The Cerulean Storm

THIRTEEN THE SPIRIT LORDS

From his post atop the mast,Sacha cried, “Five ships!” Though Caelum heard the warning, he kept his eyes focused straight ahead and did not rise from his knees. The sun’s crimson rays were filtering through the tangled boughs rising from the shoal ahead, and the dwarf could see by the flat bottom of the orb that the red sphere would not rise completely for many more moments. He would not allow the appearance of a few ships to disturb his devotions-especially not when he had such need for the sun’s favor.

“Great Beacon, shine upon my enemy, so that his weakness will glare with a scarlet radiance that even my unseeing eyes will find,” intoned the dwarf.

Rikus stepped into the bow next to Caelum. “What do you make of those boats, cleric?”

Though he did not respond, Caelum saw the boats. Five of them lay dead ahead, sitting broadside in a single line. The vessels were all cutters. Their single masts billowed with gossamer sails shaped like bat wings and unsupported by any sort of yardarm. The decks bristled with catapults manned by half-decomposed corpses. The hulls were made of burnished basalt and looked far too broad to have navigated down the narrow channels that came together to form the bay.

Caelum returned his attention to the rising sun. “Kindle in me the fires of your vengeance, Mighty Punisher,” he said. “Let the flames of your fury pour from my raging heart and char my enemy’s flesh, melt his eyeballs, scorch his bones until they crack. I beseech you, let the inferno of my anger sear his body until it is a black and smoking cinder.”

“Caelum, get up!” Rikus demanded.

Neeva came to the mul’s side. “It’s no use, Rikus,” she said, pulling him away. “Until the sun has completely risen, my husband’s devotion is to it, not us. His own child could be standing on those ships, and still he would not stand.”

Caelum resisted the urge to refute his wife. Even if he had not been in the middle of his devotions, there would have been no point to it. She had not greeted the sun since Rkard’s abduction, and that fact alone proved that she lacked the faith to understand the depth of the sun communion.

The dwarf continued his intonation, “Wonderful Fire of Life, watch over my absent son and do not let the flame of his spirit darken. Warm his heart, so he will know his father remembers him and searches for him with a fidelity as fervid as your light.”

Rikus and Neeva left the bow, each slipping around a different side of the Dark Lens.

At the same time, Tithian called, “Pull in the boom!” The king still sat in the stern of the dhow, for he and Sadira had not yet changed places for the day. “They can’t follow us down there!”

Tithian gave the tiller a shove. The dhow tilted to starboard as it changed directions, then abruptly slowed and returned to an even keel as the sail went slack. Ahead lay a dust channel so narrow that the trees flanking it actually touched fronds over the passage. As Sadira pulled the boom in and caught the wind, the dhow tipped to starboard and started forward again. Caelum dutifully returned his gaze to the sun, scrambling around so that he could watch it over the starboard side of their little craft.

The dwarf tried to still his thoughts, to empty his mind so that it would be refilled with the dawn’s radiance. In spite of his efforts, he noticed the cutters’ gossamer sails twisting on their masts. He tried to forget them and focus on the sun’s crimson rays. If he allowed the impending battle to impinge on his meditations, he would absorb fewer spells than normal, and they would be less powerful.

The dhow’s hull began to scrape along the mud crusts ringing the shoals, adding to the difficulty of the dwarf’s meditations. He began to hum a single note, as he had taught Rkard to do when the boy was learning to meditate.

At the same time, the ghostly fleet began to move forward. Caelum found himself puzzling over its path. The cutters were trying to cut them off-but their course would take the ships straight through the middle of a shoal.

As the dhow moved deeper into the channel, the fleet’s gossamer sails disappeared behind the dense foliage to the dhow’s starboard. Sighing in relief, Caelum concentrated on his devotions. This thicket seemed heavier than that rising from the last shoal, so the dwarf had trouble seeing the sun itself. Nevertheless, by the halo of red-tinged leaves in the center of the copse, he knew where to look. He opened himself to the orb and breathed in slow, steady whispers.

