The Wizardwar

"It's been many years since anyone accused me of optimism!"

It was on the tip of Keturah's tongue to mock his choice of words-after all, her rescuer-turned-patient looked to be even younger than she-but something about him stayed her teasing comment. She studied him for a long moment. "You are wearing a magical disguise," she decided.

Astonishment flooded his face. "It should be undetectable," he said ruefully. "Gods above, the spells involved are complicated enough!"

"That explains a few things," Keturah mused. "Some of the spells you tossed at the wyvern were far beyond most wizards of your apparent years. Maintaining such a disguise can be distracting even without the feather-fall spell, for which I thank you. I suppose that's how you were overcome during battle."

"You're too kind," he said dryly. "Actually, to the best of my recollection, I think I was knocked senseless by a passing seabird. The stupid thing couldn't maneuver around the battle."

Keturah burst out laughing. "A man whose magic defies wizardly scrutiny, who rides griffins and casts spells like the king himself, downed by a clumsy pelican!"

After a moment the man's lips twitched. "I suppose the situation has a certain ironic appeal." His smile faded quickly, and he regarded her for a long moment. "Well?"

"That's a deep subject." She shrugged at his blank stare. "Sorry. That was one of my father's favorite jests. No wonder he never made much of a living as a bard."

"You're not going to ask me my true identity?"

Keturah shrugged again. "If you wanted it known, you wouldn't have conjured a disguise. If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon dispense with introductions all around."

"Your secrets are your own," he agreed. "As far as I'm concerned, we were both born this morning. We have no life but that which lies before us." This prospect seemed to please him. His smile, boyish and frank, loosened some of the bonds around Keturah's heart.

"I like the sound of that."

"As do I." He glanced down at his splinted leg and sighed. "It appears that we’ll be in this forest for quite some time. What shall I call you?"

"Something exotic, I think. Hmmm. Vashti?"

He snorted. "Only if you want me to envision you wearing purple veils and dancing with finger cymbals."

"No then. Simanatra? Chelis? Lissa?" With each suggestion his expression of mock horror grew. Keturah threw up her hands in feigned disgust "Since you're so picky, why don't you name me?"

He considered her for a long moment with eyes that seemed to scan her soul. Finally he took her hand and lifted it to his lips.

"You're Beatrix," he said softly.

The mists of memory swirled, and Tzigone's vision picked up many days later. Keturah and the young wizard stood at the mouth of a cave carved into the heart of a living bilboa tree. Their eyes were fixed upon each other's faces as if they sought to memorize what they saw, and their hands were clasped in the ma

"Before you go, there are things you must know," Keturah said.

Her lover shook his head. "I know your heart. Your laughter is the music dearest and most familiar to me. What else is there to learn?"

"We have been wed for two days, but we have yet to speak of bloodlines."

In some far corner of Tzigone's mind, joy flickered and burned bright. So this man was her father and her mother's true husband! She should have known her mother would not be so careless as to condemn her child to the fate of a wizard's bastard.

The young man nodded. "Very well, then. I am a diviner, but I also possess a power not officially recognized by the Council, a power of mind rather than ritual."

"Psionics," Keturah said, her face troubled. "I have read of it. I studied the art of evocation, but my magic also has a feral streak. My father, who was a bard, once told me there were sorcerers in my mother's line."

Her husband lifted his brows, but he did not seem displeased. "Any child of ours will be a wild thing indeed!"

Keturah's smile faltered. "I was wed before, to a man who was never a true husband."

"So you told me. If there was no true marriage, you are not legally bound to him."

"I know that," she broke in. "There is more. He secretly gave me potions to ensure a jordaini child, potions altered with dangerous herbs. This is the legacy I might pass to your children."

The wizard lifted her hands to his lips. "Life is shaped by many things, sweet Beatrix. Choice is far more important than heritage. We will teach our children to choose wisely."

Keturah sent an arch gaze around their hidden camp. "And we are such experts on this matter?"

"Of course. Did we not choose each other?"

As the lovers moved into a farewell kiss, Tzigone eased her awareness away. She could not intrude upon this shared sweetness, even if they were her parents. Especially since they were her parents!

The vision left her filled with soft joy and an illuminating glimpse into how her strange magic came to be.

Tzigone drifted slowly back, moving through the faded years. When she came fully to herself, she was so exhausted that her eyelids felt too heavy to lift. The intense vision had taken more strength than she had to spare. Tzigone did not regret it. With a happy sigh, she pried opened her eyes.

A circle of dark faces surrounded her. Several Unseelie folk regarded her solemnly, like ravens preparing to feed upon the magical repast she had unwittingly provided. Horror flooded her as she realized that the dark fairies knew all that she had learned.

Tzigone seized a still-smoldering stick from her dying campfire and leaped to her feet. She spun in a circle, driving back the ethereal-looking fiends.

The fairies fell back, nimbly avoiding her attack. Before she could turn full circle, however, they darted back, leaping onto her and bearing her down to the ground.

There was no time to cast an illusion to fight them and no strength left for such magic. Tzigone went down under the vicious onslaught, feeling the burn and sting of dozens of small, spiteful wounds.

Now the true attack came. A long-hidden memory stirred, emerging from that dark place where Tzigone hid a girlhood spent in the streets and shadows. She smelled the fetid breath of drunken men and felt several pairs of rough hands. She heard the rip of her own small garments.

This had happened before-the attack, the helplessness, the terror. Gods above, she remembered it all.

Then came memory of a quick, acrid stench, like the scent of lightning come too close. Tzigone remembered struggling free of her attackers and ru

Two of the dark fairies were dead. Several more twitched in short, jerky spasms. Their glowing black eyes were clouded and glazed by the surge of magic that had burst from childhood memory. The surviving fairies darted away from this unexpected attack, moving too quickly for mortal eyes to follow.

The author of this devastation was almost as surprised as the dark fairies. Without design, without thought, Tzigone had summoned killing magic-as she had done once before as a child.

She recalled her mother's long-ago words and the stories she had heard since of common men and women who suddenly unleashed uncommon power. Magic came naturally, and sometimes unexpectedly, to those born of a sorcerer's bloodline.

Tzigone stumbled back from the grim scene and sank to the ground. The exhausted sorceress-for such she truly was-sank into dreamless oblivion.