Belatedly, Hamanu found his eyes and opened them; after so many stone-bound memories, he'd forgotten sight, the world that was smooth, hard, and warm was also gently luminous, casting a soft golden light onto a young man's hands, a young man's arms, legs, and torso. The surface lay a hand's depth within the light. He moved his hands through the light, seeking but not finding the gap through which
"It took you long enough."
Sound startled Hamanu and he dropped into a brawler's crouch. The ease of his movements startled him as well, but not as much as what his eyes revealed when he turned around: The glowing chamber defied easy measurement. It could have been a hundred paces square or a thousand, yet at its center, hovering higher than his head, Hamanu saw his own ostentatious, uncomfortable throne. And sitting on the throne was a figure he remembered well, a half-man, half-lion figure that his laborers had painted on his city walls, a black-maned figure with a naked golden sword at his side.
The Lion-King of Urik, who'd saved Hamanu when he was deeply disguised and blundered too close to the Black.
The guardian of Urik.
For the first time in his life—if he was alive—Hamanu was speechless. He looked from the Lion-King to his own hand, his own mortal hand returned to him through sorcery he couldn't fathom and for reasons he dared not guess. Myriad questions filled his mind; answers followed, all but one.
"Why could I never find you?"
The Lion-King descended from his throne. He seemed no taller than Hamanu, no stronger, but Hamanu remembered illusion's power and was not deceived.
"I sought my city's guardian. You could have revealed yourself," the now-mortal man complained. "For Urik, you could have revealed yourself."
"My spirit—the spirit of Urik that you engendered—was there from the beginning. I revealed myself a thousand times, ten thousand times. You were always looking in the wrong place, Manu. You became a great king—a great man—but you cherished your past and it remained with you, until you were ready to part with it."
Hamanu opened his mouth and closed it again. He was a proud man, but throughout his long life he'd cherished nothing... nothing after Dorean. He hadn't died, so he'd lived from one day to the next until Rajaat had made him a champion. As a champion, he'd won a terrible war and governed a mighty city and become the Dragon of Urik. As a dragon, he'd entombed himself in stone beneath a lava lake, and there recollected his entire life more times than he cared to count. He knew in the depths of his being that he cherished nothing.
Yet the Lion-King, the guardian of Urik, had spoken the truth, and Hamanu couldn't argue with the truth. Once again he studied his own mortal hand.
"How long?" he asked.
"A thousand years in the stone," the guardian replied. "A thousand years to understand yourself."
"A thousand years to scrape off Rajaat's curse," Hamanu countered. "A thousand years to return to the beginning, to Urik. Does my city endure?"
"Your city! Have you learned nothing, Manu? Will you go back into the stone for another thousand years?"
"A thousand years or ten thousand. What difference would it make? Regret won't change my memories; punishment won't, either. What I did cannot be undone. Leave me in the stone beside Windreaver until the sun and the wind scour our cursed bones—but answer my question: Does my city, endure?"
The guardian threw back his lion's head and laughed. "My city, Manu, my city! It was never yours. No man—not even a cursed and immortal champion—can possess a city."
Hamanu was mortal again, with no more power than he'd had long ago when he'd faced Myron Troll-Scorcher on the dusty plain. He faced the guardian as he'd faced the Troll-Scorcher, armed with only his quick intelligence and stubbornness.
"My city, because I gave it its shape. I gave it its strength to stand against what Athas had become, against what Rajaat had done through me and the others. My city, because without me you'd be the guardian spirit of an underground lake. I gave you my shape, my strength. You are me and Urik is my city." The guardian ceased laughing. He bared the Lion-King's fangs. His sulphur eyes seethed, then quieted. "You talk too much, Manu. That mouth of yours will get you killed... eventually. Our city, Manu. Our city endures. Look into the light, and see what Urik has become."
"Pass through, Manu," the guardian commanded. "There is nothing more for you to do in this world. Your destiny was fulfilled: Urik survives. Urik will survive."
He was free. After a thousand years of life and a thousand years in the stone, Hamanu had come to the end of his path. He was free to walk into the light.
There was music: a reed pipe melody. There was a woman to welcome him.
And, further on, they found a waterfall.