The Floodgate зкик-2

by Элейн Каннингем

  "They were here," Matteo whispered. "I swear it, on my life and honor."

  Zalathorm took his arm and led him from the room. "I do not doubt you," he said quietly, "but I wanted you to see with your own eyes that your most dire fears were ungrounded. What I am about to tell you must remain in strictest confidence."

  Matteo nodded his assent.

  "There is a protective shield around the heart of Halruaa. A very old, very powerful ward."

  The jordain's brow furrowed. "A spell?"

  "Not precisely," the king said carefully. "It is a powerful and mysterious force. I cannot explain it any better than that. When there is a threat against the heart of Halruaa, this power ensures that either the threat or those threatened are removed to a place of safety."

  Matteo recalled the men in the icehouse melting away into magical haze. "What is the heart of Halruaa?"

  Zalathorm was silent for a moment. "Removing a malfunctioning machine from the palace is the sort of manifestation I have come to expect. You need have no fear for your patron's safety."

  "What about the safety of those around her?"

  The king sighed. "Very well, I will admit that the queen's clockwork toys have grown too numerous and dangerous. I will see that this building frenzy is curtailed and have priests heal the wounded and restore the slain woman to her life and her loved ones. Will that content you?"

  Matteo considered pressing for an answer to the "heart of Halruaa" question and decided to leave this for another time. "Almost, Your Majesty," he said. "Now that I have your assurances that the queen is safe, I request permission to leave Halarahh for an indeterminate period of time. I will need horses and supplies for my journey. I have tried for some time to bring this request to the queen and ask that she retain the jordain Iago, currently serving Procopio Septus. He will accompany me on my journey."

  "Is that all?" the king inquired in a dry tone.

  "Not quite. There is a jordain yet at the college-Themo, a fifth-form student. The queen has need of his service, as well. We will ride north and meet him at the travelers' rest on the road out of Orphamphal, but he must leave today, though he has not yet completed his training."

  Zalathorm studied Matteo's face, then nodded slowly. "I cannot read your mind, jordain, but there is much urgency in your eyes and voice. Coming to me was not an easy thing, but you held service to Halruaa above all else. For this, all will be done as you have asked."

  Matteo bowed. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

  "Don't thank me," the king said with a grim smile. "Don't the jordaini have a proverb claiming that virtue never goes unpunished?"

  "I have never heard that proverb, but most seem to be of jordaini origin."

  "Blame it on the jordaini, in other words?"

  "Perhaps, sire," said Matteo dryly, "that is our true function."

  To his surprise, the king chuckled and clapped him on the back. "Mystra speed you, lad. I look forward to speaking with you again, when your business in the north is completed."

  Matteo bowed again, and watched as Zalathorm strode down the hall that separated the king's palace from the queen's. He turned and sprinted to the royal stables and rode quickly to Basel Indoulur's tower. A pretty, dark-eyed apprentice greeted him at the door and went to fetch Tzigone for him.

  His friend came to the door wearing her sky-blue robe, liberally dusted with soot. Her face was likewise blackened, and her hair stood up about her head in spikes, lending her the look of a swarthy hedgehog.

  "Don't ask," she advised.

  "I'm leaving the city by dawn tomorrow. Before I go, there are things I must tell you."

  Tzigone took his arm and drew him into the garden. They took refuge in a rose-draped arbor, a retreat that sheltered a tiny pond and a bench piled with bright silk cushions. As soon as they were seated, Matteo reached into his bag and produced the medallion Dhamari Exchelsor had entrusted to him.

  Before he could explain its origin, Tzigone's eyes grew enormous. "That was my mother's," she whispered.

  Her grubby fingers closed around the token, and she turned it over and over in her hands. "I can't feel any magic in it," she said absently. "I seem to remember there was. Every time we had to flee, my mother would touch it, and her face would become very still, as if she were listening, Sometimes she let me touch it, but all I could feel was her. Why is that, do you think?"

  "Perhaps children become very attuned to their parents," Matteo suggested. "Magical items sometimes hold something of their possessor's aura. No doubt that is what you perceived."

