The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King (24 page)

Hamanu took a breath and cast his spell: a simple transmutation 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.

The Butcher of Dwarves swung first: a solid cut across Rajaat's ribs, ending deep in his gut.
Blood and viscera sluiced over the dark crimson blade. The War-Bringer bellowed; fire roared out of his
gaping mouth. Hamanu ducked his head beneath the flames and stalked forward, thrusting his sword into
Rajaat's flank. The golden sword slid between the first sorcerer's ribs, then stopped, as if it had struck
unyielding stone. Hamanu sank his black-taloned feet into the mire and pushed; the sword began to move
again.

Fire seared Hamanu's scalp and the length of his back.

Somehow he kept his hands on the hilt and kept the sword creeping deeper.

Hamanu. Look at me, Hamanu.

There was compulsion in the words the War-Bringer placed in Hamanu's mind, compulsion that
made the Lion of Urik raise his head to meet his creator's mismatched eyes.

Take them, Hamanu. Take them all! You have the power.

It was the same power Rajaat had offered in Urik. Hamanu refused it a second time.

"Never!" he swore.

He found a last reserve of strength within himself and, with a roar of his own, surged behind his
sword. Rajaat fell back, toward Dregoth, who swung his maul just once. A sound like the moons
colliding pummeled the white tower. Rajaat heaved away from Dregoth's completed stroke. The mire
quaked, the champions fought for balance, but the War-Bringer was down. Potent sorcery, no longer
under the control of Rajaat's unfathomable intellect, sizzled wildly and died.

"Is he dead?" one of the women asked.

"No," Borys, Hamanu, and Dregoth said together before Dregoth hoisted his maul for another
blow.

The Ravager of Giants smashed Rajaat's protuberant brow, but the answer didn't change.

"He can't die," someone said. "Not while we're alive."

No one argued.

"So, what now?" That from Albeorn, whose metamorphosis had given him an erdlulike aspect. "If
we can't kill him, what do we do?"

"Lock him up someplace. Some place dark and deep," Inenek suggested.

Gallard Gnome-Bane snorted. "Fool. Shadow's the source of the War-Bringer's power,"

"When it gets dark enough, there aren't any shadows. I can think of a few places that never feel
the light of day or any other light," Dregoth said with a malicious laugh.

"Put him there," Gallard countered, "and he'll use the Dark Lens to fry us all."

Borys cleaned his simmering sword and sheathed it in a scabbard that vanished against his leg.
"All right, Gallard, where do you suggest?" He swept his arm wide in an exaggerated bow, but kept his
head up and his eyes fixed on the Gnome-Bane's face.

"At the center of the Gray netherworld lies the Black, and beneath the Black—"

"The Gray isn't flat," Albeorn interrupted. "If there's black at its center, then there's more Gray
beneath it!"

"Shut up, twerp!"

Gallard shot sorcery at his critic. The air around the Elf-Slayer shimmered with ward spells, then
it shimmered around everyone else, as well. For several long moments, no one said anything. At last,
Sielba lowered her guard.

"And beneath the black?" she urged Gallard to finish.

"Beneath the Black, we can make a hollow where neither light nor shadow exist, nor can exist."
Borys had a question: "What about the Dark Lens?"

"Better we cut him apart and each take a piece with us," Wyan of Bodach interjected.

Hamanu stared at the Pixie-Blight. Stripped of illusion— as they all were—Bodach was a
small-statured creature. He'd destroyed the smaller, defenseless race of shy, tree-worshipers not by
slaying them but by turning their god-trees to sorcerous ash. While Hamanu wondered why such I a
coward would suggest carving their still-living creator into bloody chunks of meat, the other champions
bantered about how Rajaat should be divvied up and which part should go to whom.

The lewd conversation ended abruptly when a blue spark flickered amid the gore that had been
Rajaat's face.

"He's healing himself." Borys confirmed what they'd all felt.

There was a round of curses as they each cast a warding spell over their creator.

