The Wizardwar (23 page)

Keturah’s reluctant mount banked sharply and began to climb, its rider and her magic completely forgotten. The wizard began to sing another spell, but the creature’s vengeful shrieks and the keening of the wind blocked her efforts as effectively as an archmage’s counterspell.

The wyvern’s long, barbed tail whipped toward the griffin like dark lightning. The griffin shied back, rearing in midair. Its massive, white-feathered wings backbeat furiously, and its taloned forefeet and leonine paws thrashed at the air as it struggled to avoid the attack.

A bolt of energy flashed from the griffin’s direction, sizzling into the wyvern’s side. With a shriek of pain, the wyvern veered away. Keturah noticed for the first time that the griffin carried a rider-a slight young man, deeply browned by a life spent between sea and sun. As their gazes locked, the startled expression on his face told Keturah that he had been equally unaware of her.

It was a moment’s contact, quickly broken by the erratic flight of the wounded wyvern. Now utterly beyond Keturah’s control, it circled back for another attack. The wyvern dropped into a hurtling dive, coming just below the enormous winged lion. As it passed under the griffin, the wyvern threw itself into a rolling spin, swinging its poison-tipped tail like an enormous flail.

Suddenly Keturah was falling though the air. Another burst of magic darted from the griffin, catching her and slowing her flight to a slow, gentle drift.

Gratitude surged through her, and amazement. The young griffin rider had saved her, and at considerable risk to himself. Wyverns viewed griffins as natural enemies, and Keturah’s erstwhile mount seemed intent upon tearing this one from the skies. The rider, if he wished to survive, would do well to save his spells for his own benefit!

As she floated down, Keturah craned her head back to watch the battle. Again and again the wyvern struck, snapping and stinging at the great lion-bird. As she had feared, many of the attacks got through. Maintaining the feather-float spell was obviously limiting the young wizard’s defensive power.

The forest canopy rose to meet Keturah. She drifted through the small upper branches, then seized a handhold and began to climb down.

Meanwhile, the storm of feathers and scales raged overhead, growing ever closer and more frantic. The shriek of the griffin mingled with wyvern roars. Trees rustled and branches cracked as the gigantic creatures plummeted toward the ground, locked together in final combat.

Keturah flattened herself against the tree trunk as the enjoined creatures tumbled past her. Their descent was a long, sickening series of lurching drops and crashes, followed by a more horrible silence.

She half climbed, half slid down the tree. The great creatures lay at the base of the tree, locked together in an embrace so fierce that Keturah envisioned them taking the battle to whatever afterlife awaited them.

Keturah quickly forgot such thoughts when she saw the griffin rider. He was still strapped into the saddle. Blood poured from a cut on his scalp. One leg was bent at an improbable angle.

She quickly loosed the straps and ran her hands lightly over his neck and down his spine, then gently probed his skull. Nothing other than his leg seemed broken, praise Mystra, so she carefully dragged him away from the giant beasts.

All that night, she alternated between tending the wounded man and gathering enough wood to keep a circle of fires burning. The fire was a risk-Dhamari’s latest hound was not far off her trail-but a small thing compared to the risks this young man had taken on her behalf.

Keturah did not have to summon strange and dangerous creatures that night to ward off her trackers. Creatures came of their own volition, answering the lure of fresh meat in great supply. In a summoning as complex as any that gathered humankind together, the scavengers roared and howled the invitation to dine. Then-again, far too like the Halruaans for Keturah’s comfort-they fell to snapping over the scraps.

In all, the night was long and grim, and not a moment passed that Keturah expected might be her rescuer’s last. The voices of the scavengers seemed to call his name, as well.

To her astonishment, the young man’s eyes opened shortly before dawn. For several moments they followed her movements as she dipped a cloth in her tiny kettle and placed it on his forehead.

“I’m alive,” he observed grimly. It seemed to Keturah that he was neither surprised nor pleased by this realization.

“You’re lucky. I’ve seen fewer wounds on a defeated army.”

He hauled himself painfully into a sitting position and regarded her thoughtfully. “Do you have experience with the military, or is that a figure of speech?”

