The Magehound cakt-1

by Элейн Каннингем

  "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 annoyed her more than people who were so lazy or lacking in imagination that they allowed their words to travel only well-worn paths. Jordaini were often the worst. And here she was, indebted to a particularly arrogant member of the breed.

  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 planned to move on to Sulazir."

  He laid a hand over his heart, pantomiming great insult "Planned? Since when does Troupe Gioviente plan? Are we merchants or greengrocers, to trudge through our days in so dreary a fashion?"

  "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 manner more likely to elicit information. "What kept you in town?"

  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."

  "That I doubt," she said with certainty. Matteo had looked considerably scuffed up when they'd parted ways, and he probably was in much the same condition now. "If we're thinking about the same man, this one would walk to the hold and lock himself in if someone so much as suggested that he bent a law."

  "If he's such a paladin as all that, why is he in the hold?" Gio asked, reasonably enough.

  As to that, Tzigone had a fairly good idea. It seemed she would have a chance to erase the debt the same day it was incurred. She thought fast. "If I wanted to get into the hold, how would I do it?"

  "Getting in is never a problem. It's the getting out that tasks me," the man pointed out. "What's this jordain to you, girl, that you'd waste your breath on such crazy words?"

  "I owe him a debt," she said simply.

  The gypsy nodded. Property was something that neither would ever understand, but they knew the worth of things that mattered. "Well, then, I've just the thing for you. You remember how to w
alk on stilts?"

  She sniffed. "If you're out to insult me, just call me an ugly bastard and get it over with."

  "Biggest weapon first," he said approvingly. "Not the usual strategy, but it should be. Might cut down on time wasted fighting."

  "You were saying something about stilts?" she prompted.

  Gio's eyes glittered with mischief. "Now, if you were the law and saw a pair of stilts lying inside the wall of the hold, what would you think? Someone's trying to breach, that's what. But a single pole? No one would think much of it."

  "I don't think much of it myself," she retorted. She could vault a wall using Gio's pole, and said so.

  "Ah, but not one like this," Gio said slyly. He shouldered off his pack and took from it a bundle of oddly shaped sticks. "They fit together into one long piece," he explained, demonstrating with several of them.

  "What are those notches for?"

  "Footholds. You can balance the pole and climb it at the same time. But mind you, stay well away from the walls. Lightning sheets cover the inside walls almost to the top. If you lose your balance and lean against the wall, you'll be sizzling like bacon."

  "Stay away from the walls? So how do I get out?"

  "Moss hangs from the cherrynut tree just outside the south wall. It is strong, and hard to see in the failing light You'll be in the tree before any of those lazy guards notice what you're about."

  Tzigone studied the placement of the notches and decided that the balance might work. To limber up, she bent backward until her palms rested on the ground, just behind her feet. Slowly she shifted her weight onto her hands and brought her legs up straight, then slowly lowered them down into another tight arc. She rose, standing in nearly the same spot as she'd been before the exercise.

  Gio nodded approvingly and handed her a length of pole. She braced it and hopped up, placing her feet on the lowest notches. She swayed for a moment until she found her balance. Then she found that she could indeed climb. She went up about six feet and then let the pole tip, keeping her grip on it as she lightly dropped to the ground. Even if someone noticed her performing this stunt, she would be up and in the tree before they realized what she'd had in mind.

  "This will help," she said with gratitude.

  "It's not an easy trick, but you make it look as if it were," the gypsy said admiringly. "Like climbing a rope, or so it looks. If you were still with the show, you'd have us dragged in for magical inquiry sure as sunrise."

  A thought crossed her mind and brought a wry scowl to her face. "Now that you mention it, the climbing will be the easy part," she grumbled.

  Gio looked mildly offended, as if she'd insulted his latest toy. "You know a better trick, girl?"

  "Convincing a jordain to break out of the hold."

  The gypsy considered this and then placed a hand on her shoulder in silent commiseration. "One more word from an old friend?"

  "Don't bother telling me he's not worth the trouble. I never met a jordain who was."

  "I wouldn't think of trying to sway you, seeing that your mind's set on getting him out," Gio protested. "Just do me this favor: If you're caught, at least try to throw the pole out over the wall. I'd hate to lose it."

  "Pride of ownership, Gio?" she teased him.

  He looked puzzled. "Just pure common sense. There's not a man or woman inside the hold that would make good use of the thing. It'd be a shame to see it go for firewood."

  Chapter Eight

  The sun hung low over the mountains when Mbatu returned to the travel house he shared with Kiva. The wemic had a peasant man slung over his shoulders, much as a hunter might carry a deer. He shifted the man casually and tossed him at the magehound's feet. The captive groaned from the jolt of impact and then curved into a tight, pained ball.

  Kiva didn't see any marks on the peasant, but she didn't expect to. Mbatu was too skilled and shrewd to mark his prey unless it pleased him to do so.

  The elf woman regarded their captive thoughtfully. He was a young man, about the same height as Matteo. His muscles had been honed by hard labor and his skin browned by the sun. There the similarity between the two men ended. The farmer's face was twisted in pain but would not be considered particularly handsome in the best of circumstances. His hands were square and blunt-fingered, the nails ragged and grimed with soil. His hair was a similar shade of deep chestnut, but it was coarser than the jordain's and not quite as long and lustrous. Darkness, however, would blur these small details. Magic and simple mundane extortion would cover the rest.

