His heart skipped a beat. “Who are you?” he breathed.
She sat up and tossed a pinch of powder into the air over her head. The sparkling bits caught and hung in the air, then melted together to form a thin, shimmering sheet. This floated down, molded itself to her, and disappeared—leaving a very different woman in her place.
Her features were not as delicate as Basel remembered them, and time had dimmed her eyes and blurred the lines of her face.
Basel stared in disbelief at the faded image of a woman he’d thought long dead. Although he’d mourned her for over a dozen years, his heart did not respond to her with joy.
“Keturah?” he said, not quite believing it.
“That’s what we wanted them to think, wasn’t it?”
Memory flooded back. “Of course! You’re Keturah’s friend, the lady who helped her escape a near capture!”
“Friend, yes,” the woman said. Her lips twitched into a brief and bitter smile. “Lady, no.”
An old story came back to him. Shortly after her marriage to Dhamari, Keturah had traveled to Basel’s home city of Halar in the company of an Exchelsor merchant band. One of the hired swords had laid rough hands on her—and lost them up to the elbows to her defensive magic. Her indignation grew when the caravan master explained that the mercenary had mistaken her for the camp doxie. A few words with the woman convinced Keturah that the “doxie” had not chosen this life. She had insisted that the woman be released in her care, and she had given her employment in her tower, and quietly trained the woman’s magical gifts.
“A courtesan can still be a lady, regardless of the circumstances of her birth or her profession,” Basel pointed out.
“Courtesan!” she scoffed. “That’s still putting it too high! My mother could claim that title. She was a wizard’s mistress. Guess what that makes me?”
“Illegitimate or not, if you know your father’s name and lineage, you are guaranteed certain rights and a wizard’s training.”
“Oh, I know the name, but he was married into a powerful family and didn’t wish to embarrass them. So I was sent away. “I was handed over to a merchant’s company as a sort of movable entertainment.”
The enormity of this revelation stunned Basel into silence. Any words that came to mind only trivialized such betrayal.
After a moment Sinestra shrugged. “An old tale, badly told. Whatever you’re going to do to me, get on with it”
“All I require from you is an explanation. Why did you come here looking for Keturah’s talisman?”
“I didn’t. I came looking for your apprentice.”
Basel studied the woman. She was already reverting to her enchanted appearance: her hair was darkening to black, and her skin was no longer sallow but golden and smooth. He had worked on such cloaking spells before. “If I’m not mistaken, the spell you wear is Keturah’s.”
“I don’t have that much talent,” she agreed. “It’s a permanent spell. Nothing will touch it but the powder Keturah gave me, and you can bet I don’t use that very often! The medallion was mine, though, in a manner of speaking. I bought it for Keturah. She was a good friend and a generous mistress. I kept every coin she gave me toward the day when I could repay her.”
Something in her tone set off warnings in Basel’s mind. “Why did you think that would be necessary?”
Sinestra’s face—now fully reverted to its young and beautiful form—twisted with frustration. “I can’t tell you.”
“I see,” mused Basel. “Perhaps you can tell me what you wanted with Keturah’s talisman?”
“There are many kinds of slavery,” she said shortly. “Some cages have golden bars, but at the end of the day there’s little difference between gold and iron. How well do you know my husband?”
“Not very.”
“Count yourself lucky. With this talisman, maybe I could win free of his prying eyes. It would be wonderful to have an hour or two to call entirely my own.”
“Or perhaps to reinvent yourself and start a new life elsewhere, as you have done before.”
“Perhaps,” she said noncommittally.
“You assumed that Tzigone would have this talisman?”
“Why would I do that?” she asked, her arched brows pulled down in genuine puzzlement. “After Keturah’s capture, her effects were taken to Dhamari Exchelsor. I planned to steal it from him, and I hired Tzigone—” She broke off abruptly, and bit her lip in obvious consternation.
“Take ease. I already know that Tzigone’s methods lie slightly south of legal. Go on. You hired a thief to get the talisman for you.”
