The Floodgate

Chapter Eight

After leaving Matteo, Tzigone found a barrel of rainwater and washed the greasepaint from her face. She took a tightly rolled robe of sky blue silk from her bag, shook out the wrinkles, and shrugged it on over her ragged street clothes. Properly attired, she made her way back to the villa that Basel Indoulur kept in Halarahh for his frequents visits to the king's city.

A lone figure waited near the gate, seated in the lamp-lit alcove that offered shelter to passersby. Tzigone took one glance at the elegantly clad woman and spun on her heel, ready for a fast retreat.

"Don't go," Sinestra Belajoon called out. "I'll only find you again. Who's to say our next meeting won't be less private, and far less convenient?"

Tzigone considered. If this confrontation was not to be avoided, this was as good a time as any. The sky was velvet black, and the position of the stars proclaimed that midnight was near. Few people had reason to walk this quiet street, and most were already in for the night.

Reluctantly Tzigone turned back to her visitor. Not long ago, she'd pretended to be a wizard and a lady, slipping into Sinestra Belajoon's confidence so that the woman would introduce her to a certain snooty behir merchant. She had liked Sinestra, and didn't feel very good about deceiving her.

But Sinestra seemed to have taken this in stride. Her gaze swept over Tzigone's blue robe, and her painted lips curved in a half smile. "A conjurer's apprentice. Last time we met you were a full-fledged illusionist. Come down in the world, have you?"

"Depends. You should have seen me an hour ago."

Sinestra's eyes lit up. "I wish I had. I'm sure it would have been quite instructive."

Tzigone folded her arms. "Excuse me?"

The wizard handed her a bit of parchment. "This is a note from Cassia, the king's jordain. She wrote to me shortly before she was killed, naming you as a thief. Is there any truth to that?"

"She's dead. That's true enough."

Sinestra hissed with exasperation. "Do you see a squadron of the city militia cooling themselves in my shadow? If you admit to being a thief, I'll not only be discrete, I'll be thrilled!"

This strange encounter was beginning to make sense to Tzigone. "You want to hire a thief to retrieve something for you."

"In a manner of speaking. I want to hire a thief to teach me the trade."

Tzigone's gaze slid over the woman. Her hair was dressed in elaborate black ringlets. A fortune in blue topaz draped her bosom and matched the watered blue silk of her gown and slippers. "You don't need to steal. You already have more than you know what to do with."

"That's precisely the point! I have everything I could possibly want, and I'm bored out of my wits," the woman announced. She rose abruptly. "Walk with me."

They fell into step, walking in silence down the tree-lined street. After a few moments Tzigone got down to business. "What do you want to retrieve?"

"My sanity," Sinestra said bluntly. "I am afflicted with ennui-gravely afflicted, a mere heartbeat away from running screaming through the streets!"

"So do what other over-pampered noblewomen do. Take a lover."

Sinestra lifted one ebony brow. "I said I'm bored, not stupid. Might I remind you that I'm married to a diviner? Not a particularly powerful one, but he's got enough talent to indulge his suspicions."

"Short leash?" Tzigone commiserated.

The wizard hooked one finger under her necklace and tugged at it in a parody of a chokehold. "My lord Belajoon has encircled me with spells warding against such sport."

"So what makes you think you could make a thief?"

"Because old Belajoon doesn't expect it of me," Sinestra retorted. She sighed heavily. "By wind and word, I have to get away with something, or I'll go mad!"

Since Tzigone had spent the better part of the day as a street urchin, avoiding her wizardly studies in favor of one bit of mischief after another, this was a sentiment she understood. She gnawed her lower lip for a moment. "How serious are you about this?"

"How serious is a necromancer about death?" Sinestra shot back. "Teach me, and I'll do whatever you say."

Tzigone lifted one hand to her head and ruffled her shorn locks. "Would you cut your hair like this?"

The wizard paled. She stopped walking and squeezed her eyes shut. But after a moment she focused a resolute gaze upon her chosen mentor. "Yes," she said stoutly.

Tzigone grinned and patted Sinestra's arm. "Forget it. A thief needs to use every advantage she has. You'd be the center of attention in the midst of a wizardwar, just by showing up. We'll figure out a way to make that pay."

