The Simbul's Gift (30 page)

“Ten years ago, I brought an end to the Salamander War and order to the Priador, which replaced Bezantur as the southwestern tharch of Thay. In the absence of others—”

Mythrell'aa seethed. He'd slain her longtime friend and companion, Mari Agneh, then stuffed the Black Citadel with orcs and gnolls before anyone could object!

—“I became tharchion of the Priador and ruled it from Bezantur, but I was already a zulkir, and there was, already, a zulkir living in Bezantur. Naturally, as I could not turn away from my obligations to Invocation—”

No zulkir would. Tharchions had only as much authority as the zulkirs allowed them. Mythrell'aa, herself, had ruled the Tharch of Bezantur through Mari Agneh before the Salamander War.

—“The Zulkir of Illusion should have left, also according to the Rule of Iphonos Cor that two zulkirs shall not establish permanent residence within the same city walls. Lady Illusion begged to remain in her Bezantur tower—”

Mythrell'aa had not
begged
. Bezantur had been Illusion's home since the first zulkirs were named. There were other cities in the Priador, if Aznar Thrul insisted on being both zulkir and tharchion.

—“We negotiated—”

Thrul was younger then, virile and the recent victor in a brutal war. She'd invited him to Serpent Tower for a day, then a week. He was amusing, as poor Lailomun could never be. How was she to guess he'd become such a grasping bore?

—“Lady Illusion swore to remain neutral in matters of power and policy—”

Such things had never interested her. They still didn't, but she'd been a fool to think they didn't matter.

—“She broke that oath, Lord Necromancy, when she declared her support for
you
, last year after Gauros—”

Gauros was a disaster for Thay; and Aznar Thrul, along with his two allies, was responsible for it. The three were censured, disgraced. Common people—
slaves!
—spoke their names openly and with contempt. Szass Tam had had Thay firmly in the grasp of his long, undead fingers. The choice had seemed obvious: support Necromancy or risk guilt by association with one's neighbor, Invocation. Obvious, at least, at the time, before Szass Tam committed an even greater blunder in the caverns below Thaymount.

—“Later she recanted that support, reasserting her neutrality—”

What else could she do?

—“With lies, but you already know that, Lord Necromancy—she's been doing your work in Aglarond, spying on the witch-queen, making alliances with the Yuirwood mongrels.”

Mythrell'aa lowered her perfumed hand to her breast where she clutched Szass Tam's black jewel through her robe. For a heartbeat, the name on her tongue was her own.

Vazurmu had said she'd been brought down from behind, but by a Red Wizard, an invoker, not an Aglarondan peasant. Vazurmu had known, and Mythrell'aa should have listened. But Mythrell'aa's shortsightedness wasn't the worst part of her current predicament. The worst part was seated beside her, in Necromancy's chair, not across from her in Invocation's.

The Zulkir of Illusion had never told the Zulkir of Necromancy about her activities in Aglarond or the advantage she had over the silver-eyed queen. The advantage she'd once had: the rose-thorn no longer responded to her scrying spells.

When Thrul finished denouncing his neighbor and peer, Szass Tam demanded proof for the charges, though not because he believed in Mythrell'aa's innocence. Quite the contrary, although Thrul—cretin that he was—couldn't see that he'd won. The Mighty Tharchion of the Priador, Mightier Zulkir of Invocation wouldn't give anything to his long-standing enemy. Beshaba's mercy! If he kept it up,
he
might succeed in convincing Tam that the charges were trumped up.

Even Nevron could see victory slipping through his faction's hands. The weary weasel seemed to be in physical agony the longer Aznar Thrul prevaricated with Szass Tam. Mythrell'aa wouldn't chance a sidelong peek at the man on her left. If Lauzoril weren't zulkir of an unimportant school and lazy as a frostbitten snake, he'd be the man to challenge Szass Tam.

The man …

Mythrell'aa had assumed it would take a man to break Szass Tam.

The school …

She'd assumed it would take a man with a potent school behind him. She'd locked herself up in Serpent
Tower waiting for a miracle to happen. But women had dominated Thay in the past, zulkirs from minor schools, also.