“What do you take me for? I’ve known several different prisons, and I won’t be responsible for sending anyone else there,” she said grimly. “I hired Tzigone to train me, so I could go after it myself.”
Basel nodded, satisfied. This woman had risked her life for Keturah. She was exactly the sort of friend and ally Tzigone needed. “But obviously, Dhamari Exchelsor did not have the talisman. He returned it to Keturah’s daughter.”
Puzzlement furrowed Sinestra’s face, then gave way to stunned enlightenment “Mother of Mystra,” she whispered. “That’s why I was drawn to Tzigone. From the moment we met, she felt like an old friend. She hasn’t got half her mother’s beauty, but they’ve got the same laugh, the same contrary streak.” Her eyes widened in sudden panic. “You said that Dhamari gave her the talisman? He knows about her?”
Basel was beginning to have a very bad feeling about this. “She is with him even now.”
The woman leaped from the cot and seized Basel’s tunic with both hands. “Get her away from him!”
He marked the rising note of hysteria in her voice. Tamping down his own growing panic, he kept his voice low and soothing. “Tell me.”
“I truly can’t.” She released his tunic. A brief, silent struggle twisted her beautiful face, then her jaw firmed with resolve. “I can’t tell you, but you can see for yourself. Go to Keturah’s tower and into Dhamari’s workroom. You’ll understand why—”
Sinestra’s voice broke off abruptly. A shudder ran through her, and her eyes rolled up until the whites showed. She fell to the floor in a paroxysm of violent spasms, her spine arching so painfully that Basel heard the snapping of bone. Her agony was mercifully brief. Even as Basel dropped to his knees beside her, she went limp and still.
The wizard cursed softly. Many of his colleagues ensorcelled their servants against revealing secrets. Apparently someone had been more thorough than most Even the little that Sinestra had said was enough to condemn her to death.
Basel reached out a gentle hand to close the brave woman’s eyes. At his touch, she melted into mist, and then faded away. Yet another precaution, he noted grimly. Without a body to test, it was exceedingly difficult to trace the origin of the killing spell.
He rose abruptly. This mystery would have to wait in favor of more urgent matters.
There were no magical gates between his tower and Keturah’s, for he wanted no path that another wizard might follow. Basel had not ridden for years, but he quickly claimed his fastest horse and made short work of the road to Keturah’s tower. The gatekeeper informed him that Dhamari was not at residence. Basel had little trouble convincing the servant into letting him in regardless; in fact, he noted a hopeful gleam in the man’s eyes.
Basel hurried up the stairs to Dhamari’s potion room. It was larger than most wizards’ studies, but at first glance nothing seemed amiss. The room was also unusually tidy for a wizard’s lair, with rows of vials and vessels and pots lined up with fastidious care. A collection of butterflies was mounted against one wall, neatly pinned to a large sheet of cork. Basel sniffed with mild scorn. Not the sort of trophy most men might boast of!
Yet something about the display drew his eyes—a sense, perhaps, that something about this hobby was profoundly amiss. Basel walked along the vast cork wall, studying the collection carefully. At first the butterflies’ colors were dazzling, with all the gem-like hues of a H
alruaan garden. Then came butterflies he had never seen, enormous creatures armed with stingers or mosquitolike snouts or wicked taloned feet, clad in deep greens and vivid scarlet and orange that brought to mind a jungle’s flowers. Next came butterflies the color of barren rock and desert sand. Snow moths, delicate as moonlight. Bats! Most were the tiny chameleon bats that wheeled about the sky at twilight. They were mounted against bright swatches of silk that tested and preserved their ability to change color.
His gaze fell upon the next creatures pinned against the cork, carefully preserved and neatly labeled. His breath hissed out on an outraged oath. There hung a fairy dragon, its bright wings carefully spread, tiny fangs bared in a final, defiant snarl. Next to it was a mummified sprite, a tiny winged lady displayed with the same precise detachment Dhamari had used in collecting insects. Basel’s throat clenched as he remembered the exercises Keturah taught her apprentices. Butterflies and bats were among the easiest creatures to summon. Even Dhamari had been able to call them.
