His lips thinned in puzzlement as he regarded the creature kneeling before him. This was not what he had expected. The elf woman had every reason for vengeance, but she did him proper homage, and she offered him not a weapon but the long-desired key to his freedom.
“What is this, little elf?” he demanded.
Kiva raised her amber eyes to his. “The land is in disarray, Lord Akhlaur. The Lady’s Mirror has been plundered, the Crinti invade the northlands in large numbers, and the Unseelie folk have found a way to pass through their hollow hills. Armies of the Mulhorandi march on the eastern borders. Even the queen turns against her people, unleashing metal monsters upon them.”
Akhlaur bit back a chuckle of delight. “All this is very interesting, of course, but what has it to do with me?”
The elf still held the gem out. “I can take us both back to Halruaa. The need is great, my lord. The land will be destroyed, and all in it.” As she spoke, her tone changed to gloating, and the light of madness touched her catlike eyes.
The necromancer was beginning to see the light of day. “And who better to urge this destruction along than your old master.”
“Will you come with me?”
Akhlaur studied her. “What will you do with this chaos? Revel in it, like some moon-mad Azuthan dancing amid wild magic? Or is there a shape and purpose to your actions?”
“There is, my lord,” she said firmly. “I want to break the Cabal.”
The years slipped away. Akhlaur remembered the creation of that great artifact, the friends who had shared in its shaping—and the betrayals that had led to his exile. Hatred washed through him in great waves. He let none of it enter his voice or show in his face.
“Ah, yes. An interesting experiment, that, but long past its usefulness. Tell me, little elf, who holds the heart of Halruaa?”
This time there was no mistaking the feline glint in her eyes and smile. “Your old friend Zalathorm rules as wizard-king.”
This time Akhlaur could not hold back the crow of laughter. This was too rich! Zalathorm lived and ruled, and by the power of the Cabal!
“He is considered to be the most powerful wizard in the land.”
“We shall see about that,” the necromancer said, reaching for the emerald in Kiva’s hand. “Take me to the battle at once.”
Matteo rubbed the grit from his eyes and rose slowly from the ground. Instinctively he extended a hand to Andris, who was also stumbling back into consciousness. They clung together, wavering unsteadily as they struggled to remember where they were and how they came to be here.
Memory returned to Andris’s eyes, and with it came a bitter chill. He wrenched free of Matteo’s grasp and made his way unsteadily over to the spring. He dropped to one knee beside it. After a moment his shoulders slumped, and his head dropped to his chest.
Silence shrouded the mountains. After the tumult of battle and magic, the quiet was eerie. Even the clamor from the valley below had faded to a murmur of steel and voice. Matteo looked about for Tzigone. The veil was gone, and the song of the dark fairies silenced. Tentatively he placed his palm up as if to touch the place where the veil had hung, and where his friend had disappeared. Nothing remained of the dark fairies or the girl who had banished them.
“Why, Tzigone?” he murmured.
From long habit, he turned to Andris for answers. The jordain still knelt at the mouth of the stream. No more water flowed. The spring was gone.
The floodgate was closed.
Beginning to understand, Matteo felt for the strap that tied a bag to his back. The bag was gone, and with it the magical devices that Basel had given him, the ones Matteo would have cast into the spring so Basel could trigger a powerful implosion. They had not been certain this could close the floodgate. Now they knew.
He shook his head, hardly believing Tzigone’s skill and nerve. She’d managed to cut the straps on his bag while he was fighting, while she was spellcasting, and to weave Basel’s spell into her own. The result was an explosion that not only shattered the portal to the Unseelie realm but also slammed shut the tiny gate to the Plane of Water.
Once more, Tzigone had thwarted Kiva’s plans, but this time it had cost her her life.
Because rage was easier than grief, Matteo snatched up his sword and stalked over to Andris. He thrust the blade firmly beneath Andris’s chin and forced the traitor’s head up. “Where is Kiva?” he demanded.
