Law, tradition, and fierce pride demanded that every child be tested for magical ability at the age of five. The small hamlet of Marikston had, in the last five generations, yielded more wizards than the largest city on the continent. When Elissa Natovina found her youngest daughter playing with bits of hot coal she had scooped from the fireplace, she knew that her distinguished line had proven itself once again. Though the child was barely three, she left the household chores in the capable hands of her oldest daughter, now nearly nine, and bundled the baby up against the cold.
It was only an hour later that Elissa found herself in the mage's study, sipping tea and watching the child play quietly on the rug.
"She is too young," explained the hamlet's Wizard's Guild representative. "Magical ability does not show until the mind has formed well enough for the child to speak in complete sentences."
Elissa nodded calmly. One of her aunts and two of her brothers were mages; she understood a great deal more than the average peasant's wife should. This mage was new, though, and perhaps did not understand fully why he had been posted so such a seemingly backwater town. "I understand, good Sir," she said softly. "But I ask that you try. Zoya has always been an unusual child. Perhaps she has matured more rapidly than other children."
Pietr followed Elissa's gaze to the child. Zoya had, in fact, been unnaturally quiet since her mother had unwrapped the heavy cloak and set her on the hearth. She was, Pietr discovered, carefully sorting the fringe of his thick, ornate rug. At first he believed she was sorting the strands by color - it was the sort of thing that many a promising mage-candidate did. But she wasn't. Pietr watched her serious little face and chubby baby hands, trying to fathom her motives.
"Good Sir-" Elissa began, only to be hushed by Pietr's raised hand. He continued to watch the child. It took him several minutes to realize that she was pulling the strands based on the color they had been before they had been dyed. He looked up at Elissa. "Yes, madam, I believe you may have something here." Without waiting for her response, he stood and left the room.
He was back in only a few moments, wearing a peculiar pair of glasses. He sat carefully on the floor near the child, and cast a small spell. The spell wasn't very powerful - it created a dim light that flowed like sticky taffy from one hand to the other. The light caught Zoya's attention, and its movement held her. Like any naturally inquisitive child, it wasn't long before she reached out to try to touch it.
Pietr watched carefully. If Zoya was a mundane child - or if her magical talent had not yet manifested - her hand would pass through the light. If, by some quirk, she had actually tapped into a magical talent, then her hand would bounce or slide off the light.
But Zoya reached out and laughed - and the light slithered from Pietr's hands onto hers. Pietr watched, stunned, for the minute or so until the spell ended and the light faded. Zoya looked around for the light, then, seemingly unconcerned, went back to sorting carpet fringe.
Elissa Natovina, whose aunt and brothers were mages, looked stricken. "She isn't," she whispered.
Pietr sighed. He'd only ever encountered one wild mage before, and that had been a dangerously insane adult, not a happily laughing baby. He pulled himself up into his chair, and ran a hand through his thick black hair. "I'm afraid she is," he told Elissa.
"I can't kill my baby," Elissa wailed softly.
"Since she's underage, I don't have to report it, yet. But in two years, when she has to come back..." He sighed again, and looked up at Elissa with sympathy.
Elissa's gaze was riveted on her daughter. "I can't kill my baby!" she insisted.
Pietr's eyes had closed. "Then you must get her out of the country before she turns five."
It would be over fifteen years before Zoya, mapping the terrain of her own mind, would stumble across this memory, and understand why her parents had sold her to her master when she was only four. By then, it didn't matter. Zoya's master was both teacher and father to her, and they shared a love that was a great deal more than the sum of those things.
By the age of eight, Zoya was the most gifted student her master had ever taught. By the age of eleven, she was the most intelligent, even surpassing her master when she bent her will to it. By the time the training to harden her will was its most brutal, Zoya had only two loves: her work, and her master. The year that Zoya turned eighteen, she helped her master create two new spells. The research had been entirely hers.
For more than twenty years, Zoya traveled with her master. She had a different title for every country they passed through. In some places, she was his daughter. In some, his slave. In most, she was an apprentice. Zoya didn't care what they called her. In twenty years, her master never offered to free her, and she would not have left his side if he had.
The result of magic in the blood for more generations than could be remembered, Zoya's family had been tall, slender people. By the time she was sixteen, Zoya was nearly six feet tall. Zoya's hair had turned purple when she was ten. By the time she was twelve, her physical peculiarities had become something of a badge of honor for her. For reasons completely unfathomable to her, they added an exotic touch that seemed to make her even more attractive to her suitors, and she considered dyeing her hair, and despaired of her height.
