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

The Lion's reputation spread far beyond the Kreegill Mountains. Human refugees from deep in the heartland, where other champions had fought other cleansing wars, came to him with complaints of brigands and warlords who'd never fought a troll or worn his ceramic medallion. At first, he refused to help, but there were more refugees than the Kreegill plains could support. So, he walked westward, chasing rumors and warlords across the Yaramuke barrens until he came to a pair of sleepy towns named Urik and Codesh, where rival warlords fought for control of the trade-road between Tyr and Giustenal.

A delegation from Urik met Hamanu while he and his followers were still a good day's journey from the paired towns. There were nobles and farmers among the Urikites, freemen and -women from every walk of life—even a few individuals whose odd-featured appearance bespoke a mixture of human and elven blood, the first half-breeds Hamanu had ever seen.

Prejudice older than his champion's curse reared up within Hamanu. He thought he knew what he'd do before a single word was spoken; raze Urik for its impurity and let that town's fate bring Codesh into line. But he went through the motions of listening—a god, he thought, should appear, at least, to listen. His arm—the arm where he'd secreted the pebble that held Windreaver's silent spirit— ached the entire time he listened to the Urikite's carefully reasoned plea not only for his help in ridding their town of the warlord, but a proposal that he make Urik his home forever.

"Tyr and Giustenal are cities," Hamanu had countered, ignoring the rest. They tempted him, these proud, pragmatic people who thought nothing of the differences between the work men did—indeed between the very races of men—and everything of their common safety. "What can Urik offer me, that I should become its god?"

They told him how Urik occupied the high ground. It dominated the surrounding land and was easily defended because it had access to an inexhaustible water supply that could sustain a population many times the town's then-current size.

Resting a moment beside a moss-covered statue of a dragon, Hamanu recalled the earnest Urikite faces. What they hadn't told him that day was that their rival, Codesh, tapped the same vast underground lake and that Codesh kept a stranglehold on the only route wide enough for a two-wheeled cart between their natural citadel and the Giustenal-Tyr trade road. Hamanu had gleaned those tidbits from their stray thoughts.

In the few short years since he'd stopped waging war on the trolls, Rajaat's last champion had become expert at gleaning thoughts from other humans' consciences. He'd been quite surprised, and very pleased, to discover that elven blood didn't hinder his gleaning ability at all.

Still, he'd accepted the Urikite proposal, at least as far as cleaning out their warlord's nest before he dealt with Codesh. That was easier promised than accomplished. The warlords knew the Lion's reputation, and made common cause against him from Codesh, sending a united plea to the court of the Tyrian Tyrant, Kalak.

Kalak was no champion, not then, not ever. He'd never stood in the Crystal Steeple atop Rajaat's white tower. He was a powerful, unscrupulous sorcerer who ravaged the land, sucking life for his spells, leaving it sterile for a generation afterward. For the first time since he'd become a champion, Hamanu found himself in an even fight.

After that, there was no going back to the Kreegills. By the time Kalak's dust headed back to Tyr, it no longer mattered whether the Urikites had invited him to rule their town. What the Lion fought for, the Lion kept. Knowing that he could glean their least thoughts, Hamanu had offered medallions to those who'd serve him—veterans, brigands, and Urikites, alike. There'd be no betrayals in his Urik; there'd be peace—his peace—and prosperity.

Hamanu had found his home. He crowned himself king. The sterile, ashen fields that Kalak had defiled were scraped and cleared. Fresh, fertile soil was carted in from the distant Kreegills. The farmer's son never farmed the land again." Ruling Urik satisfied his farmer's urges.

There was no room for sentiment in a farmer's heart, or in a king's. Urik was like a field; it needed clearing, fertilizing, plowing—and a time to lie fallow, a balance of laws and taxes and judicious neglect—to be truly productive. The Urikites were like flocks. They needed to be fed, sheltered, and above all else, culled, lest undesirable traits become entrenched. He circulated his minions among them, watching his fields with his own eyes, culling his flock with his own hands. Like both fields and flocks, Urik and its citizens had to be protected against predators who appeared in the heartland as more of Rajaat's champions emerged victorious from the Cleansing Wars.

It wasn't threats from Tyr or Giustenal, Nibenay, Gulg, or Raam, however, that drove Hamanu to build Urik's walls or ensconce himself in a mud-brick palace. People simply kept coining to his city on the hill. Humans, of course, though Hamanu didn't ask questions of the immigrants, so long as they didn't look too much like elves or dwarves—the only uncleansed races left. His dusty, sleepy town grew into a sprawling, complicated city that, of itself, attracted more folk, mostly honest folk, but a few would-be warlords, brigands, and tyrants among them. Hamanu let them all in, and weeded the worst out after they'd begun to sprout. When his city became too big for him to do everything, he turned to the men and women who already wore his medallions around their necks. After that, it was only a few short steps to the templarate, with its three bureaus and distinctive yellow robes. After the templarate, the walls and the palace grew almost by themselves.

