The Simbul's Gift

17

Everlund, near the High Forest After sundown, the eighteenth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)

When folk gathered for discussion, the Simbul was most often to be found-or not found-eavesdropping from the chandelier, disguised as a candle. She defended her deceit, saying that her presence inhibited those voices she most needed to hear, but the truth was that Alassra Shentrantra didn't like formal gatherings, and a gathering arranged by Alustriel with three elven sages was as formal as a gathering could get. She would have stayed home, if she hadn't been certain that Alustriel would show up, concerned about her well-being, and demand that she hie herself up to Everlund.

Bowing to the inevitable, Alassra had delved the depths of her wardrobe before conjuring a gray gown scarcely different than the one she usually wore-except it wasn't torn, frayed, or stained. The setting sun was still a handspan above the horizon when she cast the spell that whisked her north to Silverymoon. Alustriel was waiting, serenely beautiful in sapphire and silver.

"Did you forget your jewelry?"

Alassra displayed her rings, each charged with spells. "I don't wear fancy stones."

"They don't have to be fancy, 'Las, but the Tel'Quessir are a formal people. You have to finish things with them. Finishing tells them who you are."

"There isn't an elf alive who doesn't know who I am, what I am. If it bothers them, they shouldn't have agreed to meet with me." A stray thought crossed her mind. "You did tell them they'd be meeting with me didn't you? You didn't tell them I'd changed?"

"They wouldn't have believed me, if I had."

Satisfied, Alassra linked hands with Alustriel and followed her magically from Silverymoon to an ancient grove where an oblong menhir rested atop a number of smaller stones.

It was not the sort of place where Alassra could ever feel comfortable. She had nothing against the elves. After six hundred odd years of living, she had great respect for anyone older than her. But the older she got, the more she appreciated the differences between the two races. The Elven Retreat made perfect sense to her: she wished them well and far away. In her grand plan for Faerun's future, the elves would have the eastern march of Thay, beyond Lake Thaylambar. That thoroughly despoiled land was far enough away, or would be, when she was done with the Red Wizards, and Aglarond, too.

Alassra's discomfort was compounded by the realization that the sages were waiting for them.

"I thought you said sundown," she whispered angrily.

"I did. That's what was agreed. These are not the Tel'Quessir I spoke to; I don't know them. But they've come. I'm sure there are reasons for everything, 'Las. Please don't be difficult."

Hearing voices, the sages roused from their meditations. They did not, as Alassra feared, establish themselves on the wise side of the stone, talking down to short-lived, shortsighted humans. The youngest of the elves, not apparently a sage but a servant, spread a quilt of moonlight-pale silken patchwork over the grass then finished it with a circle of six plump cushions. Taking her cues from Alustriel, Alassra shed her sandals before stepping on the quilt and sitting on one of the cushions. The servant handed her a silver beaker of ice-cold nectar and offered a piece of honey-glazed shortbread-her favorite dessert and almost certainly a peace-offering.

Alassra glanced at her sister, who smiled and said nothing.

The elven servant served the sages, then seated himself on the last cushion. "It would help," he began without formality, "if you explained the things that trouble you in your own words. Begin at the beginning and leave nothing out. There may be something of significance that we would otherwise overlook."

Alassra's temper flared. She wasn't a child with a faulty memory; she was…

She was a queen who'd grown accustomed to the prerogatives and privileges of royalty when she should have known better.

"It began with a vision while I was napping. A voice said Zandilar. The vision showed me a black-maned horse the color of winter twilight…"

The elves scarcely moved while the Simbul told the story, as much of it as she could honestly remember on a moment's notice, leaving out only the bits about how her mirror peered into Thay. Fortified with a second beaker of nectar, Alassra spoke of Lailomun Zerad for the first time since she had accepted her Chosen heritage. It was a tale no one had ever heard, not the elves, not her sister, not even her own ears. There were tears in Alustriel's eyes when she finished. The elves saw the matter differently.

One of the sages, a black-haired Moon elf with a fondness for knives, six of which could be seen sprouting from his sleeves, boots, and belt, leaned forward to ask: "This personal enmity between you and the Zulkir of Illusion, how does it bear on the question of Zandilar?"

