The Wizardwar

by Elaine Cunningham

  The room was still filled with rosy light. Moving through the light were crystalline forms, similar to that borne by Andris. All were elven but for an elderly human man who held a strong resemblance to Farrah Noor. The ghostly human bowed deeply to them and disappeared.

  The elves milled about, embracing each other and rejoicing in their freedom. Tzigone watched with tear-misted eyes.

  A light, tentative hand touched her arm. “Ria?” asked a tentative voice.

  Memory flooded back, the one thing Tzigone had sought for so long—her name, the name her mother used to call her. “It’s me,” she managed.

  Keturah’s eyes, enormous in her white-painted face, searched her daughter’s face. “So beautiful,” she said wistfully, “but no longer a child.”

  For the first time in her life at an utter loss for words, Tzigone handed her mother the talisman. Keturah’s fingers closed around it, and her face went hard.

  “Kiva is near, and with her comes a great and ancient evil.” She reached out and touched Tzigone’s cheek. “Our task is not quite finished—they must both be destroyed.”

  She set off with certainty down a series of tunnels. Tzigone glanced at the jordain, and did an astonished double-take at the sight before her. Andris was fully restored, and looked much as he had before the battle in Akhlaur’s Swamp.

  Matteo nodded to her. “We follow,” he said simply.

  Tzigone raced after the avenging queen and prepared to face Akhlaur—and Kiva.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Two armies faced each other across the dueling field. It was as Kiva expected—as it always had been. The warring factions of Halruaan ambition gathered to fight a common foe. Wizards and warriors, private armies and the remnants of Halarahh’s militia, they all stood shoulder to shoulder, nearly as pale as the hideous foes they faced.

  Akhlaur’s undead minions stood ready. Skeletal forms showed through watery flesh that reeked of the swamp. All waited for some signal to begin.

  Suddenly Zalathorm appeared, standing before Halruaa’s army. He flung out one hand, and fine powder exploded toward the undead army. A wind caught the powder, sending it swirling as a dust devil rose in size and power. The pale tornado raced toward the undead and burst into a shower of flying crystal.

  The lich commander shouted an order, and many of the warriors fell to one knee, covering themselves with large rattan shields. The salt-storm, though, struck many of the undead warriors, and all it touched melted like salted slugs.

  Their skeletons merely shrugged off their oozing flesh and advanced. Their bony hands unlatched small leather bags hung about their necks, removed vials glowing with sickly yellowish light. The skeletal warriors darted forward with preternatural speed, hurling the vials as they came.

  “Deathmaster vials!” shouted one of the wizards. Several of them began to cast protective spells.

  The front line charged. Some of the warriors pushed through, shielded by protective magic. Others were not so fortunate. Terrible rotting sores broke out wherever the noxious liquid met flesh. Yet all of them, living and dying, fought with fervor. Their swords lifted again and again as they hacked the attacking bones into twitching piles of rubble.

  Arrows rained down upon the undead forces from the north side of the field, which was shaded by enormous, ancient trees. Kiva, who crept along the forest edge, noted the scores of archers perched in the branches overhead. She noted that all were clad in Azuthan gray, and she hissed like an angry cat.

  As she feared, whenever the arrows found a target, undead creatures fell and did not rise. Holy water, no doubt, had been encased in glass arrow heads.

  The wizards took full advantage of this, bombarding the army with one spell after another. Fetid steam rose as fireballs struck watery flesh.

  Kiva’s lips firmed as she recalled a terrible necromancy spell she had learned at Akhlaur’s side. After just a moment’s hesitation, she began the casting of a powerful defoliation spell.

  Instant blight fell over the woods. All vegetation withered and died, and leaves drifted like mountain snow. Birds fell limply to the ground, and human archers dropped like sacks of meal. In moments, a swatch of woods some fifty feet in every direction stood as barren as a crypt.

  Yet another bit of the ancient elven forests fell before Halruaan magic.

  Kiva shrugged aside the pain that coursed through her, blood and bone and spirit, when the great trees died and the Weave shimmered and sighed. This terrible destruction was but one more stain upon her soul.

