The Cerulean Storm

NINETEEN FLOOD WATERS

Rikus kicked off the hipbone of a massive skeleton and sailed through the colorless ether. He grabbed Tithian by his long braid of gray hair and used it to pull them together, then slipped an arm around the king’s throat and squeezed. The king coughed and rasped for breath, digging his fingers into the mul’s arm in a futile attempt to free himself. Rikus only tightened his grip.

The mul, the king, and Sacha were floating inside a black sphere with a huge skeleton Rikus assumed to be Rajaat’s. It was impossible to tell the size of their prison. The place seemed entirely filled by the ancient sorcerer’s yellowed bones, yet Tithian had tried several times to push off an ankle or hand and float out to the dark walls. He had never seemed able to reach them, and when Rikus caught up with him, they had always seemed to be next to the skeleton.

Rikus glimpsed Sacha floating toward his back from behind a thighbone. The mul gave his torso a sharp twist but used too much power and spun himself past the disembodied head. More accustomed to maneuvering through the air, Sacha took advantage of the mistake to streak forward. He clamped his teeth around the warrior’s ear and began to rip.

Screaming in pain, Rikus shoved Tithian away, and with a stomp-kick to the back, sent the king tumbling toward the skeleton’s skull. The mul reached up, grasping Sacha by the nose with one hand and by the chin with the other. He snapped his attacker’s mouth open, drawing a loud crack from the lower jaw, then brought his knee up and smashed Sacha against it. Sacha’s eyes went glassy and blank, then brown, foul-smelling ooze began to pour from his nostrils and ears.

Rikus tossed Sacha’s crushed skull aside then turned back toward Tithian. The king was floating near the skeleton’s head, his dark eyes locked on the mul. Fearing that the king was preparing to attack with the Way, Rikus ducked under the skeleton’s leg.

As Rikus started to pull himself forward, crooked lines of lightning began dancing across the walls of the black sphere. His first thought was that Tithian was responsible. He peered over the skeleton’s torso and found the king staring in confusion at the dark shell of their prison.

The lightning cords suddenly connected with each other, forming a crackling net of energy. With a shrill hiss, the black walls dissolved into wisps of shadow. A blinding blue flash filled the sphere, then the mul felt himself being drawn upward.

Rikus tumbled through the air for what seemed a long time, his eyes filled with spots. Finally, he began to arc downward, and through his erratic vision, he saw turquoise clouds and a blue sun above him. He hit the water so hard that it felt as if he had slammed into a granite plain instead of splashing into a lake. The air rushed from his lungs, and he went under.

Rikus felt himself touch bottom, then he pushed off and shot back to the surface of the lake. He came up coughing water and flailing his arms. Somehow, he managed to keep his head above water long enough to see a floating tree trunk, then swam toward it with choppy, uneven strokes.

When he reached his goal, Rikus threw his arms over the log and spent several moments clearing his lungs of water. His flesh stung and his joints ached from the impact of the fall, but he did not feel any serious injuries.

A loud boom echoed across the lake from behind Rikus. Fearing a magical attack from Tithian, the mul twisted around. More than fifty paces away, he saw a black orb streaking into the sky. Sitting on top of it was the figure of an ebony-skinned woman, her long amber hair waving in the wind. Sadira had recovered the Dark Lens.

Rikus started to call out for her to come back but stopped when he saw the figures of three sorcerer-kings rising from the lake to go after her. He could hear their voices shouting but was too distant to understand their words. Two of them turned their palms downward, and frothing spouts of water rose toward their hands as they summoned the energy to cast spells.

Rikus cursed his inability to aid Sadira, then he watched as the sorcerer-kings closed their hands and pointed toward his wife.

“Sadira, watch yourself!”

As the mul called the words, Rajaat’s skeleton rose out of the lake between the sorcerer-kings and Sadira. It was not as large as when Rikus had first seen it, now standing only about as high as a full giant.

“No!” boomed Rajaat’s angry voice. “You shall wait here for your punishment.”