“She is dead.” Andris looked up, and his ghostly hazel eyes held Matteo’s implacable stare without wavering. Translucent blood dripped from the blade to mingle with the dying spring. “Kiva entered the Plane of Water to confront and destroy Akhlaur. Whether she succeeds or fails matters not. The gate is closed, and her fate is sealed with it.”
Matteo took less comfort from this than he had expected to. This long-sought victory could not assuage the yawning void Tzigone had left behind. But neither the victory nor the loss released him from his duty. He slowly edged the sword away from Andris’s throat
“You will swear to this?”
“Send to Azuth’s temple for their most powerful magehounds. I will submit to their inquisition, as I submit to you as prisoner.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that,” Andris said wearily. “My part in this is finished.”
Matteo let him rise, but he kept his sword out and ready as they walked down the mountain, to the battles that lay ahead. Kiva might be dead, but Matteo suspected she was far from finished.
Avariel skirted the eastern mountains, moving swiftly toward the invading forces. Andris had been secured in a cabin below, and Basel Indoulur and Matteo stood in numb silence at the skyship’s prow, staring with unseeing eyes at the forbidding terrain below them. They were nearly to the battlefield before the wizard put words to the loss they both felt.
“At least she took Dhamari with her.”
“Yes.” Matteo attempted a smile. “I wonder whom he has most reason to fear: Tzigone or the Unseelie folk.”
“Indeed.”
Again they fell silent. Matteo stared at the ground, forced himself to focus on the task at hand. The invading army was coming into view now. A host of dark-clad soldiers, looking distinctly antlike from this vantage, swarmed through the Halruaan militia. The Halruaans, distinctive in their sea-green uniforms, went down like trod-upon grass.
“Too few,” Matteo muttered.
“And too close,” the wizard added, his round face furrowed with distress. “I know of no battle spell that will sort through a hand-to-hand melee.”
“What is needed are more troops.” An odd quirk of memory came to Matteo: Tzigone holding a string of odiferous mushrooms, dressed as a street urchin so that she could seek out mischief to lighten the mundane shopping task assigned her.
“The fagoila mushrooms that Tzigone recently purchased—do you keep the spores aboard ship?”
Basel’s eyes focused, then hardened. “Indeed I do, and I have prepared the instant army spell. A good thought, but there is no sign of rain.”
“Strew the spores anyway, and then take Avariel above the clouds.”
While the ship’s mate relayed the orders to the crew, Basel took his place at the helm. Eyes closed, lips moving in a spellcasting frenzy, he clenched both hands around the magic-storing rod that gave the ship lift and momentum.
The skyship began a rapid ascent Two minor wizards dumped small bags of pungent powder over the rail while the sailors others busied themselves with rope and sail, struggling to maintain the ship against quickening and capricious winds.
It was a dangerous gambit, and everyone aboard knew it. The skyship was not meant for such heights, and Basel stretched both its mundane frame and its magic to the edges of endurance. If they crossed that line, the ship would break up and plummet to the ground like an arrow-shot swam.
The deck pitched and shuddered as Matteo hurried along, hanging on to the rail for support as he showed the skysailors how to seed the clouds with handfuls of sand from
the ballast bags. Bereft of this weight, the skyship rose still higher. Swirling winds caught the ship and shook it like an angry dog. Matteo clutched the rail and leaned far out, gazing at clouds below them. To his relief, they were beginning to roil and darken.
“It’s working,” Matteo shouted above the rising gale. “We’ve got to get back down, and fast.”
Basel nodded curtly and said something to the bosun, who snatched up a glowing horn, raised it to his lips, and shouted a single word:
“Brace!”
As the magical warning resounded over the ship, Matteo dropped to the deck and wrapped his arms around a bolted-down barrel. The skysailors, their feet kept in place by the horn’s magic, frantically lowered the sails.
Avariel plummeted though the clouds, spinning slowly as it passed through the grumbling gray mist. Canvas flapped thunderously as the sailors struggled to lower and bind the sails. Their efforts were hampered by churning hail. Bits of ice formed in the seeded clouds, kept airborne by the roiling winds until they were too heavy to hold.
