The thing Mythrell'aa hated most about the Yuirwood was its effect on her magic. Everything was more difficult, as if the very rocks and trees ranged themselves against her. But the forest hadn't withstood her shadows, especially not when Lailomun cast them and walked within them. Keeping Lailomun's attention, though, was a trial. The man's mind faded so quickly; she'd had to relax his compulsions just so he could obey her commands.
But the mongrel-Ee'bro'een, she'd plucked his name from his surface thoughts-made it all worthwhile. His corrupt elven heritage was quite noticeable: a narrow, feral face, mottled green-and-copper skin and swept-back, pointed ears. Mythrell'aa's flesh crawled when she had to touch him. There was no question of taking him back to Bezantur when she'd gotten her revenge and victory over Alassra Shentrantra. He was supremely expendable.
"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?"