  The two armies charged, meeting in the midst of the field in terrible melee. A small group of Halruaans broke through, charging with suicidal bravery toward the place where the necromancer stood.

  The elf—victim, apprentice, and would-be master of Halruaa’s most powerful necromancer—responded without thought or hesitation. Kiva lifted her hands, and red light crackled from her fingertips. It stopped the charge like a wall of force. The warriors were lifted into the air, surrounded by crackling light, their bodies twitching in excruciating pain. The nerve dance was one of the many cruel arrows in a necromancer’s quiver. It would not stop the warriors for long, and it would not kill many of them, but it held them helpless for several agonizing moments. Few wizards could maintain a spell in such pain. The moment of invulnerability provided opportunity—it was up to Akhlaur and his lich to seize it.

  Kiva turned and fled the battlefield, running for the palace. When she brought Beatrix to this place years ago, she had placed small devices that would enable her to slip past the wards and into the palace.

  Whether Akhlaur wished it or not, the crimson star would set this day.

  Matteo and Andris raced down the sweeping marble expanse of the palace stairs. They pulled up short as a battalion of militia marched into formation, taking a guard position. Procopio Septus stepped forward and surveyed the dumbfounded jordaini with a faint smile.

  “We will hold the palace,” Procopio announced. “Someone must stand ready to take over the throne if Zalathorm should fall.”

  “If all the city’s wizards stand with him, the king’s chances of survival rise considerably,” Matteo shot back. “These men are needed against Akhlaur’s army.”

  Procopio’s face darkened. “That is my decision to make. You have yet to learn, jordain, that it is the wizard-lords who rule.”

  “Do what you will, but let us pass,” Matteo said. He drew his sword, and Andris followed suit. “Every blade is needed.”

  The wizard shook his head. “And let you carry this tale to Zalathorm, like a faithful hunting dog retrieving a partridge? I think not”

  The two jordaini advanced.

  Procopio sneered. “What can two men do against twenty warriors and a wizard?”

  One of the militia—a tall, thick-bodied man—shouldered his way though the group. He bowed to Procopio and drew his sword, as if he intended to offer himself as champion. Before Procopio could respond, the big man fisted his free hand into the wizard’s gut The flair of protective wards flashed, but the man shrugged them off without apparent effort Procopio folded with a wheeze like a punctured wineskin.

  “With respect, my lord,” Themo said distinctly to him, “that would be three men and no wizards.”

  An enormous grin split the big man’s face. He fell into step with his two friends as they stalked down the stairs toward a sea of ready swords.

  As one, the men threw down their weapons. Themo’s face fell. “Where’s the fun in that?” he demanded.

  “You’re ranking officer now,” one of them said to Themo, “and it’s treason to fight a commander. There’s a bigger battle to fight, but by all the gods, if you tell us to fight Halruaans I’ll run you through myself.”

  The big man grinned fiercely. “I’m guessing Akhlaur’s army were Halruaans, mostly, but they’ve been dead too long to take offense.”

  At his signal, the battalion picked up their weapons and prepared to run toward battle.

  “To the royal stables,” Mat
teo shouted.

  They quickly claimed swift horses, mounted, and rode hard for the northern gate. The dueling field was a short ride, and the horses ran as if they sensed the urgency of their riders.

  Matteo leaned low over his horse’s neck, skirting battle and riding hard for Zalathorm’s side. He saw Akhlaur striding forward, a glowing black ball held aloft. Matteo groaned as he recognized a deathspell—a powerful necromancy attack that snuffed out a life-force instantly and irrevocably.

  The king swept one hand toward the advancing necromancer. A brilliant light flashed out—as bright and pure as a paladin’s heart. It swept toward the necromancer, a light that would dispel darkness, destroy evil.

  The black globe winked out, and Akhlaur slumped to the ground. To Matteo’s horror, the necromancer’s green-scaled faced darkened, taking on the bronzed visage of a newly slain warrior. The wizard’s robes changed to a blue-green uniform, mottled with darkening blood.

  “A zombie double,” Matteo said, understanding the necromancer’s diversion. He had lent his form to a newly slain Halruaan. The jordain looked frantically about for the real Akhlaur.