  Tzigone looked down. "I'm holding the talisman now. I can't feel anything."

  The silence between them was long and heavy. Finally Tzigone lifted agonized eyes to Matteo's face. He nodded, answering the question she could not ask.

  Tzigone squeezed her eyes shut, and her face went very still as she sought some reservoir of strength deep within. Several moments passed before she won command of her emotions.

  "How did you come by this?" she said in a small voice.

  "Dhamari Exchelsor gave it to me. I meant to give it to you when last we met, but did not have the chance."

  "How did he get it?"

  "Kiva brought it to Dhamari like a trophy and gloated over Keturah's capture. They were apprentices together, you see, and Keturah was their master. They were conspirators in the miscast spell that prompted Keturah to banish Kiva from her tower. Clearly Kiva held a grudge against your mother. Possibly she resented Dhamari because he did not receive the same treatment."

  "What was he like?" she asked grudgingly.

  "A quiet man, modest in his ways and habits. He spoke of your mother with great pleasure and deep sadness."

  The girl sniffed, unimpressed.

  "You should meet with him."

  Her head came up sharply. "So you said before. Dhamari offers to give a wizard's bastard a home, a name, a wizard's lineage, a tower, and a fortune. Ever wonder why?"

  "You are Keturah's daughter. Perhaps that is reason enough."

  "That's what worries me. Why would my mother flee from this Dhamari if he is a good man?"

  Matteo told her about Keturah's fascination with dark creatures. He told her about the greenmage's fate and the starsnakes that gathered to attack, against their nature. Disbelieving tears spilled unheeded down Tzigone's dirty face as she listened, leaving muddy tracks in the soot. Matteo expected her to reject the notion that her mother could have become so twisted through the practice of dangerous magic, but after a moment she nodded.

  "It is… possible."

  "So you will see Dhamari?"

  "Why should this wizard-or any other, for that matter-trouble himself about me?"

  Matteo hesitated, wishing he could tell her of Basel Indoulur's vow to claim paternity if need be. But that would not only violate the wizard's confidence, it would also undo the very thing Basel wished to achieve. Tzigone would never accept such a costly gift.

  He brushed a sooty tear from her cheek. "Given the options before you, yes, I think you should see Dhamari and give serious consideration to his offer."

  "I'll think about it."

  They spoke briefly about the clockwork creatures, and Matteo's destination. When they rose to leave, she lifted one hand to trace a brief, graceful farewell dance-a wizard's convention as common as rain in summer. Then she spun and slipped away, like the thief she had been.

  This small, familiar rite set Matteo back on his heels. For the first time, he understood that the training Tzigone was undertaking was not a whim but a true path. She was wizard born, wizard blood.

  Because of who he was-a jordaini bounded about by proverbs and prohibitions-he could not follow where she went.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tzigone hurried to Basel's tower, oblivious to the young man who watched her departure with bleak eyes. She had much to do and little time. The Council of Elders met that night, and Procopio Septus would certainly be present. This would be the best time to slip back into Procopio's villa
. The diviner was indeed powerful, and though her resistance to magic was almost total, she did not relish the thought of creeping about under his very nose.

  She considered contacting Sinestra, but quickly abandoned the idea. She wanted nothing more to do with the woman. "It's possible," Tzigone muttered, repeating Sinestra's response when Tzigone had asked if she might be Sinestra's daughter. Possible! What the Nine bloody Hells did that mean?

  But Sinestra was not her mother. Her mother was dead. That was almost easier to comprehend than the beautiful woman's easy dismissal.

  Tzigone put Sinestra firmly out of mind. She slipped into shadow-colored garments and made her way over the walls that bordered a public garden. From there it was simply a matter of climbing a bilboa tree and creeping through the treetops toward the home of Procopio Septus. She found a perch with a commanding view and settled down to watch and wait.

  When night fell and the wizard-lord left the villa, she slipped in through the kitchen orchard and went to his private study. She found the volume titled King's Decrees, issued a year or so before her birth.