“Dhamari called them,” he murmured. Obviously, Keturah’s former apprentice had not abandoned his desire to master his mistress’s special art. Starting with the small denizens of Keturah’s garden, he had gone farther and farther afield. Where, Basel wondered, would such a quest stop?
He strode over to the shelves and began to search for an answer. One sweep of his hand knocked aside the neat rows of pots and vials. Hidden behind was a wooden box, nearly half full of tiny vials. As Basel selected a vial from the box, his eye fell upon an identical vial lying empty on the shelf. A decanter of wine stood beside it, dusty from long disuse and tightly stoppered. An identifying rune marked each vial—the same rune that had been engraved onto the potions Basel’s wife had taken during their brief and tragic union—potions that would ensure the birth of a jordani child.
Basel snatched up the wine bottle and rushed through the words of a transportation spell. He would retrieve his horse later—this could not wait. Back in his own tower in the city of Halar, a good day’s ride from Dhamari’s workroom, Basel hurried over to his potion scale. The traditional two-armed balance sat before a screen of white silk. Each arm ended in rounded vial of clear crystal, which would glow with intense light when a certain spell was cast upon it. Basel poured the jordaini potion into one of these globes, the wine into the other. With a quick, impatient gesture he set the globes aglow.
A pair of complex patterns began to dance on the white curtain, an arcane design made of colors and runes and intricate black lines. Basel spoke a second command word and watched as the distinctive gold colors of the wine faded away. As he suspected, the remaining marks were similar to those cast by the jordaini potion.
Similar, but different. Dhamari had dosed this wine with the jordaini potion—and with something more.
Basel placed a third crystal pot in the crux of the scale and began to chant softly. The pattern for the wine potion began to shift as the unknown substance drained away. When the wine-derived pattern was identical to that of the jordaini potion, he cast the light spell upon the third vial. A green, jagged mark flashed upon the white silk, identifying the added ingredient. Basel caught his breath.
“Son of a rabid jackal,” he said softly as the whole of Dhamari’s plan came clear.
Basel did not make such potions, nor did any reputable mage in Halruaa, but he knew of such things. This was the signature mark of a dangerous herb, one used by shamans in darker times and more primitive cultures to gain control of monsters that could not be called by normal magic.
This, then, was the legacy Dhamari wished to pass along! He wanted Keturah’s magic, altered and transferred to a child he could claim and control, a child who could do for him what he could not do himself.
Rage rose in Basel with white heat.
The wizard reversed his spell of transportation and returned to Dhamari’s workroom. He methodically searched the library, where he found a surprising trove of material on Crinti history, drow lore, and legends of the Unseelie folk.
“Rather exciting reading for a fellow who collects butterflies,” Basel muttered. “Let’s see what else he’s been up to.”
Basel found the wizard’s spell inventory and carefully checked it against the missing scrolls, books, and potions. The list itself was appalling. The arsenal Dhamari carried on his “little journey” with Tzigone terrified Basel to the core.
He raced from the tower, stopping briefly at the gate to hand the servant a heavy bag of coin. “Go to the harbor. Find a boat bound for distant lands, and buy passage.”
“I am bound to service here,” the man began.
“Yes, I have a good idea how Dhamari binds his servants. Speak to no one of what you have seen in this place, and you should be safe enough for the next tenday or so.”
The gatekeeper nodded cautiously. “After that, my lord?”
“No law or spell can bind you to a dead man,” Basel said bluntly.
The man’s eyes widened, then turned luminous with gratitude. “Mystra speed you, my lord!”
Basel echoed that prayer as he returned to his Halarahh tower to order his skyship readied. He knew he could not track Tzigone—her uncanny resistance to magic had kept him from following her on the days she decided to slip away from her duties—but he would damn well find Dhamari.
And his old friend Procopio Septus was just the man to tell him how.
Procopio Septus stared at his new game table, committing the landscape to memory, contemplating the possibilities presented by gully and cliff and cave.
