The Simbul's Gift

by Lynn Abbey

  A chime sounded and a column of brilliant sunlight sprang up from the carpet.

  “Zulkir Lauzoril, Lord Enchantment,” the Chairmaster’s voice boomed out of the column. “Your name is called. Step into the light.”

  He squared his shoulders and crow-hopped on his toes once or twice, conquering the moment of fear that invariably accompanied the Chairmaster’s summons. The safe-passage rules of Convocation hadn’t been broken in the centuries since the Chairmaster’s office was created, but in Thay, there was always a first time, a first victim.

  The Zulkir of Enchantment took a deep breath and walked into the light.

  Enchantment had no shame, Aznar Thrul thought to himself as Lauzoril strode out of the summoning light, onto the damp sand of the slave market. Never mind that the man’s ancestors—probably his parents—had stood on similar sand in different circumstances, Lauzoril marched about with that long hair, those green eyes, that naked tan. He could have transformed himself, brought himself closer to the Mulan ideal; everyone else did. Zulkirs would see through it, of course, but the man should have made the attempt.

  Thrul returned Lauzoril’s greeting. They smiled at each other across the empty sand. The eight chairs were arranged in a circle by lot and the Chairmaster’s whim. The chairs on either side of Thrul contained Nevron of Conjuration and—Talona’s painful mercy—Lallara Mediocros, Zulkir of Abjuration … Zulkir of Indulgence and Mindless Chatter would be more apt. Lauzoril sat between Mythrell’aa herself, a viper swathed in crimson, and Druxus Rhym, a man clearly in need of a good night’s sleep.

  Rumor claimed that Enchantment was responsible for Rhym’s haggard demeanor, that Lauzoril had snared one or more of Rhym’s close associates in conspiracies. No one knew quite how many were involved, certainly not Druxus Rhym. Thrul wasn’t shedding any tears for Lord Alteration; he’d lost as many to Rhym’s poison as had Lauzoril and Nevron. He could wish, though, that his own revenge plots had worked quicker or been more successful, or that Nevron had been the one to spoil Rhym’s sleep. The way things stood, Thrul would have to thank his ally, congratulate him for a job well done.

  Thrul exchanged a pained glance with Nevron. Lauzoril hadn’t sat down; Lauzoril was talking to Druxus Rhym, saying the gods alone knew what, except Rhym was listening, nodding his head, and smiling weakly.

  And Nevron … Lord Conjuration looked worse than Druxus Rhym. He hadn’t been himself since Gauros. He’d lost an old apprentice in the battle there—his ladylove—and his nerve. Szass Tam’s catastrophe hadn’t restored Nevron’s sharpness, and every move that Lauzoril made put another nail in his heart. Conjuration’s days were numbered. Thay had no use for a broken zulkir.

  The seventh name was called: Yaphyll, Lady Divination. Two years ago, she’d been Thrul’s third ally. Then Lallara had seduced her, and she had taken a walk down Necromancy’s path. She was smiling now, at him and Lallara together. It would take more than a smile before Thrul would forgive her.

  “Zulkir Szass Tam, Lord Necromancy,” the Chairmaster called the last name, the name they’d all been waiting to hear. “Your name is called. Step into the light.”

  A square of sunshine appeared on the sand. Despite himself, Thrul held his breath. A moment passed, and another. He started counting in his head: three, four, five …

  “Zulkir Szass Tam, Lord Necromancy. Your name is called. Step into the light.”

  Eight, nine, ten.

  Thrul looked up. He caught Mythrell’aa’s eye by mistake. They both looked away. Rhym’s lips moved as he counted the moments. Nevron’s eyes were closed. Lauzoril leaned in the corner of his chair. His eyes were hooded; he looked like a cat about to pounce.

  “Zulkir Szass Tam, Lord—”

  Tam appeared on the sand, facing his chair, his back to his peers. He wore a red robe so dark it seemed black. It was covered with patterns that shifted and could have lured an unsuspecting mind toward madness, if Larloch’s chairs had not negated the effect, or if there’d been an unsuspecting mind anywhere in the circle. The lich seemed a bit slump-shouldered and the scents of death surrounded him.