Again the storm queen felt her hackles rise, again she quelled them. "I don't know if it bears on Zandilar. What I do know is that Mythrell'aa has learned of my interest in the horse and, because of Lailomun Zerad, will presume my interest in the Cha'Tel'Quessir, Ebroin of MightyTree. She will pursue them because they are important to me. The other zulkirs will pursue Mythrell'aa, because they are Red Wizards and they swarm whenever one of them has something the others don't. If it were a matter of simply protecting a boy and a horse, I would do that, and I wouldn't be here asking your advice. But it's the Yuirwood, too, and the Cha'Tel'Quessir, and Zandilar, about whom I can learn very little, except that she was called 'the Dancer' and that there's a small stone bearing her name in the Sunglade inside a circle of larger, Seldarine stones."

Alassra leaned forward until her eyes were level with the Moon elf's. "My suspicions are as sharp as your knives, Honored One. I suspect there's a good reason for that outer circle and I suspect the Tel'Quessir would rather no one but them knew what that reason was."

The Moon elf held her glowering stare a moment before straightening his back. He and the other elves looked as if they'd just swallowed something sour. The third sage, a Gold elf of uncommonly fierce demeanor drummed his long fingers together, weighing his words before saying:

"The Red Wizards are their own reward, their own curse. Their quarrels fall hard on their neighbors, but they, themselves, are vermin. What they represent cannot be eliminated from humanity, but it must be confined, kept out of important places."

"Like the Yuirwood's Sunglade?" Alassra demanded around her sister who sat silently between her and the Gold elf.

"It would be unwise if they gained a foothold there," the Gold elf said.

Alassra gave him a moment's grace to elaborate. He obliged.

"The Tel'Quessir were not the first in the forest. There were others there when they came. Men and women like you-"

"No," the last sage said. She was an elven woman so old there was no color left in her skin or her hair. Opal cataracts clouded her eyes. Her arms, protruding from the white sleeves of her gown, were shrunken twigs that seemed too fragile to lift her hands. Yet she sipped nectar before continuing. "When the Yuir came to Abeir-toril they found men and women like no others. The forest had hidden them, like creatures caught on a island. They lived and worshiped alone, until the Tel'Quessir arrived."

The elven men, the Moon elf sage, the Gold elf, and the younger servant, averted their eyes when the old woman spoke. They did not agree with her, Alassra thought, but they weren't about to disagree in front of humans. The Simbul seized her chance to exploit elven reticence.

"After they arrived, did the Tel'Quessir conquer the Yuir folk and their gods?"

The Gold elf answered quickly, "The Tel'Quessir do not commit conquest."

"Not by intent," the Moon elf corrected. Alassra studied him from the corner of her eye. She'd judged him the least sympathetic, but perhaps she'd judged wrong. More likely Zandilar and the Yuirwood had been a sore point with Faerun's elves for a very long time. The latter notion seemed true when the Gold elf threw his attention at the Moon elf, not her.

"Relkath, Magnar, Zandilar! They were wild gods," he hissed across the circle. "Those who worshiped them were wild, too, or became wild. If they had tamed themselves… But that went against their nature. Another path had to be secured before the Tel'Quessir lost their way in the Yuirwood."

The sages lapsed into a discussion in archaic elvish, full of names and events that meant nothing to Alassra. The words meant something to Alustriel. Though the High Lady of Silverymoon listened as still and silent as Alassra, barely perceptible changes in her expression betrayed her interest and surprise as the sages debated what had happened long ago.

The Moon elf blamed the forest, saying it was too old, too wild for the Tel'Quessir. "We were wrong to go there, more wrong to stay. The Yuirwood shaped the Yuir, not the other way around. We should have left it to those who were there when we came."

"Aye," the Gold elf retorted, with all the subtle scorn elves could cram into a single, small word. "Aye, and if we left it… if the coronals had shirked their duty or our gods had shirked theirs, then what, Stiwelen? Would you rather others had come to take our place? They were a lesser folk with lesser gods. They were bound to be overtaken."

Stiwelen, the Moon elf, scowled. He fondled the gem-stone pommels of his knives and said nothing.

