by Lynn Abbey
Chapter Six
"It's been ages since Guthay wore two crowns for seven days, and then, a single crown for another three nights. Ten nights together, Omniscience! Not since the Year of Ral's Vengeance in the 177th King's Age," Enver said, reading from a freshly written scroll. "The high bureau scholars have taken half a quinth to research the archives, but they've at last confirmed what you, Omniscience, no doubt, remembered."
Hamanu nodded, not because he agreed, but because when Enver's recitation slowed, it was time for Enver's king to nod his head... and recall what the dwarf had said. Hamanu did pay attention to what his executor told him, and certain words or intonations would prick him to instant awareness. For the rest, though, Hamanu remembered faster than Enver recited. He listened with an empty ear, gathering words the way a drip bucket gathered water, until it was time to nod, and remember.
Having nodded and remembered, Hamanu's thoughts went wandering again as Enver read what the scholars had dug out of the Urik archives. He had not recalled the exact date when Guthay had put on her last ten-night performance—the systematic reckoning of years and ages meant little to him anymore—but he certainly remembered the event, two years after Borys, Butcher of Dwarves, had become Borys, Dragon of Tyr. That year, whole swaths of the heartland had turned gray with sorcerous ash, but, yes, Guthay had promised water in abundance and kept her promise.
As she'd kept it this year.
Fifty-eight days ago—twenty days after Guthay had shed her last crown—the gullies north of Urik had begun to fill. Ten days later, every cultivated field had received twice its allotment of silt-rich water. At the head of a planting army larger than the first military levy, which Commandant Javed drilled on the southern high ground, the Lion-King had marched into the pondlike fields and with back-breaking, dawn-to-dusk labor, planted a year's worth of hope.
The precious water flowed for another ten days. Gullies overflowed their banks. Walls of sun-baked brick dissolved into mounds of slick, yellow mud. Dumbstruck farmers stepped across their crumbling thresholds into ankle-deep streams of frigid, mountain water. With their newly planted fields endangered by an almost inconceivable threat—too much water—the farmers had turned to the priests of earth and water who, in turn, eighteen days ago, had led an anxious procession through the city walls, to the very gates of Hamanu's palace.
Hamanu had been waiting for them—he could see farther from his palace rooftop than any priest in his temple. He'd known the water was still rising, and after a dramatic hesitation, he'd called a second levy of Urik's able-bodied men, another one from every remaining five. Then, as he rarely did, the Lion-King explained his intentions: The second levy wouldn't march south to drill with the first. It would march north, beyond the established fields, and, digging with picks and shovels, pointed sticks and muddy hands, make new channels to spread Guthay's bounty across the barrens. The newly planted fields would be spared.
The crowd erupted with a spontaneous cheer for their Lion-King—an infrequent event, though not as infrequent as the floods that inspired it. By the next sunrise, a thousand men stood at the north gate. They'd come peacefully, the registrators said—another infrequent event—and fully half of them were volunteers, which was unprecedented. Fear and worship could sustain a living god, but nothing compared to the pride Hamanu had felt with them and for them as they marched north to save the fields from drowning.
Hamanu released the second levy to Javed's mercy and called up a third. One in five of men and women, both, and every age, would be levied. Five days ago, four thousand Urikites assembled in the palace forecourt. While the throng watched, the mighty Lion-King had taken a hammer to the doors of one of Urik's ten sealed granaries, then he'd sent the third levy into the second levy's mud, sacks of seed slung over their shoulders.
The third levy continued its labor in the flooded field; Hamanu could see hundreds of dark dots moving slowly across the mud. Pavek was out there, planting seeds with his toes while knee-deep in muck. His gold medallion was thrown carelessly over one shoulder. Twenty Quraiters worked alongside him. The hidden village had sent more than its share of farmers—of druids, too, though they strove to conceal their subtle renewals of the land.
