The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King (26 page)

"Anything else?" Sadira asked, feigning disinterest.

She feigned disinterest because she owed her sooty armor and shadow magic to an immersion in
that black-water pool and to spells cast in the Crystal Steeple. Her inner thoughts betrayed a deep
concern about the powers she used so freely. The Dark Lens hadn't been in its proper place when the
shadowfolk transformed her. Rajaat hadn't been there, either, but the shadowfolk were Rajaat's minions,
and they'd acted on his orders. Sadira had reason to be worried,

Hamanu savored her worry.
"Borys was a champion. I was Rajaat's last champion of the Cleansing Wars. Kalak wasn't a
champion—" Hamanu began.

"Sacha Arala and Wyan were Kalak's champions—fools and traitors, too. They gave Tyr's
templars their spells. They could have done the same for anyone—especially after Tithian found the Dark
Lens."

"Tithian," Sadira sighed. In Tyr, the conversation always came back to Tithian.

"Tithian wanted it all: Rajaat's spells, the pool, the tower, the Dark Lens. He didn't think about
dragons. He thought he wanted to be a sorcerer-king, but what he truly wanted to be was a champion."

"Would he—" the sorceress succumbed to her own curiosity. "Would Rajaat have made Tithian
into something like you or Borys? The way Rajaat was hunting and killing sorcerer-kings, I wouldn't think
he'd ever make another champion."

The trap was set, the prey was sniffing at the bait, all that remained was a little tug on the
trip-cord. "Rajaat already had his next creation: something better than an immortal champion who'd slip
from his control. His minions had already shaped her in his tower—with his permission, of course. They
couldn't have worked magic there otherwise. She can't draw on the Dark Lens, can't channel its power
to her friends, because it wasn't there when she was made. And, being mortal when she was made, she
won't survive long enough to become a dragon. But she'll serve his purposes; she already has—"

Sadira boiled off her stool. The shadow-stuff that cloaked her skin when the bloody sun was
above the horizon came alive with the sorcery she intended to hurl at him. But Rajaat's last
champion—his last true champion-sprang his trap. Pursing his lips, Hamanu inhaled through his mouth. A
thin stream of shadow-stuff whirled from her to him, and, to Sadira's wide-eyed horror, she couldn't stop
it.

"There are," Hamanu explained when she was mortally pale and shaken, "a few things you don't
know about yourself."

He shed what remained of his peddlar's illusion and became his favorite self: the tawny-skinned
man with flowing black hair. There was just a hint of sulphur in his eyes. The shadow-stuff he'd stolen
flowed in serpentine streams along his limbs.

Sadira tried to cast an ordinary spell the ordinary way Hamanu wagged a finger, and she was cut
off from everything except herself. A dragon could quicken spells from the life essence he, or she,
hoarded inside; a mortal sorcerer didn't have the essence to spare. Sadira wrapped her arms beneath her
breasts.

"Why have you come? Why have you come now, today? You could have killed me anytime."

"Not to kill you, dear lady. I came to talk to you, but you weren't listening and, because of that,
no one will ever see a troll—the silver shadow of a troll—again."

The words of an apology swirled the surface of Sadira's thoughts. She swallowed them without
speaking them, which was wise, because the apology wouldn't have been sincere. She didn't care about
trolls; she especially didn't care about Hamanu's loss. "Talk to me," she said instead, her thoughts a
mixture of fear and defiance.

"We'll talk about sorcery. It must be quickened. You know that—" Hamanu stirred Sadira's
memories. "You learned when you were twelve, when Ktandeo of the Veil came to—" he stirred deeper
and found the name—"the Mericles estate, Tithian's estate—"

Hamanu's eyebrow rose. He hadn't suspected an older connection between the sorceress and the
usurper, between a slave and her master.

Sadira squirmed on her stool. She froze when he smiled. Her mind conjured images of her fears;
the fears women naturally and needlessly had in his presence. Foolish fears: the Lion-King hadn't raped a
woman since Borys became the Dragon of Tyr.

"I'm not here for that," he said wearily. "From Ktandeo, you learned to steal the life essence from
plants for your sorcery. Then you learned that with obsidian between you and your spell, you could steal
the essence from any living thing. The Dark Lens is a sort of obsidian, dear lady, a very special sort: it
steals from the sun, the source of all life. I don't know where Rajaat found it, but he didn't make it. He
used it to make his champions, but mostly he was looking for a way to steal directly from the sun, as you
first learned to steal directly from plants."