He closed his eyes and began to chant a spell of teleportation. Matteo stepped into the path of a small, crimson wind tunnel that spilled from Basel’s hands. Instantly he was whisked away into a white, soundless world, but the wizard’s words—and the possibilities they offered—followed him into the void.
Procopio clenched the rail of Starsnake, his personal skyship and the command ship of the Halarahh militia. He gazed at the battle below and sought furiously for something that could turn the battle and ensure Halruaa’s victory and his own.
It was not going well. Several legions should have marched north from Halarahh. Apparently the queen’s metal army had kept them too busily employed. Basel Indoulur’s mushroom army had evened the score somewhat, but such warriors never lasted long enough. Too many warriors had died in the Nath. Three skyships lay in smoking ruins amid the foothills, and at least a score of wizards had fallen with them. Even so, Procopio’s campaign was considered a victory, and his ship flew nearly at the head of Zalathorm’s fleet.
Like a flight of vengeful dragons, the Halruaan ships soared toward the invaders. They maintained a careful wedge formation to keep a path clear for spells hurled by wizards on every ship. Fireballs and lightning bolts flew like fireworks at a festival—and fizzled out just as harmlessly. The invaders had come well prepared for conventional battle magic.
Unfortunately for Procopio, he had spent years studying just such conventions. Something different was needed, something unexpected!
A high, ringing note soared from a nearby skyship—a metallic clarion call signaling the climax of a mighty spell. On and on the music went, until Procopio clapped his hands to his ears. To the east, two of the highest mountains, still snowcapped even in summer, began to shudder. The ice caps shattered like a goblet broken by a single high, pure note. Snow thundered down the mountains, engulfing the latest wave of Mulhorandi invaders and burying the pass.
But the Mulhorandi were far from finished. Clouds began to rise from the spray of snow and mist, taking the form of a man. A titanic figure etched in blue and white and gray took shape, its feet deep in the snow and its massive fists thrusting high into the sky. In its hand was an ice-colored dagger as long as a ship’s mast
The weapon slashed down, tearing through a skyship’s sails and plunging into the deck. The sound of splintering wood disappeared in a sharp explosion as the magical rod that powered the ship snapped free. The skyship listed to port and began a spiraling descent.
“Storm elemental,” Procopio muttered, recognizing an obscure Mulhorandi spell.
Other cloud forms began to rise, tapping the power of the avalanche. On one of the giants, Procopio saw a familiar face—that of Ameer Tukephremo, the Mulhorandi wizard who had sold him the cloaking spells in exchange for the promise of Halruaan magic.
A tremor of uncertainty shivered through the diviner. Procopio had not considered the possibility that the Mulhorandi might actually enter the land. That they had certainly done. Was it possible that they might even prevail? That he might not only lose a throne but also his homeland?
For a moment the wizard debated his course. He could confess all that he had done, let the other Halruaan wizards know what secrets and advantages their opponents had. Procopio had studied Mulhorandi magic for many years, and the wizards could use this knowledge against the invaders.
Or he could use it to promote his own cause?
In the end, the choice was simple. Procopio began the chant of a cloud-form spell, creating a monster that could challenge any two of the Mulhorandi giants. The sight of his own visage on that godlike frame thrilled him, and he laughed aloud as he willed his elemental double into battle against Ameer Tukephremo.
The sky giants met like two opposing storms. Procopio’s wielded a sword taller than a mountain pine. Ameer’s curving scimitar flashed against the sky like a new moon.
As the diviner watched the battle, he reached for another spell sequence. He summoned a fireball and then a spell that would place it, greatly enlarged, in the hands of his cloudy avatar.
Light from the magic missile flowed through the insubstantial form, lending it the fire and brilliance of sunset clouds. The titanic image of Procopio hurled the fireball, which tore through the Mulhorandi’s cloud form like a javelin. The elemental staggered back, already beginning to dissipate, the edges of its body peeling off into wisps of cloud. Procopio followed with a lightning-sword spell. His elemental’s blade took on a jagged edge and a livid blue hue. Procopio willed the elemental to slash again and again at the cloudy form of his enemy and partner.
