Part 18 (1/2)

While Hamanu cooled himself and slaked his thirst, the Gnome-Bane told him what had happened in the Gray: who'd attacked whom and with what success. Gallard would have told him more, but Hamanu cut his litany short.

”Your feuds mean nothing to me. Why should I care?”

The Gnome-Bane had a quick, disturbing answer: ”Because between them, Sacha Arala and Wyan have cracked the cyst.”

Hamanu finished pouring a bucket of water over his head then heaved the clay-coated straw bucket across the courtyard. It hit the wall with a satisfying thud and collapsed in a shapeless, useless ma.s.s on the ground.

”Is he free?”

Gallard writhed. ”Not yet. We need you, Hamanu. We need everyone.”

”Shall I get the realgar?” Hamanu headed toward the locked storeroom where he kept his reagents.

”It's too late for that. We've got to hurry.”

Hamanu's peers still hadn't found a way to kill each other, but they were getting closer. Sacha Arala and Wyan were unrecognizable, indistinguishable, as they sagged against what appeared to be ordinary ropes binding them to columns on either side of the white tower's gate. Uyness kept watch over them with Dregoth's stone-headed maul braced across her arms. They'd have been wiser to run-if they'd gotten the chance.

Of far greater concern to Hamanu than the fates of two lesser champions was Gallard's egg-shaped cyst around which the remaining seven champions had gathered. Thick layers of s.h.i.+mmering green warding couldn't hide the damage. While Hamanu watched, finger-length worms of intensely bright sorcery oozed from dark cracks. They wriggled like slugs until the warding destroyed them. With the Dark Lens nearby, the champions could renew the warding continuously. With no more than a thought and a twitch of his thumb, Hamanu added his own spell to the mix. But warding wouldn't hold forever, not against humanity's first sorcerer.

”What about the Hollow beneath the Black?” Hamanu asked.

Borys glowered at Gallard, who shook his head. ”Too dangerous to get close enough to look. But it holds... it must! If the Hollow were cracked, nothing could hold here.”

”So, do we wait until he breaks free, or what?”

”Another rock,” Albeorn advised. ”A bigger rock, around this one.”

Hamanu arched a highly skeptical eyebrow.

”You've got a better idea?” Borys demanded, c.o.c.king his fist for emphasis.

The Lion of Urik was no master of sorcery, at least not then, and having nothing better to offer, he could only go along, providing the strength, both physical and sorcerous, that his elders requested. Working together, the cooperating champions did construct a second cyst around the original one. It seemed that the new prison would hold, but there were dark lines on the mottled surface by sundown and flashes of dark blue light by moonrise.

”He exploits the weaknesses between us,” Sielba said wearily.

Hamanu had come to the same conclusion, but the red-haired champion spoke first.

”We need to make our own Rajaat before we can make Rajaat's prison,” Borys suggested softly.

Hamanu thought the Borys who stood before them, tall, thick-necked, and armored like a troll, was the Butcher of Dwarves in his true, metamorph's shape, but that was illusion, too. As golden light cascaded around him, Borys reformed himself. His head became a fang-filled wedge. His eyes glowed with the sun's b.l.o.o.d.y color. His limbs lengthened and changed proportion. Though he remained upright on two legs, it was clear as his torso grew more ma.s.sive that he'd be more comfortable and more powerful if he balanced his burgeoning weight on his arms as well.

”I offer myself.” Borys shaped his words with sorcery and left them hanging above the insufficient prison. ”Help me finish the metamorphosis, and I will keep Rajaat in the Hollow.”

Dregoth roared, but he wasn't nearly the dragon Borys already was. His outrage was moot and impotent.

”Think of the risks,” Hamanu said, thinking of himself and the metamorphosis that lay before him. He was unaware that he'd spoken aloud.

I have, Borys said in Hamanu's mind alone. Borys said in Hamanu's mind alone. My risks are not so great as yours would be. I will finish the dwarves My risks are not so great as yours would be. I will finish the dwarves-the elves and the giants, too-but humanity has nothing to fear. Athas will be our world, a world of humans and champions where Rajaat has no power, no influence.

”I believed him,” Hamanu said to Windreaver when they had talked and recounted their way through events they both recalled.

Windreaver had been at the white tower the night when Hamanu and the others champions had fledged a dragon, with the Dark Lens's help.

”Champions always lied,” Windreaver countered flatly. ”Then and now.”

In the ancient landscape of his memory, Hamanu recalled Dark Lens sorcery shrouding Borys in a cloud of scintillating mist. The cloud grew and grew until it engulfed the white tower and threatened to engulf the champions as well. Wyan and Sacha had screamed together, then fallen silent. Two small, dark globes had flown out of the mist and vanished in the night. The globes were the traitors' severed heads, still imbued with immortal life, because Borys hadn't had been able to kill them outright when he consumed their bodies. Uyness had cheered, then she, too, had screamed.

