The Magehound

by Elaine Cunningham

  “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 along,” 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?”

  For a long moment silence filled the room. “Go,” the man said in a choked voice. “As always, everything will be done as you say.”

  Matteo slumped against the cold stone wall and stared out the single window in the door of his cell as he tried to take it all in. Andris was dead. Mystra only knew what had become of Themo. And he, Matteo, was imprisoned on a charge of carrying a weapon that was not only proscribed but also stolen.

  He sighed and surveyed his prison. The hold was a rarity in Halruaa, a land of swift justice and very few prisons. The port city of Khaerbaal was more rough-and-tumble than most, and though a few minor offenders were sentenced to a few days of confinement, for the most part the hold was a place to store criminals until the resident mage could attend to his or her case. Guilt was quickly determined through magical inquiry and the sentence carried out according to law.

  Matteo had no fear of the outcome. His innocence would be determined by the prison magehound. Even so, the temporary disgrace carried a crushing weight.

  A shadow passed by the small, barred window, silhouetted against the flickering light of torches thrust into metal brackets on the walls outside. Matteo gave an impassive glance toward what he thought was the guard, then leaped to his feet. The light was dim and uncertain, but Tzigone’s face was forever burned into his memory and he would know her anyplace.

  “You!” he declared in a tone that dripped with wrath as he pointed an accusing finger at the young woman.

  Tzigone rolled her eyes. “And I thought Gio’s performance was overwrought. Save the drama for the supper crowd. Right now let’s think about getting you out of here.”

  If possible, the mention of rescue only served to increase Matteo’s ire. “I am jordaini, bound by the laws of the land. You insult me by suggesting that I would attempt to escape justice.”

  “Justice?” she repeated incredulously. “Is that what you think happens around here? I know the magehound who works the hold. He’s an ugly little monkey of a man who holds a grudge against anyone better favored than he. One look at that handsome face of yours and he’ll be howling for an Inquisition. If I were you, I wouldn’t bet my future on the outcome.”

  Matteo’s first impulse was to protest this as blasphemous. A magehound’s word was final and fair. This was the underlying premise of his culture, the assurance of the jordain’s status and power.

  Ye
t he himself had harbored such thoughts. How could he not? Andris was dead. Andris, who was his dearest friend and the best of them all. It was enough to make any man lose faith.

  Faced with such a dark and unfathomable void, Matteo clung to what he knew. “I do not fear the magehound’s judgment. Truth is a sword that cuts all bonds.”

  She threw up her hands. “The ‘truth’ is that you were caught with a weapon crafted by Zanfeld Yemandi, the city’s premier swordsmith.”

  “You said the sword was yours!’ he protested.

  “Mine, his,” she said impatiently. “I had need of it at the moment and Zanfeld did not. Who had the better claim to it?”

  Matteo groaned and buried his head in his hands. Though Tzigone obviously intended to aid him, her words condemned him as surely as they informed him. When the magical inquiry was done, it would be discovered that he knew beyond doubt at the time of inquisition that the sword was stolen.

  “I an undone,” he muttered, slumping lower against the wall.

  “Then get off the floor and do yourself back up,” she said tartly. “I’ll get you out of this. Trust me.”

  He sent her a quick incredulous glance. “Need I remind you that it was you who got me into this?”

  She shrugged away his words with the same impatient unconcern that she might have in dismissing a comment about the political situation in distant Cormyr. The expression on her face clearly proclaimed, What has one thing to do with another?

  Tzigone cast her eyes toward the ceiling. Then, with the air of someone who has better things to do than engage in meaningless chat, she dropped out of sight. Metallic whispers gave witness to picks and knives being employed on the lock.

  Matteo walked over to the door. “I will not go with you,” he said with calm finality. “If you open the door, I will pull you inside and shut it behind you.”

  Tzigone’s face popped back into view, and she regarded him with an insouciant grin. “What woman could resist so poetic a ploy? Look at me! I’m swooning!”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  She cut him off with a jab to the forehead with the blunt end of her pick. “How stupid do I look? I know what you meant Now be quiet and let me work.”

  Again she disappeared. Matteo heard the distant tread of footsteps. “Someone’s coming. Go now before you’re forced to join me here.”

  This logic finally struck a chord. The woman rose and sent a quick look over her shoulder, then leaped for the iron bracket set high on the wall. She pulled herself up onto the torch’s shelf and nimbly rose to her feet From there she reached the lowest edge of the rafter and swung herself up onto it. Swiftly she walked across the broad beam. The only sign of her passing was a silvery sprinkle of dust and the appearance of a couple of indignant spiders, disturbed from their perches and swinging like pendulums from gossamer threads.

  Matteo breathed a gusty sigh of relief. Though Tzigone’s understanding of life was vastly different than his, he was moved by the fact that she would try to rescue him. All the same, he was glad that she was safely out of it.

  He had just settled back down on the floor when the lock began to clatter in earnest. He surged to his feet as the door swung in, ready to unleash a blistering tirade at the persistent girl.

  But the face in the doorway was not what he expected, not the impish charm of Tzigone’s pointed chin and big, dark eyes, but the exotic, dangerous beauty of a wild elf female.

  Kiva the Magehound raised a single jade-colored brow. “You are most eager to leave, Matteo. Strangely you don’t seem pleased to see me.”