Undaunted by the silence among the elves, Alassra entered the discussion. "There was an elven Time of Troubles?" she suggested, referring to the turbulent years, recently passed, when the gods of humanity had warred among themselves in mortal time and mortal form. The elves said nothing; Alassra took that for agreement. "And the Sunglade circles commemorate the Seldarine taming the old, wild powers of the Yuirwood?"

The old woman raised her head. "It was done," she said and stared at the Simbul.

"The Tel'Quessir Seldarine enlightened the old ones and adopted them, as parents to children," the Gold elf added.

"As cousins at a wedding," Stiwelen corrected, a needling smile on his lean face. Alassra was starting to warm to him, though perhaps it was his knives. "There was enlightenment-if you choose to call it that-in all directions."

The Gold elf made a fist and opened his mouth, but the old woman spoke faster. "It was done," she repeated her earlier statement. "The old ones accepted the Tel'Quessir. The Seldarine accepted the old ones. The Yuirwood accepted the elves; they accepted the Yuirwood. It was all done."

"But it didn't last. Humans came to the land they named Aglarond, and the Yuir elves began their own Retreat."

"Not a Retreat," Stiwelen said bitterly. "The Yuir elves couldn't Retreat. They'd bound themselves to the forest. They doomed themselves."

Alassra hid her surprise. She'd always assumed-the Cha'Tel'Quessir themselves assumed-that the Yuir elves had Retreated from the forest to Evermeet. "Doomed? They aren't…? They all died?"

Stiwelen nodded; Alassra looked to the Gold elf for a contradiction and got it.

"They are part of the Yuirwood. They had accepted the forest; it had accepted them. There was no other way. They understood that. When the humans came into the Yuirwood, they accepted them, too, and the Cha'Tel'Quessir were born."

"And the Cha'Tel'Quessir are doomed as well!" Stiwelen shouted, an unseemly sound that echoed around the menhir. He rose to his feet and stalked the perimeter of the glade. "This is what comes of leaving things half-done. Are we going to let our mistakes flourish or are we going to put a stop to them?"

The Gold elf rose to his feet as well. "There have been no mistakes!"

Stiwelen laughed, a biting sound, like quarrels from a crossbow. It flushed the birds from their roosts in nearby trees. A nighthawk stooped; there was scream, then silence as it took its prey. Alustriel laid her left hand on Alassra's arm. A spell tingled in her fingertips.

Nethreene, we should leave now.

Alassra shook off the hand and the spell. Dlaertha, she used her sister's secret name, as Alustriel had used hers. Go, if you wish, but the conversation's just starting to get interesting. I think I'll stay a while longer.

Alustriel scowled and stayed.

"They are both right," the old woman whispered, as if the men couldn't hear her. "The Yuir were what we call Sy-Tel'Quessir, what you call wild elves. They held themselves apart from the coronals and the Court. They turned their backs on elegant cities, elegant philosophies. When the forest was threatened by humans, drow and their allies, the Yuir Sy-Tel'Quessir fought alone: They refused all offers of assistance."

"Offers!" Stiwelen sputtered, proving he heard and listened. "You do not offer a drowning man a rope. You dive into the water and drag him to the shore."

It was the Gold elf's turn to shatter the night's quiet with his laughter. "And you know nothing about either drowning men or the Yuir Sy-Tel'Quessir. The choice was theirs: They made it; we honored it. The trolls, the drow, and the rest of the Underdark were repulsed. They had their victory, on their terms."

"What of the humans? The Cha'Tel'Quessir say the humans fought beside the Yuir in the dark days, not against them," Alassra asked.

"The Cha'Tel'Quessir," Stiwelen spat the syllables out as curses. "Suppose we fall in love, you and I." He glared at Alassra who considered it unlikely. "We exchange vows. We live together. We have children. If I love a Gold elf or a Sea elf or even a drow, my children will be like me or their mother, but with you, our children would be neither wholly like you, nor wholly like me. A mistake? Perhaps. An exception? Certainly. The foundation of a new race? Half elf, half human forever? The Cha'Tel'Quessir? Gods help us all! They have accepted a burden they cannot hope to carry. They are children playing with fire, and they must be stopped."

"This, from the man who'd leap blindly into water to rescue the drowning. What do you do when a man is trapped in a burning house? Walk away?"