The skeleton pointed three of its curled talons at the sorcerer-kings. Glittering blue bubbles shot from the digits, and each engulfed one of the figures flying after Sadira. The shimmering balls of water brought their prisoners to a quick halt. They began to drift over the lake in a lazy circle, small bulges appearing in their liquid walls as the occupants tried to free themselves with magic spells, the Way, and physical blows.

After watching them for a moment, Rajaat’s skeleton turned around. Sadira had already disappeared with the Lens. The ancient sorcerer stared after her for a moment. Finally, he plucked a cloud from the sky and began to flatten it into a sheet of vaporish skin, walking after Sadira as he worked.

Rikus pushed himself to the end of his tree and began to kick his legs but quickly realized there was no need. A brisk tide was flowing after Rajaat, carrying the mul and an ever-growing jumble of logs along with it. Rikus tried to raise himself above the debris, searching for a glimpse of what he hoped would be Tithian’s dead body.

Rikus saw no sign of the king, and soon he could not afford to look. The current was beginning to froth and bang logs against each other. It took all of his strength just to keep his head above water and not lose his grip on his makeshift raft.

As the current carried Tithian out of the shadows, a sharp crack sounded from the roof of the arch. The king ducked under the frothing waters, narrowly escaping before a shower of splinters erupted from his log. The river throbbed with the pulse of the blast, battering his ears with terrible pangs of agony.

Staying submerged, the king swung under his log and came up on the other side, looking toward the top of the arch. He saw the small figure of a halfling male. The man was peering into the tangle of logs, no doubt searching for Tithian’s body, and at the same time slipping a cone-shaped pellet into the groove of a tiny crossbow.

Tithian ducked back under the water, knowing from experience how deadly the little crossbows could be. During his short float trip down what had once been Ur Draxa’s processional avenue, he had seen dozens of halflings using the weapons, indiscriminately killing the former residents of the city. They seemed entirely determined to murder every non-halfling in sight.

Once the king judged the floodwaters had carried him safely out of range, he pulled himself onto his log and gasped for breath. Although he was using the Way to augment his strength, the effort of clinging to the tree in roiling floodwaters was wearing on his old man’s body. If this chase did not end soon, he feared he would be in no condition to steal the Lens back from Sadira.

Tithian propped himself up on his log and looked ahead. All he could see in front of him was a bizarre, watery city that had once been Ur Draxa. The stern architecture had been replaced by flowing bends and gentle curves, with not a sharp corner in sight. The granite arches and marble buildings were now made of colorful rockstem, while the monuments lining the avenue depicted mild-mannered halflings. Instead of axes and swords, these small heroes held writing quills and vials of peculiar shapes, their placid expressions and serene smiles strangely at odds with the murderous behavior of the bloodthirsty warriors now roaming the canals.

Finally, Tithian spotted Rajaat’s looming form at the end of the avenue, a walking storm of cerulean clouds. Once again, a crown of lightning crackled around his head, and gales of rain poured from his hands. As Tithian watched, the ancient sorcerer lifted a foot and kicked open the enormous gates. Rajaat ducked beneath the keystone and vanished from the king’s sight. The floodwaters rushed after him, pouring onto the plain beyond.

Sadira descended toward the crater and saw that the lake of bubbling black goo had evaporated from the basin, leaving the interior as smooth as a glass bowl. In places, the sheen rose almost as high as the rim, reflecting the rays of the blue sun back into the center of the valley. There, the azure beams gathered in an ethereal ball that the sorceress found as disconcerting as the new color of the heavens. As beautiful as they were, blue skies and blue suns had no place above the deserts of Athas. They harkened back to a gentler age, an age that could only be restored by killing most of what now lived on the dusty planet. As much as Sadira longed for a better world, she would not pay the price that Rajaat demanded. She had to stop him.

As the sorceress circled the basin, cold fingers of apprehension spread through her chest, for she saw no sign of Neeva’s hiding place. The rocks where Rikus had concealed the warrior were gone, fused into the lustrous veneer of the cauldron. Sadira tried to stay calm by reminding herself of Rkard’s strength. The boy was more than strong enough to carry his mother to safety-assuming that whatever had scoured the crater clean had allowed him the chance.