It was a gamble as old as agriculture: if the granary seed they planted sprouted and throve until it ripened, they'd harvest four sacks for every one they'd risked, a respectable yield for land that hadn't been cultivated in ages. There'd be grain to sell to less-fortunate neighbors, conquering them with trade rather than warfare. There might even be enough to justify laying the foundation for an eleventh granary. If the grain throve—
And if the bonus crop failed, if war came to Urik, or some other disaster intervened, there were still nine sealed granaries, each with enough grain to feed Urik for a year. Hamanu didn't make blind gambles with his city's well-being.
"Omniscience, the orators have composed a new encomium." Enver was still reading from his notes. "They name you Hamanu Water-Wealth, Maker of Oceans. They wish to include the encomium in tomorrow's harangue. I have the whole text here, Omniscience; I'll read it, if you wish. It's quite good—a bit too florid for my taste—but I'm sure the people will find it stirring."
"Maker of Oceans," the Lion-King repeated, bringing his attention back to the palace roof.
Ocean was a word his scholars had found in the archives, nothing more. The Lion of Urik doubted there was anything alive that had seen an ocean—except Rajaat, of course, if Rajaat were alive in his Hollow prison. Hamanu had glimpsed the memory of an ocean once in Rajaat's crystal visions: blue water rippling from horizon to horizon, foaming waves that crashed one after the other on sand that never dried. The steamy moat girdling Urik wasn't an ocean, wasn't even the promise of an ocean. All it promised—all a living god dared hope that it promised— was a green field and an unexpected harvest.
What did an ocean want before it would be born? What did it need? More than ten nights of silver rings around a golden moon. More than one year of muddy water as wide as the eye could see. Borys had taken more than an age to finish the destruction the Cleansing Wars had begun. It had only been a handful of years since a dragon stalked the heartland. How many years before Urik's cavern could hold no more and water began to pool above ground?
Maybe then Hamanu would start to believe in oceans.
"The temples of Andarkin and Ulydeman—"
Temples was a word guaranteed to seize Hamanu's attention. He didn't completely forbid the worship of divinities other than himself—the Lion of Urik was neither a god nor a fool—but he didn't encourage them. As long as priests of the elemental temples stayed in their time-honored place, the Lion of Urik tolerated their presence in his city. Their place didn't include Enver's daily list.
Patience had never been Hamanu's virtue, but he felt exceptionally generous this morning—exceptionally curious, too—and let the dwarf continue without interruption.
"—would proclaim the existence of a demiurge they name Burbote—"
"Mud, dear Enver," Hamanu corrected with a sigh. "The word is mud. Rummaging through their grimoires looking for words that were old when I was a boy won't change matters. They want to sanctify mud."
After the Dragon's demise, when change had become inevitable, Hamanu had told his venerable executor the truth: Urik's Lion-King had been born an ordinary human man in a Kreegill valley thirteen ages earlier. He was immortal, but he wasn't a god. The dwarf hadn't taken the revelation well. Enver, the son, grandson, and great-grandson of yellow-robed templars, preferred to believe the lies about divinity—and omniscience—he'd learned in his own youth.
"If you say it is so, Omniscience, then it must be so," he said stiffly, his chosen response when his god disappointed him. "The priests of earth and water wish to erect a temple to mark the flood's greatest extent, but surely they will dedicate it to whomever you wish, even mud."
"Do they claim to have marked the flood's greatest extent, dear Enver? Have the flood waters begun to recede?"
"Omniscience, I do not know."
Hamanu could not resist baiting his loyal servant. "Neither do I, dear Enver."
"I am at a loss, Omniscience." The dwarf was so stiff it seemed he'd crack and crumble in the slightest breeze.
"What shall I tell them, Omniscience? That they must rename their demiurge? Or should I tell them nothing at all until the floods recede?"
"Nothing, I think, would be the wiser course—for all I know, dear Enver, Burbote might consume all the land between here and the Smoking Crown. He might swell up and drown us all... Burbote is a he, yes? A muddy demiurge that is female, as well—the combination is more than I can bear to contemplate."
"Very well, Omniscience. As you will, Omniscience. I shall instruct the priests of Andarkin and Ulydeman to interrogate their oracles. They've not got the demiurge's name right, and they must be certain of its maleness... or femaleness... before their proclamation can be read or their temple built. Will that suffice, Omniscience?"
