The Simbul's gift - Lynn Abbey [27]
Mindful of the forest's interest, Alassra gently touched his brow. The echoes were very faint; the talent not much greater. Bro hadn't cast a spell. That was some relief: Faerun didn't need an untrained druid with the power to pull Mystra's Chosen through time. He'd intended to cause trouble, and he'd achieved his goal. She found she liked him better than when she'd known him only through the mirror.
"I'll have to leave you here," she said as she lifted her spell from his limbs. "Even the witch-queen has her limits."
Bro drew a free breath and clasped his hands around Alassra's throat.
"You killed them!" he cried. "You could have saved them, but you didn't. You let them die-my mother, Dent, the whole of Sulalk-and then you tried to steal Dancer!"
He was no threat, not to the likes of her. The challenge lay in not killing him when she flung him aside. He landed hard, ten paces away, and for a moment Alassra thought she'd failed. Then Bro hauled himself to his feet and attacked again.
"Be still!" she commanded, lofting another little crystal into the air. He froze and, like an unbalanced statue, toppled face-first to the ground. "You're determined to make this difficult for both of us, aren't you?"
5
The city of Bezantur, in Thay
Mid-afternoon, the fourteenth day of
Eleasias, The Year of the Banner
(1368DR)
The tide was out and a stiff wind, running ahead of a sea storm, swept over the harbor mud, absorbing scents of life and death. On land, smoke from countless ovens gave the wind texture, while sun-baked streets and fermenting middens added their offerings to the season known in Bezantur as Reeking Heat.
Those who could flee the city had left a month ago; those who could not-the poor and the powerful-endured. A perverse few claimed preference for air with a life of its own, but most suffered the stifling, pungent breezes with little grace. Perfumers did better trade than food sellers as everyone created a private aura, using one favored scent against a myriad of others. In the end, stale perfume became the worst stench of all.
The state room of the Black Citadel at Bezantur's heart smelt as bad as the meanest alley. Aznar Thrul, Zulkir of Invocation and Tharchion of the Priador-the newest Thayan province of which ancient Bezantur had become the capital-fought Reeking Heat with incense cauldrons and fans: strategies Bezantines had long abandoned. Heavy smoke attracted other aromas, which the fans plastered over every surface. A decade into his tharchionate and Thrul's laudatory murals were reduced to obscure blotches, and the ceiling was a greasy stain where swarms of insects made their homes.
Thrul's nature, infinitely adaptable in politics and deceit, did not allow him to admit an error in ordinary housekeeping. By his order, the cauldrons were kept full and cindering; the fans never stopped swaying. He surrounded himself with the most priceless perfume of all: crisp air invoked from a distant mountaintop. Clothed in heavy velvet, the Zulkir sat on his throne while sweating petitioners paraded before him.
Sultry heat and foul air weren't all that made the Bezantine petitioners uncomfortable. Life was dangerous for a Thayan zulkir who accumulated enemies as the ceiling above him accumulated flies, doubly dangerous for a zulkir who was also a territorial tharchion. Death threats were routine; some were serious. Thrul took no unnecessary chances: when petitioners came to the state room, they entered it naked.
Conventional weapons were impossible to conceal, and it was a rare mage whose concentration was not addled by embarrassment. Shame was further compounded by the constant presence of the citadel's legion of slaves. Never mind that the slaves were equally unclothed or that most of them were undead: They had eyes, they stared, and there was always the chance that they might recognize or remember.
There were drawbacks: Unnerved petitioners were often incoherent. It took patience to understand their logic, and Aznar Thrul was not a patient