The Simbul’s Gift

It was natural to want to comfort him and natural for him to pull away. The Simbul got to her feet, scowling at the trees. So, the youth had prayed to Zandilar, the name she'd heard the night the colt was foaled.

Zandilar was mentioned only a handful of times in Elminster's vast library and not once in the Aglarondan archives. Alassra had checked every scroll and tome. All she knew for certain was that Zandilar was a Yuirwood goddess—possibly elven, possibly not—and that she hadn't been worshiped since the Cha'Tel'Quessir began to be born.

A breeze rustled through the treetops without touching the ground. Apart from the breeze, the forest was quiet—uncommonly, uncannily quiet. Alassra gave a thought for each of the spells she held in her mind, assuring herself that she was as prepared as she could be. She said her own prayer to her own goddess, Mystra.

Give me strength and wisdom ... and safe passage to my own time and place!

The breeze died; not likely a coincidence. Alassra switched her staff to her weapon hand.

"If Zandilar is a goddess worthy of your worship," she said to Bro and any other ears that happened to listen, "then she did not answer your prayers with the death of your mother." Alassra left other possibilities unspoken, though her thoughts, which a goddess might overhear, warned that gods who tormented their worshipers were not welcome in her Aglarond.

Bro's tense, silent body spoke eloquently. He wanted to be free from unbearable guilt but he couldn't accept comfort from his queen. Alassra shook her head. The youth was stubborn; give him another six hundred years and he might be as stubborn as her.

"Try to understand, Ebroin," Alassra said coldly, because cold sometimes worked best with difficult people—or so Elminster claimed.

She bent down to touch his arm. He flinched, but the Simbul's reflexes were lightning fast, and she'd spilled a vial of healing unguent on his skin before he got away. With a pale aura shimmering around him, the time was ripe for brutal honesty.

"Your life has been seized by forces beyond your control, Ebroin. It will never be the same as it was or would have been. Blame me, if you must, though the true fault lies in Thay's malice. They will feel my wrath for this, I promise you. But above all, don't blame yourself. You hadn't the power to shape this day, and you haven't the strength to bear responsibility for it." The spell's aura faded. Bro's bones and flesh were whole again. His mind and spirit were another matter. Alassra's grimoires contained spells to lift a man's emotional burdens though a hundred years had passed since she'd cast even one of them. Magic couldn't salve a guilty conscience, not without leaving something much worse in its place.

"Are you ready to get on with your life?"

Bro planted one foot beside the other and pushed himself cautiously upright, as if he didn't trust the power of magic to restore him. His fingers probed his flank; then he brushed the back of his hand across his mouth. Flakes of dried blood fell away. The lips beneath were whole and unswollen.

"I hate you," Bro swore softly, but stayed where he was. He swept tangled hair away from his eyes and studied their surroundings as if he hadn't noticed them before. His hands shriveled into fists when he saw the horse and his sister both sprawled on the moonlit ground. "What—?"

The Simbul spun her staff, aiming the metal-wrapped butt squarely at his heart before he could take a stride toward them or her. "They're resting—until we settle matters between us. Have we settled matters between us?"

Bro shook his head. "I can't. Don't hurt them, please? It's not their fault."

Alassra lowered her staff. "I won't—"

But before she could finish her assurances an angry yowl broke through the trees to her right. Alassra couldn't match the sound to any creature she knew, in itself a cause for concern. Gut instinct advised that it was large, predatory, and on the prowl.

"Behind me!" the Simbul ordered as she quenched the light spell.

Bro came to Alassra's side and would have gotten in front of her if she hadn't grabbed his arm.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"I don't know. Be quiet, and get behind me!"

He stayed put and Alassra let him be, lest he do something more foolish. Fingerlike clouds reached across the Yuirwood, making shadows with the moonlight. The breeze had returned, stirring treetops, adding shadows to shadows and making it difficult to hear the small sounds Alassra needed to hear. The purely human senses she'd inherited from her father were strained to their utmost and failing.

Alassra withdrew a delicate knife from a sheath strapped above her wrist. She kissed the blade once then squeezed it within her fist.