The Simbul's gift - Lynn Abbey [60]
The girl froze, eyes wide with horror: she'd never felt the force of her father's temper-still hadn't felt its full, terrible force for that matter, but she-thank the many gods-didn't know that. She dropped, sobbing, to her knees.
"I thought you were the prince, Poppa. I didn't guess you were like her grandfather."
"Exactly like her grandfather, Mimuay. I killed her grandfather in a duel two years before you were born. Since that night I have been the Zulkir of Enchantment."
Lauzoril hadn't meant to be cruel, not to his daughter nor to the child-woman he found locked away here on the Thazalhar estate, surrounded by tapestries and storybooks. Wenne believed she was a princess and he… he was the image of the prince she'd been promised. For a year the young zulkir indulged her fantasies; after that, it was too late.
"Do you love her, Poppa? Do you love any of us?"
"Yes," he answered simply. The Zulkir of Enchantment was also the Zulkir of Charm: a consummate liar with the power to make any child believe that the sun rose in the west. He chose, in the end, to tell the truth. "Wenne is the heart of my home, the mother of you and Nyasia-whom I do love without reservation, even when I shouldn't. But no, Mimuay, I do not love your mother, not as a man wants to love his wife. When you're older, you'll understand."
Mimuay sniffed up her tears and rose to her feet. "It's magic, isn't it, that makes her the way she is, like a child who never grew up? Magic that her grandfather put on her?"
"The old zulkir thought he could keep her safe if he enchanted her mind so she could never learn magic-never learn anything at all except her embroidery. She wouldn't become a rival to him or a hostage to others."
"When will you put that magic on me, Poppa?"
They stared at each other. Lauzoril saw his own death waiting in his beloved daughter's eyes. He should kill her right now. The old zulkir's enchantment wouldn't be enough, hadn't been enough with Wenne. And because he'd raised his daughters with love and kindness-or tried to-he foresaw that Mimuay would come to hate him, come to destroy him when she learned what he did outside Thazalhar.
The spell was in Lauzoril's mind: a word, a gesture, and his daughter would die instantly. He shook his head. The spell might be there, but the will to use it wasn't. He'd sooner die himself than harm her body or warp her mind.
"There are spells and magic all around you, to keep you safe, but my magic's never touched you, not even to straighten your crooked front tooth. It never will."
"Will you teach me, Poppa? Will you share your gift?"
Lauzoril couldn't refuse. His daughter became a child again, throwing herself at him, wrapping her arms around his chest. He remembered when she had embraced his knees. It hadn't been all that long ago.
He was a fool, a romantic fool, and she would become his death. But death would come; the new god Kelemvor hadn't decreed any changes. Death should come to everyone, even zulkirs.
Especially zulkirs.
So he foresaw that Mimuay would come to hate him, to destroy him. Where was it written that fate was immutable? Szass Tam could destroy them all tomorrow, no matter what a father decided to do tonight. And tonight that father had the leafy smell of his daughter's love surrounding him. The balance pans of his life were level. No father-no man or zulkir-could ask for more.
12
The Yuirwood, in Aglarond
Sundown, the fifteenth day of Eleasias,
The Year of the Banner (1368DR)
Bro awoke at sundown, thinking it was dawn, thinking he'd gone to sleep with a stomach full of bad dreams. Then his bed bent beneath him, and he realized he wasn't in bed at all, but clinging to a far-too-slender branch. Immediately, he remembered Sulalk and that he was alone. Those grim memories kept their distance, giving him space to remember how he'd wound up in the young branches of a tall tree.
A very tall tree, once Bro had made the nearly fatal mistake of looking