Troy Denning - Dark Sun - The Prism Pentad 05 - The Cerulean Storm

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The Cerulean Storm
Troy Denning
Dark Sun, Prism Pentad, Book 5
First Printing: September 1993.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 92-61097
ISBN: 1-56076-642-5
Scanned, formatted and proofed by Dreamcity
Ebook version 1.0
Release Date: December, 3, 2003
PROLOGUE
Most men called it shadow, that dark stain visible only as an absence: the cold gloom cast upon the
ground when their bodies blocked the light of the crimson sun. Wiser minds referred to it as the Black,
and they knew that it separated everything that existed from everything that did not. It lurked just beneath
the surface in all things, like the leathery shell of some great egg, buried shallow and about to hatch.
Outside lay the barren mountains, the endless sand wastes, and the bleak, windswept plains that were the
world of Athas. Inside lay the Hollow, filled with the languid albumin of nothingness.
Within this colorless ether floated the bones of an ancient skeleton. It lay curled into a tight ball, its
shoulder blades fused into a large hump and its gangling arms wrapped around its knees. The skull
seemed remotely human, though the slender jawbones, drooping chin, and flat cheekbones insinuated that
this was not entirely true.
The skeleton filled the Hollow completely, but it would have been wrong to call the thing huge. In
this place, size had no meaning. Only existence mattered, and by the mere fact that it was, the skeleton
occupied all of the vast emptiness inside the egg.
The skeleton scratched at the murky shell with long barbed talons, dreaming of the day it would be
reborn. For the first time in an eternity, it felt confident of escaping its timeless prison. Forks of lightning
circled its misshapen skull like a crown. Sparks danced in the empty sockets where once it had
possessed eyes.
Beneath the scratching talons appeared a pair of blue embers and a long slitlike mouth. The features
were all the skeleton ever saw of its servants. The shadow people were part of the Black, as trapped
within the dark shell as their master was inside the emptiness of the egg.
We felt your summons, Omnipotent One.
The servant used thought-speech to report, for sound did not exist within the skeleton's eternal
prison.
I have been thinking, Khidar, the skeleton replied. It slowly twisted its oblong skull around to
stare more directly into the shadow's eyes. The sorcerer-kings must be near when the Usurper frees
me. That's too dangerous! The servant's eyes grew larger and brighter. The six of them have grown
stronger than you know, Rajaat. They'll destroy us!
A ball of lightning formed above Rajaat's head. They won't destroy me! he snarled. If you hesitate to
sacrifice a few lives so I may return Athas to its greater glory, perhaps you should remain in the Black.
Khidar winced, his eyes and mouth sliding down the inside of the black shell. Our fates are bound
together, he said, with more regret than enthusiasm. We have no concern except the future of Athas.
Never forget that, Rajaat hissed, the blue rays in his empty eye sockets flickering in ire. Think of all
that I have sacrificed to return the world to your people, and follow my example.
We are most grateful, Khidar assured him. We'll see to whatever you wish.
Good. It would be best to avenge the sorcerer-kings' betrayal before proceeding with the
Restoration, Rajaat said. The lightning began to crackle more steadily and calmly over his head. After
that, we'll cleanse Athas of the most profane strains of the degenerate races. The half-breeds shall die
first. Which ones? asked the servant.
All of them: half-elves, mills, half-giants, every filthy abomination produced through an unnatural
union. We must kill them as soon as possible.
As you wish.
The New Races come next, Rajaat continued, knotting the barbed talons of both hands into tight
fists. There are so many! It may take us a century.
We must expect opposition, Khidar warned. Sadira and Rikus-
Are half-breeds. They'll die with the others! the skeleton pronounced. I'll destroy them as soon as I
finish with the sorcerer-kings.
What of the Usurper? asked Khidar. Will you make him a sorcerer-king?
Yes, I'll keep my promise, provided he honors the cause of the Pristine Tower, Rajaat answered.
And if he betrays us like Borys and the others?
My new champion will never do such a thing, the skeleton replied. After he witnesses the fate of the
other traitors, he will not dare. would have been wrong to call the thing huge. In this place, size had no
meaning. Only existence mattered, and by the mere fact that it was, the skeleton occupied all of the vast
emptiness inside the egg.
