The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking - By Lynn Abbey Page 0,45

no sorcerer,” the troll swore indignantly.

“A coincidence of opportunity. Rajaat made you before he made me.”

“Be damned! We did not start the Cleansing War!”

“Nor did I. I finished it. Would you have finished it differently? Could you have stopped your army before every human man, woman, and child was dead? Could you have stopped yourself?”

The air fell silent.

Iridescence bloomed on the swirling brew. It spread rapidly, then rose: a noxious, rainbow bubble as tall as a man. The bubble burst, spattering Hamanu with foul-smelling mist. The silk of his illusory shirt shriveled, revealing the black dragon-flesh of his true shape. A deep-pitched chuckle rumbled from the workroom’s corners before the illusion was restored.

Hamanu released the ladle. The inix bone clattered full-circle around the obsidian rim, then it, the penultimate reagent, was consumed. Blue light, noxious and alive, formed a hemisphere above the cauldron, not touching it. With human fingers splayed along his human chin, concealing a very human scowl, Hamanu studied the flickering blue patterns.

Everything appeared in order. The turgid brew, the shimmering light, the lingering odor were all as his research and calculations had predicted. But predictions could be wrong, disastrously wrong, when spells went awry.

Rajaat, creator of sorcery as well as champions, had written the grammar of spellcraft in his own youth, long before the Cleansing Wars began. Since then, additions to the grimoires had been few, and mostly inscribed in blood: a warning to those who followed that the experiment had failed. Hamanu’s stealthy spell was perilously unproven. Its name existed only in his imagination. He would, in all likelihood, survive any miscasting, but survival wouldn’t be enough.

Still scowling, Hamanu walked away from the table. He stopped at a heap of clutter no different from the others and made high-pitched clicking noises with his tongue. Before Windreaver could say anything, a lizard’s head poked up. Kneeling, Hamanu held out his hand.

The lizard, a critic, was ancient for its kind. Its brilliant, many-colored scales had faded to subtle, precious shades. Its movements were slow and deliberate, but without hesitation as it accepted Hamanu’s finger and climbed across his wrist to his forearm. Its feet disappeared as it balanced on real flesh within the illusion.

“You astonish me,” Windreaver muttered from a corner.

Hamanu let the comment slide, though he, too, was astonished, hearing something akin to admiration in his enemy’s voice. He was evil; he accepted that. A thousand times a thousand judgments had been rendered against the Lion of Urik. He’d done many horrible things because they were necessary. He’d done many more because he was bored and craved amusement. But his evil was as illusory as his humanity.

The Lion-King couldn’t say what the lizard saw through its eyes. Its mind was too small, too different for him to occupy. Scholars had said, and proven, that critics wouldn’t dwell in an ill-omened house. They’d choose death over deception if the household doors were locked against their departure. From scholarly proofs, it was a small step to the assumption that critics wouldn’t abide evil’s presence, and a smaller step to the corollary that critics and the Lion of Urik should be incompatible.

Yet the palace never lacked the reclusive creatures. Shallow bowls of amber honey sat in every chamber for their use—even here, amid the noxious reagents, or on the roof beneath Hamanu’s unused bed.

With the critic on his arm, Hamanu returned to the worktable, dipped his finger in just such a delicately painted bowl, and offered a sticky feast to his companion. Its dark tongue flicked once, probing the gift, and a second time, after which the honey was gone. A wide yawn revealed its toothless gums, and then it settled its wrinkled chin flat on the Lion-King’s forearm, basking in the warmth of his unnatural flesh.

With a crooked and careful finger, Hamanu stroked the critic’s triangular skull and its long flanks. Bending over, he whispered a single word: “Rajaat,” and willingly opened his mind to the lizard as so many had unwillingly opened their minds to him.

The critic raised its head, flicked its tongue—as if thoughts were honey in the air. Slowly it straightened its legs, turned around, and made its way back to Hamanu’s hand, which was poised above the blue light, above the simmering cauldron.

A shadow fell across Hamanu’s arm. “This is not necessary, Manu.”

“Evil cares nothing for necessity,” Hamanu snapped. “Evil serves itself, because good will not.” He surprised himself with his own bitterness. He’d thought he no longer cared what others thought, but that, too,