Part 19 (2/2)

”I have made a mistake. I took a friend's-” He stopped short: friends, friends, that was the greatest mistake of all. Rajaat's champions weren't friends, not toward themselves or anyone, and they didn't attract the friends.h.i.+p of others. ”Your spells are failing, dear lady. Rajaat's essence is loose in the world. He says that Nibenay and Gulg and Giustenal dance to his tune. He says they'll destroy the world we know in three days' time. He lies, dear lady. The War-Bringer lies. I'll repair your spells, or replace them. I'll set them right, as they must be set right. You needn't fear-” that was the greatest mistake of all. Rajaat's champions weren't friends, not toward themselves or anyone, and they didn't attract the friends.h.i.+p of others. ”Your spells are failing, dear lady. Rajaat's essence is loose in the world. He says that Nibenay and Gulg and Giustenal dance to his tune. He says they'll destroy the world we know in three days' time. He lies, dear lady. The War-Bringer lies. I'll repair your spells, or replace them. I'll set them right, as they must be set right. You needn't fear-”

”Need not fear what?” what?” she demanded. ”You'll set she demanded. ”You'll set my my spells right? You can't make anything spells right? You can't make anything right-” right-”

”Woman!” Hamanu shouted. ”Curb your tongue, if you value your life!”

Sadira wasn't interested in his warnings. ”I've seen how you set everything right for Dorean!”

Hamanu didn't need mind-bending to sense the invective brewing on the back of her tongue. Sadira had a champion's knack for cruelty. He'd given her the measure of his weakness, and she would grind salt in the wound until it killed her-and who knew how many others? Hamanu heard gongs clanging everywhere and pounding footfalls racing closer. Between screams and shouts, half the estate knew the sorceress was locked in a dangerous argument.

The human glamour faded from Hamanu's hand. Black talons absorbed the sunlight as he raised them between himself and Sadira's face. A threatening gesture, for certain-but threat and gesture only: he intended to slash an opening into the netherworld and leave this place before he had even more to regret.

Sadira responded with a head-down lunge at his midsection. Regardless of illusion, the Lion-King carried the weight and strength of his true, metamorphic self. Sadira's attack accomplished nothing-except to increase his anger and confusion. He backhanded her, mildly by a champion's standards, but hard enough to fling her across the room. She hit the doorjamb headfirst, loosening plaster from the walls and ceiling. Her head lolled forward.

Stunned, Hamanu told himself, as he strained his ears, listening for the sound of her heart. Her heart skipped, and her breathing was shallow. A single stride, and he was on one knee beside her. Illusion was restored as he pressed human fingertips against her neck. He found her pulse and steadied it.

”Get away from her!”

With his concentration narrowed, Hamanu hadn't sensed anyone in the doorway until he heard a young man's voice, which he ignored. He hadn't come to the Asticles estate to kill anyone; he wasn't leaving until Sadira was on her feet and cursing him again.

”I said: Get away from her!”

Hamanu felt the air move as a fist was c.o.c.ked. The blow struck his temple, doing no more damage than Sadira's whole body lunge had done. He raised his head and saw a human-dwarf mul in the doorway.

”I know you,” he muttered.

The Lion-King wasn't good when it came to putting children together with their proper ident.i.ties, and the mul, c.o.c.king his fist for another try, was still several years short of maturity. Children were changeable, both in their bodies and their thoughts, but there were only two muls Hamanu a.s.sociated with Sadira. One was Rikus, who was old enough to know better when he'd led a cohort of Tyrian gladiators in a foolish a.s.sault against Urik over ten years ago. The other had been a half-grown boy when he wielded the sun spell that had separated Rajaat's essence from the substance of his shadow.

”Rkard,” Hamanu said, flus.h.i.+ng the name of Borys's ancient enemy out of his memory. ”Rkard, go away. There's nothing for you to do here.”

