The Simbul’s Gift

Mimuay sniffed up her tears and rose to her feet. "It's magic, isn't it, that makes her the way she is, like a child who never grew up? Magic that her grandfather put on her?"

"The old zulkir thought he could keep her safe if he enchanted her mind so she could never learn magic—never learn anything at all except her embroidery. She wouldn't become a rival to him or a hostage to others."

"When will you put that magic on me, Poppa?"

They stared at each other. Lauzoril saw his own death waiting in his beloved daughter's eyes. He should kill her right now. The old zulkir's enchantment wouldn't be enough, hadn't been enough with Wenne. And because he'd raised his daughters with love and kindness—or tried to—he foresaw that Mimuay would come to hate him, come to destroy him when she learned what he did outside Thazalhar.

The spell was in Lauzoril's mind: a word, a gesture, and his daughter would die instantly. He shook his head. The spell might be there, but the will to use it wasn't. He'd sooner die himself than harm her body or warp her mind.

"There are spells and magic all around you, to keep you safe, but my magic's never touched you, not even to straighten your crooked front tooth. It never will."

"Will you teach me, Poppa? Will you share your gift?"

Lauzoril couldn't refuse. His daughter became a child again, throwing herself at him, wrapping her arms around his chest. He remembered when she had embraced his knees. It hadn't been all that long ago.

He was a fool, a romantic fool, and she would become his death. But death would come; the new god Kelemvor hadn't decreed any changes. Death should come to everyone, even zulkirs.

Especially zulkirs.

So he foresaw that Mimuay would come to hate him, to destroy him. Where was it written that fate was immutable? Szass Tam could destroy them all tomorrow, no matter what a father decided to do tonight. And tonight that father had the leafy smell of his daughter's love surrounding him. The balance pans of his life were level. No father—no man or zulkir—could ask for more. 12

The Yuirwood, in Aglarond Sundown, the fifteenth day of Eleasias, The Year of the Banner (1368DR)

Bro awoke at sundown, thinking it was dawn, thinking he'd gone to sleep with a stomach full of bad dreams. Then his bed bent beneath him, and he realized he wasn't in bed at all, but clinging to a far-too-slender branch. Immediately, he remembered Sulalk and that he was alone. Those grim memories kept their distance, giving him space to remember how he'd wound up in the young branches of a tall tree.

A very tall tree, once Bro had made the nearly fatal mistake of looking down.

He clamped his arms tight against the bark, realized he was naked, too, and considered whether it might not be easier if he let himself fall. When a breeze convinced him that he wasn't ready to die, Bro wriggled backward, one rasping branch at a time. The wood beneath him had grown thick enough to support him securely before he'd pieced events together.

He'd fallen afoul of the seelie. The Simbul's knife had protected him from their nuisance spells while he held it. When he'd finally dropped it, the infuriated creatures had struck hard. Bro blushed thinking of the song he'd sung and the foolish dance, but mostly he remembered Dancer trying to run on a bear's hindquarters. Then they'd turned him into a squirrel—that's how he'd wound up in the tree—and compounded their mischief with a sleep spell.

But what about Zandilar's Dancer? Bears couldn't climb trees as well as squirrels, but horses couldn't climb down at all. Bro almost cursed the seelie, then, but swallowed the thought. Cha'Tel'Quessir legend whispered of two seelie races, the mischievous ones who made folk act like fools and their dark cousins who'd hound a man to his death. He thought he'd encountered the mischievous race and didn't want to risk attracting the other one with a curse.

When he'd been a squirrel, it seemed that he'd run forever between the place where the spell struck and the tree. Returned to his natural form, Bro could see the Simbul's boots not more than twenty paces away. His clothes were there, too. By what little he knew of magic, when a wizard transformed a person, his clothes were supposed to get transformed, too. But the Cha'Tel'Quessir elders always said that magic was different in the Yuirwood.

He shook each garment thoroughly before pulling it on, expecting to find seelie mischief in each sleeve or trouser leg, but they'd left no surprises behind. The cloth, though, remained damp from the afternoon storm. It felt dead and stuck to his skin. He shivered uncontrollably as he laced up the boots—that was mostly hunger.

It was almost two days since he'd eaten a substantial meal; another two and he'd be starving. He stared at the silver hair tied around his wrist. It had transformed with him. Maybe the Simbul hadn't thought to look in the trees. Maybe she couldn't find that bit of herself when it was lost within squirrel fur.