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

"You'd figured out where you were and what was about to happen. You'd decided to get yourself killed, no doubt," Windreaver suggested.

"I recognized the place, yes: the plains, the mustered army, the trolls staked out on either side of me. Seeing him, though... seeing what he was, the Troll-Scorcher who'd let Deche and a hundred other human villages die, I wasn't thinking of death, only of my hatred. You cannot imagine my hatred when I looked at him."

"Oh, I can, O Mighty Master, each time I look at you."

Once again Hamanu locked eyes with the ghost. Windreaver's hate was his most tangible aspect, yet it paled beside the memory of Myron of Yoram.

"He was a failure, a coward who could not face his enemies. He was a glutton for pain and suffering—when he had nothing at risk—"

Windreaver's silver-edged shadow bent low across the table. "When were you ever at risk, Hamanu?" the troll demanded, his voice a cold, bitter whisper. "When did you ever fight a fair battle to an honorable end?"

"I fought to end the war," Hamanu snarled back, though there was no need to defend himself to a defeated adversary and a thoroughly cowed mortal man. "Peace was my honor—"

And the risk? What had he risked after he faced Myron of Yoram?

"I told the truth. I exposed the Troll-Scorcher to the veterans of his army. I accused him of human deaths, countless deaths, pointless deaths. For Dorean and Deche and all the others whose voices were stilled, I raised mine for judgment. I named him Betrayer and Deceiver. I cried out for vengeance—and he struck me with the eyes of fire.

"My blood grew hot in my veins. It simmered. It boiled in my heart. I opened my mouth to scream; my tongue—"

There were no more words in the workroom, just as there had been no more words that hot High Sun afternoon on the plains. Writhing under the assault of the Troll-Scorcher's fiery sorcery, Hamanu's mouth had filled with a tongue of flame, not flesh. The last sounds he heard were his own ears crackling, like fat in the fire. Myron of Yoram's corpulence grew vast before his heat-swollen eyes burst. Mortal Hamanu died in a black inferno of heat, silence, and torment that neither words nor memory encompassed.

The ropes that bound him to the mekillot stake had burnt through. He'd fallen slowly toward the ground, toward death, but Hamanu hadn't died. Myron of Yoram had seized the filaments of his existence and hauled him away from eternity's threshold to agonies redoubled.

"I would not die," the Lion-King whispered. "Death ceased to have meaning. Life ceased. Pain ceased."

Hamanu blinked and shuddered free of the memory, as free as he ever was. Windreaver and Pavek were staring at him, at his hand. He looked down. Thick, greasy smoke seeped from the depth of his clenched fist. The stench of charred flesh belonged to the present as well as the past, to reality and illusion. With unfamiliar effort, Hamanu found the muscles of his fingers and straightened them.

A pool of molten bronze shone brightly in the palm of Hamanu's hand. He felt nothing—nothing new, nothing different, but the long-suffering human core of him shuddered, and the liquid metal dribbled onto the table. While the more benign aromas of burning wood and tempered metal cleansed the workroom air, Hamanu stared at the new crater in his already black and ruined flesh.

There were other sounds around him, other movements. He ignored them until Pavek—mortal Pavek, who did not understand—stood before him with a length of cloth torn from the treasures of ancient Yaramuke in one hand and the critic-lizard's honey pot in the other.

Windreaver stirred, casting his shadow between them. "You waste your time, manikin. The Troll-Scorcher neither feels nor heals."

Pavek said nothing, and his thoughts were tightly shuttered in his druid-templar way. He poured the honey over Hamanu's wound—an old soldier's remedy, Javed would approve, Telhami, too—then wrapped the cloth around it, hiding it from sight. Hamanu closed his eyes and reveled in a newfound pain.

Chapter Ten

Hamanu banished his companions from the workroom. He'd lived too long outside the bounds of compassion to be comfortable within its embrace. Not that Windreaver had suddenly mellowed; the shadowy troll departed in a gust of bitter laughter. Hamanu didn't know where his ancient enemy had gone—to Ur Draxa, perhaps, where he should have been all along, spying on Rajaat.

In truth, Hamanu didn't care where Windreaver was. It was Pavek who weighed heavily in his thoughts, and Pavek who ignored his command. The stubborn, insignificant mortal stopped one stride short of the doorway.

"Your hand—" he said, defiance and fear entwined in his voice. Then he held out the honey jar.

"I am the almighty, immortal Lion-King of Urik, or weren't you paying attention?" Hamanu snarled. "My flesh doesn't heal, but it won't putrefy. I require neither your service nor your concern."

Pavek stayed where he was, not talking, not thinking—at least not thinking thoughts that could be skimmed from his mind. Twisting human lips into a scowl, Hamanu shaped and shifted his illusionary body. He intended to snatch the jar from the templar's hand faster than Pavek's mortal eyes could perceive. But Hamanu had a real injury: his reflexes, both illusory and real, were impaired. His fingers slid past the jar. The improvised bandage snagged the rough-glazed pottery and tugged the raw edges of his wound as well.

The Lion-King flinched, the jar shattered on the floor, and Pavek blinked—simply blinked.

Hamanu cradled his hand—the real hand within the illusion—trying to remember the last time he'd misjudged the balance between reality and his own illusions. Before the templar was born, before his grandparents had been born.

"You cannot take my measure, Pavek. A mortal cannot imagine me or judge me." There was more edge to his words than he'd intended, but that was just as well, if it would get the templar moving.

Pavek folded his arms across his chest. "You were mortal when you measured Myron of Yoram and Rajaat. You didn't hesitate to judge them," he said, omitting the Lion-King's titles and honors, as if he and Hamanu were equals.

But he wasn't surprised when the templar disobeyed; he would have been disappointed otherwise. Pavek didn't share Hamanu's hot temper, but the mortal man had a quiet stubbornness that served the same purpose. An ill-omened purpose for any mortal when a champion's mood was more bleak than it had been in an age.

"Go, Pavek, before my patience is exhausted. I do not choose to be lessoned tonight, not by you, Windreaver, or anyone."