The Rise And Fall Of A Dragonking Part 16

"For all the good it did, Manu. For all the good it did, long ago..."

Borys hadn't welcomed another champion's sudden appearance behind his Kemelok siege line. The Butcher of Dwarves hurled a series of Unseen a.s.saults at his illusion-shrouded visitor. Hamanu deflected everything that came his way, all without raising a counterattack. After a short lull, a solitary human strode out of the besieger's camp. It wasn't a good time for meeting another champion. Borys made that clear from the start.

As Borys explained, ten days earlier, he'd fought a pitched, but not quite decisive, battle against the dwarven army here at Kemelok. He'd given their king, Rkard, a fatal wound-at least it should have been fatal. Borys wasn't certain. That was half his anger. The sword Borys had carried into the battle was enchanted. Rajaat had given it to him the day he'd become the thirteenth champion. The sword imparted a lethal essence to any dwarf it cut open, as it had opened Rkard, but the cursed dwarf had gotten lucky.

Rkard's axe had taken a chunk out of Borys's shoulder, a blow that would have quartered a mortal man. Battle-stunned and unable to hold his weapon, Borys had fallen. His officers had carried him back to their lines-leaving the sword behind in the hairy dwarf's chest. Borys admitted that he had slain three of his best men before he got his rage controlled, His own life was never in danger, but the d.a.m.ned sword was irreplaceable.

Hamanu listened to the Butcher of Dwarves's tirade and wisely didn't mention that his victory over the trolls hadn't depended on any enchanted weaponry. He waited until the other champion had calmed down enough to ask the obvious questions.

"What do you want? Who sent you? Why are you here?" asked Borys.

"Rajaat came to me in Urik."

"This is my war, Troll-Scorcher, and I'm ending it now. No one's coming in to share my kill. If Rajaat's whispering in your ear, that's your problem, not mine."

"Wrong," Hamanu countered. He opened his mind to share his recent encounter with their mutual creator, but Borys was warded against such invasion. "He means for me to finish your war-"

"Never," Borys snarled and quickened another spell. "I warned you."

"-And start another cleansing war, this time against humanity itself."

A needle-thin ray of orange light shot from the palm of the Butcher of Dwarves to Hamanu's gut, where it raised a finger-wisp of oily smoke before Hamanu deflected it with a gesture of his own. Once pointed at the ground, the orange ray seared a line a hundred paces long across the already ash-streaked dirt.

"He showed me how it would be done," the Lion-King said, "and gave me a foretaste of human death."

"We can all kill, Hamanu," Borys said wearily, as if explaining life's realities to a dull-witted child. "Kill all Urik, if that pleases you, but stay away from my d.a.m.ned dwarves, and know this: make war with humanity, and you're making war with me."

"I'll win."

"When mekillots fly, Hamanu. You're the last, and the least. You may have vanquished the trolls, but they were almost finished when Yoram lost his fire. You don't have the wit or power to battle any one of us. Go back to Urik. Be careful, though-I hear you're taking in half-bloods. Give a dwarf shelter, and I'll make war with you."

"Forget dwarves," Hamanu advised. "Think about what happens next. What did he promise you?"

"A new human kingdom in a new human world, a pure world, without dwarves and the rest of the Rebirth sc.u.m. I'll rule from Ebe-or here at Kemelok-until I can wrest Tyr from old Kalak. After that, who knows? We needn't be enemies, Hamanu. There's enough to go around, for now."

"You seemed wiser. I thought you knew better than to believe him."

"If Rajaat could cleanse the world, none of us would exist. He's the War-Bringer, not the war commander; the first sorcerer, but not a sorcerer-king. He needs us more than we need him."

"Have you looked at yourself, Borys?" Hamanu shed his illusion. He stood twice as high as a human man. His jaws had grown to support an array of fanglike teeth, and his nose was flattened by a bony ridge that obscured a portion of his vision. The same ridge, continued above his dwindling brows and across his scalp. Similar metamorphosis had deformed every other part of him.

Locked in what he hoped would be humanity's final battle with the Rebirth dwarves, Borys wasn't eager to be seen conferring with a man who was clearly not-quite-human. After throwing a sc.r.a.p of cloth on the ground, to shape his spell, Borys tried to reconfine Hamanu in his customary black-haired and tawny illusion.

"Begone!" the Butcher of Ebe growled softly with his own true voice.

Hamanu shook off the spell. With a hundred human deaths fresh on the back of his dragon's tongue and Windreaver's taunts still ringing in his ears, he pleaded for an open mind. "Let me show you-"

"I've seen enough."