This time, the dwarf’s meditations were more successful. He barely heard the shrill whistles and eerie cackles erupting from the shoals as the dhow sliced through the narrow channel between them. Soon, he felt the sun-mark on his forehead burning hot and red, then the halo shining through the forest became round and whole. A crimson flame flared over his brow, and he knew the sun had risen.

Caelum stood and turned toward his wife. “It seems I had time to finish my devotions, after all,” he said. “For which we’ll all be glad when those cutters return.”

“Let’s hope so,” she retorted.

Neeva stood with Rikus, both of them holding their weapons in their hands and looking past him down the channel. Behind them, Sadira fished through her robe pocket with one ebony hand and effortlessly held the boom line with the other. Tithian sat upon the floater’s dome, his beady eyes darting back and forth between the shore and the Dark Lens.

The shoal suddenly fell silent. Nothing happened for a moment, then a cloud of birds erupted from the tangled thicket. Their beating wings filled the air with a tremendous throbbing as they passed overhead.

Caelum saw a cluster of gossamer sails approaching through the boughs over the shoal. The diaphanous sheets passed through the tangled fronds as though immaterial, not disturbing so much as a leaf. In contrast to the sails, the cutters’ black prows drove through the muddy shoal like farmers’ plows, cutting great harrows and uprooting every plant they passed. The majestic trees fell away almost silently, their heavy boles becoming snarled in a nest of vines and boughs long before they could crash to the ground.

Neeva and Rikus came forward. Caelum’s wife hefted her battle-axe and asked, “Well, husband, can you sink those ships?”

Caelum raised a hand toward the sun. He waited until his flesh glowed with a brilliant crimson light, then pointed back at the dhow’s mast. He cast his spell. A globe of scarlet light formed around the base of the pole and slowly rose upward. When the shining ball reached the top, Sacha shrieked, shooting off his perch as though someone had kicked him. The head fell, trailing wisps of red smoke, and struck the shoal’s sun-baked beach with a hollow thump. The red sphere took his place on top of the mast and shone down on the dhow with a warm, rosy light.

“Stupid dwarf!” cursed Sacha, wobbling into the air. “You could have warned me!”

“What’d you do?” asked Rikus.

“Protected the ship from the undead,” Caelum replied. “Now the animated corpses on the cutters can’t board us.”

The dwarf had barely finished his sentence before the clack-clack of firing catapults sounded from ahead. He spun around to see a barrage of small boulders arcing toward them. Rikus and Neeva ducked. When Caelum did not instantly do the same, his wife kicked his feet from beneath him. The dwarf dropped unceremoniously into the bilge.

Most of the volley went wide. The stones crashed through the sun-crusted beaches to either side of the channel, shooting plumes of mud high into the air. Unfortunately, a number of rocks did find their targets. Two boulders glanced off the Dark Lens and bounced over the gunnel. Though the impact caused no apparent damage to the Lens, it drew an alarmed squeal from Tithian. Three more stones landed amidst the cargo casks, spraying chadnuts and precious water in all directions. One rock even struck Sadira in the chest. The impact drove her down on her seat but seemed to cause her no harm. She pitched the stone over the side, then stood up again.

Caelum stuck his head up and looked over the gunnel. Two cutters had sailed into the shoal off the port bow and were turning to approach the dhow on a parallel route. The third ship was positioning itself broadside across the channel. The last two vessels remained in the starboard shoal and were turning their bows toward the dhow. On all five cutters, the ungainly corpses were slowly cranking the catapult spoons back into firing position.

“They’re trying to catch us in a crossfire,” growled Rikus.

“They won’t have a chance,” said Sadira. “By the time they’re ready to fire again, their missiles won’t be able to reach us.”

