The Floodgate

by Elaine Cunningham

  The elves exchanged glances. “It is for the undine to say.”

  The exhausted sprite nodded and dived deep. Time passed, and the shadows of night began to creep over the swamp. Finally one of the elves gasped and pointed.

  A limp form floated amid a swath of black lilies. Andris dived in and pulled the undine to shore. The elf shaman bent over the fey creature, then shook her head. “She lives, but not for long.”

  Kiva stooped and jerked the bag from the dying creature’s belt She tugged open the string and spilled the contents onto her open palm. A large, perfect emerald caught the last rays of the dying day. A smile of satisfaction crossed the elf’s face, and her eyes went utterly cold.

  Chanting a spell, she dropped to her knees. She placed a tiny vial on the undine’s chest and then fisted both hands in the delicate white feathers that framed the creature’s shoulders. With a quick, vicious tug she wrenched them free.

  The undine’s entire body buckled in a spasm of agony, and she was gone. Nothing remained of her but the feathers in Kiva’s hands and the glowing vial on the shore.

  The elves stood in shocked horror. Kiva ignored them and tipped the vial to her lips. The glowing liquid disappeared, as wings sprouted from Kiva’s shoulders. Andris had never seen such a spell, but it was not difficult to understand what Kiva had done. She had stolen the undine’s life-force, and, at least for a time, the ability of the creature to live in the water.

  Elven steel hissed free, and every blade pointed at Kiva’s heart. She spat out a trigger word, and instantly the weapons flamed red with heat. With startled cries, the elves dropped their blades to sizzle and steam where they fell. They thrust their burned hands into the cooling water.

  Kiva turned to Andris. “Kill them.”

  Andris shook his head.

  “What of the Cabal?” she taunted him. “What price is too large to pay to see it destroyed?”

  “This one,” he said softly.

  Kiva’s hand came up and spat blue fire. lighting flared into the water, skittering across the surface to sizzle into the elves’ already burned hands. Before Andris could stop her, before he could speak a single word of protest, their companions lay dead.

  “No price too large,” she said firmly.

  Dhamari Exchelsor sat in his tower window, watching the brightly painted Avariel sail northward in the company of a dozen other skyships. Of course Basel would go northward, despite his long-standing feud with Procopio Septus, for Tzigone would wish to fight at her jordain’s side. If Basel were not so obliging, Dhamari imagined that Tzigone would find another way.

  The streets below resounded with the clash of the queen’s clockwork army. Their numbers were most impressive. Mechanical warriors emerged from root cellars and privies, stables and guest chambers and gardens, attacking anyone in their path. According to Dhamari’s spells of inquiry, small skirmishes were everywhere. He watched as two metal gnolls—hideous beastmen with heads resembling desert dingoes—clattered down the street, tossing a shrieking child between them like a toy. Dhamari’s guards took off in pursuit, leaving his tower unprotected.

  No matter. The wizard watched them go, fondling a small coin that would transport him to Tzigone’s side as soon as the deadly spell was cast and the dark fairies summoned.

  And call them she would. Kiva had made certain of that, whether she knew it or not

  Procopio had witnessed such battles a hundred times, played out in miniature. Why then, was he so unprepared for the slaughter?

  As Kiva had forewarned, small bands of Crinti had taken position on the mountains, choosing perches higher than the skyships could climb. They were too firmly entrenched to give the airborne wizards a clear target or even a sense of their numbers, which, as Matteo had suggested, were greater than Kiva had admitted. In a broad valley below, a band of mercenaries under the command of the jordain Iago fought in bloody melee against the gray warriors.

  Most of the skyships dipped low into the valley. The fighting was too close for wizardly spells to be effective, so the warriors on board slid down ropes to join in the battle. Some of the more daring Crinti climbed the ropes to take the fight onto the ships.