Abandoning the calm tactics that went against his nature and hadn't accomplished anything, Hamanu gestured widely with both arms. Borys responded with another spell, but before he could cast it, Hamanu cast a spell of his own. The air between Urik's gaunt king and the blond human flashed with lightning brilliance as Hamanu found die veterans from whose life essence Borys was quickening his spell. He annihilated them, in the way he'd learned from Rajaat; Borys felt the echo of their deaths. When the light faded, the Butcher of Dwarves held one hand against his breast, and in his army's camp, clanging gongs signaled an emergency.

With his hand still pressed above his heart, Borys looked from Hamanu to his frantic camp. "I felt them die. I couldn't stop it. If I'd tried, you'd have drained me, too." He lowered his arm and turned back to Hamanu. "Just what are you?"

"Rajaat's last champion: Troll-Scorcher. Annihilator of all humanity. I'll win," Hamanu repeated his earlier a.s.sertion. "If I "If I start the war. And if I won't, he'll make another who will." start the war. And if I won't, he'll make another who will."

"The Dark Lens? Is that how you do it? Are you bound to it in a different way than the rest of us?"

"I didn't ask; he didn't enlighten me. Maybe it's the Lens. Sometimes I think it's the sun. It was there from the beginning, I suppose, but I didn't know how to use it until today."

Hamanu opened his mind a third time, and Borys accepted the images of Rajaat's visit to Urik: a hundred humans annihilated in a single breath. Nothing remained of them, not a single greasy, ash-crusted splotch on the palace floors.

Borys lowered his hand. He cursed as any veteran might curse: heartfelt and impotent.

Hamanu interrupted. "He says humanity must be cleansed because we're deformed. He wants to return a cleansed Athas to the halflings. He says it belongs to them, not us."

"He's mad."

"Aye, he'll probably cleanse the halflings, too. The only question worth asking is, can we we stop him? I can resist him, disobey him, but I can't stop him, not alone. If we all attack at once..." stop him? I can resist him, disobey him, but I can't stop him, not alone. If we all attack at once..."

"You'd survive," Borys responded quickly, the old distrust burning bright in his eyes. "You could lay back until you were the last-"

"And he'd slay me, then he'd find someone else to annihilate the humans. Maybe a score of someones. He promised you a kingdom, Borys. What price will you pay for it?"

Borys neither spoke nor moved.

"Make up your mind, champion. He's probably out looking for another farmer's son right now. Maybe he'll pluck someone out of your your army this time. Maybe he's already dragged the poor sod up the stairs in his d.a.m.ned white tower." army this time. Maybe he's already dragged the poor sod up the stairs in his d.a.m.ned white tower."

"No. You saw how it was. He needs us-"

"Needed."

Another curse as Borys looked at Kemelok's battered towers. "Five days. If I'm gone longer than that, the siege will fail, and the runts will scatter."

Borys allowed a breathtakingly short time in which to bring down the War-Bringer.

"You must be very persuasive," Hamanu said. "With whom do you plan to start?"

"Sielba," Borys replied without hesitation.

Hamanu was inwardly astonished. He'd have left the red-haired Sprite-Scourge and seducer of champions for last. But he'd come this far to get Borys's help and kept his opinions to himself while the Butcher of Dwarves made arrangement with his high-ranking officers to continue the siege while he was gone.

Since the day the champions had drunk each other's blood in the negligible shade of Rajaat's white tower, Sielba had repeatedly invited Hamanu to visit her retreat. The invitations had grown more frequent and enticing in the years since he'd vanquished the trolls and taken his place among the champions who'd achieved their final victories. The notices had become especially regular since he'd settled in Urik and begun to transform the dusty, roadside town into a rival city.

They were neighbors, Sielba would write on ordinary vellum scrolls that her minions delivered to the Urik gates, or she would whisper in a mysterious, musk-scented hush that haunted the midnight corners of Urik's humble palace. They should know each other better. They should explore an alliance; as partners, Sielba promised, they and their cities would be invincible.

Hamanu had ignored every overture. He hadn't forgotten the loathsome combination of l.u.s.t and contempt with which she'd scrutinized him that one time, the only time they'd stood face to face. He wanted nothing to do with her or her invitations.

However his farmer's son's jaw dropped when Borys led him from the Gray into an alabaster courtyard, and he began to reconsider his reticence. Musical fountains, flowers, lyric birds, an abundance of brightly colored silk... he'd never dreamt of such things. Sielba had cleansed Athas of sprites, then retired to the ancient city of Yaramuke, where she idled away the days and years, ruling a docile citizenry from an imperial palace. Hamanu shook his head and reshaped his appearance to equal the luxury surrounding him-at least he hoped he equaled it.

Sielba greeted Borys warmly and familiarly; Hamanu readily perceived that their acquaintance was both old and intimate. She greeted him him like a kes'trekel alighting on a corpse. like a kes'trekel alighting on a corpse.

"Will you feast with me?" she asked, with her lips against his ear and her hands weaving through his hair.

