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While the adjutant oversaw the assembling of a small pile of waterskins, Hamanu thrust deeper into Andelimi's consciousness, impressing into her memory the shapes and syllables of the Dark Lens spell he wanted her to cast. If grief had not already numbed her mind, the mind-bending shock would have driven her mad. As it was, Hamanu's presence was only another interlude in an already endless nightmare.
When the waterskin pile was complete and the arcane knowledge imparted, Hamanu made Andelimi speak again: "After the spell is cast, you will each take up your waterskins again and begin walking toward the north and west. With every step, a drop of water will fall from your fingertip to the ground. When the undead walk where you have walked, the lifeless blood in their lifeless veins will burst into flames."
" There is not enough water here to see us back to our outpost!" the dwarf interrupted, still hoping for a clean death. "The undead will engulf us—"
"There is a small oasis north of here—"
The maniple knew it well, though it was not marked on any official map. They collected regular bribes from the runaway slaves it sheltered. It was a minor corruption of the sort Hamanu had tolerated for thirteen ages.
"Its spring has water enough to hold the undead at bay—simply fill your waterskins from the spring, and then walk around the oasis. And after the undead army has marched past..." Hamanu narrowed Andelimi's eyes and made her smile. A lion's fangs appeared where her teeth should have been. "After the undead army has passed, burn the oasis and bring the vagrants back to Urik for the punishment they deserve."
They'd obey, these templars he was trying to save. No power under the bloody sun would protect them otherwise. Hamanu, their king, deserved his cruel, capricious reputation. They'd march to Urik because it had been known for thirteen ages that there was no way for a yellow-robe templar to hide from the Lion of Urik. They could bury their medallions, break them, or burn diem, and it wouldn't save them. Once his mind had touched theirs, he could find them, and so, they would obey-Never imagining that if Dregoth's army reached Urik, there might not be a Lion left to find them.
Killer-ward.
Hamanu put the word in Andelimi's mind. She repeated it, triggering the mnemonics he'd forced into her memory. The links between templar and champion, champion and the Dark Lens, were pulled, and magic was evoked. Sparks danced over the waterskins, growing, spreading, until the drab leather was hidden by a luminous white blanket.
After that, it was time for Hamanu to return to Urik, time to tell his exalted templars of the dangers he—and they— faced from yet another direction. He'd done all he could here.
Hamanu blinked and looked out again through his own eyes. His pall persisted in the throne chamber. Two of the templars nearest the dais had not been standing straight on their feet when the pall caught them, and as effects of time could not be easily thwarted, they'd both tumbled forward. One of them would have a bloody nose when awareness returned, the other, a bloody chin. Deeper in the silent crowd others had fallen. One—a woman, Gart Fulda— would never stand up again. She hadn't been particularly old or infirm, but death was always a risk when Hamanu's immortal mind touched a mortal one.
The elven pair from Todek had arrived while Hamanu's attention was on the Giustenal border. They'd been running when they entered the throne chamber, and momentum had carried them several long strides toward the dais before the pall enveloped them. They, too, would tumble when Hamanu lifted his spell. The leading elf would have to take his chances. His companion carried an ominously familiar leather-wrapped bundle under his left arm.
A day that had not begun well and had gone poorly thereafter showed signs of becoming much, much worse. Before he dispelled the pall, Hamanu carefully took the 'bundle from the immobile runner. It thrummed faintly as he carried it back to the throne. Cursing Rajaat yet another time, Hamanu considered destroying it while the pall was still in place. There'd be questions—in the minds of the elven runners, if nowhere else—and questions sired rumors. More questions, if he slew the elves, too. He reconsidered. If the templars in this chamber saw the shard's power before he destroyed it, he wouldn't have to worry about their loyalty when times got difficult, as times were almost certain to do.
"Raam," Hamanu muttered, savoring the stranger as his most agile-minded templars became alert again. "Who in Raam would stand against me? With Dregoth marching, it would be better to make common cause."
Javed, whose mortal mind was among the most agile and alert Hamanu had ever encountered, had heard the thrumming shard. He watched the blue lightning leap from the Lion-King's arm. As Champion of Urik, Javed was privileged to bear his sword in the throne room. He drew the blade as another templar cried out.