With an increasingly heavy heart, Sadira crossed to the outside slope of the rim and continued her search. She did not call out. A gentle breeze was blowing toward the city, and it would not do to have it carry her voice across the plain. She could already see that Rajaat’s towering form had left Ur Draxa and was coming toward her, and the last thing she wanted was for him to hear her calling for Rkard and Neeva.

Sadira landed on the north side of the crater, where a high section in the opposite rim would shelter her from Rajaat’s view. She climbed up to a notch in the crest and deposited the Dark Lens in the nook. She filled the gaps around the orb with dirt and rocks, her magic-enhanced strength making quick work of the task. The sorceress was not trying to hide the Lens so much as prop it up and camouflage it well enough to keep it from being seen at first glance.

After pausing to look around the area one last time, Sadira climbed up to the rim’s crest. She slowly circled back toward Ur Draxa, scanning the exterior slope of the crater and forcing herself to resist the temptation to call the young mul’s name.

The sorceress did not know what she would do if the boy had left or had died. She was counting on his spell to do what she could not: exterminate Rajaat. Sadira’s powers, based as they were on the ancient sorcerer’s own magic, would be of little use in the coming battle. But Rkard’s powers were the opposite of Rajaat’s. They were based in the element of fire, while the ancient sorcerer was closely allied with the element of water. If anything could destroy Rajaat, it would be Rkard’s magic.

The sorceress stepped around a jagged crag, and the ramparts of Ur Draxa came into sight, glowing scarlet and emerald with the brilliant hues of living rockstem. Rajaat had already crossed most of the plain. As he came forward, forks of lightning shot down from his crown to strike at the ground, and torrents of rain poured from his hands. Thunder rumbled from his mouth, and dark, seething plumes of vapor shot from his nostrils. On his heels came a frothing wall of water, rolling across the broken ground and rapidly flooding the whole plain.

Sadira ducked back behind the crag to prepare for the coming battle.

“Where’s Rikus?” whispered a familiar voice.

Sadira bit her tongue to keep from yelling and spun around. Rkard stood a few steps away, crouching behind a small boulder. The sorceress went to his side.

“I was afraid-I thought you had left,” she whispered, hugging him tight. “Is your mother safe?”

The boy nodded. “The black stuff started to boil, and we had to move. She sent me up to get you,” he said. “Where’s Rikus?”

“We’ll look for him later,” Sadira said, standing. “Right now, I need your help.”

Tears welled in Rkard’s eyes. “Rikus isn’t coming back, is he?” he asked. “He’s dead, just like my father!”

Sadira kneeled in front of the boy. “We don’t know that, Rkard!” she snapped, grasping his shoulders tightly. “But we have to worry about ourselves and your mother now. Rajaat’s coming, and I need your help to stop him.”

Rkard looked away and bit his lip, gathering himself together. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing you haven’t done many times before.”

Sadira guided him toward the Dark Lens, explaining her plan as they walked. When she finished, she made the young mul repeat it twice. The sorceress did not think Rkard would have trouble understanding what she required, for the task was simple, and he was a smart boy. She just wanted to make sure he knew that the plan would work even if she were killed.

After helping Rkard find a good hiding place, Sadira climbed a quarter of the way around the crater. When she came to a place where the outside slope fell away in a sheer drop, she stopped. This would be a good place to wait. She could jump behind the crater rim to shelter herself from Rajaat’s magic, while her ebon-skinned body would not be harmed by the plunge to the sharp rocks below.

Rajaat’s flashing crown appeared above the opposite rim, filling the cauldron with echoes of crackling lightning. The entire basin shook with the power of his thunderous bellows. The ancient sorcerer started to climb, and frothing floodwaters began to whirl around the base of the crater.

Sadira turned a palm toward the ground, summoning the power to cast a normal spell. As the energy flowed into her body, she pulled a stick of incense from her pocket and watched Rajaat’s head appear above the far crest. His vaporish skin hung from his face in billowing folds, with dark creases that gave him a fierce and sinister appearance. From the size of his eyes and the diameter of his crown, she guessed the ancient sorcerer was about the size of a giant.

