Tzigone lifted one hand to her head and ruffled her shorn locks. "Would you cut your hair like this?"
The wizard paled. She stopped walking and squeezed her eyes shut. But after a moment she focused a resolute gaze upon her chosen mentor. "Yes," she said stoutly.
Tzigone grinned and patted Sinestra's arm. "Forget it. A thief needs to use every advantage she has. You'd be the center of attention in the midst of a wizardwar, just by showing up. We'll figure out a way to make that pay."
The older woman grimaced. "I thought I had. I hope you can come up with something more interesting."
In response, Tzigone handed her a small book. "As I recall, you enjoy gossip. These things always contain a few priceless nuggets."
Sinestra's eyes bulged when she recognized her own grimoire, a spellbook that contained a wizard's most personal spells and secrets. After a moment, she burst out laughing. "Oh, this is going to be great fun!"
"That's what I keep telling a friend of mine," Tzigone observed with a grin. "You're much easier to convince than he is."
Sinestra's brows lifted. "So there's a 'he, is there?"
"Lots of them," Tzigone said, dismissing Matteo with a sweeping wave.
"Smart girl. If I'd thought that way, I wouldn't be having these problems." The wizard linked her arm through Tzigone's.
The gesture was friendly, casual, but a spark of magic jolted through Tzigone. That puzzled her. Few spells could touch the wall around her. Conversely, she could sense nearly any spell, except that which her mother had cast long ago to block away her daughter's dangerous early memories-
Mother.
Tzigone stopped dead. Her mother's touch-that's what Sinestra's magic felt like!
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and the quiet street swirled around her like a kaleidoscope gone mad. After all these years of searching for her mother, could success come from a chance meeting?
Part of her wanted to believe it. She had liked Sinestra at once, had felt an immediate kinship between them. However, the woman was far too young-probably still south of her thirtieth summer.
She realized that Sinestra had also stopped and was looking at her strangely. "Are you ill, Margot?"
Tzigone seized on the word. "Margot! Is that my real name?"
The wizard's puzzlement deepened. "It's the name you used when we met. You also claimed to be an illusionist, though, so how should I know?"
Disappointment surged, then quickly receded. Tzigone had survived by being cautious; if this woman had once been Keturah, she would be equally wary. Their reunion, if such this was, would of necessity proceed one small step at a time.
She slanted a look at the beautiful wizard and saw nothing that reminded her of her own face. "I wonder what I'd look like with your hair."
A horrified expression crossed Sinestra's face, and she clamped both hands to her raven-hued curls. "Forget it! You already said I could I keep it!"
Tzigone chuckled. "I wasn't thinking of clipping it for a wig. I was just admiring it. Maybe I'll go to an illusionist and have him drop a spell over me."
A flicker of emotion flashed in Sinestra's dark eyes, quickly replaced by her usual expression of slightly amused boredom. She patted her gleaming tresses. "This is all mine. It reaches my knees when I take it down."
A distant memory assailed Tzigone, an image of her mother at play, running after elusive globes of light. Her unbound hair flowed behind her like a silken shadow.
"Yes," Tzigone said in a slightly strangled voice. "I imagine it does."
For several days, Matteo tried to honor the king's request and serve his patron as best he could. Beatrix did not require his counsel. She turned aside his requests for audience.
Yet a steady stream of artisans and craftsmen and wizards flowed through the queen's laboratory. Matteo's frustration grew with every passing hour.
One morning he could take no more. He left the palace before dawn by way of the kitchen gates, weaving his way through the merchants who kept the palace tables supplied. He dodged a small flock of geese and nodded a courtly but absent response to the goose girl's greeting.
A glance at the rising sun prompted him to increase his pace. Procopio Septus usually left his villa early. The wizard would not welcome Matteo's inquiries in his home or at the city palace, but perhaps he would speak more freely in the moments between.
During his service with Procopio, Matteo had often walked this route. He caught sight of the wizard a few streets away from the city's pink marble palace.
"Lord Procopio!"
The wizard glanced up. His smile was slow and studied, his black eyes unreadable. "So the hero of Akhlaur has returned at last! A rogue magehound unveiled, a laraken vanquished, a nation of wizard-lords saved. Gods above, Matteo! You left my employ three moons past, and this is how you account for your time? I thought I'd trained you to do better."
Matteo chuckled. "Had I stayed in your service longer, I might have woven a tighter tapestry. The edges of this tale are sadly frayed."
The wizard lifted one snowy brow. "Flattery, subtlety. A neat segue from jest to compliment to the matter at hand. You are learning quickly, young jordain. What are these loose threads you think I might help you bind?"
"You know that Kiva, the elf inquisatrix, was taken to the Temple of Azuth." Matteo chose his words carefully to avoid betraying his oaths of secrecy. "I assume you know the issues involved."
Procopio's jaw tightened, and he took a moment before responding. "As the sages have long known, the secret of the swamp's expansion was a leak from a gate into the Plane of Water. The presence of the laraken made it difficult to deal with this leak. Any magic used against the monster simply made it stronger. Conversely, were the gate closed, the laraken would be forced to seek magical sustenance elsewhere. Eventually the creature would have been destroyed, but the blow dealt to Halruaa's wizards would be considerable. The Council of Elders believes that this was Kiva's intent. Now the laraken has been dealt with and the gate closed, thanks to you and your friends."
"Not closed," Matteo stated. "Moved."
Shock flared in the wizard's eyes, quickly extinguished by a wave of doubt. "That is an extraordinary claim. I assume you can defend it?"
With a few terse words, Matteo described the final moments of battle in Akhlaur's Swamp. The laraken disappeared into a shallow spring. Kiva tossed an enormous square of black silk over the water.
"Both spring and silk disappeared," Matteo concluded. "Closing a magical gate requires great strength-more, I would think, than Kiva possessed at that moment. A powerful artifact might have done the job, but very few magical items could have survived the laraken's hunger."
"A portable hole would," Procopio said grimly. "Since the magic is focused upon the escape site rather than the silken portal, the laraken would find less nourishment in Kiva's silken scarf than it might in a lady's gown. I agree with your assessment: The gate was moved. Why is this not known among the council?"
"As to that, I cannot say," Matteo answered carefully. "I gave full report of these details to the Jordaini College and to the priests of Azuth. There is related matter, a very delicate one." When the wizard nodded in encouragement, Matteo added, "The jordain Zephyr was Kiva's ally."
Procopio's face went cold and still.
"I know that Zephyr died a traitor, and understand that speaking his name and deeds is an egregious error of protocol," Matteo hastened to add.