The skeleton scratched at the murky shell with long barbed talons, dreaming of the day it would be
reborn. For the first time in an eternity, it felt confident of escaping its timeless prison. Forks of lightning
circled its misshapen skull like a crown. Sparks danced in the empty sockets where once it had
possessed eyes.
Beneath the scratching talons appeared a pair of blue embers and a long slitlike mouth. The features
were all the skeleton ever saw of its servants. The shadow people were part of the Black, as trapped
within the dark shell as their master was inside the emptiness of the egg.
We felt your summons, Omnipotent One.
The servant used thought-speech to report, for sound did not exist within the skeleton's eternal
prison.
I have been thinking, Khidar, the skeleton replied. It slowly twisted its oblong skull around to
stare more directly into the shadow's eyes. The sorcerer-kings must be near when the Usurper frees
me. That's too dangerous! The servant's eyes grew larger and brighter. The six of them have grown
stronger than you know, Rajaat. They'll destroy us!
A ball of lightning formed above Rajaat's head. They won't destroy me! he snarled. If you hesitate to
sacrifice a few lives so I may return Athas to its greater glory, perhaps you should remain in the Black.
Khidar winced, his eyes and mouth sliding down the inside of the black shell. Our fates are bound
together, he said, with more regret than enthusiasm. We have no concern except the future of Athas.
Never forget that, Rajaat hissed, the blue rays in his empty eye sockets flickering in ire. Think of all
that I have sacrificed to return the world to your people, and follow my example.
We are most grateful, Khidar assured him. We'll see to whatever you wish.
Good. It would be best to avenge the sorcerer-kings' betrayal before proceeding with the
Restoration, Rajaat said. The lightning began to crackle more steadily and calmly over his head. After
that, we'll cleanse Athas of the most profane strains of the degenerate races. The half-breeds shall die
first. Which ones? asked the servant.
All of them: half-elves, muls, half-giants, every filthy abomination produced through an unnatural
union. We must kill them as soon as possible.
As you wish.
The New Races come next, Rajaat continued, knotting the barbed talons of both hands into tight
fists. There are so many! It may take us a century.
We must expect opposition, Khidar warned. Sadira and Rikus-
Are half-breeds. They'll die with the others! the skeleton pronounced. I'll destroy them as soon as I
finish with the sorcerer-kings.
What of the Usurper? asked Khidar. Will you make him a sorcerer-king?
"Yes, I'll keep my promise, provided he honors the cause of the Pristine Tower, Rajaat answered.
And if he betrays us like Borys and the others?
My new champion will never do such a thing, the skeleton replied. After he witnesses the fate of the
other traitors, he will not dare.
Chapter One: Samarah
King Tithian of Tyr gnashed his teeth in vexation, accidentally crushing the sweet chadnut upon
which he had been sucking. The pulp filled his mouth with sour, peppery seeds that burned his tongue
and made his eyes water. He swallowed the kernels in a single gulp, hardly noticing the fiery aftertaste
that chased them down his throat.
"It's a whole damned fleet!" His old man's voice was hoarsened by the spicy chad seeds.
The hunch-shouldered king stood behind a low stone wall, peering through a curtain of swirling dust.
A thicket of masts had just appeared in Samarah's tiny harbor. While the thick haze prevented a reliable
ship count, Tithian could see so much billowing canvas that the flotilla looked like a cloud bank rolling in
from the Sea of Silt.
"Why should the fleet anger you, Mighty One?" asked Korla, clinging, as always, to Tithian's arm.
She was the fairest woman in the village, with ginger-colored hair and a sultry smile. That did not mean
she was beautiful. A life of heat and dust had framed her brown eyes with deep-etched crow's-feet, while
the sun had baked her skin until it was as creased and rough as a man's. Korla clasped the king's elbow
more tightly. "Your retainers wouldn't dare come for you with anything less than a dozen ships."
Tithian pulled free and straightened his shoulder satchel.
She frowned. "Soon you'll show me the wonders of Tyr-won't you?"
"No." Tithian fixed a disdainful glare on her weather-lined face.
"You can't leave me behind!" Korla objected. She glanced at the small crowd of villagers gathered
behind the wall. "After what I've been to you, the others will-"
"Quiet!" Tithian ordered. He waved a liver-spotted hand toward the harbor. "That isn't my fleet.
