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

the latest
Nibenese pickle—for his personal amusement. The others, the foursquare, almost-upright folk, he
selected to translate his unforgiving harshness into bearable justice.
    Enver, being one of the latter, was indeed too valuable to exile off to the Soleuse farmlands.
Hamanu tolerated Enver's benign deceit as he'd tolerated Escrissar's malignancy. Both were essential
parts of his thousand-year reign in the yellow-walled city. He'd have to find someone else for Soleuse.
    In the meantime, the slaves had finished their labor. All that remained of Renady Soleuse was a
fading wet spot beneath the brutal sun.
    Morning was nearly afternoon when Hamanu prepared to go downstairs and deal with his city's
larger and more public affairs. Burnished armor and robes of state had been laid out for his approval,
which he gave, as he almost invariably did, with no more than a cursory glance at his wardrobe.
    A patterned silk canopy had been erected over the pool where he would bathe alone, completely
without attendants. It was time, once again, for loyal Enver to depart.
    "I await your next summons, Omniscience," the dwarf assured him as he herded the slaves down
the stairs.
    Hamanu waited until all his senses, natural and preternatural, were quiet and he knew he was
alone. A shimmering sphere shrouded his right hand as he stood up from his table: a shimmering sphere
from which a black talon as long as an elf's forefinger emerged. With it, Hamanu scored the air in front of
him, as if it were a carcass hung for gutting and butchering.
    Mist seeped from the otherwise invisible wound, then, thrusting both hands into the mist, Hamanu
widened the gap. Miniature gray clouds billowed momentarily around his forearms. When the sun had
boiled them away, Hamanu held a carefully folded robe that was, by color and cloth, a perfect match for
the robe he wore, likewise the linen and sandals piled atop the silk, He dropped the sandals at once and
kicked one under the table. He dropped the silk after he'd shaken out the folds, and let the linen fall on
top of it.
    When Hamanu was satisfied that he'd created the impression of a heedless king shedding
garments without regard for their worth, the dazzling sphere reappeared around his right hand. It grew
quickly, encompassing first his arm and shoulder, finally all-of him, including his head. The man-shaped
shimmer swelled until it was half again as tall as Hamanu, the human man, had been. Then, as quickly as it
had appeared and spread, the dazzle was gone, and a creature like no other in the city, nor anywhere
beneath the bloody sun, stood in his place.
    His skin was pure black, a dull, fathomless shade of ash and soot, stretched taut over a scaffold
of bones too long, too thick, too misshapen to be counted among any of the Rebirth races. There were
hollows between his ribs and between the paired bones of his arms and legs. The undead runners of the
barrens carried more flesh than Urik's gaunt Lion-King. Seeing Hamanu, no mortal would believe that
anything so spindly could be alive, much less move with effortless grace to the bathing pool, as he did.
    He paused at the edge. The still water of the bathing pool was an imperfect minor. It showed him
yellow eyes and ivory fangs, but it couldn't resolve the darkness that had replaced his face. With taloned
fingertips, Hamanu explored the sharp angles of his cheeks, the hairless ridge of his brows and the crest
that erupted from his narrowing skull. His ears remained in their customary place and customary fluted
form. His nose had collapsed, what—two ages ago? or was it three? or even four? And his lips...
Hamanu imagined they'd become hard cartilage, like inix lips; he was grateful that he'd never seen them.
    Hamanu's feet had lengthened over the ages. He walked more comfortably on his toes than on his
heels. His knees had drawn up, and though he could still straighten his legs when it suited him, they were
most often flexed.