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When Crystal arrived back at the Ardhan caone for four days Kraydak had apparently not missed her
The centaurs disappeared practically the instant Crystal&039;s foot hit the ground One one The queen and her council breathed a collective sigh of relief Not only was their wizard-daughter, princess-safely back, but it hadn&039;t been easy sharing close quarters with C&039;Fas for four days A centaur is an awe-inspiring creature and trapped in a tent-for he had to stay out of sight of Kraydak&039;s spies- he is overwhel in the extreme
The dwarves had replaced Crystal&039;s tattered clothes from some hidden store, and had set her opal tear in silver She wore it on a chain around her neck and it glowed softly in the folds of her tunic
"Well?" asked Mikhail at last, for Crystal still stood where she&039;d dismounted, eyes unfocused
With a barely perceptible jerk, the wizard returned to her body "He is alain, " she said "We will be only just in time "
"We?" repeated Lorn skeptically, "Does this mean " He broke off as Crystal turned to face hi to say
She swept the tent with her gaze and the questions that had not yet been voiced disappeared Not until Doan pointed it out, had she realized her stupidity in on to so many people It was not beyond Kraydak&039;s ability to lift the knowledge froain the time to prepare himself for the attack Crystal hated to alter the memories of her parents and their council, but it was by far the lesser of two evils She could only hope she wasn&039;t already too late, hope that they hadn&039;t told everyone in the ca She blinked twice, looked hter "You look exhausted, " she said at last "You need a hot bath, a light supper, and a good night&039;s sleep "
"A heavy supper please, Mother, " Crystal said as they walked ar Mikhail and the council shaking their heads and wondering what they&039;d th for toreat white owl lifted from Crystal&039;s tent, circled once around the queen&039;s pavilion, and headed east with strong, unhurried beats of its wings The sentries that saw it go watched until it vanished in the clouds, then turned to each other and said in voices of wonder, "The wizard, " as if that was enough to explain it For them, it was
Tayer and Mikhail slept on, wrapped in each other&039;s ar the rules of Kraydak&039;s game They would have tried to stop her had they known, so she hadn&039;t told the
Kraydak, safe in his tower, smiled as Crystal entered his territory Given her previous displays of power, he had expected more resistance to his call If the form she as intended to deceive him, it was an abject failure, for he had spotted her the moment she crossed the mountains Mindshielded or not, there just weren&039;t that -span
Crystal flew on, thinking owl thoughts on the surface but behind the shield concentrating only on distracting Kraydak and bringing things to an end one way or another She realized her end would probably come before his Not even the centaurs who had trained her expected her to live And if by soon would allow the last of the wizards to continue to exist She was calht she&039;d considered running, running and letting Kraydak and his Dooht it out without her The world would be ripped apart once er It isn&039;t fair, she sniffed I&039;m only seventeen But still she flew on
The foothills of the Melacian side of thefar below her when the stor to slah her feathers, hitting hard enough to bruise The water was so dense she could hardly see, the wind ripped feathers free, and the thick down that should have kept her warh She&039;d expected him to find her but not so soon She had to survive, her death noould be too short a distraction
"Distract me from what?" wondered Kraydak, who&039;d pried free a tiny piece of the thought
Screae, she dove for the first clear area she spotted and her talons sank deep into the soft reen eyes blazed, and a weeping birch, the silver&039;s more flexible cousin, danced in the wind and lifted its leaves to the rain The wind blew harder, but the tree bent gracefully out of its way, bent so far that its upper water of the streaold eyes leaped away and sped downstream as the blue bolt came out of the sky and crashed into the earth where the tree had stood
Kraydak smiled, caler needed She was very resourceful, this Wizard-child, and he looked forward toher to his tower and finding out just what exactly she thought she was doing If she fought the calling he&039;d laid upon her, she did it in a very peculiar way He considered boiling away the streaainst it; that would hardly be sporting and he did want her to arrive in one piece He hadn&039;t been so diverted in centuries Where had she learned to think so much like a fish?