The older woman grimaced. "I thought I had. I hope you can come up with something more interesting."

In response, Tzigone handed her a small book. "As I recall, you enjoy gossip. These things always contain a few priceless nuggets."

Sinestra's eyes bulged when she recognized her own grimoire, a spellbook that contained a wizard's most personal spells and secrets. After a moment, she burst out laughing. "Oh, this is going to be great fun!"

"That's what I keep telling a friend of mine," Tzigone observed with a grin. "You're much easier to convince than he is."

Sinestra's brows lifted. "So there's a 'he, is there?"

"Lots of them," Tzigone said, dismissing Matteo with a sweeping wave.

"Smart girl. If I'd thought that way, I wouldn't be having these problems." The wizard linked her arm through Tzigone's.

The gesture was friendly, casual, but a spark of magic jolted through Tzigone. That puzzled her. Few spells could touch the wall around her. Conversely, she could sense nearly any spell, except that which her mother had cast long ago to block away her daughter's dangerous early memories-

Mother.

Tzigone stopped dead. Her mother's touch-that's what Sinestra's magic felt like!

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and the quiet street swirled around her like a kaleidoscope gone mad. After all these years of searching for her mother, could success come from a chance meeting?

Part of her wanted to believe it. She had liked Sinestra at once, had felt an immediate kinship between them. However, the woman was far too young-probably still south of her thirtieth summer.

She realized that Sinestra had also stopped and was looking at her strangely. "Are you ill, Margot?"

Tzigone seized on the word. "Margot! Is that my real name?"

The wizard's puzzlement deepened. "It's the name you used when we met. You also claimed to be an illusionist, though, so how should I know?"

Disappointment surged, then quickly receded. Tzigone had survived by being cautious; if this woman had once been Keturah, she would be equally wary. Their reunion, if such this was, would of necessity proceed one small step at a time.

She slanted a look at the beautiful wizard and saw nothing that reminded her of her own face. "I wonder what I'd look like with your hair."

A horrified expression crossed Sinestra's face, and she clamped both hands to her raven-hued curls. "Forget it! You already said I could I keep it!"

Tzigone chuckled. "I wasn't thinking of clipping it for a wig. I was just admiring it. Maybe I'll go to an illusionist and have him drop a spell over me."

A flicker of emotion flashed in Sinestra's dark eyes, quickly replaced by her usual expression of slightly amused boredom. She patted her gleaming tresses. "This is all mine. It reaches my knees when I take it down."

A distant memory assailed Tzigone, an image of her mother at play, running after elusive globes of light. Her unbound hair flowed behind her like a silken shadow.

"Yes," Tzigone said in a slightly strangled voice. "I imagine it does."

For several days, Matteo tried to honor the king's request and serve his patron as best he could. Beatrix did not require his counsel. She turned aside his requests for audience.

Yet a steady stream of artisans and craftsmen and wizards flowed through the queen's laboratory. Matteo's frustration grew with every passing hour.

One morning he could take no more. He left the palace before dawn by way of the kitchen gates, weaving his way through the merchants who kept the palace tables supplied. He dodged a small flock of geese and nodded a courtly but absent response to the goose girl's greeting.

A glance at the rising sun prompted him to increase his pace. Procopio Septus usually left his villa early. The wizard would not welcome Matteo's inquiries in his home or at the city palace, but perhaps he would speak more freely in the moments between.

During his service with Procopio, Matteo had often walked this route. He caught sight of the wizard a few streets away from the city's pink marble palace.

"Lord Procopio!"

The wizard glanced up. His smile was slow and studied, his black eyes unreadable. "So the hero of Akhlaur has returned at last! A rogue magehound unveiled, a laraken vanquished, a nation of wizard-lords saved. Gods above, Matteo! You left my employ three moons past, and this is how you account for your time? I thought I'd trained you to do better."

Matteo chuckled. "Had I stayed in your service longer, I might have woven a tighter tapestry. The edges of this tale are sadly frayed."

The wizard lifted one snowy brow. "Flattery, subtlety. A neat segue from jest to compliment to the matter at hand. You are learning quickly, young jordain. What are these loose threads you think I might help you bind?"

