The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 5)

Hamanu silently bemoaned the frustrations of tempting an honest man. "You might be waiting a while, Pavek. You might grow bored. You might read the vellum, if you do grow bored."

"I will remember that, O Mighty King."

Like as not, Pavek would never succumb, and Hamanu would have to order the man to read what he'd written, as he had before. "Go," he said wearily. "Wait, grow bored, and remember whatever you wish."

"Your will, O Mighty King." Pavek bowed awkwardly— he'd never have the grace of a properly obsequious courtier—and retreated toward the door.

Hamanu had slit the air before him in preparation to entering the Gray when the mortal man stopped suddenly and turned around. Misty tendrils of the netherworld wafted between them. Pavek affected not to notice, but the man was a druid—however rudimentary his training, he had the raw talent to see the mist and know what it was.

"Yes, Pavek?"

The scarred templar blinked and shuddered. He'd almost forgotten why he'd stopped. Then the thought reformed in his mind. "O Mighty King, the iron-bound chest that I'm supposed to watch. What am I watching for? What should I do if... if something happens to it?"

"Nothing, Pavek, nothing at all. If anything happens, you'll simply die."

Hamanu didn't wait for Pavek's reaction. He thrust one arm, then one leg, into the netherworld and strode from the throne chamber to the map room where his war staff had assembled. The Lion-King didn't stand on ceremony with these men and women.

"We fight for Urik's very life," he told them as he sealed the netherworld rift. "Armies from Nibenay and Gulg pin our flanks while Dregoth sends undead hordes our way from Giustenal. Raam sends messengers, Balic, too, and it's safe to wager they'll be marching before long. It's only a matter of time before we hear from what's left of Draj."

There was a collective intake of breath, a muttered curse or two, and a question: "What of Tyr?"

That Hamanu couldn't answer. The free folk of Tyr, having slain their king, a dragon, and returned the War-Bringer to his prison, had become a realm unto themselves, obsessed with laws and councils and taking little interest in the heartland beyond their borders.

They didn't ask their king what he'd done to incur the wrath of his peers. For the most part, that question didn't occur to them: But other questions did: practical questions about another levy and overextended lines of supply, a shortage of weapons in the city's armory, and the havoc that floods were wreaking on Urik's normally reliable roads. Hamanu listened more than he answered. He'd been Urik's supreme commander for thirteen ages, but, together, the mortal minds he'd assembled had more experience. Individually they offered insights and perspectives he might have overlooked.

The Lion-King's armies were unbeaten because the Lion-King was not too proud to take his advisers' advice.

Evaporating puddles from the Tyr-storm made for a sultry, sticky afternoon. Men, women, and Hamanu himself shed their ceremonial garments—or the illusion of them— and, clad in plain linen, thrashed out a battle plan. Night had fallen when Hamanu gave his approval to the best notions that mortal and immortal minds could devise, never hinting that it wouldn't be enough if he were right about the enemy they faced.

Enemy or enemies.

Try as he might in odd moments in the map room, or afterward, alone on his storm-tossed rooftop, Hamanu could not wrestle the day's events into a single pattern. Rajaat's champions had weaknesses deriving from their own human natures and the spells that created them. They'd contrived to keep their weaknesses secret, but after ages of spies and spells, Hamanu could scarcely believe that he'd been any more successful keeping his secrets from his peers than they had been keeping theirs from him. He'd had Windreaver, of course, but he didn't know that he was the only champion whose victory was one ghost shy of complete. And Gallard had talked to Borys, who'd known why the Lion of Urik would never become the Dragon of Urik.

Unless Rajaat were still behind it all. If Rajaat had cast the spells that brought Uyness's voice to the Lion-King's throne...? But, no, Hamanu hadn't recognized the personality behind the spell, and whatever enmity the surviving champion peers had toward one another, it wouldn't dull their wits where the War-Bringer might be involved.

Or had Rajaat found a way to conceal his sorcerous essence?

Hamanu found no answers on the rooftop above his moonlit city. The sounds of rescue and repair, of mortal life determined to continue, no matter the price, rasped his nerves. He slashed the air and returned to his workroom, where the city's noise was masked by walls and Pavek was enthralled by the unfinished story written on the vellum sheets.

The Lion-King's sandals and jewelry were illusion. They made no sound as he approached the lamplit worktable.

"Were you bored—?"

Pavek shot out of his seat before Hamanu finished his question. The chair toppled behind him and the table in front of him. Loose vellum, the ink stone, the stylus and— not to forget—the leather-wrapped shard went flying. The air snapped as Hamanu, moving faster than sight or sound, caught the leather a handspan above the floor. For a moment, they both stared at the innocent-seeming parcel, then at each other; then Pavek, who'd barely caught his balance after his leap, dropped hard on his knees.

"I am an oaf, O Mighty King," Pavek insisted breathlessly, though his agitated thoughts implied that the Lion of Urik might have given a poor man a bit of warning.

"And I might have warned you, mightn't I?"

Wisely, Pavek said nothing. Hamanu righted the table, returned the shard to its top, and collected a handful of vellum sheets.

"You were reading. What do you think?" A veritable storm of thoughts stewed in Pavek's mind, but they were all half-formed and elusive. As impatient as any fountain-side poet reciting for his supper, Hamanu had to wait for the man's spoken words.

"That's all? No greater understanding of me, of the choices I made and make? It is not the version you were taught in the orphanage," Hamanu said with certainty. That version—the Lion-King's official history—was a god's tale, full of miracles, revelations, and infallibility, nothing like the human frailties the vellum revealed.

It was embarrassing to beg a mortal's opinion. It was degrading. Worse, it stirred the dark fire of Hamanu's anger. "Speak, Pavek! Look at me! Ask a question, any question at all. Don't just kneel there like a poleaxed inix. I've told you secrets I've kept for ages. Don't you want to know why?"

"O Mighty King, forgive me, but I couldn't hope to understand. I have so many questions, I wouldn't know where to begin—"