The Floodgate (10 page)

Family-it was a word he had never thought to employ in his own service. He turned it over in his mind, trying to fit what he knew of such things to the watchful, wary elves with their alien eyes and ready weapons.

“Why have you come back now?” There was no kinsman’s welcome in the elf’s copper face. Andris would not have noticed Kiva flinch had he not felt an identical pain.

“Is it not enough that I want to come home?” asked Kiva.

“If that were true, you would have come sooner.” The elf tipped his head toward Andris. “You would have come alone.”

Kiva let that pass. “We are still several days’ walk from the Crimson Tree. You found us quickly.”

“Our scouts brought word of humans in the forest pass,” offered another, younger elf. “Several hunting parties. The latest had only three men, but unlike the others, they found and followed the karasanzor’s path.”

A deep foreboding came over Andris. “Were they dressed in white, and did they wear medallions like mine?”

The elf leader and Kiva shot identical quelling glares at their companions. But Andris took his answer from the glint of surprise in the young elf’s eyes.

So Matteo had come looking for him. That was not completely unexpected, but it was distressing nonetheless. There was no friend whom Andris valued more and no enemy he would rather avoid.

“We remember Akhlaur,” the elf spokesman said. “We remember the raid on your village. Later, many of us lost friends and kin to Akhlaur’s swamp monster. We want nothing to do with Halruaa or with People who love the humans enough to live among them and their foul magic.”

“Do you love the boar, the river eels, the swamp dragons?” demanded Kiva. “If you intend to hunt a creature, you must first stalk it and observe its habits. I know Halruaa better than she knows herself.”

The elf folded his arms. “So?”

“Knowledge is a deadly sword. I offer it to the People of Mhair.”

“We’re to hunt wizards, are we?” demanded the elf leader with knife-edged sarcasm. “With what? The weapons of the jungle?”

“With their own weapons,” Kiva countered. “We will fight with wizardly magic.”

The elf sniffed derisively. “You might as well offer to bring sea-going ships into the jungle! What value are weapons we cannot use?”

“I can use them. I am a wizard,” Kiva said. She grimaced, then amended, “Or so I was, until the laraken drained away my spells.”

A moment of profound and respectful silence fell over the elves. “You have faced the laraken? And it took no more from you than your human spells?” demanded the speaker.

“I am weakened,” Kiva admitted, “but I still live.”

“How is this possible, when the monster ripped so many elves from life so swiftly that they left holes in the very fabric of the Weave?”

“My wizardly magic was strong,” Kiva said. “The laraken drank and was satisfied. What was taken from me can be restored.”

The elf leader glanced at the ghostly jordain. “And the karasanzor?”

“He is called Andris. He also survived the laraken. He is a jordain, a name humans of Halruaa give to their lore-masters. He is also a battlemaster, resistant to wizardly magic and skilled at fighting against it”

The elf looked puzzled. “He is these things, you say?”

“Yes. Is.”

Andris was not sure what this cryptic exchange meant, but he noted that Kiva had neglected to mention his elf blood. He ached to claim what kinship he could. Before he could speak, Kiva stabbed him with a glare, eloquently and unmistakably warning him to silence.

The elf spokesman was not yet done with his questions. “Let us say that you have these weapons of magic. Let’s assume that we could prevail against the humans. Why would we want to fight them again, when peace was so hard-earned and long in coming?”

“Because if we don’t, Akhlaur could return.”

Stunned silence met her words. Andris felt as shocked and skeptical as the elves looked.

“All these many years,” Kiva went on, “the laraken’s source of strength was a trickle of water from another world, a world full of magic-an endless supply of magic. The laraken escaped into that world. So did Akhlaur.”

Horror startled Andris into speaking out of turn. “Why did you help it escape?”

The elf woman’s glance flicked over to him. “Why would I lead an army of magic-dead warriors against the laraken, except to destroy it? It was my intention to enter the Plane of Water once the laraken was destroyed, to face Akhlaur. But Tzigone did not hold the laraken, choosing instead to waste her spells attacking me.”

Andris thought back upon the confusion and chaos of battle. The laraken had broken free of Tzigone and rushed back to the spring just as Kiva conjured a large, bubbling gate. When Kiva fell, it was within arm’s reach of this gate. Perhaps the laraken’s escape truly had been accidental, but the notion of her “facing Akhlaur” was too much for his mind to absorb.

