This was her mother, seen more vividly than Tzigone could remember her! Quickly, eagerly, she thrust aside the epiphany and went back in, deeper, past the misty impressions into Keturah's own perspective. Dimly, in some corner of her mind, Tzigone realized she had become Keturah. Her hand tightened around the precious talisman, and she gave herself to the vision.
* * * * *
Tzigone/Keturah rested her elbows on the carved wall and began to hum as she gazed with contented eyes over the city, the heart of her beloved land and the home of the reclusive King Zalathorm. From her vantage, Keturah claimed a view a hawk might envy.
The sun edged over the highest peaks of the eastern mountains, fading the sapphire clouds of night to silvery pink. To the south, far out over Lake Halruaa, dense, gray storm clouds grumbled like titanic dwarfs roused too soon from their beds. The city itself awakened quickly, offering no arguments to the coming day. Carts and horses clattered purposefully toward market. Mist rose from the public gardens, jasmine scented, and with it wafted the lilt of young voices as singing maidens gathered dew for potions to court beauty and love. The brisk cadence of their song sped the task, for even in this, the coolest season, the sun's warmth came on quickly.
Keturah watched as sun-loving creatures began to emerge with the dawn. Winged snakes, brilliant as ropes of gemstone, took to the air. Orange and yellow lizards darted up the walls on broad, sticky finger pads. In the moat beyond the city wall, a roar like that of a bull crocodile lifted into the sky. An answering call rumbled from the gardens that flourished in the shadow of the great wall.
A concerned frown furrowed the wizard's brow. She ran down the flights of stairs leading down the inside wall and into the public garden. She stopped at the edge of a pond and began to sing in a clear, rich alto-a voice lovely in its own right but also full of magic's lure.
In response, a large reptilian snout thrust up from the pond. Golden eyes slashed with obsidian pupils fixed upon the singing wizard, in moments the creature undulated out onto the shore, revealing a behir, a beast more fearsome than a crocodile, more delicate than a dragon. Four pair of legs framed a long, serpentine body covered with scales of cobalt blue. The neck was long and graceful, and slender horns flowed back from a long, pointed head. Behir were as highly prized as swine in this city, but instead of bacon and ham and sausage, the exotic reptiles were apportioned for magical components and scrimshaw. It was a custom to which Keturah could never quite reconcile herself.
The behir paused uncertainly on the shore. Tiny blue sparks crackled around it as the creature snuffled, taking in the scent of Keturah's magic.
Her melody softened into a lullaby. Crystalline fangs flashed as the behir yawned hugely. The creature circled twice, like a drowsy hound, then lay down with its snout cradled on its foremost paws. The sizzles of magic faded as the behir sank into deep sleep.
Keturah kept singing, but she threw her hands out wide and began the gestures of a powerful spell of diminution. Each sweep and flow of her hands brought them closer to her center, and with each, the behir also diminished in size. Her casting continued until the twelve-foot creature was no bigger than a dragonfly.
She picked up the miniature behir and placed it on her shoulder. Instinctively the behir's tiny claws dug into the linen of her tunic. She set off for home, planning as she ran how and where to set the creature free.
Keturah stopped a few paces away from her tower and marveled, as she often did, that this estate was hers. Encircled by a wall was a series of fine buildings: servants' quarters, a guesthouse, a bathhouse, even a stable. Lush gardens were fragrant with flowering herbs and bright with the morningsong of birds. The crown of her estate was the wizard's tower, a tall, six-sided structure of green-veined marble, enrobed with flowering vines and topped by an onion dome roof of verdigris copper.
At five-and-twenty, Keturah was young to have such a grand home, but she was a master in the art of Evocation, a school of magic highly regarded in Halruaa and the most uncommon of magical talents. There was much demand for her time, and she was paid accordingly. The tower was hers in exchange for tutoring Dhamari Exchelsor, the only son of wealthy electrum miners and wine merchants. Keturah did not like owing her home to a single student, but this was common practice. Apprentice fees were steep. A truly gifted student never lacked for teachers, but aspiring wizards of moderate talent expected to pay dearly for their training. Dhamari's talents were modest indeed.
