by Lynn Abbey
She withdrew hers from below. "And you have promises, promises as hollow as Rajaat's." Her smile belied her words.
So much, then, Hamanu observed, for Borys's persuasion—or any acknowledgment that without him they'd be ignorant of the War-Bringer's plans. The elder champions disappeared, leaving Hamanu with the silks, the slaves, and the remains of their feast. When they returned, Sielba settled herself on the cushions close beside him, while Borys stood beside the door.
"Stay here, Hamanu," the elder champion said.
An order, not a suggestion, and Hamanu didn't take orders; he wouldn't be treated like a child or slave. If Borys hadn't learned that at Kemelok, he'd learn it now.
The air in Sielba's banquet hall stilled. Water drops hung suspended in the fountains, and the human slaves fell to the floor. Borys's doing; Hamanu had done nothing to harm them.
As he started to stand, Sielba threw herself at Hamanu's feet. She tangled him in the cushions. The huge and well-built palace shuddered when they collapsed together.
"Stay with me, Lion of Urik," she urged as they wrestled with small but potent sorcery.
Long ago, Myron of Yoram's officers had humiliated him with their superior sword-skills. Hamanu then spent years practicing with every weapon known to man to insure that such a thing would never happen again. He thought that because he was strong and skilled, he could win any fight. He should have taken a few days, at least, to learn the cunning strategies with which women traditionally fought and won. Sielba used his lion's strength against him. She drained his spells as fast as he conceived them and then twisted his arm behind his back so thoroughly that the black bones beneath his illusion threatened to snap. When he was aware of his predicament, she whispered in his ear again, in her huskily seductive voice:
"It's better this way. Trust me."
Hamanu was no more inclined to do that than he was to trust Rajaat.
"I'll return with the others, then we'll deal with the War-Bringer," Borys said from the doorway. "In the meantime, maybe you'll learn something useful."
Sielba let her guard down once Borys was gone. The Lion of Urik, taking quick advantage of the tricks she'd just taught him, freed himself, and achieved a similar twisting grip on her arm.
"And now, what are you going to do, Lion of Urik?" she asked. Her voice came from behind his shoulder though her face was smothered in the pillows. "You're a quick and rever farmer's lad, but that's hardly enough."
Later Hamanu would blame the wine, Sielba's shifty and shimmering red-blue iridescent wine. The wine wasn't to blame; no amount of wine could affect him, no more than the spiced delicacies could fatten his gaunt body. He was young as immortals reckoned age, but a score of years had passed since he'd touched a woman's cheek without leaving a bruise or kissed her lips without bloodying them.
In time, Hamanu mastered illusion's most subtle aspects and could seduce whomever he wished or secret himself in a mortal mind to explore the world with another's senses. In time, he and Yaramuke's queen would descend into the quarrel that ended with her death and the destruction of her city. Until then, Sielba offered, if not love, fascination, and he offered the same to her. The Lion of Urik was a different man when Borys returned two days later. The ten other champions emerged, one after another, from the Butcher's netherworld wake. Hamanu kept his temper and said nothing when he saw how thoroughly the Butcher of Ebe had established himself as the champions' champion, the one who would free them from their creator.
Hamanu had already measured himself against Borys, and the Dwarf Butcher was no War-Bringer. If Borys wished to be the touchstone of their rebellion, he'd let Borys have his wish. There'd be opportunity for another rebellion, if necessity demanded one. Rajaat's champions had treachery bred in their bones. Hamanu was no exception.
As afternoon in Yaramuke became evening and their strategy took its final shape, Hamanu quietly accepted a subordinate's role. The champions' strategy was as simple as it was risky. Emerging from the Gray, all at the same time and close to Rajaat's tower, they'd each cast a different, destructive spell. No one of the spells would be sufficient to overpower the first sorcerer, but together, they might distract and confound him long enough for Borys, or Dregoth, or Pennarin, or even Hamanu—the four champions who prided themselves on their sheer, brute strength—to dispatch their creator with a physical weapon. Failing that— but only if the quartet seemed truly doomed—the others would attempt to destroy Rajaat's Dark Lens.
Better, they'd decided, to live without the magic they passed to their minions than to face Rajaat's wrath with the Lens still in existence.
