The Simbul’s Gift

There were no words to deny the truth. "Ebroin knows a woman named Chayan of SilverBranch. They will have a few days together, a week, perhaps. Then Chayan will vanish. I hope he remembers Chayan fondly, but if she breaks his heart, she will have done it only once and, if she does, may I presume there will be someone older and wiser nearby to commiserate with him?"

"He won't be alone. But I did not come to argue or talk about Ebroin."

"I was hoping you'd come to tell me where Rizcarn's been these last two days. Did he have time to get to MightyTree and back as he claims?"

The forester shook his head. "Not walking. If he used magic, though, anything is possible. The Rizcarn I knew was no druid, but the Rizcarn I knew isn't sitting in that camp up there. My forester is still on her way to MightyTree. When she returns we'll know more. Just as well, though, that Rizcarn has returned and the Cha'Tel'Quessir will walk tomorrow. The Red Wizards are restless in their cold camps. They're tired of hiding and seeing what we intend them to see; they've started exploring. They can scarcely follow a trail that's blazed with fire crystals, yet eventually they'll blunder into each other and I do not think that is anything we want to see in the Yuirwood."

Alassra nodded. "You think right. What of the solitaire following Rizcarn?"

"The solitaire didn't follow Rizcarn, my lady," Halaern's expression became one of pain and distress. "They were never seen on any of the known paths. When Rizcarn arrived earlier, I backtracked his trail myself. His footprints were clear on the stream banks, but a little further, they were gone. Rizcarn could do that, but not the solitaire. The solitaire was city-bred, like the rest of the Red Wizards. Even with magic they can't conceal themselves, and there was no sense of Thayan magic."

The Simbul's ageless heart skipped a beat, not because the solitary wizard had disappeared: after the corpse she and her sister had found, she was not surprised that Rizcarn had returned alone. Halaern's reticence—telling her about the solitaire only after she asked the necessary question— troubled her. "I would have liked to know that first, Halaern. Red Wizards gone missing in the Yuirwood interests me more than the weather."

"I know," he said, his own concern evident in his soft, flat tone. "It took me much longer to backtrack Rizcarn's trail, as well. Rizcarn knows the Yuirwood, my lady, and makes full use of his knowledge. He made certain no one—no Cha'Tel'Quessir—would know which way he'd come. That was what I meant to tell you when I saw you following Ebroin to the stream just now. What I said, it is all true, but it wasn't what I meant to say. When I saw you together, I became foolish. The weather. A hanging storm brings out the worst in a man. It's brought out the worst in me. It won't happen again."

"You judge yourself too harshly, Halaern, and make promises you may not keep. You told me the storm was the Yuirwood's way of defending itself. You implied, very carefully, dear friend, that someone is keeping that storm up in the clouds. Are you also implying that someone could sense a moment of weakness and use it to distract you?"

Halaern gave the matter a moment's thought. "Not Rizcarn, my lady. He can hide in the forest, that's all, and he has charmed those who follow him, but Rizcarn always claimed to serve Relkath of the Infinite Branches."

"The Old Man of the Yuirwood."

"I have never heard Relkath called that, my lady, but Relkath—I do not think it is wise to awaken the old ones. I never have. As a god, Relkath is like the weather, the only thing a man knows for certain is that it will change. I would sooner invite one of your gods into the Yuirwood."

That could not have been an easy confession. Alassra reached out to him. "Give me your hand, dear friend."

"My lady?"

"I don't want you getting foolish or forgetful again." When he hesitated, Alassra planted her fists on her hips. "I will not compel you, Trovar Halaern," she said, which meant just the opposite. To protect her forester and the Yuirwood, the Simbul would do whatever she judged necessary. She'd live with her conscience. It had proved quite flexible, quite adaptable over the centuries. But Alassra's conscience would lie quiet. Halaern held out his hand. She noticed he had removed the ring she'd given him.

"My lady, I gave it to Gren," he explained. "She has more need of it and I was uncomfortable with so much magic."

"Like the Yuirwood. Better the discomfort of magic you know and trust, dear friend, than the influence of some other kind."

The Simbul cast three spells in quick succession. The first one fizzled, reminding her that the Yuirwood resisted magic; the second, identical to the miscast spell, protected Halaern against the more common magical insults; and the third hid the second.