The Wizardwar Read Free Page B

of amusement in his voice.
    “Nor you me,” Zalathorm returned grimly. “With this gem, we entrusted our lives to each other’s keeping.”
    The necromancer lifted raven-wing brows in mock surprise. “Why, Zalathorm! Take care, or I shall suspect you of harboring doubts about our friendship!”
    “Doubts? I don’t know which is the greater perversion: the use you have made of this gem, or the monster you made of the man I once called friend.”
    Akhlaur sent a droll glance toward his apprentice. Noor stood over the slain wizard, both hands clasped over her mouth and tears streaming down her lovely face. The necromancer took no notice of her distress.
    “Tiresome, isn’t he?” he said, tipping his head in Zalathorm’s direction. “What can one expect of a man whose family motto is ‘Too stupid to die?’”
    Zalathorm lifted the gem as if in challenge, then swiftly traced a spell with his free hand. Every wizard in the room mirrored his deft gestures.
    The room exploded into white light and shrieking power. Kiva dropped and hugged the floor of her cage as the tower wrenched free of its moorings and soared above the forest canopy.
    Again she smiled, for the power of this casting was as great as any magic she’d endured at Akhlaur’s hands. Moving an entire tower, a wizard’s tower-Akhlaur’s tower!-was an astonishing feat! Immediately she sensed Zalathorm’s intent, and again she dared to hope.
    When the tower shuddered to a stop, Kiva closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, as if she could draw the forest into herself. Senses she could never describe to a human told her where the tower now rested. Deep in the swamp was a rift carved into the land by a long-ago cataclysm known to the elves as the Sundering. The rift was a hidden place, a suitable tomb for Akhlaur’s tower-and a place far from the laraken and its magic-draining power.
    Kiva hauled herself to her knees and looked about for the necromancer. He stood crouched in guard position, brandishing a skull-headed scepter and an ebony wand like a pair of swords. Her throat clenched in dread, for she knew the spells stored in these weapons and knew Akhlaur could hold off magical attacks for a very long time.
    Yet he did not strike.
    Her gaze slid to the necromancer’s face. A puzzled moment passed before she understood his wild eyes, his twisted expression.
    Akhlaur was afraid.
    Of course! The magical rain had stripped away even these powerful weapons! Akhlaur’s confidence had rested upon his laraken and its ability to strip spells from other wizards and transfer them to its master. Now the tower had been removed well beyond the laraken’s hunting ground, and no new magic flowed to the waiting scepter and wand.
    Akhlaur’s frantic gaze sought out his apprentice. “The laraken!” he howled to Noor, brandishing his scepter at the circling wizards in the manner of one who attempts to hold off wolves with a stick. “Summon the laraken!”
    Kiva laughed. The sound was ragged, yet it rang with both hatred and triumph. Noor would not do as Akhlaur asked. The slain wizard had been her father-Kiva knew this in her blood and bones, just as she knew the spirit of the old wizard was now imprisoned in the crimson star, along with Kiva’s kin. The anguish and guilt on Noor’s face when the white-haired wizard died was as familiar to Kiva as the sound of her own heartbeat.
    However, obedience to Akhlaur was a powerful habit. The girl’s hands began to trace a summoning spell before she had time to consider her own will. She hesitated, and half-formed magic crackled hi a shining nimbus around her as her uncertain gaze swept the room.
    Several of the wizards had leveled their wands at her, ready to slay her if need be. All of them looked to Zalathorm, who held up a restraining hand and studied Noor with sympathetic and measuring eyes.
    “Your father,” he said softly, “was a hard man but a good one. He believed magic carries a stern price. He came here to pay his