The Floodgate

by Elaine Cunningham

  “It is … possible.”

  “So you will see Dhamari?”

  “Why should this wizard—or any other, for that matter—trouble himself about me?”

  Matteo hesitated, wishing he could tell her of Basel Indoulur’s vow to claim paternity if need be. But that would not only violate the wizard’s confidence, it would also undo the very thing Basel wished to achieve. Tzigone would never accept such a costly gift.

  He brushed a sooty tear from her cheek. “Given the options before you, yes, I think you should see Dhamari and give serious consideration to his offer.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  They spoke briefly about the clockwork creatures, and Matteo’s destination. When they rose to leave, she lifted one hand to trace a brief, graceful farewell dance—a wizard’s convention as common as rain in summer. Then she spun and slipped away, like the thief she had been.

  This small, familiar rite set Matteo back on his heels. For the first time, he understood that the training Tzigone was undertaking was not a whim but a true path. She was wizard born, wizard blood.

  Because of who he was—a jordaini bounded about by proverbs and prohibitions—he could not follow where she went.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tzigone hurried to Basel’s tower, oblivious to the young man who watched her departure with bleak eyes. She had much to do and little time. The Council of Elders met that night, and Procopio Septus would certainly be present This would be the best time to slip back into Procopio’s villa. The diviner was indeed powerful, and though her resistance to magic was almost total, she did not relish the thought of creeping about under his very nose.

  She considered contacting Sinestra, but quickly abandoned the idea. She wanted nothing more to do with the woman. “It’s possible,” Tzigone muttered, repeating Sinestra’s response when Tzigone had asked if she might be Sinestra’s daughter. Possible! What the Nine bloody Hells did that mean?

  But Sinestra was not her mother. Her mother was dead. That was almost easier to comprehend than the beautiful woman’s easy dismissal.

  Tzigone put Sinestra firmly out of mind. She slipped into shadow-colored garments and made her way over the walls that bordered a public garden. From there it was simply a matter of climbing a bilboa tree and creeping through the treetops toward the home of Procopio Septus. She found a perch with a commanding view and settled down to watch and wait. When night fell and the wizard-lord left the villa, she slipped in through the kitchen orchard and went to his private study. She found the volume titled King’s Decrees, issued a year or so before her birth.

  In its pages she read the truth of Dhamari Exchelsor’s claim. Keturah stood accused of murder through magical means of Whendura, a greenmage of Halarahh. She had fled the city that very day rather than submit to magical inquiry that, had she been innocent, would have cleared her name. By the laws of Halruaa, flight from justice was an admission of guilt

  Tzigone closed the book with shaking hands. By the laws of Halruaa, her mother was a murderer. This knowledge only increased Tzigone’s desire to learn the whole truth. By the laws of Halruaa, she herself was not exactly as white as cream. There was a larger story here, and unless she was very mistaken, Kiva was the thread that tied Tzigone’s past to events still in play.

  She found the most recent book of King’s Decrees, as well as the hefty tome that contained Lord Procopio’s latest notes from the city council. She sat down cross-legged under a table and began to read.

  Trouble, it seemed, was everywhere. The increase in piracy was predictable—a seasonal hazard, since the sea vultures were eager to collect as much treasure as possible before the summer monsoons started in earnest. Less understandable was the number of trade caravans that had been disappearing in the Nath. Then there was the totally unexpected attack on the Lady’s Mirror by wild elves. As a precaution against further incursions, huge numbers of militia had been moved to the western border. More guards had been moved to the north to guard the electrum mines and the nearby mint. The mountains that formed the eastern wall seemed to be secure and quiet, but there was a great deal of activity in Akhlaur’s Swamp.

  “Well, that figures,” she muttered. As word of the laraken and its defeat spread, the swamp lost much of its terror. It was only a matter of time before packs of wizardly idiots blundered in, chasing rumors of Akhlaur’s lost treasure.

