The Floodgate

Matteo, trained in hand-to-hand combat since early boyhood, caught her wrist and gave it a deft twist. In three quick moves he had her pi

He tugged off the leather thong that bound back his hair and quickly secured her hands. All the while, he kept an eye on the second Crinti, who watched with her fists on her hips and a smile of dark amusement on her lips.

"Yours, Shanair?" she sneered.

"Take him!" the downed woman shrieked. "But the trophy for this kill is mine!"

"No, Shanair," said a familiar voice. "This trophy is mine."

Matteo lifted his eyes to the ghostly face of his boyhood friend. He shifted his weight off the struggling Crinti and reached for his fallen sword, rising slowly, never taking his eyes from this new and deadly foe.

Shanair rolled away and jumped to her feet. She leaped again, bringing her knees up high and tight to her chest and swinging her bound hand under them. Stalking over to the other Crinti, she held out her hands. The woman smirked and pulled a knife from a wrist sheath. She snapped the leather thong with a quick slice, then turned the knife point-inward to return it to its place.

But Shanair kicked out viciously, knocking the warrior's knife hand up high. She pivoted on her lower foot and kicked out again, catching the woman on her lower forearm and driving her hand, and the knife it held, directly into her face.

The brutality of the attack sickened Matteo. "Sister fighting sister, brother against brother," he murmured as he and Andris fell into a fighting crouch. "How have we come to this?"

"Do you intend to fight, or talk me to death?"

Andris came toward Matteo with a shallow, testing blow. Matteo's sword flashed forward and slapped it aside.

"No one has to die here."

"Only Halruaa. Only her wizards, her laws, her lies!"

"I can't accept that," Matteo said, batting aside a couple of quick blows. "Whatever ills Halruaa suffers, she won't die this day."

"She already has," Andris said, with a small, strange smile Matteo could not begin to read. "She is just too stupid and stubborn to admit it."

In a skyship above the clearing, Tzigone leaned far out over the railing and watched the battle. Farrah Noor, u

The wizard shook his head. "This ship can't get in close enough. I'd have to let you down in the valley, where the fighting is too intense. Even if you could fight your way clear, you'd never get up the mountain in time to help."

Tzigone was not listening. Her eyes roamed the ship for a solution. "The wind-dancer sail. I could hold it and jump. It will slow my fall."

"So would a feather-fall spell," Basel retorted, "and with far more accuracy and safety."

Tzigone lifted one eyebrow. The wizard threw up his hands. "All right, there is a way to get you down."

Basil hurried to his cabin and returned with a small scroll. Tzigone memorized the simple spell and vaulted over the rail, chanting as she fell. The spell took hold suddenly, and it seemed as if the air had become as thick as cream. She drifted easily down, ru

She caught sight of the formidable gray warrior who stood over the mouth of a spring, watching the two men battle and awaiting Matteo's death with eager eyes. A soft cry escaped Tzigone. The gray woman glanced in her direction. Tzigone dived behind a jagged pile of rocks. After a moment, the Crinti turned her attention back to the two men.

Tzigone peered between two rocks, not at all certain of the battle's outcome. Matteo and Andris were both superbly fit and trained. They fought together as skillfully as dance partners, as attuned to each other's movements as source and shadow. Tzigone sensed that the bonds co

Tzigone clung to the rock as if to hope itself. "Let him go, Matteo," she whispered.

So intent was she on the battle that she did not notice the approach of the Crinti. Suddenly a score of them slipped into the clearing and formed a ring around the fighters.

Tzigone's heart plummeted to her boots. The Crinti would not let Matteo leave this place whether he won or lost. There was nothing she could do for him but watch him die.

Or was there?

Dhamari claimed the song of the Unseelie folk was enough to put the Crinti to flight. She hoped he spoke the truth.

Tzigone edged away from the valley and scuttled up a rocky wall to the top of a small cliff so that her song might dance between the mountains and confound her hiding place. Her perch gave her a view of Matteo's battle, as well as the larger conflict in the valley below.

She glanced at the main battlefield. Three of the sky-ships lay in smoking ruins on the valley floor. The bodies of the slain were so numerous that the remaining fighters could barely move among them. It seemed to her that most of the survivors were Crinti. A few magical missiles fell from the airborne skyships now that the fighting was not so close, but most of the wizards were still hesitant to fire upon Halruaans who might yet be alive.

Still more Crinti emerged from the caves and passes, converging upon the dying army. She could make them flee. All she had to do was cast the spell and pray she still had the strength to banish the dark fairies once the deed was done.

Tzigone crouched down and began to sing the spell. All around her, the mountains echoed as Unseelie voices echoed her song. The Crinti in the valley below began to flee, but the circle that formed around the two jordaini held firm.

"Loyal, but not very smart," said a voice at her elbow. "The gate is thi

Tzigone whirled to face Dhamari Exchelsor, and her voice hitched in surprise. "Keep singing," he admonished her, "but hold off on the final gestures. Your friend's life depends upon it."

The wizard rose. Light poured from him like a lighthouse beacon. "Crinti!" he called in an unexpectedly clear, ringing voice.

The shadow amazons turned toward this new threat. "Behind you," he said, sweeping one hand in a dramatic gesture.

Tzigone, still singing, following the direction. A shimmering veil was taking shape in the clearing. Beyond it, going back and back into some unfathomable depth, crouched a sea of shadowy forms with glowing black eyes. Dhamari took her arm and pulled her toward the veil.

"Let the jordain go, and we will hold back the dark fairies," Dhamari said as he and Tzigone moved to within a pace of the veil. "Kill him, and we will release them." As if to illustrate the point, he seized Tzigone's outstretched hand and held it close to the veil.

"Tzigone, don't!" Matteo pleaded, speaking between ringing blows. "No good can come from an alliance with evil!"

Dhamari threw his weight against her, pushing her forward so that her hand touched the veil in the final spell gesture.

Magic pulsed through her. Tzigone's vision went dark. Against the blackness she glimpsed a vivid, agonized image of herself, her body nearly as transparent as the crystal ghosts in Akhlaur's swamp. Her bones glowed blue, and the blood in her veins was black ice.

The moment passed as her natural defenses slammed back into place, but the damage was done. The veil began to become more translucent. The song of the Unseelie folk grew louder, triumphant, a chorus of evil punctuated by the percussion of the jordaini's swords. The Crinti fled, disappearing into the mountains like gray smoke. From the corner of her eye, Tzigone noticed a copper and jade elf, moving toward the spring with the stealth of a hunting cat.