Элейн Каннингем - The Floodgate

"I'm ready to talk," she announced abruptly.

"Talk we shall." He gestured toward a bench in a small alcove and sat down beside her. "Ask what you will."

"Keturah left the city the same day a greenmage was eaten by starsnakes."

He nodded sadly. "That is so."

"Do you think she did it? Called the starsnakes?"

"In all honesty, I do not know."

Tzigone's eyes narrowed. "Did you join the search for her?"

Dhamari hesitated. "Understand that in answering freely I put my life in your hands. If you harbor any ill will toward me, you could use what I am about to tell you. Yes, I sought Keturah," he continued, not even waiting a beat to gauge her reaction and thus his own safety. "I employed rangers to comb the wilderness, diviners to cast spells and to read the auguries in the flight of birds. A hundred trusted merchants carried messages to every part of the land announcing a reward for her return. But I acted only for love of her. Had I found her, I would have seen her safely away from Halruaa and into the best care the Exchelsor fortunes could purchase."

"Care?" Tzigone echoed. "She was ill?"

"She was preparing herself to bear a jordaini child," he admitted readily. "We were matched for that purpose, but Keturah was never one to leave things to chance. She took potions to ensure that the child she might bear would be among the most powerful jordaini known."

Tzigone's heart thudded painfully. She, a failed jordain? Well, why the hell not? She'd been a pickpocket, a street entertainer, a behir tender, and half a hundred other odd jobs over the course of her short life. There wasn't much new territory to explore.

It made a horrifying sort of sense. Her resistance to magic, her quick mind and nimble tongue. Unlike the true jordaini, though, she also had a wizard's gift. The result yielded a potential wizard who could use magic and yet was nearly immune to counterspells. No wonder a wizard's bastard was considered dangerous!

"The process was disrupting her magic and stealing her memory," Dhamari continued. "I begged her to stop, but she was determined. A very stubborn woman, my Keturah."

Yes, that also made sense. Tzigone's last memories of her mother included her diminishing and unreliable magic. The potions given a jordain's dam could do that. Even so, Keturah might have lived, had Kiva not intervened.

"You knew Kiva," Tzigone said. "Did you hire her to find my mother?"

Dhamari was silent for a long moment. "Yes, to my eternal shame and regret. She had skills I thought useful. No human knows forest lore like an elf."

"But my mother was captured in a city!"

"That is true, but the search was long." Dhamari did not offer further comment. There was no need, for Tzigone's early life had been defined by that long search. "Kiva betrayed my trust and killed your mother. She told me that she had killed Keturah's child, as well. She taunted me about it and gave me the medallion as proof."

"Did you seek vengeance?"

"No." The admission seemed to shame him. "By then Kiva had become an inquisatrix of Azuth-a magehound. I might have prevailed against someone of her high office, but more likely I would have met failure and disgrace."

Dhamari sighed wearily. "In all candor, I will never be numbered among the great Halruaan wizards. Keturah would have been, had she not died at Kiva's hand. I measured my chances against a better wizard's failure. The laws of Halruaa are a powerful safeguard, but sometimes they are also a dark fortress. Occasionally a tyrant such as Kiva hides behind them as she rises to power. The laws supported and aided her, at least for a time."

"Well, that time's done and over with," Tzigone said.

"Thanks in no small part to you. Keturah would be proud." Dhamari gave her a wistful smile.

Tzigone rose abruptly. "I should be going."

The wizard's face furrowed in concern. "Are you happy in Lord Basel's tower? He is a fine man, do not mistake me, but I wonder if a conjurer's path is most suited to your talents. Your mother was a master of the evocation school. You may wish to explore many branches of the Art before you settle upon one."

"Good idea," she said noncommittally, knowing full well what was next to come. More than one wizard had tried to lure her away from Basel's tower.

He shrugged modestly. "I am a generalist wizard of moderate talents, but I learned many spells from your mother. If you wish, I would be happy to teach them to you. Not as a master-I haven't Lord Basel's talent for instruction-but as a gift, in tribute to your mother."

"I'll speak to Basel."

Her agreement surprised both of them. Dhamari blinked, then turned aside to surreptitiously wipe away a tear.

All her life Tzigone had viewed Keturah's loss as her private pain. Never once had she considered that this burden might be shared by her mother's husband.

"Is tomorrow good?" she asked abruptly.

Dhamari's eyes lit up. "If it suits your master."

Something in his tone set off warning bells in her mind. "Why wouldn't it? Does Basel have any cause to object?"

"Not really," he said slowly. "Basel and Keturah were childhood friends. I thought he fancied himself to be something more than that. It is hard to fathom, looking at him now."

"Oh, I don't think so." Actually, Tzigone could see how a young Basel might have been a fine companion and conspirator. "Why did nothing come of it?"

"Wizards do not chose whom they will wed. Lord Basel comes from a long line of conjurers, and it was assumed that he would continue the family tradition with a woman from his school of magic. I heard a rumor that he appealed his assigned match to the council and was denied. If he bears me a grudge, I would not blame him."

Dhamari paused for a wistful smile. "Wizards are rarely as fortunate in marriage as I was. I loved your mother, Tzigone, and it took many long years before I could reconcile to the fact that she was gone. But her daughter lives. That brings me more happiness than I ever expected to know again."

He asked nothing of her and offered nothing but her mother's spells. That pleased her.

"Most of Keturah's spells involved the summoning of creatures," Dhamari went on. "We would do better beyond the city walls, where we don't run the risk of summoning behir guardians and wizards' familiars. It has been quite some time since I left this tower. A short journey would serve the purpose, but I'm not sure how to go about arranging the particulars."

This was something Tzigone knew well. "I'll be back in the morning. Get yourself a good pair of boots and send to Filorgi's Hired Swords for some travel guards. Leave the rest to me."

"You can prepare for a journey by tomorrow morning?" he marveled.

"Sure." Tzigone grinned fleetingly. "Usually I have a lot less notice than that."

The wizard caught the implication, and an ironic smile touched his lips. "It would seem that I am partly responsible for your resourcefulness. Mystra grant that from now on our association will be an unmixed blessing."

"That'll never happen," she said as she rose to leave. When Dhamari raised an inquiring brow, she added, "I've been called a lot of things over the years. I might as well be honest with you: 'Mixed blessing' is about as good as it's likely to get."

Dhamari's smile spoke of great contentment. "Then you are your mother's daughter indeed."

A golden wedge of sun peeked coyly over the forest canopy, proclaimed that the morning was nearly half spent. In a mountain travel hut perched above the tree line, Matteo and Iago stood at the open door and gazed uncertainly at the road that led from Orphamphal, and into the wilderness known as the Nath.

"Themo should be here by now," Matteo grumbled. "Perhaps we should go out looking for him."