The Magehound   ::   Каннингем Элейн

But the days quickly settled into an orderly pattern, one suited to the life of a jordain and not disrupted by the «assistance» of roguish street waifs. Each day after the skyship flight, Matteo and Procopio would retire to the wizard's study. The wizard had a passion for games of strategy, and Matteo obliged him with seemingly endless games of chess, castles, and complex card games.

One morning he answered an unexpected summons to Procopio's study to find that the wizard had acquired a new diversion. An enormous table took up half the study, displacing the large cages of birds that Procopio kept in nearly every room of the villa.

The wizard glanced up when Matteo entered, and his face lit up in an unexpectedly boyish grin. "I ordered this a year and three moons before your arrival. I'll be a necromancer's apprentice if it wasn't worth the wait! Come see."

Matteo approached his patron's side and studied the vast table. It was no ordinary piece of furniture but a wondrous recreation of a wild land: a section of high plateau surrounded by hills and mountains.

"The Nath?" guessed Matteo, naming the wild region in the northeastern corner of Halruaa.

Procopio beamed. "Well done. Wait-you've not seen the best of it."

The wizard gestured with a long, slender wand. Several drawers hidden along the edges of the table opened, and tiny, magically animated figures poured out onto the table. Halruaan soldiers marched in formation across the wild terrain toward a mountain pass. A wizard, seated cross-legged on a flying carpet, whizzed out of the drawer and began to circle over the troops. A small horde of mounted warriors burst from the foothills and charged the Halruaan forces, and the faint pounding of their hooves reminded Matteo of the sound of distant rain. They pulled up at the far end of the mountain pass and faced the Halruaans.

All of the miniature troops were marvelous, but it was these mounted figures that drew Matteo's eye. They were rendered in shades of gray. All the horses were dappled grays, and the warriors were elflike females with dusky skin and dull silvery hair.

"Shadow amazons," Matteo marveled. For as long as he could remember, he had been fascinated by the Crinti, and he longed to pick up one of the tiny figures and examine its artistry and detail.

Some of this must have shown on his face, for Procopio chuckled. "Go ahead," he urged. "They're not alive, so you needn't be afraid to handle them."

"It is not that. The jordaini are forbidden to own, use, or even knowingly handle any magical item."

The diviner frowned.