The Rise and Fall of a Dragonking - By Lynn Abbey Page 0,87

in thoughtless silence. The sludge thinned. When Hamanu reached the spell-blasted walls that had separated Borys’s palace from the city, he was on the verge of Tithian’s ceaseless storm. As Windreaver had promised, icy winds alternated with gouts of sulphurous steam. The ground was slick and treacherous, and nothing grew.

Hunkering down in such shelter as he could find, Hamanu removed the pearls from the amulet case. He held them above his head, letting the heat of his hand melt them into a translucent jelly that flowed down his arm and over his body. Not quite invisible, but no longer a perfect imitation of his loyal high templar, Hamanu had, he hoped, made himself as inconspicuous and unremarkable as the critic lizard that had sacrificed its life for this moment.

He found and followed the path that would take him to the heart of Ur Draxa and the lava lake. The warm mist grew redder with each step Hamanu took. It was tempting to blame the changes on the War-Bringer, but the cause was far simpler: daytime was drawing to an end.

Hamanu cursed. He muttered over his poor luck. He’d lost more time in the Gray than he’d imagined. Night would be as dark and thick as pitch. If he wanted to see the lava lake with his own eyes, he’d have to crawl to its shore on his hands and knees. He’d be so close to Rajaat’s bones that he doubted anything would hide him. Going on under such circumstances was the sort of folly that got mortals killed. Immortal Hamanu kept going, step by step.

He’d taken about a hundred cautious strides, deafened by Tithian’s thunder but cheated of the illumination of the blue lightning that almost certainly accompanied it, when he hunkered down again to measure his progress. This close to the Dark Lens, it was difficult to sense anything other than its throbbing power. Hamanu was so intent on finding the world’s push and pull beneath the Dark Lens that he didn’t immediately notice that its presence was growing stronger even while he remained still.

As Hamanu understood Rajaat’s magic, the Dark Lens was an artifact of shadow rather than of pure or primal darkness. It was—or should have been—less potent after sunset when shadows grew scarce. Unless—

A revelation came to Hamanu, a revelation so simple and yet so fraught with implications that he rocked back on his heel: Sadira’s power came from shadow. By day, she was the champions’ equal, but by night, Sadira was a mortal sorceress, a novice in her chosen art, as Pavek was in druidry. Her own spells were dross, cobwebs that couldn’t hold a fly, much less the immortal inventor of sorcery.

Pavek could raise Urik’s guardian spirit, but only when that spirit wished to rise. Could Sadira’s spells bind Rajaat when Rajaat didn’t wish to be bound?

Hamanu didn’t doubt that the Tyrian sorceress had meant to seal Rajaat in an eternal tomb. The living god of Urik wasn’t that foolish. Five years ago, when they must have stood near this very spot, he’d probed Sadira’s mind thoroughly—by night.

The living god of Urik changed his opinion of himself.

By night, Sadira wasn’t infused with the sorcery that she’d received from the shadowfolk in the Pristine Tower—Rajaat’s white tower, where he’d made his champions. By night, she sincerely believed that she’d put both his bones and the Dark Lens in a place from which they could never be retrieved, never misused. By day, she probably believed the same thing, but by day Sadira wielded Rajaat’s shadow-sorcery, and what she believed was influenced by what Rajaat wanted.

To be sure, they’d all taken the first sorcerer by surprise that day when Borys died. They’d had him down and running. But when Hamanu and the other champions let Sadira throw the Dark Lens into the lava lake with Rajaat’s bones, and then let her set the wards to seal them in, they’d all been dancing to the War-Bringer’s tune. They’d put him in the perfect place to lick his wounds: the shadow of the Dark Lens.

Whim of the Lion—his own complacency could be taken as proof of Rajaat’s lingering influence over him!

With that thought burning in his mind, there was little need, now, to risk a closer approach. Hamanu wanted to know more about Sadira: what she’d seen and felt five years ago and what she’d been doing ever since, but he wouldn’t get the answers to those questions in Ur Draxa. As he began his retreat, Hamanu realized that