Their simple strategy collapsed as soon as they were in the Gray. Savage winds erupted from every corner of the netherworld. The winds buffeted the mighty sorcerers, sending them caroming into each other and away from each other, as well.
Too many champions, too many unnatural creatures for even this unnatural place, Hamanu thought as he struggled to retain his orientation in the chaos.
Borys had a less charitable notion: Arala! Get a ward on Sacha Arala—he's behind it.
Prudence launched a bolt of blue-green sorcery off Hamanu's right hand, and off other hands, as well. They blinded each other in their eagerness to stop Sacha Arala's treachery. The Curse of Kobolds screamed for mercy that was not forthcoming until Dregoth announced that he had the traitor in his grasp. The winds ebbed. The champions regrouped and continued toward Rajaat's tower, which shone in the Gray as a sliver of pure white light.
In silence, the champions surrounded the netherworld beacon, then returned to the material world where, hiding in the moonlight shadows, Rajaat War-Bringer waited for them.
A fiery maw engulfed Pennarin before he'd invoked his spell. The maw closed, and Rajaat's first champion was gone.
Hamanu took a breath and cast his spell: a simple transmutation of dry, rock-hard dirt into mire as hot and viscous as molten lava. The ground beneath Rajaat's feet began to glow. Through the tumult of spells and counterspells, the Lion of Urik heard the War-Bringer cry his name.
"Hamanu... Hamanu, you're next!"
A writhing, dark counterspell came Hamanu's way. Gelid and corrosive, it would have consumed his immortal flesh eventually, but it was as slow as it was icy. Hamanu dodged and sent Rajaat's wrath oozing harmlessly into the Gray. Then he drew his golden sword. With his hands on its hilt, Hamanu advanced toward his creator across ground his own spell had made treacherous.
The champions' strategy had been sound. Though they'd never had the surprise advantage Borys planned for, and they'd lost Pennarin at the start, the War-Bringer was thoroughly beset. Borys was wading through Hamanu's steaming mire toward Rajaat ahead of Hamanu. The Butcher of Dwarves had drawn his sword, a dark-metal weapon that seethed with crimson fire against the midnight stars. It wasn't the sword Rajaat had given him; he swore the crimson blade would be a telling weapon against the War-Bringer. Hamanu hadn't argued. He wasn't going to tell another champion what weapon to bring to their rebellion.
The Butcher of Dwarves swung first: a solid cut across Rajaat's ribs, ending deep in his gut. Blood and viscera sluiced over the dark crimson blade. The War-Bringer bellowed; fire roared out of his gaping mouth. Hamanu ducked his head beneath the flames and stalked forward, thrusting his sword into Rajaat's flank. The golden sword slid between the first sorcerer's ribs, then stopped, as if it had struck unyielding stone. Hamanu sank his black-taloned feet into the mire and pushed; the sword began to move again.
Fire seared Hamanu's scalp and the length of his back.
Somehow he kept his hands on the hilt and kept the sword creeping deeper.
Hamanu. Look at me, Hamanu.
There was compulsion in the words the War-Bringer placed in Hamanu's mind, compulsion that made the Lion of Urik raise his head to meet his creator's mismatched eyes.
Take them, Hamanu. Take them all! You have the power.
It was the same power Rajaat had offered in Urik. Hamanu refused it a second time.
"Never!" he swore.
He found a last reserve of strength within himself and, with a roar of his own, surged behind his sword. Rajaat fell back, toward Dregoth, who swung his maul just once. A sound like the moons colliding pummeled the white tower. Rajaat heaved away from Dregoth's completed stroke. The mire quaked, the champions fought for balance, but the War-Bringer was down. Potent sorcery, no longer under the control of Rajaat's unfathomable intellect, sizzled wildly and died.
"Is he dead?" one of the women asked.
"No," Borys, Hamanu, and Dregoth said together before Dregoth hoisted his maul for another blow.
The Ravager of Giants smashed Rajaat's protuberant brow, but the answer didn't change.
"He can't die," someone said. "Not while we're alive."
No one argued.
"So, what now?" That from Albeorn, whose metamorphosis had given him an erdlulike aspect. "If we can't kill him, what do we do?"
"Lock him up someplace. Some place dark and deep," Inenek suggested.
