"Mystra be praised," muttered the crone, not bothering to look up. "Crowded, it were. And noisy, too."
Tzigone dropped the simple gown into the woman's lap. The fine fabric glided down as softly as a shadow. "Have you any use for this, grandmother? I can't wear it now that Lady Day has passed. There are too many travelers in this town with odd notions about a lone woman in a red dress." When the crone shot her a quizzical look, Tzigone placed her hands on her hips and took a couple of steps in a dead-on imitation of a doxie's strut.
"Them were the days," the old woman said with dry, unexpected humor. She fingered the silk with knotted hands. "This won't be bringing 'em back, but ain't it fine as frog's hair! I'll take it off'n your hands, girlie. And," she added shrewdly, "I'll not tell any who might ask where it come from."
Tzigone nodded and started to move off, but the woman seized the hem of her tunic, her face suddenly animated. "What of the stars, girl? Did the stars of Mystra what lighted up this gown foretell good fortune or ill? Mind you, I'll not be wearing an evil omen."
Tzigone painted a reassuring smile on her face. "Don't worry, grandmother. My fortune was the same as always."
This seemed to content the crone, for she hauled herself to her feet and hurried off, clutching her treasure.
For once Tzigone had spoken no more than the unadorned truth. Magic slid off her like water off a swan.
The tiny magical lights that rained from the sky at the close of the Lady's Day festival had refused to touch her. She closed her eyes and sighed as she remembered how people had fallen back from her, their own red clothes glittering with Mystra's stars and their faces holding the somber, shuttered expression usually reserved for funerals. And why not? No stars, no future. "You're dead," their eyes had said. "You just don't know it yet."
"Don't rush me," Tzigone muttered.
What bothered her more than the crowd's reaction was her own small lapse. She'd quietly borrowed a red gown from a local garment shop so that she could move unnoticed through the crowd, forgetting what would happen at the festival's end, not thinking how her starless gown might draw the attention of the wemic who of late had been stalking her.
And that was the problem. She had survived this long because she forgot nothing. That was the law that ruled her days. Never did a slight go unavenged. No kindness, no matter how casual or even unintentional, went unrewarded. But for her, sleep had always been the true time of remembrance. Sometimes, when she was deep in dreams, she could almost remember her real name and her mother's face.
Sleep beckoned her, and she found her way through the narrow back streets to one of her favorite hidden spots. She sank into slumber as soon as she settled down.
Despite her exhaustion, she fell at once into dreaming. The dream was a familiar one, poignant with the sights and sensations of childhood. It was twilight, and the breeze had the rich, silken feel that came when night lured the winds inland from Lake Halruaa, making the humid summer air flow and swirl like a mage queen's skirts. The breeze was especially pleasant on the rooftops overlooking the port city of Khaerbaal. On the tiled roof of a portside inn, the girl and her mother chased floating balls of light that dipped and danced against the purple sky.
Many Halruaan children her age could conjure lights, but hers were special: gem-colored and almost sentient, they eluded pursuit like canny fireflies.
"That one!" she shrieked happily, pointing toward a brilliant orange globe-a miniature harvest moon.
Obligingly her mother hiked up her skirts and ran after it. The child laughed and clapped her hands as the globe cleverly evaded capture, but her eyes lingered longer on the woman than on the dancing light.
Mother was her world. To the child's eyes, the small, dark woman was the greatest beauty and the wisest wizard in all of Halruaa. Her mother's laughter was music and fairy song, and as she ran, her long brown hair streamed behind her like a silken shadow.
No other children had ever joined their game, but the girl did not really miss them. In the city below, children were being led through chanted prayers to Mystra and then tucked beneath insect netting for a night's sleep. Seldom did the wizard's daughter envy them or wish to join them.
She had never lacked for companionship, for all creatures came to her mother's call. Just this morning she had romped with a winged kitten, and she'd eaten her mid-day meal in the company of two sun-sleepy lizards with scales that shone like commingled emeralds and topaz. Her favorite companion was Sprite, a lad no bigger than her small, pudgy hand. He always appeared so promptly that she suspected he followed them from place to place in hope of hearing her mother's summoning song. She understood this impulse completely, for there was no sound dearer to her or more lovely.
Even so, she hadn't asked for Sprite in many days, for reasons she did not like to examine too closely.
Fiercely she thrust the thought aside and ran toward a small crimson globe. She stopped short just as the globe dodged, then crouched and pounced at it as she'd seen the flitter-kitten do just that morning. She caught the ball in the air and bore it down to the ground with her. She landed hard, and the globe exploded beneath her with a satisfying pop. She scrambled to her feet, a triumphant smile on her face and a splattering of luminous red on her tunic.
Her mother applauded enthusiastically and then made a small, graceful gesture with one hand. The red stain lifted from the girl's tunic and spun out into the night, forming a long, glowing thread.
