The Wizardwar (8 page)

A veil the king could not dispel, he added silently. He wondered once again why Zalathorm would put so important a task of divination upon the shoulders of a magic-dead counselor.

“You look troubled,” Basel observed.

Matteo shook off his introspection. “It is a perplexing matter, but I thank you for your council. You have a solid grasp of Halruaan law, as I would expect from any former jordaini master-“

He broke off abruptly, but Basel’s wide, startled eyes announced that the cat was already in the creamery. The wizard quickly composed his face and settled back in his chair.

“Apparently you have a good many things on your mind! Is there any particular reason for inquiring into my past employment, or are you inclined to fits of random curiosity?”

For a moment Matteo debated whether to follow this path. The need to know won out over propriety. “Yesterday, after the king named me counselor, you said we had matters to discuss.” His heart pounded as he waited for the wizard to admit what Tzigone had hinted and Matteo suspected: Basel was his natural father.

The older man’s expression remained puzzled. “I was speaking of Tzigone’s rescue.”

Matteo felt an unreasonable surge of disappointment. Not yet ready to let the subject drop, he asked the wizard what he had taught.

“Defense against battle wizards. Why?”

“That is a particular interest of mine. In the future, perhaps we could discuss it? That is, if you remember much from your years at the Jordaini College.”

The perpetual twinkle in Basel’s eyes dimmed. “Isn’t there a jordaini proverb about memory being a curse as well as a blessing?”

“I don’t think so.”

The wizard’s smile was brief and bleak. “There should be.”

Basel’s words followed Matteo into the palace dungeons. Just days before, he had delivered a prisoner to this place-a fellow jordain, and his oldest friend. The memory of that felt very much like a curse.

The corridors were uncommonly quiet and dark, and the light of Matteo’s torch seemed to push uncertainly at the darkness. He rounded a corner and almost stumbled over a large, huddled form. He stooped over a particularly burly guard and touched his neck. Life pulsed beneath his fingers, faint but steady. Only a very skilled fighter could drop an armed man without harming him. That meant Matteo’s quarry had passed this way.

The jordain stood and walked cautiously toward the archway leading into the next corridor. He dug a handful of flour from his bag and tossed a bit of it at the arch. No telltale streaks of light appeared amid the brief flurry of powder.

The jordain frowned. As queen’s counselor, he’d made a point of learning palace defenses. This door should have been warded with a powerful web of magic.

He bent down and ran his hands over the smooth stone floor. There was a faint, gritty residue on the stone, a crystalline powder mingling with the flour. Matteo sniffed at the crystals clinging to his fingers and caught a faint, sharp scent.

“Mineral salts,” he muttered. He rose and headed toward the eastern dungeon at a run.

Andris’s cell was far below a mineral spring that served the palace bathhouse. Over the years, water had seeped through dirt and stone and left almost imperceptible deposits on the walls. Mineral salts were simple and common but powerful in knowledgeable hands. Certain witches used salt to contain magic within boundaries or to ward off magical attacks. Wizards used crystals to focus and amplify magical energy. Crystals could also scatter such energy. Mineral salts, hundreds of tiny crystals scattered in just the right place and at precise times, could disrupt certain spells. Andris possessed such knowledge.

After the battle of the Nath, Andris had yielded himself up to Matteo willingly, almost remorsefully. Why was he trying to escape now?

Matteo sprinted to the cell. As he’d anticipated, the door was ajar. A large key drooped from the lock, and two senseless guards sat propped up against the bars. He picked up a water pitcher from a large trestle table and dashed the contents into the guards’ faces. The two men came awake sputtering.

He seized one of the guards by the shoulder and gave him a brisk shake. “Your prisoner has escaped. Tell me, how was he brought in?”

“The gargoyle maze,” the guard muttered, massaging his temples with both hands.

“Sound an alarm, and send guards down the main gargoyle corridor. Tell them to extinguish the torches behind them as they go. They are to veer off into the moat passages and allow themselves to be heard doing so.”

The guard struggled to take this in. “That leaves the long corridor unguarded.”

“Leave that to me,” Matteo said.