Rikus and Sadira will come by land, not ship."
Korla lowered her eyelids and sighed in relief.
"Don't be too relieved," said Riv, Korla's brawny husband and Samarah's headman.
An elf-tarek crossbreed, Riv had a square, big-boned face with a sloped forehead and a slender
nose. Standing so tall that the village wall rose only to his waist, he cut an imposing figure. Normally,
Tithian would have killed such a rival outright, but the headman had taken pains to make himself
indispensable as an intermediary to the villagers. Besides, the king enjoyed flaunting Korla's adultery in
front of him.
"Your reign as whore-queen will end soon enough." Riv glared at his wife.
"Why's that?" Tithian demanded, shuffling around Korla to confront the huge crossbreed, "Is there a
reason I should fear those ships?"
Riv shrugged. "Everyone should fear Balkan armadas. But I see no reason they should concern you
especially," he replied. He raised the thin lips of his domed muzzle, showing a mouthful of enormous
canine teeth. "I only meant that Korla shouldn't expect to go with you when the time comes. I've seen
enough of Athas to know she'd only be an embarrassment in the city."
"You may have seen the brothels of Balk, but you know nothing of life in Tyr's royal court," Korla
spat back. She regarded her husband suspiciously, then continued, "Now answer the king's question. We
haven't seen a Balkan fleet for more than a year. Why now?"
Riv sneered. "Ask your lover," he said. "He's the mindbender."
"I'll know the answer soon enough," Tithian said, thrusting his hand into his shoulder satchel. "And if
you ever again refer to me as anything but King or Mighty One, you'll beg for your death."
Riv blanched. The king had pulled spell components from the sack often enough that the headman
recognized the gesture as a threatening one. What Riv did not realize was that Tithian could also
withdraw a venomous viper, a vial of acid, or any one of a dozen other tools of murder from inside. The
sack was magical, and it could hold an unlimited supply of items without appearing full.
Riv glared at Tithian for a moment, then hissed, "As you wish, Mighty One."
Tithian spun toward the center of the village, signaling for Korla and Riv to follow him. As they
moved through the dust haze, they passed a dozen stone huts shaped like beehives. Inside most buildings,
haggard women furiously packed their meager possessions-sacks of chadnuts, stone knives, clay cooking
pots, and bone-tipped hunting spears. Outside, the men gathered the family goraks, knee-high lizards
with colorful dorsal fans. It was a slow, difficult process, for the stubborn reptiles were engrossed in
overturning rocks and catching insects with their long sticky tongues.
The king and his companions reached the village plaza. In the center was the communal well, a deep
hole encircled by a simple railing of gorak bones. A small crowd of children surrounded the pit, arguing in
panicked voices and elbowing each other out of the way as they struggled to fill their waterskins.
On the far side of the plaza, outside the hut the king had confiscated from Riv, lay an obsidian orb
larger than a man, with languorous streaks of scarlet swimming over its glassy surface. It was the Dark
Lens, both the source of Tithian's power and the means through which he would achieve his greatest
ambition: to become an immortal sorcerer-king.
The Dark Lens had once blonged to Athas's first sorcerer, Rajaat. Thousands of years ago, the
ancient sage had started a genocidal war to cleanse Athas of races he considered impure. To assist him,
Rajaat had used the lens to make a group of immortal champions, each dedicated to destroying one race.
After dozens of centuries of fighting, the champions had learned that their master intended to strip
them of their powers. They had rebelled, using the Dark Lens to lock Rajaat into a mystical prison. Then
they had transformed their leader, Borys of Ebe, into the Dragon, appointing him to guard the prison
forever. The other champions had each claimed one of the cities of Athas to rule as immortal
sorcerer-kings.
Tithian intended to kill the Dragon and free Rajaat. In return, he had been promised that the ancient
sorcerer would bless him with the immortal powers of a champion. Unfortunately, the Tyrian king could
not hope to kill his prey alone. Borys was a master of the Way, sorcery, and physical combat, and the
Dark Lens would make Tithian powerful enough to challenge the Dragon only in the Way.
The king knew who could help him: his former slaves Rikus and Sadira. A champion gladiator,
Rikus carried a magical sword that had been forged by Rajaat himself, while Sadira's body had been
imbued with the magical energies of Rajaat's mystic castle. Together, the three of them would have the
power to destroy Borys.