Lips, ears, hands, hair-even the tense muscles at the back of Hamanu's neck-were all illusions, but beneath their illusions Rajaat's champions remained men and women. Hamanu, at least, knew that he remained a man. He remembered every loving moment in Dorean's arms; Jikkana's, too; and the infrequent others of his mortal years. After Rajaat made him a champion, he'd discovered the hard way that there were lethal limits to illusion. Sielba's st.u.r.dy immortality tempted him with dangerous possibilities.

He pushed her away, with more force than he'd intended. "We've come to talk about Rajaat-"

"You still have the manners of a dirt-eater, Hamanu," Borys interrupted. "Try to behave."

With words and a few subtle gestures, the two more experienced champions pierced Hamanu's defenses. They shrouded him with an awkwardness that wasn't illusion. He was young compared to them, and ignorant. He knew how to fight, but not how to sit amid the wealth of cushions surrounding Sielba's banquet table, or which of the unfamiliar delicacies were eaten with fingers, and which required a knife.

As for the urgent matter that had brought Hamanu first to Kemelok and then to Yaramuke, Borys disposed of it between the berries and the cream.

"The War-Bringer's not going to stop with the Rebirth races," he said bluntly, but casually. "He's going to create another champion to cleanse Athas of humanity."

Sielba set down her goblet of iridescent wine. Her illusion retained its beauty when she frowned, but her inner nature-the heart and conscience of a victorious champion-revealed itself as well. "And us? What about his promises? Are we to rule a world filled with beasts and halflings?"

"Apparently," Borys replied, with studied nonchalance balancing a mottled berry on the tip of his knife. He exploded it with a thought. "Or he'll create a champion to cleanse us, too."

"He has to be stopped."

"Agreed. Are you with us?" the Butcher of Ebe asked as he turned from Sielba to Hamanu, who was, at that inopportune moment, blotting berry stains from his sleeve.

Lips as red as the stain parted in a condescending smile. "Do you have a plan?" she asked Borys, not Hamanu.

"Of course, but it will require all of us, together."

Sielba's dark eyes narrowed. "And you need to know where everyone is?"

"I can hardly ask the War-Bringer, can I?"

"Or little Sacha."

"I'll get him last, and bring him here by force, if I have to."

"After I've told you what you need to know?"

"I have hopes, my dear enchantress." Borys laid his hand atop Sielba's.

She withdrew hers from below. "And you have promises, promises as hollow as Rajaat's." Her smile belied her words.

So much, then, Hamanu observed, for Borys's persuasion-or any acknowledgment that without him they'd be ignorant of the War-Bringer's plans. The elder champions disappeared, leaving Hamanu with the silks, the slaves, and the remains of their feast. When they returned, Sielba settled herself on the cushions close beside him, while Borys stood beside the door.

"Stay here, Hamanu," the elder champion said.

An order, not a suggestion, and Hamanu didn't take orders; he wouldn't be treated like a child or slave. If Borys hadn't learned that at Kemelok, he'd learn it now.

The air in Sielba's banquet hall stilled. Water drops hung suspended in the fountains, and the human slaves fell to the floor. Borys's doing; Hamanu had done nothing to harm them.

As he started to stand, Sielba threw herself at Hamanu's feet. She tangled him in the cushions. The huge and well-built palace shuddered when they collapsed together.

"Stay with me, Lion of Urik," she urged as they wrestled with small but potent sorcery.

Long ago, Myron of Yoram's officers had humiliated him with their superior sword-skills. Hamanu then spent years practicing with every weapon known to man to insure that such a thing would never happen again. He thought that because he was strong and skilled, he could win any fight. He should have taken a few days, at least, to learn the cunning strategies with which women traditionally fought and won. Sielba used his lion's strength against him. She drained his spells as fast as he conceived them and then twisted his arm behind his back so thoroughly that the black bones beneath his illusion threatened to snap. When he was aware of his predicament, she whispered in his ear again, in her huskily seductive voice: "It's better this way. Trust me."

Hamanu was no more inclined to do that than he was to trust Rajaat.

"I'll return with the others, then we'll deal with the War-Bringer," Borys said from the doorway. "In the meantime, maybe you'll learn something useful."

Sielba let her guard down once Borys was gone. The Lion of Urik, taking quick advantage of the tricks she'd just taught him, freed himself, and achieved a similar twisting grip on her arm.

"And now, what are you going to do, Lion of Urik?" she asked. Her voice came from behind his shoulder though her face was smothered in the pillows. "You're a quick and rever farmer's lad, but that's hardly enough."

Later Hamanu would blame the wine, Sielba's shifty and shimmering red-blue iridescent wine. The wine wasn't to blame; no amount of wine could affect him, no more than the spiced delicacies could fatten his gaunt body. He was young as immortals reckoned age, but a score of years had pa.s.sed since he'd touched a woman's cheek without leaving a bruise or kissed her lips without b.l.o.o.d.ying them.