  In its pages she read the truth of Dhamari Exchelsor's claim. Keturah stood accused of murder through magical means of Whendura, a greenmage of Halarahh. She had fled the city that very day rather than submit to magical inquiry that, had she been innocent, would have cleared her name. By the laws of Halruaa, flight from justice was an admission of guilt.

  Tzigone closed the book with shaking hands. By the laws of Halruaa, her mother was a murderer. This knowledge only increased Tzigone's desire to learn the whole truth. By the laws of Halruaa, she herself was not exactly as white as cream. There was a larger story here, and unless she was very mistaken, Kiva was the thread that tied Tzigone's past to events still in play.

  She found the most recent book of King's Decrees, as well as the hefty tome that contained Lord Procopio's latest notes from the city council. She sat down cross-legged under a table and began to read.

  Trouble, it seemed, was everywhere. The increase in piracy was predictable-a seasonal hazard, since the sea vultures were eager to collect as much treasure as possible before the summer monsoons started in earnest. Less understandable was the number of trade caravans that had been disappearing in the Nath. Then there was the totally unexpected attack on the Lady's Mirror by wild elves. As a precaution against further incursions, huge numbers of militia had been moved to the western border. More guards had been moved to the north to guard the electrum mines and the nearby mint. The mountains that formed the eastern wall seemed to be secure and quiet, but there was a great deal of activity in Akhlaur's Swamp.

  "Well, that figures," she muttered. As word of the laraken and its defeat spread, the swamp lost much of its terror. It was only a matter of time before packs of wizardly idiots blundered in, chasing rumors of Akhlaur's lost treasure.

  Tzigone sniffed derisively. Next she searched the room for a hidden place where Procopio might keep important papers. In a carved wood chair she found a hidden compartment and paged through the neat pile of parchment stacked within. Among the pages was a listing of Zephyr's past patrons.

  She fingered the scrap of parchment tucked into a pocket-the notes Sinestra had taken the day they'd searched the elf jordain's chamber. It seemed that this information was important, after all. She just wasn't sure why.

  Her eye fell on the first name on the list of Zephyr's patrons:

  Akhlaur Reiptael, Necromancer.

  Her breath whistled out in a long, slow hiss. So Zephyr had served the infamous Akhlaur, the wizard whose legacy she tripped over every time she turned around!

  She'd be willing to bet that the old elf hadn't liked to brag about this particular fact, and she'd double the bet that this record didn't exist anywhere but in Procopio's study. It was the sort of information a powerful diviner might ferret out, but it wasn't something he'd wish to hear sung of in taverns and at the spring fairs.

  Zephyr, Kiva, Akhlaur, the laraken, Keturah, and now her. And Matteo, and perhaps even his friend Andris. They were all connected somehow, but Tzigone could not perceive what pattern those intertwined threads might make.

  She scrawled a quick copy of Zephyr's history and hurried to the palace, hoping that Matteo could do better. On the way, she «borrowed» some suitable clothing and gear and slipped into the queen's palace.

  Despite the late hour, Matteo was not in his room. Tzigone, unnoticed, finally found him at the kitchen storerooms, collecting supplies for his trip. Nor was he alone. The kitchen buildings teamed with activity.

  "Gods above," she muttered. "Don't palace servants ever sleep?"

  A soft, quickly stifled giggle drew her attention to a nearby goat shed. A pail of fresh milk stood off to one side, not far from the ladder leading up to the loft. Tzigone climbed the ladder and found precisely what she'd anticipated: a pile of fresh hay, two people entirely oblivious to her presence, and some hastily discarded clothing. Tzigone quietly stripped off her chambermaid's gown and tugged the girl's short blue dress over her head.

  Thus accoutered, she hurried back down to the abandoned bucket of goat's milk. She picked it up and staggered into Matteo's path, taking care to slop some of the contents of her bucket onto his boots.

  He took in Tzigone's pert dairymaid costume without comment and managed not to roll his eyes while she apologized extravagantly in the rolling accents of the northland herders. And he followed her as she babbled and backed away. He deftly accepted the list she handed him during the distraction and tucked it into his belt.

  By Mystra, she thought admiringly. There might be hope for him yet!