Gallard Gnome-Bane snorted. "Fool. Shadow's the source of the War-Bringer's power,"
"When it gets dark enough, there aren't any shadows. I can think of a few places that never feel the light of day or any other light," Dregoth said with a malicious laugh.
"Put him there," Gallard countered, "and he'll use the Dark Lens to fry us all."
Borys cleaned his simmering sword and sheathed it in a scabbard that vanished against his leg. "All right, Gallard, where do you suggest?" He swept his arm wide in an exaggerated bow, but kept his head up and his eyes fixed on the Gnome-Bane's face.
"At the center of the Gray netherworld lies the Black, and beneath the Black—"
"The Gray isn't flat," Albeorn interrupted. "If there's black at its center, then there's more Gray beneath it!"
"Shut up, twerp!"
Gallard shot sorcery at his critic. The air around the Elf-Slayer shimmered with ward spells, then it shimmered around everyone else, as well. For several long moments, no one said anything. At last, Sielba lowered her guard.
"And beneath the black?" she urged Gallard to finish.
"Beneath the Black, we can make a hollow where neither light nor shadow exist, nor can exist." Borys had a question: "What about the Dark Lens?"
"Better we cut him apart and each take a piece with us," Wyan of Bodach interjected.
Hamanu stared at the Pixie-Blight. Stripped of illusion— as they all were—Bodach was a small-statured creature. He'd destroyed the smaller, defenseless race of shy, tree-worshipers not by slaying them but by turning their god-trees to sorcerous ash. While Hamanu wondered why such I a coward would suggest carving their still-living creator into bloody chunks of meat, the other champions bantered about how Rajaat should be divvied up and which part should go to whom.
The lewd conversation ended abruptly when a blue spark flickered amid the gore that had been Rajaat's face.
"He's healing himself." Borys confirmed what they'd all felt.
There was a round of curses as they each cast a warding spell over their creator.
"It won't be enough," Gallard warned. "Wards won't keep out the sun once it rises. His own bones will make the shadows. We put him beneath the Black tonight, or we'll join Pennarin tomorrow."
Pennarin. Where was Pennarin? The Black, Gallard said. And how did Gallard come to know so much about the center of the Gray or what lay beneath it? Who'd taught the Bane of Gnomes? Why had he needed to learn? Who had he planned to imprison in a nowhere place where neither light nor shadow, time nor substance existed? Rajaat? Or had Gallard planned to imprison them all there eventually?
So many questions, but no reason to ask any of them. The champions couldn't kill their creator and couldn't let him heal himself whole. That left Gallard's Hollow beneath the Black. As little as he relished the notion of trusting Gallard's notion, Hamanu had nothing to offer in its place— nor did anyone else.
"Is there time?" he asked, breaking the silence that threatened to last until dawn.
Gallard grinned, revealing steel-sharp fangs behind his slack and blubbery lips. "Only one way to find out, isn't there?"
Indeed, there was only one way: follow the Gnome-Bane's instructions, stretch their powers to exhaustion scouring the heartland for reagents before dawn's light, and deliver the noxious reagents to the top of Rajaat's white tower where Gallard—and only Gallard—sat in the Crystal Steeple, waiting, enshrined beneath the Dark Lens.
After depositing a vial of fuming realgar at the Gnome-Bane's feet, Hamanu plodded down the spiral stairs. Resuming his human illusion—because it was more comfortable than his gaunt natural form—he leaned back against a crumbled wall. Champions needed sleep no more than they needed food, but even an immortal mind needed a quiet moment to reflect, this day and night.
Big Guthay had set. Little Ral was alone in a sky of a thousand stars. None shone brighter than the warding spells layered over Rajaat's body, like so many green silk veils. Hamanu lost himself in the spells' constantly changing patterns. His thoughts wandered so far that his mind seemed empty, almost peaceful. Looking straight ahead, he saw nothing until—with a jolt of returning consciousness—he saw that a black shadow had cut the warding spells in two.
He's healed. He's breaking the wards, Hamanu thought, a lump of cold terror clogging his throat.
But the shadow wasn't Rajaat's. A man crouched over Rajaat's body, casting the shadow Hamanu saw. A man who was so intent on peeling back the warding spells that he didn't hear the light tread of another champion's feet behind him, or sense another shadow mingling with his until it was too late.
