The Wizardwar - Elaine Cunningham [48]
A flood of emotions-feelings Kiva had thought long dead-burst free from some locked corner of her heart She dropped her eyes to hide her loathing and hatred and shame. Any one of these responses could prove fatal.
Nor could she answer the necromancer's questions without stepping off another precipice. She had given birth, just once, before the laraken's spawning had destroyed all hope of further progeny. Her long-ago daughter had been halfelven, a scrawny, sickly thing barely clinging to life, almost completely devoid of magic. Akhlaur had never acknowledged his child by Kiva, but he had made good use of the girl. That sad little half-breed had been Akhlaur's first magic-dead servant, the germ of an idea that eventually became the jordaini order.
To Akhlaur, that long-ago daughter was the subject of a necromantic experiment, and nothing more. He would be insulted by any claim of kinship. Yet Kiva could not take a similar viewpoint without disparaging the child's human father.
No answer was correct. Any response could bring harsh reprisals. It was the sort of cruel game Kiva remembered from her distant captivity. But she was no longer that captive elven girl.
Her chin lifted, and her eyes cooled to amber ice. "My only living child is the laraken. It carries a portion of Akhlaur's magic. How could I possibly disdain that?"
For a long moment their stares locked. Then Akhlaur stooped and seized the half-elf's head by the hair. He lifted it and regarded it thoughtfully. "How old do you suppose she was?"
Kiva blinked at this unexpected question. "Forty, maybe forty-five years.
Quite young for a half-elf, and about the same as twenty-five years of human life."
"Then I suppose there's little chance she achieved arch-mage status."
"It seems unlikely."
"Pity. I've a spell that requires the powdered skull of an archmage who died during the lich transformation."
Kiva shot him an incredulous look. "Is this a common enough occurrence to warrant its inclusion in spell components?"
"If the spell were common, it would hardly be worth casting." The necromancer negligently tossed the head into the pool, and tapped thoughtfully on his chin as he gazed out over the spreading ripples. "Well, no matter. There are other ways of raising the tower."
He gave a terse command to the undead warriors. They fell to work digging a narrow canal that would divert the water downhill to a nearby river.
"A small thing," Akhlaur said with a shrug, "but this river feeds the pool drowning my tower. The more water is removed from that pool, the easier the task of raising the tower. Perhaps I will return the tower to its original location. An unusually strong place of power, that."
Dark inspiration struck Kiva, a small repayment for Akhlaur's cruel game.
She was not the only one whose past held moments of shame and defeat.
"Perhaps we should visit this place again before beginning such a massive undertaking. It is possible the laraken drained all power from that spot. If that is so, one place in this swamp is as good as any other."
Akhlaur considered, then began the chant for a magical gate. He and Kiva stepped through, to emerge near the mirky bog that had first welcomed them to Akhlaur's Swamp.
"This is the highest point in your former estate," Kiva said. She pointed to an obelisk, a standing stone deeply coated with moss and half submerged in water. "The tower stood there."
The necromancer studied the obelisk with narrowed eyes. "The power of this place is gone, but for a glimmer of magic clinging to that stone. Come." He cast a spell that would allow them to walk upon the swamp water. Kiva followed, knowing full well what they would find.
The translucent image of a slim, doe-eyed girl slumped by the obelisk, eyeing something beneath the water with a mixture of hopelessness and longing.
The necromancer's eyes widened in recognition, then narrowed to furious slits.
"Noor!"
Akhlaur spat out the name of his former, treacherous apprentice as if it were a curse.