"You know that Kiva, the elf inquisatrix, was taken to the Temple of Azuth." Matteo chose his words carefully to avoid betraying his oaths of secrecy. "I assume you know the issues involved."

Procopio's jaw tightened, and he took a moment before responding. "As the sages have long known, the secret of the swamp's expansion was a leak from a gate into the Plane of Water. The presence of the laraken made it difficult to deal with this leak. Any magic used against the monster simply made it stronger. Conversely, were the gate closed, the laraken would be forced to seek magical sustenance elsewhere. Eventually the creature would have been destroyed, but the blow dealt to Halruaa's wizards would be considerable. The Council of Elders believes that this was Kiva's intent. Now the laraken has been dealt with and the gate closed, thanks to you and your friends."

"Not closed," Matteo stated. "Moved."

Shock flared in the wizard's eyes, quickly extinguished by a wave of doubt. "That is an extraordinary claim. I assume you can defend it?"

With a few terse words, Matteo described the final moments of battle in Akhlaur's Swamp. The laraken disappeared into a shallow spring. Kiva tossed an enormous square of black silk over the water.

"Both spring and silk disappeared," Matteo concluded. "Closing a magical gate requires great strength-more, I would think, than Kiva possessed at that moment. A powerful artifact might have done the job, but very few magical items could have survived the laraken's hunger."

"A portable hole would," Procopio said grimly. "Since the magic is focused upon the escape site rather than the silken portal, the laraken would find less nourishment in Kiva's silken scarf than it might in a lady's gown. I agree with your assessment: The gate was moved. Why is this not known among the council?"

"As to that, I cannot say," Matteo answered carefully. "I gave full report of these details to the Jordaini College and to the priests of Azuth. There is related matter, a very delicate one." When the wizard nodded in encouragement, Matteo added, "The jordain Zephyr was Kiva's ally."

Procopio's face went cold and still.

"I know that Zephyr died a traitor, and understand that speaking his name and deeds is an egregious error of protocol," Matteo hastened to add.

"Then why speak?" The wizard's voice was curt, his eyes fixed straight ahead. A red flush stained his face, and he quickened his step as if to outdistance this distasteful subject.

Matteo matched the man's pace. "Perhaps Zephyr let behind some small threads that might lead to the gate's new hiding place. For the good of Halruaa-"

Procopio stopped dead. He turned and impaled Matteo with a glare that stopped the young jordain's words as surely as a lance through the throat.

"You presume to tell me what that 'good' might be? The wizard-lords decide such things! A jordain provides information and advice-judiciously, it may be hoped, and with proper discretion."

Matteo heard the accusation in Procopio's voice. "I served you faithfully," he replied. "The queen has no reason to complain of my counsel or my discretion. Never have I betrayed a confidence."

"Yet you come to me with winks and nudges, if not words!"

This was neither fair nor accurate, but Matteo did not protest.

"Zephyr did what he did," Procopio continued. "I cannot explain or excuse it. I will not, despite those who wish me to run about shouting undignified disclaimers. You are young and far too idealistic for your own good or anyone else's, but surely you've observed that ambition is Halruaa's ruling star. Every ambitious wizard in this city-every wizard-will remember my jordain's disgrace and use it as a weapon against me. Do not add arrows to their quivers!"

"That is not my intention."

"Your intention? The Jordaini have a dozen proverbs about the worth of good intentions!" snapped Procopio. "Forget your intentions and remember your oath. You may speak of nothing you saw or heard while in my employ, not with direct words, not even by innuendo. If you do, I swear by wind and word that you will come to envy the old elf's fate!"

The wizard gained height and power with every word, and by the time he finished his rant he towered over the much-taller jordain. It was a simple spell, a glamour that some wizards evoked almost unthinkingly when angered or challenged.

"You need not remind me of my Jordaini vows," Matteo said with quiet dignity. "If you wish, I will swear anew that all I learned and saw while in your employ will stay within the walls of memory."

"As long as it does," Procopio growled, "I will have no reason to speak to the Jordaini Council. But know this: If I charge you with betraying confidence, your exploits in Akhlaur's Swamp will not save you!"

The wizard disappeared in a flash of azure fire. Matteo was still blinking stars from his eyes when he felt a light touch on his back, tracing a lightning bolt surrounded by a circle. The symbol of the jordain.

