by Lynn Abbey
"Wake up," the Zulkir of Illusion commanded her helpless prisoner, and his eyes sprang open. "Stand up," she added, and he struggled fruitlessly because she hadn't loosened the bonds that held him against the ground. "Suffer," she concluded, and he did, screaming until blood trickled from his nose. "You see, I have all the power and you have none. No one can hear you scream. We are quite perfectly isolated here. Now, you can answer my questions or you can suffer. You have only begun to suffer, Ee'bro'een. The choice is yours."
His mouth worked frantically. Mythrell'aa thought, with some small regret, that he was going to cooperate, but he spat at her instead and she castigated him with a thousand insubstantial cuts. He didn't bleed, but he thought he did; that was the power of illusion and she was the most powerful illusionist in Thay.
Stubborn and deliriously foolish, Ee'bro'een yielded nothing without a struggle. He proved to have a higher tolerance for torment than the few elves that had previously fallen into her hands. She almost reconsidered his expendability.
But the knowledge Mythrell'aa extracted from his mind advised her that while elf-human mongrels might be worth the trouble of collecting and keeping, this particular mongrel had a different destiny. He didn't know why Alassra Shentrantra-the Simbul, as he called her-had taken an interest in him and his horse, and he didn't know that the woman who'd been marching beside him for the last five days was that same Simbul.
Mythrell'aa hadn't been completely certain herself until last night when the forest erupted in flame and lightning. She knew Alassra's spellcasting signature and it was all over the sky. It was interesting that Ee'bro'een thought his lover was the mongrel goddess, Zandilar, but only insofar as that created possibilities in Mythrell'aa's fertile imagination. Ee'bro'een expected himself, his horse, and his half-breed goddess to dance together at the moment of the full moon, midway through this coming night at a place he knew as the Sunglade.
Odd to worship the moon in a Sunglade, but the forest mongrels were, at best, odd.
Ee'bro'een expected some great miracle to result from this unlikely union, some rebirth of the forest powers, but mostly he expected a night of highly unimaginative passion in his lover's arms.
Ee'bro'een knew the way to the Sunglade, and, after a short deliberation, Mythrell'aa knew what she wanted to have happen there: two events, two triumphs, the first more important than the second. The first would destroy Alassra Shentrantra and the second… Mythrell'aa found the notion of impersonating a goddess, even a mongrel goddess, appealing.
To implement her first triumph, Mythrell'aa roused Lailomun from his lethargy. He, too, had become expendable. Generations ago, during Thay's struggle for independence, the transmuter, Lusaka Gur had developed a spell that made the Mulhorandi think twice before capturing a Red Wizard. To cast it was suicide, which, unsurprisingly, had made the spell difficult to perfect. Indeed, Gur's notes showed that in its early versions, he'd cast the spell on someone else: an enemy, a slave, another Red Wizard. Mythrell'aa possessed a true copy of Lusaka Gur's notes. And while she kept the final version of Gur's spell-lash memorized at all times, she'd found the early mark of Gur more useful.
In either version, it was a complicated spell, far too complicated for Lailomun's addled memory, but he wouldn't have to cast it. He would merely bear its mark until she touched his mind with the triggering words.
"Alassra," Mythrell'aa whispered to her handsome, doomed pet as she anointed him with cade oil. "Alassra Shentrantra. When next you hear those words, my pet, she will be in front of you. No matter what your poor eyes tell you, my pet, it will be her, and you will be free to go to her. Do you hear me, my pet? You will be free." She touched the blue scar on his brow, where the nerves were raw and the path to his memory was clear. "This you will remember."
Lailomun would obey. His affection for the silver-haired wizard had never faltered. He'd run to her, like a fly to fresh turds, and Alassra Shentrantra would die. The bitch-queen had kept that wretched rose-thorn branch for a hundred years. She'd be suspicious, but she wouldn't loose one of her infamous lightning bolts and Lailomun would destroy her as the mark of Gur destroyed him.
The mark of Gur would destroy the rest of the mongrels as well-she'd enlarged its destructive sphere twofold. The Sunglade would belong to Mythrell'aa and Ee'bro'een and whatever power she could wring out of the accursed Yuirwood forest. That would be the second triumph.