“Kiva, the necromancer disappeared over two hundred years ago. No doubt he is long dead.”

“Since when was a necromancer inconvenienced by death?” Kiva spoke as if quelling a child who interrupted his elders’ conversation. “Do you think him incapable of transforming himself into a lich?”

Andris had no answer. The specter of an undead Akhlaur dwarfed any possible response into insignificance.

“There is more,” the elf woman went on. “It was Akhlaur who created the laraken, fashioning it so that whatever magic the monster absorbed would pass to its master. Now the laraken is again within Akhlaur’s grasp. That can only speed his return to power and to Halruaa. When he emerges-and eventually he will-alive or dead, it matters not-it will be as the most powerful deathwizard Halruaa has ever known. If he is to be stopped, it must be now.”

Andris nodded slowly, seeing a thread of logic in Kiva’s complicated tapestry. How could she avenge herself and her people if the wizard responsible for so much suffering was beyond her grasp? Given what he knew of Kiva, her plan involved more than a simple spellbattle confrontation. He did not exactly trust Kiva, but if at the end Akhlaur was vanquished once and for all, wasn’t that worth the risk?

The elves seemed equally conflicted. “I am called Nadage,” the elf spokesman said at last “I am a scout and warrior. What you suggest is a matter for the elders.”

“There is little time,” Kiva protested. “Such a trip would take days.”

“Not so. When humans were first spotted in the forest pass, battle preparations began. We can reach our camp by nightfall. You will come and speak before the People.”

Without further discussion, the elves turned and headed westward. Kiva gave Andris a little shove, and they fell into step behind.

“Perhaps it was a mistake for me to come with you,” Andris observed softly. “They seem reluctant to speak their minds before strangers.”

“It is not the elven way. I was born in this jungle, but I have been gone for many years. You’ll notice that they did not welcome me with joy or offer to gossip about all that has happened since I left.”

“They disapprove of mixed blood?”

Kiva gave a derisive sniff. “You jordaini have a talent for understatement.”

Andris found this painful, but logical. “Reasonable enough, given the dwindling numbers of elves. I assume they perceive elfbloods as a threat?”

She sent him a small, hard smile. “If they considered you a threat, you’d be dead. Did you notice that they did not look at you?”

“Yes, but I was too busy being glad they didn’t shoot at me to worry about it overmuch,” Andris responded. After a moment’s consideration he added, “Perhaps I owe my life to the fact that they thought me already dead.”

“That’s very close. They called you karasanzor. That means ‘crystal one,’ and it is a term of respect. They did not look at you because we do not gaze upon the crystal ghosts of our elf kin.”

Andris gestured toward his translucent form. “So looking like this is a good thing, according to the forest elves?”

“It puts you in a unique position,” Kiva agreed. “You’re clearly human-you should pardon the expression-but you appear to share the karasanzor’s fate. Furthermore, you faced the laraken and lived. They don’t know what to make of you.”

“They are not alone,” Andris muttered.

They did not speak again until the elves stopped for the evening. The scouts showed them to a small house built high into the forest canopy, well away from the camp itself.

Andris and Kiva ate the fruit that the scouts left for them and settled down for the night. Deeper in the jungle, the unseen elves began to sing. The melody was slow and languorous, with a gently pulsing rhythm.

Andris had never known a mother, but he suspected that this song was a lullaby. Never had he heard anything so moving. It comforted and saddened him at the same time.

Kiva stopped brushing her hair and turned to him. “What do you know of the Lady’s Mirror?”

The sudden question shattered the music’s spell. Andris frowned. “It is a pool sacred to Mystra, Lady of Magic, tended by wizards who worship her servant Azuth, the Lord of Wizards. Some say that on a full moon the face of the goddess can be seen in the still waters. This sight is considered to be a sign of great blessing.”

“There is a small temple near the shore of the Mirror. A repository of spellbooks and artifacts, and not a particularly well-guarded one.” Her glance slid over, held his puzzled stare, and waited for him to catch up.