"Arala!" Hamanu shouted as he seized a scrawny neck and jerked the traitor from his mischief.
Objects that might have been the War-Bringer's teeth or finger bones showered from Sacha's hands—except, the culprit wasn't Sacha Arala. In the brief moment Hamanu had before the illusion became a writhing metamorph, he recognized Wyan Bodach's face: Wyan Bodach, who'd suggested chopping Rajaat into pieces earlier.
All arms and legs in his natural form, the Pixie-Blight sprouted claws that raked through illusion to Hamanu's true flesh. The Lion roared, but held on until another champion came to investigate the furor. Unable to sort innocent from guilty, the newcomer slapped spells around them both. Hamanu's limbs grew heavy as a Kreegill peak, and Wyan was even heavier, but he kept hold. Another spell—two, three, more than he could count—wrapped around them. The arm that had been as heavy as a mountain was stone-stiff when the spellcasting was finished and Dregoth reached in to pry Bodach free.
"And do you deny it?" Dregoth asked Hamanu.
The heavy paralysis was withdrawn. Hamanu flexed his muscles and said: "I do. Wyan said he wanted a piece of Rajaat's body earlier. It's his own deceit he describes, not mine. I thought it was Sacha Arala at first. I cried out his name by mistake."
Vapors seeped from Dregoth's nose as he looked from Hamanu to Wyan and back again.
"And where is Sacha?" Albeorn asked from far on Hamanu's right side.
He and the others had gathered quickly. Some had emerged from the netherworld, the rest strode out of the nighttime shadows. Sacha Arala wasn't among them, nor was Borys, nor, of course, was Gallard. Hamanu realized they were all looking at him, distrusting him more than Wyan because he was still the outsider. He had several long moments to wonder exactly what Borys had told them while Sielba had entertained him in Yaramuke, before Sielba's husky voice broke the silence.
"Sacha's with Borys, where else? He's got no part in this—whatever this is. And neither has Hamanu. If the Lion of Urik says Wyan was cutting off bits of Rajaat, then I believe him, and I suggest we find out why before Borys gets back here."
Sielba was right about Hamanu, though he knew he'd pay dearly for her defense. She might have been right about Sacha, too. Rajaat's sycophant might have had nothing to do with Wyan's macabre gleaning. But Wyan swore otherwise.
"It was all Sacha's plan," the Pixie-Blight insisted. "He said Rajaat has no one vital
part; he can regenerate himself entirely if any living part of him is placed in the pool beneath the Dark Lens. He knew you'd keep close wards on him, so he came to me—"
"—And you went to Rajaat. You made the Gray-storm when we left Yaramuke. You used it to hide yourself while you raced here and back again. That's why he was waiting for us, why Pennarin was consumed," Uyness, who'd cleansed Athas of orcs, concluded.
It could be a true explanation. One of them had warned Rajaat—unless Rajaat's sorcery were so much more subtle than theirs that he'd spied on them in Yaramuke without their knowledge. Unless Uyness herself was their traitor: whenever one champion explained the behavior of another, she, or he, became suspect in other eyes. Hamanu had gotten a dose of that himself a few moments back. But if there'd ever been an enduring partnership among the champions, it was between Uyness and Pennarin, and they all preferred to think that there was some limit to their creator's power.
Suspicion fixed on Wyan, who threw the real onus on Sacha Arala, who wasn't there to defend himself. By Hamanu's reckoning, events didn't require Arala's treachery: Wyan could have learned all he needed from the War-Bringer after he'd raced through the Gray to warn him. But Hamanu kept his thoughts about traitors to himself, saying nothing when Borys returned with two flawless obsidian spheres and the enthralled Curse of Kobolds.
Borys had another suspect: "Gallard!" he shouted loud enough to shake the white tower where the Gnome-Bane prepared the imprisonment spell. "Gallard! Here! Now!"
Gallard grumbled and Gallard resisted. The air between the steeple chamber at the top of the tower and Borys on the ground beside Rajaat rained sparks as they argued silently, mind against mind. Then the air stilled and Gallard came outside. He swore he didn't know what Wyan was talking about.
"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."