He turned to face a small woman who wore an apprentice's blue robe and an insouciant grin. She leaned against a garden wall and casually twirled a jordaini pennant from one finger. Matteo glanced down. His medallion was missing. He, a highly trained warrior, had neither heard Tzigone's approach nor sensed the theft.

Chagrin sharpened his voice. "Have you no duties, no responsibilities?"

Some of the high spirits faded from Tzigone's face. "Basel sent me shopping," she said glumly. She held aloft a string of small, pungent mushrooms. "You wouldn't believe what he intends to do with these."

Matteo answered automatically. "The spores are used as a spell component. Strewn upon a battlefield before rain, they conjure an instant army. In times of peace, the spell can be altered to guard against intruders. The mushrooms are also used as an ingredient in cockatrice stuffing, a natural antidote to any poison that remains in the fowl's flesh."

Tzigone regarded him with a sour expression. "You must be very popular at parties. What did old Snow Hawk say?"

Since he was becoming accustomed to the girl's lighting-quick turns of mind, Matteo made the necessary shift. Actually, "Snow Hawk" was an apt name for the lord mayor.

"Nothing of value, I'm afraid. Lord Procopio did not wish to discuss Zephyr and warned me against making further inquiries. It appears that yet another door is closed to me. I'm sorry, Tzigone."

She shrugged away his apology. "Has Procopio found a jordain to replace Zephyr?"

"I don't think so."

"Good. Then the elf's quarters are probably undisturbed."

Matteo blew out a long breath. "I don't like where this is going."

"Don't worry," she said with a blithe wave of one hand. "I've been to Snow Hawk's villa recently, and I'm not eager to return."

"Oh?" said Matteo warily.

Her gaze slid away. "I'd sooner be stripped naked, smeared with honey, and staked out where bugs could crawl over me than face that man again. How's that for a deterrent?"

"It will serve." A rumble of thunder rolled in from the lake. Matteo gestured to the mushrooms. "You'd better get those to your master before the rain starts."

Tzigone blew him a kiss and sauntered off. She sang as she went to keep from screaming in frustration. If Matteo couldn't bypass the barriers they encountered around every turn, what possible hope had she of success?

She went directly to Basel's study. He looked up, a smile of genuine affection on his plump face. On impulse, Tzigone decided that Basel was probably her best hope of learning about her mother. He was patient with her questions and did not plague her overmuch with his own. Basel had a dark secret or two-she'd gone to considerable trouble to ferret them out-but who didn't?

"Lord Basel, can you tell me of a wizard named Keturah?"

His face went rigid with some incomprehensible emotion. His eyes dropped, and he cleared his throat. When he lifted his gaze to her again, he was composed and faintly smiling. Tzigone marked the effort this had cost him, and wondered.

"Where did you hear that name, child?"

"Akhlaur's Swamp. They said that Keturah was skilled in evocation. They compared me to her." That was true, as far as it went. Tzigone elbowed her protesting conscience into silence and kept her gaze steady on Basel's shrewd face.

"Who was this 'they' you speak of?"

She responded with a shrug and a vague, milling gesture of her hands. "You know. Them."

"Tzigone." His voice was uncharacteristically stern.

"Kiva, the elf magehound."

"Ah." Basel exhaled the word on a sigh. "Well, that follows. What else did this Kiva tell you?"

"Not a thing. Unless tossing fireballs counts as conversation, we didn't exactly chat."

"I see. So from whom did you hear this name?"

The wizard's persistence puzzled her. "Andris, the jordain who has lived through the laraken's magic drain."

"Ah, yes. That tale created quite a stir." Basel propped his elbows on the table and laced his plump fingers together. "Fascinating story. A jordain shows no sign of latent magical talent, yet magic-echoes of some distant elf ancestor-lies dormant within. The Jordaini Council debated whether Andris possessed magic or not, was a false jordain or true. Nor are they alone. A wizard cannot leave his own privy without encountering a philosophical debate on the nature of magic and life. The Azuthans won't solve that puzzle, but I'm eager to read their reports concerning this Andris.

"Back to the subject at hand," Basel concluded. "If I may ask, what is your interest in Keturah?"