The youth blinked and lowered his fist. Confusion wrinkled his handsome face. It seemed, for a moment, that he'd simply do as he'd been told. But that moment pa.s.sed, and he laid his hand rudely on Hamanu's shoulder.

”Stand aside. I don't know who you are, or why you've come, but I'll I'll take care of Sadira, and if I find that you've harmed her...” The youth's eyes reddened as he evoked the b.l.o.o.d.y sun's power. take care of Sadira, and if I find that you've harmed her...” The youth's eyes reddened as he evoked the b.l.o.o.d.y sun's power.

Hamanu lowered the sorceress gently to the floor. She, Rikus, and the rest of the Tyrian hotheads had raised the young man staring intently at him. He had a fair idea what was going to happen once Rkard recognized him.

”Rkard, don't don't do it.” do it.”

The warning came too late. Three separate streams of fire, one orange, one gold, and the third the same color as the sun, grew out of the young mul's sun-scarred hands. As Rkard cried out-sun magic exacted a fearsome price on its initiates-the fire-streams braided together and bridged the gap between them.

Hamanu cried out as well. The sun's power was real. His flesh burned within his illusion, but it could burn for a long time before he'd be seriously injured. Hamanu could have brushed the sun-spell aside but, almost certainly, it would have gone to ground in Sadira's defenseless flesh.

He tried to reason with the mul and got no further than his name, ”Rkard-”

Rkard howled again as he evoked greater power from his element. The braided flames became brighter, hotter. Hamanu's illusion wavered in the heat; he ceased to resemble a human man. He retreated toward the open window. The mul followed, a smile-a foolish, ignorant smile-twisting his lips.

”Let it go, Rkard, before someone gets hurt.”

The mul couldn't talk while he cast his sun-spell. He let his hands speak for him, clenching his fists until the tricolored flame was a white-hot spear impaling a tawny-skinned human man against a wall.

Hamanu closed his eyes. A thousand years evaporated in the heat. In his mind, he was a man again, with his back to a mekillot rib as Myron Troll-Scorcher a.s.sailed him with the eyes of fire, only now he could fight back. The sun behind him and the shadow at his feet were both his to command. All he had to do was open his eyes and his tormentor would be ash.

Hamanu did open his eyes but, rather than quicken any of the myriad destructive sorceries lurking in his memory, he thrust his hand into Rkard's incendiary sun-spell, then closed his fingers around it. The white fire consumed his illusion. To keep his fist where it needed to remain, Hamanu folded his spindly, metamorph's legs beneath him. He hunched his shoulders and crooked his neck. All the while, the b.l.o.o.d.y sun's might was held captive in the Lion-King's fist.

Hamanu squeezed tighter. He transcended pain and found triumph where he least expected it.

The spells of sorcery, the formulas of the magic that Rajaat had discovered, mastered, and bequeathed to Athas before he decided to cleanse it, had to be quickened before they could be cast. Something had to be sacrificed before sorcery kept its promise. The dilemma facing any sorcerer, from the most self-righteous member of the Veiled Alliance to Rajaat's last champion, was-at its simplest-what to destroy?

Preservers strove to limit the sacrifice by extracting a few motes of life's essence from many sources, destroying none of them; defilers didn't care. Those who could used obsidian to quicken their spells with the essences of animals as well as plants. Champions could h.o.a.rd the life essence of the dead. A few-Hamanu, Sadira, and Rajaat's shadow-minions-quickened spells by transforming sunlight, the ultimate essence of all life, into shadow.

The Dark Lens intensified a spell after it was cast, but no sorcerer-including Hamanu and Sadira-could use the Dark Lens as Rkard had used it against Rajaat: focusing the b.l.o.o.d.y sun's light first inside the Lens, then letting it out again, letting it consume the War-Bringer's shadow. And not even Rkard could duplicate that uncanny feat: Sadira had buried the Lens and Rajaat had almost certainly found a better hiding place for his own life essence than his shadow.

