The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King Read Online Free PDF

the oasis, and Giustenal's ambitions, but he hadn't heard it yet. He touched her
mind, a gentle feather's touch that aroused neither her defenses nor her fears. She hadn't eaten in three
days, not for poverty, but because her husband had returned to Urik. Chorlas was hiding in the slave
quarters of their comfortable home. Between beats of Eden's heart, Hamanu found her Urik home and
Chorlas within it. The elf was old and honest, for an elven merchant. His heart was weak, and he did truly
wish to die within the massive yellow walls.
    "What is your trade, Eden of House Werlithaen? Do you wish to die in Urik, like your husband?"
    "O Mighty King, I do not care where I die," she said evenly. "But while I live, I wish to see my
city's enemies ground beneath the heel of my king."
    Hamanu laughed—what else could any man do, face-to-face with a bloodthirsty woman? He
took amber resin from a small box and held it in his hand until it was pliable. "I shall count it treason, then,
if my templars do not report seeing you and your emeritus husband beside the Lion Fountain before
sunset." He marked the resin with his sea ring, then hardened it again with icy breath.
    Her face was pleasing and far from plain when she smiled.
    * * *
    The ever-efficient Enver had completed his tasks in Joiner's Square and returned to the palace
before Eden departed, still smiling. Perhaps he passed her on his way to the roof with the usual herd of
slaves in his wake, armed, this time, with buckets and bristle brushes. Hamanu didn't ask, didn't pry,
anymore than Enver asked about the Soleuse corpse.
    Enver was, however, adamantly uninterested in becoming the Soleuse lord.
    "Omniscience," the dwarf said from a bow so deep his forehead touched his knees. "Have I or
my heirs displeased you so much?"
    "Of course not, dear Enver." It was not a question that merited an answer, except that there was
no way Enver could have seen his king's grimace. "But after what?— almost three ages between you and
your father, is it not? Perhaps you're ready for a change."
"Your welfare is my family's life, Omniscience. More than life, it is our eternal honor."
    Enver straightened suddenly, with such a look of outrage on his face that Hamanu was obliged to
sit back a hair's breadth in his chair.
    "I'd sooner die."
    "Later, then, dear Enver. In the meantime, who was in charge downstairs this morning? That
fool—" Hamanu flicked a forefinger at the wet spot where Renady had died and the slaves were now
scrubbing furiously—"stood before me wearing a charm, dear Enver, a charlatan's lizard-skin charm
which no one had confiscated. And later, a woman stood where you're standing and removed a message
from a bead as large as your thumb! A useful message, to be sure— Nibenay's sent agafari staves to
Giustenal—but someone downstairs was more than careless, and I want that someone sent to the
obsidian pits."
    Enver knew which investigator had been in charge of the waiting room: the face floated instantly
to the surface of the dwarf's mind, along with numerous details of the templar's currently troubled
life—his mother had died, his father was ailing, his wife was pregnant, and his piles were painfully
swollen—none of which mattered to Hamanu.
    "To the pits, dear Enver," he said coldly.
    And Enver, who surely knew he had no private thoughts when he stood before his king, nodded
quickly. "To the pits, immediately, Omniscience." Not as a slave, as Hamanu had intended, but as an
overseer, with his sleeve threads intact. The image was crystal clear in Enver's mind.
    Hamanu didn't quibble. Left to his own devices, his rule over Urik would be rigid and far too
harsh for mortal survival. Left to his own devices, he'd rule over a realm of the undead, as Dregoth did
beneath Giustenal. Instead, Hamanu culled his templars, generation after generation, plucking out the
debauched, the perverse, and the cruel— like the late Elabon Escrissar, who'd contributed to