“They were telling you it’s your destiny,” Sadira interrupted.
Rkard did not answer right away, and the sorceress watched the fingers of Borys’s hand close into a fist. She thought he might come after them then, but the Dragon summoned more energy and did not move. Apparently, he intended to leave them no weaknesses to exploit when he attacked.
After a moment, Rkard said quietly, “Borys told Jo’orsh there’s no such thing as destiny. I didn’t believe him at first, but then Jo’orsh said people choose their destinies.” He paused, then added, “Only, I never chose mine.”
“Then how come he and Sa’ram gave you the belt and crown?”
Rkard shook his head. “I don’t know,” the boy replied. “And I’m not sure how they got them in the first place. The belt and the crown were stolen from our treasuries when the slavers raided Kled.”
“Tithian!” the sorceress hissed. For some reason, the king had made up the whole story about Rkard being destined to kill the Dragon-and had used the belt and crown to convince the banshees that it was true. “I’ll kill him!”
“Only if you kill Borys first,” Rkard answered. “So eat the root yourself.”
“No, I want you safe.”
“You can’t make me safe,” answered the boy. “Besides, Borys isn’t as worried about me. He’ll come after you first.”
The Dragon was still drawing energy from the ground. The wound on his leg had already healed, and the nub of a hand had appeared on the stump of his severed wrist.
“Go see what you can do for your mother,” Sadira said.
The sorceress put the root in her mouth and fixed her eye on the crimson globe encasing Borys’s head. Given that Rkard’s spell had prevented the Dragon from using the Way, she suspected that he would dispel it when he recovered the full use of his hands. Sadira turned her palm toward the ground, wondering if the beast would find it any easier to use his mental powers from inside a sphere of darkness.
It seemed to Rikus they had been floating in the Black forever, the shadow giant’s icy fingers entwined around their wrists and icy strands of gossamer filament brushing across their faces. The mul ached to the bones with cold, and only the vibrations of his constant shivering kept the ice crystals from completely encasing his body. Save for the red shimmer of the Dark Lens, glimmering a short distance to his side, Rikus could see nothing.
“It’s t-taking t-too long,” Rikus said, hardly able to speak because his teeth were chattering so badly.
“In the Black, time has little meaning,” the shadow giant replied. Earlier, he had introduced himself as Khidar. “But I will deliver you to the other side in a matter of instants in your time-provided Sacha was not mistaken about the light. Normally, we cannot approach Ur Draxa because there are no shadows in this land.”
“A few instants is still too long,” the mul worried. “If the sorcerer-kings know the arch’s password-”
“That knowledge will do them no good,” replied Khidar. “My people will keep the arch filled with the Black until you have killed Borys. If the sorcerer-kings step into it, they will never leave.”
Rikus still wasn’t convinced. “They have powerful magic,” he said.
“Which they will eventually use to dispel the fog in the arch’s passage,” Khidar replied. “But even for them, the shadow people are not easy to battle, and they were not prepared to meet us. You may believe me when I say that by the time they follow, your battle with the Dragon will be won-or lost.”
A crimson globe appeared in the darkness ahead, partially obscured by a thick wisp of blackness that reminded Rikus of a sand streamer blowing across the face of a moon.
“Now you must be quiet,” Khidar urged. “That’s our destination.”
As they drifted closer, the wisp of blackness grew thicker and more substantial, until it resembled a pair of gnarled tree boles rising up to meet high above ground. Only after studying the image for another moment did Rikus identify the dark band as a pair of huge legs. Khidar was bringing them up directly beneath Borys.
In the next instant, Rikus emerged from the Dragon’s shadow and found his head protruding above a vast plain of broken scoria. As his eyes adjusted to the red light of Rkard’s sun-spell, he reached up with sword in hand and braced his arms on the ground. He started to pull himself up, leading the way out of the Black.
The mul made it as far as his waist before Borys’s voice cried an incantation. The red light of Rkard’s sun-spell abruptly vanished, and a terrible, crushing agony gripped Rikus’s hips as he found himself clamped in solid stone.
Biting back the urge to scream, Rikus looked around and saw no shadows anywhere. Below the ground, he could feel Tithian tugging at his cold-numbed legs.
The mul raised his sword and stretched toward Borys’s foot but held his blow when he heard Sadira’s voice behind him. Rikus looked over his shoulder. He saw a black sphere leave her hand and shoot up toward Borys’s head.
The mul cursed silently, then stretched out to slash at the back of the Dragon’s ankle. The blade struck with a mighty clang, spraying blue sparks in all directions, then red smoke and yellow blood poured from the wound.
Borys howled and stumbled away, his head engulfed in a sphere of darkness. He turned a palm downward, then Rikus felt an eerie tingle as magical energy sizzled through the ground around him.
Sadira made her second attack, firing a storm of flaming blue ice at the Dragon. The pellets scoured long, smoking scars into his thick hide but did not penetrate. Borys growled in frustration and dodged, apparently expecting another attack and fearing that it would have more effect.
“Over here, Sadira!” Rikus called, waving his sword in the air.
“Rikus!”
The sorceress rushed toward him. She moved with incredible swiftness and was at his side in an instant, reaching into her robe for a spell component.
“Where have you been?” The words came so fast Rikus could hardly understand her.
“That’s not as important as where I am now-trapped halfway in the Black!” the mul growled. “We need a light.”
Fifty paces away, Borys uttered an incantation and touched his hand to his head. The sphere of darkness evaporated instantly.
“Light, Sadira!” Rikus urged. “Now!”
Sadira spoke a mystic syllable and touched the Scourge. A brilliant glow flared on the blade, casting a long shadow behind Rikus. He felt his waist come free. Before the mul could pull himself out of the ground, a pair of arms shot out of the Black and grabbed the rocky plain. Rikus felt Tithian’s shoulders pushing him up from beneath, then the mul was free of the cold murk.
Rikus stood and held his sword steady. Tithian’s head and torso emerged from the mul’s shadow. Sacha came with him, cleaving to a mouthful of long, gray hair. The king stopped climbing when he noticed Sadira staring at him with a murderous light in her eyes.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded.
“Ask later,” Rikus said. “We’re in enough trouble-”
Sadira’s head snapped toward the Dragon. She launched herself forward, giving Rikus a hard shove. Rikus heard the sizzle of a magic bolt crackle from Borys’s direction, then everything went dark. An instant later, the mul found himself standing near the brink of the abyss, staring back toward the center of the plain. Where he had been standing a moment earlier, there was now a smoking crater the size of the Golden Palace. Rikus could not see how deep the hole was, for it was surrounded by a rim of broken stone as high as Tyr’s city wall.
“By Ral!” The mul was so shocked, he could do little but gape at the immense hole. “Sadira!”
“What are you doing, giving up?” asked a familiar voice.
For the first time, the mul realized that he was standing near an arch similar to the one on the other side of the lava sea. Lying near its base, her head cradled in Rkard’s lap, was Neeva. Though Rikus could not see any injuries, her motionless legs revealed all he needed to know.