The Magehound

by Elaine Cunningham

  “Yes,” she said shortly. “I had a mother, and I won’t rest until I find her. Don’t you ever wonder what happened to yours?”

  “She was a woman grown when she gave birth. I understand that jordaini births are usually predicted by the matchmakers, so she knew from the onset that she would bear a child only to give it up. This is done willingly, for the good of the land. The parents are well compensated, as they have no children to care for them in their old age, and they are greatly honored for their sacrifice.”

  Tzigone stared at him for a long moment. “Come with me,” she said abruptly and began to slide down the tree.

  Less than two hours later, they stood in the doorway of a one-room cottage, one of several such cottages, all identical and clustered around a simple garden surrounded by a tall, thick wall.

  “What place is this?” Matteo asked in a whisper. There was something about the place, pleasant though it was, that inhibited the spirit.

  “Go inside,” Tzigone said.

  Matteo paused at the doorway and spoke the traditional pledge tradition required of all Halruaans, swearing that no magic would be worked within this house.

  “Do not mock me,” said a small, anguished whisper.

  He came fully into the room and peered into the shadows that lingered by the unlit hearth. A woman huddled there, curled up on a chair like a weeping child.

  “That was not my intention, mother,” he said softly, using the polite form for unknown women of her apparent years. “My words were a greeting such as any might speak. They are also truth, for I am jordaini.”

  The word hit her like an arrow. She looked up, her eyes wild in her white face. “A jordain!”

  Matteo couldn’t comprehend her distress, but he had no wish to add to it. “Your pardon, good mother.” he said, bowing. “We will go.”

  The mad light faded from the woman’s eyes, leaving her face listless and dull. “Go or stay. It matters not”

  Tzigone shoved at him from behind, prompting him farther into the room. While Matteo stood, feeling awkward and helpless, she bustled about, opening the shutters to let in the sun, plumping up cushions, building up the hearth fire, and putting water and a handful of herbs in the kettle. She brought the woman a cup of tea and curved her thin hands around it, guiding it to her lips until memory took over and the woman drank on her own. Through it all, Tzigone kept up a soft, steady stream of chatter—gently humorous tales of life in the city beyond these walls, entertaining stories that probably had no basis in reality.

  Matteo listened with only partial attention as he watched the girl tend this unknown woman. And he knew, without understanding the reason, that his choice that day had been the right one.

  Finally the woman drifted into sleep. Tzigone pulled a thin blanket over her and rose. Her eyes were bleak as she met Matteo’s considering gaze.

  “You are kind,” he said softly.

  She shrugged this aside impatiently. “There is little that anyone can do for her, other than the odd small kindness.”

  That the poor woman was insane was obvious to Matteo. “What happened, to shatter her so?”

  “Magic,” Tzigone said grimly, gazing at the pale, wasted face. “Once this woman was a powerful wizard, married to another wizard in a match made by still another. It was predicted that a child of their blood would likely be jordain. The woman wanted children of her own to keep and love, but she was assured that only one jordain was ever born to a family. So she did her duty and consented to the match.

  Time passed, but there was no child. She and her husband were greatly concerned. He offered to bring potions for her that would bolster her health and promote conception. For nearly five years, this continued. What the woman never knew,” Tzigone said in a tight, angry voice, “was that she was taking potions that twisted the natural course of her magic and that of the child she would bear. All of the power that might have become magic was refocused, so that her child might have great talents of mind and body.”

  The words seemed too fantastic for belief. “Is this one of your stories?” he asked tentatively.

  Tzigone focused her eyes on his and let him judge what he saw in them.

  The magic wasn’t just taken from the potential child, but from the mother. Little by little, her gift dwindled away, retreating to a place within herself that she could no longer reach.

  “When the child was born, the process was complete. The birth was difficult, as such births invariably are, and the midwife pronounced that the woman would never bear another child. At one blow, the woman lost her babe, her dream of a child to keep, and all of herself that was bound up in her magic. This proves too much for most women to bear. They become as the woman you see before you.”

  Matteo absorbed this in silence. He didn’t doubt Tzigone’s words. Grim though this explanation was, it did explain why the jordaini were usually stronger in body and mind than the average man, and why their resistance to magic was so strong. But such a price to pay!

  He tried to picture the woman who had paid this price for him and the man who had let her do so unwittingly. But it was too strange, too unreal, for him to grasp.

  “Have you nothing to say?” Tzigone demanded. “Do you understand now why I wonder what became of my mother in this land of magic and wizards?”

  She fairly spat out the last word with undisguised venom. Matteo had been raised to serve wizards, but he didn’t find her reaction at all extreme.

  “All my life,” he said slowly, “I have been charged with developing the strength of mind and body. The passions of man were studied as important strategic considerations, but we were not encouraged to explore or experience any of them.”

  Tzigone gave him a strange look. “You had friends, surely.”

  “Yes. But even the closest of these had the careless ease of proximity—or so I thought,” he said painfully. “My dearest friend, a jordain named Andris, was condemned by a magehound and slain by the wemic who pursued you the very day we met.”

