The Wizardwar - Elaine Cunningham [81]
Matteo nodded slowly, trying to accept the truth he saw in the wizard's face. The resemblance between them was too striking to ignore. This, then, was the man who had sired him.
"The story is long." Vishna began to walk again, a long warrior's stride that matched Matteo's favored pace. "You know me as a battle wizard, and so I am, but I'm far more powerful than I pretend to be and far older. Many years ago, there were three of us, friends from boyhood, united in our love of Halruaa and our infatuation with magic."
Matteo stopped dead, staring at his mentor-his father-in horror. "You, Zalathorm, and Akhlaur."
"You know the tale?"
"Andris put it together. It was you who gave him the books, wasn't it?"
The wizard was silent for a long moment. "Truth unspoken can fester. This story has been too long untold. Zalathorm and I lived long past our expected years, in part because of the protection given us by the crimson star. I chose to live quietly, taking a number of names and living out several lives. This incarnation, Vishna the jordaini master, is only the latest."
A grim thought occurred to Matteo. Perhaps the resemblance between him and Benn could be explained in the most obvious fashion. "Do you have other children?"
"None living, no."
"What of your children's descendants?" Matteo pressed, The wizard sighed. "There is one. He will bear no children, and I am glad for it. It's better that the bloodline ends with me."
The enormity of this revelation rocked Matteo back on his heels. Vishna had known that his own blood flowed through Benn's veins, and yet he had allowed the peasant to take Matteo's place at the purification rite. Perhaps he had even arranged this travesty!
"Yet you must have married," Matteo said coldly. "A strange choice for a man determined to end his own line."
"A life as long as mine grows lonely," the wizard replied, "but I did not act entirely without responsibility. Twenty-two years ago, I married a wizard whose bloodline suggested she could bear a natural jordain. Do you know that term?"
"A child born with jordaini potential without the intervention of potions."
"Yes. There are risks, which I assume you also know, but this course seemed safe enough. In fact my wife's pregnancy was uneventful. Childbirth is never easy-you know that perhaps one birthing in three results in death to either babe or mother."
"Yes."
"This is especially true when great magic is involved, and one of the reasons why wizard bloodlines are so carefully regulated. My wife's mind shattered under the strain of childbirth."
Vishna fell silent for a long moment. "The parentage of any jordaini child is not known to the order, but I determined that I would know my son."
"So you supported the falsehood that your wife and babe died in childbed and came to the Jordaini College."
"About that time, Basel Indoulur decided to leave. His story is not mine to tell."
"I know it already. His daughter was stillborn, as jordaini females usually are."
Vishna's eyebrows rose. "Basel has confided in you. That simplifies my tale. The short of it is that his position became open. As a jordaini master, I could keep close watch on my son."
The wizard stopped suddenly and reached out to clasp Matteo's shoulders. "Before I continue, you must swear you will do nothing that might bring harm to the elf woman Kiva."
"Most people believe that Kiva died when the floodgate closed," Matteo said, choosing his words carefully. "Have you reason to think otherwise?"
The wizard shook his head impatiently. "Alive or dead matters not. I cannot continue this story unless you swear."
Reluctantly, Matteo did so. He would have to trust the gods and the laws of Halruaa to deal with Kiva as she deserved.
"Kiva was one of the prisoners in Akhlaur's tower. I freed her from a cage.
She was a tiny thing, little more than a child and incredibly ill-used. I did not recognize her when we met years later, but she remembered me."
Matteo began to understand. "You tried to atone for the wrongs done to her by