“We have been wed for two days, but we have yet to speak of bloodlines.”
In some far corner of Tzigone’s mind, joy flickered and burned bright. So this man was her father and her mother’s true husband! She should have known her mother would not be so careless as to condemn her child to the fate of a wizard’s bastard.
The young man nodded. “Very well, then. I am a diviner, but I also possess a power not officially recognized by the Council, a power of mind rather than ritual.”
“Psionics,” Keturah said, her face troubled. “I have read of it I studied the art of evocation, but my magic also has a feral streak. My father, who was a bard, once told me there were sorcerers in my mother’s line.”
Her husband lifted his brows, but he did not seem displeased. “Any child of ours will be a wild thing indeed!”
Keturah’s smile faltered. “I was wed before, to a man who was never a true husband.”
“So you told me. If there was no true marriage, you are not legally bound to him.”
“I know that,” she broke in. “There is more. He secretly gave me potions to ensure a jordaini child, potions altered with dangerous herbs. This is the legacy I might pass to your children.”
The wizard lifted her hands to his lips. “Life is shaped by many things, sweet Beatrix. Choice is far more important than heritage. We will teach our children to choose wisely.”
Keturah sent an arch gaze around their hidden camp. “And we are such experts on this matter?”
“Of course. Did we not choose each other?”
As the lovers moved into a farewell kiss, Tzigone eased her awareness away. She could not intrude upon this shared sweetness, even if they were her parents. Especially since they were her parents!
The vision left her filled with soft joy and an illuminating glimpse into how her strange magic came to be.
Tzigone drifted slowly back, moving through the faded years. When she came fully to herself, she was so exhausted that her eyelids felt too heavy to lift. The intense vision had taken more strength than she had to spare. Tzigone did not regret it. With a happy sigh, she pried opened her eyes.
A circle of dark faces surrounded her. Several Unseelie folk regarded her solemnly, like ravens preparing to feed upon the magical repast she had unwittingly provided. Horror flooded her as she realized that the dark fairies knew all that she had learned.
Tzigone seized a still-smoldering stick from her dying campfire and leaped to her feet. She spun in a circle, driving back the ethereal-looking fiends.
The fairies fell back, nimbly avoiding her attack. Before she could turn full circle, however, they darted back, leaping onto her and bearing her down to the ground.
There was no time to cast an illusion to fight them and no strength left for such magic. Tzigone went down under the vicious onslaught, feeling the burn and sting of dozens of small, spiteful wounds.
Now the true attack came. A long-hidden memory stirred, emerging from that dark place where Tzigone hid a girlhood spent in the streets and shadows. She smelled the fetid breath of drunken men and felt several pairs of rough hands. She heard the rip of her own small garments.
This had happened before—the attack, the helplessness, the terror. Gods above, she remembered it all.
Then came memory of a quick, acrid stench, like the scent of lightning come too close. Tzigone remembered struggling free of her attackers and running for the safety of the trees. It had never occurred to her to look back. Now she knew what she would have seen.
Two of the dark fairies were dead. Several more twitched in short, jerky spasms. Their glowing black eyes were clouded and glazed by the surge of magic that had burst from childhood memory. The surviving fairies darted away from this unexpected attack, moving too quickly for mortal eyes to follow.
The author of this devastation was almost as surprised as the dark fairies. Without design, without thought, Tzigone had summoned killing magic—as she had done once before as a child.
She recalled her mother’s long-ago words and the stories she had heard since of common men and women who suddenly unleashed uncommon power. Magic came naturally, and sometimes unexpectedly, to those born of a sorcerer’s bloodline.
Tzigone stumbled back from the grim scene and sank to the ground. The exhausted sorceress—for such she truly was—sank into dreamless oblivion.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Matteo entered the Jordaini College by the north gate and rode directly to the training fields. Though the sun was little more than a crimson rim above the western mountains, Vishna was still at work with his jordaini charges. Several pairs of small boys trained with short wooden staffs, learning the routines of attack and parry that prepared them for the traditional matched daggers.
