Элейн Каннингем - The Wizardwar

"Four or five," Matteo said dryly.

She shook her head and held up a jordaini emblem, a silver disk enameled with yellow and green, slashed with cobalt blue. "Twenty years on the streets isn't something easily forgotten, Matteo. Sooner or later, I'm going to cause more trouble for you than either of us can handle."

Matteo disagreed-he trusted Tzigone, and he searched his mind for something that might convince her she was worthy of this trust. Even as the thought took shape, a clatter of hooves and a bad-tempered whinny erupted from the mist.

He watched, open-mouthed with astonishment, as a tall black stallion trotted toward them-a horse that some irreverent stable hand had named "Cyric" after an insane and evil god.

"Lord and lady!" Tzigone exclaimed. "All that thing needs is glowing red eyes!"

The horse whickered and blew as Matteo stroked his ebony muzzle. The horse was warm and solid to his touch, not like the illusions the dark fairies had shaped from his stolen thoughts. "You're no nightmare, are you, Cyric my lad? I must admit, however, that when you snort like that I always expect to smell brimstone."

Tzigone eyes narrowed as she regarded the jordain and his favorite mount. "You're actually fond of that beast."

"Indeed I am! Cyric has thrown me, nipped my shoulder, and once when we were traveling he kicked over my lean-to and deliberately passed water in my cooking kettle."

"What's not to love?" she muttered.

"Yet he would run himself to death if I needed speed, and there is no horse alive that I'd rather trust in battle. Cyric is capable of a deeper, more profound loyalty than any creature I know. Any, perhaps, save one."

He slapped the stallion's rump and sent it running off into the mist. "You followed me into Akhlaur's Swamp and fought the laraken, though you had no way of knowing it would not leave you an empty crystal shell. You are here in this place because your friends and your Halruaa were threatened, and you gave yourself in their place. You and Cyric are two of a kind, Tzigone."

"Well, a girl can't hear that too often," she said dryly.

"There is nothing more powerful than friendship-and no friend I would rather have," he said earnestly. "That power has a magic of its own."

Tzigone's eyes brimmed. She dashed away tears with the back of one grubby hand and pointed. Matteo turned. The mist parted to reveal a moss-covered, conical hill. A shimmering oval beckoned them.

Her face froze, her smile shattered. He followed the line of her gaze. A swift-darting swarm approached, a small army of dark fairies apparently bent upon holding their captives in this misty netherworld. There was no way the two friends could reach the portal in time.

Matteo pressed one of his matched daggers into Tzigone's hands and drew his sword. They hardly had time to fall into position, back to back, before the dark fairies fell upon them.

Tiny knives flashed, too fast for the eyes to follow. Matteo felt the stings, shallow and taunting. His sword flashed out again and again, trying in vain to drive them back, and he moved his dagger in swift, complex defensive patterns.

So quick were the fey monsters that they easily darted in and back, working around each of his strokes and lunges, stabbing at him again and again yet always keeping beyond reach of his blade. Pain flooded over Matteo, but pain more like intense sunburn than anything a knife might inflict.

He glanced down. His white garments were flecked with blood from hundreds of pinpricks, and his forearms appeared to be covered with a fine rash.

At this rate, it would take a very long time to die.

He felt Tzigone step away from him, and quickly he moved back into position, determined to keep her back covered.

"Let me go," she insisted, circling around as if to evade his protection.

Matteo easily moved with her, his sword and dagger flashing. "Forget it," he informed her curtly.

She hissed in exasperation and spun, nearly as fast as the fairies, delivering a sharp kick to the back of Matteo's knee.

He only faltered for a moment, but that was enough for Tzigone. She darted away. The Unseelie folk followed her like vengeful shadows.

Before Matteo could regroup, a flash of power lit the misty realm. He threw up one hand to protect his eyes.

When he could see again, he stared in astonishment at the charred bodies of several of the dark fairies. The rest had scattered-or maybe this was the sum total of their attackers.

The dark fairies were smaller than he had expected and so strangely beautiful that he almost regretted their fate. A terrible keening song rose from beyond the mist as the Unseelie folk bewailed their dead.

"They can die here," he marveled.

"So can we," she retorted as she scanned the mist for the next attack. "You didn't by any chance bring iron with you?"

"Basel said it can't be done," he said in bleak tones. "Iron weapons won't cross over the veil."

Tzigone's eyes narrowed as she considered this. "Not if you follow the rules, it won't. Call Cyric again."

"I didn't call him the first time."

"Sure you did. You're better at it than I am-that was the most convincing illusion I've seen yet."

"That's impossible! I'm a jordain!"

Even as he spoke, Matteo realized the truth of her words. He could see magic in this place, sense it in a way that powerful wizards and elven magi were said to do. The Weave, the magic Mystra spun and sustained, was as foreign to him as air was to a fish, but perhaps this place knew magic of another sort.

"The Shadow Weave," he said. "It does exist! And I can sense it, even use it!"

He seized the girl's shoulders and turned her to face him. "Shortly before I left the Jordaini College, we received word of a new sort of magic sifting into the Northlands, perhaps even into Halruaa. It is said that the goddess Shar created another source of magic, one that has nothing to do with Mystra. Sages suspect that she experimented in isolated lands, perhaps in other planes of existence. This place of mist and shadows may be one such realm!"

Tzigone looked skeptical. "Fairies have their own gods. Didn't they have anything to say about this? They just stood by and let this Shar set up housekeeping?"

"This is not the Unseelie Court," he explained, "but a corridor between their world and ours. Nothing is real here. I suspect that the dark fairies have no power to hold us-perhaps they are protecting their own borders, as we do ours! Illusion is all-powerful here. It may be that people who stumble in are trapped simply because they believe they can't leave."

She frowned as she tried to sort all this through. "So you're telling me that you're some sort of wizard, after all."

"No! Well, perhaps," he amended. "The jordaini are vessels empty of Mystra's Art. It is possible that this void makes us uniquely suited to the Shadow Weave."

Tzigone shrugged. "You're usually right. What interests me most at the moment is the notion that we could leave any time. Now would be good for me."

A faint glow dawned in the nearby mists as another gate took shape. The faint keening of fairy song surged in alarm, and small black streaks hurtled toward them.

Matteo put two fingers to his lips and blew a sharp, shrill whistle.

The clatter of hooves announced Cyric's return a moment before the black stallion leaped from the mist and charged the attacking fairies. The illusionary stallion proved fully as evil-tempered and loyal as the original. Cyric plunged into the advancing horde, screaming with equine rage. The horse reared up, lashing out with his hooves.

"Iron horseshoes," Matteo murmured with satisfaction as he drew dagger and sword. "You can cast spells here-magic of many sorts is present. Transmute these to iron."

Tzigone raced through the words of a spell. The weapons grew heavier, and their shining metal turned as dull as the mist.