With that, the sorceress took Tithian’s place at the tiller and cast her flying spell. The dhow rose out of the channel at such a steep angle that Caelum had to grab the gunnel to keep from sliding. The Dark Lens slipped back against the water casks, pushing them toward the stern. Sadira braced her feet against the last two barrels and held the entire load in place.

“Now, this is magic!” exclaimed Neeva.

“Magic that will betray us to the sorcerer-kings, if they’re still near,” Tithian complained.

“If they’re that close, the battle would alert them anyway,” said Rikus, peering over the gunnel. “I doubt we could sink five ships without creating a lot of smoke and thunder.”

Caelum also looked over the side, feeling a little foolish for bragging about how his magic would prevent the corpses from boarding the dhow. The little craft was already as high as the treetops and rising. Far below and ahead, the corpses were still loading boulders into their catapult spoons, but the dwarf did not think the stones would come high enough to strike their craft.

As they came nearer to the cutters, Caelum noticed that not all of the corpses on the decks were decomposing. On each ship, one looked strangely preserved, with leathery skin and an emaciated body. The shriveled faces of these figures looked remarkably similar, with gaping cavities for noses and eyes of green fire. But each also had a distinctive feature setting him or her apart from the others: a pair of smoking horns, fingernails as long and sharp as needles, chitinous scales of armor, lacy wings of fire, a sharp beak instead of a mouth.

“What are those things?” Neeva asked. She pointed first at the corpse with the smoking horns, then at the one with the chitinous armor.

“They’re the ship commanders-some sort of spirit lords,” offered Sadira. “And I doubt they happened on us by chance. Borys probably sent them.”

The one with fiery wings leaped off his ship’s deck and shot up to intercept the dhow.

“There’s no need to worry,” Caelum said. He glanced up at the red sphere still shining down from the top of the mast, hoping his spell would prove useful after all. “He can’t come into the light.”

“Who’s worried?” Rikus asked. “But we can’t let him follow us, either. Better to kill-er, destroy-him now.”

The mul gripped his sword with both hands and stepped into the bow. It was the only place on the dhow where the protective light of Caelum’s spell did not extend beyond the gunnels, and so it was the only place the corpse could attack the craft itself.

The spirit lord seemed to sense this, for he streaked straight to Rikus. The mul swung. The corpse fanned his fiery wings and stopped instantly, allowing the Scourge’s blade to flash harmlessly past his face.

“Stupid mul!” the spirit lord hissed. “Come with me!”

The corpse slipped to the side of the blade and clamped both hands over the mul’s wrists. The lord’s wings flapped furiously, trying to back away and pull Rikus from the dhow. Each time they beat forward, long tongues of flame curled off the wings’ lacy edges to lick at the mul’s face and arms.

Screaming in pain, Rikus dropped down to shield himself behind the bone prow. He braced his feet against the gunnel and pulled, trying to draw his attacker into the glowing circle cast by Caelum’s spell. The two foes seemed evenly matched. The mul’s wrists remained poised at the perimeter of the rosy light, trembling with strain and agony. The corpse’s wings beat madly, filling the air in front of the dhow with yellow whorls of flame.

Neeva ducked under the sail and stepped forward, chopping at the spirit with her axe. The steel did not bite into his flesh, but she caught the crook of the blade behind the corpse’s neck. She added her strength to Rikus’s and pulled, dragging their enemy across the gunnel into the rosy light of Caelum’s spell.

The spirit lord howled in pain. Black tendrils of smoke spewed from his body, and his flesh fell away in flakes of black ash. Caelum could hardly believe what he was seeing. The spell was having an effect, but hardly what he had expected. The corpse had to be as powerful as a banshee. Otherwise, he would have been consumed by crimson flame as soon as he was pulled into the circle.

Caelum turned a hand toward the sun, calling for the magic to incinerate the spirit. A red glow crept over his hand, and he pointed his finger at the corpse.

