The Simbul's gift - Lynn Abbey [149]
"I am Alassra Shentrantra, Queen of Aglarond, called the Simbul."
The light within the shifting shadows grew stronger. Alassra remembered the stone she'd called her own. The truth was suddenly so obvious she could only marvel at the ancient magic that had kept it concealed. And though there was no ground beneath her feet, Alassra got down on her knees.
"But you are the Simbul. I knelt before your stone; I kneel before you now."
"Stand before me, Alassra. Though you were never meant to see my face, it is too late for worship. You cannot remain in here. You must go back."
Alassra stood. "I will." She cleared her throat. "I serve… Another goddess chose me."
The sharp veils fluttered with amusement. "Mystra. Yes. I know all about you, Alassra Shentrantra. To be forgotten is not the same as being blind or deaf. Your goddess sent you to Aglarond."
"Intentionally?" Alassra asked bluntly.
She hadn't asked to be Chosen, might well have refused if she'd been given a choice-had refused when Mystra first confronted her after Lailomun's abduction. Mystra hadn't mentioned the Simbul when she suggested Aglarond might be a good place to heal. But goddesses weren't compelled to mention anything and sharing one of her Chosen wouldn't have been entirely unprecedented. Alassra's drow sister, Qilue, was high priestess of Eilistraee in addition to being one of Mystra's Chosen, but that had been arranged before Qilue's birth.
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."