"I have staked my own life on Tam's defeat, but that is my purpose. It goes no further. Mimuay and Nyasia have no parts in our drama—"
"Leave the pretty butterflies to their peace," Gweltaz countered, bursting out of his bandages. "I have no quarrel with your plans for their lives. But a son, Lauzoril. A man hasn't left his mark on the world until he's got a son."
They both turned toward Chazsinal whose essence remained below the bandages, then Lauzoril shrugged, simply and effectively. The discussion of children was once again closed. That left a dead enchanter in Nethra, a matter not so easily dismissed.
"Bract's allegiance to Enchantment was well known," Lauzoril mused aloud. "The Nethrans proclaim their independence from Thay and Aglarond. Proclamations must be defended. They have obligations; I'll remind their councilors—"
"Waste of time, boy! The silver-eyed queen's behind your man's murder. She wants dominion over her southern coast, and she'll kill every man, woman, and child of Thay to gain it. Vur Bract's just the beginning. Attack, Mighty Zulkir! Use your little toy and take her by surprise. Even if you cannot slay her, a little triumph against Aglarond will inspire your allies and weaken Szass Tam when he's already weak."
Lauzoril shook his head. There'd never be any little triumphs against Aglarond, only all-out wars with their twin possibilities of complete victory or defeat. Centuries ago the Red Wizards had fought such a war against Mulhorand and won it, but Thazalhar, where the final battles were fought, had never recovered. Faerun didn't need another Thazalhar in Thay or Aglarond.
"I won't start a war that no one will win, Grandfather. The crime fell in Nethra; the Nethrans will bear responsibility. There are other ways to deal with Aglarond's queen. Better ways."
The zulkir unslung his propped-up feet and headed for the crypt door. Midway up the spiral stairs, he leaned against the wall, and brought all his thoughts to bear on the enchanted knife. He could, even at this distance, trigger the scrying spells and, for the price of a numbing headache, hold its attention for an extra few heartbeats.
Lauzoril almost lost the image before he could sharpen it: In greatest of imaginable coincidences, the Simbul had taken his work from the jumbled box where she usually kept it. She held it between her hands. An awesome silver heat seared the zulkir's thoughts; but for the wall, he would have fallen.
He whispered the name of the god he worshiped in privacy: "Kelemvor! What manner of magic possesses her?"
The god of death, traditional patron of Thazalhar and, since the demise of both Myrkul and Cyric, preferred deity of Enchantment's zulkir, didn't answer, but the sound of his own voice calmed Lauzoril's nerves. He wrested his thoughts from the Simbul herself and concentrated on the place where she was, the objects around her. A spellbook lay open nearby—another moment and he could have abstracted one of her spells, but his interest lay elsewhere.
Thay.
He let his thoughts mingle with hers.
Thay. The Wizards of Thay.
Nethra came back to him, both the word and images of the city she knew by sight, smell, and sound. Gweltaz had guessed right; Lauzoril's fists clenched in frustration. Then...
Two deaths. A man and a woman. An enchanter and something else. In Nethra. Two dead magicians. Two dead wizards.
Lauzoril's hands relaxed. "Two dead. Bract and his murderer." He was relieved beyond measure but not surprised until he beheld his own face floating in the Simbul's silvery thoughts.
Why? they both asked.
Lauzoril withdrew to Thazalhar without waiting for an answer. 4
The Village of Sulalk, in Aglarond Early morning, the fourteenth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)
"Momma was crying last night. Soft, so you wouldn't hear, but I did. She's sad all the time, Bro."
Knee-deep in a stream with a weighted gaff cocked above his shoulder in the hope of swatting an unlucky fish, Bro answered his sister with a soft, noncommittal grunt.
"She says you're leaving, Bro. Are you going to leave?"
"No," he lied.
A shadow flickered in the water. Bro struck quickly, stunning the fish with the gaff and knocking it onto the grassy bank. Tay-Fay approached it warily. She was unnerved by their spines and texture, but Shali and Dent said she was old enough to be useful and that Bro could teach her.
"Why are fish slimy, Bro?"
"They just are. It's easier if you grab 'em from the front."
Carefully following his instructions, she stood behind the basket. "Why don't they close their eyes?"
"Quiet, Taefaeli. You're scaring the fish."
"They don't have ears. How can I scare the fish when they can't hear?"
Bro backhanded the gaff and sent a gust of water at his sister. She screamed and started running. If she'd run toward the village, he'd have let her run and faced the consequences later, but she was going the wrong way.
