“Another few days’ study, and I shall have all the puzzle pieces in place,” she murmured.
“Then perhaps I should return,” said a sweet, bell-like voice behind her. “I do hate to leave things unfinished.”
The jordain leaped from her chair and whirled, twin daggers gleaming in her manicured hands. Her fury changed to fear as she regarded the small, strange figure seated in her favorite chair. Long ringlets of jade green cascaded over a gown of green and gold and framed a face that held the color and the coldness of polished copper.
Cassia drew herself up with all the dignity she could muster. After all, she was the king’s high counselor, and this creature, despite her position, was merely an elf.
“How dare you enter my chamber uninvited, and by magical means?”
The magehound’s smile made the room feel suddenly chill. “I go wherever my duty takes me.”
“What is that to me? You have no business here.”
“Don’t I?” Kiva rose in a single swift, fluid motion. “The ranks of the jordaini must be kept free of magic’s taint. No one, no matter how high her rank or how powerful her patron, is immune to that rule. If I decide to call inquest against you, no one will question my right”
Cassia hadn’t considered this possibility. It was a potent threat. She swallowed with great difficulty. “What do you want?”
The elf extended a peremptory hand. “To begin with, you can give me those papers.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Cassia handed them over. Kiva studied them and then fixed a challenging stare upon the jordain.
“As you have gone to such trouble to learn, I have sought this girl for quite some time. She is wanted for inquest. This is my duty, and I will brook no interference. This quarry is mine, jordain. Back away, and perhaps I will not need to seek another.”
Cassia didn’t need to ask who the second quarry might be. “I accept your terms,” she said quickly.
“You are hasty,” the elf said with a cool smile. “I wasn’t quite finished. Have you spoken to anyone about what you have learned?”
The magehound reached into the folds of her yellow sleeve and produced a silver wand, the instrument that could find magic wherever it hid and condemn any jordain who knew Mystra’s touch.
Cassia’s gaze did not waver, and she spoke words that were partial truth and careful falsehood. “I did not speak to anyone, nor will I,” she vowed, omitting mention of the letters she had penned. She felt safe in doing so, for by tradition, jordaini did not write and send messages.
Kiva accepted this with a nod. “Good. If I hear you have broken silence, we will meet again. And I assure you,” she said softly, “on that day you will be far less happy with the bargain we make.”
Matteo’s new quarters were in the south wing of the royal palace, far from the council chambers and several floors up from the queen’s clockwork court. Although this was not the most prestigious part of the palace, it was by far the most luxurious suite he had ever occupied. There was one room for sleeping, another in which to receive company, a study lined with books, and a bath so large and luxurious that it was almost an embarrassment
As he entered his rooms, the faint splash and murmur of water caught his ear. Carefully he eased one dagger from its sheath and crept to the door of the bath. The sight before him froze his feet to the marble floor and left him uncertain whether to smile or groan.
Tzigone had returned, and she had made herself very much at home. She was sprawled in the bath, her small bare feet propped up on one end and her head lolled over the other. Her eyes were closed, and her short brown hair had disappeared into a foamy, fragrant mass. More suds filled the tub like cream on a trifle.
He cleared his throat.
“Come on in,” Tzigone said without opening her eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you for hours. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’ve waited in far worse places.”
For a moment he wondered whether “in” referred to the room in general or the bath. Neither course of action seemed wise.
“How did you get into the palace?”
She cracked open one eye. “You always start conversations with a question. Are you aware of that?
“I started in the bilboa tree over by the harbor park,” she went on, not waiting for an answer. She lifted one arm out of the water to brush aside a fleck of soap that dripped onto her face. “It’s amazing how far you can travel in this city without once touching the ground.”
His gaze shifted to his open window, which was at least six stories off the street, and marveled. Whatever else this girl might be, she had a powerful sense of honor if she would go to so much trouble to fulfill her perceived responsibilities.
Or was there another reason for her presence here?
“Is there still a debt between us?” he asked tentatively.
She shrugged, a movement that had Matteo averting his eyes again quickly. “That depends. How are things working out at the palace?”
“Strangely,” Matteo said honestly. “I have yet to find a way to truly serve the queen.”
“Hmm.” Tzigone took this in. “Well, what can you do?”
This drew his attention back to her. “Excuse me?”
“What kinds of services are you trained for? Besides battle, of course. I’ve seen what you can do with a blade.”
“Many things—history, battle strategy, etiquette, protocol, languages, customs, heraldry. It is difficult to give counsel without knowledge of such things. We must also study magic and learn its strengths and weaknesses.”
She nodded, her eyes huge and bright. “How do you remember half of that? This is no idle question. I really want to know.”
“I can see that,” he murmured, puzzled by her intensity. “The memory is both a talent and a skill. Some have more capacity than others, just as some men are born with better singing voices than others. But there are ways to develop the memory. From a very early age, jordaini work to build a palace of the mind, one room at a time, with corridors between them. It is all very deliberate and meticulous. Each fact and idea is affixed to a particular place.” He tapped his forehead and closed his eyes. “I can almost literally envision the pathways I must take to get to a needed room.”
“What’s in the root cellars?” she demanded. “And how about the dungeons?”
