"Not on his own, certainly."
"Excellent," Dhamari crowed. "Basel would be difficult to convict: Uriah will not. Two more of Zalathorm's supporters out of the way."
"We are in accord," Procopio said.
Tzigone scowled in agreement-after all, insects usually did march in formation. She felt no surprise at learning that Procopio Septus harbored treasonous thoughts or that Dhamari was allied with him. The problem would be finding someone other than Matteo who would believe this tale!
Dhamari reached for the crystal. "I'll return to the plane later. There are some small matters I need to attend."
The diviner agreed and strode to a door on the far side of the room. Arcane light flared around the cracks, giving testament to a magic gate summoned. Dhamari slipped out the way Procopio had come in.
Tzigone gave him a moment, then followed him down a tree-shaded lane. She scooted up a scarlet beech tree and ran lightly along one of its massive limbs, keeping just ahead of the wizard. There were few people about at this hour, for the sun was high and fiercely hot. Tzigone waited until there was no one in sight. She dropped from her perch, seizing Dhamari's tunic and dragging him into the narrow divide between two shops.
Seeking escape, he fumbled for his crystal. Tzigone was quicker. She seized his hand and gave it a sharp twist that brought him down to one knee. Dhamari looked up at her and gasped in astonishment. Before he could let out his breath in a shout, Tzigone bent low and drove a fist into his belly. He folded, and a familiar glint of silver hung from his neck.
Her mother's talisman.
Tzigone lunged for it. The wizard slapped her hand away and seized her wrist with his other hand.
Sorcerous energy poured from the angry girl. To her astonishment, it merely collected in a circle on Dhamari's wrist.
He released her and rose to his feet, holding up one arm to display a copper bracer. "Your mother had a temper, too," he said smugly. "I collected some interesting wards, just in case."
Tzigone threw both hands high in a dramatic flourish of spell-casting. Instinctively the wizard lifted his hands as if to ward off the attack. Instead, Tzigone stepped in and brought her knee up hard.
A high-pitched wheeze gusted from the wizard. For a moment he looked at her with undisguised hatred. Tzigone could almost see the gnomework gears turning in his mind as he sought the vilest curse possible, the most wounding words. Nothing could have prepared her for what he said.
"Your mother is alive."
He spoke with such certainty that Tzigone almost believed him. The world shifted weirdly beneath her feet.
"I would know if she were alive."
"How could you, when even she doesn't know?" Dhamari taunted. His gaze slid down her, and his lip curled in a sneer. "I must say, you are the most unlikely princess I have ever beheld."
Tzigone froze in the act of denying this. Beatrix-this was the name her unknown father had bestowed upon Keturah. Queen Beatrix?
"As you may have heard, the queen will be tried for treason in a few days." Dhamari paused for a chilling smile. "The queen might be exonerated of the charge of treason by reason of her very apparent insanity, but the court will be less lenient if it becomes known that she has another, murderous identity."
"You killed that greenmage!" Tzigone threw back. "You killed her, and painted Keturah as the murderer!"
Dhamari looked nonplussed, "How do you-" He broke off abruptly, visibly gathered himself. "Why do you say that?"
She looked him over, then snatched a glove from his belt. "This is deerskin."
The wizard clucked softly. "My dear child, if you think that proves anything, you're as mad as your mother."
"You summoned the deer using one of Keturah's spells," Tzigone went on, "and you held it trapped and helpless while you shot it. It took four arrows. You're not much of a marksman," she added as an aside, then resumed her telling. "The man who tanned the leather lives on the Exchelsor family estates. He has four fingers on his left hand and he wears an eye patch."
The color drained from Dhamari's face during this recitation. "What does this mean?"
"It means that I can divine the past rather than the future. In the dark fairies' realm, I spent a lot of time looking into Keturah's past. I can't tell you what a relief it was to learn that you could not possibly have been my father."
The wizard's pale face took on a dull red flush. "Let me remind you that a vision induced by dark fairies is hardly admissible testimony. Nor are you a credible witness. I suspect that you can't be magically tested for veracity-your resistance to magic is too strong."