By the time Mythrell'aa stood to endure her humiliation and disgrace, she'd come to see herself in a new and different light. It was time to leave Serpent Tower, time to take Lailomun to Aglarond—and when that was done, it would be time to return.

Leaving Velprintalar had taken the Simbul longer than it should have. She'd wasted an entire day, agonizing over which spells to inscribe in a deer-hide spellbook—which reagents to stuff into an enchanted pouch that was larger within than without but couldn't hold everything on her workroom shelves. She'd sent a message ahead to her chief forester in the Yuirwood, a man whose trust and cooperation was essential if she were going to sort out this many-layered mess.

Now dawn was coming, and she'd bulled her way out of tighter corners with far less than she was carrying to the Yuirwood. The time had come to seal her privy chambers with wards only Mystra's Chosen could disassemble, to peel the quilt off her mirror for a final glimpse at her known enemies.

“East, to Thay. The zulkirs.”

Quicksilver swirled itself over the dome. Instead of the myriad stains and splotches, all the darkness congealed in a single area of discontent the Simbul recognized as Bezantur. She stood back from the display, knuckles balanced on leather-garbed hips.

“A Convocation? In Bezantur? Mythrell'aa's city.”

Once or twice a year, the zulkirs curbed their rancor and rivalry long enough to govern their realm. The eight wizards were a formidable group on those rare occasions when they made common cause with one another. Any time the Simbul saw them together, she routinely doubled Aglarond's defenses. This year, in the aftermath of Szass Tam's failure to enslave the tanar'ri lord, Eltab—due, in large part, to adventurers she had recruited and supported—the Simbul firmly believed that Thay had no
legions to launch at its neighbors. Her mirror probably reflected a formal realignment among the lesser zulkirs, but she couldn't take a chance with her realm's well-being.

The Cha'Tel'Quessir mercenary became the Simbul again and made an appearance in her audience chamber, the first since her birthday. She summoned her councilors, gave them their orders, and shared only enough truth to keep them convinced the danger was real. It was late morning before she was back in her bolt-hole; noon before she was dressed again in Cha'Tel'Quessir leathers. She'd added a bow and a quiverful of arrows to her kit. Her sword was in its scabbard, an ironwood spear clenched in her hand, when she gave the mirror one last glance.

The Convocation had been a quick one and was already ended. The zulkirs were dispersing. Invocation and Conjuration remained in Bezantur. Lauzoril had vanished the way potent wizards tended to disappear when they were hiding or traveling within their spells; Alteration and Abjuration were missing as well. Szass Tam's oily shadow had returned to Delhumide, and the crimson smear of Illusion was on the move, bold as blood, west of Bezantur.

Headed west to where? Alassra glanced at the shelf above her worktable, at the empty place where the rose-thorn branch had rested in crystal memory. Then the Simbul raised her arms, spoke a word, and vanished.

She reappeared at the base of a great oak tree deep in the Yuirwood. A Cha'Tel'Quessir woman—not the person Alassra expected to see—waited on the moss, lashing arrowheads to willow shafts. The woman leapt straight into the air, scattering her work and breaking an arrow beneath her boots when she landed.

Both women were angry, but Alassra had only herself to blame. Her message to Trovar Halaern had told him to come to the tree where they usually met—but she hadn't told him to come in person or warned him that she was coming to the Yuirwood in disguise. And she was a day late. The Cha'Tel'Quessir was someone Halaern trusted implicitly, which was as good a recommendation as anyone in Aglarond should ever need. She was also rightly frightened and suspicious. She'd shielded herself adroitly with a quick bit of Yuirwood druidry and was reaching for her knife.

“No need, my friend,” Alassra said in flawless Cha'Tel'Quessir dialect. “Halaern was expecting me.”

The woman shook her head slowly. She wasn't convinced, but there were subtle enchantments that Alassra could work without risking her Cha'Tel'Quessir disguise. They began to erode the stranger's suspicions.

“What is your name? Your tree-family?” she asked, her hand at last moving from her knife.

“Chayan.” It was a fairly common name among the Cha'Tel'Quessir. “Of SilverBranch.”

“SilverBranch? I don't know that tree.”

