The Simbul's Gift

by Lynn Abbey

  A crescent moon had cut through the clouds. It shed enough light to distinguish shape from shadow. Bro was out of the swamp, out of the Yuirwood, maybe out of Aglarond altogether. He had to find the colt and Rizcarn or else he was going to have to find his way home alone.

  After wringing out his hair, clothes, and boots, Bro stood up. He felt refreshed and more confident than he’d been since the witch-queen vanished with Tay-Fay. He could think of his sister now, think of Shali, Dent, and all the horrors of that morning, without fighting tears. Bro still blamed the Simbul for all that had happened, but if he met her again—which he hoped he never would—he’d thank her for the knife.

  With a hand on the studded hilt protruding from its sheath, Bro started walking upstream. He had no fear and wasn’t unstrung when Rizcarn, leading Dancer, separated from the darkness.

  “You’re better now, son.”

  Bro shrugged. No reason to tell Rizcarn about his knife. “Grandfather always said terror could cure anything from hiccoughs to fevers. I’m so cured I could walk until dawn, if that’s what you want.”

  “Not so far or long, son. We’re almost there.”

  Rizcarn started walking away from the river. Bro followed, leading the colt by the rope.

  “This was forest once, long before the Cha’Tel’Quessir were born,” Rizcarn explained, more talkative than he’d been before. “See … over there. That’s where Zandilar danced with the hunters.”

  Bro sighted along his father’s arm and saw the stones, a score of them at least, heaved into the night. He touched the knife; his fingers tingled.”

  “Is she there, Father? Am I—? Is she going to dance with me, as she promised?” After today, Bro didn’t want to dance with anything magical.

  “Zandilar keeps her promises.” There was, unexpectedly, a hint of concern and caution in Rizcarn’s voice. “But not tonight, I think. Later. Best it were later, son. Relkath protects.”

  The stones rose haphazardly from the ground, no two the same height or angle, completely unlike the measured stone circles of the Yuirwood. Bro worried that they were no part of his heritage, until he stood close to one and studied its markings. He couldn’t read the runes his elven ancestors carved on trees and stones alike, but he recognized them and was reassured.

  “Magnar.” He touched one of the more common carvings. That last summer, when he’d followed his father through the forest, they’d carved Relkath’s name into the trees, but they’d carved Magnar’s name whenever they’d found a moss-covered boulder. “The stones remember.”

  “No time to awaken the stones, son. We’re here for Zandilar.”

  Bro wasn’t terribly surprised when Rizcarn produced a pair of silver pipes. He’d never heard his father play, but it was a rare Cha’Tel’Quessir who couldn’t coax a melody from the pipes. He wasn’t terribly concerned that the melody was unfamiliar and grew less disciplined as Rizcarn wove from one stone to the next. Though he’d been a child when he left the Yuirwood, he’d heard about moonlight revels where everyone danced themselves to exhaustion. If Zandilar were going to dance, he imagined she’d prefer wild music. Just so long as she didn’t expect him to dance with her.

  His trust vanished when they reached the center of the ancient stones. A large stone lay flat, its visible surface covered with swirling marks that weren’t like any runes Bro had ever seen. When he stared at them, his body began to weave in rhythm with Rizcarn’s music. He walked forward, toward the stone until he tripped and, aware that there was magic in the air, wrapped his hand firmly around the hilt of his knife.

  Immune to both his father’s music and the meandering swirls, Bro noticed the hole at the stone’s center. No bigger around than a circle made by the thumb and fingers of both hands, it was unnaturally dark and cold in his night vision. He’d opened his mouth, to call it to Rizcarn’s attention, when he noticed a pale, thin mist rising from its depths. Bro’s hand tingled, then the hilt itself seemed to freeze in his hand, a warning, he supposed, that Zandilar’s magic was stronger. He tried to turn around and found that, though his thoughts remained his own, his feet did not. It was stand still or move toward the stone and the mist.

  Bro kept a grip on Dancer’s halter while the mist thickened into the goddess herself. The lithe figure had a woman’s arms and legs, but it was taller than him and its body was shimmering, featureless light.

  “My servant,” Zandilar said in a voice so resonant that Bro couldn’t guess whether it came from a god or a goddess.

