The Simbul's Gift

14

Thazalhar, in eastern Thay Late morning, the seventeenth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)

Fresh from bathing, Lauzoril sauntered across the grassy yard between the estate house and the stables. He entered the stall of a black gelding, whose injured hoof was of some concern to him. His actions, however, once he'd closed the door behind him, had nothing to do with the horse.

With practiced movements, the zulkir fashioned bits of horse bedding into a palm-sized doll. When the twisting and tying was finished, he tossed the straw into the air, imbuing it with a spell that was both enchantment and illusion.

A sphere of red light surrounded the straw; a soft hum, as of a bee within a flower, filled the air. Lauzoril stood beside the gelding's head, whispering ordinary words to keep it calm. Light fell from the sphere like rain, shifted and become opaque. At first it had the crude shape of the straw man; within moments it had become the zulkir's double, casting a shadow, mirroring his gestures until he spoke a word in the old Mulhorandi dialect.

After that the double walked out of the stall. It hailed the hostlers by name and bade them continue with their labors. Slaves and freemen both returned their lord's friendly greeting, none suspecting that magic moved among them nor finding anything unusual in his cheerfulness.

Everyone on Lord Tavai's estate was well-fed, comfortably housed, and acutely aware of both their isolation and the less merciful conditions that prevailed elsewhere in Thay. Lauzoril insisted that mercy played no part in his decisions. Enchantment, he told himself, was a subtle art, and food was always less costly than magic. But he could never quite forget the mother he'd never known and hadn't found. He bought green-eyed slaves wherever he found them, questioned them about their kin, then sent them on to Thazalhar.

The lord's image strode toward the manor wall. When it had straddled the wall and begun its walk across the hills, Lauzoril withdrew his consciousness. Truly mindless, it would continue walking while he went, unobserved and unnoticed, from the stable to the family crypt's concealed entrance.

Lauzoril's face grew grim and angry as he descended the spiral stairs. Shimmering wards melted at his approach. The heavy door swung and crashed into the interior wall. He stood in the doorway, his fingers reciting an alphabet of magic, which, for the moment, he refrained from casting.

The odor of burnt linen surrounded him. Within the crypt, Chazsinal's ebony chair lay on its side, Chazsinal still bound to its seat. Gweltaz's chair hovered above the floor. Gweltaz himself was a translucent apparition beside it, in full Red Wizard robes, tattoos, and rage.

"What fool-" the elder began, and got no further.

Lauzoril released a gout of fire magic that pinned his grandfather's chair in the juncture of two walls and the ceiling. A cocoon of flame formed around him. The apparition vanished; the howls within the flames were loud and piteous, and had no effect on Lauzoril-except that he closed the crypt door.

"Lauzoril, Lauzoril-release him!" Chazsinal, ever his father's dutiful son, pleaded with his own offspring from his place facedown on the floor. "Release him! You'll regret this, Lauzoril!"

The cocoon vanished. Gweltaz, in singed and reeking linen, dropped to the floor. His chair balanced upright for a heartbeat-Lauzoril's heartbeat-then toppled sideways.

"This changes nothing," Gweltaz snarled.

"I am accustomed to disappointment, Grandfather."

"Right me."

"Can't do it yourself?" Lauzoril inquired, his silky voice laced with venom.

Gweltaz said nothing. Chazsinal had less fortitude.

"Lauzoril, there was cause."

"Tell me," the zulkir ordered, no change in his tone. His father's chair righted itself.

"We discerned a change-"

"Tell him nothing, Chaz!" Gweltaz commanded. "If he will not ask for our help, let him do without. The Mighty Zulkir of Enchantment and Charm!"

"Ask for your help? What could either of you tell me that I don't already know? That there was a standoff in Aglarond? That we destroyed a meaningless village and the Simbul destroyed twelve of us, including one of mine? Did you think I didn't know? Shall I tell you their names?"

"Aglarond!" Gweltaz shouted. "Forget Aglarond, Mighty Fool, Scry your attention closer to home, to Bezantur. Invocation and Illusion move against each other. Your ally and our enemy's."

"Not against each other, Grandfather. Lord Thrul has wards and guards around Serpent Tower. Lady Illusion has appealed to her master, Szass Tam, who hears but does not move against anything these days."

Chazsinal strained within his bandages. "See? He knows!"

The other chair rose slowly from the floor. It had almost righted itself when Lauzoril crooked his finger. "When I'm ready." He flung the chair at the wall.

The mummy groaned, gave up a cloud of dust, and said, "Such temper, boy! Will you do the same when Szass Tam comes looking for you?"

Lauzoril spun Gweltaz's chair wildly before sitting down in his own and propping his feet on the table. "Szass Tam. Szass Tam. Lady Illusion may beg, but her master will not fight for her."

"He will fight against Lord Thrul and against you, who allied yourself with Invocation."