  Tzigone sniffed derisively. Next she searched the room for a hidden place where Procopio might keep important papers. In a carved wood chair she found a hidden compartment and paged through the neat pile of parchment stacked within. Among the pages was a listing of Zephyr’s past patrons.

  She fingered the scrap of parchment tucked into a pocket—the notes Sinestra had taken the day they’d searched the elf jordain’s chamber. It seemed that this information was important, after all. She just wasn’t sure why.

  Her eye fell on the first name on the list of Zephyr’s patrons:

  Akhlaur Reiptael, Necromancer.

  Her breath whistled out in a long, slow hiss. So Zephyr had served the infamous Akhlaur, the wizard whose legacy she tripped over every time she turned around!

  She’d be willing to bet that the old elf hadn’t liked to brag about this particular fact, and she’d double the bet that this record didn’t exist anywhere but in Procopio’s study. It was the sort of information a powerful diviner might ferret out, but it wasn’t something he’d wish to hear sung of in taverns and at the spring fairs.

  Zephyr, Kiva, Akhlaur, the laraken, Keturah, and now her. And Matteo, and perhaps even his friend Andris. They were all connected somehow, but Tzigone could not perceive what pattern those intertwined threads might make.

  She scrawled a quick copy of Zephyr’s history and hurried to the palace, hoping that Matteo could do better. On the way, she “borrowed” some suitable clothing and gear and slipped into the queen’s palace.

  Despite the late hour, Matteo was not in his room. Tzigone, unnoticed, finally found him at the kitchen storerooms, collecting supplies for his trip. Nor was he alone. The kitchen buildings teamed with activity.

  “Gods above,” she muttered. “Don’t palace servants ever sleep?”

  A soft, quickly stifled giggle drew her attention to a nearby goat shed. A pail of fresh milk stood off to one side, not far from the ladder leading up to the loft. Tzigone climbed the ladder and found precisely what she’d anticipated: a pile of fresh hay, two people entirely oblivious to her presence, and some hastily discarded clothing. Tzigone quietly stripped off her chambermaid’s gown and tugged the girl’s short blue dress over her head.

  Thus accoutered, she hurried back down to the abandoned bucket of goat’s milk. She picked it up and staggered into Matteo’s path, taking care to slop some of the contents of her bucket onto his boots.

  He took in Tzigone’s pert dairymaid costume without comment and managed not to roll his eyes while she apologized extravagantly in the rolling accents of the northland herders. And he followed her as she babbled and backed away. He deftly accepted the list she handed him during the distraction and tucked it into his belt.

  By Mystra, she thought admiringly. There might be hope for him yet!

  They worked their way to a quiet spot between the goat shed and the brewery. Matteo took the note from his belt, scanned it, and lifted grim eyes to her face. “Where did you get this?”

  “There’s a new tavern by the south gate,” she began, still in her goat-girl voice. “The cook makes puff pastries that are hollow inside, then slits the crust and slips in a fortune or a small favor. I got an emerald ring, and traded it to the friend I was with for this list.”

  Matteo glared at her. “If you don’t want to tell me, just say so.”

  “I don’t want to tell you,” she replied promptly. “What do you make of it?”

  He handed back the parchment. “Zephyr was in service to Halruaa’s wizards for well over two hundred years. He was one of the first jordaini. Perhaps Akhlaur had a hand in the o
rder’s creation.”

  Tzigone looked doubtful. “Jordaini and Akhlaur. Those two flavors don’t belong in the same pot”

  “So I would like to think, but Akhlaur was a powerful necromancer. Such wizards do not deal exclusively with death but alter the living to suit their purposes. When you get right down to it, how better to describe the jordaini than men altered to suit the purposes of wizards?”

  She took this in. “How does Kiva fit in?”

  “Elves live very long lives. Kiva may look no older than you and me, but it is possible that she knew Zephyr, and possibly Akhlaur, two centuries past”

  “What does any of this have to do with my mother? With us?”

  Matteo sighed. “You and I are much akin, Tzigone. We are both resistant to magic, we were forcibly separated from our families. Perhaps we were both ‘made’ to suit some wizard’s purpose, as they might fashion a golem from iron or clay.”