  A shadow stirred amid the roiling battle, and a black globe flared into sudden life. It hurtled toward the king. A shout of protest burst from Matteo, but he was too far away to reach Zalathorm in time.

  A bay stallion galloped toward the king, and the tall, red-haired man in the saddle drew his feet up beneath him and launched into a diving leap. The black sphere caught him in midair and sent him spinning.

  Andris struggled to his feet, his daggers in hand. For a moment, Matteo dared hope that his friend’s jordaini resistance would prove equal to the terrible spell, but Andris’s hands dropped to his side, and his daggers fell to the field.

  Matteo threw himself off the horse and caught the dying man as he fell.

  Kiva raced toward the palace. She stopped near one of the trees that shaded the courtyard and began to climb. A soft thump landed behind her. Kiva’s wide-spanning elven vision granted her a quick glimpse of Tzigone, her hands darting toward Kiva’s hair.

  Before the elf could respond, Tzigone seized the jade-colored braid and yanked it savagely. Kiva’s head snapped back, and she lost her grip on the rough bark. Using her fall to advantage, she kicked herself off the tree and into the wretched girl.

  They went down together like a pair of jungle cats—rolling, clawing, and pummeling. Neither of them noticed at first that Keturah had begun to sing.

  Slowly Kiva became aware of elven voices joining in with the woman’s ruined alto. She broke away, backing away from the suddenly watchful Tzigone and gazing with disbelief at faces too long unseen.

  The song faded. Quiet and watchful, the elven folk lingered near as if somehow their life task was not quite finished.

  Tzigone rose. “It’s over, Kiva. You’ve won. The elves are free.”

  Dimly Kiva became aware that she was shaking her head as if in denial. Yes, these were her kin, her friends. There was her sister, there the childhood friend who taught her to hunt, there her first lover. They were free. Her life purpose was fulfilled, and the proof of it stood by silently waiting for her to understand the truth of it.

  Suddenly Kiva knew the truth. It was not finished, her task. All these years, everything she had done—she had believed that it was devoted to the freeing of her kin. But that was not what had driven her at all. Vengeance had utterly consumed her, leaving her less alive than these shadowy spirits.

  With a despairing cry, Kiva threw both arms high. A flash of magic engulfed her and she disappeared from sight.

  In less than a heartbeat, she emerged from the blink spell, one designed to take her to her one-time ally. She stood at the palace stairs, where a glum-faced Procopio sat and brooded.

  He jumped like a startled cat when her fingernail dug into his arm. “Come, wizard,” she said in a voice that was strange even in her own ears. “It is time for Halruaa to die!”

  Kiva and Procopio emerged from the spell in the midst of an undead throng. The wizard gagged at the stench and lifted one hand to cover his nose.

  The elf snatched it aside and pointed with her free hand to the place where Akhlaur stood, limned with black light.

  “Look well, wizard,” Kiva said in a voice shrill with madness. “He is your mirror. He is you. He is Halruaa, and may you all molder in the Abyss!”

  She snatched a knife from Procopio’s belt and plunged it into his chest. For a moment he stared down at it, incredulous, then he slumped to the blood-sodden field.

  Deep in the ranks of his warriors, Akhlaur cast another spell. A terrible bone blight settled on a seething mass of warriors. The undead were not harmed, but the living received each blow with twice the force it might otherwise have had. Swords fell from shattered hands, and men dropped to the ground, writhing in agony as the fragile, jagged shards of broken bones stabbed through their flesh.

  Gray-clad priests worked bravely, dragging the wounded aside and praying fervently over the fallen. Wizards, in turn, protected the clerics. A circle of wizards cast protective spells upon a cluster of gray-clad Azuthan priests, who chanted collective spells meant to turn away undead.

  The forces of Halruaa, when united in purpose, were difficult to withstand. Skeletal warriors fell like scythed grain.

  Akhlaur spun toward his lich. Vishna stood beyond the reach of the clerics. At a nod from Akhlaur, the undead wizard summoned a deathguard—guardian spirits ripped from the Ethereal Plane. These bright warriors glided toward the priests like fallen angels, as formidable as a charge of airborne paladins. Vishna began the chant that could summon an even more dreadful magic.