The zulkir smiled, a gesture not lost on Gweltaz although the chair was front-down on the floor again. "Alliances fade, Grandfather. Mine with Thrul is fading fast."

Lauzoril allowed the chair to rotate a half-turn. The wrappings had loosened. Gweltaz's head flopped on his shoulder. Light seeped through gaps in his legs and torso. Repairs were needed, and soon, or the necromancer's spirit would slip into torpor and, eventually, ultimate death. Chazsinal twitched; Lauzoril asked himself if the time hadn't come to be rid of rancorous confidants.

His grasp of both wizardry and politics had improved since he'd gone searching for the father whose name he'd discovered in his predecessor's archives. At the beginning, Gweltaz's timely warnings about plots a young zulkir never sensed had kept Lauzoril alive when none of his peers believed he would survive a year. Even now, his grandfather's insight into the realm of the dead and undead was an asset no enchanter could acquire for himself.

But Chazsinal possessed the same insight albeit, untrusted and untrained. Might not Chazsinal be a less troublesome advisor-at least until his daughter matured. Mimuay had astonished-the word was scarcely strong enough-her father with the all-innocence-and-ignorance request that he teach her the arts of necromancy. He'd assumed, when she asked him to share his gift, that it was the spells of enchantment that she wanted, but she was Thazalhar bred, and death was ingrained on her life.

The dead are here in Thazalhar. They're my friends; I hear them everywhere, she'd said two mornings ago when he allowed her into his above-ground workroom and tried, with a variety of foul and slimy reagents, to discourage her from following in his footsteps.

Mimuay had turned pale and nearly fainted, but her father was the one who failed. By noon she'd cast her first cantrip: turning a white rose blue and keeping it that way while Lauzoril counted very slowly to ten.

"A smile, Mighty Zulkir?" Gweltaz's voice was weaker but not his scorn. "Does it please you so much to abandon a son's obligations to his fathers?"

Lauzoril had slouched in his chair, thinking about possibilities and his daughter. He sat bolt upright at the sound of his grandfather's question and made a decision as well. Without responding directly to Gweltaz's accusations, he unlocked a compartment beneath the tabletop.

No enchanter could cast the spells of necromancy, nor safely handle its artifacts. The prohibition didn't arise from Red Wizard tradition. If that had been the case, every Wizard would have disregarded it. The prohibition went deeper than that. Some said the goddess Mystra or her lackey, Azuth, were responsible. Others placed the blame on Ao, the god of gods. All agreed, however, that the prohibition was absolute and while there were many spells that he and his necromancer kin knew in common, the spells that preserved their consciousness weren't among them.

The spells to restore Gweltaz's bandages, however, could be learned and cast by any mage, or sealed within an object-a seed, such as the flaxseed sparkling in the table compartment, charged with the dual magic of mending and permanency. Lauzoril scooped up a thimbleful and blew them across the room. They settled on the flattened, singed bandages and immediately the tattered edges repaired themselves.

Lauzoril nodded in satisfaction. He and Gweltar squabbled and might yet kill each other, but the line between family and outside was clear, especially when an ethereal wind rattled the estate's distant boundary wards. Someone powerful-a zulkir, at least-was looking for Lauzoril. Wand in hand, the zulkir climbed partway up the stairs. His thoughts merged with the estate's subtle defenses. He watched, listened, and returned to the crypt.

"There'll be a second," Chazsinal said.

As usual, the other two wizards ignored him, but this time Chazsinal guessed correctly.

"Invocation," Lauzoril acknowledged. "Looking for me."

"Because Szass Tam is looking for you both." Gweltaz referred to the first probe, which had been particularly cold and dark. "Best think again about Bezantur. What will you do?"

"Nothing unseemly. Nothing foolish. Nothing eager. There's something afoot in the Yuirwood. No one knows its name or its power… yet. Not tanar'ri-nothing so powerful as an arch-fiend-but easier, perhaps, to control. Lord Thrul wants it for himself. Likewise Lady Illusion. We need not guess at Szass Tam's interest. But enchantment has an advantage. I have an advantage, and perhaps I will get there first to claim it. Alliances fade."

Dead black eyes manifested on Gweltaz's bandages. "You're not ready. That alliance with Lord Thrul was unwise, but it would be more unwise to end it now," he insisted, then the eyes became translucent, thoughtful. "No," his ghostly, raspy voice mused. "No, you wouldn't."

Lauzoril said nothing.

"You are a fool, an utter fool. You'll destroy us all."

"You've been destroyed once, Grandfather. The experience has made you over-cautious."

"This is not about caution, it's about recklessness, foolishness, blindness."

The discussion had surpassed Chazsinal's understanding. He sputtered his confusion. "What is? What are you two talking about?"

"Him!" Gweltaz swore. "Him! He would throw revenge away for a whim. For a woman! He believes his trinket gives him an advantage in Aglarond. He believes he can charm the witch-queen!"