  Rizcarn lowered the pipes from his lips and sank to his knees. “Your servant.”

  Then Zandilar looked at Bro. The knife burned in his hand. He could neither speak nor breathe until Zandilar turned away.

  “We thought you would never return, but you have, and you have done well. The beast is worthy.”

  Bro gasped. The hilt had gone cold again; his heart was colder. He didn’t like the implications of her words, the beast is worthy; Dancer wasn’t a beast. He recognized the voice that had spoken to him the day the colt was born, though it no longer seemed lighthearted or flirtatious.

  “Is it enough, Zandilar? Will you dance in the Sunglade? Will you choose your consort?”

  “In the ’Glade, when the moon is full.”

  The mist extended its arms, which wrapped, cloudlike and glowing softly with their own light, around Rizcarn’s neck. His face vanished. There was a sound like a deeply passionate kiss. Modesty proved stronger than curiosity; Bro stared at his toes.

  “I will know.” The voice was that of a man locked in a dream.

  Bro ground his teeth together to keep from screaming. Then he felt a hand—a soft, warm woman’s hand—caress his neck and jaw, relaxing each muscle it touched, lifting his chin as if it were a feather. She was beautiful. Her skin was as blue as a clear, autumn sky. Her eyes were sunshine. He was young and utterly inexperienced, but all her lovers had been inexperienced at first.

  Zandilar’s face drew so close that Bro closed his eyes. He felt her lips against his and, scared for reasons that had nothing to do with magic or gods, squeezed his knife’s hilt until it cut his palm. Suddenly, he was alone. The mist was formless and Rizcarn was angry.

  “Surrender him! The horse is not yours. The horse has always belonged to Zandilar. Has living among dirt-eaters made you forget what you owe to our gods, Ebroin?”

  Bro remembered Zandilar riding into the mist the day Dancer was born. That much was true: Dancer had never belonged to him.

  “What will you do with him?” he asked, his voice steadier than he’d dared hope.

  “Dance in the Sunglade when the moon is full. Dance with another, instead of you, silly young man.”

  For a heartbeat, Bro believed he’d lost something more precious than his mother’s love. Then, with the knife hilt stinging his palm, he saw danger for him and the colt he’d raised. He saw, as well, that no matter what he did, the colt was doomed: Zandilar would have Dancer, had always had him. Bro found the strength to release the knife and wrap his arms around a trusting neck, to hide his face in a coarse, black mane.

  “Good-bye,” he whispered, not a word he’d trained the colt to understand.

  Then, with a last pat, he offered the rope to Zandilar who had no use for it. Her mist-made form dissolved around the colt, obscuring him, consuming him, drawing him back into the small, dark hole.

  Bro had expected her to ride away on Dancer’s back, as she had in his vision. He hadn’t expected the colt to completely disappear. A macabre progression formed in his thoughts: Shali’s corpse had been whole, Dent’s had been half-gone, Dancer was wholly gone. It meant nothing; nothing had meaning any more. Bro was back where he’d been in the stable: deaf and numb but without Dancer, without even his human sister to keep him moving.

  “It’s time to leave,” Rizcarn said. Bro hadn’t noticed him approaching or felt his hand on his arm. “You angered her. Disappointed her.”

  Bro shook his head.

  “The moon’s waning, Ebroin.
There’s much to do between now and when it’s full again. We’ll meet Zandilar in the Sunglade. Maybe you’ll get another chance, son. Maybe. I can’t say, but you’re still with me, and I’ve got much to do.”

  Bro shook his head again. Rizcarn’s hand was warm on his arm, but there was no way he could pretend that it was his father’s hand, no way to pretend that he wasn’t an orphan. Worse than an orphan. He was a man in a world of trouble with no where to go but forward, following the man who had once been his father back across the river.

  16

  The Black Citadel in the city of Bezantur, in

  Thay Afternoon, the eighteenth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)

  For the first time in over a month, a cool breeze had freshened over Bezantur Harbor. It cleansed the city, awakening it from stagnant dreams. In Bezantur’s one thousand fabled temples, priests and acolytes invoked their deities with prayers for High Harvest, the season that followed Reeking Heat. Ordinary folk smiled at the sun; they greeted their loved ones and neighbors like long-lost friends. On a balcony overlooking the slave market, Aznar Thrul waited impatiently while a trio of terrified gnolls arranged an early supper on a gilded table.