By this time tomorrow Mythrell'aa expected to be back in Bezantur, summoning another Convocation where she'd announce the death of Aglarond's silver-eyed queen and the coronation of Thay's first queen-zulkir. It would all happen at midnight. Until then, she'd rest and contemplate the slow, eventful torture of Aznar Thrul. Ee'bro'een had given her the Sunglade's precise location. She could transport herself there and avoid the tedium of walking.
If Rizcarn were a man who remembered his only son with any affection, then Alassra expected him to quake with horror when he learned that Bro had been seized by a Red Wizard, probably a zulkir. If Rizcarn were a man who was, in part, a Red Wizard, then she expected him to grow wary when he saw Trovar Halaern, the Simbul's chief forester striding beside her. But, by expectation, Rizcarn was neither a father nor a Thayan wizard, though he did react.
"Relkath has turned his face from me. He denies me protection. He has taken away all those who would dance with Zandilar. She will come tonight, but there will be no one there for her to dance with and she will sink back into the ground."
Alassra recalled Bro's description of mist rising from a carved stone and sinking again, taking the colt with it. "Can't you dance with her?" she asked, mostly to see his reaction.
"I have already been chosen-I was chosen. I serve Relkath. I cannot serve Zandilar. She must have another."
Mystra had chosen Elminster, the seven daughters of Elue Shundar, and a handful of others to do a goddess' work in Faerun. It was conceivable that the forgotten Yuirwood gods would do-or try to do-the same. With a glance at Halaern, Alassra pressed forward. "How do you serve Relkath? By bringing the Cha'Tel'Quessir to the Sunglade?"
Rizcarn brandished his chisel. He finished the rune he'd been working on when Alassra and Halaern interrupted him. "I wake the trees. I tell them to remember the past. That's how I serve Relkath."
"And the Sunglade?"
"Relkath came to me. He told me Zandilar's horse was in the Yuirwood and that I should be its guide. He told me where to find the horse and where to find Zandilar. I found Ebroin, who was my son. Zandilar had chosen Ebroin, but he wouldn't go with her." Rizcarn's face hardened. "My son had been among the dirt-eaters. He'd taken gifts from their queen. He shamed me."
Alassra turned to Halaern, who asked his own questions. "You used to say that Relkath Many-Limbed cherished the wild heart in a young man's breast. Has he changed so much since the last time you and I talked?"
"Halaern? Trovar Halaern of YuirWood?" Rizcarn squinted. His one eye was still swollen; the other was red where it should have been white. "They would have chosen you, Halaern, if you'd ever listened for their voices."
"All I heard was Cha'Tel'Quessir coming back from the Sunglade, year after year, always with the same story, Rizcarn, always: Next year. Next year it will be different. Next year our gods will hear us. We have no gods, Rizcarn. They were taken away from us before we were born. The Tel'Quessir took them and scattered them from one end of the Yuirwood to the other. There's nothing beneath the Sunglade. Nothing that can't be found in the roots of every tree or beneath every rock."
Rizcarn seemed to not hear any of the words the forester had spoken. "You could serve, Halaern. You're young yet. Throw away the witch-queen's gifts, come to the Sunglade and dance with Zandilar."
The Simbul exchanged another glance with her forester. There were Fangers who called her the witch-queen, and traders from other realms who were uncomfortable with a Cha'Tel'Quessir title whose significance they couldn't quite grasp, but by and large, Aglarondans called her the Simbul. Almost all the Cha'Tel'Quessir did whether
they liked her or not. Like the inner circle of the Sunglade, the Simbul belonged to them, however little they understood it or her. The Thayans called her the witch-queen of Aglarond-when they were being respectful, which wasn't very often. Though, speaking to Trovar Halaern, trying to entice him to the Sunglade, might incite a Red Wizard's respect, at least until he'd gotten what he wanted.
Halaern removed the verdigrised circlet. "Will you hold this for me, cousin?"
Alassra considered the narrow band of metal as if it had become a deadly serpent. Her hands remained at her side. She directed her thoughts at his mind, knowing he would hear them so long as he held the circlet.