All of this was true. Even so, Tzigone kept her taunting smile in place. "You can be tested, can't you? If you take a single step against me or mine, I'll come after you with witnesses who have credentials the gods might envy."
He stared at her for a moment. "A sword at your throat, a sword at mine."
Tzigone shrugged. "It'll do for now. Now get out of my sight."
She watched him go, then sprinted off toward the public gardens. There were hidden pathways through the giant trees shading the city, and Tzigone knew them all. Such knowledge, combined with her magical resistance, gave her access to any place she cared to go. Not even the king's palace could hold her out. She quickly made her way to Matteo's room and found it empty. Gritting her teeth, she remembered his recent promotion and set a path for the room once occupied by Cassia, the king's last head counselor.
She slipped into the room. Matteo was in earnest conversation with the ghostly jordain. Both men looked up at her approach-at this point, she was too angry to soften her footsteps.
"Is it true?" she demanded.
Matteo studied her face for a long moment. For some reason, he did not have to ask what she meant. "Yes."
Tzigone took a long, calming breath. "How long have you known?"
"A few days. I learned of it the day after your disappearance. I would have told you before this, had I been free to do so." He stopped and considered his words. "No, that's not quite true. I would have told you regardless, before-"
"Before it was too late," Tzigone finished. Before Queen Beatrix, formerly known as Keturah, was executed for treason.
The jordain nodded.
Andris looked from one to another, his translucent face both puzzled and wary. "Perhaps I should go. I’ll call the guard to take me back to my cell."
"No," Matteo said sharply. "You can stay with me until your trial is over or go wherever you like."
He turned to Tzigone. "Shall I take you to her?"
She nodded and fell into step. They passed through a labyrinth of palace halls and climbed the highest tower, one hemmed about with magical wards and accessed only by a narrow, winding stair. Guards-both human and magical-were stationed in small alcoves cut into the walls, hidden places that appeared suddenly, and, Tzigone suspected, changed places randomly. No one who climbed these stairs knew when they would confront a guardian, or what sort. The queen was well protected-and Halruaa was well protected from the queen.
Finally they paused before an ironbound door. Matteo gestured to the guards, who unchained the locks.
Tzigone leaned against the doorframe and studied the queen. Beatrix sat in a narrow chair, her hands folded in her lap. Incurious brown eyes, deeply rimmed with kohl and enormous in a small, painted faced, gazed back. There was no recognition in them.
Tzigone waited for her thudding heart to slow to a pace that permitted speech. She glanced at the slit of window. The day had passed swiftly, and sunset colors stained the skies.
"It is nearly night, Your Majesty, and time to prepare for sleep."
When the queen made no protest, Tzigone took a basin and filled it with water from a heated cistern. She found a soft cloth and knelt beside the queen. Playing the part of a handmaid, she gently removed the cosmetics from the queen's face.
Without the white paint, Beatrix looked smaller, younger, and far more beautiful. She did not, however, resemble the mother Tzigone re
membered or the woman she had glimpsed in her vision.
"There must be a magical illusion over her," Tzigone said. "I'm going to dispel it."
Matteo began to warn her, but not soon enough. Tzigone's spell quickly stripped away the cloaking magic.
Her eyes filled with tears. The face before her was not recognizable as Keturah-was barely recognizably human. Skin and flesh had been flayed off, and what remained had been deeply burned by fire and acids. The woman had no ears and not much of a nose. On that horrific face, the elaborate white and silver wig was a mockery, like gems on a corpse.
Without thinking Tzigone reached to remove the wig. The queen seized her wrists with a surprisingly strong grip.
"No," she said quietly.
Tzigone's heart shattered. This simple gesture convinced her as nothing else could have. She backed away, dipping in a bow. "Good night, my lady."
She turned and fled the room. Matteo followed. He found her on the stairwell, sitting with her face turned to the wall and her arms encircling her knees. He settled down beside her and waited.
