“I want you to survive,” she told him. Her voice was cold and her eyes utterly devoid of the playful humor that had become both her trademark and her shield. “I’ll find a way out of this place for both of us—and when this is all over, I’m going to kill you myself.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The waning moon rose unnoticed over the streets of Halarahh, its light shrouded by somber clouds rising from the pyres. Two dark-clad men slipped through the darkness to the wall surrounding the green-marble tower.
Matteo followed as Basel Indoulur—a powerful conjurer and the lord mayor of Halar, Halarahh’s sister city—moved confidently up the wall. The portly wizard climbed as nimbly as a lad, finding handholds and crevices in the smooth marble that the jordain’s younger eyes could not perceive. But then, Basel had known Keturah very well, and probably had reason to know the tower’s secrets. What surprised Matteo was how well the man could climb and how much pleasure he seemed to take in this small adventure despite the seriousness of their purpose.
For the first time, Matteo saw a similarity between the wizard and Tzigone, who had been Basel’s apprentice—and who was perhaps also his daughter. Matteo suspected that Basel might be his father, as well. Raised at the Jordaini College with no experience of family, Matteo nonetheless felt a bond between himself and these two disparate rogues, a bond as binding upon his heart as truth itself.
The two men clambered over the wall and walked with quick-footed stealth through gardens fragrant with herbs. Dhamari, who had taken over the tower after Keturah’s exile, had been a master of potions, and the narrow paths leading to the tower were nearly obscured by dense growth. The intruders made their way to the base of the tower without incident and stood for a moment eyeing the vines that seemed to erupt from the green-veined marble.
Basel caught Matteo’s eye. With a rueful smile, he dropped his gaze pointedly to his own rounded belly.
“I’m twice the man I was last time I climbed this tower. Unfortunately, I mean that quite literally. Are you sure we can’t use the front door? What place in all Halruaa is denied to the king’s counselor?”
“None, provided I wish to have my actions scrutinized by the city council. Dhamari is a casualty of war. He named Tzigone as successor to his tower, but she is also missing, and she has not named an heir. Until the Council of Elders rules on this matter, the tower will be sealed against magical intrusion. If we disturb the wards on the doors or attempt to enter the tower through magical means, Procopio Septus will hear of it”
“Ah.” Basel’s face hardened. “Better a knife at my throat than that man looking over my shoulder.” He glanced at Matteo. “I know he was your patron.”
“Never apologize for speaking truth. For what it’s worth, Tzigone held a similar opinion of our lord mayor. She called him ‘Old Snowhawk.’ ”
“Among other things, no doubt. Well, let’s get this over with.” Basel began the chant and gestures of a spell.
Matteo had seen wizards employ cloaking spells before, but this was the first time he’d seen years peeled away by magic. Basel’s face narrowed and firmed. Jowls lifted and disappeared, and the ravages cause by middle-aged resignation and too much good living faded away. But his twinkling black eyes were unchanged by the removal of a few lines, and his black hair was still plaited into dozens of tiny, bead-decked braids.
Basel winked at the staring jordain. “Dashing, wasn’t I?”
Matteo responded with a wan grin. In truth, he had been searching the wizard’s younger countenance for some reflection of his own face. Basel’s features were rounded, while the jordain’s face had been fashioned with bolder strokes: sharply defined brows, a determined chin, and a narrow nose with a decidedly convex curve. Matteo’s hair was lighter, too—an unusual deep chestnut with flashes of red. At nearly six feet, he was tall for a Halruaan and considerably taller than Basel. Only their builds were somewhat similar: broad through the shoulders, with deep chests and well-muscled limbs.
The jordain was not the only one to note this resemblance. Basel winked again. “Let this be a lesson to you. See what can happen when you stop your daily weapons training? For good measure, I’d suggest you stay away from aged cheeses, red wines, and sugared figs.”