Of course, Tithian realized that it would not be easy to induce his ex-slaves to help. For their own
reasons, they were as anxious to kill the Dragon as the king was, but they were also smart enough not to
trust him. So, to lure them into helping him, Tithian had sent them a fraudulent message in the name of
their friend Agis of Asticles. In it, he had claimed that Agis had recovered the Dark Lens and asked them
to meet the noble in Samarah. To convince them the summons was real, he had included the Asticles
signet ring. Once they arrived, he would make up a lie about how the noble had died after sending the
message. Then the king would convince them to let him take Agis's place and help them kill Borys.
Tithian had reached the far side of the village square. The sentry the king had left to watch the Dark
Lens showed himself. He was a disembodied head with grossly bloated cheeks and narrow, dark eyes.
He had a mouthful of broken teeth and wore his coarse hair in a topknot. The bottom of his leathery neck
had been stitched shut with black thread.
"What'd you find in the harbor?" the sentry asked, floating toward Tithian.
"It's a fleet, Sacha," the king reported.
Sacha's dark eyes opened wide. That's impossible." He glanced at the obsidian orb. "As long as we
have the Dark Lens, Andropinis can't find us."
"Then what are his ships doing in the harbor?" Tithian growled.
"How should I know?" sneered the head. "You're the one who controls the lens. I suggest you use
it." Tithian lashed out to snatch Sacha's topknot, missed, and silently cursed. His slow reflexes still
surprised him occasionally, for his body had grown frail and old just a few weeks earlier. In the course of
stealing the Dark Lens from the giant tribes in the Sea of Silt, the king had been forced to outwit its
guardians: a pair of dwarven banshees named Jo'orsh and Sa'ram. Before he could send them away, the
spirits had stolen what remained of his youth, burdening him with aching joints, shortness of breath, and
all the other afflictions of old age.
Leaving Korla and Riv behind, Tithian spread his arms and stepped toward the Dark Lens. As he
approached, waves of blistering heat rose off the glassy orb and seared his old man's body clear to the
brittle bones. Clenching his teeth, he laid his hands on the scorching surface. From beneath his palms
came a soft hiss, and the smell of charred flesh filled his nostrils. The king did not cry out. He looked past
the surface and gazed into the utter blackness of the Dark Lens.
Tithian opened himself to the power of the black orb. His hands seemed to meld with its surface,
and its blistering heat ceased to burn his flesh. A torrent of energy rushed from the lens into his arms,
flowing down into his spiritual nexus, the place deep within his abdomen where the three energies of the
Way-mental, physical, and spiritual-joined to form the core of his being.
Tithian focused his thoughts on Samarah's harbor, concentrating on what he would see there if the
dust haze were not obscuring his vision. In the black depths of the Dark Lens rose an image of twenty
schooners, each depicted clearly in ghostly red light. The first ship was just sailing into the narrow strait
that served as the harbor's mouth. Inside his mind the king heard the creaking of masts and the pop of
flapping canvas. The visual image was so clear that he could see the gaunt slaves shuffling along yardarm
ropes as they furled the sails. On the main deck, hairless dwarves labored around a capstan as they
struggled to raise the keel boards, and in the stern the shipfloater stared into a black dome of obsidian.
From his own experience aboard Balkan schooners, Tithian knew that the shipfloater was using the Way
to infuse the dome with the spiritual energy that kept the ship from sinking into the dust.
"Find out if Andropinis is with them," suggested Sacha, hovering at Tithian's side. "If he isn't, even an
incompetent like you can destroy the fleet."
"And if he is?" Tithian demanded.
Sacha did not answer.
Tithian shifted his attention to a particularly large schooner near the center of the fleet. Unlike the
other ships, this one had narrow banners snapping from the top of its masts, identifying it as the flagship.
The king focused all his attention on the craft, closing the others out of his mind. He felt a surge of
mystical energy rush from deep within his body, and the ship's image gradually enlarged until it was the
only one visible.