Comprehension came over him slowly. A score of Azuthan priests served the temple, and at any given time there might be perhaps another twenty visitors who came for pilgrimage or study. There was no fortified keep, just a few small buildings, little more than traveler’s huts, scattered throughout the nearby grove. Yet none of the magical books or items had ever gone missing. Such an act would be tantamount to ripping tapestries off the walls of King Zalathorm’s festhall.

“You cannot mean to desecrate the Lady’s Mirror!” he protested.

“No,” she said with dark amusement. “I plan to raid it upon the morrow, you will tell me how.”

She smiled at his dumbfounded expression and patted his cheek as if he were a slow but promising child. “Get some sleep. We rise with the dawn.”

Andris settled down, certain that he would never find slumber with such a task before him, but the evensong of elves spoke to him as wizardry magic could not. It stole into his blood, into his soul, soothing and calming him in a manner he had never dreamed possible.

Andris wondered about elven reverie and wistfully coveted the vivid, waking dreams that were said to be more refreshing than sleep. Perhaps here, in this place, he might share some of that fey peace.

When he slept, though, his dreams were not of peace. And when the morning came, the plan he lay before Kiva made her eyes burn with golden fire.

The distant spires of Azuth’s Temple rose against the sunset clouds as Matteo and his friends emerged from the forested pass.

“A little dove’s flying this way,” Themo observed, nodding toward the small gray figure that ran toward the jordaini, arms and legs pumping steadily. “Making good time, too.”

“Must be important if it couldn’t wait a few more hours,” added Iago.

Matteo nodded and shook the reins over his lizard mount. The others followed suit. They hurried to meet the runner-a barefoot and barelegged girl, clad in a short tunic of Azuthan gray. She dipped into a bow and then handed Matteo a scroll. “I am to wait for your reply, my lord.”

“Just Matteo,” he corrected absently as he broke the seal. “The jordaini claim no titles.”

“As you wish,” the girl murmured politely.

“It’s not as I wish,” Themo put in, only half in jest “What do you say, Iago? What title would suit me? Themo the war baron? Themo the king’s general?”

“Themo the horse’s arse,” Iago suggested.

Themo snorted and reached out to punch Matteo’s shoulder. “Well, are you going to tell us what’s worth wearing out this lass’s pretty feet, or do you want us to guess?”

Matteo glanced up at his two friends. “A message from the queen’s steward. He is concerned about Queen Beatrix and requires my presence at once.”

“Your response?” the acolyte prompted.

“There can be only one. I will leave for Halarahh at first light.”

“I will accompany you,” suggested Iago.

“And I!” put in Themo stoutly. He slapped the reins against his lizard’s neck, as if he would ride all the way. The great creature’s shoulders rose and fell in an astonishingly human gesture of resignation.

Matteo reached out and dropped a hand on the big jordain’s shoulder. “I would have you, and gladly, but your training is not yet complete.”

“Training!” grumbled Themo. “My head holds all the information that’s ever likely to fit. Every now and then a man’s got to stop thinking and start doing. By Mystra, what this country needs is a good war!”

Dark memories of the recent swamp battles flooded into Iago’s eyes. For a moment Matteo thought that Iago would draw a weapon on Themo and wash the big man’s theory away with his own blood. The small jordain regained his composure quickly.

“War usually results from a cessation of thought,” Iago observed. “So I suppose your argument has some basis in logic.”

“Logic,” Themo sneered. “I liked it better when you called me a horse’s arse.”

Iago smiled. “Fortunate is the man who is content with what and who he is.” Though he spoke to Themo, he sent a long, somber stare in Matteo’s direction.

Themo, whose enjoyment of a good insult surpassed his subtlety, heard the jest and missed the warning. Matteo marked it and would think of it often in the days to come.

The journey to Halarahh was swift and uneventful. The River Halar ran deep and fast, and the Azuthans’ shallow keeled boat sped along the water like a low-flying swan. At the delta harbor, Matteo and Iago changed to a sea-going vessel. Their captain hugged the coast, for far out over the lake sullen gray clouds grumbled and clashed like titanic dwarves roused too soon from slumber. By day’s end the docks of Halarahh lay within sight.

The two jordaini leaned against the ship’s rail and watched the gap between ship and city narrow.

“We have not spoken of your plans, Iago. Will you return to Procopio Septus?”