To his credit, he worked hard. Unlike some of Keturah's male apprentices, Dhamari showed no interest in her or in his fellow apprentices. Nor did he pester the servant girls. He was always proper, always polite and respectful. Keturah would have thought him cold but for his fascination with the newest apprentice.
She sighed, troubled by the turn her thoughts had taken. Kiva, an acolyte of the Temple of Azuth, had recently been sent to Keturah as part of the obligatory training in every school of the magical Arts. Kiva was a wild elf, a rarity in this civilized land. Her golden eyes reminded Keturah of a jungle cat, and Keturah suspected the elf was every bit as unpredictable.
Of one thing Keturah was certain: Kiva was a bad influence on Dhamari. He was intrigued by creatures of legend and dark magic, and the exotic Kiva seemed to inflame his imagination with possibilities. Of late he'd been asking Keturah for spells that would allow him to call and command creatures, as she did, but Dhamari had little talent for this particular type of evocation-or any other, for that matter. Very soon Keturah would have to encourage him to seek a new master and explore other schools of magic. The very notion filled her with nameless relief.
Keturah shrugged off these thoughts and strode through the outer gate. She stopped cold, frozen as surely as if she'd been halted by an ice dragon's breath.
Her neck prickled, and waves of gooseflesh swept down her arms. A second chill shuddered through her as her mind acknowledged what her senses had perceived: some dark and foul creature had invaded her home!
She began to chant a spell of discernment. Tendrils of bilious green mist-the manifestation of a powerful magic-seeking spell-twined through the air. Grimly she followed them into the tower and up the winding stairs. A sudden cacophony exploded from a room high above, and the mist was no longer necessary to guide her onward.
She sprinted up the final flights and raced toward the main laboratory.
The heavy wooden door was closed, and it bulged and shuddered under the assault of some unknown power. Keturah summoned a fireball and held it aloft in one hand. With the other hand she threw open the door, leaping aside as she did.
The door crashed into the wall as a tangle of heaving, writhing vines spilled out into the corridor. Billows of smoke followed, bearing the acrid scent of sulfur.
Though Keturah could not see into the room, she could pick individual notes from the racket glass vials shattering, fire crackling, priceless spellbooks thudding against the walls, furniture clattering as it overturned. A man's grunts spoke of pain and exertion, and a beautiful, bell-like soprano voice lifted in keening chant. Above it all rang a shrill, insanely gleeful cackle that tore at the ears like fingernails on slate.
"An imp," Keturah muttered. She left her fireball suspended in air like a giant firefly and began to tear with both hands at the vines blocking the entrance. "The idiots have summoned an imp!"
She managed a small opening and struggled through. For a moment she stood taking stock of the chaotic scene.
A richly dressed young man stamped frantically at a smoldering carpet. His boots smoked, and his thin face was frantic with terror and smudged with soot. He lofted his dagger with one hand, slashing futilely at the creature circling him like an overgrown gnat
His attacker was a particularly nasty imp with a body the size of a housecat, enormous batlike wings, a yellowish hide, and a hideous face dominated by a twisted and bulbous nose.
The imp had been busy. The tapestries and drapes showed the assault of its claws, and the ripped edges smoldered from its touch. As the imp circled Dhamari, it spat little bursts of scalding steam, cackling with delight at the young man's pained cries.
Kiva stood over a potted lemon tree, chanting a growth spell. This was clearly not the elf woman's first attempt at containing the imp. The center of the room was dominated by an ornate cage fashioned from the vines of a flowering herb-an ingenious spell but for the fact that the cage door stood ajar. Imps were notoriously difficult to contain.
Keturah hissed out a sigh of exasperation.
