The Simbul's gift - Lynn Abbey [8]
Boiling water rattled the pot's lid. Unmindful of the steam, Alassra stuffed crumpled leaves into a silver-lace basket, then shoved the basket into still-bubbling water. Elminster sat in silence, waiting for the tea's fragrance to calm his beloved friend.
A few moments later, Alassra sipped tea hot enough to scald and sank into a cushioned chair. "Your warning was well-meant. I will see if the Cha'Tel'Quessir malcontents are attached to Zandilar the Dancer. Yet, I tell you, what was said to me was not Zandilar the Dancer, but Zandilar's Dancer and the image, unmistakably, was that of a horse, a foal, in fact, and scarcely a day old."
"Rashemen, perhaps?" Elminster suggested. Alassra had grown up among the Rashemaar witches. Centuries had not dulled the bonds between the horse folk and their adopted daughter. "Surely they would warn you if their seers had scryed something ominous."
But Alassra shook her head before Elminster could pursue his thought further.
"This was an announcement, not a warning. And the messenger was a Cha'Tel'Quessir youth, not quite grown." She wrinkled her brow. "His mother calls him Ember. He means to dance with her, with Zandilar-or the horse." She smiled and shook her head. "He's young still; his thoughts shift before they're complete."
Elminster stifled his own smile, remembering a time when he was younger and the ever-shifting thoughts of Elue Shundar's daughters confounded every mage in Faerun.
Again, Alassra interrupted Elminster's thoughts. "It is odd, isn't it, El-to combine horses and the Yuirwood powers in a single thought? A forest is hardly the place where I'd look for horses."
"Nowadays," Elminster agreed, reaching into one of his robe's many pockets and drawing out the briar-thorn pipe that nestled there. Sparks flew and scents as delicate as Alassra's tea mingled in the air. "There was a time, though… Faerun was a colder, wetter place, stamped with great trees the likes of which-well, a few remain in the groves around your sister's Silverymoon, but of what remains of that primal forest, most of it is in your beloved Aglarond, deep in the Yuirwood."
Alassra arched an eyebrow many shades darker than her hair. "And horses? I suppose you're going to tell me that herds of horses ran freely in this primal forest."
"As freely as any creature that size can run between the trees. As freely, at least, as a great hart."
"And herds, El-were there herds of forest horses in the time before you and I?"
Elminster shrugged, knowing that Alassra was baiting him. "Small herds, I should think. Narrow, certainly. Easier to fit between the trees and the hunters."
"Oh-hunters? Bears, wolves and panthers, or creatures more exotic?"
"Men, Alassra," the bearded mage said, growing suddenly serious. "There were men in Faerun's forest."
"And women?"
She'd missed his change in tone, a rare mistake and a certain sign that the midnight image disturbed her more than she wished to admit.
"Men and women, yes. Living their lives, worshiping their gods-none of whom are remembered."
Alassra poured herself another cup of tea. "Except by you?" She'd sensed the change now, but resisted it. Her baiting turned brittle, bitter.
"I know nothing about them, dear friend, except that they-the hunters and their gods-existed in that part of the primal Faerun forest that the Yuir elves would eventually claim for themselves. There those elves would erect two stone circles, one inside the other, one inscribed with Seldarine names and the other with names that are, as you, yourself said, at best, half-forgotten."
"The Cha'Tel'Quessir? Say it outright, El: There are Cha'Tel'Quessir who've never reconciled to human rule in Aglarond. They wish to see every human man, woman, and child put in boats and sailed toward the sunset.