When Borys recovered his sanity, he founded Ur Draxa to house Rajaat's prison and to keep the rest of Athas— especially his fellow champions—at bay. Borys's plans had worked for thirteen ages—an eternity, perhaps, in the minds of mortal men— but not nearly long enough from Hamanu's perspective.

He put his head down and slogged the rest of the way through the deserted outer city in thoughtless silence. The sludge thinned. When Hamanu reached the spell-blasted walls that had separated Borys's palace from the city, he was on the verge of Tithian's ceaseless storm. As Windreaver had promised, icy winds alternated with gouts of sulphurous steam. The ground was slick and treacherous, and nothing grew.

Hunkering down in such shelter as he could find, Hamanu removed the pearls from the amulet case. He held them above his head, letting the heat of his hand melt them into a translucent jelly that flowed down his arm and over his body. Not quite invisible, but no longer a perfect imitation of his loyal high templar, Hamanu had, he hoped, made himself as inconspicuous and unremarkable as the critic lizard that had sacrificed its life for this moment.

He found and followed the path that would take him to the heart of Ur Draxa and the lava lake. The warm mist grew redder with each step Hamanu took. It was tempting to blame the changes on the War-Bringer, but the cause was far simpler: daytime was drawing to an end.

Hamanu cursed. He muttered over his poor luck. He'd lost more time in the Gray than he'd imagined. Night would be as dark and thick as pitch. If he wanted to see the lava lake with his own eyes, he'd have to crawl to its shore on his hands and knees. He'd be so close to Rajaat's bones that he doubted anything would hide him. Going on under such circumstances was the sort of folly that got mortals killed. Immortal Hamanu kept going, step by step.

He'd taken about a hundred cautious strides, deafened by Tithian's thunder but cheated of the illumination of the blue lightning that almost certainly accompanied it, when he hunkered down again to measure his progress. This close to the Dark Lens, it was difficult to sense anything other than its throbbing power. Hamanu was so intent on finding the world's push and pull beneath the Dark Lens that he didn't immediately notice that its presence was growing stronger even while he remained still.

As Hamanu understood Rajaat's magic, the Dark Lens was an artifact of shadow rather than of pure or primal darkness. It was—or should have been—less potent after sunset when shadows grew scarce. Unless—

A revelation came to Hamanu, a revelation so simple and yet so fraught with implications that he rocked back on his heel: Sadira's power came from shadow. By day, she was the champions' e

qual, but by night, Sadira was a mortal sorceress, a novice in her chosen art, as Pavek was in druidry. Her own spells were dross, cobwebs that couldn't hold a fly, much less the immortal inventor of sorcery.

Pavek could raise Urik's guardian spirit, but only when that spirit wished to rise. Could Sadira's spells bind Rajaat when Rajaat didn't wish to be bound?

Hamanu didn't doubt that the Tyrian sorceress had meant to seal Rajaat in an eternal tomb. The living god of Urik wasn't that foolish. Five years ago, when they must have stood near this very spot, he'd probed Sadira's mind thoroughly—by night.

The living god of Urik changed his opinion of himself.

By night, Sadira wasn't infused with the sorcery that she'd received from the shadowfolk in the Pristine Tower— Rajaat's white tower, where he'd made his champions. By night, she sincerely believed that she'd put both his bones and the Dark Lens in a place from which they could never be retrieved, never misused. By day, she probably believed the same thing, but by day Sadira wielded Rajaat's shadow-sorcery, and what she believed was influenced by what Rajaat wanted.

Whim of the Lion—his own complacency could be taken as proof of Rajaat's lingering influence over him!

With that thought burning in his mind, there was little need, now, to risk a closer approach. Hamanu wanted to know more about Sadira: what she'd seen and felt five years ago and what she'd been doing ever since, but he wouldn't get the answers to those questions in Ur Draxa. As he began his retreat, Hamanu realized that Sadira's shadow-cast warding spells had ebbed enough to allow the War-Bringer's essence out of the leaking Hollow and into his bones beside the Dark Lens.

The Lion-King made himself small within his illusions as Rajaat drew the blue lightning down through the fog. Hamanu was closer to the lava lake than he'd imagined, close enough to observe, in that blue lightning flash, patches of molten rock on the lake's dark surface, close enough to watch in horror as shards of translucent obsidian erupted from the lava, and disappeared into the fog.

Slowly and carefully, Hamanu took another retreating step. A moist, brimstone wind whispered his name.