At last the gigantic image of Ameer faded away. Procopio held the spell, and for a long moment his storm elemental stood in the sky like an avenging god, holding aloft the lightning sword as if daring the other cloud forms to pass.
None of the elementals took his challenge. They dissipated as the Mulhorandi wizards retreated, putting their energies to other, less risky spells. Procopio released the cloud form and stooped to pick up the small book that fell from the empty air to land on the deck near his feet. Without sparing it more than a glance, he thrust it into the enchanted bag that would send it to his library. He knew what the book was and what its return meant. This was the spellbook that Ameer Tukephremo had risked so much to win. Its return to Procopio signaled the wizard’s death.
Procopio sank onto a bench, exhausted by the casting, but his face wore a smile. Halruaa would not soon forget the image of a titanic Procopio, standing triumphant against all challengers. He might not have done all the things he had planned, but his triumphs might prove to be enough.
Kiva rose and clenched her fist around the emerald, deeply aware of the hundred souls that cried out for release. The elf woman felt their pain as if from a very great distance. Her own pain had been lost to her long ago, her heart encased in something far harder than green stone.
The necromancer’s cold fingers closed around hers, and the magic she had labored over for nearly two hundred years caught them and swept them away.
They flew through the liquid magic as if they had been sucked into a rising waterspout. Up they went, caught in a vastly powerful spell that thrust them across the worlds and through the gate. Like an arrow suddenly loosed from a bow, they hurtled up through the thin and empty air. The gate slammed shut behind them with booming finality.
The sheer power of the spell reverberated through Kiva’s bones and exploded into white-hot pain. All light and sound and sensation simply, suddenly, stopped.
Later—Kiva had no way of knowing exactly how much later—the world slowly came back to life. She eased her eyes open, listened as the ringing in her ears faded away. As her senses slowly reawakened, she realized that the ground beneath her was soft and yielding.
She struggled into a sitting position and looked wildly around. Instead of the rocky clearing where the spring had leaked water from the almost-closed gate, she reclined on an enormous carpet that, in turn, undulated gently
on a cloud.
The necromancer sat cross-legged, studying her with something approaching respect. “I did not expect so powerful a spell. You have worked hard, little elf, and grown further in Art than I had anticipated. Later, you will show me this spell.”
She would deal with “later” when it came. Perhaps by then she would be able to learn what magic had gathered around the gate and thrust them so powerfully out of the watery plane.
“The battle?” Akhlaur prompted.
Gathering herself, she directed him to the point of invasion. They arrived just in time to see the giant cloud forms grappling in the sky, to witness the victory of a storm elemental with close-cropped curls and a face like a hawk’s.
“Ingenious,” Akhlaur murmured. “I admire a man who studies the magic of his enemies.”
The Mulhorandi forces still outnumbered the Halruaan fighters on the ground. A wave of dark-clad infantry swept forward, and a tremble of anticipation ran through the waiting cavalry.
“The Halruaan army will be destroyed,” Kiva said.
“Not necessarily. A water elemental might stem the tide—a truly gigantic creature that could crush the cavalry underfoot.”
Kiva swept a hand over the barren plain. “There is no water in sight, my lord.”
“No?” He smirked. “You have forgotten your lessons, little elf. Man is made of flesh and blood—endlessly mutable flesh and blood. What is the primary component of all this flesh and blood?”
She nodded, suddenly understanding. “Water! Of course!”
Akhlaur lifted his webbed hands and began to chant. A gray cloud grew overhead, grumbling and quivering. There was a sudden explosion, and a torrent of rain rose up into the cloud.
The warriors directly under the spell cloud immediately dissolved into desiccated bone. Others fell in withered heaps of bone-wrapped skin. Like the ripples cast by an enormous stone, the wave of devastation spread. The army of the Mulhorandi fell by the hundreds, the thousands. The fluids that gave them life flowed upward into the waiting cloud.
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