"That's not so unusual. Many people retain few memories from their early years. Is it so important?"
"Yes."
She spoke the word with such finality and depth of emotion that Matteo didn't think to question her. "Then we will try another way. Envision in your mind-literally in your mind, in the physical paths that your thoughts take-where this memory of Sprite resides. Can you picture it?"
Her brow furrowed, but after a moment she nodded. "I think so."
"Move deeper and slightly to the left," he instructed softly.
She envisioned sliding back into her mind. For a moment there was nothing but blackness, and then she caught a glimmer of silver and felt a rhythmic, reassuring touch. "Someone is brushing my hair," she murmured. "My mother?"
"Stay where you are. Quiet your mind and imagine that you have just entered a dark room and are waiting for your eyes to adjust."
Tzigone nodded and sat still for a moment, her face a mask of concentration. Finally she shook her head. "Nothing," she said sadly.
"We will try again later," Matteo said, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. "The memory is a palace constructed with patience. It cannot be built quickly, nor quickly explored."
"Not later," Tzigone said grimly. "Now." She closed her eyes and fiercely banished thought. When her mind was finally calm and still, she found the place where memories of Sprite dwelled, and then she slid farther down the dark pathways.
The gentle rhythm of the hairbrush pulled her back into the memory. But for some reason, the motion was not soothing. Tzigone felt her mother's tension as surely as if it were her own.
Her mother! Tzigone sank deeper still into memory, desperate for a glimpse of her mother's face or the sound of her voice. She saw herself as she might have then-the bare brown legs with their brave collection of childhood scrapes and bruises, the tiny hands clenched in her lap, the glossy brown hair that spilled over her shoulders.
"There, now. All finished," the woman said with forced gaiety. "With your hair so smooth and shiny, you look too fine for sleep. What if we run across the rooftops until we find a tavern still open? We could have cakes and sugared wine, and if there is a bard in the house, I will sing. And, yes, I will summon a fierce creature for you. A behir, a dragon-anything you like."
Even as a child, Tzigone hadn't been fooled by the brittle gaiety of her mother's tones. Quickly she bent down to tighten the laces on her soft leather shoes.
"I'm ready," she announced.
Her mother eased open a shutter and lifted her onto the ledge beyond. The child leaned her small body against the wall and began to edge around the building, as confident and surefooted as a lemur.
Something on the ground caught her eye, drawing it to a disturbance several streets to the east. A tendril of magic, so powerful that her eyes perceived it as a glowing green light, twisted through the streets below. Like a jungle vine it grew, sending off seeking tendrils, moving purposefully toward whatever sun drew it.
Quicker than thought it came, and then it hesitated at the door to their inn as if it were momentarily confused by this barrier, or perhaps by another barrier that Tzigone could not see. Then the door exploded inward-silently, but with a force that stole her breath and nearly dragged her from the ledge.
Her mother was suddenly beside her, gripping her hand painfully. "This way," she urged, no longer making any attempt to hide her fear.
They scuttled sideways on the ledge like fleeing crabs, moving toward one of the elaborate drainpipes that decorated the corners of every building, providing beauty and status in addition to carrying away the heavy summer rains. This one was fashioned to resemble a pair of entwined snakes. It was easy to climb, and in moments the girl's small fingers grasped the leering stone mouth of one of the snake-headed gargoyles that capped the pipes.
Her mother placed a shoulder under the child's small rump and heaved. Tzigone lurched up, hit the roof, and rolled once. In a heartbeat, she was on her feet and racing for the roof's southern edge.
Tzigone remembered their games and the glowing threads that wove maps of the city against the night sky. For the first time, she understood their practical side. Her mother always pointed out the surrounding buildings and byways, and together they improvised a «what-if» game of pursuit and capture, one that was often whimsical and sometimes hilarious, but always, always in deadly earnest.
It felt strange to be a child again. The roof felt endless as Tzigone ran across on her short, thin legs. She reached the edge without slowing and launched herself into the night. The fall was brief, the landing hard. She rolled across the hard surface of the tiled roof of a bathhouse. Her leg
burned from a brush with a jagged bit of tile. She touched it, and her hand came away wet.
"Run," her mother whispered as she dragged her to her feet. "Stop for nothing. Nothing!"
She made herself forget the pain as she and her mother raced across the bathhouse roof. Together they scrambled down the far side of the building, hands fisted in fragrant bunches of the night-blooming flowers that climbed the wall. The crushed flowers gave off a strong scent and a swirl of golden pollen. Musky sweetness surrounded them like an oppressive cloud. Never before had a fragrance seemed sinister, but to the terrified child, it seemed that the flowers were in league with her pursuers. They taunted her with their vines, so like the dangerous, seeking magic, and tried to trick her into revealing herself. Tzigone cursed them silently and struggled mightily not to sneeze.