  Matteo had no answer for that Instead he regarded the steady, golden stare of the wemic at Kiva’s side. Judging from Mbatu’s expression, Matteo guessed that the wemic remembered quite well what had passed between them earlier that day. Tzigone’s assurances of forgetfulness were nothing more than another of her comfortable lies.

  Kiva slipped a slender arm around the wemic’s waist, a gesture that struck Matteo as warning rather than affection. She glanced over her shoulder at the hold’s magistrate, who was all but wringing his hands in distress.

  “Deepest apologies, lady, but you cannot simply take this prisoner and go.”

  “Oh? And why is that?”

  “He must be examined by the hold’s inquisitor. You know the rules.”

  Kiva’s smile was chilling. “I also know Chartain. He was assigned this post because he could get no other. Do you put more faith in his judgment than mine? If I say that this jordain is no thief, let that content you.”

  The magistrate gave one last try. “You walk in Azuth’s light, lady, and speak through the sure sight of magic. If you say this man is no thief, I will swear my own life against his innocence! But you cannot deny that he was carrying a sword, though it is against local custom for a jordain to do so.”

  “What need have they of such weapons when they are armed with the sword of truth?” she said sweetly, neither confirming nor disputing the accusation.

  Once again Matteo heard the hint of irony in her voice, a music not unlike the faint, mocking echoes of the Unseelie folk, dark fairies who haunted the mountain passes around Halruaa and played seductive tunes known to lure men from the paths into the wilderness.

  “He had the sword when the militia stopped him,” the magistrate stated again.

  “But did he know at the time that he was carrying it? Did you?” she said, turning abruptly to Matteo.

  “I did not know about the sword. The magehound does not lie … about this,” Matteo said, adding subtle emphasis of his own.

  Her angry gaze snapped to his, and for a long time they locked fierce stares. Matteo remembered a cobra and trainer he’d seen frozen in just such a posture. Like the snake trainer, he suspected that a misstep would cause the deadly creature before him to strike.

  But after a moment Kiva’s lips curved in a delighted smile. She turned to the magistrate. “You heard him. We all know that the jordaini place truth above all. Let him go at once.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Matteo’s troubles did not end when the door of the hold clanked shut behind him.

  Kiva wished him well in her sweet, ironic voice and then disappeared. The wemic, after a final long, challenging stare, followed the magehound, leaving Matteo entirely to his own devices.

  He started out to find Cyric and soon realized that this effort was both futile and costly. The stallion had shattered the hitching rail by the Falling Star Tavern to get loose, and the innkeeper demanded payment. Matteo had spent all of his allotted coin to ensure that Themo would not come to grief over the brawl in the tavern. It took all his persuasive powers to get the man to agree to accept a note, payable upon demand by the stewards of House Jordain.

  Matters did not improve from there. Ordinarily many hostlers in Khaerbaal might have been willing to lend him a mount, certain of payment from the jordaini order, but none believed Matteo’s claim to being a member of that house. His battles, his jaunt with Tzigone through the bilboa tree and the dirty back streets, and his confinement in the dirty cell had left his white linens dingy and stained beyond recognition. Worse, he had inexplicably lost the pendant that proclaimed him a jordain.

  There was nothing to do but walk, so Matteo set out at a brisk pace. By sunset, he left the city gate behind. He walked as late into the night as he dared, then took a page from Tzigone’s book and took refuge in a large, vine-shrouded mazganut tree.

  Sleep did not come, for he was all too aware of the numerous night sounds around him. He recognized the snuffles and grunts of the wild boars who rooted for fallen nuts at the base of the tree, the not-too-distant shriek of a hunting panther, the hum and chitter of the tiny, often malevolent sprites who made their lairs in the uppermost branches.

  Worse were the faint, unearthly echoes of the Unseelie music. Matteo had heard tales of the dark fairies that haunted the mountain passes and danced widdershins upon the ruins of ancient cities and long-forgotten graves, and he’d read that on occasion they
ventured close to civilized lands. All these things he recognized from his studies, but the knowledge did little to prepare him for the chilling actuality of their song. After a time, he began to talk to himself, reciting tales and histories and royal genealogies—anything to drown out the faint, darkly compelling music.

  It occurred to him more than once during that long night, and during the day’s trudge that followed, that perhaps there was more wisdom in Tzigone’s warnings that he had perceived at first consideration. He had spent his entire life within the confines of House Jordain. His studies had ranged the world and touched on all of its sciences, some lightly, some in considerable depth. Yet truly how well prepared was he for the world beyond the counselors’ school?

  The moon was a new crescent when Matteo arrived back at the school the next night, dusty and footsore. He knew at once that word of his disgrace had preceded him. The set, disapproving expression on the face of the gatehouse guard left no doubt.

  “The ritual of purification took place last night. You’re to go to the meditation huts at once.”

  Matteo groaned. After all that had happened the last few days, he had forgotten about this important rite. No jordain left the college without it. He brought to mind a list of his masters and settled on the one most likely to help him resolve this situation.

  “Can you take a message to Vishna for me?”

  “No messages,” the guard said adamantly. “When they want you, they’ll let you know.”

  Matteo nodded and went at once into his belated solitude. The meditation huts were scattered among the orchards on the far western side of the compound. Matteo’s hut was furnished with a cot, table, and a large pitcher of water. Not having any other option, he settled down to think and to wait.

  On the third day after his return, the servant who came each morning to leave a tray of food knocked on the door and handed Matteo a pile of fresh clothes. “Prepare quickly. You are bid to present yourself at the Disputation Table.”