"I should have known better than to touch her wig," she said at last. "My mother had beautiful hair. Even now, she can't bear for anyone to see her without it."
"So you believe it's true."
Tzigone lifted one shoulder. "Why wouldn't I? You've never lied to me. Of course, you haven't exactly been lavish with the truth, either."
He started to reach for her, then pulled back. "What will you do now?"
"Hmm?" She glanced up at him. "I'm heading straight for the tower. You have my word on it," she added in a sharper tone when Matteo lifted a questioning brow.
He nodded and walked her to the nearest exit. As Tzigone sped into the twilit city, she blessed Matteo for his particular brand of logic. He assumed she would return to Basel. It never occurred to him to ask her which tower!
* * * * *
Pebbles crunched under Uriah Belajoon's feet as he crept through the garden surrounding Basel Indoulur's tower. He considered casting a globe of silence but regretfully abandoned that idea. A yellow haze clung to the tower, the mark of warding against magical intrusion. He wouldn't risk discovery. Too much rested on surprise. He would have but one chance.
He crouched behind a flowering hibiscus along the main path and not far from the tower door. His fingers tightened around the hilt of a dagger. Magic would be perceived, but who would expect a single man to come to the mighty conjurer's domain armed with little more than a table knife? Sooner or later Basel would pass, and he would die.
Uriah waited as the moon crept above the rooftops of the king's city. Finally his patience was rewarded. The fat little toad who had killed his beloved Sinestra emerged from the tower and slipped into his garden. Basel Indoulur stood gazing up at the moon and the seven bright shards that followed it through the sky, as if the answer to some great puzzle might be written there.
A heavy sigh escaped the wizard. To Uriah Belajoon's ear, it held the weight of conscience. He gripped the dagger, slowly raising it as the hated wizard began to stroll down the path.
As Basel drew alongside the hibiscus, Uriah poured all his strength into a single lunging attack. For a moment, he was airborne and invincible-a wolf attacking a rival, a young warrior defending his lady, a god avenging evil.
The next, he was lying on his back and marveling at how the moonshards danced and circled.
"Lord Belajoon," said a surprised, familiar voice.
Uriah's eyes focused upon Basel Indoulur's face. A sense of failure swept through the old man, and the crushing weight of futility gripped his chest like a vise.
There was nothing more to be done. Sinestra was gone, and gone also was the dream of vengeance that had sustained him. On impulse, he snatched up the fallen knife and placed it over his own heart. He gripped the hilt with both hands and prepared to plunge it home.
The crushing pain intensified, and the weapon slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers. Waves of agony radiated from Uriah's chest into his arms. He could not move, he could not even curse the wizard who took this from him.
Dimly he sensed Basel drop to one knee. The portly wizard seized the knife and tossed it aside. He struck Uriah's chest hard with the heel of one hand, placed his ear against the old man's chest, then struck again.
Uriah watched these efforts as if from a great and growing distance. He understood the truth of his death and the nature of Basel Indoulur's efforts. Suddenly it did not matter to him that the wizard he hated still lived and that he seemed determined to pummel life back into Uriah's body.
The old wizard turned his eyes toward the moon-shards, remembering every bright legend he had ever heard about what might await him and believing them all. The lights grew and merged, filling his vision with brightness.
* * * * *
Tzigone crept through the streets toward the Belajoon mansion, intent upon retrieving something that had belonged to Sinestra. Basel was free today, but that was no guarantee against tomorrow.
One thing puzzled her-why hadn't Sinestra's death been investigated? Usually magehounds were called at once. Once the murderer was revealed, the remains were promptly cremated and the ashes scattered so that no further inquiry could be made. By law and custom, the secrets of Halruaan wizards died with them.
The ancient, sprawling mansion was amazingly easy to enter. All the lights were dimmed in mourning, and the windows were open. This spoke volumes about old lord Belajoon. Halruaan custom was to close all windows-an old superstition, based on the idea that open windows beckoned the spirits of the departed and tempted them into lingering. Apparently Belajoon wanted to hold onto his wife as long as he could!