The child grinned expectantly as she waited for the next part of their game. The thread would twist and loop until it etched a marvelous picture against the darkening sky. Sometimes her mother sketched exotic beasts, or a miniature skyship, and once she fashioned a stairway to the stars that the girl could actually climb-and did, until her mother took fright and called her back. But most often the threads drew out maps that traced paths through the back streets and over the rooftops of whatever city or village they currently explored.
Tonight, however, the thread formed none of these things. It wandered about aimlessly, hopelessly tangling itself. Finally it dissipated altogether into a smattering of faint and rapidly dimming pink motes.
Puzzled, she looked to her mother. "I'm tired, child," the woman said softly. "We'll make pictures another night."
The girl accepted this with a nod and dashed off after a pair of emerald lights. Since there would be no pictures tonight, she made a new game of her own. Earlier that day she had tied a short, stout stick to her belt. This made a fine sword. In her imagination, the globes became a swarm of multicolored stirges-giant, thirsty, mosquito-like creatures that hummed macabre little tunes as they drained sleeping men dry. She sang a stirge song now in a childish soprano, making up nonsense verse as she went along. Each imaginary monster ended its days in a splash of colored light. It was a fine game and helped her put from mind the small failing of her mother's magic. On nights like this, she could forget a good deal.
She could almost forget that they lived on the run.
Her mother tried hard to make a game of it, and the little girl played along, as children tend to do. She understood far more than her mother suspected, but there were still many things that puzzled her. For some time now, questions had been building up inside her like the swell of magical power during a summoning. She was certain that she would explode like one of her globes if she didn't speak out. Soon. Tonight!
But she waited until all the dancing lights were spent. They left the roof and took shelter for the night in the crowded upper room of a dockside inn. The child always felt safest in such places. Nocturnal «adventures» seemed to occur more frequently when they took solitary refuge. She felt reassured by the sonorous snores coming from the trio of ale merchants who shared a bed by the shuttered window, and took comfort in the sword that lay, bright and ready, beside the earnest young man her mother had described as a questing paladin.
She waited while her mother emptied the common washbasin into the back street and refilled it with fresh water from the pitcher. She sat stoically while her mother wet a square of linen and scrubbed off some of the dirt that the child seemed to attract, much as spellcasting drew cats. She waited until her mother took out their greatest treasure, a small brush with a silver handle engraved with climbing roses, and began to ease it through her daughter's tousled dark hair.
Usually she loved this nightly ritual, often she wished she could purr throughout the brushing like a petted cat Tonight, though, she would have answers or she would burst.
"Who is following us?" she demanded.
The brush paused in mid-stroke. "Great Lady Mystra!" her mother exclaimed in a low, choked voice. "You know?"
She gave an impatient little shrug, not sure how to answer this. "Who?" she repeated.
Her mother was silent for a long moment. "Many are the tools, but the hand that wields them is that of my husband."
The little girl picked up an oddly discordant note in the music of her mother's voice. It occurred to her, for no reason that she could yet understand, that Mother did not name their shadowy pursuer as her child's father. Perhaps this was because in Halruaa the two were ever the same. Children were born within marriage. Marriages were arranged by the local matchmaker, who was always a minor mage of the divination school. She had yet to live out her fifth summer, but she knew that much. Even so, the same puzzling instinct that sensed her mother's hesitation prompted her to leave the obvious question unasked.
She settled for another. "Is your husband a great wizard?"
"He is a wizard."
"Like you?"
The brush resumed its rhythmic stroking, but the effect was no longer soothing. The girl absorbed with each stroke her mother's emotions: tension, grief, longing, fear. The temptation to pull away was dizzying, but she fiercely pushed aside the impulse. She wanted answers. Perhaps this pain was part of the knowing.
"Once he was my apprentice," her mother said at last. "There is a proverb that warns masters to beware ambition in their students. Words of nonsense can be repeated as often as sage wisdom, but this one held true."
The little girl shrugged off the lesson, her mind on the recent miscast spells, the wandering magic. "You are the master still," she said stoutly, as if she could deny what was becoming clearer with every day.
Her mother's smile was sad and knowing. "How long has it been since you asked me to summon Sprite? It is a difficult casting. Surely you know that."
The girl's eyes dropped and her lower lip jutted. "He teases me. That's all."
"Really. That has never bothered you before."
"I've tired of it," she said, implacably stubborn. "And I'm tired of talking about that silly Sprite. Sing another song, one that will summon something fierce and strong. A starsnake!"
"They do not fly at night, child."
She folded her arms. "Then the name is stupid."
Her mother laughed a little. "Perhaps you are right. What fierce creature do you desire? A night-flying roc? A jungle cat, perhaps?"