Matteo tugged experimentally at the thick tangle of flowering vines. “If this venture fails, shall I include that advice in your eulogy?”
Basel snorted. “Since when was sarcasm included in a jordain’s rhetorical studies?”
The young man shrugged and began to climb. Wizards’ towers were protected by magical wards, but as Matteo had learned from Tzigone, mundane methods often proved more effective than counter spells. Even so, the method of entry into Keturah’s former tower grated on his conscience. There was little about his friendship with Tzigone that did not.
By Halruaan law, Tzigone was a wizard’s bastard, an unwitting crime that brought disgrace or even death. She was also a thief and a rogue, yet Matteo, who was sworn to uphold Halruaa’s laws, shielded her at every turn.
Women, it would seem, tended to complicate life on a rather grand scale.
Basel hauled himself through an open third-floor window and dusted off his hands. “No sense climbing any higher. The place is deserted.”
“Dhamari’s servants don’t seem particularly loyal,” Matteo observed.
Basel’s artificially young face turned grim. “With very good reason. Come.”
He led the way up tower stairs to Dhamari’s study. Matteo entered and scanned the vast chamber. It was like most other wizards’ workrooms, but for an enormous corkboard stretched along one wall—a butterfly collection, from the looks of it. He went closer, and as he studied the creatures pinned to the wall, his distaste deepened to horror.
Dhamari had not drawn the line at butterflies. Tiny chameleon bats were neatly displayed alongside a desiccated fairy dragon and a tiny, mummified sprite. Several empty pins were thrust into the cork. Matteo pulled one and studied the fleck of translucent, papery blue that clung to it.
He showed it to Basel. “This looks like a scale from a starsnake’s discarded skin.”
The wizard muttered an oath. “I would give ten years off my life to know when and how Dhamari got that skin.”
Matteo nodded, understanding the wizard’s point. Twenty years ago, Keturah had been condemned as a murderer for her ability to summon these dangerous creatures. It was a rare ability, and after she fled, no one had thought to look for guilt elsewhere.
“How could both Tzigone and I have misjudged him so thoroughly?”
Basel reached into a small bag at his belt and took from it the talisman Dhamari had given Tzigone. “I’ve done a number of magical tests, and discovered that this is not Keturah’s talisman but a copy—a very good copy, but one entirely lacking magic. At first, I thought the magic had faded after Keturah’s death.”
A logical assumption, except Keturah was not dead. Noting the bleak expression in the wizard’s eyes, Matteo heartily wished he were free to tell Basel all.
“The original holds a permanent spell, very powerful, which protected the wearer from a particular person and all those who worked in his behalf,” the wizard concluded.
“In Keturah’s case, that would be Dhamari,” Matteo mused. “Is it possible Dhamari kept the original talisman, using it as protection against himself?”
Basel whistled softly. “I wouldn’t have thought the little weasel capable of such cunning, but that would explain how he concealed his real character and motivations.”
“Why?”
“Ambition,” Basel said shortly. “Shortly after Keturah took on Dhamari as an apprentice, she overheard him boasting that he would become both an Elder and an archmage. She told me this because she found it rather odd and quite out of character. Dhamari was a man of modest talent, and he seemed to understand and accept this. But enough talk. Let’s find out how he got as far as he did.”
They fell to work, searching the workshop and libraries for anything that mi
ght shed light on the spell Dhamari had given Tzigone—the spell that had hurled them both into the Unseelie Court.
Matteo quickly discarded scrolls describing poisons and transforming potion, lingering instead over anything that dealt with elven magic. This seemed prudent, as Kiva had played a part in Dhamari’s goals, or perhaps vice versa. Finally, in the very bottom of a deep chest, he unearthed a moldering tome embossed with slashing, angular runes.
His heart danced wildly as he realized the significance of those runes. He strode over to Basel, carrying the spellbook with the same care and repugnance he would show a deadly viper.