Sadira waited until Rajaat had stepped onto the crest of the ridge, then she pointed the incense at him and uttered her incantation. The end of the stick flared and started to burn. As the smoke rose into the air, plumes of steam began to trail off the ancient sorcerer’s misty flesh. Long gashes and round holes quickly opened, exposing the yellowed bones beneath.

Rajaat waved a wispy claw over his body and muttered a counterspell. The incense in Sadira’s hand went out, and the steam stopped rising from the wounds on his body. The ancient sorcerer stepped into the crater. When his feet slipped on the slick sides, he spread his arms and floated down the steep slope like fog. He never took his eyes off Sadira.

“I created sorcery,” Rajaat hissed, stepping across the basin. “How can you think your pitiful skills a match for mine?”

Rajaat pointed a curved talon at her head. Sadira spun away, confident her plan would work as she intended. Another step forward would bring her foe into perfect position for Rkard’s spell.

A string of mystic syllables rumbled from Rajaat’s mouth. The throbbing roar of a mighty whirlwind howled over the basin, and a spout of dark clouds shot from the ancient sorcerer’s finger. It streaked toward Sadira, hurling lightning and pounding columns of water at her side of the crater.

The sorceress jumped off the cliff. The spinning winds hit behind her, ripping the rim into an explosion of broken rock. The storm caught Sadira before she hit the ground and lifted her into a swirling tempest of boulders and water. Lightning bolts stabbed at her from every direction. When they struck, they did not die away but crackled over her body in an endless loop. She was quickly enclosed in a sizzling cage of energy, which flashed twice around the whirlwind and disappeared into the dark clouds. The cyclone sped out across the flooded plain.

A quarter of the way around the crater, Rkard peered over the Dark Lens and watched the storm disappear. His breath came in gasps, and his heart was pounding so hard his chest hurt, but he forced himself to stay calm and concentrate on what he had to do.

Rkard turned his gaze into the crater, where Rajaat’s cloud-wrapped figure stood in the middle of the basin. The ancient sorcerer’s shadow lay against the western rim, looking distinctly insignificant. Resisting the temptation to attack-and not at all certain he was doing the right thing-the young mul waited. He did not take his eyes off his target for even an instant and hardly dared to blink.

Sadira had said that Rajaat would chase her and that Rkard should not cast his spell until the ancient sorcerer’s silhouette fell across the bottom of the crater. It was the shadow they wanted to destroy, not the cloud body.

Rajaat did not go after Sadira. Instead, he remained in the crater, pulling blue clouds out of the sky and using them to patch his wounds. Rkard watched with an open mouth, more in wonder than fear.

The ancient sorcerer continued to heal himself for several moments, stopping only when he had covered all the holes on his body. Rkard braced himself for the attack, ready to call on the sun’s power as soon as his foe moved to follow Sadira. Rajaat did not cooperate. Not even glancing toward the distant cyclone, the sorcerer ran his gaze over the interior of the crater, searching for the Dark Lens.

Rkard touched his hand to the sun-mark on his forehead, not trusting the strange blue orb in the sky to supply the magic he needed. He considered casting his spell at that moment, before his enemy’s glowing eyes could fall on the Lens. Then he remembered what Sadira had told him about how the sorcerer-kings had imprisoned the cloud, only to be attacked by the shadow a few moments later.

“Rajaat isn’t like us. He doesn’t give form to his shadow,” she had said. “It shapes him.”

Rkard studied his foe’s shadow more carefully. From the other side of the Dark Lens, he could angle his spell to strike the silhouette where it lay now. Hoping this small change wouldn’t ruin Sadira’s plan but seeing no other way to do as she had instructed, he crawled across the hot surface of the Lens to the other side. He would have gone around the bottom of the orb, but it was so big that he would not have been able to see Rajaat-and no matter what happened, he was determined not to take his eyes off his prey.

Rajaat locked his eyes onto Rkard’s face and stepped toward him. Although the boy could still see most of Rajaat’s shadow, one flank and part of a leg were hidden behind the sorcerer’s body.