His eyes popped open. “Excuse me?”
“How far back can you go?”
He considered this. “I have some memories that go back to the age of two or so. There are also a few earlier memories, mere impressions—vague and warm but unformed by words.” He paused and met her incredulous stare. “It is often so with the jordaini. My friend Andris claimed he could remember things that he must have heard while in his mother’s womb, but perhaps he was jesting.”
“Show me how,” she demanded.
Matteo tossed her a towel. “Meet me in the sitting room and we will do what we can.”
She padded in a few moments later, clad in green leggings and tunic and looking rather fetchingly like a dew-soaked dryad.
“Tell me,” she said, and plunked down cross-legged on the floor.
Matteo instructed her to close her eyes and bring to mind the earliest memory she could grasp. “Tell me what it is.”
“Sprite,” she said in a soft and faintly childlike voice. “That’s what I called him. It was also what he was—a sprite. I suppose he had another name, but I don’t remember hearing it.”
“You were how old at the time?”
She shrugged. “Five, maybe six. But before Sprite, there’s nothing.”
“That’s not so unusual. Many people retain few memories from their early years. Is it so important?”
“Yes.”
She spoke the word with such finality and depth of emotion that Matteo didn’t think to question her. “Then we will try another way. Envision in your mind—literally in your mind, in the physical paths that your thoughts take—where this memory of Sprite resides. Can you picture it?”<
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Her brow furrowed, but after a moment she nodded. “I think so.”
“Move deeper and slightly to the left,” he instructed softly.
She envisioned sliding back into her mind. For a moment there was nothing but blackness, and then she caught a glimmer of silver and felt a rhythmic, reassuring touch. “Someone is brushing my hair,” she murmured. “My mother?”
“Stay where you are. Quiet your mind and imagine that you have just entered a dark room and are waiting for your eyes to adjust.”
Tzigone nodded and sat still for a moment, her face a mask of concentration. Finally she shook her head. “Nothing,” she said sadly.
“We will try again later,” Matteo said, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. “The memory is a palace constructed with patience. It cannot be built quickly, nor quickly explored.”
“Not later,” Tzigone said grimly. “Now.” She closed her eyes and fiercely banished thought. When her mind was finally calm and still, she found the place where memories of Sprite dwelled, and then she slid farther down the dark pathways.
The gentle rhythm of the hairbrush pulled her back into the memory. But for some reason, the motion was not soothing. Tzigone felt her mother’s tension as surely as if it were her own.
Her mother! Tzigone sank deeper still into memory, desperate for a glimpse of her mother’s face or the sound of her voice. She saw herself as she might have then—the bare brown legs with their brave collection of childhood scrapes and bruises, the tiny hands clenched in her lap, the glossy brown hair that spilled over her shoulders.
“There, now. All finished,” the woman said with forced gaiety. “With your hair so smooth and shiny, you look too fine for sleep. What if we run across the rooftops until we find a tavern still open? We could have cakes and sugared wine, and if there is a bard in the house, I will sing. And, yes, I will summon a fierce creature for you. A behir, a dragon—anything you like.”
Even as a child, Tzigone hadn’t been fooled by the brittle gaiety of her mother’s tones. Quickly she bent down to tighten the laces on her soft leather shoes.
“I’m ready,” she announced.
Her mother eased open a shutter and lifted her onto the ledge beyond. The child leaned her small body against the wall and began to edge around the building, as confident and surefooted as a lemur.
Something on the ground caught her eye, drawing it to a disturbance several streets to the east. A tendril of magic, so powerful that her eyes perceived it as a glowing green light, twisted through the streets below. Like a jungle vine it grew, sending off seeking tendrils, moving purposefully toward whatever sun drew it.
Quicker than thought it came, and then it hesitated at the door to their inn as if it were momentarily confused by this barrier, or perhaps by another barrier that Tzigone could not see. Then the door exploded inward—silently, but with a force that stole her breath and nearly dragged her from the ledge.
Her mother was suddenly beside her, gripping her hand painfully. “This way,” she urged, no longer making any attempt to hide her fear.
They scuttled sideways on the ledge like fleeing crabs, moving toward one of the elaborate drainpipes that decorated the corners of every building, providing beauty and status in addition to carrying away the heavy summer rains. This one was fashioned to resemble a pair of entwined snakes. It was easy to climb, and in moments the girl’s small fingers grasped the leering stone mouth of one of the snake-headed gargoyles that capped the pipes.
Her mother placed a shoulder under the child’s small rump and heaved. Tzigone lurched up, hit the roof, and rolled once. In a heartbeat, she was on her feet and racing for the roof’s southern edge.
Tzigone remembered their games and the glowing threads that wove maps of the city against the night sky. For the first time, she understood their practical side. Her mother always pointed out the surrounding buildings and byways, and together they improvised a “what-if” game of pursuit and capture, one that was often whimsical and sometimes hilarious, but always, always in deadly earnest.