"I'd make damn sure he couldn't fall in the water or set fire to his house again! What would you do, Islywyn?"

Alassra thought there might be other options, chief among them: talking to the Cha'Tel'Quessir elders who freely admitted-to her, at least-that they knew less than they would have liked about their Yuir ancestors. She'd take care of that when she got back to Aglarond when she shared her account of this evening. But before that-lest the reason for this gathering be forgotten:

"Excuse me, I came here to learn about Zandilar, the Dancer."

"The fool," Stiwelen replied as Islywyn said:

"The traitor."

"One, the other, or both?" Alassra asked, provoking the two men in the hope of getting them to speak freely, and rashly.

But it was the old woman who answered her. "A maiden, not of the Sy-Tel'Quessir. She fell in love with the forest and it gave her one of the old names and accepted her as part of itself. Neither wizard, nor warrior, she was merely beautiful, and when the Yuirwood was attacked, she defended it with her beauty and rode to battle on a gray horse."

Islywyn strode onto the quilt. He stood in front of the old woman, towering over her. "Zandilar rode straight to the drow temples. She defended the Yuirwood by consorting with the dark god, Vhaeraun!"

The old woman rose to her feet, agile and steady despite her frail appearance. "She hoped to seduce him and take his secrets back to the Yuirwood. She was betrayed."

"The traitor herself betrayed!" Islywyn countered. "The fate of all those who treat with the drow: the seducer becomes the seduced."

"Never! She suffered, as only gods can suffer, but her true faith was never broken, even at the end."

"Here's your fool, Stiwelen," Islywyn said, staring at the old woman. "Zandilar the Martyr."

The old woman closed her eyes.

It was stand or be left out of the conversation, so Alassra stood. "What happened to Zandilar? Her name remains on a Sunglade stone. Others have weathered, but hers remains."

"That's a question to which no one has an answer," Stiwelen said softly. He leaned against the menhir, knife in hand, examining its edge. "Zandilar, as my lady says, suffered as only gods can suffer: she was subsumed, vanquished, we think, along with all the gods and demigods the Yuir venerated. They all disappeared, extinguished like so many candles. The Tel'Quessir cannot find them. The Seldarine cannot find them. As for the Yuir, they were extinguished not long after they defeated the drow and drove them back; and the trolls and their other enemies-except for the humans.

"Humans cut down the ancient trees; the Yuir fought among themselves. Humans carved farms where there had been forest; the Yuir sickened and dwindled. Humans set up camps in the heart of the forest and within a generation-a human generation-the Cha'Tel'Quessir had claimed the Yuirwood." Stiwelen sheathed his knife. "Tell me, Queen of Aglarond, do you think there was love in the air when the first Cha'Tel'Quessir were born?"

"Yes." Alassra replied.

"Then, tell me the name of your mother's mother."

The Queen of Aglarond stood mute, unable to answer, uncertain which of her mother's parents had been an elf, which had been human.

"Bethril," Alustriel answered in her sister's place, "Bethril Morningsong, daughter of Herran and Caethene. She was a Moon elf, like yourself and through Herran Morningsong she traced her lineage to Querryl and Thalleir, Elayna and-"

Alassra stopped her sister with a sad shake of her head. "Thank you, I should have asked long ago, but Stiwelen's point is well-taken. The Cha'Tel'Quessir know they are descended from the Yuir elves, but they know nothing about them, presumably because those ancestors shared nothing with their Cha'Tel'Quessir children. The Yuir and their gods were forgotten or-worse-half remembered. And the problem with anything half-done or half-remembered is that it's never the right half. Is it, Stiwelen?"

"Never," the Moon elf agreed. "The Yuir erected the outer circle, but they didn't tell their children why. Now those children are whispering forbidden names, and their whispers are being heard."

"You can't be serious," Islywyn snarled. "It's been five hundred years since the last Yuir died."

Alassra couldn't tell if the Gold elf meant too much time had passed, or not enough. Elves understood time and tradition in a fundamentally different way than humans could. Mystra's Chosen-Elminster, herself and her sisters, and a handful of others-might live as long as elves, but they were too few in number to ever think like them. She judged Stiwelen younger than Islywyn and both of them far younger than the old woman, but she couldn't guess if five hundred years was a large part of Stiwelen's life or a small one.