In time, Hamanu mastered illusion's most subtle aspects and could seduce whomever he wished or secret himself in a mortal mind to explore the world with another's senses. In time, he and Yaramuke's queen would descend into the quarrel that ended with her death and the destruction of her city. Until then, Sielba offered, if not love, fascination, and he offered the same to her.

The Lion of Urik was a different man when Borys returned two days later. The ten other champions emerged, one after another, from the Butcher's netherworld wake. Hamanu kept his temper and said nothing when he saw how thoroughly the Butcher of Ebe had established himself as the champions' champion, the one who would free them from their creator.

Partly, Hamanu stayed calm because he saw how they'd restrained Sacha Arala, the War-Bringer's sycophant. There were no perceptible chains binding the Curse of Kobolds, but his eyes were glazed, and he said nothing at all, unless Borys or Dregoth suggested it first. Although Hamanu didn't think they could control Urik's king as they controlled Arala, he saw no need to risk a confrontation. That was the greatest change Sielba had wrought in him: the Lion of Urik didn't need to prove something to others once he'd proved it to himself.

Hamanu had already measured himself against Borys, and the Dwarf Butcher was no War-Bringer. If Borys wished to be the touchstone of their rebellion, he'd let Borys have his wish. There'd be opportunity for another rebellion, if necessity demanded one. Rajaat's champions had treachery bred in their bones. Hamanu was no exception.

As afternoon in Yaramuke became evening and their strategy took its final shape, Hamanu quietly accepted a subordinate's role. The champions' strategy was as simple as it was risky. Emerging from the Gray, all at the same time and close to Rajaat's tower, they'd each cast a different, destructive spell. No one of the spells would be sufficient to overpower the first sorcerer, but together, they might distract and confound him long enough for Borys, or Dregoth, or Pennarin, or even Hamanu-the four champions who prided themselves on their sheer, brute strength-to dispatch their creator with a physical weapon. Failing that-but only if the quartet seemed truly doomed-the others would attempt to destroy Rajaat's Dark Lens.

Better, they'd decided, to live without the magic they pa.s.sed to their minions than to face Rajaat's wrath with the Lens still in existence.

Their simple strategy collapsed as soon as they were in the Gray. Savage winds erupted from every corner of the netherworld. The winds buffeted the mighty sorcerers, sending them caroming into each other and away from each other, as well.

Too many champions, too many unnatural creatures for even this unnatural place, Hamanu thought as he struggled to retain his orientation in the chaos. Hamanu thought as he struggled to retain his orientation in the chaos.

Borys had a less charitable notion: Arala! Get a ward on Sacha Arala Arala! Get a ward on Sacha Arala-he's behind it.

Prudence launched a bolt of blue-green sorcery off Hamanu's right hand, and off other hands, as well. They blinded each other in their eagerness to stop Sacha Arala's treachery. The Curse of Kobolds screamed for mercy that was not forthcoming until Dregoth announced that he had the traitor in his grasp. The winds ebbed. The champions regrouped and continued toward Rajaat's tower, which shone in the Gray as a sliver of pure white light.

In silence, the champions surrounded the netherworld beacon, then returned to the material world where, hiding in the moonlight shadows, Rajaat War-Bringer waited for them.

A fiery maw engulfed Pennarin before he'd invoked his spell. The maw closed, and Rajaat's first champion was gone.

Hamanu took a breath and cast his spell: a simple trans.m.u.tation of dry, rock-hard dirt into mire as hot and viscous as molten lava. The ground beneath Rajaat's feet began to glow. Through the tumult of spells and counterspells, the Lion of Urik heard the War-Bringer cry his name.

"Hamanu... Hamanu, you're next!"

A writhing, dark counterspell came Hamanu's way. Gelid and corrosive, it would have consumed his immortal flesh eventually, but it was as slow as it was icy. Hamanu dodged and sent Rajaat's wrath oozing harmlessly into the Gray. Then he drew his golden sword. With his hands on its hilt, Hamanu advanced toward his creator across ground his own spell had made treacherous.

The champions' strategy had been sound. Though they'd never had the surprise advantage Borys planned for, and they'd lost Pennarin at the start, the War-Bringer was thoroughly beset. Borys was wading through Hamanu's steaming mire toward Rajaat ahead of Hamanu. The Butcher of Dwarves had drawn his sword, a dark-metal weapon that seethed with crimson fire against the midnight stars. It wasn't the sword Rajaat had given him; he swore the crimson blade would be a telling weapon against the War-Bringer. Hamanu hadn't argued. He wasn't going to tell another champion what weapon to bring to their rebellion.