The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

The Sahara Desert

HALF AN HOUR HAD PASSED since Fairfax brought down lightning and buried the armored chariots, half an hour untroubled by minions of Atlantis. The sun beat down, white and relentless; the sand rippled, like the surface of a wind-driven sea. The sand wyvern, a hardy creature, had largely recovered from the electric shock it had received, and flew steadily at speeds in excess of eighty miles a hour. But Titus did not dare let his guard down and kept scanning different parts of the sky with far-seeing spells. Once he and Fairfax had been found, it became much easier for Atlantis to establish a new search range. Its forces no longer needed to comb every inch of sand in every direction from the original blood circle, but could concentrate on a sharply reduced area.

Sure enough, before another five minutes went by, he spotted a trio of albino wyverns. They were several miles behind, but they were faster—smaller, sleeker creatures were often swifter in flight.

Besides, the trouble was not in those three wyverns, but in all the others that were sure to come, now that he and Fairfax had been spotted again.

After studying the riders more closely, however, he changed his mind about their not being his biggest concern. The riders had released a net behind them, which resembled an impractical-looking hood worn on an invisible head.

A spell accelerator: they were about to deploy distance spell-casting.

In distance spell-casting, the party in pursuit was at a disadvantage, as the target kept moving away, which meant a spell had to travel farther. While a certain amount of distance was necessary for the strength of the spell to build—three miles was generally considered the optimum distance—beyond that the spell began to weaken again.

But a spell accelerator boosted both the power and endurance of the spell, which portended trouble for two fleeing fugitives.

Titus pulled out his wand—the Atlanteans were not the only ones familiar with distance spell-casting. He focused, steadied, and locked his own aim, spells leaving his lips one after another.

He could see what they were doing and they were no doubt aware of his action. But neither party dodged, each determined to deploy as many spells as possible, in case most of them, just a hairsbreadth off in aim, would fizzle into nothing somewhere high in the atmosphere, or against the surface of the desert below.

At the last possible moment, Titus sent the sand wyvern into a near vertical dive.

Behind him, the trio of albino wyverns, who had been flying in close formation, responded to the slumping weight of their riders and veered off in different directions.



The sand wyvern pulled out of the dive and began gaining altitude again.

“What’s the turbulence?” Fairfax mumbled, her eyes closed.

“We dodged some distance spell-casting.”

“My hero. But can’t a girl sleep in peace around here?” There was a hint of a sly grin at the corner of her mouth.

He kissed the top of her head. “Of course. I will personally guarantee a ride as smooth as that of a square-mile flying carpet.”

But the sand wyvern did not want to cooperate. The moment a tiny oasis appeared on the horizon, it headed straight for the grove of date palms. And Titus, despite his best effort, could not dislodge it from its course.

He could only aim a spate of pacification spells at the train of camels standing nose-to-tail just beyond the palm trees.

The camels masticated and stared placidly at the sand wyvern, as the palms swayed in the current generated by its massive wings. The humans, however, possessed no such equanimity. Of the four bearded, sun-browned men, one fainted outright, two reached for their rifles, and one for his Koran.

Titus dismounted and led the tall-as-a-two-story-house beast to the puddle at the center of the oasis.

“Assalamu alaykum,” he said to the three men who were still conscious.

Peace be upon you.

The older man with the Koran opened and closed his mouth several times, but no words came out.

A young man in a dusty-red keffiyeh rasped something, but as Titus’s grasp of Arabic was restricted to a few phrases of courtesy, he did not bother to respond.

Another young man in a brown turban cocked his firearm, but the old man put a hand on his arm. The wyvern drank and drank and drank. When it was done, Titus persuaded it to pull down a date palm branch, so he could cut off a large cluster of dates.

With another “Assalamu alaykum” to the caravanists, still agape, he urged the sand wyvern to take to the sky again.



After another hour or so, Titus set down the sand wyvern about a mile away from a low rocky hill. The hill looked barren, but any shade in the desert, anywhere water could condense and collect, played host to life. He sent out the two lengths of hunting rope still in his possession to find the sand wyvern a good supper and crouched down to give Fairfax some water.