  The Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir had plans for the evening: a visit to the citadel dungeons, which he hadn’t visited during the Heat, to savor a torture session without sharing it. Afterward, he planned a midnight visit to the locked chamber where Bezantur’s former tharchion awaited his pleasure. Awaited was, perhaps, too strong a word. Mari Agneh scarcely comprehended that she was alive. Thrul had bound his predecessor in a web of spells that left her worse than dead. She, who had once sent armies against him, had become a painted doll, sating his whims and those of his other guests. The pleasure was always his, never hers.

  For a month, Aznar Thrul had lived the boring life of an ascetic, cut off from the diversions of the flesh. However much he cherished the power that went with his dual titles, there were times when the zulkir and tharchion yearned for the simpler days of his youth, when life was all potential, little responsibility, and every night belonged to him alone.

  The naked gnolls finished setting out his supper. They kowtowed on the marble floor, then backed through the open door, their eyes averted from his majesty. Thrul removed a gnarled amber rod from the sleeve of his velvet robe. Holding it precisely between his thumb and index finger, he passed it carefully over each dish on the table, each plate, knife, fork, and spoon. He touched the rim of three crystal goblets, the ewers of wine, nectar, and water as well. There were no sparks, no foul emanations; the food was pure enough for a zulkir and tharchion to eat. He was mildly disappointed: fresh prisoners were better subjects in the torture chamber.

  But as the meal was wholesome, there was nothing to do but eat. Thrul began with a plate of jellied eggs on a bed of pickled rice. Picking up a knife very similar to the ones his torturers used, he made delicate cuts across the green ovals. Albumen parted like virgin flesh; blood-red yolks glistened within. He stabbed each of them and smiled as the viscous yolk fluid seeped into the rice.

  It was almost too pretty, too metaphoric to eat, but he’d skipped lunch. The zulkir pushed a dripping dollop onto his spoon with a crust of bread and raised it to his lips.

  “O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir, a thousand apologies for this interruption. I beg your mercy.”

  Thrul set the spoon down with an ominous sigh. He glowered at his pot-bellied chamberlain. The man had eaten—the zulkir could pluck the menu from his mind; he would have to suffer.

  “Why? Why have you come? Why should I forgive the interruption?”

  “He is here, O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir. He wishes to speak with you. Now.”

  The chamberlain’s thoughts were less coherent than usual, but a thread of fear ran through all of them, different than the fear Thrul himself inspired. One might almost think Szass Tam had manifested at the citadel’s gate, except zulkirs did not visit one another, not without extreme precautions. There had been no alarms, no warnings. Thrul concluded he knew who wished to see him: the spy master.

  “Tell her I’m indisposed. Tell her I will remain that way until sundown—unless she’d care to join me in, say, my bedchamber.” He couldn’t imagine her accepting the offer, though he’d bestir himself if she did.

  The chamberlain didn’t budge.

  “Are you deaf, lead-head? Go and tell her,” Thrul commanded, once again raising his spoon.

  “O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir, it is not a woman who waits. It is the Chairmaster himself, O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir.”

  That was a mild surprise. It was only this morning that Thrul had sent word to his chairkeeper that a Convocation was likely, and that only because he’d allowed two of Mythrell’aa’s minions to escape the city, both of them carrying messages for Szass Tam asking the lich to call a Convocation of zulkirs. Even Szass Tam had to follow procedure for a Convocation. The Chairmaster shouldn’t have arrived for another two or three days.

  “Find out if he wishes to dine with me—”

  “I do not,” a man’s deep voice came through the door. “Nor do I wish to see your bedchamber.”

  The chamberlain, who was responsible for Thrul’s sacrosanct privacy, turned pasty white beneath his tattoos. His eyes glazed. Spittle appeared at the corners of his quivering mouth. He would have died, if Thrul hadn’t decided to deny the Chairmaster the pleasure of watching.

  “Welcome,” he said. “You should have sent word.”

  “I am word,” the exceptionally tall and slender man said as he entered the balcony.