Borys couldn't stop with the traitors: he needed every one of them. They'd all underestimated how far Rajaat's metamorphosis would go, how much life the spell would consume before the dragon quickened. In agony and immortal fear, the champions had torn away from the Dark Lens, saving themselves, but leaving a half-born dragon behind.

For a hundred years Borys had ravaged the heartland, finis.h.i.+ng the sorcerous transformation he'd begun beside Rajaat's tower.

”He was not Rajaat.” Hamanu stated, which was half of the truth. ”He wasn't what I would have been.”

”You can't be sure,” Windreaver chided.

”I've looked inside myself. I've seen the Dragon of Urik, old friend. I'm sure. There were no choices, no mistakes.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Sunset in the Kreegills: a fireball impaled on a jagged black peak, the western horizon ablaze with sorcery's lurid colors, and, finally, stars, one by one, crisper and brighter than they were above the dusty plains.

Hamanu held out his hand and gathered a pool of starlight in his palm. He played with the light as a child-or a dancer-might play, weaving luminous silver strands through moving fingers. In his mind, he heard a reed-pipe melody that lulled all his other thoughts, other concerns and memories. Alone and at peace, he forgot who he was, until he heard Windreaver's voice.

”The world stretches far beyond the heartland. There are lush forests beyond the Ringing Mountains and who-knows-what on the far sh.o.r.es of the Silt Sea. Wonders lie just over that horizon,” the ghostly troll said, as if they were two old merchants in search of new markets.

”Leave Urik to its fate? Without me?”

”You chose Urik as your destiny. But you're Hamanu; you are your own destiny. You've always been. You can choose somewhere, something else.”

Hamanu thought of the leonine giant he'd seen guarding the Black and the Hollow beneath it. ”Hamanu is Urik.” He let the starlight dribble off the back of his hand. ”If I went somewhere else, I'd leave too much behind. I'd leave myself behind.”

”What of yourself, Hamanu? Borys is dead. The War-Bringer's prison cannot hold him. If you can believe what he said-if-there's nothing you can do to save Urik. If he's lying-as he usually does-then what do the champions of humanity do next? Whose fear is stronger than his greed? Which one of you will become the next great dragon and burn the heartland for an age? There is no other way.”

”There must be. There will be!” Hamanu's shout echoed off the mountain walls. A cloud of pale steam hovered in the air where his voice had been. ”I will will find a way for Urik to survive in a world without dragons find a way for Urik to survive in a world without dragons and and without Rajaat.” without Rajaat.”

Windreaver merged with the fading mist. ”You won't find it here. The Kreegills have been dead for a thousand years. They have no answers for you, Hamanu. Forget the past. Forget this place. Forget Deche and the Kreegills, your woman and me. Think of the future. Think of another woman, Sadira of Tyr. Rajaat had a hand in making her, true, and he's used her, made a fool of her and you. But she's no champion. Her metamorphosis begins each day at dawn and unravels at sundown. She's not immortal. She's not bound to the Dark Lens. She's not like you, Hamanu, not at all, but her spells hold; by day, they hold. Find a way to make them hold at night, and maybe you'll have an Athas without either dragons or the War-Bringer.”

”Sadira's a fool.” He saw her clearly in his mind's eye: tall, as half-elves were tall, doubly exotic with sun sorcery shadowing her skin.

Sadira of Tyr was a beautiful woman, though the Lion-King was ages past the time when aesthetics influenced his judgment, and he'd shed Rajaat's prejudices against humanity's cousins long before that. Elves, dwarves, even trolls and races Rajaat had never imagined, they were all human under their skin. There were no misfits, no outcasts, no malformed spirits made manifest in flesh; there was only humanity, individual humans in their infinite variety. He He was human, and he would not despise himself. That was Rajaat's flaw-one of many. Rajaat despised himself, and from that self-hatred he conceived the Cleansing Wars and champions. was human, and he would not despise himself. That was Rajaat's flaw-one of many. Rajaat despised himself, and from that self-hatred he conceived the Cleansing Wars and champions.

Rajaat's madness had nothing to do with Hamanu's opinion of Sadira. ”She's a dangerous fool.” Or her council-ruled city. ”They're all fools.”

”So were you, once. She'll never learn otherwise with fools for teachers, will she? You've got three days, Hamanu. That's a lot, if you use it properly.”

Windreaver was gone before Hamanu concocted a suitable reply. He could have called the troll back. Windreaver came and went on the Lion-King's sufferance; his freedom was as illusory as Hamanu's tawny, black-haired humanity. When his master wanted him, his slave came from whatever place he was, however far away.