Neeva lay down on her belly and stretched out to cut the pincers. The scorpion pulled its tail from Rikus’s hand and struck at her. It moved with such blinding speed that she barely managed to twist her blade flat and deflect the venom-dripping barb. She changed targets and sliced at the thing’s body, but the creature was every bit as quick as she was. Its tail lashed again, this time arcing at her wrist.
Neeva pulled back to avoid being stung. “I’ve seen lightning strike slower!”
“I could’ve told you that!” Rikus growled.
Pulling his hand back toward his body, the mul lowered his head and opened his mouth. There was a crunch of splintering carapace, then Rikus turned toward her and spit the scorpion’s severed tail from between his sharp teeth. The mul extended his arm toward her. Already, his hand was so swollen that it looked more like a bear’s paw.
“Get the damn thing off-now!”
As Neeva reached for the scorpion, its carapace suddenly changed from pearly gray to yellow. The color did not fade so much as slip off the arachnid’s body like a passing shadow. For an instant, the formless apparition hovered in the air, then it floated down to the hole into which Rikus had been sticking his hand when he was stung.
The scorpion itself turned gold and began to shrink, until it was so small that its pincers would no longer fit around the mul’s thick fingers. It fell free and tumbled away, its tiny body vanishing from sight long before it hit the ground.
“By the sun!” cursed Caelum.
Neeva tossed her dagger onto the road, then grabbed Rikus’s arm with both hands. She felt her husband’s powerful arms slip around her waist, then the dwarf pulled both her and the mul back onto the road. Caelum kneeled in the dust and grabbed Rikus’s wrist with both hands, his stubby fingers pressing down on the veins to shut off the blood flow. Neeva did not need to ask why the sun-cleric was so concerned. Of all the poisonous beasts in the Athasian desert, gold scorpions were among the worst, with venom powerful enough to drop an adult mekillot in five steps. Of course, such creatures did not normally change sizes or disguise their color beneath silver shadows, but Neeva was too concerned with Rikus’s welfare to dwell on the matter right now.
“Hold his wrist, tight!” Caelum ordered.
Neeva did as commanded, and her husband raised his own hand to the sky. “The sun’s heat will boil the poison away.”
Rikus grimaced. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?” The mul’s eyes were glassy and his words slurred.
Caelum lowered his hand, fiery red and smoking from the fingertips. It glowed so brightly that it was translucent, save for the dark bones beneath the skin. The dwarf laid his palm over the scorpion puncture and squeezed Rikus’s hand as hard as he could. There was a soft sizzle, and streamers of greasy black smoke rose between his fingers.
Rkard slipped over to watch, placing his back to the cliffs. His face paled at the sight of Rikus’s scorched skin, but he did not look away. Neeva considered sending him elsewhere but decided against it. Her son was as much a sun-cleric as he was a warrior. If she attempted to shield him from the unpleasant sight of a wound, he would never learn his father’s art.
When an involuntary hiss slipped through Rikus’s clenched teeth, Rkard stepped closer and laid his hand on the warrior’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The sun demands pain in exchange for its magic.”
“I know.” The mul winced then added, “Your father’s done this to me before.”
Caelum continued to hold his hands over the wound for many moments, until Neeva could no longer see the bones outlined beneath his flesh, and the fiery glow had completely faded. By then, Rikus was only half-conscious and hardly seemed to realize where he was.
“What happened?” asked Sadira’s voice.
Neeva looked up to see the sorceress coming toward the small group, trailing black wisps of the shadow spell that she had used to answer Magnus’s summons.
“A gold scorpion stung him,” Neeva explained. The sorceress kneeled at her husband’s side and took his injured hand between hers. Although the swelling had gone down, the flesh remained black and scaly.
“Is he going to die?” Sadira asked.
“No. Father won’t allow it!” said Rkard, his hairless brow furrowed in determination.
“That’s right,” said Caelum. “He’ll be a little sick for a few hours, but he’ll live.”
The sorceress’s blue eyes seemed to glow a little brighter. “Thank you.”
Sadira rose, cradling her husband’s limp form in her arms. Although the mul probably weighed half again as much as a normal man, the sorceress showed no sign of strain at lifting his heavy body.
She passed Rikus to Magnus. “If you’ll bear Rikus for a while, I’ll get us across this gap.”
The sorceress took the rope from around Rikus’s waist and lay down at the end of the road. She leaned over the brink and tied one end to the last buttress, then returned to her feet and tossed the coil toward the merchant standing on the other side of the gap.
At first, Neeva thought the rope would fall short of its target, but Sadira uttered a quiet incantation that sent the line drifting straight into the merchant’s hands. “If you’ll tie that off, I’ll bring you and your wagon across,” she called.
For a moment, the man seemed too astonished to reply. Then he dropped down and fastened the line to a buttress beneath the road. Sadira smiled and yelled for him to stand back, then took the rope in her hand and spoke the words to another spell. A sheet of crimson light spread outward from both sides of the cord. Within moments, a red, flickering ribbon of luminescence spanned the gap, connecting the two severed ends of the Cloud Road.
“Come on ahead,” Sadira called. She continued to kneel, holding one hand on the rope. “My spell is more than strong enough to hold both you and your beasts.”
The merchant stared at the scintillating patch and did not move.
“I’ll go across and show him it’s safe,” Caelum volunteered.
“No, I’ll go,” said Neeva. She checked her harness to make sure both of her steel short swords were readily accessible. “With buttresses slipping from their joining holes and gold scorpions disguising themselves as something else, there’s something strange here. The merchant might be part of it.”
The warrior stepped onto the bridge and started across. With each footfall, the road swayed slightly under her weight. Through the soles of her sandals, she felt a strange, pulsing heat rising off the shimmering surface, and she understood the merchant’s reluctance to lead his inixes onto the unstable road. Even if it would support the weight of his huge wagon, coaxing the skittish draft lizards over a hot, vibrating surface would not be easy.
After Neeva had taken a dozen paces, the merchant stepped onto his end of the shimmering bridge. The inixes kept their gazes focused straight ahead and pulled the heavy wagon with no sign of spooking. As each set of wheels settled onto the road, the pathway swayed and undulated beneath Neeva’s feet, making her feel as though she were standing on water. She continued forward, thinking it wiser to meet the stranger in the middle of the link.
The man kept his eyes on the road, hiding his face beneath the broad brim of his hat. He wore a striped robe of many bright colors, though its vibrance was dulled by a gray coating of road dust. His gloves were worn and black, as were his belt and boots. The inixes behind him had silver-gray hides, which served to reinforce Neeva’s fear that this was a trap. Usually, the beasts were covered with a mottled assortment of scales ranging from rusty red to murky brown, hues that camouflaged the beasts in the rocky wastelands of Athas.
Neeva stopped at the halfway point. “Hail, trader,” she called. “Have you waited long?”
The man did not look up.
“Before you come farther, I’ll know the name of the man who wishes to pass over this bridge.” She rested her hands on the pommels of her twin swords.