  Aznar Thrul settled back in his chair to get a good view of Szass Tam’s face as he turned. Then, belatedly conscious that he’d assumed Enchantment’s stance, he leaned forward. The undead Zulkir of Necromancy had turned around.

  “Love of Loviatar …”

  Lallara, naturally, broke the silence, though Thrul needed a strong jaw to keep his own gasping reaction deep down in his throat. A lich was nothing a sane man—a sane zulkir—ever wanted to see, even with Larloch’s chair beneath him.

  It wasn’t death or undeath; those were commonplace in Thay. A lich was something worse, a nightmare from which you woke up screaming, but couldn’t quite remember why. One look at Szass Tam and every living zulkir remembered that nightmare.

  It was true, of course, that the zulkirs saw their undead peer as he was at each Convocation, but just as Rhym and Nevron were ragged, so, too, was Szass Tam. His face was chalk white and constantly in motion, rotting and reforming itself. The zulkir’s eyes were empty sockets seething with a luminous green vapor, and his neck had become a serpent whose head had replaced the tongue in his gaping mouth.

  At the head of an army marching against Aglarond or Rashemen, Szass Tam’s lich form would have been an ideal battle standard, but in the Bezantur slave market, it only demonstrated how far Szass Tam had fallen and how far he still had to climb before he was his old self again.

  “Lord Necromancy,” the Chairmaster intoned from his safe place behind Larloch’s chair. “It was you who sealed the writ of Convocation, you who must begin the proceedings.”

  “Zulkir Aznar Thrul, Lord Invocation—”

  Thrul sat erect in his chair. In his wildest dreams he hadn’t hoped for this: a whispering Szass Tam, a Szass Tam whose quavering voice truly came from beyond the grave. He tried to catch Mythrell’aa’s eye: surely she was having second thoughts.

  “Lord Invocation, you have trespassed against another zulkir. You have confined her and denied her the support and consultation of her school. By the Rule of Iphonos Cor, this is forbidden and must be undone. No zulkir can be denied the free access to her school—”

  Mythrell’aa contained her shock and anger. All spring, after Tam’s humiliation and her own awkward retreat into Serpent Tower, she had secretly funneled support to her overlord: rare and precious reagents for spells whose purposes she did not want to know; living minions to replace the undead servants he’d lost when his schemes to enslave the tanar’ri lord, Eltab, came crashing down around him; gold and gems in great quantities, no questions asked.

  He was Szass Tam. He’d come back stronger than ever from other setbacks, worse setbacks. Mythrell’aa remembered; she was much older than she looked, but she couldn’t remember a time when Szass Tam hadn’t dominated Thay.

  Earlier this summer, she’d asked to meet with him—to see him with her own eyes that were immune to all illusion, enchantment and disguise. They met at an inn near Eltab, unheralded, unnoticed. The lich had seemed himself and properly grateful for the sacrifices she’d made on his behalf. He’d given her a black jewel with the power to kill. Mythrell’aa wore it now, beneath her robes, between her breasts. It was useless against the already dead.

  Szass Tam finished speaking. His chest heaved from the effort. Clots of rotten flesh flew into the air, carried by a dank, fetid draft. Mythrell’aa, seated on the lich’s left, raised her hand and breathed across the wax perfume she wore on her wrist during Reeking Heat. It didn’t help.

  The Chairmaster cleared his throat. “Zulkir Aznar Thrul, Lord Invocation, what say you?”

  “Ten years ago, I brought an end to the Salamander War and order to the Priador, which replaced Bezantur as the southwestern tharch of Thay. In the absence of others—”

  Mythrell’aa seethed. He’d slain her longtime friend and companion, Mari Agneh, then stuffed the Black Citadel with orcs and gnolls before anyone could object!

