The Simbul’s Gift

The zulkir quenched the knife's spirit and lifted Mimuay down from the stool. He held her in his arms, rocking her gently. Her neck fit easily between the thumb and fingers of his hand. Lauzoril knew ways to kill that owed nothing to spells or magic; she wouldn't suffer. "I believe you, Mimuay." He rubbed the hard lump at the base of her neck until her shoulders relaxed. "You'll become a good wizard." A bit of irony there: What did a zulkir know about the training of a righteous wizard? "You learn quickly, and I have to think about what I'm going to teach you next."

She wriggled in his arms, stared at him with frightening trust. "Can we protect the boy in the mirror from his enemies?" Lauzoril thought of Mythrell'aa headed for the Yuirwood and all the stories Thrul's spy master had told him about massacres and awakening powers. If even half were true ... "No, my dear." "Not even with Kemzali? His thoughts are sad, Poppa, like Ferrin's. I don't want him to die. He's not our enemy." Ferrin again. Lauzoril stroked his daughter's hair and said nothing. * * * * *

It was nearing sunset when Lauzoril went to his stable. He sent a straw man walking across the Thazalhar hills. From the stables he went to the hen-coop where he stunned two of the fattest birds and carried them to the crypt.

The peaceful world the Zulkir of Enchantment had made for himself in Thazalhar had crumbled. Mimuay's face haunted him. The mongrel haunted him. The damned witch-queen of Aglarond haunted him. His delicately balanced decision to let Mythrell'aa, Aznar Thrul, and Thrul's spy master play their bloody games without him had shattered into weak-willed excuses.

For years he'd been subject to fits of melancholy—the enchanter temperament, some called it; this was different. Lauzoril suspected his thoughts were not entirely his own—the enchanter enchanted. He suspected his beloved daughter, Mimuay; he suspected his daughter's mysterious friend: Ferrin.

Gweltaz and Chazsinal roused as Lauzoril unlocked the door at the bottom of the crypt stairs. Their bandages shimmered. Dead eyes followed the hens he held upside down.

"He brings us supper. Living supper," Chazsinal crooned.

"Ignore him. He wants something. Birds are not enough when a mighty zulkir wants. Let him bring us red meat. Living meat, dripping with blood." Gweltaz closed his eyes.

"Feed on your dreams, Grandfather," Lauzoril advised.

The hens had recovered their wits—such as hens' wits were—and struggled in his hand. The Zulkir of Enchantment could charm most lesser creatures into obedience, but not hens or sheep. He closed the door and released one hen. Unable to escape, its presence, alive and frantic, would madden Gweltaz. Lauzoril held the other above his father's linen-wrapped head and with a knife—not Shazzelurt—slit the bird's throat. Blood pulsed onto the linen and disappeared. When the bird had bled out, he dropped the carcass in Chazsinal's lap. His father began to feed, the suckling sounds obscured by the other hen's squawks.

"How important can a thing be, Grandson, if you're willing to entrust it to a fool?"

Lauzoril settled in his chair behind the table. "Important enough that I will not entrust it to one who opposes me at every turn."

"I do not oppose you, Grandson. I test you. What else can a patriarch do?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"Someone dead."

"Very dead."

"Szass Tam," Chazsinal hissed, irrelevant as always, now that Lauzoril had Gweltaz's interest.

The zulkir pursued the hen into a corner, stunned it as before, and held it above his Grandfather's chair. A luminous golden stalk rose to Lauzoril's hand. It engulfed the feebly struggling bird and drew it whole within the linen bandages. Gweltaz was the more potent, more inventive of the pair. The zulkir returned to his chair and waited.

"Who do you seek?"

"A name. Ferrin."

"One of us?"

"Possibly. He's dead, that's all I know for sure. He might have died when we fought the Mulhorandi. He has achieved influence within the estate."

Gweltaz made a sound like a purring cat. "Release me. I will find him and bring him here."

Lauzoril made a three-fingered gesture. The golden light around his grandfather's linen flickered twice and was gone. "Send me, too, son. I know where to look for cowards."

Another three-fingered gesture and Chazsinal was gone as well. Then Lauzoril waited, alone in the dark crypt, while his hungry ancestors hounded one of their own. He thought about Mimuay, about Wenne and his second daughter, Nyasia. How much longer could he keep them safely hidden in Thazalhar? How much longer should he try? Should he go to Aglarond's Yuirwood in search of power? In his heart, Lauzoril didn't believe Mythrell'aa was the Simbul's equal. Certainly Aznar Thrul's spies and his spy master were no threat to the witch-queen. The Simbul could take care of herself, her realm, and a mongrel boy, if she chose to.