The Wizardwar Read Online Free PDF Page A

to move or breathe. For long moments he believed he would die in this room.
    Finally healing magic, more ancient even than the sages’ remembered fear, pulsed from the crimson star.
    The king’s heart leaped painfully, then took up its normal rhythm. Slowly his agony receded. Once again, the crimson star had preserved its creator.
    Once again, it had given Zalathorm an answer he could find nowhere else. The gem was undying history, centuries of experience preserved in eternal immediacy. In all of Halruaa’s long history, Zalathorm knew of only one wizard who could inspire such terror in the time-frozen sages’ hearts. Though no word had been given, Zalathorm had his answer all the same.
    Somehow, Akhlaur had returned.

Chapter Two
    The streets below King Zalathorm’s palace teamed with life, even though the sun barely crested the city’s eastern wall. Matteo stood at the king’s side, listening as Zalathorm received a seemingly endless line of supplicants.
    It was Matteo’s first day as King’s Counselor, and already he was fighting off the urge to fidget like a schoolchild. The king had charged him with the defense of Queen Beatrix. Why not let him get on with it?
    Matteo could not understand the king’s insistence on honoring his custom of granting daily audience. In these extraordinary times, mundane routine seemed as out of place as a witless sheep among unicorns!
    Reminders of the recent battles were everywhere. Laborers still cleared away the debris and rubble cluttering the king’s city. The pyres in the burial gardens outside the city walls burned steadily. Professional mourners sang themselves into rasping silence, then yielded their places to others. Their keening songs soared up into the smoky clouds, commending the spirits of fallen Halruaans to the gods and their bodies to the sky.
    The Halruaans were a proud and defiant people who mingled mourning rituals with extravagant victory celebrations. Students at the mage schools were sent home until after the new moon. Merchants and artisans closed their shops before highsun and did not reopen after the sunsleep hours were past. Street performers sang ballads and acted out tableaus; fireworks dazzled the night skies. Somber, hardworking Halruaans, wizards and common folk alike, devoted themselves to defiant celebration, as if to thumb their noses at ubiquitous Death.
    Outside the palace, the familiar song of the street began a swift crescendo and took on a faintly dissonant note. Zalathorm nodded to Matteo. Glad for the diversion, the young jordain went to the window to see what was going on.
    As always, a throng waited outside, hoping for audience with the king. The scene had a festival air. Street vendors came to display their wares, and wandering performers kept the crowd entertained. Matteo quickly averted his eyes from a young juggler, for the lad’s deft hands and carefree grin reminded him too painfully of his friend Tzigone.
    His gaze slid over the dancing bear that plodded and whirled like a corpulent matron, and settled briefly upon the drovers hawking exotic beasts. Beaming parents handed their children up for rides upon camels from the Calimshan deserts or an enormous three-horned lizard from the jungles of Chult or an aged and rather threadbare unicorn. There was even a young elephant, an animal seldom seen in Halruaa. Two small, shrieking children clung to the gaudy red and yellow litter on the animal’s broad, gray back.
    Matteo’s eyes darted back to the elephant. Its long trunk lashed back and forth, as if swatting away an attacking swarm. He looked closer and realized this was precisely what the animal was doing. Several people had taken to pelting the unfortunate creature with fruit and morning cakes.
    He turned back to Zalathorm. “One of the drovers has brought an elephant. The crowd is attacking it, perhaps because the animal is native to Mulhorand and a reminder of the invaders.”
    A scowl darkened the king’s face. He rose from