Alassra demanded, "What about the two-" but Alustriel had gone.
She could have followed her sister to Silverymoon. Perhaps that was what Alustriel hoped. If so, the High Lady was due for disappointment. An afternoon and evening of Alustriel's perfect company was enough. Sooner or later they'd have gotten into an argument, probably about the proper way for a queen to rule her country. No, Alassra would have argued, sworn, and shouted; her sister would have been pained and disappointed and eventually mentioned a need for diplomacy…
In truth, Alassra didn't need to have her sister nearby in order to hear her describe how things were done in Silverymoon. The High Lady never criticized or compared directly, but Alassra was sure Alustriel considered Aglarond to be a chaotic, ill-run realm, completely lacking in diplomacy.
"Try being diplomatic with the Red Wizards," Alassra told her absent sister.
She'd found the spellbook she wanted, had it open to the right page, but couldn't muster the concentration to commit a spell to memory.
"Or the Fangers, or, gods willing, the Cha'Tel'Quessir themselves. Things need to be done in Aglarond, not discussed into the ground."
Thunder shook the tower. The Inner Sea storm had arrived. Alassra could see the rain, backlit by brilliant sheets of lightning, whipping past, but not through, her bolt-hole windows. A score of times each summer, the palace had endured such storms and, mostly, ignored them because, for all their fury, summer storms changed little by their passage.
She was sometimes called the storm queen. She kept Aglarond safe-which was more than any summer storm could claim. But after fifty years, she was still fighting the same enemies with the same strategies.
Perhaps it wasn't that she needed an heir. Alustriel, after all, had twelve and the folk of Silverymoon would have revolted if she'd tried to put one or all of them in her place. Perhaps she just needed a change in strategies. Instead of raging through the Yuirwood like a summer storm, perhaps she should meet with the elves and hear them out. Instead of bashing heads, perhaps she should disguise herself as Cha'Tel'Quessir and discover their beliefs from the inside out.
14
Thazalhar, in eastern Thay Late morning, the seventeenth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)
Fresh from bathing, Lauzoril sauntered across the grassy yard between the estate house and the stables. He entered the stall of a black gelding, whose injured hoof was of some concern to him. His actions, however, once he'd closed the door behind him, had nothing to do with the horse.
With practiced movements, the zulkir fashioned bits of horse bedding into a palm-sized doll. When the twisting and tying was finished, he tossed the straw into the air, imbuing it with a spell that was both enchantment and illusion.
A sphere of red light surrounded the straw; a soft hum, as of a bee within a flower, filled the air. Lauzoril stood beside the gelding's head, whispering ordinary words to keep it calm. Light fell from the sphere like rain, shifted and become opaque. At first it had the crude shape of the straw man; within moments it had become the zulkir's double, casting a shadow, mirroring his gestures until he spoke a word in the old Mulhorandi dialect.
After that the double walked out of the stall. It hailed the hostlers by name and bade them continue with their labors. Slaves and freemen both returned their lord's friendly greeting, none suspecting that magic moved among them nor finding anything unusual in his cheerfulness.
Everyone on Lord Tavai's estate was well-fed, comfortably housed, and acutely aware of both their isolation and the less merciful conditions that prevailed elsewhere in Thay. Lauzoril insisted that mercy played no part in his decisions. Enchantment, he told himself, was a subtle art, and food was always less costly than magic. But he could never quite forget the mother he'd never known and hadn't found. He bought green-eyed slaves wherever he found them, questioned them about their kin, then sent them on to Thazalhar.
The lord's image strode toward the manor wall. When it had straddled the wall and begun its walk across the hills, Lauzoril withdrew his consciousness. Truly mindless, it would continue walking while he went, unobserved and unnoticed, from the stable to the family crypt's concealed entrance.
Lauzoril's face grew grim and angry as he descended the spiral stairs. Shimmering wards melted at his approach. The heavy door swung and crashed into the interior wall. He stood in the doorway, his fingers reciting an alphabet of magic, which, for the moment, he refrained from casting.
The odor of burnt linen surrounded him. Within the crypt, Chazsinal's ebony chair lay on its side, Chazsinal still bound to its seat. Gweltaz's chair hovered above the floor. Gweltaz himself was a translucent apparition beside it, in full Red Wizard robes, tattoos, and rage.
"What fool-" the elder began, and got no further.
Lauzoril released a gout of fire magic that pinned his grandfather's chair in the juncture of two walls and the ceiling. A cocoon of flame formed around him. The apparition vanished; the howls within the flames were loud and piteous, and had no effect on Lauzoril-except that he closed the crypt door.
"Lauzoril, Lauzoril-release him!" Chazsinal, ever his father's dutiful son, pleaded with his own offspring from his place facedown on the floor. "Release him! You'll regret this, Lauzoril!"
The cocoon vanished. Gweltaz, in singed and reeking linen, dropped to the floor. His chair balanced upright for a heartbeat-Lauzoril's heartbeat-then toppled sideways.
"This changes nothing," Gweltaz snarled.
"I am accustomed to disappointment, Grandfather."
"Right me."
"Can't do it yourself?" Lauzoril inquired, his silky voice laced with venom.
Gweltaz said nothing. Chazsinal had less fortitude.
"Lauzoril, there was cause."
"Tell me," the zulkir ordered, no change in his tone. His father's chair righted itself.
"We discerned a change-"
"Tell him nothing, Chaz!" Gweltaz commanded. "If he will not ask for our help, let him do without. The Mighty Zulkir of Enchantment and Charm!"
"Ask for your help? What could either of you tell me that I don't already know? That there was a standoff in Aglarond? That we destroyed a meaningless village and the Simbul destroyed twelve of us, including one of mine? Did you think I didn't know? Shall I tell you their names?"
"Aglarond!" Gweltaz shouted. "Forget Aglarond, Mighty Fool, Scry your attention closer to home, to Bezantur. Invocation and Illusion move against each other. Your ally and our enemy's."
"Not against each other, Grandfather. Lord Thrul has wards and guards around Serpent Tower. Lady Illusion has appealed to her master, Szass Tam, who hears but does not move against anything these days."
Chazsinal strained within his bandages. "See? He knows!"
The other chair rose slowly from the floor. It had almost righted itself when Lauzoril crooked his finger. "When I'm ready." He flung the chair at the wall.
The mummy groaned, gave up a cloud of dust, and said, "Such temper, boy! Will you do the same when Szass Tam comes looking for you?"
Lauzoril spun Gweltaz's chair wildly before sitting down in his own and propping his feet on the table. "Szass Tam. Szass Tam. Lady Illusion may beg, but her master will not fight for her."
"He will fight against Lord Thrul and against you, who allied yourself with Invocation."
The zulkir smiled, a gesture not lost on Gweltaz although the chair was front-down on the floor again. "Alliances fade, Grandfather. Mine with Thrul is fading fast."