The Floodgate

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.

The spring!

Magic rose from the water, tingling over Tzigone's sensitive skin like the bubbles from sparkling wine. Understanding came to her in a sudden, horrified instant.

Kiva had returned to the floodgate.

What her purpose was, Tzigone could not say, but one thing she knew: If the elf woman had her way, Matteo would die and Halruaa with him. Desperate but determined, Tzigone kept singing, but this time her song spoke of banishment, of dark enchantments broken and gates closed. Her voice rose over the Unseelie song like the battle cry of an unlikely paladin, and the two spells struggled for supremacy like the two battling jordaini.

Magic built in power, shaking the mountains and sending rocks tumbling down into the valley. Dhamari tried to pull away, but Tzigone held him firm. When the veil opened, she threw herself into it, dragging the wizard behind.

Her song twined with the magic spilling from the Unseelie court-a meeting of fire and oil. An explosion shook the mountains and tossed aside the only two people left standing in the clearing.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Akhlaur stood by the coral obelisk, gazing past the glowing structure to the invisible gate beyond. By his reckoning, the moon would rise full over Halruaa. It was a time of power, when spells were more puissant and hungers ran dark and deep.

A rumble of distant magic echoed through the water. Akhlaur threw back his head and inhaled deeply, like a sailor testing the wind for a coming storm. His senses, made preternaturally acute by his years in the Plane of Water, perceived the whirl of a distant, rapidly descending waterspout. Exhilaration rose in him like long-forgotten lust.

The spinning magic came to him with unerring instincts. Bubbles spun off and dissipated, revealing a small, slender elf woman. She dropped to one knee and held out both palms, one resting upon another. In her top hand she cradled an enormous, perfect emerald, a gem worth the fortunes of a dozen kings-and the lives of a hundred elves.

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?"