  Procopio had sent small bands up into the mountains to flush out the other Crinti, most of them to positions he had “divined.” Among these men was Matteo. Procopio had intended to keep the jordain at his side, but Matteo left, sliding down a rope and dropping several feet to the ground. He stopped long enough to check the bag strapped to his back, then took off at a run. With a disgusted sniff, Procopio left the jordain to his fate and turned his attention to the battle at hand.

  He gave the order to his helmsman to take the skyship higher, above the stench of death and the cries of dying men. After all, he was accustomed to watching such battles from above.

  Matteo sprinted up a mountain path, running along a stream that seemed too swift and strong for this terrain, this season. From the skyship, he noted that its origin was a spring in the middle of a small clearing, very like the stream in the Swamp of Akhlaur that had sustained the laraken for two centuries. Several Crinti warriors guarded this spring, firming Matteo’s suspicions.

  Surely this was where Kiva had moved the floodgate.

  He ran toward the deadly site, not entirely certain what he would do when he got there or what he might meet His only thought was that the gate must be closed. He only hoped he would live long enough to mark the site for Basel Indoulur. The wizard would have to do the rest.

  Far to the west, beside the pool that guarded Akhlaur’s treasure with monsters and magic, Kiva faced down the furious, ghostly jordain. She forced herself to keep her voice calm and soothing, addressing the human as she might an angry dog.

  “Keep your goal in mind. You know the price others have paid for the power Halruaan wizards wield. Did you think this wrong could be easily undone?”

  Andris gestured to the slain elves. “They did not have to die.”

  “Yes, they did,” the elf told him, “and so must I.”

  She smiled into his stunned face. “Did you think I meant to rule in the wizards’ stead? There is nothing left for me in this world but vengeance. I will die with my blade in Akhlaur’s heart and be content.”

  “But the task is not completed!”

  “No, but my part is almost finished. It is your task to hold the floodgate until I can slip through into the Plane of Water. When the gate closes, you will know that I have succeeded, and you will know that I am dead.”

  Andris accepted this with a nod. “And the Cabal?”

  “To destroy that, one must destroy Zalathorm himself.”

  Andris’s face turned an even more ghostly shade. “I can’t do that”

  “No,” she agreed, “but you will not need to. I already have. Zalathorm is a dead man—he is just too stupid to know it. But no more words. I have only borrowed the undine’s strength. It will soon fade.”

  She extended her hand to him. After a moment’s hesitation, he took it. Together they stepped back into the whirling white magic that led to the floodgate. Neither of them looked back.

  Matteo burst into the clearing with a fierce battle cry, his sword raised high.

  Two Crinti warriors ran to meet him. A third Crinti, a tall, almost stocky woman, held her place by the spring.

  Three swords met in a single clash. “Mine,” growled the taller Crinti as she heaved her blade free. She sidestepped Matteo’s lunge and shouldered her comrade out of the way. “You, Whizzra! Get reinforcements.”

  She spat the word out through a sneer. Apparently she thought two Crinti were more than sufficient for a single human. Matteo planned to prove her wrong.

  He spun back toward the elfblood, bringing his sword around in a sweeping, waist-level cut. It was a difficult attack to defend, but the Crinti brought her sword down in a brutal smash that knocked Matteo’s blade low.

  Matteo leaned in over the weapons and locked one hand on the nape of her neck. While she was still off balance, he
hooked one foot behind her ankle and threw himself back, letting his weight bring them both down.

  The Crinti was quick, but she could not get her balance or bring her sword back into play. She landed hard on Matteo—surprising him with her solid weight—and then drew back her fist for a short arm punch to his throat.

  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 pinned face down, hands behind her back.

  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, unnerved by this daring, stood behind Tzigone with a two-fisted grip on her tunic. Tzigone gently brushed away the girl’s well-meaning grasp and turned to Basel. “I’m going down there.”

  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, running even before both boots touched stone. Spurring her on was the sound of swords clashing and pounding in furious battle.

  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 connecting them were strong. Andris seemed to be fighting to sunder them. No less desperately did Matteo battle to keep his friend from slipping away.

  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 skyships 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 thinnest there.”

  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 mo
untains 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.