"The War-Bringer had found a way well before that." Hamanu held out his arm. The shadows
had ceased writhing and were spreading a sooty pall across his tawny skin. "But his way was
independent, contrary. He rebelled, refused his destiny. Because of him, all the champions rebelled and
sealed Rajaat beneath the Black. For ages Rajaat had explored the sun and light; in the Hollow, he
studied dark and shadow. That's when he made the shadowfolk and the shadowfolk made you. But one
thing is always true, whatever Rajaat does, his sorcery exacts a price. Each time you resort to the gifts
Rajaat's shadowfolk gave you, whether to quicken your spells or save a life, you slip deeper into Rajaat's
destiny."

Sadira rose. She stood in the hot sunlight streaming through the open window. Her thoughts
moved far below the surface of her mind. Hamanu left them alone. If the sorceress was cold, the light
would warm her. If she thought her shadow-gifts would be restored, she'd be sorely disappointed.
They'd be back tomorrow, and not one sunbeam sooner.

"I would know," she said, too softly for mortal ears to overhear, but loud enough for the
Lion-King. "I would know if I was one of them. It can't be true. Hamanu is the liar, the deceiver."

Silently, Hamanu came up behind her and laid his hands gently on her shoulders. She shuddered
as thoughts of resistance rose, then fell, in her consciousness.

"Dear lady, I have neither need nor reason to deceive you. The War-Bringer's sorcery lives
within you as it lives within me. It makes patterns of light and shadow across our thoughts. We deceive
ourselves." For a fleeting moment, the lava lake was foremost in his thoughts. "We've deceived each
other—"

Sadira cut him short. "I'm not like you. I went to the Pristine Tower because the Dragon had to
be destroyed and the shadowfolk could give me the power to destroy him."

The lake was gone; the cruel need to make her suffer for Windreaver's loss had returned.
"Rajaat's shadowfolk. Rajaat's shadowfolk helped you because Borys was the key to Rajaat's prison.
Once you destroyed Borys, Rajaat was free—"

"Tithian freed Rajaat! Tithian had the Dark Lens."

"Tithian was aided by the same shadowfolk who took you to the Crystal Steeple."

"I fought Rajaat. He would have killed me if Rkard hadn't used the sun and the Dark Lens
together against him. I cast the spells that put him back beneath the Black. I put his bones and the Dark
Lens at the bottom of a lake of molten rock, where no one can retrieve them. How can you dare say that
I'm Rajaat's creation, that I serve him!"

Hamanu amused himself with her hair. Like Manu so many ages ago, Sadira had all the pieces in
her hand, but she couldn't see the pattern. Unlike Manu, she had someone older and wiser who would
make the pattern for her. And he would show it to her, without mercy.

"Dear lady—what is obsidian?"

"Black glass. Shards of sharp black glass mined by slaves in Urik."

"And before it was black glass?" Hamanu ignored her predictable provocations.

She didn't know, so he told her—

"Obsidian is lava, dear lady. Molten rock. When lava cools very fast it becomes obsidian. You,
dear lady—as you said—put Rajaat's bones and the Dark Lens in a lava lake. Have you felt the Black,
dear lady? It's so very cold, and Rajaat, dear lady, is both beneath the Black and at the bottom of a lava
lake. Think of the Dark Lens sealed in an obsidian mountain. Think of Rajaat—or Tithian, if you'd
rather—quickening a spell."

"No," Sadira whispered. She would have collapsed if his hands hadn't been there to support her.
"No, my spells bind them."

"Have you returned to Ur Draxa recently?" Hamanu thrust an image of the fog-bound lake into
Sadira's consciousness. "Your spells weaken each night." Her pulse slowed until it and the sullen red
crevasses of the image throbbed in unison. "Rajaat is a shadow of what he was, but with the
War-Bringer, shadow is essence. Tithian serves him as Sacha Arala once served him, so blinded by his
own arrogance that he doesn't know he's a fool. A foolish enemy is sometimes the most dangerous
enemy of all—"

Sadira writhed against the hands supporting her shoulders. Hamanu let her go. She reeled and
stumbled her way to the window ledge where she crumpled into a small parcel of misery and fear. Her
eyes and mouth were open wide. Her fingers fluttered against her voiceless throat.

"I had to know," he explained. "I had to know what you're capable of."