"Our friend here," Stiwelen extended his hand toward Alassra, "did not hear Hanali's name in her dreams. She heard Zandilar. The Yuirwood Sy-Tel'Quessir failed, Islywyn. They couldn't keep their promises to the Seldarine, and they couldn't keep their promises to the Yuirwood, either. Can you imagine that these Cha'Tel'Quessir will fare better? They don't even know what those promises were! We don't know! How many more mistakes must be made before they are corrected? You listened to our friend: Zandilar's name came to her in a dream. Zandilar's stone is legible again. Zandilar's coming back, Islywyn. They'll all come back."

"Zandilar," Islywyn mused. "Zandilar the Traitor, corrupted by Vhaeraun."

"Not a traitor," the old woman insisted. "Never a traitor! She escaped from Vhaeraun's pit and returned to the Yuirwood. Her faith was never challenged."

"It should have been," Stiwelen shouted. "It should have been by the Tel'Quessir! We should have acted when we could."

"They did," the old woman said in a whisper that commanded attention. "I was there. The drow and their allies were gone; the humans were coming. The Yuirwood could never be restored to what it had been; there was only the question of protecting what was left. The Yuir elves and their gods agreed: they gave up their essence to the forest, to keep its secrets. They agreed to be forgotten."

"But they weren't," Alassra said, matching the old woman's tone. "The Cha'Tel'Quessir were born. They remember… They want to remember."

The old woman smiled. "There was love when the first Cha'Tel'Quessir were born. Zandilar saw to that."

Satisfaction illuminated her pale, fragile skin. "There must always be passion and hope."

"Zandilar, the Traitor," Stiwelen hissed, his hands going for his knives.

Alassra surged, intending to place herself between the Moon elf and the woman. Alustriel latched on to her sleeve.

Nethreene! No! We have stayed too long. We must go- quickly.

Spellcraft tingled on Alassra's elbow. She could have shaken it off. She could have blasted Stiwelen: instincts honed through six centuries of danger told Alassra that she had the advantage over the sages-though not, perhaps, over the servant who, scarcely noticed, prepared a spell of his own. Elves at war with elves: it was the darker part of their legends, even in the Yuirwood.

Nethreene!

And nothing a human should witness.

Alassra shook off her sister's hand and spell. She wouldn't be dragged like a wayward child. A moment later they faced each other in Silverymoon.

"Well, that was interesting." Alassra got the first words between them.

Alustriel was too shaken to respond. Her eyes were glazed with tears; she made her way blindly to a chair where she sat with her fingers in a knot. "We have turned over stones best left unturned," she murmured. "The sages always speak with one voice."

"Either you're mistaken, or we weren't listening to elven sages. We didn't start turning over stones, Sister, they rolled over in front of us. The Yuirwood's getting its most ancient gods back, and I don't know what that means because the Tel'Quessir either don't know themselves or won't trust a human with the truth."

After a moment's reflection, Alustriel nodded slowly. "They wanted to know what you already knew. They came to listen, not to advise."

"They were supposed to come with answers."

"They will confer, resolve their differences-"

"Concoct a tale suitable for our ears? They're afraid, Sister dear. They've been afraid of the Yuirwood since they came to Abeir-toril, and they've never been more afraid than they are now."

"With good reason."

"That remains to be seen." Alassra summoned the wherewithal to return to Velprintalar.

"Be careful, 'Las. Don't do anything rash, I beg you. I'll return to Evermeet; I'll talk to them and get to the bottom of this."

"Do as you wish, and don't worry about me: I don't start things; I finish them."

Alassra raised her hand and was gone, back to Velprintalar and her privy chambers where she shed her gown, her silver hair and every other habitual part of her appearance. The Simbul became Cha'Tel'Quessir, with brown hair and burnished skin. She pulled on soft leathers in wine and sable. She retrieved weapons-a spear and a sword-from a chest beneath her bed. When her transformation was finished, not even her sisters or Elminster would have guessed she was not what she appeared to be: a Cha'Tel'Quessir sell-sword without a whit of magic to her name.