The Simbul's Gift

19

The city of Velprintalar, in Aglarond Approaching dawn, the twentieth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)

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.

The dark seelie cast spells in waves, a handful of them darting down from trees to utter obscenities, then vanish, as the bat-serpent-orc had done, only to be replaced a moment later by another group from whatever demiplane they called home. Alassra felt the spells like raindrops: nasty variations of simple magic, just as she'd suspected.

Of course, the unseelie didn't know who she was any more than Halaern did. What they saw was a Cha'Tel'Quessir sell-sword without even a circlet to protect her. When she didn't succumb to their first assault, they tried again, in greater number, with poisoned weapons in addition to their spells. Alassra swung her sword double-handed and struck three of them simultaneously. Two vanished, but the third hit the ground with a thud. She sidestepped and planted her heel on its rib cage.

That was one dark seelie who wouldn't be leaving the Yuirwood.

Alassra ducked another onslaught of poisoned spears, arrows, and spells meant to transform parts of her into a rat. One of the spears narrowly missed her eye, a reminder that even the Simbul could find herself blinded when there were more sharpened objects flying through the air than she could count. She longed to use a spell or two, if only to convince the hovering nuisances that they shouldn't use theirs, but if any Red Wizards made it as far as the Yuirwood, the dark seelie would be their natural allies, and she didn't want to take the chance that any of the here-and-gone-again creatures might guess her true identity.

They gave up after a final wave of weapons and spells that left the she-bear lying on her side, oozing green ichor onto the moss, and Halaern nursing an empty weapon hand that swelled to twice its proper size in the space of three heartbeats.

"Let me help."

"No. Many thanks for your arm, dear lady, but my wound is nothing." He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. The verdigrised circlet shimmered, surrounding Halaern with a pine-scented mist. When it was gone, so too was the swelling in his hand and all the other angry scratches he'd taken on his arms and face. "A gift from a friend. And you? Were you harmed."

"No," she said with a smile, and would have teased him a bit, if the she-bear hadn't tried to rise from the moss.

Maddened by pain, magic, and fear for her cubs, the bear took them for enemies. Alassra readied the same spell she'd used on young Ebroin while Halaern-who had yet to recognize his "friend," placed himself in harm's way.

The she-bear dropped to three feet, holding a maimed forepaw off the ground. Making an eerie sound in the depths of her throat she began to sway from side to side, as if indecision as well as pain, were truly tearing her apart. Finally she stood still and allowed the forester to place his hands on either side of her head. Staring into her eyes, Halaern quieted the bear and gained her trust. She flopped to the ground with a weary sigh and let him probe her wounds.

"I can heal her, even her paw, once the spells wear off. She's agreed to be calm until then."

Halaern left the bear on her side while he examined her cubs. Alassra had already looked at them. The mewling cub was more frightened than hurt; healing its mother would be all the healing it would need. Not so for the second cub. The dark seelie shapeshifting spells had transformed its hindquarters into a corrosive ooze. It might die before the spell wore off; it would certainly die afterward, no matter what she or Halaern did. The forester needed several moments to reach the same conclusions. He sat back on his heels, his hands limp across his thighs.

"There's nothing else you can do," Alassra said gently. "If you healed the cub now, it would still be crippled. If you wait, it will die in agony. Right now, it is unconscious, and feels nothing."

Halaern nodded. He placed his hands around the furry throat and with a single, sure movement, ended its life.

"They are evil, my friend. Death has an honored place in the Yuirwood, but not evil. They don't belong here."

Thinking of the Sunglade, Alassra hoped her Cha'Tel'Quessir forester was correct. She offered him a hand up and he accepted. Wrist against wrist, Halaern recognized his queen as he rose. He became awkward and tongue-tied.

"My lady… my queen. I didn't… couldn't… I had your message, my queen, but I didn't expect you."

He tried to kneel; Alassra stopped him with an embrace.

"I was late. I didn't tell you half of what you needed to know. And, above all, dear friend, you had more important matters on your mind."

The embrace became a kiss that represented more than friendship. Alassra drew her fingers through his partly braided hair. They gazed at each other, saying nothing for several heartbeats.

"It is good to see you in the Yuirwood," Halaern said when there was once again an arm's length between them.

Of all the men Alassra had met and loved in her long life, Trovar Halaern was one she'd never meant to love her in return. But he was younger than Ebroin when they first met, and she'd appeared very much as she appeared right now.

"And you, forester. I should come to the Yuirwood more often."

"You should, dear lady."

There was no point to saying Halaern should come more often to Velprintalar. He came to the city when he had to; and looked like a feral cat trapped in an iron cage.

"Shall we heal mother bear?"

"With your help, there's no need to wait till the spell wears off." Halaern knelt and laid hands on the bear again. "With your help, my queen, it's a wonder any of those evil things got away."

"If I'd helped in that way, the wonder would be that you were still speaking to me."

Tension drained from the forester's face as he flashed a wry grin. "I might have made an exception."

"You're not saying you'd accept a gift, are you?"

