The Simbul’s Gift

Alassra laughed without appreciating her own humor. It was one thing to know she wasn't loved as her sisters were loved and cherished by those who knew them—even Qilue was beloved by those who worshiped the drow goddess, Eilistraee—but the sheer number of faces flickering within the dome depressed her. And these were only the folk displeased with her at the moment. The mirror couldn't show the folk who'd cursed her name over breakfast or would do so at supper.

There were Fangers swearing in their squalid boats, revanchist Cha'Tel'Quessir muttering her name in the Yuirwood. Their numbers dismayed her, not their attitudes. No, the surprise and sadness came from the truly ordinary folk who blamed her for whatever misfortune had befallen them: a fishmonger whose eels had escaped from a broken basket, a wet nurse with a teething infant, a cook whose sauce had clotted, a baker with bad yeast.

Their queen was the mightiest wizard in all Faerun. She could destroy armies with a single spell. Why then—they demanded in words easily read from their lips—were her taxes so high? What did she do with their hard-earned coins? Why was it raining when a farmer wanted dry weather for cutting his hay? Why was it so hot—couldn't the Simbul do something about the weather? Why was she always somewhere else, but never in Glarondar ... Emmech ... or wherever the mirror captured their reflections.

The mirror clouded; Alassra sighed and covered her eyes. Aglarond was a predominantly human realm, and humans were old when they'd lived as long as she'd been queen. They were ready to turn their affairs over to children, perhaps grandchildren, and, deep in their hearts, they expected their queen to do the same.

When she'd accepted the crown and throne, the Simbul had assembled her court from the best men and women she could find. They served competently, loyally, and the Simbul replaced them with equally capable folk only when they died or retired. It was fair to say that Aglarond was a better ruled realm than it had been during any other reign; but it was also fair to say that it was ruled by graybeards and crones.

"Elminster," Alassra said ruefully and the mirror obliged by displaying the Old Mage's Shadowdale tower. "I need someone to inherit all this from me. I'm human, you're human—but we're immortal, too. We're old. All the Chosen are old. Think of it, El: we're older than some of the gods! I'm not my sister; I'm not Laeral. I can't go away and come back pretending to be my namesake. And even if I could, someone has to be king or queen of Aglarond while I'm off being nobody."

The tower door opened and the Old Mage emerged for a stroll. Alassra could have called him, could have transported herself to Shadowdale in an instant. He might have agreed, and today she didn't care where her child was conceived. Then Lhaeo came through the door and young Azalar, the nephew whose unexpected birth had gotten Alassra thinking about heirs in the first place.

She certainly wasn't going to plead her case in front of Azalar. This meant that since the mirror hadn't solved her problems, she was going to have to deal with that heap of dusty spellbooks. Squaring her shoulders, Alassra cleaned the topmost book with her sleeve. The script was all dots and sharp angles; she'd have to cast a spell if she wanted to read it, which she didn't, so it was a good place to start, except...

"I've had this book for three hundred years. No one this side of the Outer Planes even knows it exists."

Alassra riffled the pages once. Nothing, literal or magical, leapt out at her. She shoved it on a shelf to gather dust again.

A wizard would need more than luck and a few potent spells to slip a spy-eye past her defenses. He or she would need patience, and while Alassra had patient enemies—enemies who'd been lurking decades, hoping for her to make an exploitable mistake—she didn't think she had any patient enemies in Thay. The Red Wizards weren't a subtle lot, a by-product, the Simbul assumed, of their reliance on slaves, goblin-folk, and undead minions to carry out their commands: their armies were fearsome, but as spies or slaves, orcs and zombies were absurd, and the Red Wizards knew it.

Red Wizards were predictable, not foolish, and—little as she liked to admit it—they knew their magic. Their academies churned out competent, albeit unethical, wizards year after year. The handful she'd dispatched yesterday would never be missed. They were, in all likelihood, already replaced.

Already replaced ...