Tzigone gestured to the portraits that ringed the room, an ever-present circle of Indoulur ancestors. "You come from a long line of conjurers. I have no family. No one can say, 'Don't worry, your sister had a hard time with that spell, too. You've said yourself that my magical talents are puzzling. Maybe talking to someone who's even a little bit like me will help."

Basel leaned back and gazed at some distant point, as if he were studying one of the portraits on the far wall and measuring the worth of kith and lineage. "A reasonable argument," he said at last, "but wouldn't it make more sense to seek out your own family, rather than a wizard with a similar talent?"

"Of course it would," she answered quickly, understanding that a disclaimer would be too blatant and obvious a lie. "Don't think I haven't tried. I even tended behir hatchlings for a while so I could learn how to read genealogy records. With all the tinkering breeders do, the records are almost as complex as the wizard-gift charts."

"Very ingenious," he murmured, "but unless your forebears were eight-legged crocodilians, such efforts will only get you so far."

Tzigone hesitated, considering how much more she could safely tell even her kindly master. "I tried to get at the Queen's Registry."

The wizard stiffened. "What did you learn there?" he asked, a bit too casually.

His reaction put her into swift retreat. "Before I could find much of anything, Cassia, the king's jordain, interrupted and tossed me into a locked room."

"To which the door mysteriously opened, I suppose."

"Life is full of mystery," Tzigone agreed.

"And Cassia was murdered before she could chase you down," he added.

That was not something she liked to contemplate. Kiva used Cassia to lure Tzigone to Akhlaur’s Swamp. Tzigone lived with this as best she could. Was there more to this? Did Cassia know some secret that prompted Kiva to kill her?

Basel shook off his introspection first. "Keturah simply disappeared one day. No one learned with certainty what became of her. Since no Halruaan likes to speak of his failures, your quest will be considered an enormous breach of protocol, and a challenge to those wizards who tried and failed. You must understand that any question you ask will be answered with a hundred more. Forgive me, child, but can your past bear such scrutiny?"

This was no casual question in a land where traveling entertainers were viewed as frauds and pickpockets, and thievery was punished by dismemberment. "So there's nothing I can do," she said in a dull tone.

Basel studied her for a moment. "If you are determined to pursue this, perhaps Dhamari Exchelsor can help you. He was married to the lady in question."

This knocked Tzigone back on her heels. Sudden, vivid memories assailed her of long-ago nights when she was dragged from sleep to flee "her mother's husband." So great was her antipathy toward the man that she never once thought of seeking him out or even learning his name. It was a simple solution, a straight, short path. Yet the thought of facing down this man touched ancient depths of fear and anger and loss. Tzigone bore down hard, pushing the memories back into place.

"So I should just stop by this wizard's tower for a chat?"

Basel spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. "Dhamari Exchelsor is a very private person. He is not a member of the Council of Elders, and he keeps to himself. I can tell you little about his thinking on this matter. After Keturah left, he petitioned the Council for a legal divorce. Even so, he sent a number of wizards and mercenaries in search of her. I stopped hearing reports of these activities after five years or so. Perhaps he accepted that Keturah was gone for good."

This tallied with Tzigone's memories. "Why did she leave?"

"That, I cannot tell you," Basel said with a shrug. "Dhamari Exchelsor might. Or even better, send someone else to talk to him, someone who can present a plausible reason for asking these questions."

Matteo could go. Any wizard would open his door to the queen's jordain. The battle of Akhlaur's Swamp would come into conversation-it always seemed to. Kiva had been behind that battle, and Kiva had also been one of the agents sent to find Keturah. Matteo could surely find a way to move the conversation from Kiva to the runaway wizard.

"That seems reasonable," she said at last.

"Which no doubt means that you will do the opposite."

This droll observation surprised a grin from her, and then a frown. "Being contrary is almost like being predictable, isn't it?"

"Yes, but only if you're consistently contrary. Do what is right from time to time," he advised. "It will astonish most people and mystify the rest."

Her laugh rang out, rich and delighted. "Good advice. I may even take it."

Basel smiled and bid her goodbye with a wave of his hand. He held his smile until the door shut behind her, then he buried his face in his hands. He thanked Lady Mystra, and then he cursed her, for the bittersweet memories the girl evoked.

