The Simbul's gift - Lynn Abbey [12]
Which, in itself, raised intriguing questions:
Did Lauzoril know about the Simbul's mirror? Did he know that she spied on him? The glint in his cold green eyes, staring straight at her, and the smile crinkling the corners of his mouth seemed to say that he knew and that he enjoyed the experience. But, suspicions notwithstanding, Alassra's considerable research since his face first appeared, said no, the Zulkir of Enchantment was simply a man who smiled frequently and inscrutably as he went about his business.
One day she'd interrogate her mirror and there'd be no green-eyed man grinning back at her. After fifteen years, Enchantment was overdue for a new zulkir. It had happened before; save for the necromancer Szass Tam, zulkirs came and went frequently in Thay-and the very last thing Aglarond needed was another Szass Tam.
She told herself Faerun would be a better place when Lauzoril was gone; she told herself a lie.
Time was-before Lailomun and Aglarond-when those eyes would have drawn Alassra Shentrantra like a magnet. For centuries, rogues had been her favorite companions. Her past was pleasantly littered with memories of men who took advantage of every opportunity that crossed-or simply neared-their twisted paths. Those had been the days-and nights-of fine adventuring.
If he'd been around two hundred years ago, she and Lauzoril might not be enemies. At least, they wouldn't have begun as enemies.
But the year was 1368, not 1168, and the Simbul ruled in Aglarond because Aglarond's enemies had become her enemies, without question or respite. Alassra banished the zulkir's reflection with a casual gesture. She had other curiosities to sate, other enemies to spy upon.
Their signatures should have appeared on the dome's surface, but the quicksilver cast her own face back, nothing more.
She pursed her lips. "A wry jest," Alassra muttered, though the mirror lacked all sentience. It was not the first time she'd seen her own reflection. "I've always been my own worst enemy." She raised her hand a second time, then paused.
Alassra was a proud woman, but not a vain one. Her reflected face, with its prominent bones and piercing blue eyes, inspired respect, not affection. The men who'd called her beautiful felt the same way about a storm-whipped ocean. Not the sort of face that appealed to the romantic temperament of an enchanter. Not the face she'd wear, if she'd ever intended to attract one.
As a shapeshifter, the queen of Aglarond acknowledged no peer. She could transform herself into any living creature and assume inanimate shapes besides. She could become whatever her audience expected to see. No beauty or monstrosity was beyond her, nothing at all-except a glimpse of her face as nature had intended it.
"After six hundred and two years," Alassra complained aloud. "What would I look like? What should I look like?"
The quicksilver reflection blurred, reformed, and blurred again. She snapped her fingers and the liquid metal drained into the pool below the dome. Naked crystal reflected a familiar, but not accurate, image.
"It's because it is today and because today's my birthday," she groused as she spun on her heel. Other mages kept familiars or companions for company, Alassra Shentrantra took the high road of solitude and wound up talking to herself. "Any other day and this wouldn't be a problem… I wouldn't be thinking of rogues or wondering what my own face looks like these days… Damn you, Elminster!" She shook a fist in Shadowdale's general direction.
The Old Mage knew what day it was. He'd sent her a priceless gift: a pair of Mulhorandi scrolls, each more than three thousand years old. and she was properly grateful, but nowhere near as grateful as she would have been if he'd given her the gift she wanted: his presence, in the next room where the silk-covered bed waited.
A gust of wind scattered parchment and powder. The storm had arrived, and it had nothing to do with the charcoal clouds hanging over Velprintalar's harbor.