The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking - By Lynn Abbey Page 0,71
the bulbous swellings that covered his skull like lava seeps. His eyes were mismatched in color, size, and position. His nose was a shapeless growth above a coarse-lipped mouth that was lined with snaggleteeth. Rajaat wheezed when he inhaled, and when he exhaled, his breath stank of death and disease.
If he were resurrecting me in his own image…
Rajaat laughed and promised me he wasn’t. His gnarled, magical fingers tilted my head so I could see the men and women he’d called to witness his making—and unmaking—of a champion.
Ah—they were a magnificent gathering, epitomes of human perfection, and every one of them cloaked in illusion, though I did not guess that then. An aura of unspeakable power hung about them. That was real enough, and almost as tangible as their collective disdain.
They are flawed, my savior assured me, turning my head again so my eyes beheld nothing but him. Each of them bears a mistake to which you are the correction. You are my last champion, Manu of Deche, Hamanu Troll-Scorcher. You will cleanse the land of impurities. Athas will become blue again.
In my ignorance, I imagined my familiar world transformed to a world of blue mountains and sand, blue barrens, and blue himali fields. Rajaat changed my mind, showing me blue water beneath a blue sky. I overlooked the oceans; so much water meant nothing to me.
Where was the land? I wondered. Rajaat showed me islands and drifting cities shaped like schooners running before the wind. Where were the people of this blue world? I wondered. The cities teemed with life. Human life, I assumed, and Rajaat did not correct me. Then.
His hands moved from my head to my neck, from my neck to my shoulders and onward, down my body. Bone, sinew, nerve, and every other part of me quickened beneath his fingers. Bit by bit, I became a man again. The pain was exquisite—I ground my regrown tongue until it was a bloody rag between my teeth, lest my soon-to-be peers heard me scream or moan.
Daylight faded. Cool, gray shadows reached across the cart before Rajaat was satisfied with my regeneration. He bid me move each limb, then rise slowly. I sat, stood, and took a tentative step, watching my feet, ankles, knees, and hips as if I had never seen them before. I was myself again, a sound-bodied man, as I had not been when Myron of Yoram’s bullies dragged me from the pit. The scars of war and farming were gone, hut my mother would have known me by the crooked big toe on my left foot.
My audience was clad in silk and jewels or sparkling armor such as Athas has never seen, before or since. I, of course, was birth-naked and subject to intense scrutiny. Visions of grunting beasts and sweating slaves were thrust into my consciousness. Flame-haired Sielba ran her possessive passions over my body. She took me by surprise; I flushed with shame, not because I was a hot-blooded man, easily aroused, but because she meant me to be ashamed.
Only Borys of Ebe would have nothing to do with me. His contempt was complete. Dwarves interested him; my shame and suffering didn’t.
“Can you walk?” Rajaat asked.
The War-Bringer stood on a beaten dirt path. Behind him stood a slender spire so amber bright that it seemed aflame, though the color was only the setting sun’s reflection on pristine white stone. Myron of Yoram’s cart rested beside the path. His flayed, tattered skin moved as he breathed, and his mewling echoed in my ears.
My legs would bear me, but I couldn’t walk toward my savior without walking past that cart. I hesitated, summoning my courage. Gallard, Sielba, and the others mocked me; my shame was immense, but it wouldn’t move my feet. Rajaat made a slight, two-fingered gesture, after which my strength or courage were of no importance: his will brought me to his side.
“Prepare a feast,” the first sorcerer said, speaking to those magnificent men and women as if they were slaves.
He pointed at the cart where he’d restored me and where a mass of tall, crystal goblets instantly stood. I saw outrage flicker, then die, on their faces as, one after another, they started toward the cart. And all the while, Rajaat’s steady control over me never wavered. It would be a king’s age before I could seize the minds of so many mortals and direct them to separate actions. I cannot, even today, seize a champion’s thoughts, nor can any of my