A few of his longer strides brought Bro within grabbing distance. He swept her clean off the ground, both his hands secure around her waist. She shrieked with delight.
He'd gone another two steps before sound overwhelmed his ears. Thunder, though the morning sky was bright blue and cloudless. Thunder, striking his back like a fist of wind. Bro stumbled as he stopped. Clutching his sister in his arms, he turned: The grass and bushes, the trees themselves, all bent to the mighty rumbling. Gradually, they straightened, but the ringing in his ears continued.
"Sulalk!" He shouted and heard a whisper. "Momma! Dent!"
Bro started to run again. His sister clung to him like a burr. There was a second blast as he splashed across the stream and a third, short of the hill crest between the stream and the village. A fist of sound pounded the breath from his lungs. Bro dropped to his knees. Tay-Fay's mouth was an open grimace, but for all Bro could hear her tears were silent. He scooped her up and staggered to the crest.
They could see the mill and a plume of smoke rising from its thatched roof. There were other plumes. Matching what he saw against the Sulalk he held in his mind, Bro knew immediately that Dent's cottage—their home—was on fire. Running too fast for memory, he carried Tay-Fay along the path he knew better than any other.
Flame fingers danced in the thatch of Dent's cottage and in the wooden lintels. Bro blinked several times, as if opening his eyes wide enough would rouse him from a nightmare, but he was awake and the fire was real.
Another blast shook sense back into him: Whatever had happened here, it continued and neither he nor his sister were safe.
Safe?
Safe was the cottage. Safe was his mother who always knew what to do.
Shali spent her mornings inside the cottage. A wave of horror washed down Bro's body. When it passed his spirit was as numbed as his ears. He pried Tay-Fay from his shirt and shoulders.
"Stay right here. Don't move. Don't follow me. Don't go anywhere until I come back for you."
Bro couldn't hear his voice, but his pale and quaking sister seemed to understand. She sat and folded her arms around her knees. He patted the top of her head as he strode past, into the smoke, beneath the fire.
"Mother!"
He doubled over coughing. Smoke and instinct had closed his eyes; he forced them open. Eerie light from the burning thatch enabled him to see shapes around him. For one awful instant nothing was familiar, then he recognized the stairs to the loft where he slept; the hearth, where fire never burned in summertime, the table where they ate, the bench where they sat, and finally, horribly, his mother between the bench and table.
Shali lay on her back. One arm was crooked beneath her, the other extended above her head, across the hearthstones. Rizcarn had had the same awkward, uncomfortable appearance after he fell from the tree, except Rizcarn's neck had been obscenely twisted; Shali's remained straight.
Bro took heart: She was hurt, he told himself, but alive. The blasts had knocked her off her feet. She'd struck her head on the hearthstones and hadn't moved since. She was unconscious, but alive. ...
Alive.
Bro repeated the word in his mind as he knelt and slid his hands beneath her back. His hopes soared as he freed her cramped arm: he thought he'd heard a sigh. They shattered a heartbeat later: There was warm liquid beneath her skull. Blood. A lot of it. Too much.
He put his hand to the hollow of her neck. When Bro pressed as hard as he dared blood flowed over his other hand, still beneath her head. He felt no pulse. No life. The fire ceased to matter. The blasts, another of which shook the cottage and showered him with sparks, ceased to matter. All that mattered lay in his arms. Bleeding. Not unconscious—dead.
Bro couldn't move, couldn't face the next moment of his own life until a sixth sense, newly born in his grief and rage, advised him that he was no longer alone in the cottage. He was strangely calm and confident, easing his mother's body from his arms to the floor, breaking the knotted thong that held a clutch of brightly colored beads in the hollow of her lifeless neck and placing them in a belt-slung pouch. His balance was perfect as he rose into a crouch and stayed perfect when he stretched for the cleaver Shali must have been holding when the blast struck. He saw each flame-cast shadow as his legs pushed him upright, each whirling drop of his mother's blood as he spun around, ready to hack apart any intruder.
He had all the time in the world—and needed every bit to stop his hand before the cleaver slashed through Tay-Fay's neck.
His sister never listened, and she didn't comprehend that her brother had nearly killed her. Arms outstretched and ready to wrap tightly around his waist, Tay-Fay barrelled into Bro's gut, knocking the breath, the calm and confidence out of him. A heartbeat earlier, everything had been clear. Now there was confusion and Tay-Fay's innocent trust that while she clung to him there was still a safe place in the world.