The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King (23 page)

"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 assertion. "If I 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 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 army this time. Maybe he's already dragged the poor sod up the
stairs in his damned 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.

"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 lust 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 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 sturdy 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."

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 passed since
he'd touched a woman's cheek without leaving a bruise or kissed her lips without bloodying 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.

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 passed 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.

Borys had a less charitable notion: 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.