He had played wargames for years, reenacting famous battles and learning from the triumphs and mistakes of past wizard-lords, but this table depicted a sensitive part of the eastern border, as it now was. The army threading its way through mountain passes had been lured by his bargain with the Mulhorandi wizard. Procopio was the only wizard in Halruaa aware of the coming conflict.
A tiny figure, a warrior mounted on a winged horse, separated itself from the battle. It flew high above the table and buzzed around Procopio’s head. Irritated, he swatted at the malfunctioning toy.
He barely connected, but the impact sizzled through him like a miniature bolt of lighting. Procopio snatched his hand away and stared with disbelief at the rapidly growing figure. In moments, a full-sized horse pranced on his Calimshan carpet. It folded room-spanning wings in a sweep that set the chandelier swaying and swept hundreds of tiny figures off the backfield.
The winged horse was a dappled bay, but its coloring was unlike anything Procopio had ever seen. Its coat was mottled brown and moss green, and the mane that hung nearly to its hoofs was the shade of mountain pines. The wings were feathered in soft shades of green and brown. It was the strangest steed he had ever seen, yet it suited the female mounted on its back.
She was a forest elf, with the coppery skin and amber eyes common to the folk of the Mhair. Her hair was long and braided, and a deep jade green in hue. Simply clad in a tunic and boots, she bore little resemblance to the elaborated coiffed and gowned magehound Procopio had glimpsed twice or thrice. Procopio was no expert on the ages of elves, but this female seemed to have aged the equivalent or two or even three human decades. Her skin looked thin and delicate. Tiny lines collected near the corners of her catlike eyes, and the hollows beneath her cheekbones were deep and shadowed. Even so, how many green-haired elves could there be in Halruaa?
Procopio greeted her by name. “This is a most unexpected pleasure. Would you care for a refreshment? Wine? Perhaps a bucket of oats?”
Kiva swung down from the horse and smacked its flank. The winged creature broke into a canter, taking perhaps four steps before it began rapidly diminishing in size and rising in the air. It shrank to the size of a bee and disappeared.
Never had it occurred to Procopio that someone might breach his tower’s defenses through the gaming tables’ magic. He was both chagrined and impressed. “I would pay well for a copy of that spell and the name of the wizard who developed it,” the wizard observed.
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The elf woman smirked. “If I sold it, I wouldn’t bet a wooden skie against the man’s chances of surviving the new moon.”
Procopio grunted. “Let us move to the matter at hand. Iago, my former counselor, affirms that you purchased him from a band of Crinti raiders. You have an alliance with the Crinti, or at least some sort of dealings with them.”
“And you have a particular fascination with the shadow amazons,” Kiva countered. “More importantly, you have shown yourself willing to trade information for information. Your comment about activities beyond the eastern wall led to some interesting possibilities. What else can you give me?”
“What do you want?” Procopio asked bluntly.
Kiva blinked, as if unaccustomed to such directness from a Halruaan wizard. “Many things. Perhaps foremost, the destruction of the Cabal.”
It was Procopio’s turn to be astonished. “How might that be accomplished?”
“Help me remove Zalathorm from power, and I will show you.”
No answer could have pleased him more. On the other hand, it seemed too convenient that his purpose and the elf’s dovetailed so perfectly.
He painted a disapproving scowl on his face. “Let’s assume that I wished to pursue such a foolish and treasonous course. The only incentive large enough would be Zalathorm’s crown. What reason would you have to support me?”
“None in the world.” She shrugged. “I don’t care whose arse warms Halruaa’s throne. You have something I want, and Zalathorm does not.”
“What is that?” he asked warily.
“You know the Crinti,” she said, gesturing to one of his older tables. “Once they were useful to me, but they have become too numerous, too bold. They are coming into the Nath by the scores through the caves and mountain passes.”
“Why should that concern me?”
“This activity might well draw eyes eastward. If your fellow wizards learn of the coming Mulhorandi invasion, you lose the opportunity to predict a threat that Zalathorm did not perceive. Help me with the Crinti, and you serve yourself.”
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