It was difficult for one wizard to judge the true might of another. Above a certain level of proficiency, all wizards were liars. The Simbul fostered notions that she was reckless—not entirely untrue—and careless with her wizardry, when in truth, she detested magical surprises and meticulously planned her spellcasting. The result, as she intended, was that her enemies both feared her and continually underestimated her.
By hard-learned habit, Alassra never underestimated her enemies. She assumed Mythrell'aa had the means to do whatever she wanted. And Illusion's means, full of shadow and guile, were particularly difficult to combat. The Simbul didn't want her concentration muddied with echoes and novices. She also didn't want to light up the afternoon sky with incendiary spells. As she approached the clump of Red Wizards, poorly concealed in trees and behind bushes, she reached into her belt pouch and retrieved a brightly painted goose egg. Walking into their woeful trap, she presented her usual array of defensive spells and a deadly surprise, encased in the goose egg.
An assortment of spells came her way as she lobbed the egg into their midst. Most of the spells, fireballs, and magic arrows fizzled when they got within three paces of her. The wizards had never learned that she was immune to their most common spells. Of course, very few of them survived long enough to share the knowledge.
One of the Red Wizards, thinking quickly but erroneously, launched a spell at the painted egg. It would have cracked and begun its work when it struck the ground, but breaking it in midair was more effective. Once released, an invisible sphere expanded until it was ten paces across. Pushing the Yuirwood air ahead, it left suffocating emptiness behind. Bug-eyed and choking, the wizards died swiftly.
The sphere wasn't impermeable. Alassra watched for escapees. Two thought they were safe until she hurled poison-dipped stars at their necks and dropped them before they'd filled their lungs with fresh air. The larger of the pair, a portly man with a thick wattle of flesh beneath his tattooed chin, was still alive when she reached him. Poison had already turned his face dark blue and stiffened his limbs. He was in agony; there had been days in Alassra's life when she would have stood back to watch him die. Being queen, however, had taught her to value efficiency, if not mercy.
She took a moment to ask a question:
"Are there others, not caught with you?"
He lied, of course, but the Simbul took the truth directly from his mind before ending his life: they'd stood united and died the same way. Alassra removed her throwing star from his flesh and, after cleaning it carefully, returned it to the leather case where she kept a score of the deadly metal bits.
By habit she stripped the wizards of anything obviously useful. Red Wizards carried the best weapons, the best gear, magical or otherwise, that their wealth could provide and most of it was neither inherently good nor evil. Two of their daggers had malignant personalities that challenged her when she touched them; the Simbul destroyed those immediately, but stowed the rest in a pouch similar to the one she wore that was larger within than without. Their gold and silver, jewelry, and their bodies she left behind for scavengers.
The other clutch of Red Wizards was harder to find. The Simbul would have liked her chief forester's help, but she didn't need it. There was a good chance that Bro needed Trovar Halaern's wisdom more than she needed his tracking skills. She continued circling around the Cha'Tel'Quessir and had cleared about two-thirds of the circumference when she came upon the wizards, surprising herself as much as she surprised them.
Alassra was just as glad Halaern was elsewhere. She'd never handled embarrassment well, and the first moments of the skirmish were nothing short of embarrassing, with frantic Red Wizards hopping about, trying to make good use of their last moments and her having to bring them down one by one. This group was larger than the first and supported with archers, who, having no spells and few choices in their memories, kept their wits better than the wizards did, although their arrows, which burst into all-consuming flames as they neared her, were no more effective than fireballs.
She slew them all and could only hope that, in the confusion, no Red Wizard had managed to slip away. Halaern could deal with that problem. He'd had enough time to solve the world's problems, let along Ebroin of MightyTree's.
Halaern—dear friend—
When there was no immediate answer, the Simbul searched her mind for the circlet's echo. It proved cold and nearly lifeless beneath her mental fingers. Carefully controlling her thoughts, Alassra took two measured steps to the right, then two more, listening to the echo. When she had Halaern's location fixed in her mind, she started running. She reassembled her Cha'Tel'Quessir disguise as she ran.
Alassra found the forester in the brush between the tree where they'd talked and the camp where the Cha'Tel'Quessir napped, oblivious to all danger. Halaern's arms were swollen to the elbow and discolored with the black-and-white patches of severe frostbite—hardly the injury she expected to see in height of summer. Bro was nowhere to be seen. As she knelt beside her unconscious friend, the Simbul had a bad feeling that she knew what had happened.
Halaern could have healed himself more easily than she could, had he been conscious. The foresters had mastered the Yuirwood's magic before they came to her. Her circlets enhanced their power, but didn't create it. However, he wasn't conscious. Alassra tried to rouse him with his name, with gentle pressure on both his shoulder, and with vaporous white crystals she carried as a purifying reagent. When nothing worked, she opened a shiny steel vial and began working ointment into the discolored flesh.
Halaern came to when she had one arm nearly restored to its natural dimensions and color. His eyes filled with comprehension, then closed with a sigh.
"I lost him, my queen."
"The solitaire?" Alassra asked, knowing the answer. She continued massaging the ointment into his arm.
The forester levered himself into a sitting position. "One moment he was there. The next there was a shadow around him. I wasn't quick enough. I wasn't where I should have been."
Alassra started on his other arm. "You did your best. It's my fault for leaving everyone unprotected. While I was here, she couldn't get close enough. Once I'd left ... It would have happened anyway, Halaern. Don't blame yourself."
Halaern shook his head. "It is my fault, my lady. I wasn't beside him. He'd said something outrageous—that you were Zandilar—and I let him get ahead of me. If I'd been beside him—"
"I would have lost both of you. The solitaire is a zulkir, my friend. The Zulkir of Illusion and an old, old enemy. I've expected her since I arrived in the forest. She's a small woman. When you mentioned a small, isolated footprint, I knew which one was her, but I thought I still had time to trap her. I was wrong. My mistake. My fault."
Halaern applied internal healing to his discolored flesh and the wounds faded like frost. "My heart lies heavy to think what a zulkir will do with him."
"No heavier than mine." They began walking to the Cha'Tel'Quessir. "But don't lose hope entirely. It won't satisfy her to take him. Whatever she has in mind—and I have a few guesses on that score— she won't do it unless I witness it. We'll have a chance. Mystra's mercy, we'll have a chance."
"Did you solve your other problems?" "Yes, for all the good it's done us." Rizcarn was still carving runes. He set down his rock and chisel when he saw Chayan and Trovar Halaern of Yuirwood walking grim-faced toward him. * * * * *
Mythrell'aa hated the Yuirwood, hated the buzzing insects, the bits of dead leaves that got into her robes and made her skin itch. She hated last night's rain and wind, even though she'd made herself a secure shelter against it. She hated today's mud that ruined her sandals and made her stumble. She hated everything about the forest, but she was deeply satisfied that she'd made the journey from Bezantur.
The mongrel—Alassra's pet—lay blind and silent on the ground, fighting futilely against the spells she'd lashed around his body and his will.
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-andcopper 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.