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 half-elven, 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. The ghostly girl looked up. Terror suffused her face. She turned away, flinging up both hands to ward off the barrage of spells he hurled at her. Fireballs sped toward her, sizzling and steaming as they passed through the humid air. Black lightning flared from the wizard's hands, charring the moss covering the obelisk to ash. None of this had any effect on the ghost of Noor.
However diverting the sight of a thwarted Akhlaur might be, Kiva finally tired of the display and seized the necromancer's arm. "I do not think you can destroy the ghost, Lord Akhlaur. She died when Zalathorm claimed the crimson star. It seems likely that her spirit is somehow linked to the gem. You will not be able to avenge yourself upon Noor as long as Zalathorm holds the crimson star. The sooner the gem is destroyed, the sooner Zalathorm's power will be broken!"
The necromancer composed himself. In an eyeblink, his rage-twisted face smoothed out into its usual faint, supercilious smile. "Zalathorm's downfall would be delightful to behold, but why would I want to destroy the gem?"
Kiva noted the faint flicker of uncertainty in the necromancer's black eyes. "But you could destroy it, if you so chose."
The wizard's lip thinned into a tight line, and for a moment Kiva feared that she had overestimated his power. "It can be done," he said at last "Three of us created the gem. Its destruction would also require three."
The elf's shoulders slumped. "Then you can't defeat Zalathorm."
"I didn't say that," Akhlaur snapped, stabbing one long finger in her direction. "The crimson star will be difficult to work around, but not impossible. I will rebuild my magical arsenal past anything Zalathorm can command."
Kiva turned aside abruptly, pretending to be absorbed by the fading outline of Noor's ghost. At the moment, her own dreams felt nearly as insubstantial.
For many long years, Kiva had assumed Akhlaur would want the gem destroyed, so that he and Zalathorm could fight toe to toe. It had never occurred to her that all three of the gem's wizardly creators would have to be in accord.
Such accord seemed beyond the grasp of those once-friends, long ago turned mortal enemies. One of these wizards, Kiva held firmly in hand, but Akhlaur was proving more difficult to control than she had anticipated.
Inspiration struck. Akhlaur did not actually claim the three creators must destroy the gem. He merely noted it took three. Kiva reviewed what she knew of the gem and its powers. It protected the three creators-and their descendants.
Their descendants! She knew three of these descendants all too well! Time and again they had evaded death and slipped through traps. If these accursed wizard-spawn could benefit from the crystal star's protection, perhaps they could also destroy it!
Kiva turned to the necromancer. "I need to go to the king's city to gather information that may prove useful."
The wizard dismissed his elven "servant" with an absent wave of his hand. Kiva quickly conjured a gate and stepped out into a prepared location-a deeply shadowed arbor in the public gardens of Halarahh.
She nearly stumbled over a young couple, common laborers judging by their dress, too absorbed in each other to notice her arrival. Kiva picked up the rude knife the lad had set aside. She brought the hilt down hard on the girl's head, then dispatched the suitor with a quick slash, taking care not to get any of his blood on the stunned girl. Kiva knelt by the girl and gave her head a quick, wrenching twist.
Kiva's victim was small and slim, and her gown looked to be a near fit for the slender elf. Since the girl had prepared for an assignation, she'd worn a cowl and cloak. This would provide cover for the elf's telltale hair. Delighted with this unexpected bounty, Kiva quickly claimed her prize. She quickly dressed herself in the dead girl's clothes and made her way through the deepening twilight to Basel Indoulur's tower.