The Floodgate (19 page)

“I heard it spoken in the Swamp of Akhlaur.”

“I can see why.” Dhamari leaned forward eagerly. “This girl, this untrained commoner whose voice held the laraken-tell me about her.”

Matteo spread his hands in a negligent gesture. “There is little I can say. She is a street performer, a girl with a merry heart and a clever mind. She can imitate any voice she hears. Untrained in Art she certainly is, but she picked up a stray spell here and there. She possesses a strong wild talent, such as is seldom seen in these civilized times, but she is training now.”

“Yes, with Basel Indoulur. I have heard,” Dhamari said. “I was one of many wizards who offered to teach her, but both the council and the girl herself inclined toward Basel. He has had much experience as a teacher, you know.”

Matteo didn’t know, but he nodded politely. “Lord Basel is fond of apprentices,” Dhamari went on. “He trains three at a time. He has done so ever since he left the Jordaini College.”

This information hit Matteo like a barbarian’s warhammer. “He was a master at the college?”

“Oh, yes. Before your time, I should think. Not much before, though. Eighteen, perhaps twenty years.”

That was before his training, but certainly not before his time! Matteo remembered Tzigone’s claim that one of his Jordaini masters was also his father. He had looked to the masters still at the school, never considering other possibilities. Apparently, Tzigone had.

It would be like her, Matteo mused. Tzigone had a strong if unconventional sense of honor. When he agreed to help Tzigone find her family, perhaps she decided to repay him in kind. She had found his mother for him. Perhaps she had taken an apprenticeship with Basel Indoulur to learn about his father.

Matteo realized that his host was regarding him with concern. He managed a smile that apparently looked as unconvincing as it felt. Dhamari poured a glass of wine and handed it to him, gesturing for him to drink. Matteo took an obliging sip and felt his composure begin to return.

“The day is unseasonably hot, and one must drink frequently to keep from growing lightheaded,” the wizard said.

It was a gracious and convenient observation. Matteo nodded his thanks. “You mentioned a tale that concerns Keturah. I have not heard it.”

After a long moment, Dhamari Exchelsor nodded. “I am not sure this tale will help you, but you can make of it whatever you will.

“Keturah, who was once my mistress in the art of evocation, became my wife,” he began slowly. “We lived together but a short time, in this place, the very tower in which I trained. At first we were well content, but Keturah was ambitious, and she grew ever more daring in testing the limits of her power. She could bring the most powerful creatures to her side as easily as a shepherd might whistle up his dog. As time passed, she turned to creatures from dark places, monsters far beyond her strength. They strained her magic. They stained her soul,” he concluded in a barely audible voice.

After a moment he cleared his throat and continued. “I sensed that not all was well with Keturah. She was often away, sometimes for days at a time. Even when she stayed at the tower, oftentimes she slept half the day away with terrible headaches, which came on swiftly and without warning. She became tempestuous, sharp-tongued, quick to anger. I turned a blind eye to her moods. Had I acted sooner,” he said with deep and painful regret, “this tale might be very different. The last day I saw Keturah was the day a greenmage died, attacked in her tower by three starsnakes.”

“That is impossible!” Matteo protested. “Such creatures avoid wizards and shun each other.”

“Under normal circumstances, yes. It appears that these creatures were summoned.”

The implication was disturbing but unmistakable. A greenmage was a midwife skilled in the herbal and healing arts, usually with a bit of the diviner’s gift and always trained by the Azuthan inquisitors. Not quite a wizard, not quite a cleric, not quite a magehound, not quite a witch, but definitely more than a physician, a greenmage saw to the health of Halruaa’s wizards. Since a wizard’s magic and health were so entwined, such complex training was necessary.

“You said Keturah was feeling unwell. She visited this greenmage for treatment?”

“Yes. By the word of the greenmage’s servants, Keturah was the last to see the woman alive.” Dhamari heaved a ragged sigh. “Perhaps she summoned the starsnakes. Perhaps not. I will never know, for on that day she was lost to me.”

Murder through magic was a grave crime, one that would certainly warrant Keturah’s death. That alone would explain her flight. Nevertheless, Matteo suspected that there was more and said so.

“Yes,” the wizard agreed sadly. “There always seems to be, doesn’t there?”