“Give me my Lens, filthy child,” Rajaat growled. He gestured at the Dark Lens with a clawed finger.

The young mul pressed his palm to the warm obsidian and cast his sun-spell. Rajaat’s eyes flared white, though the boy could not say whether it was with alarm or anger, then a ruby light flared deep inside the orb.

Rkard did not expect what happened next. The Lens flashed scarlet, then searing red flames spread over the surface. The boy cried out in alarm and backed away as the Dark Lens erupted into a miniature version of the crimson sun.

Neeva heard a booming voice from inside the crater. “I created sorcery,” it said. “How can you think your pitiful skills a match for mine?”

The warrior looked up. From her hiding place on the uphill side of a boulder, she could see both Sadira and her son. The sorceress stood on top of a small cliff, about a quarter of the way around the crater rim from where Rkard hid with the Dark Lens. Neeva could not see the speaker, though she felt certain from what she had heard that it was Rajaat.

A string of mystic syllables rumbled from inside the crater, then Neeva heard the throbbing roar of a whirlwind. Sadira jumped off the cliff. Her feet had barely left the rim before a dark cyclone ripped it apart. A ball of lightning formed around the sorceress as the spinning winds swallowed her up, then the storm raced away over the flooded plain.

“No!” Neeva gasped.

The warrior pushed herself up, bracing her back against the boulder. The effort of standing made her cold legs ache to the bone, while the small of her back felt like someone had plunged a burning dagger into it. Still, Neeva was thankful that she could stand at all. When her son had cast his healing spell on her at sunrise, it had taken a long time for the feeling to return below her waist, and she had begun to fear that her injuries were too serious for him to repair.

Leaning against the boulder, Neeva turned to watch the cyclone, hoping to see what became of Sadira. Instead, she saw a gaunt and bedraggled figure pulling himself from the floodwaters. Even from twenty paces away, she could see that he had a hooked nose and a long braid of gray hair.

“Tithian!” she hissed.

The king looked up the hill toward Rkard, whose attention was raptly fixed on the crater basin. Not even pausing to gather his breath, Tithian rose and started up the slope on trembling legs.

Neeva grabbed a fist-sized rock and, gritting her teeth against the pain, took her first step across the slippery hillside. Rkard had told her that it was risky for her to walk, but with Tithian on the loose, she knew it was more dangerous not to. The warrior managed half a dozen steps before the king glimpsed her and stopped.

Tithian faced her and sneered, turning his palm toward the ground. “I thought you’d be dead by now.”

Neeva braced her feet and threw the rock in her hand, aiming for the throat. Tithian ducked, and the stone struck him in the temple with a sharp crack. The king dropped to the ground. Though it was possible the blow had killed her target outright, the warrior knew better than to count on that. She hobbled over to her prey and found his eyes rolled back in the sockets. She grabbed a large stone and raised it over his head, taking no chances with the treacherous king.

Tithian’s hand suddenly shot up, directing a brilliant flash into the warrior’s eyes. Neeva’s vision instantly went white. She slammed the stone down and heard it clatter harmlessly off the ground. The warrior went into a blind-fighting pattern. She pivoted away from the last place she had seen the king and circled her hands in front of her body, frequently changing directions to prevent her enemy from predicting where the gaps would appear.

A cruel chuckle sounded at Neeva’s side. Sweeping her arm around in a circular trapping motion, she stepped toward the sound-then stumbled and nearly fell when her lethargic legs did not respond as she expected. The warrior felt Tithian’s hot breath on the back of her neck and realized that he had used a spell to throw his voice.

Expecting to feel the bite of a dagger blade in her kidneys at any moment, the warrior arched her stomach forward and swung her head back. She heard a loud crack as her skull smashed the king’s nose, then she felt his arm drape across her shoulder. He had been trying to cut her throat. Neeva drove her hand up inside Tithian’s arm and forced his wrist away from her neck. She bent forward, pulling him over her back, and heard him land in a heap in front of her.

