The Wizardwar - Elaine Cunningham [52]
Kiva rose and began to walk widdershins around the mount, chanting as she went. Finally she came around, held her captive's accusing gaze, and slapped her hands sharply together. Magic flared like black lightning, and the Crinti woman was sucked abruptly into the mound.
The elf waited expectantly as the dark spell ran its course. A life for a lifeKiva gladly doomed Xerish to the place Crinti feared more than death in exchange for a more useful being's freedom.
Finally the crackling energy erupted into a second explosive burst. Kiva closed her eyes and turned her head away from the sudden, blinding flair. When she looked back, a wretched figure cowered at the base of the fairy mound.
"No," Kiva said flatly, staring in disbelief at her prize.
The freed human was not Tzigone-was not even female! A Halruaan male crouched at Kiva's feet. His pale face bore a distinct resemblance to a hairless weasel, and his scant hair was plastered against his skull by sweat and blood.
Shrieking with incoherent rage, Kiva kicked the wizard again and again.
He merely curled up, his arms flung over his head, his thin form shaking with sobs. A familiar talisman flew from his hand. He lunged for it, wrapping the chain around each finger and clutching the trinket as if it were his only link to life and sanity.
As, Kiva suspected, it truly had been.
"Dhamari Exchelsor," she said with loathing. "Why is it that whenever a spell goes awry, Dhamari is not far away?"
The weeping man suddenly went still. After a moment, he ventured a glance at his tormenter. "Kiva?"
There was a world of hope in that single word. Kiva grimaced. If Dhamari saw solace in her, he must be in very bad shape indeed!
But Kiva was ever willing to improvise. She crouched beside the wizard, crooning silly, soothing words. He took the flask she handed him and drank, hesitantly at first, then with great thirst and greater need. Finally she took the flask from his hands.
"You are safe, Dhamari. I have brought you back."
Kiva watched him slowly absorb this, watched as his eyes took focus and turned as hard as obsidian.
"Where is Keturah's bastard?"
The ice in Dhamari's voice startled her. She sat back on her heels and regarded him. He returned her gaze without faltering, and for long moments Kiva stared into a mirror of her own soul.
"Hatred," she said approvingly. "A thirst for vengeance. Where is the sniveling weasel I have known and loathed these many years?"
The wizard took her taunting without flinching. "He is gone, as who would know better than you? Together we learned why the Crinti dread the dark fairies.
You know what happens to those who pass beyond the veil and return. I have been through a crucible. The dross has been burned away, and my heart's ambitions have been forged into steel."
"Like the drow before you," Kiva said, repealing the legend explaining the dark elves' absolute evil.
Dhamari actually smiled. "Even so. I am ready to resume what I set about years ago, before Keturah's escape and death set my plans awry."
"Yes, I believe you are," she said thoughtfully. "Before you continue your rise to immortality, there is one thing you should know. Keturah is not dead."
The wizard stared at Kiva. "How is this possible? You yourself told me of her death! You brought me her talisman!" He brandished the chain with its small, simple medallion.
Kiva grimaced. "The Crinti are thorough. When they finished with Keturah, she was beyond recognition. They told me she was dead, and I believed them.
No one who saw her then would have doubted it."
"But she is alive."
"More or less. She is now known as Queen Beatrix."
Dhamari stared at Kiva for a long moment, then he began to laugh without humor. "So Keturah, mistress of evocation, has become the mad queen of Halruaa! Odd, the little turns life takes."
His mirth abruptly disappeared. "So that is why the Council of Elders presented me with a bill of divorcement so soon after Keturah's disappearance! I had thought this a courtesy,