Crystal sped down the stream as fast as her powerful new body could take her
She was tiring but didn&039;t dare take the tiet was, after all, more difficult to hit She felt the aer at it to reinforce her shield
The ancient wizard laughed aloud So she would hide her fishy thoughts, would she? He followed instead the pattern of the shield
The current slowed and the texture of the water changed; the strea its depths with a multitude of life forms, she&039;d be harder for Kraydak to spot and, if she reh Melac&039;s capital city and right past Kraydak&039;s tower
With his attention on the river, he wouldn&039;t be scanning the rest of the countryside
"Why, " Kraydak asked the skull, "would I want to scan the countryside?" He got only frag to sneak assassins through Melac, they&039;d die before they reached the tower and he&039;d never have to become involved Assassins were a stupid idea He s very desperate
"I wonder " He tapped the yellowed ivory of the skull&039;s teeth "Should I scan the countryside?"
The skull grinned up at hiht She&039;s played ame, so it&039;s only fair I play hers, for a while Besides, the countryside can hold nothingthan the river She shows such initiative, I alolden paw tipped with deadly claws split the water inches from Crystal&039;s nose Her panicked flip backward took her up and out of the water and dangerously close to the snapping jaws of a huge golden bear She hit the water with a painful smack and raced back upstream From the security of the bottom of a deep pool, she considered what she should do
Crystal knew she really only had one choice What happened to her was union had to get through
She sent out a questing thought The bear waited at the end of the stream He blocked the water route coo She rose to the surface of the pool, found the strongest flow of current, and started back downstreaainst the water and she swam rapidly toward the river The current lent her speed and she h the water like silver lightning When she felt the bear gather hie, she twisted her tail and jumped
No fish juher than Crystal Up, up she arced, flashing silver in the sunlight The bear, who had dived forward to scoop her froh he reared and raked the air with his claws, he was far too late With liquid grace, Crystal twisted and dove into the relative safety of the river
As she say, she felt the bear&039;sAt least she&039;dan otter into the river but decided against it He had no need to exert hi to him He would watch to see she didn&039;t slip away and take care of her when she reached the tower He appreciated her courage, secure in the knowledge that she could do hiold ball balanced on the western mountains when Crystal reached the tower She swaies
Between holding the transformation and the constant fear that Kraydak wouldthe point of exhaustion And if she faced Kraydak, if she actually reached hion hadn&039;t yet come, what then? Could her shield hold without distance to lend it strength?
She was so busy worrying, she didn&039;t notice the net until it was too late
"Right then, we&039;ve got her! Heave to and let&039;s get her beached!"
The fourthe net and its thrashing cargo to shore But what they pulled from the water was no fish
"Holy shit, " breathed a ruffian as ht I&039;d see one of those " He dropped the net and grabbed for his sword as the unicorn kicked itself free of the ropes
It was over very quickly
Sides heaving, its horn and hoofs dripping gore, the unicorn staggered toward the tower It shimmered and Crystal collapsed across the steps Her skin and shift were covered in blood, not all of it belonging to others There was a sword cut on her upper arm and her nose still bled freely She shivered in the shadow of the tower and couldn&039;t see open She was expected
At least he&039;s still interested, she thought, crawling forward She pulled herself up until she sat on the bottoth of stone staircase wrapped about the inside of the building, and giggled She couldn&039;t help it
"You&039;ve got to be kidding, " she called up the stairs
The door slaht he had her safe; now she had nowhere to go but up
Crystal reround and added the on should be very close If it was co If Kraydak hadn&039;t already taken care of it She set her teeth, pulled herself to her feet, and slowly began to clilowing reddish gold in the light of the setting sun He banked and dipped and gloried in the strength of his wings
"Perhapsss wait, " he thought as he raced the wind and won "Kraydak killsss wizzzard Kraydak isss mine No more wizzzards Ever "
The sun dropped below the horizon and, for aon his own
"Perhapsss wait "
On the hundredth step, Crystal knew she had to rest Her blood sang in her ears and she couldn&039;t, just couldn&039;t lift her leg again She sagged against the outer wall
DEATH!
The scream in her mind shocked her so she slid down half a dozen steps before she could catch herself Eyes wide, she reached out a treain
DEATH!
