The Wizardwar

With a heavy heart, Matteo mounted his horse and kicked it into a run. As he galloped toward the college gates, Andris's words rang in his mind:

Some truths are like dark mirrors.

Seeking his reflection in this particular man's face, if it came to that, would be a difficult task indeed.

Tzigone sank down onto a large stone, too exhausted to walk farther. She stared out into the mist-a constant, chilling presence that never seemed to recede a single pace no matter how far she walked. There was no edge to that mist, at least, none that she could find.

She was reaching the edges of her endurance. This morning she'd had to cut a new notch in her belt just to keep her trousers up. Time passed strangely here, but she suspected that several days had passed since her last meal. Though she'd rationed herself sips of water like a dwarven miser doling out gold, the waterskin she'd brought from Halruaa was empty.

She idly tossed pebbles into a small pool, watching the ripples spread. Fierce thirst urged her to throw herself at the water, but her days as a street performer had left her with a wealth of cautionary tales. Many a story warned of mortals passing through strange magical realms, only to be trapped forever if they ate or drank.

Tzigone gathered her remaining strength and sank into the deep, trancelike concentration that preceded her borrowed memories. Each day, it was easier to slip into her mother's past, perhaps because she herself was close to sharing her mother's fate.

That uncharacteristically grim thought dissipated in a flash of sunset color and sweeping winds. In this memory, Keturah was riding a flying wyvern! A small grin of anticipation lit Tzigone's face as she fell completely into her mother's memory, once again becoming Keturah in a vision more vivid than any dream.

Keturah dug her fingers between the blue-black scales of the wyvern's back and leaned low over the creature's sinuous neck. The thunderous beat of batlike wings buffeted her, and the dense forest below sped by in a verdant blur.

The young wizard clung desperately to her perch and to the magic that had summoned the wyvern. She could sense the malevolent will of the dragonlike creature, alternately puzzled and angered by Keturah's gentle compulsion.

Submitting was difficult for the creature, and cooperation impossible. Each downbeat of the wyvern's wings lifted them lurching into the sky, and each short glide was a stomach-turning drop, for the wyvern simply did not think to adjust its flight for the extra weight of a passenger.

A furious shriek burst from the wyvern. Keturah looked up, startled, as a shadow passed over her. Above soared an enormous griffin, wings outstretched. It glided in majestic circles as it took measure of the wyvern and its rider.

Keturah's reluctant mount banked sharply and began to climb, its rider and her magic completely forgotten. The wizard began to sing another spell, but the creature's vengeful shrieks and the keening of the wind blocked her efforts as effectively as an archmage's counterspell.

The wyvern's long, barbed tail whipped toward the griffin like dark lightning. The griffin shied back, rearing in midair. It’s massive, white-feathered wings backbeat furiously, and its taloned forefeet and leonine paws thrashed at the air as it struggled to avoid the attack.

A bolt of energy flashed from the griffin's direction, sizzling into the wyvern's side. With a shriek of pain, the wyvern veered away. Keturah noticed for the first time that the griffin carried a rider-a slight young man, deeply browned by a life spent between sea and sun. As their gazes locked, the startled expression on his face told Keturah that he had been equally unaware of her.

It was a moment's contact, quickly broken by the erratic flight of the wounded wyvern. Now utterly beyond Keturah's control, it circled back for another attack. The wyvern dropped into a hurtling dive, coming just below the enormous winged lion. As it passed under the griffin, the wyvern threw itself into a rolling spin, swinging its poison-tipped tail like an enormous flail.

Suddenly Keturah was falling though the air. Another burst of magic darted from the griffin, catching her and slowing her flight to a slow, gentle drift.

Gratitude surged through her, and amazement. The young griffin rider had saved her, and at considerable risk to himself. Wyverns viewed griffins as natural enemies, and Keturah's erstwhile mount seemed intent upon tearing this one from the skies. The rider, if he wished to survive, would do well to save his spells for his own benefit!

As she floated down, Keturah craned her head back to watch the battle. Again and again the wyvern struck, snapping and stinging at the great lion-bird. As she had feared, many of the attacks got through. Maintaining the feather-float spell was obviously limiting the young wizard's defensive power.

The forest canopy rose to meet Keturah. She drifted through the small upper branches, then seized a handhold and began to climb down.

Meanwhile, the storm of feathers and scales raged overhead, growing ever closer and more frantic. The shriek of the griffin mingled with wyvern roars. Trees rustled and branches cracked as the gigantic creatures plummeted toward the ground, locked together in final combat.

Keturah flattened herself against the tree trunk as the enjoined creatures tumbled past her. Their descent was a long, sickening series of lurching drops and crashes, followed by a more horrible silence.

She half climbed, half slid down the tree. The great creatures lay at the base of the tree, locked together in an embrace so fierce that Keturah envisioned them taking the battle to whatever afterlife awaited them.

Keturah quickly forgot such thoughts when she saw the griffin rider. He was still strapped into the saddle. Blood poured from a cut on his scalp. One leg was bent at an improbable angle.

She quickly loosed the straps and ran her hands lightly over his neck and down his spine, then gently probed his skull. Nothing other than his leg seemed broken, praise Mystra, so she carefully dragged him away from the giant beasts.

All that night, she alternated between tending the wounded man and gathering enough wood to keep a circle of fires burning. The fire was a risk-Dhamari's latest hound was not far off her trail-but a small thing compared to the risks this young man had taken on her behalf.

Keturah did not have to summon strange and dangerous creatures that night to ward off her trackers. Creatures came of their own volition, answering the lure of fresh meat in great supply. In a summoning as complex as any that gathered humankind together, the scavengers roared and howled the invitation to dine. Then-again, far too like the Halruaans for Keturah's comfort-they fell to snapping over the scraps.

In all, the night was long and grim, and not a moment passed that Keturah expected might be her rescuer's last. The voices of the scavengers seemed to call his name, as well.

To her astonishment, the young man's eyes opened shortly before dawn. For several moments they followed her movements as she dipped a cloth in her tiny kettle and placed it on his forehead.

"I'm alive," he observed grimly. It seemed to Keturah that he was neither surprised nor pleased by this realization.

"You're lucky. I've seen fewer wounds on a defeated army."

He hauled himself painfully into a sitting position and regarded her thoughtfully. "Do you have experience with the military, or is that a figure of speech?"

Her lips twitched. "If you're asking if I'm a camp follower, the answer is no. I must say, though, that I find it admirably optimistic for a man in your condition to ask."

She expected the youth to be mortified. Instead, he responded with a surprisingly deep chuckle.