The Magehound   ::   Каннингем Элейн

Tzigone most emphatically did not want to see the source of this danger. She dragged herself back up through the darkness more brutally than Matteo had done. Panting for air, she opened her eyes and willed the memory- the memory, not her memory-back to whatever place forgotten nightmares fled.

But the image remained, as visible to her eyes as it had been in her memory trance. The forest and the guardian beast were suspended in the center of the room like a ghostly vision. The color was almost as vivid as Tzigone had seen in her mind, but it was rapidly fading, and the image was growing more and more translucent. She could see through the memory, like looking through the arch of a low-lying rainbow, but it was no less fearsome for its seeming delicacy.

Tzigone scrambled away from the terrible vision, crab-walking frantically until she bumped into the far wall. Matteo also retreated, but he circled the vision and studied the ghostly bird thoughtfully.

Suddenly a vast clawed hand flashed in from nowhere. It slashed toward the avian guardian, a force too fast to evade and too powerful to stop. The bird exploded into a flurry of feathers and gore.

And then the image was suddenly, mercifully gone.

"What foul sorcery was that?" Matteo said softly, looking at Tzigone with the same horror that she had felt upon beholding the dream. Apparently he could bear the magic far more easily than he could stomach the magician.

"It wasn't mine," she said desperately. "Not my magic, not even my memory."

"It couldn't have been your memory. That much is true. That species of griffon has been extinct for nearly three hundred years. You couldn't remember what you have never seen.

"Or could you?" he said, his tone bleak but thoughtful. "A diviner can glimpse the future. I have never heard of a wizard who could look into the past, much less recall it in so vivid a fashion, but perhaps it could be done. But you are a wizard, Tzigone, no matter what tales you choose to tell."

For once Tzigone had no rejoinder. Too shaken to care about such fine distinctions, she bolted for the window. Before Matteo could say a word, she disappeared out into the night.



Chapter Fifteen



Dawn was nothing but a fond hope when the small band of warriors waded into the Kilmaruu Swamp. Andris went first, wading through the knee-deep water and carefully testing a path for the men who moved silently behind him. There were forty of them, some jordaini, some commoners, some of foreign blood. According to the magehound, none of them knew Mystra's touch.