"It won't be enough," Gallard warned. "Wards won't keep out the sun once it rises. His own
bones will make the shadows. We put him beneath the Black tonight, or we'll join Pennarin tomorrow."

Pennarin. Where was Pennarin? The Black, Gallard said. And how did Gallard come to know so
much about the center of the Gray or what lay beneath it? Who'd taught the Bane of Gnomes? Why had
he needed to learn? Who had he planned to imprison in a nowhere place where neither light nor shadow,
time nor substance existed? Rajaat? Or had Gallard planned to imprison them all there eventually?

So many questions, but no reason to ask any of them. The champions couldn't kill their creator
and couldn't let him heal himself whole. That left Gallard's Hollow beneath the Black. As little as he
relished the notion of trusting Gallard's notion, Hamanu had nothing to offer in its place— nor did anyone
else.

"Is there time?" he asked, breaking the silence that threatened to last until dawn.

Gallard grinned, revealing steel-sharp fangs behind his slack and blubbery lips. "Only one way to
find out, isn't there?"

Indeed, there was only one way: follow the Gnome-Bane's instructions, stretch their powers to
exhaustion scouring the heartland for reagents before dawn's light, and deliver the noxious reagents to the
top of Rajaat's white tower where Gallard—and only Gallard—sat in the Crystal Steeple, waiting,
enshrined beneath the Dark Lens.

After depositing a vial of fuming realgar at the Gnome-Bane's feet, Hamanu plodded down the
spiral stairs. Resuming his human illusion—because it was more comfortable than his gaunt natural
form—he leaned back against a crumbled wall. Champions needed sleep no more than they needed
food, but even an immortal mind needed a quiet moment to reflect, this day and night.

Big Guthay had set. Little Ral was alone in a sky of a thousand stars. None shone brighter than
the warding spells layered over Rajaat's body, like so many green silk veils. Hamanu lost himself in the
spells' constantly changing patterns. His thoughts wandered so far that his mind seemed empty, almost
peaceful. Looking straight ahead, he saw nothing until—with a jolt of returning consciousness—he saw
that a black shadow had cut the warding spells in two.

He's healed. He's breaking the wards, Hamanu thought, a lump of cold terror clogging his throat.

But the shadow wasn't Rajaat's. A man crouched over Rajaat's body, casting the shadow
Hamanu saw. A man who was so intent on peeling back the warding spells that he didn't hear the light
tread of another champion's feet behind him, or sense another shadow mingling with his until it was too
late.

"Arala!" Hamanu shouted as he seized a scrawny neck and jerked the traitor from his mischief.

Objects that might have been the War-Bringer's teeth or finger bones showered from Sacha's
hands—except, the culprit wasn't Sacha Arala. In the brief moment Hamanu had before the illusion
became a writhing metamorph, he recognized Wyan Bodach's face: Wyan Bodach, who'd suggested
chopping Rajaat into pieces earlier.

All arms and legs in his natural form, the Pixie-Blight sprouted claws that raked through illusion to
Hamanu's true flesh. The Lion roared, but held on until another champion came to investigate the furor.
Unable to sort innocent from guilty, the newcomer slapped spells around them both. Hamanu's limbs
grew heavy as a Kreegill peak, and Wyan was even heavier, but he kept hold. Another spell—two,
three, more than he could count—wrapped around them. The arm that had been as heavy as a mountain
was stone-stiff when the spellcasting was finished and Dregoth reached in to pry Bodach free.

"And do you deny it?" Dregoth asked Hamanu.

The heavy paralysis was withdrawn. Hamanu flexed his muscles and said: "I do. Wyan said he
wanted a piece of Rajaat's body earlier. It's his own deceit he describes, not mine. I thought it was Sacha
Arala at first. I cried out his name by mistake."

Vapors seeped from Dregoth's nose as he looked from Hamanu to Wyan and back again.

"And where is Sacha?" Albeorn asked from far on Hamanu's right side.

