The Simbul’s Gift

Again the storm queen felt her hackles rise, again she quelled them. "I don't know if it bears on Zandilar. What I do know is that Mythrell'aa has learned of my interest in the horse and, because of Lailomun Zerad, will presume my interest in the Cha'Tel'Quessir, Ebroin of MightyTree. She will pursue them because they are important to me. The other zulkirs will pursue Mythrell'aa, because they are Red Wizards and they swarm whenever one of them has something the others don't. If it were a matter of simply protecting a boy and a horse, I would do that, and I wouldn't be here asking your advice. But it's the Yuirwood, too, and the Cha'Tel'Quessir, and Zandilar, about whom I can learn very little, except that she was called 'the Dancer' and that there's a small stone bearing her name in the Sunglade inside a circle of larger, Seldarine stones."

Alassra leaned forward until her eyes were level with the Moon elf's. "My suspicions are as sharp as your knives, Honored One. I suspect there's a good reason for that outer circle and I suspect the Tel'Quessir would rather no one but them knew what that reason was."

The Moon elf held her glowering stare a moment before straightening his back. He and the other elves looked as if they'd just swallowed something sour. The third sage, a Gold elf of uncommonly fierce demeanor drummed his long fingers together, weighing his words before saying:

"The Red Wizards are their own reward, their own curse. Their quarrels fall hard on their neighbors, but they, themselves, are vermin. What they represent cannot be eliminated from humanity, but it must be confined, kept out of important places."

"Like the Yuirwood's Sunglade?" Alassra demanded around her sister who sat silently between her and the Gold elf.

"It would be unwise if they gained a foothold there," the Gold elf said.

Alassra gave him a moment's grace to elaborate. He obliged.

"The Tel'Quessir were not the first in the forest. There were others there when they came. Men and women like you—"

"No," the last sage said. She was an elven woman so old there was no color left in her skin or her hair. Opal cataracts clouded her eyes. Her arms, protruding from the white sleeves of her gown, were shrunken twigs that seemed too fragile to lift her hands. Yet she sipped nectar before continuing. "When the Yuir came to Abeir-toril they found men and women like no others. The forest had hidden them, like creatures caught on a island. They lived and worshiped alone, until the Tel'Quessir arrived."

The elven men, the Moon elf sage, the Gold elf, and the younger servant, averted their eyes when the old woman spoke. They did not agree with her, Alassra thought, but they weren't about to disagree in front of humans. The Simbul seized her chance to exploit elven reticence.

"After they arrived, did the Tel'Quessir conquer the Yuir folk and their gods?"

The Gold elf answered quickly, "The Tel'Quessir do not commit conquest."

"Not by intent," the Moon elf corrected. Alassra studied him from the corner of her eye. She'd judged him the least sympathetic, but perhaps she'd judged wrong. More likely Zandilar and the Yuirwood had been a sore point with Faerun's elves for a very long time. The latter notion seemed true when the Gold elf threw his attention at the Moon elf, not her.

"Relkath, Magnar, Zandilar! They were wild gods," he hissed across the circle. "Those who worshiped them were wild, too, or became wild. If they had tamed themselves ... But that went against their nature. Another path had to be secured before the Tel'Quessir lost their way in the Yuirwood."

The sages lapsed into a discussion in archaic elvish, full of names and events that meant nothing to Alassra. The words meant something to Alustriel. Though the High Lady of Silverymoon listened as still and silent as Alassra, barely perceptible changes in her expression betrayed her interest and surprise as the sages debated what had happened long ago.

The Moon elf blamed the forest, saying it was too old, too wild for the Tel'Quessir. "We were wrong to go there, more wrong to stay. The Yuirwood shaped the Yuir, not the other way around. We should have left it to those who were there when we came." "Aye," the Gold elf retorted, with all the subtle scorn elves could cram into a single, small word. "Aye, and if we left it... if the coronals had shirked their duty or our gods had shirked theirs, then what, Stiwelen? Would you rather others had come to take our place? They were a lesser folk with lesser gods. They were bound to be overtaken."

Stiwelen, the Moon elf, scowled. He fondled the gem-stone pommels of his knives and said nothing.