The Wizardwar

Kiva hurried back toward the rising tower. Fortunately, the casting was long and difficult, and it seemed unlikely the necromancer noted her inattention. Akhlaur still stood with his eyes shut, his webbed hands outstretched. The blood from the needed sacrifices pooled around his feet and seeped slowly into the ground.

The black tower glistened as it rose, slowly, like an obsidian elemental taking shape. Around it stood a silent horde of long-dead skeletal creatures, raised from the surrounding swamps to participate in this strange reincarnation.

As the tower rose, thousands of naked bones took on flesh and form. The water that had drowned the tower and its treasures seeped upward into the patient dead. Undying servants-not quite zombies, not quite water elementals-stood ready for their master's command. Ancient bone showed through translucent, watery flesh.

It was, Kiva had to admit, an ingenious way of ridding the site of much of the water. The drained pit would remain beneath the tower, providing space for dungeons and middens, and the warriors would help Akhlaur stake his claim.

She waited until the tower doors had risen level with the newly firm ground. Doors and windows opened by unseen hands, and desert-dry winds whistled through the tower rooms. At last the tower stood as Kiva had last seen it: an imposing work of Halruaan art, a peerless storehouse of necromantic arts, a place of horrors too well remembered.

Kiva added her applause to the listless, watery patter of zombie hands. "Never have I seen such a spell, Lord Akhlaur, or such an army! These warriors should be more than sufficient to drive away the attacking wizards."

The triumphant smile fell from the necromancer's face. "The tower is under attack?"

She fell back a step and brought a look of chagrin to her face. "I misspoke, my lord. No attack is underway, to the best of my knowledge, but raising the tower required an enormous amount of magic. There are wizards who might sense spells of such magnitude. Sooner or later, they will come to investigate."

The necromancer acknowledged this with a nod. "Obviously you have a suggestion."

"I do, my lord. With your permission, I will summon the laraken back to the Swamp of Akhlaur."

Akhlaur's black eyes narrowed. "How do you know this spell?"

"It is similar to the magic that summoned its parent, the water demon. I saw it cast often enough to burn it into memory." With effort, Kiva kept her voice level and calm.

The necromancer looked intrigued. "Few can learn spells by observation alone. You have always been among my best apprentices, little Kiva," he said, ignoring the fact that she had learned about this particular arrow not as a student archer, but as a target. "Very well, let us see what you can do."

Kiva smiled blandly. "Indeed you will, my lord."

A flicker of suspicion entered the wizard's eyes, then was gone. "The best of my apprentices," he repeated in a tone as mild as hers. "I am eager to see what other lessons I have inadvertently taught you."

She heard the warning in his words and noted the keen interest in his eyes. For the first time, Akhlaur seemed to consider the possibility that all might not be as it seemed. He did not look dismayed by that prospect-to the contrary. Nothing pleased him more than a cruel game, a hidden purpose.

The elf held her smile and silently promised to give the wizard all he desired and more.

Chapter Nine

Morning crept over the Nath, fading the night sky to a dismal gray. The rain that had fallen steadily all night ceased with the coming of light, and mist rose like summoned spirits from the stony ground.

Slim gray figures moved through the swirling, land-bound clouds, preparing their horses, gathering supplies, bundling weapons plundered from the Halruaans and from their own dead. Shanair, the Crinti chieftain, sat her shadow-gray mare and watched as her decimated forces prepared for retreat.

One of the warriors cinched a thick bundle of bloodstained arrows to a tall bay stallion-a dead Halruaan's war-horse turned pack animal. She caught Shanair's eye and gave the chieftain a quick, fierce smile.

"Fine arrows, and each one wrenched from an enemy's body! This stallion will breed a hundred foals by summer's end. All will fetch a good price in Dambrath."

Shanair nodded, understanding what prompted the woman's boasts. They would return to their native land laden with plunder. They would have honor and wealth. As raiders, they had done well indeed. No one need speak of their deeper, failed purpose.

It would be good to return to Dambrath. Shanair glanced around the campsite, a relatively flat place carved high into the mountainside by a long-ago rockslide. The site was littered with boulders and nearly surrounded by jagged cliffs. Piles of tumbled rock squatted above them like tipsy, dwarven sentinels. A small, potable spring bubbled up from somewhere deep in the heart of the mountain, and a few shallow caves offered shelter from the elements. It was a highly defensible place, if not a comfortable one, but no fitting home for a Crinti warrior. Soon Shanair would again ride free over open plains.

The prospect gave her less pleasure than she expected.

A faint buzzing, like that of a captured wasp, came from a small leather pouch affixed to her belt. Shanair's gray face furrowed in puzzlement as she unbuckled the fasteners and drew a small, smooth, round stone from the bag.

Elf-sister, I greet you.

A familiar voice sounded in Shanair's mind, a lilting, bell-like soprano that lent rare grace and elegance to the rough Crinti dialect Shanair knew only one person whose voice held such music. Clutching the stone, she slapped her heels into her horse's side and reined the beast away from the camp.

"Kiva!" she whispered. "We thought you dead!"

Do you really think I would leave before the battle was over?

Shanair, suddenly ashamed, glanced back over her shoulder at the bustling camp. She herself was preparing to do precisely that.

Her practical nature quickly reasserted itself. "What more can be done? The battle was fought. Many Halruaans died, but too many remain. We Crinti are too few to push them into the sea."

The Crinti need not fight alone. The floodgate-

"The floodgate is closed," Shanair said flatly. "We felt the magic shake the mountains. We saw the spring disappear."

There was a moment's pause, and the stone in Shanair's hand surged with power. The Crinti, attuned to Kiva through some magic she did not understand, recognized temper flaring bright and quickly controlled.

What I was about to say, Kiva went on pointedly, was that many magical treasures are buried around the site of the floodgate. Dig a circle around the place of the spring's origin, about seven paces from the center.

Shanair shook her head before she remembered the elf could not see this response. "This morning, Xerish did not report. We tracked her to one of the dark fairy mounds. There she disappeared. This is no place for the Crinti."

This time the stone flared hot enough to burn Shanair's fingers. Did you find another set of tracks, or are the Crinti not skilled enough to follow a true elf's trail?

The venom in Kiva's words smarted worse than the burning stone. "One trail only," Shanair admitted.

There were two trails leading to the Green Crone, Kiva said, giving the Crinti name for that particular fairy mound. Xerish failed me, and I sent her beyond the veil. Do as I say, Shanair, or you will find you have far more to fear than the Unseelie folk.

The magical contact broke off abruptly, leaving Shanair stu

"Elf-sister," she muttered in self-disgust. All this time, she had believed Kiva viewed her as a comrade, if not quite an equal. The Crinti dealt death with a quick hand. Though they were brutal and unforgiving of failure, no one among them would ever torture one of their own. Kiva had given Xerish to the dark fairies. Nothing could have painted the truth in starker colors than this.