It felt strange to be a child again. The roof felt endless as Tzigone ran across on her short, thin legs. She reached the edge without slowing and launched herself into the night. The fall was brief, the landing hard. She rolled across the hard surface of the tiled roof of a bathhouse. Her leg burned from a brush with a jagged bit of tile. She touched it, and her hand came away wet
“Run,” her mother whispered as she dragged her to her feet “Stop for nothing. Nothing!”
She made herself forget the pain as she and her mother raced across the bathhouse roof. Together they scrambled down the far side of the building, hands fisted in fragrant bunches of the night-blooming flowers that climbed the wall. The crushed flowers gave off a strong scent and a swirl of golden pollen. Musky sweetness surrounded them like an oppressive cloud. Never before had a fragrance seemed sinister, but to the terrified child, it seemed that the flowers were in league with her pursuers. They taunted her with their vines, so like the dangerous, seeking magic, and tried to trick her into revealing herself. Tzigone cursed them silently and struggled mightily not to sneeze.
Finally her small feet touched cobblestones. Across the street loomed a high wall of pink stone, against which was built a raised pool shaped like a half-moon and enlivened by a softly playing fountain. The wall enclosed a familiar villa, one that had entered into their games on a previous trip to this city.
Confidently they plunged into the water and wriggled through the small tunnel that circulated water back into the interior moat. Tzigone swam like an eel, but the wall was thick and the tunnel deceptively curved. She bobbed to the surface of the pool, choking and sputtering.
As she blinked water out of her eyes, she noted the pair of jeweled eyes that moved purposefully toward her, lifted above water by the crocodilian shape of a behir’s head. Her mother flung out a hand to ward it off, but no magic spun out, just a splash of moat water. She changed tactics and dragged Tzigone to the edge of the moat with a haste that fairly shouted panic.
Tzigone remembered this villa. They had slipped through before during their nighttime wanderings. It was well guarded by monsters and magic. The first wave of defensive magic hit the intruders as soon as their feet touched dry ground. Her mother jolted and let out a small cry, just as the thief in the marketplace had done recently when he’d sagged upon the watchman’s dirk. Tzigone felt none of the magical wards and did not expect to.
“Come,” her mother gasped as she staggered toward a round freestanding tower that overlooked the garden and had no apparent connection to the villa itself.
Though the tower appeared utterly smooth from even a pace or two away, a narrow flight of stairs had been carved into the pink stone. They stumbled up the stairs, frantic now, all pretense of adventure forgotten. When they reached the top, her mother bent over, hands on her knees as she struggled for breath and speech. Tzigone could barely make out her request for light.
She had been schooled in which light to conjure during just such a “game,” and she quickly cast the little cantrip. Light appeared, softer than moonlight and shaped like a giant teardrop, but visible only to her eyes. It illuminated not the natural material world, but the created magic that embellished it.
The faint light revealed a glassy, translucent path that stretched from the tower to a nearby villa, one on the very shores of the lake.
But something about it was wrong. This wasn’t how Tzigone remembered the path. She sent a questioning look at her mother. The woman nodded. Without further hesitation, Tzigone stepped out into the seemingly empty air. Her mother followed closely, trusting her daughter to see what she herself could not.
No moon shone that night, but suddenly the two fugitives were silhouetted against a large, softly glowing orb. Tzigone muttered a ripe phrase she’d overheard from an impatient sea captain who’d cursed the fickleness of Selune and her inconvenient tides. For once her mother did not reprove her for her inelegant speech.
They ran the length of the gossamer path and scrambled over the wall of the strange villa. Before them was a flight of stairs leading down toward the courtyard. In the center of the courtyard, a large oval pool brooded in the moonlight.
“Let’s try it,” her mother said. “It looks like a weir for lake trout.”
They had encountered such things before on their “adventures.” Fish weirs were common in lakeside villas, for they provided sport for the children and food for the table. A short tunnel led from lake to pool, and magic lured the fish. Swimming them was risky—there were powerful magical wards to keep anything but fish from swimming in. Swimming out was another matter. So far, Tzigone had encountered no surprises more unpleasant than the magic that tickled her skin like sparkling wine and an occasional fish that brushed past her on its way to the wizard lord’s table.
They ran down the stairs, their eyes fixed on the mosaic floor below. The descent seemed to take far longer than it should have. Tzigone noticed suddenly that the floor’s pattern seemed to be shifting. The color turned from its intricate inlay of deep reds and rich yellows to a uniform hue of darkest sapphire. Small lights began to twinkle in the glossy tile.
Puzzled, she came to a stop on the next landing. Her mother bumped heavily into her. Tzigone glanced back the way they’d come.
“Look,” she said grimly, pointing up. Or possibly down. The pool gleamed overhead, and below them was the unmistakable void of the night sky. Inexplicably the two had changed places.
“A puzzle palace,” her mother said in a faint, despairing voice. “Mystra save us.”
The child’s trained gaze darted around. Several flights of stairs led from the landing, some going up, some down, and some leading nowhere at all. There were four levels of balconies surrounding the courtyard, and all levels seemed to be split into several parts. Some had been fashioned with elaborately carved or tiled or painted ceilings, while others were roofed or floored by the night sky. It was as if some crazed wizard had inserted this small section of the city into a gigantic kaleidoscope, fracturing and fragmenting reality beyond logic or recognition.
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