“Ilithiiri,” he said, handing the book to the wizard. “I have read legends of Halruaa’s dark elves, but I never imagined that artifacts, even spellbooks, might have survived so long.”
Basel placed the fragile tome on a reading table and began to page through it. After a few minutes, he drew a small parchment roll from his tunic and began to copy the dark elven spells.
“Is that wise?”
The wizard glanced up. “Is it wise to drink snake venom in hope of curing another snake’s bite? If the ancestors of drow elves and Crinti bandits can help me counteract what Dhamari has done, I’ll hand my entire fortune over to their accursed descendants!”
Matteo thought of Andris, imprisoned for aiding the treasonous Kiva. “Can any good come of evil?”
Basel sniffed and kept copying. “I could stick my head in the sand and pretend evil doesn’t exist, but all that would do is present my arse as a convenient target.”
“But—”
The wizard glanced up, his eyes sharp. “Do you want to help Tzigone, or don’t you?”
As Matteo held the challenging gaze, his own stern conscience mocked him. “I’m coming to realize moral choices are often difficult and seldom clear-cut,” he said at last.
Basel grunted. “I’ll take that as a yes. Why don’t you keep looking while I copy these spells.”
Matteo held his ground, determined to tell the wizard what little he could. “Queen Beatrix will stand trial at the new moon. Did you know King Zalathorm has charged me with her defense?”
The wizard’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I heard. Why do you mention this now?”
“Since we are working together to free Tzigone, it seemed reasonable to ask your advice in this other matter.”
“I don’t envy you your task,” Basel said bluntly. “Some of the artisans who built the clockwork creatures came forward to identify the ruins. Magical inquiry determined that all of these artisans worked for the queen and no one else.”
“Yes.” This was one of many disturbing facts Matteo’s search had turned up.
“Perhaps you can prove Queen Beatrix intended no harm, no treason.”
“I’m not sure ‘intent’ is relevant here. In recent years, the queen has not shown herself capable of logical thought. Also, any defense of this sort will be countered with stories of madmen and their acts of destruction. Halruaan history has its share of such tales. None of these insane villains escaped justice, nor will Beatrix if this argument is presented as her only defense.”
“Perhaps you can prove her work was misused. Under Halruaan law, if a wizard creates a spell and a destructive spell variation is created and cast by a second wizard, the first wizard is held blameless. Beatrix made the clockwork creatures, but Kiva took them away and used them as warriors. If Beatrix had no understanding of Kiva’s intentions—and it is likely she did not—perhaps she is protected by this law.”
“If Kiva were available for magical questioning, this might be a reasonable defense.”
Basel thought for a moment. “Have you considered the possibility that Beatrix’s state of mind is the result of an enchantment?”
Matteo remembered the look on King Zalathorm’s face when Beatrix said that she’d been enchanted—not by a who, but a what.
“This will be difficult to prove,” he murmured, thinking of the oaths that bound Zalathorm to silence.
“Has the queen been examined by magehounds? By diviners?”
“She has. They can find nothing either to condemn or exonerate her. There seems to be a magical veil over the queen blocking any sort of inquiry.”
A veil the king could not dispel, he added silently. He wondered once again why Zalathorm would put so important a task of divination upon the shoulders of a magic-dead counselor.
“You look troubled,” Basel observed.
Matteo shook off his introspection. “It is a perplexing matter, but I thank you for your council. You have a solid grasp of Halruaan law, as I would expect from any former jordaini master—”
He broke off abruptly, but Basel’s wide, startled eyes announced that the cat was already in the creamery. The wizard quickly composed his face and settled back in his chair.
“Apparently you have a good many things on your mind! Is there any particular reason for inquiring into my past employment, or are you inclined to fits of random curiosity?”
For a moment Matteo debated whether to follow this path. The need to know won out over propriety. “Yesterday, after the king named me counselor, you said we had matters to discuss.” His heart pounded as he waited for the wizard to admit what Tzigone had hinted and Matteo suspected: Basel was his natural father.