Neeva tried to raise her foot to stomp the king’s head but succeeded only in sending a fiery pang of agony shooting through her leg. Tithian clattered across the rocky ground, rolling or crawling away, and the warrior lost track of his exact location. Gray spots were beginning to appear in the white glare of her vision, but she still could not see. The king stopped moving and fell silent. Neeva felt sure that he was preparing a spell, but she had no idea of how to avoid it.

She heard something rising out of the water, then Rikus’s voice shouted, “Dive roll, quarter right!”

The command called for a maneuver they had used during their days in the arena together, and Neeva knew exactly what it meant. She threw herself forward at an angle, crashing into Tithian’s soft midsection before she hit the ground. The king cried out in surprise. She heard the hiss of mystic energy discharging into the air, then she came down on top of his body.

The air left Tithian’s lungs in a sharp grunt, but he did not stop fighting. Neeva felt him pull both arms out from beneath her body. She raised her arm to block the right one, assuming it held the dagger.

“No, left!” Rikus called. By the sound of his voice, he was almost upon them.

Neeva could not switch blocks, so she rolled toward the king’s left arm and pinned it beneath her weight. She brought her hand down and found his wrist, then gave it a sharp twist and heard the hollow pop of a bone coming out of its socket. Tithian cried out in pain, then smashed his right hand into his attacker’s back and shoved her off.

Neeva heard him scrambling away, then found the dagger on the ground where he had dropped it. Her vision was now growing clear enough that she could make it out as a gray blur lying on the black smudge of the ground.

Tithian began to run up the hill toward Rkard, as Neeva could tell by the sound of the rocks clattering beneath his feet. At the same time, she heard Rikus’s heavy steps charging up from her other side. Neeva took the dagger by the blade.

“Knife, Rikus!”

Neeva flipped the dagger into the air, angling her throw so it flew toward Rikus hilt-first. An instant later, the weapon came hissing back above her head. Tithian screamed, but she did not hear him fall.

“Damn!” Rikus snapped, stopping at her side.

Neeva felt the mul take her arm and pull her up. Terrible pains shot through her legs as her weight returned to them, but they did not collapse beneath her. She also discovered that she had recovered her vision well enough to see the mul’s face. He looked as haggard and weary as had Tithian, with beads of water running off his body and dark circles beneath his eyes.

“I’ve been trying to catch Tithian since Rajaat flooded Ur Draxa, and now he’s disappeared again,” Rikus said.

Neeva pointed toward the Dark Lens. “I doubt it,” she said. “He was trying for the Lens when I attacked him.”

The mul’s face went white, then he started up the hill at a sprint. Neeva followed more slowly. Each step was a struggle, but she was determined not to wait idly by while Tithian took the Lens.

A few steps up the slope, she confirmed her suspicions. A trail of blood led toward the Dark Lens. Neeva looked up, preparing to call a warning.

She did not have the chance. Her son had crawled over the Lens to the other side and was staring into the basin, his attention consumed by Rajaat. The ancient sorcerer’s crown of lightning showed above the top of the Lens, but that was all Neeva could see of him.

“Give me my Lens, filthy child,” growled Rajaat’s booming voice.

Rkard pressed his palm to the Dark Lens and cast his sun-spell. A ruby light flared deep inside the orb, and the entire lens flashed scarlet. Neeva caught a glimpse of Tithian’s gaunt form pressed against the bottom half of the obsidian globe, his arms spread wide and gripping the Lens. The king screamed in agony. Searing red flames burst over the Dark Lens’s glassy surface, and the orb erupted into a miniature version of the crimson sun. Tithian’s silhouette vanished into the inferno.

Rkard heard Tithian scream and glanced down in time to see the king’s silhouette disappear into the flames. The boy wondered briefly where Tithian had come from, then he cowered down behind the crater rim, waiting for Rajaat to cast the spell that would obliterate him and half the hillside.

The ancient sorcerer did not attack. Instead, he reached for the crimson fireball that was the Dark Lens. When his hands came near, the scarlet flames suddenly left the surface of the orb and shot across the basin. As the fire stream passed Rajaat, the flame evaporated half the clouds on his torso, then washed over the far wall with a tremendous roar.