Finally her small feet touched cobblestones. Across the street loomed a high wall of pink stone, against which was built a raised pool shaped like a half-moon and enlivened by a softly playing fountain. The wall enclosed a familiar villa, one that had entered into their games on a previous trip to this city.
Confidently they plunged into the water and wriggled through the small tunnel that circulated water back into the interior moat. Tzigone swam like an eel, but the wall was thick and the tunnel deceptively curved. She bobbed to the surface of the pool, choking and sputtering.
As she blinked water out of her eyes, she noted the pair of jeweled eyes that moved purposefully toward her, lifted above water by the crocodilian shape of a behir's head. Her mother flung out a hand to ward it off, but no magic spun out, just a splash of moat water. She changed tactics and dragged Tzigone to the edge of the moat with a haste that fairly shouted panic.
Tzigone remembered this villa. They had slipped through before during their nighttime wanderings. It was well guarded by monsters and magic. The first wave of defensive magic hit the intruders as soon as their feet touched dry ground. Her mother jolted and let out a small cry, just as the thief in the marketplace had done recently when he'd sagged upon the watchman's dirk. Tzigone felt none of the magical wards and did not expect to.
"Come," her mother gasped as she staggered toward a round freestanding tower that overlooked the garden and had no apparent connection to the villa itself.
Though the tower appeared utterly smooth from even a pace or two away, a narrow flight of stairs had been carved into the pink stone. They stumbled up the stairs, frantic now, all pretense of adventure forgotten. When they reached the top, her mother bent over, hands on her knees as she struggled for breath and speech. Tzigone could barely make out her request for light.
She had been schooled in which light to conjure during just such a "game," and she quickly cast the little cantrip. Light appeared, softer than moonlight and shaped like a giant teardrop, but visible only to her eyes. It illuminated not the natural material world, but the created magic that embellished it.
The faint light revealed a glassy, translucent path that stretched from the tower to a nearby villa, one on the very shores of the lake.
But something about it was wrong. This wasn't how Tzigone remembered the path. She sent a questioning look at her mother. The woman nodded. Without further hesitation, Tzigone stepped out into the seemingly empty air. Her mother followed closely, trusting her daughter to see what she herself could not.
No moon shone that night, but suddenly the two fugitives were silhouetted against a large, softly glowing orb. Tzigone muttered a ripe phrase she'd overheard from an impatient sea captain who'd cursed the fickleness of Selune and her inconvenient tides. For once her mother did not reprove her for her inelegant speech.
They ran the length of the gossamer path and scrambled over the wall of the strange villa. Before them was a flight of stairs leading down toward the courtyard. In the center of the courtyard, a large oval pool brooded in the moonlight.
"Let's try it," her mother said. "It looks like a weir for lake trout."
They had encountered such things before on their "adventures." Fish weirs were common in lakeside villas, for they provided sport for the children and food for the table. A short tunnel led from lake to pool, and magic lured the fish. Swimming them was risky-there were powerful magical wards to keep anything but fish from swimming in. Swimming out was another matter. So far, Tzigone had encountered no surprises more unpleasant than the magic that tickled her skin like sparkling wine and an occasional fish that brushed past her on its way to the wizard lord's table.
They ran down the stairs, their eyes fixed on the mosaic floor below. The descent seemed to take far longer than it should have. Tzigone noticed suddenly that the floor's pattern seemed to be shifting. The color turned from its intricate inlay of deep reds and rich yellows to a uniform hue of darkest sapphire. Small lights began to twinkle in the glossy tile.
Puzzled, she came to a stop on the next landing. Her mother bumped heavily into her. Tzigone glanced back the way they'd come.
"Look," she said grimly, pointing up. Or possibly down. The pool gleamed overhead, and below them was the unmistakable void of the night sky. Inexplicably the two had changed places.
"A puzzle palace," her mother said in a faint, despairing voice. "Mystra save us."
The child's trained gaze darted around. Several flights of stairs led from the landing, some going up, some down, and some leading nowhere at all. There were four levels of balconies surrounding the courtyard, and all levels seemed to be split into several parts. Some had been fashioned with elaborately carved or tiled or painted ceilings, while others were roofed or floored by the night sky. It was as if some crazed wizard had inserted this small section of the city into a gigantic kaleidoscope, fracturing and fragmenting reality beyond logic or recognition.
"This way," she guessed and darted in the direction of a waterfall that disappeared into the air, only to resume its fall a few dozen paces to the south.
It proved to be a good choice. In moments they stood before a door-a real door, one that opened with a latch and led into the solid, staid reality of the villa beyond.
As the door swung open, her mother's amulet started to glow.
Never had this happened before, and the fearsome novelty of it froze Tzigone's feet to the floor. In the span of a heartbeat, the shining bit of electrum turned rosy with heat. Her mother let out a pained gasp and tore off the amulet, breaking the slender chain.
Instantly the courtyard was alive with verdant magic. The questing vine, fragmented into an impossible maze, writhed and twisted like a titanic snake that had been many times severed, floundering violently about in its death throes.