The old wizard glanced up, scowling at this infraction of rule. Horsemanship was learned in the arena and on the surrounding trails. The training fields were to be kept level and free from debris.
When Vishna noted the rider’s identity, his ire changed to consternation. He swiftly mastered both emotions and clapped his hands sharply. The sparring jordaini boys lowered their weapons and came to attention.
“That is enough for today,” he said with a smile. “Go to the evening meal before the cooks come at us with cleavers, angry that we’ve scorned their handiwork.”
The jovial tone was familiar to Matteo, as was the slight twinkle in the old battle-wizard’s eyes. It seemed to him, though, that Vishna’s cheer was decidedly forced.
When the boys had left, Vishna strode over to Matteo’s horse. “Perhaps you and I could walk together, before it grows too dark for this old man’s eyes.”
Matteo swung down and gave his mount a light slap on the rump. The horse trotted gladly off for the stables, and the jordain fell into step with his former master.
Neither spoke until they entered the deeply shaded riding paths. Faint moonlight filtered through the trees, and lightning beetles greeted the night and each other with flirtatious winks of light.
Finally Vishna broke the silence. “Some time ago, I advised you to hone your skill at evasion, if not falsehood. Do you recall that?”
“Vividly.”
Vishna smiled faintly. “You were not pleased by this advice. Court life has not dimmed your principles. Truly, I’m glad for it, but though you need not lie, you should learn not to wear truth on your face. I’ve known you since your birth, Matteo, and the questions you’ve come to ask could hardly be plainer had you tattooed them across your forehead.”
The wizard lifted one hand and traced a complex gesture. Years faded away, and his thin, wiry frame thickened and took on muscle. The exaggerated curve of his nose softened, and his thin, gray locks grew thicker, more lustrous. Even in the faint light, Matteo could make out a familiar, rich shade of chestnut.
“This is my true form,” Vishna said in a voice that was suddenly fuller and more resonant.
Matteo nodded slowly, trying to accept the truth he saw in the wizard’s face. The resemblance between them was too striking to ignore. This, then, was the man who had sired him.
“The story is long.” Vishna began to walk again, a long warrior’s stride that matched Matteo’s favored pace. “You know me as a battle wizard, and so I am, but I’m far more powerful than I pretend to be and far older. Many years ago, there were three of us, friends from boyhood, united in our love of Halruaa and our infatuation with magic.”
Matteo stopped dead, staring at his mentor—his father—in horror. “You, Zalathorm, and Akhlaur.”
“You know the tale?”
“Andris put it together. It was you who gave him the books, wasn’t it?”
The wizard was silent for a long moment. “Truth unspoken can fester. This story has been too long untold. Zalathorm and I lived long past our expected years, in part because of the protection given us by the crimson star. I chose to live quietly, taking a number of names and living out several lives. This incarnation, Vishna the jordaini master, is only the latest.”
<
br /> A grim thought occurred to Matteo. Perhaps the resemblance between him and Benn could be explained in the most obvious fashion. “Do you have other children?”
“None living, no.”
“What of your children’s descendants?” Matteo pressed.
The wizard sighed. “There is one. He will bear no children, and I am glad for it. It is better that the bloodline ends with me.”
The enormity of this revelation rocked Matteo back on his heels. Vishna had known that his own blood flowed through Benn’s veins, and yet he had allowed the peasant to take Matteo’s place at the purification rite. Perhaps he had even arranged this travesty!
“Yet you must have married,” Matteo said coldly. “A strange choice for a man determined to end his own line.”
“A life as long as mine grows lonely,” the wizard replied, “but I did not act entirely without responsibility. Twenty-two years ago, I married a wizard whose bloodline suggested she could bear a natural jordain. Do you know that term?”
“A child born with jordaini potential without the intervention of potions.”
“Yes. There are risks, which I assume you also know, but this course seemed safe enough. In fact, my wife’s pregnancy was uneventful. Childbirth is never easy—you know that perhaps one birthing in three results in death to either babe or mother.”