Her lips twitched. “If you’re asking if I’m a camp follower, the answer is no. I must say, though, that I find it admirably optimistic for a man in your condition to ask.”

She expected the youth to be mortified. Instead, he responded with a surprisingly deep chuckle.

“It’s been many years since anyone accused me of optimism!”

It was on the tip of Keturah’s tongue to mock his choice of words-after all, her rescuer-turned-patient looked to be even younger than she-but something about him stayed her teasing comment. She studied him for a long moment. “You are wearing a magical disguise,” she decided.

Astonishment flooded his face. “It should be undetectable,” he said ruefully. “Gods above, the spells involved are complicated enough!”

“That explains a few things,” Keturah mused. “Some of the spells you tossed at the wyvern were far beyond most wizards of your apparent years. Maintaining such a disguise can be distracting even without the feather-fall spell, for which I thank you. I suppose that’s how you were overcome during battle.”

“You’re too kind,” he said dryly. “Actually, to the best of my recollection, I think I was knocked senseless by a passing seabird. The stupid thing couldn’t maneuver around the battle.”

Keturah burst out laughing. “A man whose magic defies wizardly scrutiny, who rides griffins and casts spells like the king himself, downed by a clumsy pelican!”

After a moment the man’s lips twitched. “I suppose the situation has a certain ironic appeal.” His smile faded quickly, and he regarded her for a long moment. “Well?”

“That’s a deep subject.” She shrugged at his blank stare. “Sorry. That was one of my father’s favorite jests. No wonder he never made much of a living as a bard.”

“You’re not going to ask me my true identity?”

Keturah shrugged again. “If you wanted it known, you wouldn’t have conjured a disguise. If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon dispense with introductions all around.”

“Your secrets are your own,” he agreed. “As far as I’m concerned, we were both born this morning. We have no life but that which lies before us.” This prospect seemed to please him. His smile, boyish and frank, loosened some of the bonds around Keturah’s heart.

“I like the sound of that.”

“As do I.” He glanced down at his splinted leg and sighed. “It appears that we値l be in this forest for quite some time. What shall I call you?”

“Something exotic, I think. Hmmm. Vashti?”

He snorted. “Only if you want me to envision you wearing purple veils and dancing with finger cymbals.”

“No then. Simanatra? Chelis? Lissa?” With each suggestion his expression of mock horror grew. Keturah threw up her hands in feigned disgust “Since you’re so picky, why don’t you name me?”

He considered her for a long moment with eyes that seemed to scan her soul. Finally he took her hand and lifted it to his lips.

“You’re Beatrix,” he said softly.

The mists of memory swirled, and Tzigone’s vision picked up many days later. Keturah and the young wizard stood at the mouth of a cave carved into the heart of a living bilboa tree. Their eyes were fixed upon each other’s faces as if they sought to memorize what they saw, and their hands were clasped in the manner of lovers loathe to part

“Before you go, there are things you must know,” Keturah said.

Her lover shook his head. “I know your heart. Your laughter is the music dearest and most familiar to me. What else is there to learn?”

“We have been wed for two days, but we have yet to speak of bloodlines.”

In some far corner of Tzigone’s mind, joy flickered and burned bright. So this man was her father and her mother’s true husband! She should have known her mother would not be so careless as to condemn her child to the fate of a wizard’s bastard.

The young man nodded. “Very well, then. I am a diviner, hut I also possess a power not officially recognized by the Council, a power of mind rather than ritual.”

“Psionics,” Keturah said, her face troubled. “I have read of it. I studied the art of evocation, but my magic also has a feral streak. My father, who was a bard, once told me there were sorcerers in my mother’s line.”

Her husband lifted his brows, but he did not seem displeased. “Any child of ours will be a wild thing indeed!”

Keturah’s smile faltered. “I was wed before, to a man who was never a true husband.”

“So you told me. If there was no true marriage, you are not legally bound to him.”

“I know that,” she broke in. “There is more. He secretly gave me potions to ensure a jordaini child, potions altered with dangerous herbs. This is the legacy I might pass to your children.”