The older man’s expression remained puzzled. “I was speaking of Tzigone’s rescue.”
Matteo felt an unreasonable surge of disappointment. Not yet ready to let the subject drop, he asked the wizard what he had taught
“Defense against battle wizards. Why?”
“That is a particular interest of mine. In the future, perhaps we could discuss it? That is, if you remember much from your years at the Jordaini College.”
The perpetual twinkle in Basel’s eyes dimmed. “Isn’t there a jordaini proverb about memory being a curse as well as a blessing?”
“I don’t think so.”
The wizard’s smile was brief and bleak. “There should be.”
Basel’s words followed Matteo into the palace dungeons. Just days before, he had delivered a prisoner to this place—a fellow jordain, and his oldest friend. The memory of that felt very much like a curse.
The corridors were uncommonly quiet and dark, and the light of Matteo’s torch seemed to push uncertainly at the darkness. He rounded a corner and almost stumbled over a large, huddled form. He stooped over a particularly burly guard and touched his neck. Life pulsed beneath his fingers, faint but steady. Only a very skilled fighter could drop an armed man without harming him. That meant Matteo’s quarry had passed this way.
The jordain stood and walked cautiously toward the archway leading into the next corridor. He dug a handful of flour from his bag and tossed a bit of it at the arch. No telltale streaks of light appeared amid the brief flurry of powder.
The jordain frowned. As queen’s counselor, he’d made a point of learning palace defenses. This door should have been warded with a powerful web of magic.
He bent down and ran his hands over the smooth stone floor. There was a faint, gritty residue on the stone, a crystalline powder mingling with the flour. Matteo sniffed at the crystals clinging to his fingers and caught a faint, sharp scent
“Mineral salts,” he muttered. He rose and headed toward the eastern dungeon at a run.
Andris’s cell was far below a mineral spring that served the palace bathhouse. Over the years, water had seeped through dirt and stone and left almost imperceptible deposits on the walls. Mineral salts were simple and common but powerful in knowledgeable hands. Certain witches used salt to contain magic within boundaries or to ward off magical attacks. Wizards used crystals to focus and amplify magical energy. Crystals could also scatter such energy. Mineral salts, hundreds of tiny crystals scattered in just the right place and at precise times, could disrupt certain spells. Andris possessed such knowledge.
After the battle of the Nath, Andris had yielded himself up to Matteo willingly, almost remorsefully. Why was he trying to escape now?
He seized one of the guards by the shoulder and gave him a brisk shake. “Your prisoner has escaped. Tell me, how was he brought in?”
“The gargoyle maze,” the guard muttered, massaging his temples with both hands.
“Sound an alarm, and send guards down the main gargoyle corridor. Tell them to extinguish the torches behind them as they go. They are to veer off into the moat passages and allow themselves to be heard doing so.”
The guard struggled to take this in. “That leaves the long corridor unguarded.”
“Leave that to me,” Matteo said.
He got the men on their way. The trestle table was cluttered with gaming dice and empty mugs. He swept these aside and picked up the unattached table top. He balanced it on his head and walked quietly toward the end of the main gargoyle corridor—which, not incidentally, came close to the grated sewer tunnels, and the dungeon’s best hope of escape.
The corridor was dark, and the faint smoky scent of extinguished torches lingered. Matteo kicked the heavy oak door at the end of the hall, closing it and throwing the hall into impenetrable blackness. He moved forward several paces until he found a crack in the stone paving, then eased the table down and wedged it into the crack. Letting the table lean toward him, he put his shoulder to it and waited.
His keen ears caught the sound of a light-footed man running barefoot. He braced himself just before someone hit the tabletop at a dead run.
Immediately Matteo threw the table forward and hurled himself with it. Despite the double impact, the table jounced as a man pinned beneath struggled to free himself. Matteo’s seeking hands found the man’s throat
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