The Simbul's gift - Lynn Abbey [48]
They argued without possibility of compromise. In the end she persuaded him with another handful of coins and entered the changing room with the sack still in her possession.
Thrul flattened her the instant he saw it. She lay helpless, convinced he'd broken every bone in her body, while the sack floated away. After an eternity, a familiar voice told her to rise. Slowly, she obeyed. Her pride had taken most of the damage; the rest of her was intact, though bruised and bleeding.
"A horse, woman!" Thrul snarled. "You come here, harassing my servants, disturbing my peace. I weary myself with spellcasting-and for what? A horse? Is this what I pay you for?"
"Permit me to explain, my lord. The horse is neither an end or a beginning; it's-"
"Explain away, woman. By all means, explain the horse. My curiosity knows no bounds."
The spy master hated him. Perhaps she'd always hated him, Aznar Thrul, zulkir and tharchion, with his acid tongue. But, having avoided the brunt of his scorn before this, she had been unwilling to acknowledge that her employer was a small-minded man whose spite was greater than his ambition. She'd overlooked his failings because his power supported her web of intrigue. But that was past: once she saw a pattern-truly saw it-she saw its implications, too, and they became part of her.
Thrul toyed with the plate, flicking it toward her, then holding it close again, catching sunlight on the horse's untarnished outline and flashing it into her eyes. His every move proclaimed he wanted her to ask-to beg-for its return. She guessed he wouldn't surrender it without some additional humiliation.
"Mythrell'aa's minions found what they were looking for in Aglarond."
"A horse?"
Thrul laughed at a private joke. Light from the plate flashed in the spy master's eyes again and lingered long enough that she had to blink. From its birth a moment earlier, the spy master's hatred had grown into a consuming passion.
A good spy lived without passion; it interfered with finding and analyzing patterns. Even with Deaizul, the spy master had felt only the pattern of love, not the passion. For one heartbeat, passion was interesting, by the second, it was inconvenient, and with the third she understood how Deaizul had lost his nerve. She pitied him: He'd chosen passion over pattern. Her mentor had made the wrong choice, a mistake she did not intend to make.
She'd take her hatred, seal it in a glass egg, and make it work for her. If Aznar Thrul wasn't worthy of her web, she'd use it for herself, for the glory of Thay, and bring him down slowly, piece by miserable piece.
"Say something, woman!"
"Yesterday, the bitch-queen came to that village where Mythrell'aa's minions waited. They had neither the wit to recognize her before she recognized them, nor the strength to stop her after that."
"Mythrell'aa's a fool."
The spy master nodded. All the zulkirs were fools, squandering Thay's wealth and energy in endless rivalries while the real enemy got away. "A fool who knew the silver-eyed queen was coming to that village, looking for a horse-that horse-and the mongrel who bred and raised him."
Too late, Aznar Thrul heard what she was saying. He looked at the plate without laughter or mockery. "Final sight?" he asked, naming one of the spells that forged the image. "Did anyone survive?"
"No, my lord." The spy master gave her employer the customary form of respect, but not the content. Never again the content. They were enemies now, though he didn't know it. She would bring him down. "The silver-eyed bitch slew everyone, hers and ours alike. She wanted no witnesses to her thievery."
Thrul offered her the plate as if nothing had happened between them. "Show me."
Once the spy master would have been pleased to cast the variation of Deaizul's final sight that would animate the tarnish. It wouldn't have bothered her that Thrul needed to invade her mind to see what she saw. Once it had seemed reasonable that a zulkir should have the means