Enver was a paragon of mortal diligence and rectitude, and almost completely devoid of humor. But a god who acknowledged his own fallibility had to tolerate the failings of his associates—or dwell in utter isolation.
"It must, dear Enver. It must."
Hamanu's attention began to wander before Enver was three syllables into the next entry on his tightly clutched scroll. Between floods and preparations for war, he'd neglected his minions for the better part of a seventy-five-day quinth. The minions survived, of course—most of them. When he wasn't living their lives, they lived their own, much as they'd done before he'd woven his curiosity into their being. Casting an Unseen net, Hamanu touched them, one by one. A beggar had died. A nobleman had eaten unwisely and suffered the consequences in a dark, befouled corner of his luxurious home. Lord Ursos entertained an unwilling guest. Cissa's daughter had another tooth coming in. Nouri Nouri'son had adopted his beggar and put him to work behind the counter of his busy bakery.
Ewer's recitation progressed from religion to refugees, a subject that did not engage Hamanu's curiosity or require his attention. Though it pleased the Lion-King to think that the suffering citizens of Raam, Draj, and even far-off Balic would choose Urik as their sanctuary, his templars dealt with such strangers. Urik's borders were, of course, legally sealed, but Hamanu trusted his yellow-robes to determine when, where, and against whom his laws should apply.
He went back to his minions, until another trip-word scratched his hollow ear: arrows. The Khelo fletchers were squabbling with the Codesh butchers over the price of feathers for the thousands of arrows the army required.
"Tell the butchers they'll sell their damned feathers at the established rate, or their heirs will donate them in perpet—"
O Mighty Hamanu! Lion-King, Lord, and Master, hear me!
A distant voice echoed in Hamanu's mind. The totality of his awareness raced backward, along a silver thread of consciousness through the Unseen netherworld, to the source.
The Gray was charged with acid needles, and Hamanu's vision, when he opened his sulphur eyes above the desperate templar, was streaked with lurid colors. There was powerful magic—someone else's powerful magic—in the vicinity.
O Mighty Hamanu! Hammer of the World! Grant me invincible armor and earthquake!
Squinting through the magic, Hamanu made out chaos and bloodshed: a full cohort of his own templars outnumbered by ragtag brigands. Or, not brigands. Another moment's study discerned a well-armed, well-drilled force disguised for brigandage. In the midst of the Urikites' impending defeat, a militant, a human man with tears of panic streaming down his face, raised his bronze medallion and entreated the Lion-King for the third time:
O Mighty Lion, grant me invincible armor and earthquake, lest I die!
A wise invocation—in its way. An earthquake, if Hamanu empowered the spell to create one, would swallow everything on the battlefield, friend and foe alike, except for the invincibly armored militant. Though sacrifice was necessary in battle, the Lion-King of Urik was not in the habit of rewarding militants who'd save themselves and doom the lesser ranks and mercenaries they led. He'd have considered granting the earthquake while withholding the invincible armor—and savored the militant's death—if the netherworld turbulence wouldn't have negated any spell he granted.
There were only a handful of mind-benders capable of disturbing the netherworld enough to disrupt the bond between a champion and his templars. The champions themselves were foremost in that small group. Hamanu knew the hallmarks of their spellcasting intimately.
Inenek, Hamanu loosed an enemy's name to the Unseen wind. It was her spoor he scented in the netherworld and her disguised Gulgan templars winnowing his own. Ogre-Naught.
The turbulence ebbed, replaced by a sultry voice, full of seduction and, though Inenek tried to hide it, hate. You tricked me once, Manu, but never again. Rajaat chose you for your strength, not your brilliance. You're not as clever as you think you are. Surrender to me, and Urik will survive.
A wind-driven fist shrieked through the Gray with the power to smash a mountain into gravel.
Your promises are as empty as your threats, Inenek, Hamanu replied, dispelling her assault with a roar of laughter.
Inenek had always been vulnerable to mockery. The netherworld shone with futile lightning; she'd never learned to control her temper, either. Hamanu dispelled the bolts as he'd dispelled the shrieking fist. Inenek—the Oba of Gulg, she called herself now—was arguably the least among the champions. How she'd annihilated the ogres was a mystery Hamanu had never taken the time to solve. He suspected she'd disguised herself as an ogress and slain every male after taking him into her bed.