“Yes.”
“This is especially true when great magic is involved, and one of the reasons why wizard bloodlines are so carefully regulated. My wife’s mind shattered under the strain of childbirth.”
Vishna fell silent for a long moment. “The parentage of any jordaini child is not known to the order, but I determined that I would know my son.”
“So you supported the falsehood that your wife and babe died in childbed and came to the Jordaini College.”
“About that time, Basel Indoulur decided to leave. His story is not mine to tell.”
“I know it already. His daughter was stillborn, as jordaini females usually are.”
Vishna’s eyebrows rose. “Basel has confided in you. That simplifies my tale. The short of it is that his position became open. As a jordaini master, I could keep close watch on my son.”
The wizard stopped suddenly and reached out to clasp Matteo’s shoulders. “Before I continue, you must swear you will do nothing that might bring harm to the elf woman Kiva.”
“Most people believe that Kiva died when the floodgate closed,” Matteo said, choosing his words carefully. “Have you reason to think otherwise?”
The wizard shook his head impatiently. “Alive or dead matters not I cannot continue this story unless you swear.”
Reluctantly, Matteo did so. He would have to trust the gods and the laws of Halruaa to deal with Kiva as she deserved.
“Kiva was one of the prisoners in Akhlaur’s tower. I freed her from a cage. She was a tiny thing, little more than a child and incredibly ill-used. I did not recognize her when we met years later, but she remembered me.”
Matteo began to understand. “You tried to atone for the wrongs done to her by your former friend and partner.”
“Guilt is a powerful thing,” the wizard said with deep regret “I swore by wizard-word oath to help her destroy the residual evils left behind by Akhlaur’s reign. That seemed not only harmless but worthy. By the time I realized Kiva was not the helpless victim she purported to be, I was constrained by my oath and Kiva’s magic from working against her.”
“So you had to require a similar oath from me before continuing. Otherwise, even telling this story could be construed as a betrayal.”
“Yes.” The wizard sighed. “I view many of my actions without pride. My most egregious error was helping Kiva recruit jordaini students. I learned too late that she had a special grudge against the jordaini order.”
Matteo could not trust himself to speak. This man, his own father, had betrayed his jordaini brothers.
“Although trapped by my vows,” Vishna continued, “I tried to do as little harm as possible. When I intercepted Andris’s thesis about the Kilmaruu Paradox, I realized he had an excellent chance of undoing the mess Akhlaur had left in the Kilmaruu Swamp. So I presented Andris to Kiva as an extremely talented battlemaster, one ideally suited to cleaning up after Akhlaur. I didn’t think Kiva could hurt Andris.”
“Why not?” demanded Matteo.
“I was stunned by Andris’s ‘death’ and realized how wrong I’d been about Kiva,” went on Vishna, as if he hadn’t heard the jordain’s question. “I was deeply relieved to learn of Andris’s survival, but I felt responsible for what happened to him in the battle of Akhlaur’s Swamp. Because I owed Andris some small measure of truth, I put before him books that would explain why Kiva did what she did.”
“These books—can you say more of this without breaking your oaths?”
The wizard shook his head. “I would not speak of them even if I could. The knowledge in those books turned Andris to Kiva’s side.”
“No. He might have descended from Kiva’s line, but it seems to me that choice is more powerful than heredity.”
“You and Andris, good men both, are proof of that,” Vishna said, punctuating his comment with a sad smile. “You are the son of a coward and he the seventh-generation descendant of a mad elf woman and the monster who was once my friend.”
Yet another bolt of shock tore through Matteo. “Andris is a descendant not just of Kiva but also of Akhlaur?”
Vishna’s eyes widened. “You did not know this?”
“Andris didn’t tell me—at least, not in so many words.” Finally Matteo understood what Andris meant when he warned that he seemed destined to betray those around him. For months, he had been laboring under the heavy weight of his perceived fate.
Matteo stared at the wizard as if into a dark mirror, but he felt no kinship with the man he had once loved. Vishna’s blood might be his. Vishna’s choices were not.
