The Magehound

Kiva paused again before Andris. Her strange, beautiful face furrowed in puzzlement. After a long moment, she stretched out her hand. The captain of her guard hastened forward and placed in her palm a golden rod set with green stones and capped by a large green crystal.

The magehound reached up and touched the rod to Andris's forehead. Immediately the crystal began to vibrate, singing out a high, ghostly note. Kiva nodded, as if she had expected this. She took a step back and turned to the masters of the school, a distinguished ensemble of jordaini, scholars, warriors, and wizards. As was the custom, they'd come out to greet their important visitor. They were a diverse lot, ranging from deceptively frail Vishna to the burly, hook-nosed woman who in her youth had commanded the navy in the nearby port city of Khaerbaal. At the moment, however, all the masters regarded the magehound with identical disbelieving stares.

"Ordinarily I would call for Inquisition upon this jordain, but no further tests are required. The answer is abundantly clear."

"This cannot be! Andris is a fine student," protested Vishna. The old wizard stepped out of ranks, fairly quivering with distress. "He has been tested at the prescribed intervals, as are all the jordaini in this house. Never has he shown signs of latent magical talent."

"If he is so fine a student as that," Kiva returned coolly, "perhaps you did not look for these dangerous signs as closely as you might otherwise have done."

The accusation was potent and inarguable, but Vishna was not yet quelled. "If Andris is to be accused, he has the right of Inquisition. Let it be done."

"It is the law," agreed Dimidis in his thin, querulous voice. The aged jordain spoke seldom, but when he did his words held the weight of verdict-small wonder, considering that Dimidis served as judge of the Disputation Table, the court that settled differences between jordaini and meted out occasional punishment for rule infractions.

"That is quite enough, both of you," decreed Ferris Grail, the wizard who served as headmaster of the school. "The magehound has passed judgment upon a false jordain. That is her duty, and that is also law." The headmaster spoke quietly, but his deep voice tolled out over the stricken jordaini like a death knell, as indeed it was.

Vishna bowed his head in defeat and fell back into line.

Now that the opposition was silenced, Kiva turned back to Andris. A strange light burned in her golden eyes. "I accuse you, Andris, of possessing magic power and hiding this knowledge from your masters."

Her gaze swept the line of young men, taking note of the disbelief and horror dawning on their faces. "I see that I do not need to tell you the penalty for this offense."

Chapter Three

The streets of Khaerbaal were quiet, for the sun burned high overhead and every Halruaan who could sought the comfort of darkened rooms and, if they were fortunate, magically cooled breezes.

Tzigone was unaccustomed to such comforts, so she didn't miss them. If anything, she enjoyed the hour or two of relative solitude. A few street people huddled in the shade offered by alleys and arbors, and visitors from other lands mopped at their streaming faces as realized their error and sought a cool tavern. Few spared a glance at the small, thin figure clad in a loose brown tunic and leggings that ended several inches above her bare feet. With her tousled, short brown hair and slightly smudged face, she looked more like a street urchin than a young woman. If an observer cared to look more closely, he might notice that beauty was hers if she wished to claim it. Her face angled sharply from high cheekbones to a small pointed chin, and her eyes were big and brown, lively with intelligence and unusually expressive.

At the moment, those eyes were deeply shadowed, for she'd lost another night's sleep to that thrice-bedamned wemic.

Tzigone shifted the sack off her shoulder and looked around for a likely recipient for its contents. She didn't keep anything for long. Possessions, things, had a way of betraying those who held them too close. The last thing she'd treasured had been a silver brush, and keeping it had gotten her captured and nearly killed.

Her gaze fell on an old woman huddled in the shade of an almond tree, wearing thick cast-off garments that might have been comfortable during the coolest winter days. Tzigone pulled a long, red silk kirtle from the bag.

"A fine day to you, grandmother," she said cheerfully, using the friendly greeting common to peasant folk. "Lady's Day has come and gone."

"Mystra be praised," muttered the crone, not bothering to look up. "Crowded, it were. And noisy, too."