The Ogre-Naught couldn't harm him, but his besieged templars were doomed if he didn't intervene. With his eyes still glowing, Hamanu turned to Enver, who'd sensed nothing amiss until that moment.
"I go," he told the dwarf. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Enver's widening eyes before he slit the rooftop air with a talon and stepped into the Gray.
Hamanu departed Urik as a black-haired man. He emerged on the battlefield as the black-maned Lion of Urik, taller than a half-giant, stronger and far more deadly. A gold sword gleamed in his right hand. It sliced through the warrior weapons raised against him, and through the warriors as well. Hamanu wielded his sorcery-laced sword with the skill gained in a very long lifetime of practice, inflicting precise slaughter among his enemies.
He didn't bother to guard his back or slow his attacks with parries; the Lion of Urik was only another glamour, hiding his true form. A calm and sharp-eyed observer—had there been any on the field—would have noticed the discontinuity as metal weapons passed through the Lion's ephemeral form before shattering against otherwise invisible dragon flesh. Wooden and bone-crafted weapons met a different fate. They burst into short-lived flames when they breached his infernal aura.
With their king wreaking havoc among their enemies, the Urikite templars rallied. They surged forward in a score of close-fought skirmishes. Hamanu welcomed their renewed courage; he'd reward them with their lives. And as for the militant who led them...
One lapse of leadership might be forgiven—if the militant's panic hadn't been stronger than Inenek's Unseen interference, Hamanu wouldn't have known that his templars needed him. A second lapse would be unforgivable, unsurvivable. Hamanu strained his hearing. He found half of what he listened for: a mortal heart pounding hard beneath a bronze medallion.
Bakheer! Hamanu seized the militant's disarrayed thoughts and rattled them. Fight, Bakheer.
Hamanu didn't enjoy killing his own templars. At the very least, it was a waste of mortal life. At the worst, because of the medalLion-forged bond he shared with them, their deaths brought his darkest appetites to the fore. Fight the enemy, Bakheer. Fight to the death... or face me.
A sane man would have listened, would have understood and thrown himself at Inenek's minions, but Bakheer was no longer sane. What Inenek had begun, Hamanu inadvertently finished. Bakheer's mind shattere
d. His heart beat one final time, and his spirit flared in the instant before Rajaat's last champion savored it.
The tiny morsel of mortality tantalized Hamanu's much-denied appetites. For a moment, there were neither Urikites nor enemies on the field before him, only aching need, and the motes of life that would sate it.
The Lion of Urik roared words too loud and angry for mortal ears to interpret: "Damn you!"
Hamanu turned away from temptation, away from the battlefield. Abandoning his templars, he cast himself into the netherworld... where a whirlwind awaited him.
Inenek had guessed his choice—his predictable weakness—and caught him in a mind-bender's trap. Stripped of all his glamour, reduced to a spindly shadow of his unnatural form, Hamanu, was sucked away from his templars. He wasn't surprised when a black maw appeared suddenly, far below his feet, growing larger with each howling spiral.
Inenek was sending him toward the Black, toward the Hollow beneath it, and into Rajaat's grasp. Hamanu could imagine what rewards Rajaat had promised her.
But, truly, the Oba of Gulg couldn't harm the Lion of Urik. Her powers, though awesome, were no match for his, when he chose to use them. Radiance blossomed from Hamanu's long, skeletal fingers, wrapping him in a cocoon of light. Inenek's whirlwind lost its hold over him, and he began to rise, slowly at first, then faster, until the whirlwind dissipated in his wake.
Time flowed erratically in the Gray. Days, even years, of sunlit time could vanish during a netherworld sneeze, or time could twist the other way, and a champion could reappear on the battlefield—as Hamanu did—a heartbeat after he'd left.
Hamanu took advantage of his enemies' astonishment and confusion. Two of them died from a single, decapitating sword stroke. Another two tried to run; he took them from behind.