The jordain nodded, returning his host’s faint, rueful smile.

“Keturah eluded pursuit for several years. In Halruaa, that is an astonishing feat! Many sought her, and from time to time some word of her came to me.” The wizard glanced at Matteo. “She bore a child. No one can name the father. You understand the seriousness of this.”

“Yes.”

In Halruaa the children of wizardly lineage were not born to random couplings, as in the uncivilized lands to the north. Wizards were paired through divination and carefully kept records, matched to ensure that the lines would remain strong. Dangerous magical gifts, instability of mind or weakness of body-to the wizardborn, such things could be deadly. So entrenched was this custom that few Halruaan children were born out of wedlock. Bastards carried a lifelong stigma. A wizard’s bastard, if no father could be named, was killed at birth.

“Keturah knew the law, too,” the wizard continued. “She ran, she hid, she protected her child. With her very life she protected her child!”

Dhamari rose and walked with quick, jerky movements over to a table. He took up a carved box and removed from it a small object wrapped in silk. Smoothing back the coverings, he returned to Matteo’s side and showed him a simple medallion.

“This belonged to Keturah. Kiva ran her to ground, then brought me this talisman like a trophy. She told me how my wife died, and laughed.” The eyes he turned upon Matteo were bright with unshed tears. “Since Kiva found Keturah, I assume she captured the girl, as well.”

“I have heard it said,” Matteo said carefully. He did not add that somehow a young Tzigone had also managed to escape.

The wizard looked away and cleared his throat several times before speaking. “You are a jordain. The hidden lore of the land is open to you. Things that no man can speak are entrusted to your keeping.” He glanced up, and Matteo nodded encouragingly. “If the child survived, a man such as you could learn what became of her. Perhaps you could take this trinket just in case. If you should find her, give it to her and speak to her of her mother. Tell her as little or as much as you think she can bear to hear. A jordain must speak truth, but sift the grain from it and let the chaff blow away.”

Matteo was uncertain how to respond, but he knew that Tzigone would cherish her mother’s medallion. “I will make inquiries, if you like,” he said. “If Keturah’s daughter lives, I shall see that she gets this-and I will speak to her of her mother.”

Profound gratitude swept the wizard’s face. “You are very kind. I hesitate to ask for yet another kindness, but…” He stopped and cleared his throat “If the girl lives, would you tell her that I wish to meet her? Keturah was my beloved wife. I was forced to divorce her, but I would gladly-proudly!-call her child my own. The girl would know of her mother, but she could also claim a father’s name and lineage, and this tower and everything in it would be hers when I am gone.”

Matteo’s head swam with the enormity of this offer: a family, a name, an inheritance, an end to Tzigone’s sentence of bastardy and her lifelong flight. Though she was acclaimed for her part in the battle of Akhlaur’s Swamp, all silver tarnished in time. Matteo knew enough of human nature to understand that the only thing many people enjoyed more than raising a hero to the skies was to see them come crashing to the ground. Tzigone was a wizard’s bastard. In time, that would out.

“I will do what I can,” he promised.

Dhamari smiled. “I am content. But you-you came to speak of grave matters, and stayed to listen to an old man’s stories. What can I tell you that might help you find Kiva?”

“Kiva hunted down Keturah and came gloating to you. I understand the first-she was a magehound doing her duty-but not the second. Why would she boast of the deed? Was there enmity between you three that would prompt the elf’s vengeance?”

The wizard paused for a moment, then nodded grimly. “Kiva summoned an imp and could not dismiss it. The creature did considerable damage before Keturah arrived and contained it. She banished Kiva from this tower.”

“So there was a grudge between them?”

“Not on Keturah’s part. She banished Kiva because it was the right and responsible thing to do. I stand before you as proof that Keturah’s heart, though large, held no room for grudges. You see,” he said with obvious reluctance, “I helped Kiva cast that spell. Keturah not only forgave me but consented to wed.”

The wizard’s expression darkened. “Still, it is hard to believe that Kiva took joy in killing Keturah years later, just to avenge that one slight. Who could be capable of such evil?”