“It's a long story.” Alassra heaved a dramatic sigh. “I was alone when I left the Yuirwood and I've been gone a long time. Too long. I'm back now; back for good. The Simbul said I would find Trovar Halaern of Yuirwood here.”

The woman brightened. “My brother was here earlier, but he had to leave. I'm Gren, of his tree. Welcome, Chayan. Let me lead you to our home.”

“I'd sooner find your brother. Will you take me to him?”

Gren shook her head. “There's been trouble lately with the seelie cousins. He's gone to find the truth, and told me not to follow. There's no wisdom in crossing him—nor in following after him, if you've forgotten the forest or haven't got a sprig of magic to you.”

“I've got a sprig or two,” Alassra assured her companion, briefly displaying her talisman necklace. “And I haven't been gone so long that I can't follow a forester's trail.”

Gren laughed. “My brother leaves no trail, but he said if I met a stubborn woman at the tree, I should send her north after him. Are you a stubborn woman, Chayan of SilverBranch?”

“Very.”

“Then hike north and tell my brother I'll come looking for him if he's not back by sundown.”

They parted friends and Alassra headed north, then east, following a trail Halaern had blazed for no one but his queen to follow. The Simbul knew she'd caught up with him when she heard a bear growling nearby. She knew he was in trouble when she felt malice and magic in the forest air.

Alassra quickly unslung her bow, tightened the bowstring and tested the weapon's pull. Then, in absolute
silence, she followed Halaern's trail to its end. At first she thought he had drawn his sword against a bear, but that wouldn't account for the magic she sensed all around her. She saw twisted shadows among the trees. They swooped down to strike her forester with a variety of weapons, including magic spells.

If the seelie were a nuisance, their dark-spirited cousins, the unseelie, were a true menace, with venom on their blades and in their minds. They did their worst against Trovar Halaern, but the forester was deadly with his sword and the Yuirwood itself shielded him from their vicious, but minor, magic. The bear was not so fortunate. Though the dark seelie preferred to torment the sentient races, they'd stoop to animals if the victims were especially tempting: two bear cubs, midway through their first summer. Both had been shapeshifted and wounded; one appeared dead, the other, with a broken wing sprouted from its back, cried piteously.

The bear instinctively defended her cubs, blind to the magical dangers her diminutive enemies presented. Her coat was ragged and blood soaked where they'd assaulted her with fire and acid.

Halaern fought beside the bear, dodging her teeth and claws as often as he attacked the dark seelie. Watching the skirmish, as yet unnoticed by either side, the Simbul weighed her choices. She had the spells to smite each darting seelie to the ground, killing it directly or stunning it but capturing one of the creatures appealed to her. No one knew where they hid between attacks; it wasn't anywhere that mortal men and women dwelt. Once they'd been rare in the Yuirwood, creatures of legend not experience. That had begun changing several years ago. At first the Simbul had believed the cause was delinquent magic left over from the Time of Troubles but now—with her meeting with the elven sages fresh in her mind—she suspected it had something to do with the Yuirwood's old, wild gods.

A year ago, she'd offered all her foresters rings enchanted with spells meant specifically to counter the unseelie. Halaern had politely declined. He didn't like wizard magic, didn't like any magic unless it was rooted in his beloved Yuirwood. It had taken Alassra years to get him to wear a verdigrised circlet that worked with the forest's innate
magic and—because she'd made it—allowed her to sense his well-being whether she was in Velprintalar or six paces to his left.

Her forester was tiring, starting to think that he'd have to leave the she-bear and her cubs to an unpleasant fate. He wouldn't appreciate great gouts of spellcraft, but he was ready to welcome a sword swung by a friend's arm.

Alassra shed her bow, drew her sword and, mindful that interrupting an ongoing fight was dangerous all around, crept through the brush until she was in Halaern's direct line of sight. When she was certain he'd see her quickly and clearly, she gave a warbling war cry and whacked a grotesque seelie with the wings of a bat, the lower body of a serpent, and the upper body of an orc just before it loosed a spell.

She meant to kill it, but instead of falling to the ground, it vanished with a hiss of magic.

“Be wary! They cast spells!” Halaern shouted an unnecessary warning, but then, for all he knew she was just another Cha'Tel'Quessir passing through the Yuirwood.