The Floodgate

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 pe

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 ca

"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.