In Karandistahn, when Zoya was fifteen, a well-meant but misguided and overly romantic stableboy named Darin "rescued" her from her room. Zoya was outraged when she awoke, and sent a message to her master on the wind. Much to her dismay, her master was so impressed with the boy's feat that he brought him along with them on their trip to Alanis, where he turned the boy over to a master thief for training. By the time they arrived, Zoya and Darin had become fast friends.
In Alanis, Zoya acquired another suitor - this time a journeyman bard who left roses on her pillow as she slept and composed songs to her, which he sang under her window at night. Zoya's master ignored her pleas, and became the boy's patron. Kevil's masterwork was an epic song glorifying Zoya's master, and Zoya warmed to him despite the two extra verses he wrote just for her. Kevil traveled with them for another six months, and when he left them, he and Zoya were like brother and sister.
The year that Zoya turned twenty-six, one of her master's enemies caught up with them. This was nothing new to Zoya. She stood back-to-back with her master, and they were about to turn the tide once again, when the magic slipped away from her master - and the enemy, a mind-flayer of uncertain origins, slipped through his defenses. Her master's dying scream seemed to rip her heart through her chest, even as it changed into her scream. It wasn't until after her bezerk rage cooled - the illithid escaped, its minions slain around her - that she realized that her master's voice had lodged in her throat.
The stream of admirers ended abruptly. Where before her height had been exotic, coupled with her master's voice it made others wonder if she was not a man disguised as a woman. Zoya was, more than anything, relieved. It would not be long before she began to use this to her advantage, passing through many places where a woman would not be allowed with a cloak to hide her beardless face.
As soon as Zoya was recovered enough from her wounds to travel, she made her way to Alanis. With Darin and Kevil she found sympathy and a shared desire for vengeance. The three of them traveled as companions for eighteen months, tracking down the illithid.
One night on the trail, Zoya's profound grief for her master's death slowly fading into a quiet and abiding sorrow, she brought first Darin, and then Kevil, into her heart and bed. Their peculiar union linked the three of them in ways no one could have predicted, and Zoya began to believe that, vengeance gained and lovers by her side, she might retire to liberal Alanis as her master's heir.
They caught up with the mind-flayer finally in a barren stretch of mountain country. As it was about to make good its final escape, and Zoya combined her magic with Kevil's to bring the creature down even as its bizarre craft lifted into the air. Their satisfaction was short-lived; when the vessel crashed into the rocky ground, one compartment exploded violently, carrying a section of hull - and Darin - down the side of the mountain. When they reached his side, he was already dead.
Zoya and Kevil wept together for weeks. Unable to bear the thought of another separation, Zoya accepted Kevil's quiet invitation, and they moved back to Alanis together. It wasn't long, however, before Zoya's innate curiosity reemerged from the depths of her grief, and she began making trips back to the mountain to examine the remains of the illithid's grounded sky-ship.
Before long, she'd figured out how the spelljammer worked. Kevil, also seeing shadows of Darin in every corner of Alanis, joined her to explore other lands, other worlds, other Spheres...
Kevil confessed after several years that he wanted nothing more than to go home. After the arguments and pleadings, after the tears and recriminations, finally Zoya landed the spelljammer again in their home sphere, and saw Kevil safely to Alanis. One final time, he begged her to stay. One final time, she pleaded with him to come away with her. One final time, they kissed. "If Darin were here..." There was no point to finishing that thought. It had been said before. If Darin had been there, he'd have healed their rift with a laugh, worked out a compromise, held them both close in love and affection until the hurt had faded at last. But Darin was dead, and they went their separate ways with dry eyes, if not light hearts.
It wasn't long after this that Zoya landed the 'jammer on Torril, a world quite similar to the one from which she originally came. Its crystal sphere, she thought, had seen more travel than usual, and its magical energies were strong and complex. She thought it would be a good place to rest for a while, make some routine repairs to the ship, and heal the slow bleeding of this latest wound.
She camouflaged the ship away from prying eyes, then headed into settlement to look for the things she needed. A sudden surge of magical energy attracted her - and distracted her addled thoughts - and she followed to its source. A bizarre and beautiful Tower on the outskirts of a major city was the center for more magical energy than she'd ever seen in one place. It was only the work of a moment to bend it to her will and slip inside.
And then the Tower rejected her, gently but firmly. She blacked out and found herself in an entirely different sphere, with no recollection of what should have been a journey of weeks, and no ship, either. It took her three years to build a new spelljammer from scratch, another year after its launch to figure out where she was, and how to get back to Torril. The distraction of the Tower erased completely the pain of her separation from Kevil, and the work eased the never-ending ache that was the absence of her master and Darin.
Copyright 2000 by Elizabeth L. Brooks. Not to be reprinted without written permission of the author.
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