Even prepared for it, the force of the cry caused her to jerk and snatch her hand away as if she&039;d been burned She sat down, carefully staying away from the wall, and clasped her hands between her knees to stop the
"Destroy him, " said Lord Death from the step below her, "and free ain save for the screa time before she could continue to cliold The carved face of a demon leered out at Crystal as sheopen, it bared its teeth She stepped over the threshold and looked about The sla of the door behind her was so predictable that she didn&039;t even flinch
The walls of the rooold, a cheerful fire burned in a se desk took up over half the space, and strange and wonderful things were piled haphazardly about A door seeh this first room took up the full diameter of the tower
There were no s
Kraydak looked very much as he had in her mind Maybe better He wore a robe of blue velvet which had fallen open to expose the golden muscles of his chest and he smiled kindly
"Nohat, little one?" he asked "How are you to defeat le co her teeth, Crystal pulled herself erect and reached into her belt
With as alth, she sent the sht for Kraydak&039;s heart
He plucked it easily from the air, turned it into a dove, and crushed the life from the bird with one i
Crystal hadn&039;t expected it to work, but she had to try Unfortunately, that used up just about all she had left Where was the dragon?
"You&039;re dripping on the carpet, " Kraydak chided her He waved his hand and she ar to her body Her hair floated around her like a silver-white cloud His shtly and he licked his lips His expression reminded Crystal of the demon on the door
Crystal could only watch as her feet carried her within his reach
He wrapped a hand possessively around her throat and she shuddered
"It&039;s been lonely for me these last thousand years You don&039;t knohat it&039;s like to be the only one of your kind, always alone " His sed to kill me, you would&039;ve found out But you can&039;t kill me and, fortunately for us both, I have no need to kill you Yet When I do " He shrugged "Well, I a lonely "
The hand around her throat was the hand he&039;d used to crush the bird It was sticky with blood
"You have lovely skin, " he an to stroke her throat and it caught on the silver chain He drew it tight, so that the links began to cut into the back of her neck
"Very pretty, " he said, lifting the opal to admire it "Dork, isn&039;t it?
I never had much to do with the Elder Races Perhaps I should remedy that when the novelty of your company wears thin "
Where was the
"What?" Kraydak raised an eyebrow in inquiry "Why don&039;t you tellfor? Not dwarves, surely? Don&039;t tell me you&039;ve recruited the Elder to your cause "
The Elder Crystal concentrated what little strength she had left on forreat black body, the flowing hair and beard, each pompous and pedantic utterance she&039;d been forced to endure for six long years
Kraydak easily brushed it aside "A good likeness, little one, but you can&039;t hope to blockI know far better than you The centaurs taught all the wizards It&039;s what they do, and I stayed with the time An opportunity I could not allow you to take "
Every time you&039;re just Crystal said Doan&039;s voice in her hter in his eyes, the touch of his hand, the feel of his breath on her round
"Not bad " The ancient wizard nodded thoughtfully "But you let round "
Crystal held tight to her anger It would not be a shield now, but a doorway for hi that must not happen
Carefully, for this was her last chance, she built up layer by layer a silver tree Not the ancient birches of the ha tree, barely ated the superficial kinship between herself and Kraydak, defined fro the type of person Crystal would become
Beneath the pressure of Kraydak&039;s mind the tree bent and swayed, but it held
He drew the chain he still held tighter, golden brows draith annoyance "They say dwarf-made links never break I could behead you with this It wouldn&039;t be pleasant "
Crystal thought of the tree
"You will tellso hard to hide " He forced her chin up
"You&039;ve been quite a diversion, wizard-child, and I&039; time to come but, for now, all I ask is that you look at th left to refuse The tree withered and died and shein blue wanting it to consume her
So that&039;s what it feels like, -was her last conscious thought
She didn&039;t see the look of raw terror on Kraydak&039;s face when at last he found what she had hidden and, seconds later, she didn&039;t see the golden tail which sheared the roof cleanly froon&039;s face when the hty jaws closed and the Wizard&039;s Doom found Kraydak at last
It was probably fortunate she didn&039;t see the on on looked down at the wizardling lying crumpled on the floor, opened his ed his mind She didn&039;t look like a wizard, nor smell like one, and he was certain she wouldn&039;t taste like one
"Hars to leave
"If you leave her here, she&039;ll die "