The Simbul's gift - Lynn Abbey [49]
Now, with hatred souring her judgment, the request and its consequential invasion of her consciousness flooded the spy master with another passion: contempt. She bowed her head anyway, invoking the spell with precise gestures and a single word, submerging her passions into the needs of the moment. No one knew better than a spy master that vengeance required time.
Thrul's thoughts mingled with the spy master's as the spell played out the last moment of four lives. Three had died suddenly, blindly, in a skirmish of lightning and fire, but the fourth had survived the initial carnage. Laying low, he'd watched the witch-queen search each ramshackle barn until she found one that held her attention. He was creeping closer when his attention swung to one side: two more survivors, a village youth-a mongrel from the forest-and one of Mythrell'aa's minions, fought each other. The wizard was exhausted; the mongrel, lucky. Another Thayan died and the mongrel, carrying a small human girl, headed into the barn the witch-queen hadn't left. Using the youth as his stalking-horse, the spy followed.
The last image the spy's mind had held was a frozen scene: the queen and the gray horse, the mongrel and the little girl. The queen and the mongrel argued-the tone was unmistakable, though the words were garbled-until the silver-eyed queen noticed the spy. His life ended in flame and terror.
"Is there more?" the zulkir asked.
The spy master nodded, triggering the darkest spell of Deaizul's devising. After-death vision was deeply shadowed and without color. It saw the living world through a narrow slit in a floating sphere: a mangled corpse, an empty stall, footprints in the dirt, all pointing in the same direction. The trail led outside, to a large blackened circle. There was no trace of the witch-queen, the horse, the mongrel, or the human girl.
Thrul sucked his teeth pensively as the necromantic vision ended.
The spy master spoke first, to break the silence. "Something went wrong. Wherever she was headed, it's likely she didn't arrive."
"Rest assured that she did, woman. The silver-eyed bitch has Beshaba's luck: her misfortune never falls on her head. Those others paid the price."
The spy master shrugged. "Our spies along the coast will send word when she reappears, or if she doesn't."
"Good, woman. Why a horse, though? If she saved anything, she saved that horse: it's what she went after in the first place. Find out what was special about it… or that boy. He wasn't human-one of those forest mongrels."
"Yes, my lord."
She needed no instructions in her craft from Aznar Thrul. The zulkir's arrogance propelled her to a decision not to reveal the true reason for her visit: There had to be a connection between that gray horse and the gods-brewing mystery that had lured Deaizul into the Yuirwood, a connection that now involved the witch-queen herself. Deaizul wasn't a particularly potent wizard, no match for the witch-queen. The spy master feared that he might need help and had hoped that the Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir of the Priador would agree to provide that help.
Now she wouldn't bother to ask, but she needed some explanation, some quick excuse to account for her unscheduled visit. One that had already crossed her mind and might even cross Aznar Thrul's mind. "I wonder, my lord, how Mythrell'aa knew where to place her minions, how she knew that one particular horse in that one particular village would draw the bitch-queen's attention."
Thrul stroked his beardless chin. "Yes," he said slowly. "How, indeed. Better spies, woman?"
"Unlikely, my lord. These were the first minions she's sent into Aglarond since you came to Bezantur, and half were castoffs from other schools. She had help, my lord, of one kind or another."
"Help inside Aglarond or inside Thay?"
The