Rajaat’s shadow vanished beneath the fire storm. His cloud-covered body stopped moving, and his arms froze in place over the Lens. The fire curled back toward the center of the basin and formed a roiling ball of flame a dozen yards behind Rajaat. The fiery ball did not look so different from Rkard’s normal sun-spell, except that it was a hundred times as large and a thousand times as bright. Squinting against the brilliant light, the young mul stood to get a better look over the rim.

“What are you doing?” cried a familiar voice. “Get down!”

A pair of powerful arms seized Rkard by the waist and pulled him away from the rim.

“Rikus!” The boy twisted around and threw his arms around the warrior’s neck. In the distance beyond, Rkard noticed that the storm that had carried Sadira away was breaking up. “You’re alive!”

“Of course I am. Let’s make your mother happy and keep you that way, too,” Rikus responded. “What’s going on here?”

Rikus pointed at Rajaat’s hands, which were still hanging motionless over the Dark Lens. The Lens itself was no longer burning, but its surface was glowing red. There was no sign of Tithian, save for a puddle of liquid steel that had once been his dagger.

“I’m not sure what happened,” Rkard answered. “I cast my spell at Rajaat’s shadow, just like Sadira said. But I don’t think it worked. He just stopped moving.” Rikus frowned. “We’d better have a look.”

Together, they crawled to the top of the rim and peered over. Rajaat’s cloud-covered body was beginning to boil away in the heat of Rkard’s giant sun-spell. The fireball was blazing so brightly that even the young sun-cleric could not look at it for more than a second. Nevertheless, what he saw in that time was more than enough to concern Rkard. A pair of blue diamonds stared out from inside the flaming orb, and they were staring straight at his face.

Rkard ducked behind the rim again, pulling Rikus down beside him. “I think Rajaat’s caught inside my sun-spell.”

Rikus smiled. “You trapped him?”

“For now,” he said. “But what happens when my spell expires?”

“We’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” said Sadira’s voice.

Rkard looked back to see the sorceress stepping off a small cloud. She was still dripping wet but appeared otherwise unaffected by her battle with the cyclone. A few paces below Sadira, the young mul’s mother was laboriously climbing up the hill.

Rkard frowned and started to chastise her for walking, but Rikus caught the boy’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t say anything right now,” the warrior advised.

Rkard nodded, then asked, “Are you well, Mother?”

“Just fine, thanks to you,” she said.

Rkard smiled then turned to Sadira. “I don’t know how the Dark Lens will affect my spell,” he said. “But it usually only lasts for a quarter-hour or so.”

“We won’t need nearly that long,” the sorceress said. She reached into her pocket and fished out a small sliver of diamond. “This should keep your fire burning forever.”

Sadira stepped near the Dark Lens and cast her spell. The diamond shard disappeared from between her fingers, and a stream of white light flowed into the obsidian. It emerged on the other side as a silvery river of magic energy, engulfing the fiery orb of Rkard’s sun-spell. Pearly wisps of flame began to shoot through the fireball, and it burned with a new brilliance.

Rajaat’s crown exploded into a furious storm of energy, spreading a sheet of blue lightning across the sky. With a deafening thunderclap, the ancient sorcerer’s mouth fell open, spewing a stream of hail out over the flooded plain.

For a moment, Rkard feared that their enemy would free himself, then Rajaat began to dissolve. The skeleton came apart first, slipping from the cloud-body and clattering into the basin in a heap. Next, the arms and legs floated away. The torso flattened out into a platter-shaped wafer, and the shoulders and head slowly melted into it. The ancient sorcerer’s crown was the last thing to disappear, forks of blue lightning still dancing in a circle as a turquoise fog spread over the entire basin.

The cloud hovered near the top of the rim for a moment then suddenly spun up into the heavens and spread over the entire sky. Bolts of lightning crackled down from the dark shroud, while peals of thunder echoed off Ur Draxa’s distant walls. A heavy rain began to fall, pounding Rkard like a ruthless enemy, but the boy did not care. A short distance above the eastern horizon, he could see the sun’s halo shining through the angry tempest, and it was crimson.