The Floodgate - Elaine Cunningham [87]
Before he could explain its origin, Tzigone's eyes grew enormous. "That was my mother's," she whispered.
Her grubby fingers closed around the token, and she turned it over and over in her hands. "I can't feel any magic in it," she said absently. "I seem to remember there was. Every time we had to flee, my mother would touch it, and her face would become very still, as if she were listening, Sometimes she let me touch it, but all I could feel was her. Why is that, do you think?"
"Perhaps children become very attuned to their parents," Matteo suggested.
"Magical items sometimes hold something of their possessor's aura. No doubt that is what you perceived."
Tzigone looked down. "I'm holding the talisman now. I can't feel anything."
The silence between them was long and heavy. Finally Tzigone lifted agonized eyes to Matteo's face. He nodded, answering the question she could not ask.
Tzigone squeezed her eyes shut, and her face went very still as she sought some reservoir of strength deep within. Several moments passed before she won command of her emotions.
"How did you come by this?" she said in a small voice.
"Dhamari Exchelsor gave it to me. I meant to give it to you when last we met, but did not have the chance."
"How did he get it?"
"Kiva brought it to Dhamari like a trophy and gloated over Keturah's capture.
They were apprentices together, you see, and Keturah was their master. They were conspirators in the miscast spell that prompted Keturah to banish Kiva from her tower. Clearly Kiva held a grudge against your mother. Possibly she resented Dhamari because he did not receive the same treatment."
"What was he like?" she asked grudgingly.
"A quiet man, modest in his ways and habits. He spoke of your mother with great pleasure and deep sadness."
The girl sniffed, unimpressed.
"You should meet with him."
Her head came up sharply. "So you said before. Dhamari offers to give a wizard's bastard a home, a name, a wizard's lineage, a tower, and a fortune.
Ever wonder why?"
"You are Keturah's daughter. Perhaps that is reason enough."
"That's what worries me. Why would my mother flee from this Dhamari if he is a good man?"
Matteo told her about Keturah's fascination with dark creatures. He told her about the greenmage's fate and the starsnakes that gathered to attack, against their nature. Disbelieving tears spilled unheeded down Tzigone's dirty face as she listened, leaving muddy tracks in the soot. Matteo expected her to reject the notion that her mother could have become so twisted through the practice of dangerous magic, but after a moment she nodded.
"It is… possible."
"So you will see Dhamari?"
"Why should this wizard-or any other, for that matter-trouble himself about me?"
Matteo hesitated, wishing he could tell her of Basel Indoulur's vow to claim paternity if need be. But that would not only violate the wizard's confidence, it would also undo the very thing Basel wished to achieve. Tzigone would never accept such a costly gift.
He brushed a sooty tear from her cheek. "Given the options before you, yes, I think you should see Dhamari and give serious consideration to his offer."
"I'll think about it."
They spoke briefly about the clockwork creatures, and Matteo's destination.
When they rose to leave, she lifted one hand to trace a brief, graceful farewell dance-a wizard's convention as common as rain in summer. Then she spun and slipped away, like the thief she had been.
This small, familiar rite set Matteo back on his heels. For the first time, he understood that the training Tzigone was undertaking was not a whim but a true path. She was wizard born, wizard blood.
Because of who he was-a jordaini bounded about by proverbs and prohibitions-he could not follow where she went.
Chapter Seventeen
Tzigone hurried