The Wizardwar   ::   Каннингем Элейн

Beatrix sat with her hands folded in her white-satin lap, her vacant, painted eyes gazing at the window. Zalathorm wondered what she saw. Despite all his powers of divination, he had never been able to see beyond the veil that separated them. Magic he could not dispel clouded his queen's mind. The crimson star, the Cabal of whispered legend, protected itself and its creators with veils of secrecy or even madness.

It was the sort of "protection" Zalathorm would not wish upon his worst enemy. Not that he needed to-his worst enemy survived by the power of the same artifact that sustained Zalathorm's own life, his reign.

Perhaps because his thoughts lingered on the artifact, Zalathorm felt a surge of familiar power running through him like a sudden fever. Protective magic burned through his senses, as well as a desperate struggle for healing. There came the wrenching snap of a life bound to him, cut suddenly and brutally free.

"Vishna," he murmured, sensing his old friend's death. "How is this possible?"

Beatrix turned an incurious gaze upon him. The king stooped to kiss her pale cheek and hurried away. He quickly resumed his magical disguise and, as a brown-skinned youth, descended into the dungeon to consult the Cabal.

For a long time he stood silent before the crimson star, studying the glowing facets for an explanation of what had befallen his friend. Finally he dropped to one knee and quieted his sorrowing thoughts.

"The heart of Halruaa seeks counsel," he murmured. "Tell me, is Vishna among you?"

The only response was profound silence. He received no sense of his life-long friend from the crystal.

"So Vishna is truly dead," Zalathorm said quietly, wondering why he could not quite accept that truth. It seemed to him that something of the wizard lingered-perhaps nothing more than an echo of their collective magic, but something.

He turned back to the crystal, for another question demanded answers. Ambassadors from Mulhorand had yielded up the name of the wizard whose spells had shielded the recent invasion from view. Unfortunately, it seemed that nothing remained of Ameer Tukephremo but his name. The wizard had died in the invasion, his body lost, and his home and possessions destroyed by fire. Nothing remained that would aid Halruaan wizards in divination.

Zalathorm found that far too convenient for credulity.

Nevertheless, he projected a mental image of the man's face and a description of the cloaking spell that had shielded the invasion. If there was, as he expected, Halruaan magic mingled in that casting, the elven sages would detect it.