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"—And you went to Rajaat. You made the Gray-storm when we left Yaramuke. You used it to hide yourself while you raced here and back again. That's why he was waiting for us, why Pe
It could be a true explanation. One of them had warned Rajaat—unless Rajaat's sorcery were so much more subtle than theirs that he'd spied on them in Yaramuke without their knowledge. Unless Uyness herself was their traitor: whenever one champion explained the behavior of another, she, or he, became suspect in other eyes. Hamanu had gotten a dose of that himself a few moments back. But if there'd ever been an enduring partnership among the champions, it was between Uyness and Pe
Suspicion fixed on Wyan, who threw the real onus on Sacha Arala, who wasn't there to defend himself. By Hamanu's reckoning, events didn't require Arala's treachery: Wyan could have learned all he needed from the War-Bringer after he'd raced through the Gray to warn him. But Hamanu kept his thoughts about traitors to himself, saying nothing when Borys returned with two flawless obsidian spheres and the enthralled Curse of Kobolds.
Borys had another suspect: "Gallard!" he shouted loud enough to shake the white tower where the Gnome-Bane prepared the imprisonment spell. "Gallard! Here! Now!"
Gallard grumbled and Gallard resisted. The air between the steeple chamber at the top of the tower and Borys on the ground beside Rajaat rained sparks as they argued silently, mind against mind. Then the air stilled and Gallard came outside. He swore he didn't know what Wyan was talking about.
"But, if the coward's telling the truth, then that's all the more reason to get Rajaat locked beneath the Black."
Borys disagreed. "Not in the tower or the pool. Not near the Dark Lens. Not if it's going to regenerate him."
The Gnome-Bane said there was no such danger with the spell he intended to cast. Though he'd use the Dark Lens to intensify his sorcery, Rajaat's body would stay where it was, well away from the white tower's mysterious black-water pool. "Stay here and watch," Gallard offered with rare generosity, "or come up to the steeple while I cast the spell."
"Someone cheated," Inenek protested.
"And someone didn't," Dregoth observed mildly. "I'll stay below with Hamanu. We'll deal with our traitors once we've dealt with Rajaat."
Borys gave orders as if he'd been ordained their leader, but the Butcher of Dwarves tread carefully around Dregoth. The Ravager of Giants was unique, even among the champions: when Rajaat found him, Dregoth was already immortal and already at war with the giant race. In his natural form, he was, by far, the largest, most powerful champion, the closest to the death-dealing creature the world called Dragon.
With Dregoth volunteering to change his bead's color, none of the others felt the need to change theirs.
"We'll know if they try to deceive us," Dregoth said, pointing at the wards over Rajaat's body.
Hamanu, seeing no reason to admit he had no idea what Dregoth was talking about, grunted noncommittally.
"And it would be a poor time for you to think about deception," Dregoth added.
"I have no reason to."
Dregoth seemed not to have heard. "There's no place where you could hide, Hamanu, should you try to escape."
"I have no reason to," Hamanu repeated. "I'm the one who didn't cheat."
The third champion found Hamanu's remark amusing and chuckled softly until, in the tower, Gallard cast his spell beneath the Dark Lens.
In the years since he'd watched the last trolls march off a cliff, Hamanu had spent more time governing unruly humans than he'd spent learning about the netherworld. He knew the Gray was more shadow than substance and the Black was pure shadow and the absence of substance. He wasn't confident about any of it. Still, he thought he understood Gallard's proposal, and he expected that Rajaat's warded body would vanish from the moonlit world and wind up in a hollow place, beneath another place that had no substance. He was more than mildly startled, then, when Gallard's mighty spell seemed to do nothing more than seal Athas's first sorcerer in an egg-shaped rock.
"I'd sooner have carved out a hole in a Kreegill peak and shoved him down to the bottom," he muttered.
"Interesting," was all Dregoth had to say.
It seemed to Hamanu that a huge, mottled rock was not quite what Gallard expected to find when he led his audience into the dawn light. For a fleeting moment, the Gnome-Bane's eyes showed white all around their dark irises, and his mouth was slack-jawed, but only for a moment. By the time the questions and accusations started, Gallard was either honestly confident of his spell or a better illusionist than Hamanu ever hoped to be.
"Something had to be done with his substance!" he declared, letting his irritation show. "I couldn't put substance beneath the Black. That would be a complete contradiction, an intolerable paradox. There's no guessing what would have happened. So, I left his substance here, a cyst in a world of substance. His essence, I assure you all, is in the Hollow."
Borys put his fist on the rock. "If I broke this open—"
"—You can't," the Gnome-Bane insisted.
"But if I did, I'd find the War-Bringer's substance, and if I poked my head inside this Hollow of yours—"
"—You wouldn't." "But if I did, you say I'd find his essence?"
"In what ma
Hamanu didn't see what happened, like a mortal fool, he'd winced. He wasn't the only one: Dregoth's eyes were still closed when Hamanu opened his again. Bathed in the ruddy light of the rising sun, Gallard's egg-shaped rock was... a rock. It wasn't hollow; Rajaat's bones didn't rattle inside. There were no cracks where the Butcher's fist struck, no luminous leaks of sorcery.
"It's finished. Done," the Gnome-Bane said. "He's bound beneath the Black for all eternity."
"And we can get back to what we were doing," Albeorn urged.
That was Uyness's cue to lunge for Wyan's throat, shrieking, "Vengeance! Vengeance for Pe
Vengeance was easier threatened than accomplished. Without Rajaat's sorcery, no one of them knew how to kill another champion—yet. Will-sapping spells such as the one Borys cast on Sacha were harder on the spell-caster than they were on their targets. And, anyway, Uyness wasn't interested in a painless punishment. She wanted the Pixie-Blight's death in the worst possible way; Hamanu saw that clearly on her face when she looked at Wyan of Bodach. He saw deadly determination on a number of other faces, including Sielba's.
Distrust would become murder before long. They'd all have to keep warding spells at their backs. But Albeorn Elf-Slayer wasn't the only champion eager to leave the white tower. Borys and Dregoth had wars to fight and finish.
Rajaat's demise wouldn't end the Cleansing Wars against the elves, the dwarves, or the giants any more than Myron of Yoram's death had spared the trolls. They'd saved humanity, that was all. The children of their own ancestors need never fear a champion-led army. And aside from Borys, who gave a barely perceptible nod when the Lion of Urik stared straight at him, none of the champions suspected how grave humanity's danger had been.
Wyan and Sacha got reprieves. If they were wise, they'd hie themselves as far from the human heartland as the sun and moons allowed. As the champions parted company without fare-thee-wells or other false promises, Hamanu wondered if he, too, wouldn't be wiser himself to leave Urik. There was a lot of world beyond the heartland. He'd seen a bit of it chasing trolls. Surely a man—an immortal champion starving for the savor of human death in his heart-could find better neighbors.