This is nonsense, my friend. You heard him. He's all but admitted he's a Red Wizard. There's nothing the Red Wizards would like better than to claim your life. Zandilar will dance anyway. We don't need Rizcarn; we can go ourselves.
I am elder of YuirWood, my lady; the forest will not harm me, and Relkath himself no longer trusts Rizcarn. I will be safe.
You don't believe in Relkath, Halaern!
I believe in you and the Yuirwood, my lady. Rizcarn will be content now, whatever he has become. He'll go forward without suspicion, we need that-you need that-if we're to have an opportunity to save Bro.
Halaern-Zandilar is going to keep whoever she dances with, I'm increasingly certain of that.
My lady, I have danced with a goddess all my life. I'm not afraid of Zandilar. Halaern offered the circlet again. "Please, cousin, it is my wish."
As your queen, Trovar Halaern, I command you to stop this nonsense at once.
I cannot obey. You speak not as my queen, but as my ladylove. My queen, I know, understands.
Alassra took the circlet and placed it on her own brow for safekeeping. Rizcarn gathered the remaining Cha'Tel'Quessir and led the way to the Sunglade.
27
The city of Bezantur, in Thay Late afternoon, the twenty-fourth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)
The first indication that Aznar Thrul's traitorous spy master had of the burgeoning problems in Aglarond had come during the night, when frantic spellbound thoughts awoke her from a fitful sleep. The arcane messages were the same: Something dire and deadly had struck the chattel-kessir mongrels while they marched beneath a hanging storm, and something equally potent had risen up to defend them with lightning.
The spy master had reminded her minions that they remained safe because they were following their orders to lay low, to attract no attention whatsoever until they spied a horse among the mongrels.
After they saw the horse, their orders were different. The vanguard was to act for the glory of Thay. Her second group followed orders for her personal glory and that of their old master, Deaizul. The spy master had tried to pick up the threads of Deaizul's thoughts. He was with the chattel-kessir, within the mind of their leader. There had been problems earlier, problems that she didn't learn about until the damage was done. She tried to imagine her lover and mentor with a half-breed's pointed ears and mottled skin. It would be difficult, but if they brought Aznar Thrul down, then all things would become possible.
Deaizul, though, had been deep in his chattel-kessir identity and hadn't responded to her spell-sent pleas throughout the night. He would, she thought, have been accessible, if the problems were serious and when she couldn't rouse him, she'd gone about her affairs, blithely convinced that nothing truly significant had occurred.
Other matters occupied the spy master's mind this morning: an assassination in Amruthar, a reminder to a local magistrate that the city's independence depended entirely on the city's willingness to do what it was told. She was in the bolt-hole, updating her encoded notebooks, when the first essence egg exploded within the locked wooden chest. Three more had shattered by the time she opened it. All the broken eggs were bound to her personal minions in the Yuirwood.
She knew the eggs could break, but never in the ten years since Deaizul gave her the box had an egg exploded. Minions died and the powdered essence with their eggs grew dark; they didn't explode.
Frantic, almost beyond rational thought, the spy master dodged flying bits of glass, trying to protect the remaining eggs. To no avail. Within a handful of moments, every egg belonging to a Yuirwood spy was a splintered ruin and every spy-there was no other interpretation-was dead.
The dire beast from last night? The Aglarondan forest harbored creatures unknown in Thay. The Yuirwood itself was magical, so said Deaizul. Could it have killed with such force that death had echoed all the way back to Bezantur? Could there be another explanation? The Simbul had wrecked havoc in the farming village, but the eggs had survived. Mythrell'aa had headed west and disappeared, but swift mass murder wasn't Lady Illusion's style.
The spy master went to the separate cabinet where she kept her own egg and Deaizul's. His was intact and glowing. She held it in her hands. They were bleeding; she hadn't dodged all the glass. She pressed the egg between her breasts. She called Deaizul's name with her heart.
No answer. He was alive-trapped in a mongrel's body, but alive. And not listening to her pleas.
The spy master poured herself a glass of clear liquid. She drained the glass in two gulps, then swallowed another time directly from the decanter. Her heart no longer raced.