Hamanu already knew what he was capable of—not merely the sundering of a woman's mind,
but the planting of a thousand years of memories of Windreaver. Hamanu had seen to it that Windreaver
wouldn't be forgotten by the woman whose spell had both freed him and—in the Lion-King's
eyes—destroyed him. Whenever Sadira remembered, she'd remember the troll commander. It was
rough justice: the Lion-King's sort of justice, and no real justice at all, only guilt and grief.

Sadira's hair fell over her face as she struggled against Hamanu's spell. Locks of red tangled in
her fingers. She gasped, a rattling spasm that left her limp against the wall. Still, it had been a sound. The
Lion-King's sorcery was fading.

"There's nothing to fear. No need to scream. You are Rajaat's creation, but you don't serve him
willingly."

Sadira swept her hair back from her face. Her eyes were baleful, belying Hamanu's words. "I
would die first," she whispered. "I'm not Rajaat's creation. I put his bones and the Dark Lens where I
thought they'd be sealed away forever. If you knew otherwise, then you're to blame. I did what I thought
was right. If I was wrong..." She shook her head and stared at the floor. "Kill me and be done with it."

"I'm not here for that. I have been to the lava lake and now I've come here for your help. In
three—"

She laughed, a rasping sound that clearly hurt and left her gagging as she pushed herself to her
feet. "Help? Me help you? You must—"

Sadira winced. Her eyes were drawn to the sooty stain that marked Windreaver's passage. She'd
encountered a memory that wasn't hers. With a cold sweat blooming on her already pallid face, Sadira
once again needed the wall to support her. Hamanu skimmed her thoughts. What he found was Deche,
not Windreaver; Dorean as she was after the trolls finished with her.

Hamanu was an expert at the deceptive mind-bending art of suggestion and false memory. He
didn't make many mistakes; he removed them if he had. But his memory of Dorean resonated through
Sadira's mind faster than he could remove it. The image, fixed and frozen, had become an inextricable
part of the half-elf's experience. As a memory, it was no longer false.

"Who was she?"

There'd be no apologies or explanations, no pleas for understanding or compassion; such notions
had no place in Hamanu's life. "Call her Dorean. She was... would have been my wife." He wrenched
himself away from the memory they shared. It was difficult, but he was the Lion-King. "And I have been
a fool. Rajaat must not escape," he said as if Dorean weren't still bleeding in his mind. "Last time we
needed a dragon. This time—"

"A dragon? Is that why you're here? You want me to help you replace Borys. You're no different
than Tithian—"

"I'm very different than Tithian or Borys, dear lady. I want to preserve and protect my city and
yours. I want—I need—to find a way to keep Rajaat in his prison that doesn't require me—or anyone
else—replacing the Dragon of Tyr. I needed to be certain that we agreed—"

"We agree about nothing!" Sadira shouted, then she winced again. Another false memory.

Hamanu didn't skim the image from her mind. Whether she beheld Windreaver or another horror
from his own past, he saw that he'd blundered badly when he'd hammered his memories into hers. He
shouldn't have done it, and wouldn't have, if he hadn't strangled his rage after she cast her spell. His rage
would have killed her, if Windreaver hadn't wished otherwise.

"I have made a mistake. I took a friend's—" He stopped short: friends, that was the greatest
mistake of all. Rajaat's champions weren't friends, not toward themselves or anyone, and they didn't
attract the friendship of others. "Your spells are failing, dear lady. Rajaat's essence is loose in the world.
He says that Nibenay and Gulg and Giustenal dance to his tune. He says they'll destroy the world we
know in three days' time. He lies, dear lady. The War-Bringer lies. I'll repair your spells, or replace them.
I'll set them right, as they must be set right. You needn't fear—"

"Need not fear what?" she demanded. "You'll set my spells right? You can't make anything
right—"

"Woman!" Hamanu shouted. "Curb your tongue, if you value your life!"

Sadira wasn't interested in his warnings. "I've seen how you set everything right for Dorean!"

Hamanu didn't need mind-bending to sense the invective brewing on the back of her tongue.
Sadira had a champion's knack for cruelty. He'd given her the measure of his weakness, and she would
grind salt in the wound until it killed her—and who knew how many others? Hamanu heard gongs
clanging everywhere and pounding footfalls racing closer. Between screams and shouts, half the estate
knew the sorceress was locked in a dangerous argument.