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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.
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 Sadira's shadow-cast warding spells had ebbed enough to allow the War-Bringer's essence out of the leaking Hollow and into his bones beside the Dark Lens.
The Lion-King made himself small within his illusions as Rajaat drew the blue lightning down through the fog. Hamanu was closer to the lava lake than he'd imagined, close enough to observe, in that blue lightning flash, patches of molten rock on the lake's dark surface, close enough to watch in horror as shards of translucent obsidian erupted from the lava, and disappeared into the fog.
Slowly and carefully, Hamanu took another retreating step. A moist, brimstone wind whispered his name.
"Hamanu. Lion of Urik."
Not Rajaat's voice, but Tithian's. Tithian the usurper, Tithian the insignificant, Tithian the high-templar worm who'd betrayed everyone around him and wound up, like a sole-squashed turd, on the bottom of everything.
"Rajaat says Hamanu of Urik's the key to a new Athas. He says when you become a dragon, the world will be transformed. Borys of Ebe, he says, was but a candle. You will be the sun. I say, if that were true, you wouldn't be skulking about disguised as a lizard."
Thirteen ages, and a man learned when to rise to a challenge and when to let it pass unacknowledged. It was discomforting to know that Rajaat and the worm were sharing confidences, but discomfort was nothing new for the last champion.
"I say," Tithian's windy voice continued, "I say Rajaat's the one who wants to transform Athas, and it will take a true dragon to stop him. I know the way, Hamanu; get me out of here. I'll play Borys's part. I'll become the Dragon of Tyr. That's enough for me."
Hamanu swallowed a snort of disgusted laughter. There was some truth to the notion that the quality of the mortal man determined the power of the immortal dragon, and by that measure, the worm would be a lesser dragon. But that was not what Tithian believed. The craven fool believed he'd have unlimited power; worse, he believed he could trick the Lion of Urik into helping him acquire it.
The only thing Tithian could truly do was draw Rajaat's attention, now, just when Hamanu was nearly out of danger. Mindful of the obscuring fog and the slick, treacherous footing, Hamanu picked up his pace. He needed to be outside the palace's blasted walls before he dared a netherworld passage. The walls were still ahead when Tithian let out a howl that ended abruptly. Hamanu cast aside both illusion and caution. He ran for the perimeter as another voice, larger and more menacing, filled the wind.
"Hamanu," Rajaat purred. "Come to me, little Manu."
The dank wind reversed itself. It blew in Hamanu's face, pushing him toward the lava lake. He lowered his head, digging into the soggy moss with black-taloned dragon feet.
"You're starving, Manu. You've starved yourself; you're a shadow of what you should be. So much the better, Manu.
Once you begin to fill your empty spirit with life, you won't be able to stop until every mote of foul humanity is part of you. I've waited long enough, Manu. My other champions rise against you, Manu—they've never liked you, they were easy to persuade. They want a dragon—" Rajaat's voice turned indulgent: a predator toying with its prey. "You never told them, Manu; they think you're just like them.
"Never!" Hamanu shouted back as the air turned hot enough to dispel the fog and jagged, lava-filled crevasses yawned open all around him.
Desperately, he slashed an opening into the Gray. He was ankle-deep in molten rock before he dived into a different sort of mist and darkness, clinging to the hope that Rajaat needed to trap him in the material world to force dragon metamorphosis upon him.
He'd had the same hope in Urik thirteen ages ago.
The Gray closed about him, safe and familiar, Hamanu remembered that fateful day. He'd received and ignored two invitations to return to the white tower. Rajaat came in person with the third.
"The world is almost cleansed," Rajaat had said in a now-abandoned chamber of Hamanu's palace. "Only the elves, the giants, and the dwarves remain, and their fates will be written soon enough. Borys has the last dwarves trapped at Kemelok. Albeorn and Dregoth are wi