The wizard lifted her hands to his lips. “Life is shaped by many things, sweet Beatrix. Choice is far more important than heritage. We will teach our children to choose wisely.”

Keturah sent an arch gaze around their hidden camp. “And we are such experts on this matter?”

“Of course. Did we not choose each other?”

As the lovers moved into a farewell kiss, Tzigone eased her awareness away. She could not intrude upon this shared sweetness, even if they were her parents. Especially since they were her parents!

The vision left her filled with soft joy and an illuminating glimpse into how her strange magic came to be.

Tzigone drifted slowly back, moving through the faded years. When she came fully to herself, she was so exhausted that her eyelids felt too heavy to lift. The intense vision had taken more strength than she had to spare. Tzigone did not regret it. With a happy sigh, she pried opened her eyes.

A circle of dark faces surrounded her. Several Unseelie folk regarded her solemnly, like ravens preparing to feed upon the magical repast she had unwittingly provided. Horror flooded her as she realized that the dark fairies knew all that she had learned.

Tzigone seized a still-smoldering stick from her dying campfire and leaped to her feet. She spun in a circle, driving back the ethereal-looking fiends.

The fairies fell back, nimbly avoiding her attack. Before she could turn full circle, however, they darted back, leaping onto her and bearing her down to the ground.

There was no time to cast an illusion to fight them and no strength left for such magic. Tzigone went down under the vicious onslaught, feeling the burn and sting of dozens of small, spiteful wounds.

Now the true attack came. A long-hidden memory stirred, emerging from that dark place where Tzigone hid a girlhood spent in the streets and shadows. She smelled the fetid breath of drunken men and felt several pairs of rough hands. She heard the rip of her own small garments.

This had happened before-the attack, the helplessness, the terror. Gods above, she remembered it all.

Then came memory of a quick, acrid stench, like the scent of lightning come too close. Tzigone remembered struggling free of her attackers and running for the safety of the trees. It had never occurred to her to look back. Now she knew what she would have seen.

Two of the dark fairies were dead. Several more twitched in short, jerky spasms. Their glowing black eyes were clouded and glazed by the surge of magic that had burst from childhood memory. The surviving fairies darted away from this unexpected attack, moving too quickly for mortal eyes to follow.

The author of this devastation was almost as surprised as the dark fairies. Without design, without thought, Tzigone had summoned killing magicas she had done once before as a child.

She recalled her mother’s long-ago words and the stories she had heard since of common men and women who suddenly unleashed uncommon power. Magic came naturally, and sometimes unexpectedly, to those born of a sorcerer’s bloodline.

Tzigone stumbled back from the grim scene and sank to the ground. The exhausted sorceress-for such she truly was-sank into dreamless oblivion.

Matteo entered the Jordaini College by the north gate and rode directly to the training fields. Though the sun was little more than a crimson rim above the western mountains, Vishna was still at work with his jordaini charges. Several pairs of small boys trained with short wooden staffs, learning the routines of attack and parry that prepared them for the traditional matched daggers.

The old wizard glanced up, scowling at this infraction of rule. Horsemanship was learned in the arena and on the surrounding trails. The training fields were to be kept level and free from debris.

When Vishna noted the rider’s identity, his ire changed to consternation. He swiftly mastered both emotions and clapped his hands sharply. The sparring jordaini boys lowered their weapons and came to attention.

“That is enough for today,” he said with a smile. “Go to the evening meal before the cooks come at us with cleavers, angry that we’ve scorned their handiwork.”

The jovial tone was familiar to Matteo, as was the slight twinkle in the old battle-wizard’s eyes. It seemed to him, though, that Vishna’s cheer was decidedly forced.

When the boys had left, Vishna strode over to Matteo’s horse. “Perhaps you and I could walk together, before it grows too dark for this old man’s eyes.”

Matteo swung down and gave his mount a light slap on the rump. The horse trotted gladly off for the stables, and the jordain fell into step with his former master.

Neither spoke until they entered the deeply shaded riding paths. Faint moonlight filtered through the trees, and lightning beetles greeted the night and each other with flirtatious winks of light