  They worked their way to a quiet spot between the goat shed and the brewery. Matteo took the note from his belt, scanned it, and lifted grim eyes to her face. "Where did you get this?"

  "There's a new tavern by the south gate," she began, still in her goat-girl voice. "The cook makes puff pastries that are hollow inside, then slits the crust and slips in a fortune or a small favor. I got an emerald ring, and traded it to the friend I was with for this list."

  Matteo glared at her. "If you don't want to tell me, just say so."

  "I don't want to tell you," she replied promptly. "What do you make of it?"

  He handed back the parchment. "Zephyr was in service to Halruaa's wizards for well over two hundred years. He was one of the first jordaini. Perhaps Akhlaur had a hand in the order's creation."

  Tzigone looked doubtful, "Jordaini and Akhlaur. Those two flavors don't belong in the same pot."

  "So I would like to think, but Akhlaur was a powerful necromancer. Such wizards do not deal exclusively with death but alter the living to suit their purposes. When you get right down to it, how better to describe the jordaini than men altered to suit the purposes of wizards?"

  She took this in. "How does Kiva fit in?"

  "Elves live very long lives. Kiva may look no older than you and me, but it is possible that she knew Zephyr, and possibly Akhlaur, two centuries past."

  "What does any of this have to do with my mother? With us?"

  Matteo sighed. "You and I are much akin, Tzigone. We are both resistant to magic, we were forcibly separated from our families. Perhaps we were both 'made' to suit some wizard's purpose, as they might fashion a golem from iron or clay."

  "Well, that's cheery!"

  "What would you rather have-a grim truth or a cheerful lie?"

  "Hmm. Do you need the answer right now?"

  "Yes, and so do you," he said, turning her half-hearted jest back on her. "Talk with Dhamari Exchelsor."

  She was silent for a long moment. "You know what, Matteo? I really, really hate it when you're right."

  "In that case," he said somberly but with a suspicious glint in his dark eyes, "you should reconcile yourself to constant irritation."

  His teasing sent an irrational mixture of exasperation and delight sweeping through Tzigone. "Constant irritation, is it? Well, I suppose I can live with that if you can." Before he could respond, Tzigone upended her
bucket of goat's milk over his head. While her friend sputtered and swore, she darted out of the kitchen grinning like a gargoyle.

  Yes, she concluded happily, there was definitely hope for Matteo.

  Before leaving the city, Matteo visited Queen Beatrix once again. He did not relish the prospect of facing the royal madwoman, but neither could he leave without trying to make sense of her dire pronouncements.

  The queen listened with an impassive face as he spoke of his plans to travel in search of knowledge important to the palace. Whether she cared or even understood, he could not say. It was getting harder and harder to enter the strange landscape of her mind. At last, he abandoned subtlety and reminded her that she'd predicted a coming war.

  "Did I?" she said vaguely.

  "Yes." He hesitated, then added, "I will be gone for quite some time. The Nath is a wild and dangerous place, and the paths are too rough for swift travel."

  The Nath. Matteo felt cruel for mentioning the site of her great tragedy, but he needed to take some measure of her sanity. Perhaps she had spoken of some battle in the past, most likely the raid that had destroyed her family.

  Matteo studied her face for the emotion this name might evoke. There was not even a flicker of recognition. The queen's detachment was chilling and nearly absolute.

  He silently admitted failure but made one more request. "Before I leave, I must contact the headmaster of the Jordaini College. May I use the device that you employed to seek me out when I was last there?" The queen granted permission with an absent wave of her hand. "But I do not work magic," Matteo added, turning back suddenly. "I cannot use the globe without the aid of a wizard."

  "A wizard," Beatrix repeated. It seemed to Matteo that there was an ironic edge in her usually flat voice. "Touch the globe. That is all it requires."

  Matteo went to the small scrying chamber and shut the door. Globes hung from elaborately knotted slings, rested on pedestals, or bobbed in the air with no apparent support. Hesitantly, he reached out to touch the smooth, floating moonstone globe that matched the one in Ferris Grail's study. The device glowed to life. After a few moments, the cloudy surface of the stone cleared to reveal the face of the jordaini headmaster.