The Simbul’s Gift

"The charges are most serious," the Master said after a lengthy pause. "Surely you wish to reconsider? Perhaps to withdraw your provocations entirely? This could be settled without a Convocation, I think. Lady Illusion wishes only to have her freedoms restored."

"Lady Illusion can stand on the top of her tower and howl at the moon, for all I care. I want a Convocation. The place is Bezantur. The time is tomorrow at sunset."

Thrul had the once-in-any-lifetime satisfaction of seeing the Chairmaster at a loss for words.

"It will be difficult," he managed after a moment.

"Well, that's not my problem, is it? Bezantur is within Thay, isn't it? This room, if I chose it, is within Thay. Tomorrow is within a month? Today would be acceptable as well. Surely this is not a surprise. I have notified my chairkeeper yesterday; he will be here in time. I warned my allies that they should do likewise."

By allies Thrul meant Nevron of Conjuration and Lauzoril. Nevron had already acknowledged the message; his chair and its keeper were already moving toward the city. Lauzoril, typically, hadn't; Lord Enchantment never acknowledged messages. You sent a message to one of his chancellors and then you waited—like a common petitioner—for his answer. If Thrul's warning hadn't reached Lauzoril... If the Chairmaster couldn't find him, then whatever else tomorrow's Convocation accomplished, it might rid Invocation of a pesky ally.

"Surely Lord Necromancy did likewise before he notified you, that, too, is within the rules. Unless Lord Necromancy has no allies left? That would place quite a burden on you, wouldn't it? If you had to find everyone yourself?"

Thrul's question made the Chairmaster squirm. Not the reaction he'd expected. Convocation was, after all, a long-honored compromise among zulkirs who needed, on occasion, to actually govern the realm they dominated and resolve their private disputes without inciting a civil war. Each zulkir, without exception, would have preferred to do away with compromise, but since Thay's independence from Mulhorand, no zulkir had come close to subjugating all his peers.

None had come closer than Szass Tam had been a year ago, before some major conspiracy had collapsed and driven him into hiding. But the lich would rise again and again, until he was destroyed, which was why a zulkir like Aznar Thrul needed not only allies among his peers, but a tharchionate as well. History showed—Thrul was an avid student of history—that the man who succeeded an ambitious failure, such as Szass Tam must inevitably become, would reap the rewards his predecessor had been denied: a unified Thay and seven puppet zulkirs.

Every Red Wizard, especially a zulkir, should have a guiding dream. Until his was reality, however, Invocation relied on tradition, on Convocation and, however reluctantly, on the Chairmaster. The thought that Szass Tam might have subverted the Chairmaster before he'd found the way to do so himself was a bone in Thrul's throat.

The current Chairmaster had been an illusionist before his elevation, years before Thrul or Mythrell'aa had begun to claw to the top of their respective specialties. Thrul's own grandfather, Nymor, Lord Illusion in that time, had branded him. Aznar Thrul had counted on the Chairmaster's memory playing in his favor when the right time came, but had Mythrell'aa beaten him?

"You'd be a fool," Thrul said very quietly, very calmly. "The last Chairmaster who betrayed his office still bathes in fire beneath Thaymount. You might find yourself joining him or, worse, sitting in one of Larloch's chairs yourself."

To his credit, the Chairmaster never flinched. He sipped his wine as if he'd heard nothing. Either the man was innocent of deception—a rarity among Red Wizards—or he was a master of it.

Larloch, reputedly a sorcerer-king of ancient Netheril, had flourished and vanished millennia ago, leaving a legacy of artifacts that tempted many a young wizard to his or her doom. The legend of his eight chairs, magical voids from which no spell could be cast, into which no harm could come, had proved real enough. Seated in his or her chair, attuned not only to the appropriate wizardly discipline but to purely individual differences, a zulkir was both powerless and invulnerable.

Naturally, every zulkir from Buvaar on contrived to maximize the powerlessness of the others while maintaining, or increasing, his own invulnerability. At Thrul's ideal Convocation, seven other zulkirs would sit rigid and helpless in their chairs, their lives and their disciples' lives held permanently hostage to his whim. Real Convocations, however, demanded compromise.

Hence, the chairkeepers, eight wizards whose sole task was guarding the particular chair placed in their possession, and the Chairmaster, who alone could order the chairs assembled for a Convocation. The Chairmaster also guaranteed the safe passage of the zulkirs as they came to sit and, later, depart.