The sorceress slapped the head aside, sending him soaring through the air. He did not stop moving until he had ricocheted off the shell of a dead mekillot and crashed into a nearby sand dune.
Wyan chuckled at his companion’s fate “For once, we’re telling the truth,” he said, being careful to maintain a safe distance. “How do you think we knew you’d be returning from the Pristine Tower?”
“The same way Tithian knew I’d be going,” the sorceress replied.
“Come now-that makes no sense,” said Wyan. “The kank he was using to spy on you was killed in Nibenay by Gallard himself.”
Sadira stopped at the sound of the sorcerer-king’s ancient name, signaling Magnus to do the same. “Where did you hear that name?”
Wyan sneered at her. “I thought that would get your attention.”
“But it won’t hold it for long,” she warned, noting that Sacha had extricated himself from the sand dune and was cautiously drifting back toward her. “Say what you came to say-but be certain it’s worth my time. Even when I’m in a good mood, I have no patience for you two.”
“We’re not wasting your time,” said Wyan. “The shadow people sent word to expect you.”
“How?” Sadira asked. “What do you know of the shadow people?”
“That’s not important now,” said Sacha, returning to the group. “But our reason for coming is. Tithian told the Dragon about the help you received from Kled. Borys was furious, and now he’s gone to destroy the Book of Kings and punish the dwarves.”
The sorceress pondered Sacha’s words for several moments, then stepped past the heads and motioned for Magnus to mount his kank.
“Where are we going?” the windsinger asked.
“Tyr,” Sadira answered. “I’d have to be a fool to trust these two. They’re the king’s closest advisors,” she said, waving her hand at Sacha and Wyan. “I don’t know how, but Tithian’s been eavesdropping on me even after I left Nibenay. He sent these two out here to divert us.”
“I don’t follow your logic,” said Magnus.
“That’s because she isn’t using any!” snapped Wyan.
Sadira pointed her palm at the head. A stream of brilliant crimson light shot from her hand, and Wyan screamed in anger. “Trollop! You blinded me!”
“Quiet, or I’ll make it permanent,” she said. To Magnus, she explained, “Tithian is too much of a coward to defy the Dragon, so he doesn’t want me to return before he pays the levy. He sent these two out here with the story about Kled, hoping the names they’ve so carefully mentioned would convince me to go to the village instead of Tyr.”
“That is the kind of plan Tithian would think of,” admitted Sacha. “But can you afford the chance that it’s really what he’s doing?”
Magnus turned his head so that he was looking at Sadira with just one of his black eyes. “This trick seems too complicated,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to make a deal with the Dragon? In return for bypassing Tyr this year, tell him about Kled and the Book of Kings?”
“That would make sense,” said Wyan, blinking his eyes as his temporary blindness passed. “But it’s not what Tithian did. He still intends to pay the levy. By telling the Dragon about Kled, he’s only trying to curry favor.”
Sadira considered Magnus’s point for several moments, then looked at the two heads. “I might find your story easier to believe if I knew why you had suddenly decided to betray Tithian,” she said. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe you’ve developed a concern for the people of Tyr?”
“Of course not,” sat Sacha. “Let’s just say that we have certain interests in common with the shadow people.”
“Let’s not,” Sadira said. “I want to know more.”
“If you must,” said Wyan, rolling his sallow eyes. “You know of the rebellion against Rajaat?” he asked. When Sadira nodded, he continued, “Not all of us revolted. For our dissension, Sacha and I were beheaded.”
“You were champions?” Sadira gasped.
“We still are,” answered Sacha, smiling proudly. “My full title is Sacha of Arala, Curse of the Kobolds.”
“And I am Lord Wyan Bodach, Pixie Blight,” added the second head. “We are the last two loyal champions, and, as you can imagine, we would like nothing better than vengeance against the traitor Borys.”
“If that’s true, then tell me why the others rebelled,” Sadira demanded.
“If you insist,” Sacha growled. “The shadow people call the time of Rajaat’s rule the Green Age, and with good reason. All of Athas was as lush and fertile as the halfling forests you’ve visited.”
“But the wars took a terrible toll on the land, for we champions were not the only great sorcerers in the fight,” Wyan broke in. “Every time there was a battle, hundreds of acres of land turned barren. By the time we were nearing victory-”
“You mean, by the time you had annihilated most of the nonhuman races?” Sadira interrupted.
The bitterness of her voice seemed lost on Wyan. “Precisely,” he said. “By the time we were preparing to wipe the last plague of impurity from the world, much of Athas had been reduced to a desert.”
“So Rajaat declared that after our victory, he would be the only sorcerer,” Sacha continued. “The rest of us would have to forego the powers he had bestowed upon us. Wyan and I were more than happy to obey our master’s will, but the others renounced their vows and attacked.”
“And that is how Athas came to be as it is,” said Wyan. “Now, will you go to Kled-or are you going to let Agis and Rikus meet the Dragon alone?”
“Get it out of me!” Neeva’s pained voice rang out from a hut near the heart of Kled. It echoed up orange sandstone slopes to the top of the bluff, where, with the aid of a magical spell, Sadira and her companions were eavesdropping on everything that happened in the village. “Hurry, Caelum! This hurts!”
“What’s wrong with her?” demanded Wyan, hovering next to Sadira.
On the other side, Sacha asked, “Is someone torturing her?” His corpulent lips were twisted into a heinous grin.
“Have you two never heard the sound of a woman bearing a child?” Magnus asked, shaking his head at the scene below. “She couldn’t have chosen a worse time.”
Before Kled’s gate stood Borys, his slithering tail swishing languidly about, stirring up as much dust as a whirlwind. Despite the distance and the haze, Sadira could see that the Dragon was as tall as a full giant, with a body so gaunt that he would have made an elf seem stout. He had skin the color of iron, with a chitinous hide equal parts flesh and shell, and each of his willowy legs had two knees that bent in opposite directions. His arms were almost skeletal, ending in long-clawed fingers with swollen, knobby joints. Bory’s face was the most frightening aspect of his appearance, for it was no longer even remotely human. Located at the end of a serpentine neck, his head resembled that of a sharp-beaked bird, with a spiked crest of leathery skin and a pair of beady eyes so small they were hardly visible.
Before the Dragon, atop the village’s modest gatehouse, were the tiny forms of two men that Sadira believed to be Rikus and Lyanius. The rest of Kled’s warriors stood along the walls, arrayed in their glistening armor. From what the companions could see, they were armed with steel axes or swords, spiked bucklers, and crossbows.
On the sandstone slopes overlooking the approach to the gate, a hundred more figures stood near Borys’s flank. They were all dressed in the fashion of Tyr, with long dark robes easily discernible at a distance. The fact that none of them seemed to be carrying weapons suggested they were either mindbinders or sorcerers. By the silver streak that ran down the center of his long black hair, Sadira could identify Agis standing at the head of the company.
Borys hardly seemed to notice any of this. In a sizzling voice as loud as thunder, he said, “Bring me the one known as Er’Stali, with his Book of Kemalok Kings, and choose half your number to die.”