He and the others had gathered quickly. Some had emerged from the netherworld, the rest
strode out of the nighttime shadows. Sacha Arala wasn't among them, nor was Borys, nor, of course,
was Gallard. Hamanu realized they were all looking at him, distrusting him more than Wyan because he
was still the outsider. He had several long moments to wonder exactly what Borys had told them while
Sielba had entertained him in Yaramuke, before Sielba's husky voice broke the silence.

"Sacha's with Borys, where else? He's got no part in this—whatever this is. And neither has
Hamanu. If the Lion of Urik says Wyan was cutting off bits of Rajaat, then I believe him, and I suggest
we find out why before Borys gets back here."

Sielba was right about Hamanu, though he knew he'd pay dearly for her defense. She might have
been right about Sacha, too. Rajaat's sycophant might have had nothing to do with Wyan's macabre
gleaning. But Wyan swore otherwise.

"It was all Sacha's plan," the Pixie-Blight insisted. "He said Rajaat has no one vital part; he can
regenerate himself entirely if any living part of him is placed in the pool beneath the Dark Lens. He knew
you'd keep close wards on him, so he came to me—"

"—And you went to Rajaat. You made the Gray-storm when we left Yaramuke. You used it to
hide yourself while you raced here and back again. That's why he was waiting for us, why Pennarin was
consumed," Uyness, who'd cleansed Athas of orcs, concluded.

It could be a true explanation. One of them had warned Rajaat—unless Rajaat's sorcery were so
much more subtle than theirs that he'd spied on them in Yaramuke without their knowledge. Unless
Uyness herself was their traitor: whenever one champion explained the behavior of another, she, or he,
became suspect in other eyes. Hamanu had gotten a dose of that himself a few moments back. But if
there'd ever been an enduring partnership among the champions, it was between Uyness and Pennarin,
and they all preferred to think that there was some limit to their creator's power.

Suspicion fixed on Wyan, who threw the real onus on Sacha Arala, who wasn't there to defend
himself. By Hamanu's reckoning, events didn't require Arala's treachery: Wyan could have learned all he
needed from the War-Bringer after he'd raced through the Gray to warn him. But Hamanu kept his
thoughts about traitors to himself, saying nothing when Borys returned with two flawless obsidian spheres
and the enthralled Curse of Kobolds.

Borys had another suspect: "Gallard!" he shouted loud enough to shake the white tower where
the Gnome-Bane prepared the imprisonment spell. "Gallard! Here! Now!"

Gallard grumbled and Gallard resisted. The air between the steeple chamber at the top of the
tower and Borys on the ground beside Rajaat rained sparks as they argued silently, mind against mind.
Then the air stilled and Gallard came outside. He swore he didn't know what Wyan was talking about.

"But, if the coward's telling the truth, then that's all the more reason to get Rajaat locked beneath
the Black."

Borys disagreed. "Not in the tower or the pool. Not near the Dark Lens. Not if it's going to
regenerate him."

The Gnome-Bane said there was no such danger with the spell he intended to cast. Though he'd
use the Dark Lens to intensify his sorcery, Rajaat's body would stay where it was, well away from the
white tower's mysterious black-water pool.
"Stay here and watch," Gallard offered with rare generosity, "or come up to the steeple while I
cast the spell."

"Someone cheated," Inenek protested.

"And someone didn't," Dregoth observed mildly. "I'll stay below with Hamanu. We'll deal with
our traitors once we've dealt with Rajaat."

Borys gave orders as if he'd been ordained their leader, but the Butcher of Dwarves tread
carefully around Dregoth. The Ravager of Giants was unique, even among the champions: when Rajaat
found him, Dregoth was already immortal and already at war with the giant race. In his natural form, he
was, by far, the largest, most powerful champion, the closest to the death-dealing creature the world
called Dragon.

With Dregoth volunteering to change his bead's color, none of the others felt the need to change
theirs.

"We'll know if they try to deceive us," Dregoth said, pointing at the wards over Rajaat's body.

Hamanu, seeing no reason to admit he had no idea what Dregoth was talking about, grunted
noncommittally.

"And it would be a poor time for you to think about deception," Dregoth added.