Before the dwarf could cast his spell, Sadira uttered an incantation from the back of the boat. A bolt of black energy streaked past Caelum’s head, striking the spirit in the center of the chest. A tremendous bang shook the dhow, nearly knocking the cleric from his feet and blasting the corpse out of the bow. A ball of ebony fire swallowed the lord, and he plunged toward the shoals below. By the time he reached the ground, all that remained of him was a cloud of ash.

Caelum sighed, feeling more useless than ever. He went to the mul’s side and said, “Let me see those burns, Rikus.”

The mul shook his head and started to rise. “Later,” he said. “They’re not serious.”

Caelum laid his palm on the mul’s blistered arms. “I’ll tend them now,” he insisted. “If all I’m good for is healing other people’s wounds, at least let me do it well.”

With that, the dwarf released his healing energy. The mul hissed as the magic poured into his body. The blisters quickly subsided, leaving only a red tint to show where the mul’s skin had been burned.

“Thanks,” Rikus said. “That does feel better.”

The clatter of catapults sounded from below. Caelum looked over the gunnel in time to see a volley of gray boulders crossing paths beneath the hull. The four ships that had fired the stones were almost directly below the dhow, one pair to each side of the silt passage. The fifth cutter lay a short distance ahead, still blocking the narrow channel between the shoals.

In spite of the catapults’ obvious inability to hit the dhow, the mindless crewmen cranked the spoons down to reload. “Go ahead, try again!” Rikus yelled.

As they passed over the last cutter, a loud sizzle sounded from the ship’s deck. A brilliant flash of blue streaked from its stern. There was a deafening boom, and the whole dhow bucked. The hull erupted into a spray of gray splinters. Caelum grabbed the gunnel to keep from flying out and felt his feet dangling free. Realizing the dhow had no bottom, he looked down. The cargo casks, the floater’s dome, Neeva’s axe, the Dark Lens, even the boat’s sail and mast were arcing toward the shoals far below. Only the people remained, clinging to the gunnels for their lives.

Caelum watched the dhow’s cargo fall. With the sail still attached, the mast was caught by the wind and lost its forward momentum the fastest. It landed about a hundred paces from the cutters, plunging through a shoal’s mud crust and standing upright. The water casks and Neeva’s axe were strewn over the crusty banks a little distance beyond, while the Dark Lens continued the farthest before plunging into the silt channel.

“No!” Tithian screamed. “The Lens!”

The king released his grip and dropped away, raising a plume of dust as he followed the Lens into the dust passage.

“What now?” cried Neeva.

“Turn around,” answered Caelum.

The dwarf looked back toward the cutters. Already, the spirit lords were leaping off their ships. “I don’t care about Tithian, but we can’t lose the Lens.”

“Swing in low near the sail, Sadira,” Rikus ordered. The mul pointed at the dhow’s mast, which still had the rosy orb of the dwarf’s protection spell glowing from the top. “Caelum and I’ll drop off to hold them back. Then you take Neeva back to find the Lens.”

Sadira brought the dhow around. She swooped in so low that Caelum could have counted the cracks in the beach below. The dwarf waited until they passed into the rosy glow of his protection spell, then let go of the gunnel.

Almost before he felt himself falling, Caelum slammed into the crusty mud and felt it crack beneath the impact. He allowed his momentum to carry him forward and tumbled head over heels across the hot ground. He came to a rest on his back, staring straight up the mast at the red sphere of his spell. The mast was wobbling slightly, as if it might fall at any moment, and it was tilting toward the silt channel at a slight angle.

Caelum noticed that he felt nothing from the waist down and feared the fall had broken something in his back. He tried to kick his legs-and nearly choked on the resulting cloud of dust.

Realizing that he had nearly rolled into the dust channel, Caelum pushed himself back. He stood, already raising a hand toward the sun, and spun around to face the spirit lords.

To his surprise, he did not see any coming after him. The only undead he saw were the decomposing corpses back at the cutters. They stood beside their catapults, staring into the air with vacant expressions and blank eyes. Caelum suspected that their spirits were magically bound to the ships; otherwise, they would have been climbing over the gunnels to attack by now.