>   —“I became tharchion of the Priador and ruled it from Bezantur, but I was already a zulkir, and there was, already, a zulkir living in Bezantur. Naturally, as I could not turn away from my obligations to Invocation—”

  No zulkir would. Tharchions had only as much authority as the zulkirs allowed them. Mythrell’aa, herself, had ruled the Tharch of Bezantur through Mari Agneh before the Salamander War.

  —“The Zulkir of Illusion should have left, also according to the Rule of Iphonos Cor that two zulkirs shall not establish permanent residence within the same city walls. Lady Illusion begged to remain in her Bezantur tower—”

  Mythrell’aa had not begged. Bezantur had been Illusion’s home since the first zulkirs were named. There were other cities in the Priador, if Aznar Thrul insisted on being both zulkir and tharchion.

  —“We negotiated—”

  Thrul was younger then, virile and the recent victor in a brutal war. She’d invited him to Serpent Tower for a day, then a week. He was amusing, as poor Lailomun could never be. How was she to guess he’d become such a grasping bore?

  —“Lady Illusion swore to remain neutral in matters of power and policy—”

  Such things had never interested her. They still didn’t, but she’d been a fool to think they didn’t matter.

  —“She broke that oath, Lord Necromancy, when she declared her support for you, last year after Gauros—”

  Gauros was a disaster for Thay; and Aznar Thrul, along with his two allies, was responsible for it. The three were censured, disgraced. Common people—slaves!—spoke their names openly and with contempt. Szass Tam had had Thay firmly in the grasp of his long, undead fingers. The choice had seemed obvious: support Necromancy or risk guilt by association with one’s neighbor, Invocation. Obvious, at least, at the time, before Szass Tam committed an even greater blunder in the caverns below Thaymount.

  —“Later she recanted that support, reasserting her neutrality—”

  What else could she do?

  —“With lies, but you already know that, Lord Necromancy—she’s been doing your work in Aglarond, spying on the witch-queen, making alliances with the Yuirwood mongrels.”

  Mythrell’aa lowered her perfumed hand to her breast where she clutched Szass Tam’s black jewel through her robe. For a heartbeat, the name on her tongue was her own.

  Vazurmu had said she’d been brought down from behind, but by a Red Wizard, an invoker, not an Aglarondan peasant. Vazurmu had known, and Mythrell’aa should have listened. But Mythrell’aa’s shortsightedness wasn’t the worst part of her current predicament. The worst part was seated beside her, in Necromancy’s chair, not across from her in Invocation’s.

  The Zulkir of Illusion had never told the Zulkir of Necromancy about her activities in Aglarond or the advantage she had over the silver-eyed queen. The advantage she’d once had: the rose-thorn no longer responded to her scrying spells.

  When Thrul finished denouncing his neighbor and peer, Szass Tam demanded proof for the charges, though not because he believed in Mythrell’aa’s innocence. Quite the contrary, although Thrul—cretin that he was—couldn’t see that he’d won. The Mighty Tharchion of the Priador, Mightier Zulkir of Invocation wouldn’t give anything to his long-standing enemy. Beshaba’s mercy! If he kept it up, he might succeed in convincing Tam that the charges were trumped up.

  Even Nevron could see victory slipping through his faction’s hands. The weary weasel seemed to be in physical agony the longer Aznar Thrul prevaricated with Szass Tam. Mythrell’aa wouldn’t chance a sidelong peek at the man on her left. If Lauzoril weren’t zulkir of an unimportant school and lazy as a frostbitten snake, he’d be the man to challenge Szass Tam.

  The man …

  Mythrell’aa had assumed it would take a man to break Szass Tam.

  The school …

  She’d assumed it would take a man with a potent school behind him. She’d locked herself up in Serpent Tower waiting for a miracle to happen. But women had dominated Thay in the past, zulkirs from minor schools, also.

  By the time Mythrell’aa stood to endure her humiliation and disgrace, she’d come to see herself in a new and different light. It was time to leave Serpent Tower, time to take Lailomun to Aglarond—and when that was done, it would be time to return.

  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. Sh
e’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.