“Use the Way to transport us.” Rikus raised the Scourge menacingly.
Tithian shook his head. “I’d have to know what our destination looks like,” he said. “We don’t even know for sure that we want to emerge directly opposite this point.”
“Are you blind?” sneered Sacha. “That must be some kind of signal over there.”
Rikus peered closer and saw a crimson dot shining on the edge of the cliff. It was so tiny and faint that he could hardly separate it from the orange glow rising from the molten rock in the abyss, and for a moment he feared he was imagining it. Then he noticed that despite the speck’s tendency to shift positions in the rippling heat waves of the lava sea, its brightness remained markedly steadily.
“I see it.” Rikus pointed the Scourge at the dot. “That’s Rkard’s sun-spell.”
Tithian shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if I know where they are,” he said. “Unless I can visualize the place itself, I can’t take us there.”
“You incompetent!” snarled Sacha. “Must I do everything myself?”
“You couldn’t teleport us across a door threshold, much less that.” The king gestured at the boiling sea with one of his half-giant arms.
Sacha ignored him, drifting around in front of Rikus. “I assume the boy’s spell is bright enough to cast a shadow?” When the mul nodded, the head swiveled around to look at Tithian. “If you can do as well as a six-year-old mul, then I can get us to the other side.”
Raising his brow, Tithian closed his eyes to concentrate-then a tremendous blast sent him skidding toward the brink of the precipice. He scratched at the ground with all six claws, barely saving himself from sailing into the sea of molten rock.
The king managed to back two steps away from the edge, then a shaft of golden light flashed behind him. His tail and wings disintegrated into a hundred tiny bits. The Dark Lens rolled off his back and dropped to the ground. As soon as he lost contact with the Lens, Tithian howled in pain and began the change back to human form. His carapace shrank into a pair of shoulder blades, while the stump of his bleeding tail retracted to become a tailbone, and his shredded wings folded down to form the flanks of his torso.
Rikus grabbed Tithian and hurled him toward the Lens. Paying little attention to where the king landed, he whirled around to face the front of the arch. At the entrance stood two figures: a silky-haired woman with dark skin and a fang-filled mouth, and an imposing, androgynous figure that resembled a miniature version of the Dragon. Their gazes were fixed on Tithian, and it seemed likely to the mul that they were responsible for the spells that had nearly destroyed the king.
Rikus assumed the woman to be Lalali-Puy, the Oba of Gulg, since Sadira had killed the only other sorcerer-queen on Athas. He did not know the identity of the dragonlike figure.
The mul started forward to meet them. Three yellow runes streaked down from the face of the arch and exploded on the ground, spraying rock and dust high into the air. When the haze cleared, three more figures stood outside the edifice: a remotely avian man with a scaly, beak-shaped muzzle and recessed earslits; another man with a muscle-knotted body and a fringe of chalky hair; and a tall figure with the slit pupils, heavy nose, and thick mane of a lion.
Recognizing this last figure from the war with Urik, Rikus gasped, “Hamanu!”
The sorcerer-kings ignored the mul, but the bird-featured man at Hamanu’s side said, “Perhaps I should not have doubted this plan of Borys’s. It seems to be working well enough.”
“Divide and conquer,” responded the chalky-haired sorcerer-king. “When will you learn, Tec?”
“Andropinis, you will address me by my full name,” Tec hissed. “I am King Tectuk-”
“Your name is too long,” Hamanu interrupted. “We have more important things to do.”
With that, Hamanu walked beneath the arch. Tithian shoved Rikus forward to meet him. “Go on,” the king said. “With the Scourge, they can’t touch you.”
Though Sadira had told him the same thing before, Rikus frowned as he advanced. “Something’s wrong with that theory,” he said. “I fought Hamanu in the war with Urik. He struck me then-in fact he almost killed me.”
Hamanu chuckled. “This time, I won’t fail.”
The sorcerer-king leaped at the mul. Knowing better than to meet the charge head-on, Rikus threw himself to the ground and rolled. He passed beneath his foe and slashed up at the belly. A blue aura flashed around Hamanu’s body as the Scourge sliced through the magic defense, but that was as far as it sank. As it had nearly a decade ago in Urik, the blade simply stopped cutting when it hit the sorcerer-king’s flesh.
Rikus rolled once more, then brought his legs around beneath him. As he returned to his feet, he slashed at the sorcerer-king’s waist. Again, Hamanu’s aura flashed, and the blade clanged off his flesh without biting. The mul did not even see his foe’s counterstrike. He merely felt the sorcerer-king’s heel smash into his chest, then found himself sailing toward the front of the arch.
Rikus landed on his back, gasping for breath. Throwing his legs over his head, he rolled on his shoulder and glimpsed the other four sorcerers close by. He sprang to his feet and spun, slashing at the androgynous figure that resembled the Dragon.
A golden aura flared around the sorcerer-king’s body, and green sparks sputtered high into the air. The Scourge bit deep into the figure’s withered shoulder. The gaunt arm dropped to the ground, sickly brown blood spewing from the wound.
The figure howled in pain and lashed out at Rikus. The mul experienced an instant of blackness then found himself standing back at Tithian’s side. The king had assumed the form of a human-headed viper, with his giant tail wrapped around the Dark Lens. Along his spine were several nasty burns, where he had used the Lens’s heat to cauterize the wounds he had suffered from the first attack. Tithian and Hamanu had locked gazes and appeared to be engaged in a battle of the Way.
Rikus felt more relieved than disoriented by his sudden change of location. This was not the first time the blade had moved him. Once before, when he had helped Sadira chase the Dragon away from the village of Kled, it had simply transported him out of harm’s way whenever Borys struck.
“Hamanu!” screamed the wounded sorcerer-king, raising the stump of his arm. “This is your fault!”
The distraction did not seem to affect the battle between Hamanu and Tithian. Both men remained motionless, staring into each other’s eyes.
Sacha appeared at Rikus’s side, gripping Tithian’s slender dagger between his teeth. The head dropped the weapon into Rikus’s hand.
“Hamanu wasn’t one of the original champions,” Sacha whispered. “Rajaat created him to kill the idiot Troll Scorcher, Myron of Yoram, so the Scourge’s magic works backward against him. The blade won’t injure him, and while you’re holding it, you can’t defend yourself against his blows. Use plain steel against him.”
Rikus glanced back at Hamanu. The sorcerer-king remained locked in mental combat with Tithian. His contorted face showed the strain of the long battle, with flaring nostrils and beads of cloudy red sweat pouring off his leonine brow.
The mul slipped the dagger into his belt and started forward. As he advanced, he kept a careful watch on his enemies and held his sword directly in front of him.
The injured sorcerer-king moved back. Rikus guessed that he was Nibenay, since that was the only sorcerer-king’s name the mul had not yet connected to a face.
The other three sorcerers hissed spell incantations. Rikus cringed, uncertain as to whether the sword would protect him from their magic. A black shield appeared on Andropinis’s arm, while a cylinder of golden light rose up around the Oba of Gulg. King Tec’s flesh turned to bronze.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sacha screeched, catching up with the mul. “Attack Hamanu.”
“No. It makes more sense for me to attack the others,” the mul said. “They can’t injure me, and Tithian has Hamanu under control.”