  The Chairmaster wore his own clothes: blood-colored linen gauze, suitable to the season, trimmed with gold threads, garnets, and star rubies—never let it be said that the zulkirs stinted their tithes to the Chairmaster. By his tattoos, the Chairmaster was an illusionist, but he owed nothing to Mythrell’aa, or to anyone else. When he extended his hand, a chair appeared on the balcony: a testament to his power and immunity by working magic in a zulkir’s presence without triggering his wards. He sat down opposite Thrul and, having said he wouldn’t dine, poured himself wine.

  Thrul would have loved to throw the insufferable lout over the balustrade, or, better yet, take him downstairs to the dungeons. He didn’t dare. Not even Szass Tam could successfully challenge the Chairmaster, though rumor had it that the lich had tried a century ago. Supposedly the necromancer still bore a wound that wouldn’t heal, though the laws of magic stated that the undead couldn’t heal—it took magic to repair their torn flesh, magic any adolescent necromancer should have mastered, and Szass Tam was long past adolescence. Of course, by those same magical laws, Szass Tam couldn’t exist either as a lich or as a man, so the rumor never died, and the Chairmaster’s reputation as both survivor and wizard was enhanced.

  “There’s more where that came from,” Thrul said of his wine. “I can arrange for a bottle or two to be ready when you depart.”

  The Chairmaster sipped from the goblet and wrinkled his long nose. “Not necessary, Lord Invocation. It’s pleasant enough for a city balcony, but it won’t travel well.”

  Thrul seethed. He knew his vintages. The wine was exceptional, but no one argued with the Chairmaster. “Considering how much you travel, it’s a wonder you can find any wine at all,” he said, all polite sympathy.

  “All life has its hardships,” the Chairmaster agreed, taking up the goblet again. “Yours as well as mine. Lord Necromancy has called for a Convocation. There’s a complaint against you, Lord Invocation. It is said that you trespass against Illusion, that you’ve set wards and guards around her tower—the truth of which I ascertained on my way here. These are serious charges, Lord Invocation, with serious penalties, as you must know. You must answer to your peers at a time, within the next month, and at a place, within Thay, of your choosing.”

  “Bezantur, for the place,” Thrul said quickly. Though the Master’s visit was early, his contingencies were in place, along with his wards and his gu
ards. “Tomorrow at sundown, for the time.”

  “The charges are most serious,” the Master said after a lengthy pause. “Surely you wish to reconsider? Perhaps to withdraw your provocations entirely? This could be settled without a Convocation, I think. Lady Illusion wishes only to have her freedoms restored.”

  “Lady Illusion can stand on the top of her tower and howl at the moon, for all I care. I want a Convocation. The place is Bezantur. The time is tomorrow at sunset.”

  Thrul had the once-in-any-lifetime satisfaction of seeing the Chairmaster at a loss for words.

  “It will be difficult,” he managed after a moment.

  “Well, that’s not my problem, is it? Bezantur is within Thay, isn’t it? This room, if I chose it, is within Thay. Tomorrow is within a month? Today would be acceptable as well. Surely this is not a surprise. I have notified my chairkeeper yesterday; he will be here in time. I warned my allies that they should do likewise.”

  By allies Thrul meant Nevron of Conjuration and Lauzoril. Nevron had already acknowledged the message; his chair and its keeper were already moving toward the city. Lauzoril, typically, hadn’t; Lord Enchantment never acknowledged messages. You sent a message to one of his chancellors and then you waited—like a common petitioner—for his answer. If Thrul’s warning hadn’t reached Lauzoril … If the Chairmaster couldn’t find him, then whatever else tomorrow’s Convocation accomplished, it might rid Invocation of a pesky ally.

  “Surely Lord Necromancy did likewise before he notified you, that, too, is within the rules. Unless Lord Necromancy has no allies left? That would place quite a burden on you, wouldn’t it? If you had to find everyone yourself?”

  Thrul’s question made the Chairmaster squirm. Not the reaction he’d expected. Convocation was, after all, a long-honored compromise among zulkirs who needed, on occasion, to actually govern the realm they dominated and resolve their private disputes without inciting a civil war. Each zulkir, without exception, would have preferred to do away with compromise, but since Thay’s independence from Mulhorand, no zulkir had come close to subjugating all his peers.