  A dark web formed over the battlefield. As the corpse host spell took effect, the newly dead began to rise and living soldiers, untouched by blade or spell, fell senseless to the ground.

  Cries of inarticulate dismay burst from torn throats as scores of living men realized that they were inhabiting corpses. Their own bodies, living but discarded, lay defenseless. Already the undead warriors stalked toward them like wolves encircling trapped prey.

  The Halruaan warriors who had not felt the touch of Vishna’s spell, who did not understand the spell, rushed to meet their advancing comrades. Not understanding, they cut down the confused and frantic undead. Abandoned bodies shuddered and died as the life-forces trapped in undead flesh were released to whatever afterlife awaited them.

  The lich’s eyes swept the crowd and found Zalathorm fighting hand to hand against an enormous, bony construct that seemed half man, half crocodile. Akhlaur sped through the gestures of a powerful enervation spell and hurled it at the king. Zalathorm jolted back, his face paling as strength and magic were stripped from him. For the briefest of moments the eyes of the two old friends met.

  With a thought, a gesture, Vishna sent a bolt of healing energy toward Zalathorm. At the same time, he sent a mental command to the undead warrior at Akhlaur’s side.

  The creature drew a rusted knife and cut the tether to the black cube at the necromancer’s sleeve. It stumbled forward, bearing the ebony phylactery that contained Vishna’s spirit. So engrossed was Akhlaur that he did not notice its loss.

  Vishna took the tiny box from the skeletal hand and nodded his thanks. “I grant you rest and respect,” he muttered. The skeleton bowed its head as if in thanks and crumbled into dust.

  He scanned the battlefield, and his eyes settled upon a small, green-haired female. With a gesture of his hand, the undead commander parted a path through the seething throng. He made his way to Kiva’s side.

  She glanced up at him with a haughty demeanor and hate-filled eyes. “Akhlaur commands you now. What do you want with me?”

  “Only to finish what was begun long ago,” he said. “I’ve come to free you.”

  The undead wizard plunged a dagger into her heart.

  For a long moment she stared at him. Hatred turned to bewilderment, then, to a strange sort of relief.

  Vishna released the dagger and let Kiva f
all. After a moment he stooped and closed her eyes. He gathered the dead elf woman into his arms and walked into the blighted forest and toward the living trees. There, amid the roots of an ancient tree, perhaps she could find the peace that had evaded her for so long.

  At the end of the battlefield, the ghostly form of Halruaa’s elves watched with sad approval.

  Zalathorm thrust aside the dead crocodilian warrior and scanned the battlefield. The dying light touched the faintly glowing forms gathered at forest’s edge. As the meaning came to him, a smile filled his face like sunrise, and an enormous burden lifted from his heart.

  He shouted his enemy’s name. Powerful magic sent the single word soaring over the field like the shout of a god.

  The combatants ceased and fell away. All eyes went to the wizardking. Zalathorm pointed to the watchful elven spirits. “The Heart of Halruaa,” he said simply.

  Akhlaur whirled toward the spirits of the elves he had tormented and enslaved. His black eyes widened in panic. His webbed hands sped through a spell that would command and control undead, but the elves were far beyond his reach.

  The necromancer shouted for Vishna, for Kiva. There was no response.

  “Let it go, Akhlaur,” Zalathorm said, and there was more sorrow than anger in his voice. “Our time is finished.”

  He took from around his neck a silver chain, to which was attached a small, crimson gem. “One of our earlier attempts,” he explained, holding up the glowing gem. “When our only thought was to sustain and protect each other for the good of Halruaa.”

  Zalathorm threw the gem to the ground. It shattered, and suddenly the weight of years crushed the king into dust. Where he stood was a small mound of bone heaped with moldering robes, crowned with a circlet of electrum and silver.

  A terrible scream came from the necromancer and drew all eyes to the transformation overtaking him. Like Zalathorm, he withered away, but slowly, and he remained alert and in agony, shrieking in protest and rage. His skeletal jaw shuddered with fury long after the sound had died away. Then there was only dust, which blew away in the sudden gust created as every undead creature fell to the ground, released at last from the necromancer’s power.