The Magehound

The artificer nodded approvingly. "You've a sure, quick hand with the beasts. I could use an apprentice, especially when it comes to the slaughtering. Gathering and treating spell components can be tricky work. Have you been tested for magic?"

The question was rhetorical. Every child in Halruaa was first tested before the age of five, and often thereafter until his or her talents and destiny were decided. Tzigone had sidestepped the formal process and learned whatever skills suited her needs and caught her fancy.

"I've less magic than a stone," she lied in a rueful tone. "Ah." Justine looked both disappointed and uncomfortable. It was not exactly a disgrace to lack magical talent in Halruaa, but except in the case of the jordaini, neither was it an honor. "Well, someone has to cook the soup," he said in a conciliatory tone, falling back on a familiar proverb.

Tzigone gritted her teeth and forced herself to smile and nod. She hated proverbs, and nothing a

So far today she'd been stung by a starsnake, chased by a wemic, and indebted to a jordain. And to cap matters, here she was, up to her elbows in fish guts.

Tzigone shrugged. Chances were, tomorrow could be worse.

When all the behirs had been fed, she went into the back room to record the new births. Her heart quickened as she dragged the heavy tome down from the shelf, and it beat like a wild elf's battle drum as she paged through the complex birth records.

Genealogy was vitally important in Halruaa. Records were assiduously kept in books filled with intricate lines and patterns. Tzigone was determined to learn the meaning of those markings. It was for this purpose that she risked her fingers to Justin's behirs. Behir-tending was a job that few people would take, and he had gladly trained her in what little she needed to know to keep his records. The rest she would teach herself.

When the light from the single small window began to fail and her eyes swam with the effort of deciphering the tiny markings, Tzigone slipped out of the back room to her next lesson, one that was closely related to her study of behir heritage.

Each village, each city neighborhood, had a resident matchmaker. They were minor mages of the diviner school, and with the help of the birth records listed in the Diviner's Registry, they saw far enough into the future to decide who should marry whom.

Since matchmakers started with a woman and found an appropriate male, Tzigone needed to change her appearance before she presented herself. Two colorful scarves, nearly dry when she'd tugged them off someone's line, would serve in her transformation. One tied around her waist would make a skirt, and the other she'd drape over her linen shirt But first she stopped at a public fountain and scrubbed her face and arms clean. A bit of dirt lent her a more urchinlike appearance, but that wasn't suitable to her desired image as a winsome, marriageable girl.

Both the theft and the deceit lay easily on Tzigone's conscience. She had lived on the streets for as long as she could remember, and she had learned early to survive. But more basic than that was the gypsy code that such a life had inscribed upon her mind and spirit. She had no real sense of property, at least not as most Halruaans seemed to regard it. Ownership was not a sacred right but a temporary thing. A coin was quickly traded for something she desired more, such as a hot meal or a pair of boots, nicely broken in and not too badly patched. She was as quick to give as she was to take, and that was the way of many who lived as she did. The scarves she draped over her slender form today would probably form an awning tomorrow to keep the sun from a sleeping baby's face, or perhaps reawaken, if but for a moment, the vanity of some aged coquette. In Tzigone's eyes, it worked out well enough. Nothing made of wood or cloth or metal was important enough to warrant the fuss people made over it.

She'd just finished dressing when a spray of water arched toward her. Although she jumped back, the water drenched her borrowed finery so that the thin cloth clung to her legs.

She looked up into a familiar dark face enlivened by a long, waxed black mustache and a teasing leer. Gio was a traveling entertainer, and as near to family as any she could remember during her waking hours. Laughter crinkled the man's eyes, lingering there in pleasant lines and whorls. Though well into middle life, he was still a child who delighted in play and whose antics brought laughter and evoked childhood memories from those who had forgotten such things. There was a kind of magic in that, and Tzigone had enjoyed her years of travel with Gio and his partner.

She laughed and splashed him back. "Still in town, Gio? I thought you and Viente pla

He laid a hand over his heart, pantomiming great insult "Pla

"I will not insult you by offering apology. For such words, I should slice out my tongue and throw it to the ravens!" she said, placing the back of her hand against her forehead and mimicking his extravagant delivery.

The entertainer saw nothing amiss in this gentle mockery. "Sulazir has lasted this long without Gioviente. The city will survive a few days more."

Tzigone rephrased her question in a ma

Gio cast his eyes skyward and shook a fist at some unseen power. "Carmelo is what, and I curse the day I took on that boy. Always getting fancy, he is, and getting us all dragged in for inquisition. We're clean, as you know, but one of us had to spend some time in the hold for creating disturbance. It was his turn."

Tzigone smirked. Gio didn't mind visiting his friends in the hold and doing a few tricks for the bored guards, but when it came to paying off a public debt, it was always someone else's turn. She'd spent time in various dank, barred rooms herself.

The diversions offered by the entertainers were not actually illegal, but someone was always challenging their claim that their tricks and illusions and feats of skill were simply that, unbolstered by aid of magic. Magic was common currency in Halruaa, and although Tzigone wouldn't exactly say that her countrymen had lost their sense of wonder, they seemed both impressed by and skeptical of anything that was accomplished without magic. Fraud had to be proved, and once an accusation was made, the entire troupe would be hauled away for inquisition by the local magehound. Tzigone, of course, had always appeared to be utterly magic dead, a fact that did nothing to increase her confidence in wizards.

Wizards had dogged her footsteps for years, laying traps and ambushes. Nothing they had produced against her so far had prevailed. She'd had a bad moment when she'd come close to nicking the wemic's earring, a deep sense that touching the gem would be a grave mistake. Fortunately she was as sensitive to magic as she was immune from its effects.

"So how is Carmelo?" she asked quickly, eager to think about more pleasant things.

"Tolerable, all things considered. Tomorrow is his last day in the hold, and it will pass quickly. They just threw a jordain in the cell across from him, and you know Carmelo. He'll tease every story and song out of the man before day's end."

Tzigone's ears pricked up. "A jordain? What did he look like?"

The gypsy shrugged and spat. "Much the same as any I've seen, though better-looking than most. Dark hair, white clothes, both of which looked a bit worse for wear. Looks as if he'd made the militia earn their wages before they brought him in."