He got the men on their way. The trestle table was cluttered with gaming dice and empty mugs. He swept these aside and picked up the unattached table top. He balanced it on his head and walked quietly toward the end of the main gargoyle corridor-which, not incidentally, came close to the grated sewer tunnels, and the dungeon’s best hope of escape.

The corridor was dark, and the faint smoky scent of extinguished torches lingered. Matteo kicked the heavy oak door at the end of the hall, closing it and throwing the hall into impenetrable blackness. He moved forward several paces until he found a crack in the stone paving, then eased the table down and wedged it into the crack. Letting the table lean toward him, he put his shoulder to it and waited.

His keen ears caught the sound of a light-footed man running barefoot. He braced himself just before someone hit the tabletop at a dead run.

Immediately Matteo threw the table forward and hurled himself with it. Despite the double impact, the table jounced as a man pinned beneath struggled to free himself. Matteo’s seeking hands found the man’s throat

“Be still, Andris. Don’t make this worse than it already is.” There was a moment’s silence, then a raspy voice inquired, “Matteo?”

“Who else would guess that you’d be counting off paces in the dark?”

A moment of silence passed, and Andris let out a muted chuckle. Matteo released his grip and rolled off the table. He tossed it aside and helped the winded prisoner to his feet. “Eighty-seven paces,” Andris said. “Another five, and I would have slowed down for the door. You couldn’t have backed up just a little, I suppose.”

“The thought crossed my mind. Briefly.” Matteo threw open the door, and faint light filtered in. Andris’s translucent form was nearly invisible in the gloom, and he looked more ghostly than ever. His face, always angular, was gaunt and drawn.

He’s slipping away, Matteo realized. The grief and dismay this realization brought surprised him. By now, he thought he’d be inured to the pain of losing his friend. He swallowed his dismay and leveled a stern look at the former jordain.

“Why were you attempting escape?”

“It’s not what it seems. Though this might be difficult to believe, I was looking for you.”

Matteo folded his arms. “Here I am. Here I would be, had you merely asked the guards to summon me.”

“Do you think I didn’t try?” Andris retorted. “They insisted the king’s counselor has better things to do than listen to a traitor’s prattle.”

Matteo could see the logic in that. “I should have left instructions with the guards.”

Andris shrugged. “You’re here now. By the way, congratulations on your new office. I can think of no man more worthy of the honor.”

“Please, keep repeating that thought,” Matteo said dryly. “If words truly have power, they might turn that sentiment into reality. Now, what did you want to tell me?”

“I heard the guards speak of the battle against the Mulhorandi invaders,” Andris began. “Was it true, what they said about the necromantic spells?”

“They could hardly have exaggerated.”

“Who cast them?”

Matteo’s brow furrowed. “To the best of my knowledge, the king did.”

“Has he said so?”

The jordain considered this. “He hasn’t denied it.”

Andris gripped Matteo’s arm. “What I’m about to say might be difficult to believe, but hear me out. Before I left the Jordaini College to rejoin Kiva, someone sent a blink bird to alert me to books hidden in my chamber. One of these books dealt with jordaini ancestry. I learned the name of my elven forebear. A name you know well.”

“Kiva,” Matteo said slowly. “She could be hundreds of years old, a living ancestor. That was why you cast in with her!”

“It was one of the reasons, yes, but that is a tale for another time. The other book was a grimoire, the spellbook of Akhlaur. Akhlaur the necromancer.”

“Gods above! Are you saying that spell was in the book? That it was a spell of Akhlaur’s creation?”

“That and more. Matteo, Akhlaur is alive. He is back.”

Matteo stared at him in silence. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know, but it’s the only logical explanation. Kiva had the spellbook for a while, but she was gone before the spell was cast. Any Halruaan wizard would be quick to claim such a feat. Zalathorm has neither claimed nor denied it. I suspect he has come to the same conclusion I have. He’s allowing people to think what they will as he prepares for the inevitable confrontation.”

Matteo’s head whirled as he tried to assimilate his friend’s grim logic. He didn’t wish to believe it but neither could he refute Andris’s words. He blew out a long breath, then drew one of his daggers and took a bit of flint from his bag. A single deft movement produced a spark and set a wall torch alight. That accomplished, he turned to his friend.

“I think you’d better tell me everything you know.”