  “Well, that’s cheery!”

  “What would you rather have—a grim truth or a cheerful lie?”

  “Hmm. Do you need the answer right now?”

  “Yes, and so do you,” he said, turning her half-hearted jest back on her. “Talk with Dhamari Exchelsor.”

  She was silent for a long moment. “You know what, Matteo? I really, really hate it when you’re right”

  “In that case,” he said somberly but with a suspicious glint in his dark eyes, “you should reconcile yourself to constant irritation.”

  His teasing sent an irrational mixture of exasperation and delight sweeping through Tzigone. “Constant irritation, is it? Well, I suppose I can live with that if you can.” Before he could respond, Tzigone upended her bucket of goat’s milk over his head. While her friend sputtered and swore, she darted out of the kitchen grinning like a gargoyle.

  Yes, she concluded happily, there was definitely hope for Matteo.

  Before leaving the city, Matteo visited Queen Beatrix once again. He did not relish the prospect of facing the royal madwoman, but neither could he leave without trying to make sense of her dire pronouncements.

  The queen listened with an impassive face as he spoke of his plans to travel in search of knowledge important to the palace. Whether she cared or even understood, he could not say. It was getting harder and harder to enter the strange landscape of her mind. At last, he abandoned subtlety and reminded her that she’d predicted a coming war.

  “Did I?” she said vaguely.

  “Yes.” He hesitated, then added, “I will be gone for quite some time. The Nath is a wild and dangerous place, and the paths are too rough for swift travel.”

  The Nath. Matteo felt cruel for mentioning the site of her great tragedy, but he needed to take some measure of her sanity. Perhaps she had spoken of some battle in the past, most likely the raid that had destroyed her family.

  Matteo studied her face for the emotion this name might evoke. There was not even a flicker of recognition. The queen’s detachment was chilling and nearly absolute.

  He silently admitted failure but made one more request. “Before I leave, I must contact the headmaster of the Jordaini College. May I use the device that you employed to seek me out when I was last there?” The queen granted permission with an absent wave of her hand. “But I do not work magic,” Matteo added, turning back suddenly. “I cannot use the globe without the aid of a wizard.”

  “A wizard,” Beatrix repeated. It seemed to Matteo that there was an ironic edge in her usually flat voice. “Touch the globe. That is all it requires.”

  Matteo went to the small scrying chamber and shut the door. Globes hung from elaborately knotted slings, rested on pedestals, or bobbed in the air with no apparent support. Hesitantly, he reached out to touch the smooth, floating moonstone globe that matched the one in Ferris Grail’s study. The device glowed to life. After a few moments, the cloudy surface of the stone cleared to reveal the face of the jordaini headmaster.

  The headmaster’s jaw fell slack as he discerned the identity of his caller. Matteo wondered if that surprise was due to this infraction of jordaini rules or because Ferris Grail had assumed that he’d fallen to the icehouse thugs.

  Matteo put this question squarely on the table. “You didn’t expect to see me, Lord Ferris, and not just because of the order’s restraints.”

  The wizard’s dark brows pulled down into a stern V. “If you’ve a question, speak it. I haven’t leisure for games and puzzles.”

  “No doubt you are a very busy man, with the demands of landlord added to your duties at the college,” Matteo retorted. “Imagine my surprise when I learned that your name is inscribed on the deed to an icehouse in the king’s city.”

  “What of it?” Ferris demanded. “Though I am headmaster of the college, I am a wizard, not a jordain. No laws forbid me to own property.”

  “That is sophistry.”

  “That is practicality,” the headmaster countered. “Most of Halruaa’s wizard-lords amass fortunes. A headmaster’s wages are sufficient for my current needs, but what of the future? I make such purchases as I feel will increase in value, so that I may live comfortably once I leave the college. Not that I need explain my business to you.”

  “Actually, there is one small thing that does require explanation,” the jordain shot back. “When thugs attacked me and a companion, why did they take us to your icehouse to dispatch us?”