On the foredeck, four ballistae sat ready to fire, massive harpoons nocked in their skein cords, with
a pair of lumbering half-giants standing nearby. Two sorcerers stood in the prow, inspecting the
dust-swells ahead of the ship for signs of buried obstacles. To aid in the search, each man held the base
of a large glass cone to his eyes. The glass cones, Tithian knew, were king's eyes, unique lenses
especially enchanted so the viewer could peer through the dust hazes so common to the Sea of Silt.
To the king's surprise, there did not appear to be any slaves on the main deck. Half-giants stood
next to every catapult, while the crew struggling to turn the capstan wore the plain togas of low-ranking
Balican templars. Even the men and women crawling over the yardarms showed no whip scars on their
bare backs.
When Tithian's gaze fell on the quarterdeck, his stomach coiled into a tight knot. "In the name of
Rajaat!" he cursed. "It can't be!"
Behind the helmsman stood Andropinis, sorcerer-king of Balk. He was muscular and huge, with a
fringe if chalk-colored hair hanging from beneath his jagged crown. He had a slender face, a nose so long
it could almost be called a snout, and dark nostrils shaped like eggs. His cracked lips were pulled back
to reveal a mouthful of teeth filed as sharp as those of a gladiator. Beneath his sleeveless tunic, a line of
sharp bulges ran down his spine. Small pointed scales covered his shoulders and the backs of his arms.
What disturbed Tithian more than the sight of Andropinis were the five people standing silently at the
sorcerer-king's side. Two were male, two female, and one of uncertain gender. All stood close to
Andropinis's height and appeared just as menacing. One man had a thick mane around his neck, with slit
pupils and the heavy nose of a lion. The other seemed remotely avian, with a scaly, beak-shaped muzzle
and recessed earslits on the sides of his head.
The taller woman appeared as cold as she was beautiful, with long silky hair, dark skin, and narrow
eyeslits extending from the bridge of her nose around to her temples. She had a small, oval-shaped
mouth, with dainty fangs pressed against the flesh of her lips. The other woman was of lighter
complexion. Her huge eyes constantly roamed about and never seemed to focus on anything. Save for
the curled claws at the ends of her fingertips, she looked more completely human than anyone else with
Andropinis.
The last figure stood half-again as tall as the others. It seemed a miniature version of the Dragon,
with a gaunt build neither male nor female. A glistening hide of leather and chitin covered its willowy limbs
and rogenous body, while huge claws with knobby-jointed fingers hung from the ends of its skeletal arms.
At the end of its serpentine neck was its head, little more than a slender snout with a glassy, bulbous eye
on each side and a bony horn at the end.
"Who are they?" asked Korla, coming to stand at Tithian's side. She held her hands out to shield her
face from the blistering heat of the lens.
"The six sorcerer-kings and queens of Athas," supplied Sacha.
The head had hardly spoken before Korla glanced toward her husband. "Riv!"
Sacha faced Tithian and growled, "You should have killed the half-breed when you decided to bed
his wife."
"It wasn't me," Riv objected, joining them. Over at the well, the children had formed a neat line and
were working efficiently to fill their waterskins. "The last thing I want in Samarah are sorcerer-kings.
Most of my villagers are slaves who came here after escaping the cities."
"I've seen jealous fools risk more," pressed Sacha.
"Riv didn't summon this fleet," Tithian said. Inside the Dark Lens, he could see Andropinis's ship
passing between the two spits of land that formed the mouth of the harbor. "Even if Riv has a way to
contact the sorcerer-kings, he has no reason to think they'd be interested in me-unless you told him,
Sacha?"
"Don't be absurd," snapped the head.
"They must have found a way to track the lens," the king surmised.
"Impossible," Sacha said. "As long as Jo'orsh and Sa'ram still walk Athas, their magic prevents any
sorcerer-king from finding the lens-by any method."
"Then what are all six doing here?"
When the head didn't answer, the king shifted his attention from Andropinis's flagship back to the
whole fleet. He felt a surge of energy course through his body, then his field of view expanded to take in
the entire armada. The ship in the lead was furling its sails and slowing to a stop under the shouted
guidance of the first mate. The end of Samarah's single quay lay just a short distance ahead of the
bowsprit.
Fearing that a Balkan watchman would soon be able to see him, Tithian searched the sky over the
harbor for the silhouette of a mast or crow's nest. To his relief, he found nothing but a pearly sky full of
blowing dust.
