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

time one of their little wars has claimed victims in another realm, but Red Wizards slayingeach other with stones? I don’t like it, Honored Aunt.”
    â€œYou don’t like it!” Alassra let out a bitter laugh. “You don’t know the meaning of your words. I’ll keep these.” She closed her fist over the tokens.
    â€œOf course. I’m sorry—they’re a poor birthday present.”
    â€œNo, a valued one. You’ll understand if I leave you to your own devices now? I’ve lost my taste for fruit and company.” She reached for the staff.

    The Simbul’s mirror shone with its own light when she returned to her privy chamber.
    Show me Nethra!
she demanded before the echo of her entrance faded.
What’s loose in Nethra?
    Nothing untoward, according to the mirror with a mix of Aglarondan clarity and foreign fuzziness.
    Nothing other than what she’d expected, based on Boésild’s tale and the tokens clutched in her hand.
    Alassra took the noisier of the disks, the one that had belonged to the dead man, and balanced it carefully on the cap of the crystal dome. The quicksilver flowed up to cover it. The image of Nethra blurred, then reconstructed itself exactly as before. It was the same with the dead woman’s token.
    â€œCold tea and crumpets!” the queen grumbled, resorting to the harmless curse the Rashemaar Witches had taught her a long time ago and a measure of the foreboding she felt.
    Red Wizards rarely traveled alone; as Boésild pointed out, they didn’t trust one another and the zulkirs trusted least of all. At best, Boésild had stumbled across a pair that had lost the little trust that held it together. At worst, he’d interrupted a skirmish between rival groups, which remained invisible if they remained in Nethra.
    And if they’d left Nethra?
    The quicksilver trembled in rhythm with Alassra’s frustration: If they’d left Nethra, they could be anywhere. She didn’t worry too much about Red Wizards infiltrating the Yuirwood. Little as the wilder Cha’Tel’Quessir might love Aglarond’s queen, they preferred her to anyone from Thay. A Red Wizard falling afoul of them might well wish he’d crossed the Simbul’s path instead. The Fangers werea different problem; they
should
know better—their parents and grandparents had formed the core of Halacar’s defeated army. But their discontent was rooted in nostalgia for a time that had never been, and their ears were fertile ground for sedition.
    Alassra could, and would, keep a closer watch on the Fang. She had the resources: trusted men and women, and magic, too. Keeping watch wouldn’t solve the greater problem. Taking the dead woman’s token from the quicksilver, Alassra polished it between her fingers and studied it by the light of a spell-dissolving lamp. Foul smells poisoned the air: blood pearl and dragon’s wing foremost among them; not the Simbul’s favorite reagents, but common enough in Thay. Probing deeper, she heated the token in the lamp’s flame. It melted into a mottled lump while she learned nothing about the Red Wizard who’d cast the spell.
    She had better luck, in a sense, with the dead man’s token, which had been protected by a familiar spell cast by a familiar mage: Lauzoril. His green-eyed grinning face was harder and colder in her mind’s eye than it had been earlier on the quicksilver. The world would be a better place when he was gone—at least until the new zulkir learned his predecessor’s tricks.
    â€œSomebody’s stalking your spies, Lauzoril,” she said to the man who wasn’t there. “Someone’s turned on you. You’d best look carefully among your allies.” She thought of the zulkirs together and shook the thought from her head. “Let me look upon something peaceful instead: Zandilar’s Dancer. Show me Zandilar’s Dancer and the boy. Take