The Simbul dispelled the shapeshifting magic, then stood back and let Halaern finish the healing. The bear lumbered to her feet. She called her cubs, greeted the one that came, then nuzzled the one that didn't.

"You have the other one," the forester said without sentimentality. "Raise it well."

She stared at her Cha'Tel'Quessir protector with great, liquid eyes before leading her living cub away. A silent moment passed. Halaern turned to his queen.

"In conscience, I couldn't refuse any gift, my lady. There's darkness loose in the Yuirwood, and I cannot drive it out."

"Does the darkness bear the name Zandilar or Zandilar's Dancer?" the Simbul asked as she became herself long enough to remove a simple topaz ring from the fourth finger of her right hand.

"If it has a name, my queen"-Halaern took the ring gingerly-"I have not learned it."

The forester had never worn a ring of any kind before. He placed it on a finger and regarded his hand as if it, too, had been touched by darkness. She told him what it could do and how to call forth its power. Well before the Simbul finished, Halaern's face was tense and troubled again.

"Let me tell you why I've come, dear friend, then perhaps it will be easier for you to share your burdens with me. I'm looking for a Cha'Tel'Quessir youth named Ebroin, of MightyTree, I think. I brought him to the Yuirwood the other night. More accurately: he brought me. He has a horse, a twilight colt named Zandilar's Dancer."

Halaern began walking; the Simbul kept pace beside him.

"The MightyTree are three days' walking from here. They are a balanced kindred," by which the forester meant that the MightyTree elders steered the family in the middle current between their Yuirwood heritage and tolerance for those who dwelt outside the forest. "I don't recall the name Ebroin, but Zandilar the Dancer, as I'm sure you know, is a Sunglade name."

"And a horse named Zandilar's Dancer?"

The forester shrugged. "In the darkest chambers of the deepest caves there are paintings on the walls. I've seen horses there, horses with spots, horses the color of twilight and other animals that are long gone from the Yuirwood. And I've heard that there are other caves where a maiden leads a horse that the hunters follow."

"I should like to see these paintings…"

Trovar Halaern looked straight ahead and said nothing.

"It is difficult for you, isn't it? Being Yuirwood and knowing me as you do."

He sighed. "With the Tel'Quessir in Retreat and your gods having warred and changed so recently, there is a sense in the Yuirwood that this is the time for the Cha'Tel'Quessir to seize their destiny. But there is no sense-no clear sense-what our destiny might be. Some say wait, others say leap. Most are caught in the middle."

The Simbul took his hand as they walked. "I heard the name Zandilar's Dancer in a dream the night after Ebroin's colt was born. The colt is in the Yuirwood now, with Ebroin and someone else. I don't know who that other person is, a man, I think. Most likely Cha'Tel'Quessir, but possibly a Red Wizard. Something is changing in the Yuirwood, dear friend, and its echoes can be heard throughout Faerun. Two nights past I met with three elven sages from Evermeet. I came away with more questions than answers; that's the Tel'Quessir way, isn't it? I'll share them all with you, but I need your help, dear friend: I need to find Ebroin and his horse. I need to see those who would seize their destiny regardless of the consequences, and I need to see them through these eyes."

"I'll start looking for this Ebroin of MightyTree and his horse. For the other, the best I can do is put you in the path of Rizcarn-"

The Simbul interrupted her forester. "Rizcarn? That's a name Ebroin mentioned. His father's name. His dead father, I thought; there was a black bead against his neck."

Halaern worried his lower lip.

"Problems? Coincidences?" the Simbul asked.

"If you'd asked me at Midsummer, I'd've said Rizcarn of GoldenMoss was dead these past seven years. Seems, though, that I've been wrong, that he was off prowling other forests. He's back, preaching Relkath's return, same as before. Always was a strange one. GoldenMoss hunters found him living wild."

The Simbul raised an eyebrow. Tales of Cha'Tel'Quessir raised by the Yuirwood itself were rampant in the forest. Few, if any, were believable.

"It's what they say and no one challenges them. Not MightyTree."

"Not a balanced sort, this Rizcarn?"

Halaern shook his head, searching for the right words. "Hardly. He trekked from one end of the Yuirwood to the other, carving Relkath's rune in tree bark. We thought him slightly mad, completely harmless. No one paid attention."

"But they are now, now that he's come back.?"

"He's called all Cha'Tel'Quessir to the Sunglade. I've kept a distance, my queen, but others are listening. I didn't take him seriously. He's not the first, my queen, to dance in the Sunglade. Nothing's happened there before, but if he's a Red Wizard in disguise… I will climb trees and look farther than I have. There are other ways."

The Simbul stopped walking and used the leverage their clasped hands provided to turn them face to face. "No, dear friend. I will look closely at this Rizcarn of GoldenMoss. You will look for Red Wizards in the Yuirwood."

"Come home with me, my queen. We'll eat and talk until midnight, and tomorrow I will take you across Rizcarn's path."

The Simbul knew she shouldn't; Alassra said she'd be delighted.