The Simbul’s Gift

She filled a goblet from a decanter no different from others on the table. After emptying it in three gulps, the spy master took up a steel scriber and began the tedious process of opening the eggs without damaging their contents. Half a decanter later, the eggs had star-shaped holes in their narrow ends and a small mound of mortal remains sat on a silver plate. The spy master sipped another goblet while studying her spellbook and grinding powder in an iron mortar: moonstone, porphyry, a knuckle bone from an undead elf. After the reagents and remains had been thoroughly mixed, she added the dregs from her goblet and whispered words passed down through generations of Thayan spy masters.

The silver plate was crusted and streaked with tarnish when the scrying was complete; the spy master's skin was pale beneath its tattoos. She dressed quickly in her wig and rags, cleared the table into a sack, and headed for Thrul's citadel. The reagents disappeared into a midden hole where the next high tide would suck them out to sea, but the silver plate was still with her, hidden in a more ornate sack, when she left her second bolt-hole in the flame-patterned robes of a Kossuthan priest.

Thrul's chamberlain made his usual protests, demanded his usual bribes, when she entered the forecourt of the Black Citadel. Pocketing her coins, he accepted the carnelian token of her position as if he'd never seen it before. Lord Thrul's chamberlain was either an expert dissembler or not quite the man he once had been.

"The Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir has a full schedule today. Return tomorrow, Or the next day."

"I'll wait."

"But—"

"Take my token to my lord, Aznar Thrul. I'll wait here."

Though it countered her training to leave a memorable impression in any mind, however inadequate, the spy master got the chamberlain moving toward the audience chamber. There was a danger that he'd get distracted or deliberately confound her, but the danger was all his. The spy master had other ways of contacting her employer.

Deep in the possibilities, she was almost disappointed when he returned with the gauze gown draped over one arm.

"The Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir will spare a moment for you."

He offered her the gown and with the same hand prepared to take the sack. The spy master shook her head.

"It goes with me."

"Unthinkable! No one carries in his presence. I'll keep it safe until you're finished."

"Unthinkable!" the spy master replied, though the man spoke the truth. She'd never before needed to bring an object to a meeting.

They argued without possibility of compromise. In the end she persuaded him with another handful of coins and entered the changing room with the sack still in her possession.

Thrul flattened her the instant he saw it. She lay helpless, convinced he'd broken every bone in her body, while the sack floated away. After an eternity, a familiar voice told her to rise. Slowly, she obeyed. Her pride had taken most of the damage; the rest of her was intact, though bruised and bleeding.

"A horse, woman!" Thrul snarled. "You come here, harassing my servants, disturbing my peace. I weary myself with spellcasting—and for what? A horse? Is this what I pay you for?"

"Permit me to explain, my lord. The horse is neither an end or a beginning; it's—"

"Explain away, woman. By all means, explain the horse. My curiosity knows no bounds."

The spy master hated him. Perhaps she'd always hated him, Aznar Thrul, zulkir and tharchion, with his acid tongue. But, having avoided the brunt of his scorn before this, she had been unwilling to acknowledge that her employer was a small-minded man whose spite was greater than his ambition. She'd overlooked his failings because his power supported her web of intrigue. But that was past: once she saw a pattern—truly saw it—she saw its implications, too, and they became part of her.

Thrul toyed with the plate, flicking it toward her, then holding it close again, catching sunlight on the horse's untarnished outline and flashing it into her eyes. His every move proclaimed he wanted her to ask—to beg—for its return. She guessed he wouldn't surrender it without some additional humiliation.

"Mythrell'aa's minions found what they were looking for in Aglarond."

"A horse?"

Thrul laughed at a private joke. Light from the plate flashed in the spy master's eyes again and lingered long enough that she had to blink. From its birth a moment earlier, the spy master's hatred had grown into a consuming passion.

A good spy lived without passion; it interfered with finding and analyzing patterns. Even with Deaizul, the spy master had felt only the pattern of love, not the passion. For one heartbeat, passion was interesting, by the second, it was inconvenient, and with the third she understood how Deaizul had lost his nerve. She pitied him: He'd chosen passion over pattern. Her mentor had made the wrong choice, a mistake she did not intend to make.