The Floodgate - Elaine Cunningham [124]
He shook his head, hardly believing Tzigone's skill and nerve. She'd managed to cut the straps on his bag while he was fighting, while she was spellcasting, and to weave Basel's spell into her own. The result was an explosion that not only shattered the portal to the Unseelie realm but also slammed shut the tiny gate to the Plane of Water.
Once more, Tzigone had thwarted Kiva's plans, but this time it had cost her her life.
Because rage was easier than grief, Matteo snatched up his sword and stalked over to Andris. He thrust the blade firmly beneath Andris's chin and forced the traitor's head up. "Where is Kiva?" he demanded.
"She is dead." Andris looked up, and his ghostly hazel eyes held Matteo's implacable stare without wavering. Translucent blood dripped from the blade to mingle with the dying spring. "Kiva entered the Plane of Water to confront and destroy Akhlaur. Whether she succeeds or fails matters not. The gate is closed, and her fate is sealed with it."
Matteo took less comfort from this than he had expected to. This long-sought victory could not assuage the yawning void Tzigone had left behind. But neither the victory nor the loss released him from his duty. He slowly edged the sword away from Andris's throat.
"You will swear to this?"
"Send to Azuth's temple for their most powerful magehounds. I will submit to their inquisition, as I submit to you as prisoner."
"Just like that."
"Just like that," Andris said wearily. "My part in this is finished."
Matteo let him rise, but he kept his sword out and ready as they walked down the mountain, to the battles that lay ahead. Kiva might be dead, but Matteo suspected she was far from finished.
Avariel skirted the eastern mountains, moving swiftly toward the invading forces. Andris had been secured in a cabin below, and Basel Indoulur and Matteo stood in numb silence at the skyship's prow, staring with unseeing eyes at the forbidding terrain below them. They were nearly to the battlefield before the wizard put words to the loss they both felt.
"At least she took Dhamari with her."
"Yes." Matteo attempted a smile. "I wonder whom he has most reason to fear: Tzigone or the Unseelie folk."
"Indeed."
Again they fell silent. Matteo stared at the ground, forced himself to focus on the task at hand. The invading army was coming into view now. A host of darkclad soldiers, looking distinctly antlike from this vantage, swarmed through the Halruaan militia. The Halruaans, distinctive in their sea-green uniforms, went down like trod-upon grass.
"Too few," Matteo muttered.
"And too close," the wizard added, his round face furrowed with distress. "I know of no battle spell that will sort through a hand-to-hand melee."
"What is needed are more troops." An odd quirk of memory came to Matteo:
Tzigone holding a string of odiferous mushrooms, dressed as a street urchin so that she could seek out mischief to lighten the mundane shopping task assigned her.
"The fagoila mushrooms that Tzigone recently purchased-do you keep the spores aboard ship?"
Basel's eyes focused, then hardened. "Indeed I do, and I have prepared the instant army spell. A good thought, but there is no sign of rain."
"Strew the spores anyway, and then take Avariel above the clouds."
While the ship's mate relayed the orders to the crew, Basel took his place at the helm. Eyes closed, lips moving in a spellcasting frenzy, he clenched both hands around the magic-storing rod that gave the ship lift and momentum.
The skyship began a rapid ascent. Two minor wizards dumped small bags of pungent powder over the rail while the sailors others busied themselves with rope and sail, struggling to maintain the ship against quickening and capricious winds.
It was a dangerous gambit, and everyone aboard knew it. The skyship was not meant for such heights, and Basel stretched both its mundane frame and its magic to the edges of endurance. If they crossed that line, the ship would break up and plummet to the ground like an arrow-shot swam.
The deck pitched and shuddered as Matteo hurried