Samaran mothers began to pour into the plaza with heavy satchels of household belongings slung
over their shoulders. The fathers waited at the edge of the square, clubbing their goraks with bone spears
in a futile effort to keep the flocks from drifting.
"Where are your villagers going, Riv?" Tithian asked.
"If we stay here, the Balkans will seize everything we have-even our children," the headman
reported. "We'll scatter into the desert until the fleet leaves."
"We'd better do the same," urged Sacha.
"And forgo a chance to spy on my enemies?" The king shook his head. "We're staying."
"We can't eavesdrop on sorcerer-kings!"
"Of course we can," Tithian replied. "You said yourself they can't find us as long as we have the
Dark Lens."
The king returned his gaze to the black orb, then gasped. Several schooners had come to a dead
halt in the middle of the harbor, but that was not what had alarmed him. Borys had appeared next to the
flagship, his willowy frame so gaunt it would have made an elf seem stout. Though the Dragon stood
waist-deep in silt, his slender head loomed as far above the ship's deck as the highest mast, with a spiked
crest of leathery skin running up the back of his serpentine spine. A menacing light glowed in his tiny eyes,
and wisps of red fume rose from the nostrils at the end of his slender snout.
Andropinis stood at the gunnel, conversing with Borys. "How can you be certain Tithian is here,
Great One?" the sorcerer-king asked.
"I'm not," the Dragon replied. "But my spies in Tyr inform me that Rikus and Sadira are preparing to
leave for Samarah. Why would they come so far, if not to meet the Usurper and retrieve the Dark Lens?"
"And you summoned us to help you ambush them?"
"Perhaps, if my agents in Tyr fail to stop them," Borys said. "But first, I want you and the other
sorcerer-kings to find Jo'orsh and Sa'ram."
"The dwarven knights?" asked Andropinis.
"The dwarven banshees," Borys corrected. "Now that the Usurper has stolen the lens from them,
they should not be so difficult to find. Bring them to me, and my spirit lords will force them to undo the
magic hiding the Dark Lens."
"Perhaps it would be easier to destroy the banshees where we find them," suggested Andropinis.
"These banshees cannot be destroyed by you-or even me," said Borys. "Only my spirit lords can do
that-which is why you must bring them to me."
"You'll be here?"
The Dragon nodded. "Waiting for Tithian."
With that, Borys stepped away from the ship. The crew began to lower the skiffs, and the
sorcerer-kings prepared to disembark.
"Now will you leave?" asked Sacha. He was hovering near Tithian's shoulder, watching the scene
inside the lens.
"No. It wouldn't do any good," Tithian's heart was pounding, pumping fear and panic through his
body, and it was all he could do to keep control of his thoughts. "Running into the desert won't save me,
not from Borys and his sorcerer-kings."
"So you'll fight them?" Korla asked in an anxious voice.
Tithian looked up from the lens and glared at her. "Don't be absurd," he spat. "One or two
sorcerer-kings, I could kill easily. But not all of them, and not with Borys here. Even I can't kill the
Dragon alone."
"I don't suppose you'd do us the courtesy of surrendering outside Samarah?" requested Riv. "It
might spare my people some trouble."
"Why should I care about your people?" growled Tithian. "I have no intention of surrendering."
"I'm happy to hear that," said Korla.
Smirking at her relief, Riv scoffed, "Why? If he's not going to run or fight, what else can he do?"
"The last thing Borys expects: hide in the very place he's trying to ambush me," Tithian was
untroubled by Riv's obvious delight at his plight. The headman would pay for his insolence soon enough.
Tithian thought his plan stood a good chance of seeing him through until help arrived. If Borys
thought his agents could stop Rikus and Sadira, the Dragon was underestimating them badly. As long as
the pair believed they were coming to meet Agis, they would find a way to reach Samarah. Once they
did, they would have no choice but to help him slay Borys.
The king studied Riv's brawny form for a moment, then used the Way to visualize himself growing as
large and strong as the headman. A torrent of searing energy rushed from the lens into his body. The
king's arms burst into agony as his muscles began to swell, taking on a knotted, bulging shape. After his
arms came his shoulders and neck, then his chest, back, and stomach. Each transformation brought with
it a fresh surge of pain. Tithian clenched his teeth and waited for the Dark Lens to change his thoughts
into reality, until at last his legs felt as thick and bandy as Riv's.