"Keturah," he murmured in a voice filled with a longing that neither faded nor forgot. "I never thought to hear your name again, much less your song! But by wind and word, it echoes through your daughter's laughter!"

Tzigone shut the door to Basel Indoulur's study and leaned wearily against it. She lifted her hands, palms up. "Procopio Septus," she muttered, lowering her left hand as if she'd just placed a heavy weight in it. She spoke the name of her mother's husband, and her right hand dropped even lower. For a moment, she stood with her hands see-sawing back and forth like an indecisive scale.

Suddenly she pushed herself off the wall and hurried to Basel's scrying chamber, employing the gliding, silent gait she'd perfected in a hundred forbidden corridors. It never hurt to keep all of her skills honed to a fighting edge.

The chamber was an odd bit of whimsy. The room was round, and the domed ceiling and mirrored floor made it appear spherical. A mural covered the walls with an under-seascape depicting waving seaweed, fantastic coral buildings, and schools of bright fish. A pair of painted mermaids were fiercely entwined, frozen in an undignified but entertaining catfight. Light filled the room with a deep blue, softly undulating haze. Scrying globes bobbed gently through the air like oversized bubbles. Tzigone seized a passing globe and settled down on a mock coral settee.

Basel had tutored her in the basics of magical communication, but Tzigone had picked up some interesting skills on her own. Contacting Sinestra Belajoon was a simple matter-she attuned the globe using the ring she'd taken from the woman's hand last time they'd met.

Clouds roiled within the crystal sphere, parting to reveal Sinestra's lovely face. The wizard looked curious but composed, an appropriate reaction when answering an unknown summons. But when Tzigone held the ring up, Sinestra threw back her head in a decidedly unladylike whoop of laughter.

"Keep the ring," Sinestra offered, still grinning broadly. "Consider it advance payment for teaching me that trick!"

"First things first," Tzigone advised. "Learn to walk in my shadows, and then I'll teach you how to make your own."

Excitement lit the wizard's face. "When? Where?"

"You know Procopio Septus?"

Sinestra's jaw dropped. "Know him? He's one of the most powerful diviners in all the land! His is the villa you've chosen to raid?"

"Why not?"

"Why not?" The wizard threw up her hands. "Where should I start? Have you gone completely moon-mad?"

"I've gotten in before. It's not as difficult as you might think."

"Since I think it's impossible, you're probably right. Lord and Lady, girl! Don't you have a better plan?"

"I have other options. None of them are good. This is the best and easiest way to get the treasure I have in mind."

Speculation crept into Sinestra's eyes. "What might that be?"

"You're a diviner. What sort of treasure do you go after?"

The wizard's hand went instinctively to the fortune in black pearls at her throat, but her eyes lit up in understanding. "Information can be more precious than rubies, and more difficult to trace than stolen gems. Let's do it!"

Tzigone had been expecting a longer argument. "You're putting a lot of faith in a thief you hardly know. This could be risky."

"Not really. I wear a ring of teleportation, and you can count on me deserting you on the first sign of danger. My dear Lord Belajoon gave it to me, so I could appear at his side whenever he bellows."

"Nice gift."

"A last resort, I assure you."

Tzigone instinctively traced a gesture of warding over her heart-a habit she'd picked up from the superstitious street performers she'd traveled with for years. In their world, there was no such thing as a "last resort." There were many possibilities, and the hope a better one around the corner. That was the reasoning that guided her now. Going to Dhamari Exchelsor sounded too much like a last resort. First she needed to explore the link between Sinestra's magic and her own memories of her mother. Of course, if the improbable proved true, and it turned out that Sinestra and Keturah were one, Tzigone wouldn't have to bother with Dhamari at all.

"Lesson one," Tzigone said firmly. "If you're serious about becoming a thief, you should never call anything a 'last resort. It's like daring the gods to prove you wrong. No matter how bad things get, they can generally manage to come up with something worse."

Sinestra's face turned both sympathetic and speculative. "How can you possibly be so cynical when you've never been married? Someday, I would like to hear your story."

Tzigone suppressed a wince and managed a wink. "Someday, so would I."