  “Ah.” Tzigone nodded, as if a long-held question had been answered.

  “The grief and guilt that followed my friend’s death was my undoing. I acted in a manner that denied all my training. Emotions, it seems, have great power.”

  He fell silent for a moment, then added, “This is new to me, and I don’t know where it will lead. I should feel outrage, but I do not. I cannot mourn a woman I never knew. I cannot hate a man I never met. Perhaps that will change. If it does, I’m not sure what I will do.”

  “Even in this you’re honest,” she said softly, her eyes searching his face. “Maybe that’s not always such a bad thing.”

  They quietly left the cottage, each deep in thought. Tzigone had come to this place intending to tell Matteo the truth: This was the woman who had given him birth. But as Matteo had pointed out, there was no telling what he might do once he got into the habit of allowing emotion into his life. Most likely he would declare vengeance upon the wizard who had sired him. That could lead nowhere good.

  Matteo spoke first “This is why jordaini have no families, is it not?”

  “Magic is toxic,” Tzigone said grimly. “Apparently it isn’t easy to breed magic out of a human, and there is no telling what will come of the effort.”

  “Precaution is the grandchild of disaster,” Matteo said softly, speaking an old proverb. “For such measures to be taken, things must have gone terribly wrong.”

  “Mistakes happen,” Tzigone agreed. She took a long, steadying breath. “I suppose that’s the only possible way to explain me.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tzigone braced herself for the jordain’s questions. To her surprise, she realized that she was prepared to tell him everything she knew about herself and her background, secrets that she had spoken to no one. Matteo had never been less than honest with her. That honesty created a debt, and she always paid her debts.

  But Matteo didn’t immediately respond to her grim pronouncement. Instead, he took a small tightl
y rolled scroll from his bag and handed it to her.

  She took it and smoothed it flat. The message was brief, and after a moment, she lifted incredulous eyes to his face. “Reads like a death warrant,” she said, only partially in jest.

  “That was my assessment,” he agreed.

  Much as she would have liked to, Tzigone couldn’t argue. Cassia, the high counselor to King Zalathorm and one of the most powerful jordaini in the land, had enlisted the help of all members of the jordaini order to find information on the whereabouts and background of a thief known as Tzigone.

  A strange knot formed in the girl’s throat. Matteo had helped her to escape in direct defiance of the rules of his order. For a moment, even Tzigone’s nimble tongue seemed weighted down by the enormity of this revelation.

  “I thought the jordaini didn’t write and send messages,” she managed at last.

  Matteo’s faint smile acknowledged her unspoken words. “It appears that in this case Cassia made an exception. I daresay that the jordaini weren’t the only people in this city to receive her missive. No doubt it also went to the city guard, town criers, and city Elders.”

  “There’s a personal message on this copy,” she said, pointing to the last few lines. The script was written in a different hand and in a shade of emerald ink that few professional scribes could afford.

  She read aloud, using Cassia’s voice. “I give you fair warning, Matteo, that this young woman is dangerous in the extreme. You have been seen in her company, but henceforth you must avoid her at all costs. She was tested as a child and found to possess great magical talent. She has abused this power and committed a number of crimes. If you wish, come see me after she has been apprehended. You will understand at once, for the secrets of her birth explain all. One jordain cannot command another, but your assistance in this matter is most urgently desired, and will be regarded as a great service to Halruaa.

  “The secrets of my birth,” Tzigone said in her own voice, her tone distracted. “Do you think she really knows?”

  Matteo looked dubious. “A jordain’s word is inviolate. That’s what I was raised and trained to believe.”

  “But?”

  He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I have learned that it is possible to deceive without speaking a single false word. You may have noticed that Cassia does not actually claim to possess this information. She merely says that it will answer all. It is possible—possible, mind you—that Cassia sent this note hoping that I would pass it along to you.”

  “Bait,” Tzigone concluded.

  “It is possible,” he repeated in a bleak tone. He turned his gaze to her. “And now that you have this information, what will you do with it?”

  Tzigone was silent for a long moment. “Some of what Cassia says is true. I seem to have some innate magic. Wild talents, they call them. But I’m no wizard,” she said emphatically, glaring at Matteo in challenge.

  “So you have told me,” he said in a neutral tone.

  “You know I’m a thief.” She laughed shortly. “That’s nothing to boast of, but you and I are alike in thinking it’s a better thing to be than a Halruaan wizard.”

  “You hate them,” Matteo observed. “I would like to understand why.”

  “You can ask that after seeing what magic did to that poor woman?”

  He didn’t answer at once, nor did he meet her eyes when at last he spoke. “This process—is it the same for all women who give birth to a jordain?”

  Tzigone understood what must be going through his mind. He was wondering if his own mother had suffered a similar fate, and he was picturing her in a similar situation, a prisoner in her own diminished mind. For a moment Tzigone considered telling him that he need not use his imagination, for the worst was his to know.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps some women give birth to jordaini without aid of potions and spells.”

  “Perhaps.” He looked up at her, frustration in his eyes. “I wish there were something I could do for that poor woman. No jordain will ever be wealthy. Our expenses are paid by our patrons, though we may receive small personal gifts from time to time. If ever I were to find my mother in such a state, how would I provide for her?”