Andris nodded. “Years ago, before Akhlaur began his rise to power, three young wizards, friends from boyhood, created a powerful artifact. This artifact was a symbol of their friendship. It joined them, lending the strength of all to each. This they did in response to dangerous times, for all three were active in Halruaa’s defense. In youthful arrogance they called themselves the Heart of Halruaa. The artifact would protect them and their descendants, creating a legacy of guardianship.”

Matteo jolted as he recalled a conversation with Zalathorm in which the king had hinted of powerful magic protecting the “Heart of Halruaa.”

Andris noted this response. “What is it?”

“Not long ago, Tzigone and I were attacked by thugs and taken to an icehouse. Between us, we dispatched most of the men. The dead and wounded simply faded away. King Zalathorm told me that when the Heart of Halruaa is concerned, either the threat or the threatened are removed from danger. A similar thing happened when clockwork monsters went amok in the queen’s workshop.”

The ghostly jordain’s eyes went wide. Matteo lifted an inquiring brow, but Andris shook his head.

“Never mind-a fleeting and unformed thought, not worth speaking. I suspect you came here to ask me to help you retrace Kiva’s steps, to determine what role she played in the queen’s downfall.”

“That is true.”

“I値l help you. In exchange, you must help me destroy the Cabal.”

A burst of startled laughter escaped Matteo. “As if the two impossible tasks currently before me were not sufficient! Andris, I don’t even know what the Cabal is!”

“I just told you.”

Matteo sobered. “The artifact? The Heart of Halruaa?”

“Well, it’s good to know that palace life hasn’t made your wits less nimble,” Andris said dryly.

“That does make a certain macabre sense,” the jordain mused. “Yet all my life I’ve heard tales of a secret group of wizards who supported and controlled the Halruaan government in mysterious ways. You’re saying there’s no truth to these tales?”

Andris’s faint smile held a world of bitterness. “Sometimes truth can be found only in layers of irony.”

“If that’s not a jordaini proverb, it should be,” Matteo retorted. “How do you know these things?”

“I read Akhlaur’s grimoire,” he reminded Matteo. “I know why the artifact was created, and I know what it became. It must be destroyed.”

Matteo regarded his friend for a long moment “Once, I would have taken any course of action on your word alone. Forgive me, but those days have passed.”

The ghostly jordain nodded. “Fair enough. You saw how the laraken drained the life force-the magical essence-of all the elves it encountered.”

Matteo averted his eyes from Andris’s translucent form. “Yes.”

“Where did that magic go?”

He blinked, then frowned. “I assumed the laraken consumed it, as we do food.”

Andris shook his head. “The laraken was only a conduit. The stolen lifeforces are contained in the heart of an ancient, magic-storing gem.”

“You’re sure of this?” Matteo pressed.

“I saw a similar gem in the Khaerbaal Swamp. I brought it to Kiva. She shattered it. I saw the elven spirits, captive for centuries, released. Never have I seen such joy! Whenever following Kiva weighed heavily on me, I thought of that moment and my part in it.”

Matteo nodded, understanding at last what had motivated his friend.

“Will you help me?” Andris pressed.

Still he hesitated. “You wish to destroy an artifact that supports King Zalathorm’s reign.”

“Why not? Wasn’t it you who told me that no good can come of alliance with evil? You also spoke of conflict between a jordaini’s three masters: truth, Halruaa, and the wizardlords. It is time for the truth to be told, and you may have to choose between your patron and the good of Halruaa.”

Perhaps this, Matteo mused, was what Zalathorm had intended. Perhaps this Cabal was the mysterious “what” that held Beatrix under enchantment.

“I will consider,” he agreed. “In exchange, give me your word that you will not escape. Swear this upon your elven honor.”

Something bleak and cold thawed in Andris’s eyes. “I didn’t think you understood what that meant to me.”

“I don’t, entirely, but I’m learning the importance of heritage.”

He extended his hand, and they clasped wrists like comrades never parted. “You won’t come to regret this,” Andris vowed.

“No need. I regret it already,” his friend retorted, only half in jest.

The corridor ended in a locked gate. Matteo raised his voice to hail the guards. A small battalion promptly clattered up. Matteo singled out the man wearing a commander’s insignia.