The king slipped his arms, now as sinewy as those of a half-giant, around the heavy lens. He lifted it
easily, then moved toward the center of the plaza, shuffling to keep from banging his knees on the huge
orb. The crowd of Samaran children backed away, their half-filled waterskins dribbling precious liquid
onto the dusty ground.
"Where are you going?" Sacha demanded, floating at Tithian's side.
"I told you: to hide," the king replied.
"What good will that do?" the head whispered into Tithian's ear. "There isn't a villager here who'd
hesitate to tell the Balkans where you are."
"I've thought of that already," Tithian replied.
As he spoke, the king concentrated on the people ahead, fixing their faces firmly in his mind. He
used the Way to visualize them clasping at their throats, choking and gasping for air. He felt the energy of
the Dark Lens flow through his body and into the ground. A column of brown mist whooshed from the
well, spreading over the plaza with the fetid, caustic odor of charred flesh. The sound of coughing and
gagging filled the air, then Samarans started to drop, their strangled voices calling for help. The instant a
body hit the ground, its flesh grew ashen and began to wither.
Heavy steps sounded behind Tithian. The king turned and saw Riv charging, his muzzle twisted into
a snarl of rage. "Murderer!" The headman flung himself into the air.
Tithian shifted the Dark Lens to one hand and raised his other arm. He opened himself to the lens's
power. He felt a streak of mystic energy rush through his body, then Riv's chest hit his hand. A dark flash
erupted from beneath the king's palm, engulfing his attacker in a pall of absolute blackness. The headman
howled in pain, but the cry was strangely muted, as if the ebon fire of the lens had swallowed it. Riv's
scorched bones clattered to the ground, trailing wisps of greasy, foul-smelling smoke.
Hardly seeming to notice her dead husband or any of the other dying villagers, Korla stumbled to
Tithian's side. "I'm choking," she croaked. "Save me!"
Tithian shook his head. "You must die as well."
Korla's eyes widened in disbelief. "No!"
"If Borys finds you, he'll tear your mind apart with the Way," Tithian explained. "You'll tell him
where to find me."
"I would never," Korla said, stepping back in fear.
Tithian caught her hand and pulled it to the lens. A flame flashed beneath her fingers, then her body
erupted into a column of crimson fire. The blaze died away quickly, and all that remained where Korla
had stood were her bones, a pearly heap of ash, and a handful of cracked teeth. Recalling that they had
once nibbled his ear and made him feel young, the king stooped over and picked up the incisors, slipping
them into his shoulder satchel for safekeeping.
As Tithian glanced around the square, he saw that most of the people near the well had already
died. Their bodies were shriveling into piles of dust and white bone that even Borys would find
impossible to interrogate. Farther away, the mist had just reached the edge of the plaza. The stunned
fathers were thrashing about on the ground, their purple tongues hanging out. The goraks accepted their
fate with more dignity, dropping to their bellies and turning their yellow eyes away from the sun.
The king did not worry that the Balicans would find it strange that an entire village had perished, for
such catastrophes were far from rare on Athas. When the sailors walked among the bones, it would be
coins and chad nuts they sought, not answers.
Tithian grabbed Sacha and slipped the head into the satchel, then walked over to the well and
peered back toward the harbor. Above the huts of Samarah, he could see the faint outline of dozens of
masts showing through the heavy silt curtain. From outside the village came muffled Balkan voices
demanding that the gate be opened.
The king stepped into the well, using the Way to lower himself and the Dark Lens gently into the pit.
The gloomy depths swallowed them both, and Tithian settled into the tepid waters to await Rikus and
Sadira.
Chapter Two: Pauper's Hope
A deep boom rumbled over the butte, and golden cascades of sand spilled down the bluff's
waferlike ledges. The sound passed over the road, rolling across a salt-crusted lake bed until it echoed
off the craggy flank of a distant mountain.
Rikus looked up and frowned. The sky remained clear, the crimson sun blazing through the
olive-tinged haze of dawn. To the west, Athas's twin moons hung low over the Ringing Mountains,
silhouetting the distant peaks against golden crescents. A harsh wind hissed over the top of the butte, but
there was not a thunderhead in sight.