Why should Deaizul risk his place among the chattel-kessir by turning his attention toward her when she called? The mongrels were canny, like animals. They'd tear him apart, like animals, if they thought he was not one of them. He was alive. In Bezantur, nothing more mattered.
She poured another glass. Calmer now, she could see that events had gone for the best. She could tell the zulkir that the Yuirwood had unmasked her spies and their plans had come to naught. He'd be angry… until Deaizul had the power of the forest in his grasp. After that, the zulkir's anger would be too little, too late.
The carnelian token the spy master kept pinned to her robe grew warm, then hot. She unclasped it and dropped it on the table where it shimmered with its own heat. The blood-red stone bulged, became a pair of lips that opened to shape one word, "Now." It was Aznar Thrul's voice.
The summons couldn't be a coincidence, yet it had to be. The zulkir couldn't already know what she herself had just learned. The spy master assembled her old woman's disguise and hurried out of the bolt-hole. The chamberlain expected her; another first, like the exploding eggs. Even more disconcerting, he didn't wheedle or harass her, didn't want coins before opening the proper doors, didn't insist that she change into a flimsy gauze robe.
"The Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir awaits you in the smaller audience chamber," he said, tall and stiff and going out of his way not to touch her.
The spy master swallowed hard. Her mouth was pasty and sour. She wished she had something to drink, something potent. Failing that, she calmed herself with the knowledge that Deaizul was alive. His essence egg was secure in her bolt-hole cabinet, safe beside her own.
Her calm melted when she entered the small audience chamber where the zulkir sat, in robes of darkest crimson, behind a table and an opened box identical in every way to the one in which she kept the essence eggs. Nearly a score of the padded compartments were empty, dusted with glass shards and rust-colored powder. But the worst was in the upper right corner. Where her box had two completely empty compartments, corresponding to the places where her own egg and Deaizul's had once rested, Aznar Thrul's held two glowing, fragile essence eggs.
"I see you recognize this," the zulkir said. His words were winter ice, stinging the spy master's flesh.
"My lord, it is remarkably similar to a box Deaizul once showed me."
"Do not imagine you can deceive me any longer with misdirection and half-truths, woman. It is the twin-the precise double-of the box you keep in your private chamber behind the Sahuagin Tavern, in a locked cabinet. The doors are painted red."
"I meant only that Deaizul once showed me a second box, my lord."
"More lies! Deaizul thought there was but one box, and so did you! So careful,
weren't you, collecting just enough flesh and blood to decoct a few drops of mortal essence to mix with the dragon wing and blood pearl? And buying your own reagents with plain coins. Oh so careful, and oh so clever. Do you think I became zulkir because I am a mooncalf fool, woman? I knew where you traded! You bargain so hard for my dragon wing, my blood pearl, and-for good measure-a few grains of red iron and cinnabar mixed with the dragon wing and mustard oil smeared ever-so-lightly over the pearls. Can you guess what I did?"
She could. The iron could attract another spell, the cinnabar-converted to minute quantities of quicksilver by the mustard oil-would reflect the essence to another location: the inside of Aznar Thrul's duplicate eggs. She felt ill. It wouldn't last. The dead didn't vomit.
"You sent two teams into the Yuirwood. Two. You only mentioned one. You said the other one was from Mythrell'aa. What were you thinking of?"
"One team failed in the village, my lord." Her doom sat in the open box. Even so, she wouldn't concede, wouldn't beg for mercy that wouldn't be forthcoming, not from Aznar Thrul. "I sent a second, to be certain mistakes were not repeated. I didn't want you to worry-"
"Worry? No, indeed, I'm not worried. Certain mistakes will never be repeated."
Thrul picked up a glowing egg: hers, unless he'd switched them. The eggs were identical. The essences they contained were indistinguishable, hence the carefully labeled compartments.
"Where is your lover, Deaizul?" the zulkir asked.
"I have not seen him in over a year."
"Then you do not know that he's in the Yuirwood? You do not know that his body was destroyed when he possessed a certain half-breed who-it turned out-was not quite the innocent he'd seemed."