The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking - By Lynn Abbey Page 0,53
in the part of Hamanu’s mind where he heard his templars’ medallion-pleas—not the routine pleas of surgeon-sergeants, orators or others whose duties gave them unlimited access to the Dark Lens power he passed along to his minions. To Hamanu’s moderate surprise, he’d responded to such routine pleas while he slept. After thirteen ages, he was still learning about the powers Rajaat had bestowed on him. Another time, the discovery would have held Hamanu’s attention all day, more, but riot this day. His mind echoed with urgency, death and fear, and other dire savors.
The Lion-King loosed filaments of consciousness through the Gray, one for every inquiry. Like a god he would not claim to be, his mind could be in many places at once—wandering Urik with his varied minions while being scattered across the barrens in search of endangered templars.
The essence of Hamanu, the core of his self—which was much more than a skein of conscious filaments, more even than his physical body—remained in the workroom where he looked down upon a haphazard array of vellum sheets, all covered with his own bold script. Blots as large as his thumbnail stained both the vellum and the exposed table-top, a testament to the haste with which he’d written. There were also inky gouges where he’d wielded the brass stylus like a sword. The ink was dry, though, as was the ink stone.
“O Mighty King, my lord above all—”
A new request. Hamanu replied with another filament, this time wound around a question: What is happening?
This wasn’t the first time the Lion-King had been inundated with requests for Dark Lens magic. The desiccated heartland that Rajaat’s champions ruled was a brutal, dangerous place where disaster and emergencies were commonplace. But always before, he’d been awake, alert, when the pleas arrived. His ignorance of the crisis—his templars’ desperation—had never lasted more than a few heartbeats. He’d been awake, now, for many heartbeats, but so far, none of his filaments had looped back to him. He had only his own senses on which to rely.
And dulled senses they were. Hamanu’s illusion wavered as he stood. Between eye blinks, the arms he braced against the table were a tattered patchwork of dragon flesh and human semblance. He yawned, not for drama, but from long-dormant instinct.
“Too much thinking about the past,” he muttered, as if literary exertions could account for the unprecedented disorder in his immortal world. Then, rubbing real grit from the corners of his illusory eyes, Hamanu made his way around the table.
The iron-bound chest where his stealth spell ripened appeared unchanged. Passing his hand above the green-glowing lock, he kenned the spell’s vibrations—complex, but according to expectation—within.
“O Mighty King, my lord above all. Come out of your workroom. Unlock the door. Lion’s Whim, my king—I beg you, O Mighty King: Answer me!”
Still cross-grained and pillow-walking from his interrupted nap, Hamanu turned toward the sound, toward an ordinary door. Neither the voice nor the door struck a chord of recognition.
“Are you within, O Mighty King? It is I, Enver, O Mighty King.”
Enver. Of course it was Enver; the fog in Hamanu’s mind lifted. He could see his steward with his mind’s eye. The loyal dwarf stood just outside the door he’d sealed from the inside with lethal wards. Anxious wrinkles creased Enver’s brow. His fingers were white-knuckled and trembling as he squeezed his medallion.
Hamanu judged it ill omened that this morning, of all mornings, Enver was addressing him as a mighty king rather than an omniscient god. He broke the warding with a wave of his hand, slid back the bolt, and opened the door.
“Here I am, dear Enver. Here I’ve been all along. I was merely sleeping,” Hamanu lapsed into his habitual bone-dry, ironic inflection, as if he were—and had always been—the heavy-sleeping human he appeared to be.
The dwarf was not taken in. His eyes widened, and anxiety rippled above his brows, across his bald head. A frantic dialogue of inquiry and doubt roiled Enver’s thoughts, but his spoken words were calm.
“You’re needed in the throne chamber, O Mighty—Omniscience.” With evident effort, Enver resurrected the habits of a lifetime. “Will you want breakfast, Omniscience? A bath and a swim?”
A few of the filaments Hamanu had released when he awakened were, at last, winding back to him, winding back in a single ominous thread. Templars had died at Todek village, died so fast and thoroughly that their last thoughts revealed nothing, and the living minds that had summoned him were uselessly overwrought.