nothing horrible could ever happen.'
'I hope you're right,' she answered and hugged him close.
'How utterly perfect,' Ciredor chuckled aloud as he watched Tazi step out of Cale's bedroom.
There were very few unanswered questions in his life, but the room Ciredor was in happened to contain many of them. Sometime during the Age of Skyfire, the chamber had been hewn out of the desert mountains while the djinn, Calim and Memnon, raged against each other. The walls were carved with an ancient script that defied all his efforts at translation, but beyond that, Ciredor had very few clues as to who else might have occupied it before him.
He had let his anger get the best of him many years before when he discovered the sanctum and killed its former guardians too quickly. Realizing that he had lost an opportunity for knowledge, the necromancer wrote off the mistake as one of many lessons of life and vowed never to make that mistake again.
At various points in the natural recesses of the room, glow lights winked in the darkness, but their illumination was outshone by the radiance of a multifaceted, amethyst no bigger than a man's fist. It rested on a natural rock pedestal, the focal point of the room. The eerie, purple light it emitted flickered oddly off of the jagged walls and the hollow caverns of Ciredor's cheeks. Behind him, the chamber connected to a passageway that was lined with ten figures of various sizes, all at least as large as an elf. The amethyst's brilliance played affectionately on those figures, caressing them.
But it was Ciredor who was enraptured. With an almost loving look, he reached out to the stone again and grazed it with his thin fingers. It blazed more intensely at his touch. He gazed deeply into the stone and began to laugh once again at what he saw within.
'My dear, dear Thazienne,' he said to the gem, 'how can it be that so much time has passed and you are still the same?'
But there was no one else to answer him. Not that he needed an answer, either. He knew well enough that Tazi had simply survived this long in her life due to luck and her family's fortune. He wondered just how many times her parents had had to pay to have her resurrected, she seemed to be so careless.
Obviously, her parents weren't all that cautious, either. They had, after all, made the mistake of letting him come into their home to 'heal' their stricken whelp once. He felt he was soon to find out just how many other mistakes they had made with their daughter.
'How completely foolish and trusting you are, little girl,' he persisted, staring into the gem. 'Didn't you learn anything from our last encounter? So you think you are going to bring the battle to a… how did you so quaintly put it?' He paused for a moment before continuing, 'a time and place of your choosing?'
He threw back his head and laughed again.
'Since when has any of this ever been your choosing? Do you think the boy-mage found your elf lover by his skills alone?' he asked the stone. 'Oh, Tazi-' he shook his head-'how I wish you could see me as I see you right now. It would be rather exquisite to enjoy in person the pain that all of this would cause you… but that will come soon enough.'
For a moment, Ciredor could again taste the bitter hurt Tazi had felt those years past when he revealed to her that her close confidant had been simply a hired hand. There was an undeniable sweetness to the pain she had emanated that night. Tazi had possessed a certain innocence then, despite the lifestyle she had chosen, and he had been the man to claim that innocence. More than once since then, Ciredor had found himself savoring that memory despite the hatred he harbored at losing to such a child. Finding he couldn't contain himself any longer, he began to pace around the chamber.
'Through clues and signs, I led your would-be-mage to that tableau I carefully staged just for you, dear Thazienne. I even hoped you might recognize my signature on this without any magical assistance, but you proved yourself unworthy again. I suppose I shouldn't be too disappointed in you. After all, in the end, I will get everything I need.'
Absently, he stroked his goatee.
'It was rather entertaining to watch that old man you hired strain and groan and sweat as he struggled to animate poor, dead Ebeian,' Ciredor said. 'And, finally, that corpse told you just enough to whet your appetite and send you to me, bearing gifts, no less.'
One side of his mouth turned up into a smirk.
'And still, you don't see.'
Ciredor moved swiftly across the chamber to the gem, caught up in his own discourse.
'I was the one who allowed Ebeian to speak, as it were. It was only the words of my choosing that passed through his battered mouth. Will you miss those tender lips, little Tazi?' he wondered.
He kneeled before the dais where the amethyst lay. Stretching one arm across the platform, he allowed his head to rest against it and stared at the jewel as if he was watching a lover sleep.
'Once more, I pull your strings, sweet puppet,' he continued softly, 'and you dance for me most obediently. I'm waiting here with open arms to welcome you to my home. When you arrive, we will settle the debts between us, Uskevren. When I'm done with you and those you hold dear,' his voice dropped to a deadly whisper, 'you will wish I'd killed you that first night.'
He sat up and tugged at his black tunic, as though he were readying himself for an evening out, brushing at various imagined stains and dust.
'I really can't be bothered by worrisome details right now, though. So,' he said, directing his speech back to the gem, 'pack your bags quickly and bring yourself and that Calishite beauty here.'
He rose in a dignified manner and clasped his hands behind his back.
'I appreciate the aid your butler has given you, so that I am not kept waiting too long,' he acknowledged as he began to walk around the stone like a schoolmaster delivering a lesson. 'And I appreciate that the gate is all Cale has given you. I would not want him to give you more. In fact,' Ciredor grudgingly admitted, 'I would not want to have to deal with him to get to you. There is something about him…' he trailed away thoughtfully, 'something I can't read.'
Snapping himself from his trance, Ciredor studied the room and the figures beyond. Like a drill instructor inspecting his troops, he marched past each one. As if they were pieces of a puzzle, he made sure once again that each fit his needs. When he was satisfied with what he saw, the mage returned to the gem.
'Bring the crown for my queen here, little Tazi,' he ordered. 'Bring the last piece to my gift. Once it is here, I need only wait until the new moon. A tenday from now and everything changes. And, of course, you are mine.'
CHAPTER 4
'Will this rain never cease?' Tazi hissed.
She, Steorf, and Fannah stood before a brick tallhouse on Morrow Street in the Edis quarter. It was well past night's heart, and most of the residences that lined the street were dark. A fine drizzle misted the air.
'It doesn't really matter whether it stops or not,' Steorf snapped. 'It's not as though you're suffering for it.'
Tazi gave him a sharp look before turning to pace a little along the street as she ostensibly looked for guards. Steorf was correct, though. As well as having chosen the black leathers that she had spent the previous day oiling, Tazi also sported a travel cloak, as did Steorf and Fannah. From her head to her ankles, she was protected from the rain by the spell that was woven into the fabric. The precipitation rolled off her. She wasn't going to end up drenched like the other night, but Tazi felt the need to say something, and complaining about the weather was the most obvious and mundane topic of choice.
'I'm going to climb the wall and see if there are any guards we need to know about,' she offered.
'I thought your manservant,' Steorf stressed that particular title, 'guaranteed that this building would be