From across the narrow silt channel, Rikus yelled, “Of all the rotten luck!”

Caelum looked over and saw the mul-at least, he saw the upper half of the mul. Rikus had plunged through the sun-baked crust and was stuck up to his breast in the soft mud beneath. To make matters worse, all four of the spirit lords were rushing toward him. Already the one with the smoking horns was diving at Rikus.

Caelum pointed at the spirit and spoke a mystic command word. A brilliant ray of crimson shot from his finger, bursting into a dazzling spray of light right before the thing’s eyes.

The corpse roared in anger, and beams of golden energy shot from his smoking horns. The spirit lord landed at the mul’s side, shaking his head in a mad effort to clear the spots from his eyes. The rays from his horns washed over Rikus. The mul screamed in pain and brought the Scourge down across the spirit’s neck, sending his ugly head skittering across the sun-baked ground.

Rikus looked back to the other three spirit lords, who were only a dozen steps away. “I can’t get out of this mess.” The mul drew his arm back to throw the Scourge.

“Take this.”

“No! Keep it!” Caelum yelled.

Not giving Rikus a chance to argue, the dwarf stepped over to the mast and tried to shove it toward the mul. The shaft was lodged more securely than it appeared and would not tip easily. Caelum continued to push. The pole slipped a little but did not fall.

Across the channel, the three remaining spirit lords had reached the mul. They spread out around him. The one with the chitinous armor positioned himself directly in front of Rikus, while the corpse with the beak approached from the side on which the mul was holding the Scourge. The last lord, a female with fingernails as long as needles, circled around behind Rikus.

Caelum continued to push against the mast, for he could feel it slowly tipping. At the same time, he glanced up the silt channel to see if he could summon help. Sadira and Neeva were several hundred paces away, flying low over the silt passage, their backs to him and Rikus. From what the dwarf could see of their heads, their gazes were fixed on the channel below, searching for some sign of the Dark Lens.

Caelum started to call out, but from across the passage, one of the spirit lords said, “Now, Lord Warrior!”

The dwarf looked back to see the corpse with the chitinous armor, apparently the Lord Warrior, dart in and level a vicious kick at Rikus’s head. There was a loud crack as the mul deflected the assault with his free arm, then he swung the Scourge at the spirit’s legs.

The Lord Warrior jumped the slash. He landed on one foot, kicking Rikus’s sword arm away with the other. “Now you, Lord Vizier!”

The other male spirit leaped forward, clamping his beak-shaped mouth around Rikus’s wrist. With one hand, the Lord Vizier grabbed the fist holding the Scourge and slammed the palm of the other into the mul’s elbow. Rikus screamed but did not release his weapon, so the corpse tried to force it free by wrenching the mul’s arm.

Caelum heard the mud crust crackle and felt the mast tip. Growling with determination, he slammed his shoulder into the pole and pumped his legs madly. The mast tilted farther, leaning across the channel. The glowing sphere on top cast rosy light over Rikus and the area around him.

The Lord Warrior shrieked and retreated, as did the female corpse. The Lord Vizier tried one last time to wrench the Scourge free. It proved a terrible mistake, for Rikus reached over and grabbed him by the back of the neck, then held him in place. The spirit lord opened his beak and screeched in pain. Wisps of black, foul-smelling smoke rose from his body. The corpse flailed his arms about wildly in a mad effort to escape.

Rikus pulled his sword across the corpse’s stomach. The Lord Vizier gave a harrowing wail and clawed madly at the dry mud in an effort to drag himself away. The mul struck again, and the spirit went limp. The body smoldered for a moment, then a wave of shimmering flames reduced it to ashes.

The last two spirit lords, standing on opposite sides of Rikus, looked toward Caelum. “Can you take care of him, Lady Bliss?” asked the Lord Warrior.