  “You saw the cottages, the gardens. Halruaa ensures that her wizards get what they need. Your mother is well cared for.”

  For a moment she thought she might have revealed too much. But there was no flash of epiphany in Matteo’s dark eyes. He merely nodded as he took in this new information.

  There seemed to be nothing more to say. That knowledge dampened Tzigone’s spirits more thoroughly than a cold rain.

  “So I suppose that knowing what you know, you can’t afford to be seen with me anymore,” she said.

  “Knowing what we know, you can’t afford to be seen at all,” he countered. “Promise me that you’ll leave the city at once. I will learn what Cassia knows, and somehow I will get this information to you.” He smiled faintly. “All you need do is acknowledge that the debt between us is paid in full. Even a jordain knows something of honor.”

  It was a princely offer, far better than Tzigone had right to expect. What Matteo said, he would do. It might take him a while to talk his way around the matter of her escape, but she felt he could come up with a convincing story if pressed to do so. Even so, the thought of leaving the matter in his hands distressed her, and not entirely because of her reluctance to rely upon others. Tzigone enjoyed company; she made friends quickly and parted lightly. This time, the parting was not so easily done.

  But she painted a smile on her face and extended her hand to him. “Deal.”

  To Matteo’s eyes, the girl’s smile was a brave thing, not unlike a small boy dressing up in his father’s armor and weapons. He took her hand in a comrade’s clasp.

  Tzigone muttered an expletive and dropped his hand. She leaned forward and wrapped herself around him in a quick, hard embrace. Then she was gone, scrambling down the tree as nimbly as a squirrel.

  Matteo sighed. In the sudden lull her absence left behind, he noticed the throbbing in his head and the heavy thudding of his heart. He pressed against his temples with both hands to distract the pain and then again at the pressure points at the base of his neck. His fingers brushed through his thick dark hair and stopped short—not because of what they found, but because of what they did not. No silver chain, no emblem of his order.

  His jordain’s pendant was missing again.

  The young man’s lips twitched, then he chuckled. This was not merely a theft but a message—Tzigone’s way of assuring him that they were destined to meet again.

  Though his jordaini masters would certainly disapprove, the thought did not displease Matteo in the slightest.

  It took Matteo the better part of an hour to work his way down the bilboa tree. His first action was to find a member of the city guard and place himself under the man’s jurisdiction. After all, he was being held for Inquisition, and he was currently a fugitive from the king’s high counselor. They took him to the palace and sent a runner for Cassia. The lady jordain herself came to the gatehouse and took custody of the prisoner, assuring the guards that she was well able to deal with Matteo and insisting that they take no further action without her command.

  He walked beside her in silence as they made their way into the palace gardens. Cassia finally came to a stop under an arbor heavy with ripe yellow grapes.

  “This need not come before an inquisitor. Let us be frank with each other. I don’t like you and I don’t wish you well, but I dislike seeing any jordain come under the jurisdiction of those accursed magehounds. Tell me what you know about that girl. Spare yourself the disgrace of Inquisition, and save your order the trouble of dealing with your latest infraction.”

  Matteo spread his hands. “There is little to tell. Not long ago I defended an unknown girl against attack in a tavern. Only later did I learn that she was a thief and a fugitive.”

  “But you knew the identity of her attacker.” />
  “All too well,” he said bitterly. “I saw the wemic kill my best friend that very morning. I will not deny that this influenced my actions.”

  “Imprudent, but understandable,” Cassia allowed. “Yet you continued to see the girl from time to time.”

  “I had little choice,” he said dryly. “Tzigone considered herself in my debt and acted accordingly. She appeared whenever she thought she could do me some service, only to end up increasing her debt.”

  “You never made an effort to alert the authorities?”

  He shrugged. “Our meetings were always at her instigation, and they were both unexpected and brief. I could not alert the authorities of something I could not anticipate.”

  “The girl always walked away from these meetings, unscathed and undeterred. How do you explain that?”

  “How do the guards of a dozen cities explain it? Or Mbatu, the wemic warrior who serves as personal guard to the magehound Kiva? Tzigone is harder to hold than starlight. I am a humble counselor,” Matteo said without a trace of irony. “It would be presumptuous to claim I could do what so many have attempted and failed.”

  “Humble!” The king’s counselor sniffed. “That is probably the first time someone’s listed that quality among your many virtues.”

  “Yet I owe my current position to my many failings,” Matteo said wryly.

  Cassia lifted one hand in the gesture of a fencer acknowledging a hit “I am seldom wrong. Would you like to hear me admit that I misjudged you? Help me in this matter, and I will consider my error to be a fortunate thing.”

  He studied the woman’s pale, serene face for signs of duplicity. “I was imprisoned in the same chamber as Tzigone. At your command?”

  “Of course. The thief claimed that you had let her into the palace.”

  “I did not bolt my shutters,” he said dryly. “Tzigone no doubt took that as an invitation. Let me rephrase my question. Would you be gratified to hear that Tzigone stole my medallion of office?”