Элейн Каннингем - The Wizardwar

"And please, convey my regards and thanks to the queen."

That strange, secretive smile flickered again. "I will do that, as well," Zephyr agreed, "although at a somewhat later time."

He punctuated this cryptic remark with a proper jordaini bow, then he turned and disappeared into the night with disconcerting elven grace. Dhamari shrugged and took a small packet from a hidden pocket of his tunic. He ripped off a corner and spilled the powder into the wine. For a moment the liquid fizzled and bubbled, seething as it turned a hundred shades of crimson and purple and green. Then, suddenly, it settled back into the sedate, aged gold of fine haerlu wine. Dhamari smiled with satisfaction and went in search of his bride...

Fury, pure and searing, tore Tzigone from the past and jolted her back to herself. Around her lingered the faint shadows of the green tower, and the garden full of ghostly revelers. Tzigone's eyes sought her mother among the shadows.

"She didn't know," the girl murmured, thinking of the potions which had shaped both her mother's destiny and her own. "That son of a scorpion poisoned her!"

Fury filled her, focused her. Tzigone swiftly fell back into her vision of the past...

Keturah's respite was short-lived. A member of the Exchelsor family, a stout, matronly woman whose name Keturah had never heard spoken, pounced on her like an overweight tabby and dragged her into the midst of the feasting. The bride stood with her back to the garden wall, an untouched plate of food in one hand, watching the celebration with the bewildered detachment of an ancient, fading wraith spying on the living. By wind and word, she could not understand why these strangers were so pleased!

Her new-made husband came toward her, a wine goblet cradled in both hands. There was a strange glint in his eyes that made her skin crawl. Keturah was no stranger to the ways of men, and she knew full well the response her face and form evoked. She took the cup from him and managed a single sip. Her stomach roiled in protest, and she turned away so that he could not read her revulsion.

Dhamari's mother chose this moment to bustle over. Dressed in cloth-of-silver, a reminder to all of her wealth in electrum mines, she rustled like aspen leaves in a gale.

"Where is your steward, daughter? There are arrangements to be made and apprentices to dismiss."

"Dismiss my apprentices?" echoed Keturah blankly. "Whatever for?"

The woman tittered. "You must have drunk deeply if you've forgotten the moon of seclusion! Lady Mystra grant, you will soon thereafter devote yourself to a mother's duties. There will be no time for apprentices for years to come."

Ambition gleamed bright in the woman's eyes, shedding light on the family's collective glee.

The Exchelsor family had wealth in great abundance, and they did not hesitate to use it to get what they wanted. They'd given her this very tower as Dhamari's apprentice fee. Their son was accounted a wizard, but his talents were small, and he would never be famed for his mastery of Art. But if he wed a wizard of power and growing acclaim, he might sire a child who could do what he could not. With Keturah's help, Exchelsor could be known as a wizard's lineage. In Halruaa, that was the path to nobility.

But if her precipitous marriage had no more basis than a merchant family's ambition, why had the Council approved it? Keturah did not believe the Elders could be swayed by wealth alone. What hidden gift did Dhamari possess that might make a child of their mingled blood so desirable? What could possibly have brought this matter to the interest of Queen Fiordella?

She looked around for Zephyr, but the elven jordain was not to be found.

"Drink," Dhamari urged softly, nodding at the cup Keturah clenched. "I put a potion into it to help you sleep. When morning comes, we will begin to make sense of this."

Because his words so closely echoed her own thoughts, Keturah lifted the jeweled cup to her lips. As Dhamari promised, each sip brought her deeper into blessed lethargy. She was dimly aware of the increasingly raucous wedding feast, and of the rising moon, and of her guests' snickering jests as Dhamari caught her when she swayed and carried her into the tower.

Then Dhamari was gone, and there was only the young apprentice, her childish face worried and perplexed as she helped Keturah out of her wedding robe and into her solitary bed.

Maybe Dhamari was right, Keturah thought as she drifted into slumber. Perhaps with the coming of dawn, all of this would start to become clear....

The eerie song of the dark fairies pulled Tzigone away from the memory, drawing her back into the frenzied terror she'd so recently escaped.

She pressed both hands to her throbbing temples. "These things don't know when to quit," she murmured. With difficulty, she brought to mind an illusion.

The faint glow of firelight brightened the mist, revealing a cozy tavern bedchamber and two inhabitants-a lad dressed in a farmer's clothes and a red-haired woman clad in flowing layers of black silk. She drifted closer and smiled at her suitor. Fangs, long and lethal, gleamed in the firelight. The boy backed away, tripped over a stool, and crab-walked frantically toward the door. Faster than thought-as fast as the dark fairies-the beautiful vampire moved to bar the way. Her delicate hands seized her prey and jerked him upright. For a long moment she held him trapped, savoring his terror. Then she lowered her head and fed. After a few brief moments, she tossed him aside. He fell to the floor, drained and still.

"Blood is a pale thing next to the wine of fear," she whispered.

The illusion faded away, and with it, the dark fairies' tormenting song.

A smile ghosted across Tzigone's face. "The Unseelie have their faults, but no one can claim they can't take a hint," she grunted, and then sank back into her borrowed memories...

Mist swirled, then parted to reveal Keturah standing on a narrow balcony encircling her tower, a private place sheltered from the intense heat by the shade of the onion dome just above and shielded from curious eyes by the soaring height of the tower. Here she came often to walk alone.

A year and more had passed since Keturah's strange wedding. She no longer took apprentices, for reasons she feared to admit even to herself. Her most frequent companions were the creatures that came to her call.

The wizard propped her elbows on the wall and watched as a starsnake glided by on iridescent wings, looking like ropes of jewels against the sapphire sky. She began to sing, and her voice was strong and sure as it rose into the wind.

The creature winged past, heedless of her call.

Keturah's song died abruptly. She buried her face in her hands and drew a long, shuddering breath. This was not the first time that her magic had failed her. Over the past few moons, it had been growing increasingly unreliable.

For some reason she had kept these small failures from Dhamari. This was not a difficult thing to do. He spent most of his time working alone. Potions fascinated him, and he was absorbed with the creation of a spellbook that would ensure the fame of the Exchelsor wizards. Oddly enough, since their wedding he had done nothing else that might establish his lineage and legacy.

Their first days of marriage, the traditional moon in seclusion, had been a puzzlement to Keturah. By day they had walked on the shore, calling creatures of the sea and watching them splash and play in the cresting waves offshore. She had shown Dhamari the spells for summoning giant squid and teasing from them sprays of sepia that could be captured and used as a component for wizard's ink. They had spoken with selkies, watched the dolphins at play, but it seemed that they had once again become mistress and apprentice. Dhamari was polite, respectful, detached. He left her at the door to her bedchamber each night and returned to his studies.