The Simbul's gift - Lynn Abbey [40]
The brazier cooled, the ember images crumbled, but that hardly mattered as Mythrell'aa put her pet through his paces, sharpening her tongue on his wounds. Dawn had become morning before she grew bored. She left him twitching on the floor, returning her attention to the brazier.
Using a bone-and-brass poker, the zulkir stirred hot coals from the bottom to the top, feeding them incense powders. Wisps of pungent smoke arched toward her when Mythrell'aa uttered the names of her minions, but none congealed into a recognizable shape. Her fears confirmed, Mythrell'aa added a drop of green oil to the incense mix.
"Vazurmu," Mythrell'aa called the name of an illusionist of no small talent and a woman bound to her in death as well as life. "I summon you."
"I hear you, Mighty Zulkir. My eyes and ears, my heart and mind are yours."
Vazurmu's voice came faintly out of the smoke. Mythrell'aa made a sour face as she poured amber oil and more incense into the brazier. The village where her minions were supposed to ambush Alassra Shentrantra was near the Yuirwood and the Yuirwood interfered with Red Wizard magic. Mythrell'aa despised Aglarond's great forest almost as much as she despised Aglarond's queen. When the Red Wizards finally conquered that wretched realm, she'd personally cast the conflagration spells to burn all those thrice-damned trees to the ground.
"Tell me what happened," the zulkir commanded.
Smoke thickened into a woman's shape and spoke more clearly. "An old woman appeared yesterday morning. No one knew her-"
"Beshaba!" Mythrell'aa muttered the name of her patron goddess, "Did you think the bitch-queen would arrive with bugles and milk-white horses?"
Vazurmu's image quaked soot. "No, Mighty Zulkir. We were alert for all strangers, even birds and toadstools. Arnoz approached her cautiously. She saw through him before he had time to cast a spell. Then madness ruled. We followed your orders. The village is dead and burning. No witnesses survive to say what happened."
"Except for you and the Great Bitch! What happened?"
"I stayed out of the fighting, as you instructed. I kept her in front of me. I watched her. She is… she is like no other, Mighty Zulkir. She is a fiend unleashed."
"I don't need you to tell me what she is, I need to know what happened next!"
"Yes, Mighty Zulkir I was hidden-quiet-no one could have noticed me, yet I was struck down from behind-"
"By a dirt-eating peasant! Beshaba gives me fools to work with."
"Yes, Mighty Zulkir." Vazurmu knew better than to argue with her zulkir. One word from Mythrell'aa and, the Yuirwood notwithstanding, her flesh would shrivel; another word and her blood would boil. "I am a fool struck down by a peasant and I have ill-served you. But I recovered my senses before the queen left."
"And?" Mythrell'aa paced around the brazier.
"I followed her to the stable where the horse was kept. She'd led the horse outside and had drawn a circle in the grass to take it away from the village. A boy-"
"A boy? What boy? You said, no witnesses."
"Yes, Mighty Zulkir. The boy and a little girl broke into the circle as the silver-eyed queen cast her spell."
If she hadn't already known the resolution, Mythrell'aa would have chuckled in eager anticipation. The laws of spellcraft were the same on both sides of the Yuirwood. No Red Wizard-including herself-could have held the circle if two people had broken it. It made what she'd seen earlier that much more remarkable, more ominous.
"The backlash was terrible, Mighty Zulkir. A dead space opened where they'd been. Anything that wasn't already dead, died, I'm certain."
"You're certain," Mythrell'aa purred at her minion, already contemplating the woman's demise: Alassra had saved the little girl,