Dhamari glanced up and caught sight of his mistress. Guilt and relief fought for possession of his face.
"Praise Mystra! Keturah has come."
His exclamation distracted the elf from her spellcasting. Kiva whirled toward the wizard, and the expression on her strange, coppery face changed from concentration to accusation, as if Keturah were somehow responsible for the rampaging imp.
"Do something!" the elf snapped.
At that moment Kiva's future at the tower came to a certain end. Keturah set her jaw and reached into the bag tied to her belt. She removed a bit of powder wrapped in a scrap of silk-a charm of the sort any prudent evoker carried as a safeguard against a miscast summoning. This she tossed into the imp's path.
The silk dropped away and the sparkling powder stopped in midair, spreading out into a translucent wall. Batlike wings backbeat frantically as the imp tried to evade, but the wall caught and held it like a fly in sap. The creature struggled and shrieked and cursed, but nothing availed. Finally it fell into seething silence, yellow chest heaving as it eyed the wizard with murderous rage.
"Be gone," Keturah said quietly. As quickly as thought, both the creature and its magical prison disappeared.
The wizard turned to study the cause of this debacle. Kiva, despite her spell battle with the imp, looked as poised and polished as a queen. The elf was clad in a fine green gown and decked with matching gems. Her dark green hair had been skillfully coaxed into ringlets, and each curl glowed with the color and sheen of jade. Subtle paint enhanced her exotic features, and a complex perfume, green and wild and somehow disturbing, mingled with the scent of the plants that transformed the room into an exploding jungle. The elf was more than a hand's breadth taller than Keturah yet so delicately fashioned and exquisitely groomed she made the young wizard feel coarse and common. In Kiva's presence, Keturah often had to remind herself she, not the elf, was mistress in this tower.
"So you conjured an imp," she said coolly. "Deliberately?"
Dhamari and Kiva exchanged glances. "Yes," the young man admitted hesitantly.
"I see." Keturah swept one hand toward the wild, wilting foliage. "This, I suppose, is banishment that reverses this summoning?"
"You know it is not," the elf replied in equally cordial tones. "You have not seen fit to teach the necessary banishment spells."
With great effort, Keturah banked her temper. "Necessary indeed! It is unspeakably reckless to cast a spell, any spell, that you cannot counter. You didn't even carry a protective charm, did you?"
Dhamari hung his head, but Kiva merely sniffed, as if to mock so obvious a question.
"Both of you have forgotten several primary laws of evocation," Keturah continued. She ticked them off on her fingers. "Don't cast magic you can't counter, don't summon creatures you cannot banish, and never, ever summon any creature you can't handle."
"A creature I can't handle," Kiva echoed, pronouncing each word with incredulous precision. "My dear Keturah, I've handled monsters far more imposing than a smelly yellow imp!"
Keturah held her apprentice's glare for a moment. She peeled the tiny, sleeping behir from its perch on her shoulder and carefully placed it on a branch of the lemon tree. "Very well, then," she said calmly. "If you're as knowledgeable as you claim, subdue this creature."
The elf glanced at the lizardlike creature and sent Keturah a look that, had it been on a human face, might have been called a smirk. Her delicate, coppery fingers reached for the tiny reptile.
Lighting bolts sizzled out of the behir, blackening Kiva's fingertips and sending her green hair dancing around her face like leaves in a sudden wind. She snatched back her hand, drawing her breath in a quick, pained hiss. The gaze she turned upon Keturah was coldly furious and utterly inhuman.
"You baseborn cow," she said softly.
A shiver coursed along Keturah's spine, for the contrast between the beautiful voice and the malevolent tone was chilling-as if she'd heard her death knell tolled upon fairy chimes.
She quickly pushed aside this dark fancy. "A wizard's reach must never exceed her grasp, Kiva, and a wizard's pride must be balanced by skill and knowledge. Remember this lesson, and the behir's sting will be well worth the pain. It is also your last lesson," she continued briskly.