The dagger hadn't entered Lauzoril's calculations. Since that night when his thoughts had merged directly with hers, his contacts had been both fleeting and-to be honest-confusing. Although the impressions came more frequently, they had a very different texture. He seriously considered the possibility that she'd given the knife to someone else, someone much younger and certainly no wizard.

The dagger hadn't given him anything about the Simbul's rampage. That knowledge, in addition to sketchy notions of a new power rising in the Yuirwood itself came from an altogether different source: A message from his chancellor of Enchantment in Bezantur.

The chancellor had had a visitor, a flighty woman with too much gold and a wayward husband-the sort of client whom enchanters had drawn since the dawn of magic. Once they were alone, however, the client had shed her flighty disguise. She claimed to be a Red Wizard, an invoker by training, and a privileged member of Thrul's household: the master of his spy web.

To prove her claim, the woman, who hadn't revealed her name, offered information about Aglarond, about Zulkir and Tharchion Aznar Thrul, and about Lauzoril himself.

Thrul had humiliated his spy master, belittled her advice, demeaned the sacrifice of her spies. She wanted revenge, no different than Gweltaz and Chazsinal. Her terms were very specific: gold, manpower, an impervious bolt-hole, and whatever spellcraft not barred to enchantment that she needed for her work in exchange for the intelligence that would bring Aznar Thrul down.

Before Thrul disposed of his erstwhile ally, Lauzoril.

It could be a trap, one of the oldest gambits in the vast repertoire of Red Wizard deceit and betrayal. Lauzoril wasn't truly surprised that the contempt he directed toward Aznar Thrul was reciprocated. For almost a year, he'd suspected that Invocation, rather than Necromancy, was the ultimate employer of the assassins who crossed his path with increasing frequency. At best, theirs was an uneasy alliance: The modes of invocation were as forbidden to enchanters as those of necromancy and all the more reason to view this nameless woman with suspicion.

Yet view her Lauzoril would. Before dawn tomorrow, he'd mount his stone horse for the journey to Bezantur and a very private meeting outside the city proper. If the spy master persuaded him of her sincerity and authenticity, he'd trade one untrustworthy ally for another.

That was the way in Thay: Things changed. A week ago his daughter had been an innocent child, now she'd taken her first steps along the dangerous path of magic and mastery. A week ago, Lauzoril's alliance with Thrul had been a stalemate and the zulkir-tharchion had had a loyal spy master.

But mostly, things did not change. If Thrul fell, another invoker-possibly the spy master herself-would take his place. Zulkirs could depose one another, but never usurp them. Their number and need for alliance was constant. As was the carping Lauzoril endured from his ancestors.

"Aglarond's queen is immune to your most potent spells." Chazsinal's voice hung on the edge of hysteria. "She will annihilate you, and us, too."

Gweltaz weighed in with his opinion. "Better to be dust and memories than slaves of an imbecile. There can be but one purpose for your life, O Mighty Zulkir: Bring down Szass Tam. Anything else clutters your mind, wastes your time, and exposes you to his wrath."

The Mighty Zulkir had had enough for one afternoon. He'd quenched another of Gweltaz's periodic rebellions; that was his reason for coming to the crypt. He'd had a foretaste of the pleasure he'd have when he told them that Mimuay was learning magic and was almost pleased that he'd been interrupted. The longer he kept Mimuay's secret, the greater his ancestors' dismay, the greater his own pleasure.

Lauzoril left the crypt, ignoring their objections and pleas. There was another changeless aspect to his life, one which, like the estate itself and his daughters, cleansed his mind when he'd grown too comfortable with cruelty and power. He met himself coming through the ruins and, disposing of the straw enchantment, returned to the estate-house where he found his wife embroidering in a shaded atrium.

"My prince!"

Wenne cast aside her cloth and threads. Lauzoril glimpsed a band of heraldic griffins, each different and remarkable, before she threw herself against him.

"I did not think you'd find me before sundown."

Sheer joy sparkled in her eyes before they closed and she tightened her arms again.

"Your smile haunts my every thought, dear lady," he replied. "I had to find you or go mad."

A statement not so very far from the truth. Lauzoril freed his ribs and raised her hand to his lips for a storybook kiss. It took one kind of madness to stave off another. Wenne wrested free. She retrieved her discarded work.

"It's almost finished. You must try it on, my prince."

He took the shirt in his hands. She attacked the shirt he wore. All her considerable magic was in her fingers.

"Not here, dear lady," he insisted before she had him naked.

Still clutching the griffin shirt, Lauzoril carried his wife to their bedchamber. Secure behind a wizard-locked door, he let her strip his shirt away and made an honest effort to pull the other over his head. Wenne put a stop to that; she always did. Wanton fingers caressed his chest and flanks, fascinated by his various scars, but never-never-exploring the oldest scar of all: the swirling tattoo her grandfather had placed above his heart.