Magic wards protected the windows and skittered across Tzigone's skin like delicate insects as she climbed over the sill. She slipped through the quiet house toward a room ablaze with candles. Sinestra's room had been left untouched, almost like a shrine.
Shaking her head at the old man's fond foolishness, Tzigone set to work. She found a small silver brush with a broken handle, tossed negligently into a drawer. This was important-whatever Tzigone presented for testing had to appear to be discarded. No magehound could legally test a stolen object.
As she picked up the brush, a bit of folded paper caught her eyes, something tossed into the drawer and forgotten. She lifted one edge of the packet and recognized the oddly colored powder Sinestra had taken from Procopio's tower.
"Don't touch that," advised a male voice behind her.
Tzigone leaped and whirled, coming face to face with Matteo's friend Andris.
He caught the packet she'd inadvertently tossed into the air and leaned away from the small puff of dust that escaped it. "You really shouldn't take this. If Lord Belajoon realizes the loss, they'll look for the thief."
"He probably doesn't know she had it. She didn't know what it was," Tzigone explained, feeling rather dazed and stupid. It had been a very long time since someone had crept up on her! "For that matter, I don't know what it is."
Andris folded back the paper and showed her the powder. "This particular shade is known to artists as 'mummy brown.' Once it was precisely that-a pigment made from the ground remains of mummies. It has not been used for years, of course, but was fairly common during a period when northerners were given to exploring and despoiling the Old Empires."
Tzigone lifted one eyebrow. "I can see why you and Matteo get along. Why did you follow me?"
"Actually, I didn't." He cleared his throat. "I came to help Lord Basel, on Matteo's behalf."
"Now I know you're lying. Matteo wouldn't have sent you here."
Andris's ice-green eyes narrowed. "Did he send you here?"
"Good point," Tzigone admitted. After a moment, she added, "Did you find anything?"
Andris moved over to the wall and tapped lightly on a carved panel. It slid aside silently to reveal a hidden passage. He shrugged aside Tzigone's incredulous stare. "The original designs for nearly every mansion of note are in the jordaini libraries."
She whistled softly. "If you're ever in need of a partner, I might be available."
They made their way down a series of hidden stairs and halls. Finally Andris led her into a deep-buried chamber. The room was round and empty but for a long, glass box resting on a marble table. Uriah Belajoon had entombed Sinestra under glass.
Tzigone edged closer. Her friend had changed from a raven-haired beauty into the woman Tzigone had once glimpsed in a magic-dispelling mirror.
"She does look a bit like my mother," she mused.
"Keturah," Andris remembered. "Kiva spoke of her in the Swamp of Akhlaur."
Tzigone nodded, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She placed one hand on the glass and sank deep into concentration, seeking the spell that killed Sinestra. Its nature was familiar enough-a particularly virulent silence spell often placed upon servants-but try as she might, Tzigone couldn't feel who had done the casting. The person was powerfully, magically shielded from her sight. Tzigone felt a faint echo of her mother's magic. "Dhamari," she said, pronouncing it like a curse.
Chapter Seventeen
Andris and Tzigone had no problem entering the palace, for Matteo had listed them in the guardhouse book. They were ushered through with an extravagant courtesy that Tzigone would have found amusing had she been in a brighter mood and more congenial company.
"Friends of the King's Counselor," she muttered in a dead-on imitation of the guard's obsequious tones. "I’m surprised there's no medal to go along with that title."
"Yes, I rather expected someone to pull out a sword and knight us."
Tzigone shot a surprised glance at the translucent jordain. His tone matched hers-bemused humor, untainted by envy over Matteo's position.
She considered the puzzle Andris offered. "You two have been friends for a long time?"
He shrugged. "All our lives, but considering our relative youth, I'm not sure that qualifies as a 'long time.'"
"So why did you go over to Kiva?"
"Those are two separate lines of occurrence," he said evenly, keeping his eyes straight ahead.
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