The Simbul's Gift by Lynn Abbey Read Free Book Online

her almost anywhere she’d ever been. It was the easiest way in and out of her tower workroom.
    Alassra’s nephew spoke entertainingly while they ate, savoring the excellent fish and the culinary talents of the Simbul’s underworked cooks until there was only a bowl of iced fruit beside the melting snow-flowers on the table between them.
    â€œSo tell me, Boésild, why have you come to Velprintalar?”
    â€œNot for your birthday, Honored Aunt. I didn’t think you’d be fooled.”
    â€œI’d have dined alone without you.”
    A silent moment passed. The first star appeared in the violet sky. And Boésild dug into a suede belt pouch. He produced two small disks, which, after examination, he laid on the table.
    â€œI found these yesterday in Nethra.”
    Supper soured in the Simbul’s stomach. Nethra was one of the port cities south of the Yuirwood. Like all the cities of Aglarond and Thay, Nethra had started out as a Mulhorandi outpost. The Nethrans fought for and won their independence as the Mulhorand Empire faded, but their freedom was a chancy thing, balanced between Thayan greed and the price of Aglarondan protection. These days Nethra paid a handsome tithe into the Velprintalar treasury, and Alassra paid a reward for any Red Wizard tokens taken within its territory.
    The Aerasumé weren’t bounty hunters.
    â€œHow did you acquire them?” she asked.
    â€œI was out late in a quarter where respectable folk lock their doors at sunset and stay inside, no matter what, until the sun’s up again. I heard a cry for help—”
    Alassra’s eyebrows rose to a dramatic height.
    â€œA full-throated cry, I assure you. Naturally, I investigated.”
    â€œNaturally,” she agreed.
    Boésild pushed one of the disks closer to his aunt. “I was too late. This one was already dead and the other, fool that she was, attacked me.”
    â€œFoolishness is part of Red Wizard training.”
    â€œIndeed, though I didn’t guess she was a wizard until after I’d broken her neck. They have a kind of scent, you know. That one,” Boésild indicated the disk he’d pushed, “had cloaked himself well. Still, I’d have known him for what he was if we’d come in sight of each other, but the woman—oh, my Honored Aunt—she could have deceived you.”
    â€œNever.”
    Pale hair swayed in the twilight as Boésild shook his head. “There was nothing,
nothing
, about her while she lived and only the faintest trace after she’d died. I wouldn’t have found the token—wouldn’t even have looked for one—if my suspicions hadn’t already been aroused.”
    Alassra took the nearest disk in her sensitive fingers. Red Wizards carried such disks as proof of their place in the hierarchies of their various disciplines and as means to summon protection from their superiors.
    â€œHad he called for help?”
    Boésild shook his head. “Another interesting thing: She’d slain him without magic, smashed his skull in with a cobblestone. She fought me the same way. As I said, I’d no notion what she was until after I’d killed her.”
    Reluctantly, the Simbul picked up the second disk. It was, as her nephew promised, lifeless. Wrapped in cloth, as it surely had been, she would not have been aware of its owner’s true identity unless they touched. Her quicksilver mirror would never discern it. The implications of that were dire.
    â€œI don’t suppose there was anything else? No codes or messages? No tattoos? She didn’t say anything before she died?”
    â€œNothing at all. They’d both peeled their skin. My guess is she’d recognized the man in passing and hunted him down. Mystra knows that’s common enough among the Red Wizards. Is there one man or woman among them who truly knows the meaning of the word trust, given or taken? It wouldn’t be the first