over the bottles of wine immersed in what Matteo assumed was a magically cooled pool. Silver goblets stood ready on the table nearby, and sugared fruits were arranged under a glass dome. Books lay on tables placed between the chairs, and candles to aid reading. Bell pulls hung at intervals on every wall, suggesting that servants would come promptly to tend a guest's needs. In all, an extremely comfortable and welcoming room.
Matteo had just barely taken a seat when his host appeared. He rose at once and gave the wizard the proscribed courtesies. Though jordaini were not required by law to lower their eyes while bowing to a wizard, Matteo did so to cover his surprise. He could not imagine how the woman who'd given birth to Tzigone would find herself wed to such a man!
Dhamari Exchelsor was mild looking, soft-bodied, and pale of complexion. His balding head came level with Matteo's shoulder, and his eyes had the myopic squint of a man who spends little time out of doors. His dark brown beard was neatly trimmed, his clothes simple and well made. Like his reception chamber, the wizard lacked ostentation or pretense. He looked like a man comfortable with the circumstances of his life and too content to strive for much of anything more. The word that came most strongly to mind when Matteo sought to describe him was 'inoffensive.'
'Please! You do me too much honor,' Dhamari protested mildly. 'I hope you will allow me to return the courtesy. If there is any way that I might serve you, speak freely.'
Matteo lifted his eyes to his host's curious gaze. 'You are most gracious, but you may regret your offer when you hear the story that brought me here.'
'We will judge the tale once the telling is done. Will you have wine?' Dhamari gestured toward the cooling pool. 'It is an Exchelsor pink, a fine companion to long and thirsty tales.'
The jordain politely declined and took the chair Dhamari offered him. He told him a brief version of the story of Akhlaur's Swamp, describing the injury that sent Kiva into a long and sleeplike trance but omitting the fact of her escape.
'So you see,' he concluded, 'it is vital that we learn what became of this gate-if not from Kiva, then perhaps from those who had dealings with her.'
Dhamari leaned back in his chair. 'You have come well prepared. I had almost forgotten the time I spent with Kiva in this very tower.'
This was news indeed! 'How long ago?'
'I should say a good six and twenty years,' the wizard reminisced. 'We were both apprentices under the same mistress, a very talented wizard of the evocation school. It seems impossible that it could be so long ago!'
Matteo had intended to mention Kiva and work his way back to the elf's capture of Keturah. This was an unexpected shortcut! 'Might this wizard, your former mistress, have knowledge of Kiva's life beyond this time of apprenticeship?'
'Would she? Oh yes, to her sorrow and mine!' The wizard took a long breath and sent Matteo an apologetic smile. 'Forgive me. I speak so seldom of my lady Keturah. It is a great joy to do so and a great sorrow. Perhaps you know the name?'
'I heard it spoken in the Swamp of Akhlaur.'
'I can see why.' Dhamari leaned forward eagerly. 'This girl, this untrained commoner whose voice held the laraken-tell me about her.'
Matteo spread his hands in a negligent gesture. 'There is little I can say. She is a street performer, a girl with a merry heart and a clever mind. She can imitate any voice she hears. Untrained in Art she certainly is, but she picked up a stray spell here and there. She possesses a strong wild talent, such as is seldom seen in these civilized times, but she is training now.'
'Yes, with Basel Indoulur. I have heard,' Dhamari said. 'I was one of many wizards who offered to teach her, but both the council and the girl herself inclined toward Basel. He has had much experience as a teacher, you know.'
Matteo didn't know, but he nodded politely. 'Lord Basel is fond of apprentices,' Dhamari went on. 'He trains three at a time. He has done so ever since he left the Jordaini College.'
This information hit Matteo like a barbarian's warhammer. 'He was a master at the college?'
'Oh, yes. Before your time, I should think. Not much before, though. Eighteen, perhaps twenty years.'
That was before his training, but certainly not before his time! Matteo remembered Tzigone's claim that one of his Jordaini masters was also his father. He had looked to the masters still at the school, never considering other possibilities. Apparently, Tzigone had.
It would be like her, Matteo mused. Tzigone had a strong if unconventional sense of honor. When he agreed to help Tzigone find her family, perhaps she decided to repay him in kind. She had found his mother for him. Perhaps she had taken an apprenticeship with Basel Indoulur to learn about his father.
Matteo realized that his host was regarding him with concern. He managed a smile that apparently looked as unconvincing as it felt. Dhamari poured a glass of wine and handed it to him, gesturing for him to drink. Matteo took an obliging sip and felt his composure begin to return.
'The day is unseasonably hot, and one must drink frequently to keep from growing lightheaded,' the wizard said.
It was a gracious and convenient observation. Matteo nodded his thanks. 'You mentioned a tale that concerns Keturah. I have not heard it.'
After a long moment, Dhamari Exchelsor nodded. 'I am not sure this tale will help you, but you can make of it whatever you will.
'Keturah, who was once my mistress in the art of evocation, became my wife,' he began slowly. 'We lived together but a short time, in this place, the very tower in which I trained. At first we were well content, but Keturah was ambitious, and she grew ever more daring in testing the limits of her power. She could bring the most powerful creatures to her side as easily as a shepherd might whistle up his dog. As time passed, she turned to creatures from dark places, monsters far beyond her strength. They strained her magic. They stained her soul,' he concluded in a barely audible voice.
After a moment he cleared his throat and continued. 'I sensed that not all was well with Keturah. She was often away, sometimes for days at a time. Even when she stayed at the tower, oftentimes she slept half the day away with terrible headaches, which came on swiftly and without warning. She became tempestuous, sharp- tongued, quick to anger. I turned a blind eye to her moods. Had I acted sooner,' he said with deep and painful regret, 'this tale might be very different. The last day I saw Keturah was the day a greenmage died, attacked in her tower by three starsnakes.'
'That is impossible!' Matteo protested. 'Such creatures avoid wizards and shun each other.'
'Under normal circumstances, yes. It appears that these creatures were summoned.'
The implication was disturbing but unmistakable. A greenmage was a midwife skilled in the herbal and healing arts, usually with a bit of the diviner's gift and always trained by the Azuthan inquisitors. Not quite a wizard, not quite a cleric, not quite a magehound, not quite a witch, but definitely more than a physician, a greenmage saw to the health of Halruaa's wizards. Since a wizard's magic and health were so entwined, such complex training was necessary.
'You said Keturah was feeling unwell. She visited this greenmage for treatment?'
'Yes. By the word of the greenmage's servants, Keturah was the last to see the woman alive.' Dhamari heaved a ragged sigh. 'Perhaps she summoned the starsnakes. Perhaps not. I will never know, for on that day she was lost to me.'
Murder through magic was a grave crime, one that would certainly warrant Keturah's death. That alone would explain her flight. Nevertheless, Matteo suspected that there was more and said so.
'Yes,' the wizard agreed sadly. 'There always seems to be, doesn't there?'
The jordain nodded, returning his host's faint, rueful smile.
'Keturah eluded pursuit for several years. In Halruaa, that is an astonishing feat! Many sought her, and from time to time some word of her came to me.' The wizard glanced at Matteo. 'She bore a child. No one can name the father. You understand the seriousness of this.'
'Yes.'
In Halruaa the children of wizardly lineage were not born to random couplings, as in the uncivilized lands to the north. Wizards were paired through divination and carefully kept records, matched to ensure that the lines would remain strong. Dangerous magical gifts, instability of mind or weakness of body-to the wizardborn, such