  "Will he be missed?" she demanded.

  The wemic shrugged. "Not particularly. He is a day laborer on another man's fields. Such men come and go with the crops."

  "Good. Let's finish it, then."

  Kiva quickly cast a spell to ease the man's pain and make him biddable to her will. At her command, the farmer stripped off his rude garments and replaced them with white linen tunic and leggings, as befitted a jordain about to endure the ritual of purification.

  Getting him onto Matteo's black stallion proved a greater challenge. The horse pitched and reared and snorted, refusing to let the peasant mount his back. Even Kiva's magic couldn't bend the stallion to her will.

  At last the magehound admitted defeat and gave the peasant a lesser steed to ride. As for the stallion, Kiva found a way to entice him back to his stable. She rode her preferred gelding, but brought on a leading rope a mare in season. They set a brisk pace and found that the black male was more than willing to keep up.

  They rode to the village on the outskirts of House Jordain, to the neat row of villas where the masters lived. Kiva had made good use of Zephyr's research, but she had additional sources of her own. One of the masters of the Jordaini College had good reason to hold his secrets quiet and close.

  The man didn't look pleased to see her, but he gave her the prescribed courtesies. After they had exchanged the usual tiresome phrases of polite ritual, Kiva told the man what she had in mind.

  The master's eyes flashed to the young substitute, who awaited them outside. He was still mounted on his borrowed steed, and his dull, enchanted eyes stared fixedly ahead.

  "With all due respect, lady, I must protest. Put aside for the moment the matter of jordaini honor, or even the laws of this land," he pleaded. "Consider this young man, who will never sire a family. It is no small loss. The men and women who till the land depend upon their children's small hands. The tasks that farm children perform are not busy work or play in imitation of adults, but a most important contribution to family. The farmer who lacks strong children is accounted a poor man, and with good reason!"

  The magehound waved away these concerns with a quick, impatient flick of one hand. "House Jordain is ridiculously wealthy, for all your protestations of personal poverty. If you're so concerned for this peasant, recompense him. He will not have children. Well enough. A mule and a milkmaid should fill the breach."

  "But what of his wife?" the man said softly. "If ever your arms ached to hold a child, you could not condemn even an unknown woman to this emptiness."

  Rage set the elf's golden eyes aflame, then banked with a control so absolute that the lack of emotion was more terrifying than her sudden anger.

  But the old man would not be deterred. "What of Matteo? You are a high servant of Azuth, you know the hidden mysteries of this land. He cannot be excused from this ritual. I need not remind you of what can happen when the jordaini breed."

  In response, she handed him a small jeweled token. No bigger than the nail of her small finger, it was a tiny pellet studded with scales the colors of topaz and garnet and filled with magic. It was the token of the queen, and it carried both sentence and decree.

  "I have my orders," Kiva said evenly, "and now you have yours."

  For a long moment the man regarded the jeweled pill, and not because he wished to contemplate its beauty. Then he quickly swallowed it. He knew that from this moment, to speak of what was done this day would mean his death.

  "Come alo
ng," he said harshly. "Let's get this travesty done and over with."

  The magehound shook her head. "I must return to the city on business. You can handle this from here, I trust. Oh, and one thing more. I've brought with me a black stallion, Matteo's chosen mount. Take the beast back with you to complete the subterfuge. You may board my mare at your stables for several moons and keep the foal that the stallion has most likely got on her while we spoke," she said generously. "The foal is likely to be quite valuable and will provide some recompense."

  "Recompense for what?" the man snapped. "My honor? This poor man's virility? Or perhaps Matteo's life? Where is the boy? What has become of him?"

  "That is the very business I must attend. You see, Matteo was detained in the city. Some unpleasantness surrounding the big jordain known as Themo, I believe. A tavern brawl with unfortunate consequences," she said, invoking a half-truth that the master was certain to accept.

  The man sighed. "You can bring Matteo back to us? What of this so-called 'unpleasantness? Is this a matter that you can handle?"

  "Of course. Though it would be best that your student knows nothing of what passed between you and me."

  "It is unlikely that he will know any of it! The jordaini are told of the purification rite, but most think that it is nothing but a time of solitary contemplation. Afterward they are sworn to silence. So far none has broken oath. And so far," he said pointedly, "none has birthed or fathered children that the entire land must fear. Think carefully upon what you do."

  Kiva's lips twisted in a sneer. "Do not attempt to take the moral high ground. You couldn't find it with a map and a ranger to guide you! How dare you lecture me! You, who would rather see your own son castrated than see harm done to a peasant whose name you need never know."

  The wizard paled. "The parentage of a jordain is a secret thing, never to be spoken of lightly."

  "Then do as I say, and we need never speak of it at all," Kiva said implacably. "Matteo need never learn of what was done to assure his impressive talents and high status. I have seen how he took the death of his friend. How would he receive the truth about his mother? How would he regard the man who had a part in such a thing?"