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The Lion-King let the bright gem fall back on the sand. By itself, the gem was worth many times its weight in gold. What was the worth of a champion's solemn oath? At least Gallard was no longer spouting nonsense about spells to forestall the creation madness that had overtaken Borys. Beyond that, Gallard's oath was worth what Hamanu's oath would have been in similar circumstances: very, very little, no more than a single grain of sand.
Hamanu studied the sand-table in front of him. Gentl
e mounds and grooves imitated the more detailed map of Urik's environs carved onto the map room's northern wall. Strips of silk littered the sand: yellow, of course, for the city's forces, green for Gulg, red for Nibenay, black for the largely undead army of Giustenal. The red, green, and black strips were where Rajaat promised they'd be. If there was a battle tomorrow, it would be on a scale not seen since the Cleansing Wars. If ±ere wasn't a battle, there'd be mortal sacrifice to equal the day Borys laid waste to Bodach.
Was there a third alternative?
Yellow silk fingers surrounded the sandpile that stood for the market village of Todek, southwest of the city. They faced nothing, except a tied-up bundle of blue ribbons. Blue, for the armies of Tyr. Blue, for the army—enemy or ally—that hadn't arrived. Hamanu's eyelids fell shut. He clutched his left forearm where, beneath illusion, an empty place remained unfilled.
Not an army. An army wouldn't make a difference. But two people—even one person, one young mul with the sun's bloody mark on his forehead—that could make all the difference in the world.
Windreaver couldn't answer. There'd be no answer.
As soon as he'd returned to Urik after his disastrous meeting with Sadira at the Asticles estate outside of Tyr, Hamanu had sent a peace offering to the sorceress: a champion's apology, rarer than iron, rarer than a gentle rain in this dragon-blasted world. He'd sent golden-crust himali bread from his own ovens, because bread had been peace and life and all good things in the Kreegills, and a hastily scribed copy of the history he'd written for Pavek, in the hope that she would understand why he was what he was, and why losing Windreaver was a loss beyond measure.
He should have sent Pavek. Pavek had a true genius for charming his enemies. As a runaway templar, he'd charmed the druids of Quraite. As both a runaway and a would-be druid, he'd charmed the Lion-King himself. If anyone could have undone the hash that Hamanu had made of his Tyrian visit, Pavek would have been the one.
But for Hamanu, sending Pavek out of Urik would have been sending away his last—his only—hope. So he'd appealed to the Veiled Alliance of sorcerers in Urik, stunning them, of course, with his knowledge of their leadership, their bolt holes, and all that his knowledge implied. For Urik, he'd told the old rag-seller who was Urik's mistress of unlawful sorcery. And, reluctantly, she'd sent an adept through the Gray with his gifts.
The adept had arrived. The gifts had been conveyed to the Asticles estate. Beyond that, without Windreaver to be his eyes and ears in tight-warded places, Hamanu knew nothing, which was, itself, an answer. The sorceress wasn't coming. Whether Rajaat plucked Sadira's strings in subtle melodies, or she was simply a mortal woman as stubborn and single-minded as he'd been at her age, was a dilemma the Lion-King would never resolve.
These last two days, he'd picked apart the memory of their abortive conversations as often as he'd examined the deployments on the sand-table. He'd blamed Sadira— mostly he'd blamed Sadira—for her failure to listen, but he'd blamed Rkard, too, and Rajaat, and Windreaver, for planting the weed's seed in his mind in the first place. At one time or another, Hamanu had blamed everyone for his blundering failure to win Sadira's help.
Recalling his own words, he'd blamed himself: his blindness, his prejudice, his overwhelming need to answer hurt with hurt. In the end, with the blue silk ribbons still tied in a compact bundle and Gallard's red gem in the sand beside Khelo, blame was unimportant.
"Mistakes," he told the absent Windreaver, "were made. I had choices, and I made the wrong ones. Now, I pay the price of my own foolishness. What do you think, wherever you are, old friend, old enemy? Will Pavek come to Urik's rescue with his druid guardian? Will the guardian vanquish the dragon I become? Will that be enough? Is there a guardian who can stand against the first sorcerer?"
He swept his arm across the table, leveling the mounds, burying the multicolored ribbons beneath the sand.
"From the day he made me his champion, I have prepared for the day when I would face my destiny. I had a thousand times a thousand plans, but I never planned for today."
Hamanu extinguished the map room lanterns with a thought. He left the room and found Enver sitting on the floor outside the door.
"You heard?" Hamanu asked.
The dwarf's upturned face, pale and vacant, answered before his thoughts became coherent.
"Go home, dear Enver." Hamanu helped his steward to his feet. "Stay there tomorrow. You'll know what to do."
Enver shook his head slowly from side to side. "No," he whispered. "No..."
Hamanu laid his hand atop the dwarf's bald head, as he might have done with a child. "It will be better, dear Enver. I will not be able to protect or spare you, and whoever comes after me—" "Omniscience, there can be no after—"
The dwarf shook his head, ducking out from beneath Hamanu's hand. His focus, that uniquely dwarven trait that guided a dwarf's life and determined his fate after death, was foremost in the thoughts Hamanu gleaned. It was a face the Lion-King scarcely recognized, though it was him, Hamanu, as Enver knew him.
"Your focus will be fulfilled, dear Enver. It is I who abandon you, not you who abandon me." He put a guiding hand on his steward's shoulder and pointed him away from the map room. "Go home now. It's time."
Enver took a few flat-footed steps, then turned, painted a new portrait in his mind's eye, and turned away again. The swift painless poison Hamanu had provided for all his household was, in truth, a regular precaution whenever he led his army to war. Rajaat's champions had learned how to kill each other. The dwarf's determination not to use it was an almost-tangible cloak around his shoulders as he walked down the corridor. Hamanu hoped he'd change his mind. The fate of anyone who'd been close to the Lion-King wouldn't be pleasant once the Lion-King was gone.
Hamanu waited until the corridor ahead of him was silent. Then he followed Enver's footsteps. From the map room, he went to the armory, from the armory slowly through every public room. Except for the slave and servant quarters, which he avoided, the Lion-King's palace was deserted. He'd sent away as many as he could, to Javed's camp or to their own families.
The sun had set some time ago. Slaves had set torches in the hundreds of wall sconces, as they'd done every night for ages. Hamanu snuffed the torches out, one by one, with a thought or a memory as he walked by. He came to the throne room with its monstrosity of a throne; he wasn't sorry to leave that behind.
Above the throne hung the lion's head lantern, the eternal flame of Urik. Hamanu recalled the day he'd hung it there and lit it. Immortal wasn't eternal. He'd known there'd come a day, a night, when it was extinguished—but not this night. He left it burning and felt its yellow eyes on his back as he left the throne room and began his circuit of his private places, closing doors, saying good-bye, until he came to his cloister sanctum.
His vellum history was there, a leather scroll-case beside it. He'd written no further than Windreaver's last battle. A thousand years went unrecounted; wars with all his neighbors, with rebels, criminals, and blighted fools. Except for the dead, all his wars had been alike. If he had written them, they'd all read: We fought; I won. Urik prospered. Urik endured.
There was nothing more to write. Hamanu rolled the vellum sheets together, tied them with a silk cord, and slid them into the case that he slung over his shoulder. Bathed in moonlight, the Kreegill murals painted on the walls were studies in charcoal and silver; they seemed too real to consider touching. Pavek's tools stood where he'd left them, in an orderly row against the little cottage. The novice druid had restored the scorched dirt. He'd planted grain in the ground he'd tilled and tended. High as a man's forearm, it, too, was silver in the moonlight.