Because Dhamari’s question was rhetorical, Matteo did not respond. He exchanged the final formalities and went his ways. As he left the green tower behind, Matteo sifted through all he had heard. Grain and chaff, indeed! Keturah was a fallen wizard, a murderer, and an adulteress. How could he tell Tzigone these things?

How could he not? Keeping important truths from a friend was no better than open falsehood.

Yet wasn’t that precisely what Tzigone was doing? Surely she knew about Basel Indoulur’s background-she was as cautious and canny as anyone Matteo had ever met. Perhaps she was doing exactly what she had asked of him, and taking the man’s measure. He was not sure whether to be angry with her or grateful. He was not sure how to feel about any of this.

Matteo took the medallion from his pocket and studied it. The design was simple, the craftsmanship unremarkable. Yet Keturah had been a wizard, one successful enough to attract apprentices and claim a fine, green-marble tower as her home. She was not likely to wear so paltry a trinket unless it was powerfully enchanted. If this were so, he might be endangering Tzigone by putting it in her hands. He did not know Dhamari well enough to trust him.

Prudence demanded that he have the piece examined by a wizard, but whom could he trust? Not the queen, certainly. Since the medallion had no gears and whistles, she would have no interest in it. Not Procopio Septus. Not any of the wizards from the Jordaini College.

An impulse came to him, one that he refused to examine too closely for fear that it might not hold up to jordaini logic.

Matteo turned on his heel and strode quickly to the closest boulevard. He let several magical conveyances pass by, waiting for the rumble of a mundane coach and four. Matteo told the driver to take him to Basel Indoulur’s tower.

The wizard’s home in Halarahh was a modest, comfortable villa on a quiet side street, hardly the usual abode of an ambitious wizard-lord. Matteo reminded himself that Lord Basel was mayor of another city, where he no doubt indulged in the usual displays of pride and wealth. He asked the driver to wait, then gave his name and that of his patron to the gatekeeper, requesting a private audience with the lord wizard.

A servant led Matteo into the garden and to a small building covered with flowering vines. Once Matteo was inside, large windows, not visible from the outside, let the sun pour in. Lord Basel, it seemed, was well prepared for clandestine meetings.

As Basel entered, Matteo’s first thought was that Dhamari must have been mistaken about this wizard’s past Jordaini masters usually mirrored the simplicity and discipline that marked their students’ lives. Basel’s clothes were purple and crimson silk, colors echoed in the beads that decked dozens of tiny braids. His face was round and his belly far from flat. Matteo could not envision this man among the warriors and scholars who shaped jordaini life.

He searched for some physical resemblance between them and found none. Basel’s hair was black as soot, his nose straight and small, his skin a light olive tone. Like most jordaini, Matteo was as fit and strong as a warrior, and at six feet he was tall for a Halruaan. His hair was a deep chestnut with red highlights that flashed in the sunlight like sudden temper. His features were stronger than the wizard’s, with a firmer chin and a decided arch to his nose. If this man was indeed his sire, the evidence could not be read in their faces.

“How may I serve the queen’s counselor?” Basel asked, breaking a silence that had grown too long.

Matteo produced the medallion. “A jordain is forbidden to carry magical items. Can you tell me if this holds any enchantment and if so, what manner?”

The wizard took the charm and turned it over in his pudgy hands. His jeweled rings flashed with each movement. “A simple piece.”

“But does it hold magic?”

Basel handed it back. “A diviner could give you a more subtle reading. You served Lord Procopio. Why not go to him?”

Matteo picked his words carefully. “Recently I attempted to speak with Lord Procopio concerning Zephyr, a jordain in league with the magehound Kiva. I am attempting to learn more about Kiva and thought this a reasonable path of inquiry.”

“Ah.” Basel lifted a hand to his lips, but not before Matteo noted the quick, sardonic smile. “Knowing Lord Procopio, I assume he had scant interest in pursuing this topic.”

“None that I could perceive.”

“He will be keenly attuned to anything that hints of further inquiry. If you came to him with a talisman, he would immediately assume it was part of your search.”

In an odd way, perhaps it was. A protective talisman would explain why Keturah had managed to escape capture for so long. “Can it be magically traced?”

Basel gave him a quick, lopsided smile. “If so, it would be very poor protection.”

“Indeed.” Matteo rose, intending to thank the wizard and go.