“There is enormous peace in confessing this story and in acknowledging, if just between the two of us, that you are my son. A sad chapter is closed, and we can begin anew.”
The selfishness of that statement floored Matteo nearly as thoroughly as the man’s admitted cowardice. He stepped back, avoiding the wizard’s offered embrace.
“Once we spoke of the Cabal,” he said. “You denied that it existed.”
A turmoil of indecision filled Vishna’s eyes. “Perhaps the descendants of three old friends can set things aright. Perhaps I can yet leave a legacy of honor. I will tell you what I know.”
Suddenly he began to change. The years flooded back, and the robust middle-aged warrior was once again the aging wizard Matteo had long known. But the process did not stop. More years sped by, and the spare flesh on the old wizard’s bones withered. His eyes turned to fevered black pools in a face gone papery thin and gray as death. Before Matteo could move, Vishna fell to the ground, his frail body contorting in the final throes of a death long cheated.
“A lichnee,” Matteo breathed, recognizing the grueling transformation of living man to undead wizard. “Goddess avert, you are becoming a lich!”
“No!”
The single word rattled out in a whisper, but it held a world of horror. This clearly was not Vishna’s intent! Somehow, his fate was being imposed—a sentence of living death in payment for a final act of courage. According to everything Matteo knew of magic, this should have been impossible.
He swept the dying man up in his arms and ran toward the college, shouting for assistance. Curious students flowed from their dwellings, then shot off with typical jordaini obedience to fetch their masters.
The wizards who answered the summons could do no more than Matteo to stop the mysterious process. Finally, they shook their heads and stepped away, as they might to avoid a leper.
Vishna reached out a palsied hand toward Matteo’s dagger.
The jordain hesitated, understanding what the wizard had in mind. Matteo had been taught that life was sacred, but better a quick death than the s
lipping away of the soul and the slow-creeping madness that overtook undead wizards. He pulled his dagger and curved his father’s frail fingers around the hilt of the jordaini blade.
To Matteo’s surprise, Vishna lifted the blade to his hair and sliced off a thin gray lock. This he handed to Matteo. He struggled to form words.
“Basel,” he croaked. “Three. Legacy.”
Matteo nodded reassuringly as he deciphered this message. Obviously Basel had contacted Vishna, his old swordmaster and successor, to enlist his help in Matteo’s search for an ancestor’s talisman. Legacy was also clear enough, for Vishna had agreed that destroying the Cabal would be a means to atone for his mistakes. But three?
The jordain’s eyes widened as he made the connection. Three wizards had formed the crimson star, and Vishna had suggested that three descendants were needed to undo this grim legacy. Akhlaur, Vishna, and Zalathorm. Andris, Matteo, and—
Goddess above! This had been a day for revelations, but none stunned Matteo more than the notion of “Princess Tzigone!”
Vishna made a feeble gesture with his free hand, indicating that he wanted Matteo to leave. Their eyes clung for a moment, and then Vishna laboriously moved the blade to his throat. His unspoken plea was clean he did not want his son to see him die by his own hand.
With deep reluctance, Matteo rose to honor the old man’s last wish. As he strode quickly away, he glanced down at the lock of hair clenched in his hand. It was no longer thin and gray, but a deep, lustrous chestnut
Back at Akhlaur’s tower, the necromancer and the elf watched as a pair of skeletal servants stirred a bubbling kettle. Unspeakably foul steam rose as the remains of several ghouls boiled down to sludge. A half dozen vials stood on a nearby table, ready to receive the finished potion. On the far side of the room, several of Akhlaur’s water-fleshed servants struggled to control a chained wyvern. Three of them clung to the beast’s thrashing tail, while a fourth darted about with a vial to catch drops of poison dripping from the barbed tip. From time to time, one of the undead servants was pierced by a wing rib or a flailing talon, and the fluids surrounding the old bones drained away like wine from a broken barrel. Still more undead servants busied themselves with mops, cleaning the stone floor of their comrades’ remains.
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