“Gladly,” answered the female spirit, spreading her needlelike fingers and stepping away from Rikus.

Caelum circled around to the other side of the mast, as if trying to hide. He could hear the mud crust crackling beneath its weight and knew it would fall at any moment.

Lady Bliss circled the area lit by Caelum’s spell, then stopped at the edge of the silt channel. She used one finger to motion for him to come closer, and the dwarf could see droplets of murky yellow fluid dripping from the claw.

“There’s nothing to fear, little man,” she said, gathering herself up to jump the channel. “This won’t hurt.”

“This will!” Caelum countered.

Using all his dwarven strength, Caelum shoved the mast. The mud crust gave way with a sharp crack, and the top of the pole swung around. The shaft dropped straight toward Lady Bliss, catching her as she tried to leap into the air. The red globe crashed down on her shoulder. The spirit lord did not even have time to scream before her body erupted into a pillar of crimson flame.

Caelum heard the Lord Warrior curse, then say, “The sword! Give it to me!”

The dwarf did not even take the time to look across the channel. His end of the mast had sunk into the dust, but the other end still lay propped on top of the opposite shoal’s mud crust. He took a running start and jumped, spreading his arms wide.

Caelum dropped about halfway across. He hit the dust face-first, sinking only a short distance before his chest touched the solid shaft of the mast. The dwarf closed his arms around it and pulled himself up, coughing and choking as he came out of the silt. Not even waiting until he could breathe clearly again, he crawled up onto the opposite shoal and turned toward Rikus.

Caelum found himself behind both his friend and the Lord Warrior. Having landed a glancing kick on the back of the mul’s skull, the corpse was just leaping away as Rikus tried to twist around and slash at him with the Scourge.

The Lord Warrior slipped a step to the side, positioning himself for his next attack. The dwarf charged, timing his assault to arrive as the corpse stepped forward again. The spirit lord stopped directly behind Rikus. The Lord Warrior raised his leg, preparing to level a vicious thrust-kick at the base of Rikus’s skull.

Certain that the blow would be fatal if it landed, Caelum yelled a warning. At the same time, he hurled himself at the Lord Warrior, taking the corpse high in the shoulder blades. The dwarf hit with a bone-jarring impact, his face pressing into the cold, hard scales that covered the corpse’s back.

The Lord Warrior cried out in surprise, and the momentum of Caelum’s charge carried them both over the top of Rikus’s head. The corpse crashed down right in front of the mul, then the dwarf rolled away.

Rikus brought the Scourge down half a dozen times before the Lord Warrior had a chance to react. By the time Caelum had returned to his feet, all that remained of the spirit were slabs of putrid flesh.

“Many thanks,” Rikus said. “You just saved my life-four times over.”

The mul had suffered more during his struggle against the spirit lords than Caelum had realized. His body was covered with lumps, huge purple bruises, and a dozen gashes that were starting to soften the mud around him with blood.

“I haven’t saved your life yet,” Caelum said. He raised a hand toward the sun and walked over to the mul’s side. “The Lord Warrior’s beating could take you yet.”

Rikus’s eyes widened. He stared up at the dwarf’s glowing hand with a pained expression. “I’m too sore for that,” he growled. “You don’t have to heal me right now.”

“Of course he does,” snarled Tithian’s voice.

Caelum looked over and saw the king-or rather, a creature with the king’s head-crawling out of the silt channel. Tithian’s body no longer looked even remotely human. It was shaped like that of a lizard, with a knobby green hide and squat, powerful legs so broad they looked more like paddles. As the strange beast emerged the rest of the way onto the shoal, the dwarf saw that it had wrapped its long tail around the considerable bulk of the Dark Lens.

The creature crawled over to them and deposited the Lens at Rikus’s side.

“Now be quiet and let Caelum save your miserable hide-again,” Tithian said, looking toward the cutters. “I’ll go make arrangements for us to continue. Perhaps we can finish our journey in a style more befitting my station.”