Hands pressed against her steaming cheek, she reeled in agony, knocking over several less-alert templars. In her wake, Hamanu got his first eyes-only view of the Raamin stranger.
The Raamin was a striking example of humanity in its prime, taller than average, well fed, well muscled, with sun-streaked
hair. That hair had begun to move as if a strong wind blew upward from the. object he clutched against his ribs.
"Drop it!" Hamanu shouted, a sound that loosened dust and plaster flakes from the ceiling, but had no effect on the Raamin's bright blue, pall-glazed eyes.
Hamanu put the shard he held behind his back. Lightning danced on his chest, his shoulders, his neck. It penetrated the Lion-King's human illusion without destroying it or harming him—yet.
"Drop it, now!" he shouted, louder than the first time. He didn't dare any kind of magic or mind-bending, not with Rajaat's malice whirling around the chamber.
The stupefied Raamin didn't so much as blink. From his appearance, he'd been one of Abalach-Re's templars; the Raamin queen had never been particularly concerned with cleverness when she picked her templars. Fortunately, Urik's king had other prejudices. Urik's elite templars were bold enough to take matters into their own hands. A handful of men and women wrestled the crackling bundle from the stiff-armed stranger and deposited it before their king's throne, where, within a heartbeat, its wrapping had disintegrated.
Rather than the black-glass shard Hamanu had expected, a sky-blue serpent slithered lightning-bright and -fast across the marble dais. It struck his ankle, easily piercing the human illusion. Unbounded rage and hatred boiled against Hamanu's immortal skin. Sorcerous fangs struck deep, but there was only bone, obsidian black and obsidian hard, beneath his gaunt flesh.
With the Todek shard in his left hand, secure at his back, Hamanu reached his right hand down. He seized the serpent behind its scintillating eyes. The sorcerous creature was more sophisticated than the one he'd squelched in Nibenay's abandoned camp, but its venom had no effect on him.
"You surprise me, War-Bringer," he said as he held the construct up for his templars to see. He began to squeeze, and the sky-blue head darkened. "Thirteen ages beneath the Black has dimmed your wits, while mine have grown sharper in the sun."
The serpent's head was midnight dark when its skull burst. Venom hissed and sputtered on the dais, leaving pits the size of a dwarf's thumbnail in the marble. It fizzled on the illusory golden skin of Hamanu's right arm, where it harmed no living thing.
Hamanu held the serpent's fading, dwindling body aloft so his templars could cheer his triumph. Their celebration would necessarily be brief. The other shard had ceased its thrumming, which Hamanu didn't consider reassuring. The templars hadn't completed their second salute when the chamber darkened. Sunset couldn't be the cause; he hadn't palled the throne chamber long enough for the day to be coming to its natural end. Ash plumes from the Smoking Crown volcano could have caused the darkness; but the eruptions that produced the plumes were invariably preceded by ground tremors.
Hamanu would not tolerate such an affront. He whispered the sorcerer's word for sparks. A sharp pain lanced his flank.
All sorcery required life essences before it kindled. While defilers and preservers quibbled and pointed fingers at one another, Hamanu quickened his spells with life essence from an inexhaustible, uncomplaining source: himself. He willingly sacrificed his own immortal flesh. Pain meant nothing if it thwarted Rajaat's grand design. Whatever essence he surrendered would be replaced, of course. But a man could draw water in a leaky bucket if he moved fast enough, and although the dragon metamorphosis was, ultimately, unstoppable, Hamanu prolonged his own agony at every opportunity.
His thoughts carried the quickened sparks to the lantern wick, and the Lion's eye gleamed gold again. An instant later, brighter light flashed through breezeway lattices-lightning as blue as the shard-born serpent had been, as blue as Rajaat's left eye. A distant crash of thunder accompanied the lightning. Then the throne chamber was dark again—except for the golden-eyed Lion. With his templars silent around him and the wails of Urik's frightened folk penetrating the palace walls, Hamanu waited for the next event, whatever it might be.
