Lynn Abbey - The Simbul's gift

If this sharing was also the result of a six-hundred-year-old bargain, Alassra was going to be angry beyond measure: the end didn't justify the means, not when it was her life in the balance.

The Simbul eased Alassra's worries. "Like you, Queen Ilione's mother was Cha'Tel'Quessir. She remembered her heritage when you first came to her brother's court; she remembered the Simbul."

Alassra shook her head in contradiction. "Nobody knew. It was just a word-not even a name. The stone has been defaced since before the first Cha'Tel'Quessir were born." She thought about the other vacant Sunglade stones and the bits of legend the elven sages had revealed in Everlund. "The Yuir gods: Relkath, Zandilar, Magnar… you were adopted by the Seldarine, absorbed by them, and then forgotten?"

The shadow light dimmed slightly. "It wasn't supposed to happen that way. Our race-our mortal kindred-was besieged. The bonds between us were doomed. Our realm was doomed. We had chosen another path and it led nowhere… it led here. The Tel'Quessir came from elsewhere. They weren't besieged, but they needed a place in Abeir-toril. Our heritage passed to the Sy-Tel'Quessir, who swore to cherish, nurture and protect it."

"But they couldn't do that for something they were afraid of. I met with elven sages at Everlund. If you know all about me, you know what they said."

"Fierce," the Simbul replied. "Fierce and reckless: that is what Ilione saw and why she gave you my name. I had not had a presence for so long… My moment had been forgotten before the Yuir passed into the wood."

"So, that's what I am-a wild and reckless presence in Aglarond. Rizcarn is Relkath's magpie in the Yuirwood. Are there others?"

"Magnar hopes for a strong man. Zandilar wanted a child-and a dancer."

Alassra thought of the carnage she'd escaped. "She didn't get what she wanted, did she?"

"She has more than most of us. There's always a place for Zandilar. Her moment cannot be forgotten; her power will always be remembered. You have not asked, Alassra Shentrantra, what the Simbul is. When were we not forgotten, why were we remembered?"

"I'm not so sure I want to know."

"When the Tel'Quessir came, they asked me to choose between Labelas Enoreth, the Seldarine power of time and philosophy, and Erevan Ilesere, their power of change-"

Powers, moments, and presence, Alassra thought, but not gods. The Simbul spoke of Mystra as a goddess, but she had not applied the word to herself.

"I became the power of balance allied to Labelas Enoreth-"

"But you're not balance. I'm not balance. I've been hearing that all my life."

The shadows rippled with laughter like the breaking of fine glass bells and the light brightened again. "I am the edge, Alassra Shentrantra. When the hunter facing the charging beast has to decide whether to throw his spear, whether to dodge, and the moment to do either, I am that moment. I was. When the hunted comes to two paths and, knowing neither, must still choose between them, I am that moment of choice. I am the edge of the cliff, the bending branch, the moment when you must jump. When you decide, without knowing why, without knowing anything at all, at that moment I am with you."

"I think I understand the problem. The Tel'Quessir aren't like that at all-well, maybe the drow. You'd have done better with humans."

"We began with humans, when humans were young and the gods you know had yet to be imagined, and we bargained futilely and to our detriment with the drow."

"Now you have the Cha'Tel'Quessir who are looking for gods, not moments. Gods who will make them a mighty people."

The Simbul said nothing.

"There's always more," Alassra complained. "More than can be told. More that can't be revealed."

"More that is not known!" The Simbul roared and the Simbul's namesake fought to keep her place against the wind. "Knowledge comes after the moment!"

They faced each other in the nowhere realm of forgotten gods.

"I am going back," Alassra said, with no particular grace or friendship. "I know the way."

"I give you a gift."

"I refuse."

"It is only advice, Alassra Shentrantra. I've already given you my name; I have nothing else to give."

In her heart, Alassra didn't believe that, but she stayed to hear.

"The hunter practices with his spear, the hunted learns every path in the forest but they survive because when they come to the edge, they give themselves to the edge and the edge guides them."

"So?"

"You could have had a child tonight, Alassra Shentrantra. You could have a child any day or any night, but you will never have a child if you turn back from the edge."

Cutting words surfaced in Alassra's mind. She drove them back. The Simbul's advice wasn't a threat-or even a promise. She had made too much of wanting Elminster's child, her way, her time, her place; she'd gotten in her own way, pushed herself further from her desires-if they were truly her desires.

Pushed herself further from the edge.

"I'll think about it." Alassra found the spell in her mind that would take her back to the Sunglade-whatever remained of it. "I'll think about it, and I'll remember."

"That is all I ask, Alassra Shentrantra. Remember the Simbul. Remember what has been forgotten."

Dawn came to the stone circles the Cha'Tel'Quessir called the Sunglade. Lauzoril had learned the proper names, the proper pronunciations from the young man seated opposite him. Ebroin's eyes were still hollow and haunted. His body bore the marks of Mythrell'aa's cruelty. The zulkir had offered assistance: he carried various elixirs and had bribed the rudiments of healing from a dissolute priestess of Myrkul before the death god died.

Ebroin refused Thayan magic. He said he'd wait for Zandilar. Lauzoril didn't argue: the young man was in no danger from his wounds and he, too, was waiting, but not for Zandilar. If anyone else escaped the last night's destruction it would be the Simbul.

The Cha'Tel'Quessir couldn't see the scorched ground, the bits of hair and leather that marked a circle twenty paces across, centered at the place where Mythrell'aa had fallen and including all but the northernmost stones of the outer circle. Lauzoril saw it all, and though he felt no regret for those who'd died-least of all Lady Illusion, if she were dead-he understood that there were sights a survivor of Illusion's brand of cruelty need not have written in his memory. The zulkir had charmed Ebroin with a simple spell that left the young man seeing what he wanted most to see.

The spell would fade by midday. Lauzoril intended to be gone before then. He hadn't decided whether he'd be traveling alone or with a half-elf behind him. The Simbul might help him decide, when she reappeared. He was confident that she would, as confident as Ebroin was about Zandilar.

Lauzoril felt magic gather within the inner circle. He laid a hand on Ebroin's arm and motioned for him to stand. Not a complete fool, the zulkir positioned the Cha'Tel'Quessir between himself and the gathering magic and dug a fingernail into the seal of another coward's retreat-he habitually carried a half-score of them in the studs of his belt. The hanging spell coalesced; the Simbul, silver haired, blue eyed, and wearing the soft leathers she'd worn in the moonlight, stepped onto charred grass, scorched soil.

Ebroin flinched. The zulkir clamped a firm hand on the shoulder of his mortal shield.

"Steady, lad. I told you who she would be."

He couldn't see the Cha'Tel'Quessir's face but if Mimuay were to see it, she'd say his eyes were sadder, more frightened than ever. The zulkir had listened half the night to a young man's futile dreams. He could feel them crumbling.

"Lord Lauzoril? The Mighty Zulkir of Enchantment and Charm?"

So she did know him. He smiled and nodded his head ever so slightly, not letting his eyes drift from her face, though surely she could cast her spells by will as well as he could. "If you are the Simbul, Queen of Aglarond, then I am the Zulkir of Enchantment. Lord Tavai-Lauzoril is my given name."