he held. The sorceress’s life-force began to drain away more rapidly. Her stomach grew queasy and her head swam. A cold shudder ran through her body, then her knees began to tremble and she knew unconsciousness was only a moment away.

The sorceress stepped toward Nok and swung the pommel of her cane at the globe in his hand. “Dawnfire,” she whispered.

Nok raised his arm to block the attack, and the two balls of obsidian met with a sharp crack. Brilliant lights flashed all the colors of the rainbow, momentarily blinding Sadira. Peals of thunder roared through the air, striking the far side the canyon with such force that they sent tons of boulders clattering down into the chasm. At the same time, a tremendous shockwave hit the sorceress’s chest, hurling her backward through the air.

As Sadira slammed into the rocky ground, Nok’s voice rang out in a harrowing cry. The sorceress pushed herself to her elbows, lifting the cane to attack.

A horrified screamed erupted from her throat. Only a few inches from her hand, the cane ended in a scorched stump, with a single shard of its obsidian pommel still buried in the shaft. For a long time, the sorceress stared at the stub in speechless dismay, her heart filled with a terrible sense of loss.

The cane had been almost as important to her as her own life. With it, she had been strong enough to defend all of Tyr, and powerful enough to face the unknown perils of the Pristine Tower. Now she had only her own magic and vigor to rely upon-and she did not know if those two things would be enough.

Sadira looked past the end of the cane to where Nok had fallen. In the chieftain’s place was a jagged crater, coated with soot and deep enough that the sorceress could not see the bottom. From this hole poured a thick plume of smoke, as black as obsidian and shaped like a great oak tree. Rising with the inky fumes were long ribbons of watery color: green and purple, but also red, blue, yellow, and a dozen others. The branches of the vaporous tree were gently waving, as if stirred by an unfelt breeze, and they were hissing Sadira’s name.