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

"But, if the coward's telling the truth, then that's all the more reason to get Rajaat locked beneath the Black."

Borys disagreed. "Not in the tower or the pool. Not near the Dark Lens. Not if it's going to regenerate him."

The Gnome-Bane said there was no such danger with the spell he intended to cast. Though he'd use the Dark Lens to intensify his sorcery, Rajaat's body would stay where it was, well away from the white tower's mysterious black-water pool. "Stay here and watch," Gallard offered with rare generosity, "or come up to the steeple while I cast the spell."

"Someone cheated," Inenek protested.

"And someone didn't," Dregoth observed mildly. "I'll stay below with Hamanu. We'll deal with our traitors once we've dealt with Rajaat."

Borys gave orders as if he'd been ordained their leader, but the Butcher of Dwarves tread carefully around Dregoth. The Ravager of Giants was unique, even among the champions: when Rajaat found him, Dregoth was already immortal and already at war with the giant race. In his natural form, he was, by far, the largest, most powerful champion, the closest to the death-dealing creature the world called Dragon.

With Dregoth volunteering to change his bead's color, none of the others felt the need to change theirs.

"We'll know if they try to deceive us," Dregoth said, pointing at the wards over Rajaat's body.

Hamanu, seeing no reason to admit he had no idea what Dregoth was talking about, grunted noncommittally.

"And it would be a poor time for you to think about deception," Dregoth added.

"I have no reason to."

Dregoth seemed not to have heard. "There's no place where you could hide, Hamanu, should you try to escape."

"I have no reason to," Hamanu repeated. "I'm the one who didn't cheat."

The third champion found Hamanu's remark amusing and chuckled softly until, in the tower, Gallard cast his spell beneath the Dark Lens.

In the years since he'd watched the last trolls march off a cliff, Hamanu had spent more time governing unruly humans than he'd spent learning about the netherworld. He knew the Gray was more shadow than substance and the Black was pure shadow and the absence of substance. He wasn't confident about any of it. Still, he thought he understood Gallard's proposal, and he expected that Rajaat's warded body would vanish from the moonlit world and wind up in a hollow place, beneath another place that had no substance. He was more than mildly startled, then, when Gallard's mighty spell seemed to do nothing more than seal Athas's first sorcerer in an egg-shaped rock.

"I'd sooner have carved out a hole in a Kreegill peak and shoved him down to the bottom," he muttered.

"Interesting," was all Dregoth had to say.

It seemed to Hamanu that a huge, mottled rock was not quite what Gallard expected to find when he led his audience into the dawn light. For a fleeting moment, the Gnome-Bane's eyes showed white all around their dark irises, and his mouth was slack-jawed, but only for a moment. By the time the questions and accusations started, Gallard was either honestly confident of his spell or a better illusionist than Hamanu ever hoped to be.

"Something had to be done with his substance!" he declared, letting his irritation show. "I couldn't put substance beneath the Black. That would be a complete contradiction, an intolerable paradox. There's no guessing what would have happened. So, I left his substance here, a cyst in a world of substance. His essence, I assure you all, is in the Hollow."

Borys put his fist on the rock. "If I broke this open—"

"—You can't," the Gnome-Bane insisted.

"But if I did, I'd find the War-Bringer's substance, and if I poked my head inside this Hollow of yours—"

"—You wouldn't." "But if I did, you say I'd find his essence?"

"In what manner?" Borys hammered the rock with his fist.

Hamanu didn't see what happened, like a mortal fool, he'd winced. He wasn't the only one: Dregoth's eyes were still closed when Hamanu opened his again. Bathed in the ruddy light of the rising sun, Gallard's egg-shaped rock was... a rock. It wasn't hollow; Rajaat's bones didn't rattle inside. There were no cracks where the Butcher's fist struck, no luminous leaks of sorcery.

"It's finished. Done," the Gnome-Bane said. "He's bound beneath the Black for all eternity."

"And we can get back to what we were doing," Albeorn urged.

That was Uyness's cue to lunge for Wyan's throat, shrieking, "Vengeance! Vengeance for Pennarin! Death!"

Vengeance was easier threatened than accomplished. Without Rajaat's sorcery, no one of them knew how to kill another champion—yet. Will-sapping spells such as the one Borys cast on Sacha were harder on the spell-caster than they were on their targets. And, anyway, Uyness wasn't interested in a painless punishment. She wanted the Pixie-Blight's death in the worst possible way; Hamanu saw that clearly on her face when she looked at Wyan of Bodach. He saw deadly determination on a number of other faces, including Sielba's.

Distrust would become murder before long. They'd all have to keep warding spells at their backs. But Albeorn Elf-Slayer wasn't the only champion eager to leave the white tower. Borys and Dregoth had wars to fight and finish.