  The surprise on the wizard’s face seemed too genuine for pretense. Perhaps, Matteo admitted, Ferris Grail didn’t know about the attack. “Would you like to hear of it?” he asked in a milder voice.

  “I think I’d better,” the headmaster said grimly.

  Matteo told the story in a few words. “You will no doubt receive a notice of my complaint from the city officials.”

  “If several men died in the icehouse, I will expect more than that! You know that if there is a legal inquiry into your actions, you will have to appear before the Disputation Table. For the third time this year, I might add.”

  “There will be no inquiry, as there were no bodies.” Matteo described how their attackers, slain or injured, had simply faded away.

  The headmaster’s face turned nearly as pale as the moonstone globe. “The girl you were with—was she the same who fought with you in Akhlaur’s Swamp?”

  “Yes,” Matteo said curtly, anticipating the now-familiar lecture.

  Ferris sent him a long, speculative look. “You spend a considerable amount of time with this wench. More than is seemly for a jordain.”

  “Our paths seem destined to cross,” he said shortly. “I should think you would be far more concerned about the magehound Kiva. What do you know of her?”

  “The same as you, and no more,” the headmaster said. “Yes, the Azuthan temple contacted me with word of her escape. I agreed that for now the jordaini order would hold this information in confidence. These are troubled times. It is important, especially in light of the raid upon the Lady’s Mirror, that the Azuthans do not appear unduly vulnerable.”

  “I would argue that the times are troubled because of Kiva, and that the vulnerability is real.”

  Ferris scowled. “You give the elf woman too much credit.”

  “That is worthy of debate, but perhaps another time. I will answer your question about Tzigone. Let the Azuthans concern themselves with their good name, but the jordaini are pledged to serve the land. I accept the aid and friendship of those who are likewise pledged.”

  “Your duty is to serve your patron,” Ferris reminded him, “not to take up personal quests.”

  “I have royal permission to do as I will and to use what resources I need.”

  “Yes, I know,” the headmaster complained. “Themo left the college yesterday, riding faster than a flea off a fire-newt. It is not seemly to send a jordain into service who has not completed his training.”

  “Perhaps Themo should never complete his training. At heart he is a warrior, not a jordain. I wanted him released now, before receiving the rites and tests that end the
final form.” Matteo paused meaningfully, then added, “As some others have been.”

  Ferris Grail’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you think one jordain’s experience would differ from any other’s? The jordaini are sworn to secrecy concerning the nature of these rituals.”

  “After the fact! By Mystra, what man would wish to boast of it!” he said heatedly. “This much I do know: This practice is wrong.”

  The wizard’s face darkened. “Do you think to challenge the entire jordaini order? These rules might seem harsh, but they exist for good reason.”

  “When I know all these reasons, I will judge for myself.”

  “You are not meant to know everything, young jordain. You were trained as a counselor, not a judge!” snapped Ferris.

  “In seeking truth, I am doing no more than I was trained to do. What I was bred to do,” he added bitterly.

  A long moment of silence followed. Matteo marked the guilt and fear on the wizard’s face. It occurred to him that Jinkor the gatekeeper might not have been Kiva’s sole source of information. Over the years someone had betrayed jordaini students best suited to her purpose. Who could better fill this treacherous office than the headmaster? Or perhaps Ferris Grail, a diviner, knew who the culprit was but kept silent to protect the college from scandal. That would explain his willingness to allow Kiva to remain conveniently lost.

  “You may have Themo,” the wizard said at last. “He is released from his jordaini vows. In return, I require your word that you will look no closer at these hidden things.”

  “I cannot give it,” Matteo said bluntly.

  Ferris Grail’s face clouded. For a moment Matteo thought he would renege on his promise to grant Themo his freedom, but the wizard’s stern posture wilted, and he passed a hand wearily over his face.

  “Go, then, and Mystra’s blessing upon you. I ask that when your quest is over, you return to the college. There are things you should know before you proceed much further down this path.”