The mul passed his hand over his kank's antennae, bringing the mount to a halt. The insect was twice
the size of a man, with a chitinous body and multifaceted eyes bulging from the sides of its head. The
wicked mandibles protruding from its maw made it look as though it could have destroyed a pack of lirrs,
though in truth it was a timid and rather gentle creature.
Rikus sat astride the kank's thorax, his feet dangling among its six legs and almost touching the
ground. With a rugged, heavy-boned face and a hairless body that seemed nothing but knotted sinew, the
warrior looked even more dangerous than his mount. In his case, however, appearances were not
deceiving. He was a mul, a dwarf-human half-breed created to live and die as a gladiator. From his
father, he had inherited the incredible strength and endurance of the dwarves, while his mother had
bestowed on him the size and agility of the humans. The result was an ideal fighter, combining both power
and nimbleness in a single frame.
When another boom did not sound from behind the butte, Rikus lowered his hand to the Scourge of
Rkard. As his fingers touched the hilt, the sword's magic filled his ears with discordant sounds: the roaring
wind, the rasp of falling sand, and the pounding of his own heart. From the shadowed cracks of the butte
cliffs came the clamor of chirping crickets. Somewhere out on the lake bed, a snake's belly scales
whispered across the rough surface of a hot stone.
Rikus also heard something that disturbed him more: the drone of human voices, no doubt coming
from a faro plantation that lay on the other side of the butte. The words were muffled by distance and the
high bluff. Still, the mul could tell that many of the farmers were yelling, some even screaming. As he
listened, a loud, sonorous laugh drowned out the human voices, and he knew that something was terribly
wrong at Pauper's Hope.
Rikus took his hand away from his sword and faced the inhuman figure at his side. "Do you hear
that, Magnus?"
Though Magnus called himself an elf, he did not resemble one. Born in the magical shadows of the
Pristine Tower, he had been transformed into something that looked more akin to a giant gorak than an
elf. He had a hulking, thick-limbed body covered by a knobby hide, ivory-clawed toes, and hands the
size of bucklers.
His face was all muzzle, with an enormous, sharp-toothed mouth and huge round eyes set on
opposite sides of his head.
"The boom? It wasn't thunder," Magnus answered.
"It doesn't take a windsinger to know that," Rikus replied. "What about the voices? Use your magic
to find out what's going on."
Magnus turned his eloquently pointed ears toward the butte and listened. After a moment, he shook
his head. "The butte's too high for me to understand their words," he said. "Even a windsinger cannot
listen through rock."
Rikus cursed. He and Magnus were due at a meeting of the Tyrian Council of Advisors by
midmorning. Normally, it would not bother him to make the council wait, but today he and Sadira were
asking for a legion of warriors to take to Samarah. Being late would not put the advisors in a mood to
grant his request.
A damson-colored shadow fell across the road. The mul looked up to see a cloud of ivory dust
drifting over the summit of the bluff. Although the wind carried most of the scintillating mass out over the
dry lake, some of the powder fell toward the road like a soft rain.
Rikus held out a hand and caught a light dusting in his palm. The stuff was the color of straw, with
the silky texture of finely ground flour. Rikus touched his tongue to the powder. It tasted dry and bland.
"This is faro!"
The mul held his hand out toward the windsinger.
"It looks freshly ground," Magnus observed. "The boom we heard could have been a collapsing silo.
That would explain all the excitement."
"I don't think so," Rikus said, remembering the deep laugh that he had heard over the concerned
voices. "We'd better have a look."
The mul dismounted,
"Is that really necessary?" Magnus protested. "When she contacted me last night, Sadira made it
dear that she wants you present when the meeting starts."
Rikus scowled at this. "She should have thought about that before she sent us to inspect the outpost
at the mine," he growled. "She'll just have to handle the council on her own until we arrive."
He led his kank off the road and tethered it to a boulder.
摘要：

TheCeruleanStormTroyDenningDarkSun,PrismPentad,Book5FirstPrinting:September1993.PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica.LibraryofCongressCatalogCardNumber92-61097ISBN:1-56076-642-5Scanned,formattedandproofedbyDreamcityEbookversion1.0ReleaseDate:December,3,2003PROLOGUEMostmencalleditshadow,thatdarkstainvis...

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