But when he seized the white-hot stream and contained Rkard's sun-spell within his fist, Hamanu found that the young mul was a living lens who concentrated the sun's quickening energy before before a spell was cast. With Rkard beside him, Hamanu could seal Rajaat's bones and the Dark Lens in a cyst the size of a mountain. He could counter anything his fellow champions threw at Urik, be it spells or armies of the living or the undead. And, for the first time in a thousand years, Hamanu thought it might be possible to thwart a champion's metamorphosis. a spell was cast. With Rkard beside him, Hamanu could seal Rajaat's bones and the Dark Lens in a cyst the size of a mountain. He could counter anything his fellow champions threw at Urik, be it spells or armies of the living or the undead. And, for the first time in a thousand years, Hamanu thought it might be possible to thwart a champion's metamorphosis.

Before any of that, Hamanu had to break free of Rkard's sun-spell, no simple task as the youth had opened himself fully to the sun's might and was unwilling-or, perhaps, unable-to halt the power flowing through him. Red-eyed and blazing, Rkard was slowly immolating himself.

Hamanu appealed to the mul with thought and words.

”The sun is stronger than both of us, Rkard. Together, we can forge spells that mill imprison Rajaat forever, but only if you relent now. Persist, and the sun will destroy you long before it destroys me. Save yourself, Rkard-”

”Never! Betrayer! Deceiver! You die first, or we die together and forever.”

Hamanu remembered himself on the dusty plain, a young man consumed by hate and purpose. He opened his fist. The sun-spell engulfed his arm; the obscene bliss of the eyes of fire threatened to overwhelm him. He remade his fist; the threat receded but didn't disappear.

Sunlight, Hamanu thought. Blocking the sun and casting his own shadow over Rkard might break the spell. He straightened his legs, bursting the room's walls and ceiling.

Somewhere outside the white fire, a woman screamed.

Still catching the sun-spell in his fist, Hamanu edged sideways. Rkard collapsed when the fringe of the champion's shadow touched him. The white fire darkened to pale yellow; tiny flames danced on the youth's arms. While Hamanu hesitated, Rkard wrenched free of shadow. The sun-spell whitened. The youth would not relent-no more than Manu would have relented a thousand years ago.

Hamanu's short-lived dreams crumbled: the chance of finding another young mul already hardened to the b.l.o.o.d.y sun's merciless might-of finding one in time-was incalculably remote. He prepared to take the larger step that would center his black shadow over Rkard and his spell.

The woman screamed again, this time the mul's name, ”Rkard!”

A red-haired streak shot through Hamanu's shadow. It wrapped itself around the enthralled youth and heaved him sideways. The spell broke free, a diminutive sun hovering an arm's length above the mosaic. In a heartbeat, it had begun to strengthen. In another, Hamanu had thrown himself on top of it. The ground shuddered. For an instant, Hamanu was freed from his black-boned body. Then the instant was gone, and he was himself again, reforming the flawless illusion of a tawny-skinned man.

Sadira cradled the mul's head and shoulders in her lap. He was exhausted, unable to speak or move, but otherwise unmarked, unhurt. Hamanu's spirits soared.

”It could be done! We could do it. We could go to Ur Draxa and repair your ward-spells. We could save Urik. Together nothing could stand against-”

The sorceress's eyes narrowed. She wrapped her arms protectively over Rkard. ”Stand with you?” Her expression said the rest: I'll kill him myself before I let that happen.

Hamanu tried to explain what had happened when Rkard's sun-spell struck him. Sadira listened; he perceived the spirals of her thoughts as she considered everything he said, but none of her conclusions included helping a champion save his city.

”I took the sun-spell inside, into my heart and spirit. Your shadow-sorcery doesn't go that deep,” he warned. ”You'd be consumed.”

”So you say, but I don't believe you. Dragons lie, and you're a dragon. You'd deceive us and betray us. While even one of your kind exists, Athas can never be free.”

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