“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.
EPILOGUE
Seven figures stood on the hill above the Gate of Doom, all lost in their own thoughts. Neeva and Rkard kneeled at the edge of the cliff, looking down into the valley where Caelum had died, their heads bowed in silent contemplation. Sadira sat a short distance away, near Rikus, save that the Dark Lens rested on the ground between them.
The two sorcerer-kings, Nibenay and Hamanu, and the sorcerer-queen, the Oba of Gulg, waited at the end of the ridge. They were looking across the Ring of Fire at the massive wall of steam that had arisen when Rajaat’s flood had finally overspilled the Draxan plain and had cascaded into the boiling lava lake below. More than anyone, the rulers seemed to sense that the time had come to rethink old ways, to forget old enmities, to find new approaches to the challenge of life on Athas.
Rikus found himself wondering what this moment looked like to them, through cruel eyes that had already seen a countless chain of passing days. They appeared neither sad nor happy, and the mul wondered if it was even possible for them to have such emotions. Would this day be a turning point in their long lives, or was it simply a time when it had become necessary to form new alliances? He did not know the answer and suspected they did not either. For now, only one thing was important: a truce had been struck, and once the terms were met, there would no longer be a reason to fight-at least not until they had all returned home and had recovered enough to think of new reasons.
The Oba turned to Sadira and nodded. The sorceress stood and wrapped her ebony arms around the Lens then picked it up. Rikus did not stand with her, for those were not the terms of the agreement. Sadira had to do this alone, for Nibenay and Hamanu were as weary and mistrustful of the Tyrians as the Tyrians were of them.
As Sadira started forward, a thunderbolt crackled down from the sky, and another torrential downpour began. No one paid it much attention, for it was not the first rainstorm that had burst over the valley.
Then a sharp voice boomed. “Stop!”
Rikus leaped up, his empty hands tensed into weapons, and Sadira put the Dark Lens down, already preparing to cast a spell through it. Rkard also stood, raising his hand toward the crimson sun, and even Neeva, wincing with pain, pushed herself to her feet. The Athasian rulers reacted just as quickly, the Oba and Hamanu furrowing their brows as they prepared to use the Way, while Nibenay turned his palm toward the ground.
“You can’t do this!” said the voice. Something about it seemed faintly familiar, but there was a strained, sizzling tone that made the voice difficult for Rikus to place. “Stop. I demand it!”
A sphere of blue mist formed in the rains, hovering in the space between Sadira and the sorcerer-kings. It began to ripple and waver, slowly taking on the ghostly features of an old man’s gaunt, sharp-featured face.
“Tithian!” Rikus gasped. “I thought you were dead!”
Another bolt of lightning danced across the sky, and a peal of thunder shook the entire ridge. “Not dead, imprisoned. Before you destroy the Lens, free me.”
“To do what?” demanded Neeva, limping to Rikus’s side. “Become king of Athas?”
“No,” the head replied, his face suddenly growing pained and lonely. “Kill me if you wish, but you can’t leave me here.”
“And what will happen if we do, Usurper?” demanded Nibenay, a crooked smile spreading across his thin snout. “Will you make it rain on us?”
The sorcerer-king lowered his hand and chuckled. Hamanu and the Oba also began to chortle, their faces growing more relaxed and less suspicious.
“If you can strike me down, do it now,” said Sadira, staring into Tithian’s watery eyes. “That’s the only way you’ll stop me.”
The wind began to howl, and the rain came down harder. More thunder crashed over the ridge, and forks of lightning danced through the sky-all without touching Sadira or anyone else.
“I thought as much,” said Sadira, stepping straight through the king’s misty face. “Make it storm all you like. Athas needs the rain.”
Another crash of thunder rumbled overhead, and more lightning danced through the dark clouds. Rikus chuckled then tipped his head back and opened his mouth, allowing the cool water to pour into his mouth. So did Rkard, and Neeva as well. Soon, everyone on the ridge was drinking water straight from the sky, making good use of Tithian’s bluster.
Tithian finally grew tired of his humiliation. “Without me, you would never have slain the Dragon,” he said, letting his image dissolve into mist. “All I ask is that you repay me with a merciful death.”