The Wizardwar - Elaine Cunningham [103]
Zalathorm looked to the donor. "Lady Queirri Venless," he said, naming the wizard. "To the best of your knowledge, does this girl have reason to know the history of this necklace?"
"No. This I swear, by wizard-word oath," Queirri replied.
Tzigone turned her face toward the wizard, and her eyes took on a distant, unfocused expression. "You were twelve years old, wandering the forest near your home. There were hunters-poachers-setting up traps and lures. Curious, you hid and watched as they ran a baby unicorn into their traps and slaughtered it for spell components. You fled home with the tale. Your mother, outraged, had the poachers hunted down and killed. Their deaths have always weighed heavily upon you, and you still dream of the unicorn. You kept the horn and had it fashioned into this necklace. You wear it as a reminder that sometimes the price of magic is too high."
A long moment of silence filled the hall. "A fanciful tale from a two-copper performer," the nay-saying wizard sneered.
"Nevertheless, it happens to be true," Queirri said quietly. "No single living person knew the whole of this tale but me."
Zalathorm nodded. "I am convinced. Lord Basel's apprentice may speak for him, and her words will be afforded the same weight given to any diviner."
Procopio Septus rose abruptly from his place on the Elder's dais, his hawklike face blazing with indignation. "Respectfully, I must protest. Giving this… apprentice the same regard as a master diviner diminishes us all!"
A subtle murmur of agreement, barely audible, blew through the hall, cooling Tzigone's listeners as surely as an ocean breeze.
"One wizard's magic enriches all of Halruaa," Matteo said, repeating a common proverb. "No man is truly diminished by another's skill."
Procopio ignored this digression. "As lord mayor of Halarahh, I have a responsibility to uphold Halruaan law. By this law, no person who is under sentence of death can bear witness for or against another. It has come to my attention that Tzigone is the illegitimate daughter of the renegade wizard Keturah. By law, she was born under sentence of death."
Tzigone's chin came up. "I'm no bastard. My mother and father were wed."
Procopio snapped his fingers, and a sheaf of parchment appeared in his hand. "Here are papers of divorcement between Keturah and her husband, Dhamari Exchelsor. This girl was begotten by an unknown father well after his divorce."
"My mother married a second time."
"Did she? Whom?"
"A young man she met in the forest. He fell off a griffin, and she tended him."
"Does this hapless rider have a name?"
Her gaze faltered for just a moment. "I don't know his name."
The wizard's white brows rose. "An honest answer," he said with exaggerated surprised. "The fact is that there is no record of another marriage. A wizard's bastard, a magic-wielder of uncertain parentage-and especially one who 'discovers' unusual and unpredictable gifts-is a threat to Halruaa. By law, this threat should have been eliminated over twenty years ago!"
Basel Indoulur rose abruptly. "Keturah and I were friends from childhood, and remained friends after she was falsely accused and fled the city."
"Falsely accused?" Procopio broke in. "Not submitting to magical testing is as good as an admission of guilt!"
"Who was the Inquisitor of Halarahh at that time?" Matteo asked calmly.
"Who would have examined Keturah?"
The lord mayor sent him a venomous glare. "How should I know? That was five and twenty years past"
"Six and twenty," Matteo corrected, "and the magehound in the city at that time was Kiva, an elf woman since convicted of treason. I can present documents from the Jordaini Council exonerating several jordaini whom Kiva had falsely condemned over the years."
"You're arguing that Keturah would have had reason to fear similar treatment? On what basis?"
"Kiva was an apprentice in Keturah's tower," the jordain said calmly.
"Keturah dismissed her for reckless magic. Even if she knew or suspected nothing of Kiva's larger designs at that time, she had reason to