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

Zvain was another mortal who'd been scarred by Escrissar and by Telhami, too. He was an orphan through no fault of his own and a survivor because when he'd needed a hand, the hand he'd seized was Pavek's.

It was almost enough to make one of Rajaat's champions believe in justice and higher powers.

But for every Zvain who triumphed over his destiny, there were ten copper-hued Ruaris hovering behind him. The youthful half-elf of Pavek's dream was handsome, proud... brittle, and oh-so-appetizing

to a jaded king who craved the passions of his subjects. Just as well that Pavek had left his unforgettably vulnerable friend behind in Quraite. Even in another man's dream, Ruari's dark needs cried out, and copper eyes flashed green as the distant spirit responded to a champion's hunger-Then vanished with a yawn as Pavek levered himself up on his elbows.

"Great One!" the bleary-eyed templar muttered. Confusion reigned in his thoughts. He didn't know if he should stand and bow or remain where he was with his face pressed against the dirt.

"I disturbed your dreams," Hamanu admitted.

Pavek's eyes widened; he made his decision. His head dropped like a stone, and he prostrated himself in the dirt.

Which was a lie; honest men told lies to protect the truth.

Pavek didn't want to remember his dream, but Ruari's face floated on the surface of his thoughts and would not sink— could not sink—until Hamanu released it, whereupon the burly human shivered despite the oppressive heat.

"When I asked you to set my garden in order," Hamanu began mildly, "I expected you to demonstrate your mastery of druid spellcraft. I didn't expect you to work yourself to exhaustion digging in the dirt with hand tools."

Hamanu told a lie of his own to balance Pavek's. He knew there was no magic save his own in Urik's palace and that his magic had doomed this cloister. He'd hoped, of course, tha

t Pavek might waken his guardian to infuse this barren soil with new vigor, but, in truth, Hamanu would have been disappointed if Pavek had obeyed him with any force more potent than sweat or brawn.

"If you wanted an overnight forest, Great One, you should have summoned someone else." As always, Pavek's stubborn honesty won out over the combined might of his fear and good sense.

"Another druid?" Hamanu asked; teasing mortals—tormenting them—was low treatment of those with no means to oppose him, but it did stave off his more dire cravings. "Your friends, perhaps? Ruari? That blond woman who means so much to you—as you mean so little to her? Tell me her name, Pavek; I've forgotten."

"Akashia, Great One," Pavek admitted softly; a templar could not disobey his king's direct command. The man's shoulders shook as he pushed himself to his knees. "She'd sooner die than serve you, Great One, but even if you compelled her to come, she could do no more than what I've done. Nothing will grow here. The soil has been scorched."

And what, a champion might ask, had brought that particular word to Pavek's mind? "Do I compel you, Pavek?" Hamanu asked instead, less benignly than before.

"I don't know, Great One. To hear your voice, Great One——To feel you in my mind—" His chin sagged again.

"Do you feel compelled? Did you feel compelled when Enver brought you a plain ink message written on plainer vellum?"

"You know where Quraite is, Great One. They have no protection from your wrath, should you choose to punish them. How could I refuse?"

Pavek spoke to the dirt. His eyes were closed. He expected to die in a thousand horrible ways, but nothing would keep him from telling the truth as he understood it. And yet, irony of ironies, of all those living under Athas's bloody sun, Pavek was among the very few who had nothing to fear from the Lion-King. He didn't need to fear for his precious Quraite; Telhami had secured the enclave's perpetual security long before Pavek's grandparents were born.

"I grant you the right to refuse to serve me, Pavek. Even now, I grant you that. Walk through that door. Leave, and know in your heart that I will never follow you. The decision is yours," Hamanu said, and within his illusion of human flesh and saffron-dyed linen, what remained of his own mortal heart beat faster.

Hamanu inhaled his Unseen influence: his power to bend a man's thoughts according to his own desire. The world grew quiet and dulled as his senses shrank to mortal dimensions. He truly didn't know what Pavek would choose to do. When Telhami left, he'd had the fortitude to keep his word; others hadn't been so lucky. Hamanu didn't know what he would do after Pavek made his choice. The stakes were high, but even after thirteen ages of dominion over his city, the thought that one puny mortal might deny him was acid goad between his ribs.

Pavek grasped a shovel's handle and used it to rise. "I've been a templar too long," he said as he thrust the shovel into the ground. Leaving it upright in the dirt, Pavek touched a golden chain barely visible beneath his shirt's neck. "Tell me to come, and I'll come. Tell me to leave, and I'll go. Ask me to choose, and I'll stay where I am because I am what I am."

Hamanu exhaled and resumed command of the world around him. Through the golden medallion hung on the golden chain Pavek wound between his fingers, Hamanu felt his templar's heart, the vibrations of his thoughts. Honesty had again prevailed.

His eyes met Pavek's. Despite the fear, distrust, and habit that permeated the templar's being, he didn't flinch. Perhaps that was all a champion could hope for: a man who could return his stare.

A stare would have to be sufficient for the moment. Pavek wasn't the only templar with a hold over Hamanu's attention. Someone else had wrapped a hand around a medallion. With lightning quickness, Hamaau identified the medallion's steel and gemstones and the confident hand that held it.

Commandant Javed.

A spark of recognition flowed through the netherworld to the war-bureau templar. When it bridged the gap to Javed's medallion, the two were joined in Hamanu's thoughts. He'd sent Windreaver off in search of the Shadow-King—the disembodied troll would learn things no mortal could—but he'd sent his own champion to spy on the Shadow-King's army. He wasn't surprised that the commandant was returning to Urik first.

Recount! he demanded, because it was easier to listen than to rummage blindly through chaotic thoughts. Where is this host that the Shadow-King marches across our purview?

Gone to shadows, like their king, Great One, as soon as they saw our dust on the horizon, Javed recounted. The women and their mercenaries fled rather than face us.