The Wizardwar - Elaine Cunningham [15]
Tzigone shoved her fist against her mouth and tried to replace horror with gratitude. After all, the misty griffin had given her a brief respite from the dark fairies and their relentless torment-torment that was mostly illusion but no less painful for that.
Somehow the Unseelie folk managed to get into her mind and heart. They tormented her with all the things they found in the dark corners and all the things her busy imagination could conjure. The monstrous griffin proved that sword could cut two ways.
Her nimble mind danced ahead to thoughts of escape. There had to be a way out of this gray world. She and Matteo had fought the dark fairies before, and it was apparent that Matteo knew little about their foe. That was a bad sign.
In Tzigone's opinion, Matteo knew more than the gods had forgotten. If he couldn't deal with the Unseelie folk, what chance had she?
On the other hand, Dhamari Exchelsor had known how to open the veil between the Worlds. Obviously there was a spell, and Matteo would find it.
"Dhamari," she murmured, suddenly remembering that he shared her exile. She rose painfully to her feet, gingerly testing her chilled limbs. After a few tentative steps, she set out to find the treacherous wizard.
She walked for a long time through the swirling mists. Finally, disgusted and weary, she kicked at a giant toadstool and watched the spores rise in an indignant cloud. At this rate, she'd never find Dhamari. If she could conjure illusionary creatures, why not a pack of hunting hounds?
That notion didn't appeal. During her street days, Tzigone had been chased by canine guardians too often to hold much affection for them. Besides, summoned creatures could be dangerous and unpredictable, even in the world she knew. She remembered the owlbear that had savaged her fellow travelersand she fiercely banished this line of thought. Such memories could be deadly here. Instead she conjured an image of Dhamari's panicked face as she dragged him with her beyond the veil.
A faint, inchoate whimper nudged her from her reverie. She opened her eyes just in time to keep from tripping over the wizard.
Dhamari Exchelsor lay curled up like a newborn mouse. His sparse hair was soaked with perspiration, and his wide, glazed, staring eyes spoke of unending nightmares. The wizard was trapped in his own mind, tortured by his own misdeeds. Tzigone couldn't think of more fitting justice.
Justice or not, in this state Dhamari was of no use whatsoever.
With a sigh, Tzigone sank down beside the comatose wizard and placed one hand on his shoulder. He was nearly as cold as the mist. She chaffed his hands and noted the chain threaded through his fingers. Curious, she tugged at the chain. A small medallion slipped out of his clenched fist, a simple, familiarlooking ornament fashioned from mist-dull metal.
Frowning, she felt around in her boot, where she'd last put her mother's medallion. It wasn't there. Somehow, Dhamari had taken it from her.
She yanked the precious trinket out of the wizard's hand. Dhamari's body jerked convulsively, and his mouth stretched into a rictus of anguish.
"This protected my mother against you and your agents," she murmured, understanding what ailed the wizard. "When you've got it, it protects you from yourself, which is probably the only reason you've survived this long."
On the other hand, the medallion also offered Tzigone a key to the past and the answers that might be hidden there. Surely anything she learned through her emerging powers would be more honest than anything Dhamari might tell her.
Just a little while, she decided. She closed her hand around her mother's talisman. Using the memory exercises Matteo had taught her, she sank deep into the past.
The city of Halarahh lay sleeping beneath a coverlet of mist, oblivious to the young woman who ran the walkways atop the city's thick, stone walls. Swift she was, with slim, tawny limbs and an effortless gait that brought to mind a young doe. The watchwizards who kept the predawn guard nodded a respectful