The Simbul_s Gift

The creature yowled again. He circled their clearing. Every few steps he swung his arms and a tree shattered as if lightning-struck. According to the stories Alassra remembered, when the Old Man appeared, uprooting and shattering the trees he otherwise protected, the witches brewed special offerings of herbs and honey, then the eldest witch, the wisest and most revered of their never-large number, would take the offering into the forest, a journey from which she never returned.

"Nonsense," the Simbul muttered. She'd concede that offerings and sacrifices had their place, but only after a more direct approach had been tried and failed. "We mean no harm to you or your forest," she shouted, and kindled her own lightning.

"It's not listening," Bro advised from last year's crumbled leaves.

"You know what it is?"

He might. He was Cha'Tel'Quessir, and even those who served her loyally kept secrets from humans.

"No. I just… I just know it's not listening. I hear it not listening."

A talent for misdirecting teleport spells and hearing a silence. Ebroin would bear closer examination when this was over. Until then…

"If it's not listening, then we'll have to get its attention."

The Simbul extended her arm. The air burned with a sour smell. Her hair whipped around her, although there was no wind. In the lull between two heartbeats, lightning unfurled from her fingertips, loud enough to deafen, bright enough to blind her drow-gift senses.

Alassra recovered quickly. She watched the creature beat its breast, heard it shake the forest with a roar. Then it raised its arms in a gesture she knew all too well. Without hesitation, she loosed another spell: not lightning, but a gout of storm-tossed water that swerved between the trees. In other times, other places, Alassra had destroyed a stone fortress with a similar spell. She expected less in the Yuirwood, where the forest's own magic dampened great spells, and was satisfied when the watery fist pelted the creature solidly in the chest, fizzling its spell, and driving it into the night.

Bro expressed his admiration with an awestruck gasp.

"Can I trust you now, Ebroin?" she asked. "It will come back, maybe with its friends and relations. We don't have much time."

Suddenly they had much less time, or much more. The creature had been part of the mischance that had brought them to this wayward time. Its departure untied a magical mooring rope, and now they were adrift in currents between past and future.

It was a new experience for the Simbul: travel spells lifted a person above the temporal stream and blocked awareness of time's passage. If she'd been alone, she would have savored the novelty, even the danger. But she wasn't alone. Kneeling down, Alassra got one hand on Bro's arm and laid her other arm across the colt's neck.

"Grab your sister! Don't let go!" she commanded, and this time Bro obeyed.

The colt and the little girl both shed her spells when the hand-to-hand link was complete. The girl shrieked and the colt lurched awkwardly to its feet. The Simbul dropped her staff-it was bound to her by a score of spells and would stay with her through any errant magic-and seized the colt's halter.

Zandilar's Dancer had Alassra outweighed and out-muscled. She bitterly regretted that she'd used the last of her mild magic dealing with Bro's temper. With the colt awake and panicked and her without the spells to quiet him, the best Alassra could do was keep his head level as he dragged them all through an eerie, changing forest.

"I can hold him," Bro insisted after they narrowly avoided a tree that began as a shadow and grew to maturity in half a step. "He'll trust me."

It went against the Simbul's judgment, but her way wasn't working. Alassra exchanged her firm grip on Bro's sleeve for a gentler hold on his sister's hand. Zandilar's Dancer was too spooked to trust anyone, but a second strong hand on his halter convinced him to stand still.

"What happened?" Bro asked when several moments passed without changes in the trees around them.

Zandilar's Dancer had pulled them a hundred paces from the clearing and who-knew-how-many years. More than she wanted to count. It was still night, still the Yuirwood. The forest had changed around them, but the trees had grown, not shrunk.

"We're back where we belong."

"Back?" he asked, as if he'd understood nothing.

"We were dis-"

The Yuirwood burst into flames around them. For a moment-an eternal and terrifying moment-Alassra knew she was on fire, then the moment and the fire were behind her. She was alone, blind, numbly aware of her arms or legs, but not the cloth of her gown or the leather of her boots. Her mind was clear and empty. Every spell the Simbul had studied in Velprintalar had been burned out of her memory: Another new experience that she hoped not to repeat.

Empty-headed as she was, Alassra remained far from helpless. Mystra's Chosen were never helpless: The goddess's protection flowed in their veins. Alassra's senses, except for the forgotten spells, restored themselves. She assessed her injuries and analyzed the events that had overtaken her.

She'd been wrong to tell Bro they were back where they belonged. They'd merely arrived in a time and place where the Yuirwood had seemed changeless-until a forest fire swept through it. The flames had stu

To harm her.

Alassra opened her eyes, hoping that her more fragile companions had survived.

They had.

The half-elf, his half-sister, and the colt lay on the nearby ground, lit by stars and moonlight that seemed-Alassra narrowed her eyes to study their positions-where they should be a few hours before dawn on the second day after her six hundred and second birthday. Smoke and soot clung to their clothes, but they were alive and, like her, unhurt. Her staff lay beside the colt. She picked it up and with a fingertip gesture brought a globe of cool light to its gnarled head. Wood, thanks be to Mystra, couldn't be stu

Propping the staff against a tree-trunk, Alassra made a closer examination of her companions. When she was satisfied that her initial assumptions were accurate, she touched Bro's arm lightly.

He came awake with a jolt. "Fire! Fire! The cottage-"

"Not here. Not now."

Wide-eyed and not breathing, Bro stared at her, stared beyond her, seeing things Alassra wished he could forget. Finally his ribs heaved.

"Tay-Fay?"

"Behind you. Zandilar's Dancer, too. They've had a shock-too many shocks for one day and night-but they're safe."

Bro started to say something, thought better of it, and shook his head instead.

"Try to rest. I'm going to hie myself back to Velprintalar for a little while-just a little while. Do you understand how magic works, Ebroin? Even storm queens have their limits. I've got a spell or two left that would get us all home before the sun comes up, but it would be a rough ride for you, your sister and the horse. Easier and better if I go alone and come back when I can give you gentler passage."

He raised his head. The eyes that were so bleak and distant a moment ago, were lively now, glancing from the colt to the trees. Alassra knew, without magic's aid, exactly what the youth was thinking.

"Will you take Taefaeli with you now, please?" Bro asked.

It was the Simbul's turn to stare at the trees. The colt was a puzzle she wanted to solve, the means-the birthday gift-to lure Elminster to her privy chambers, but her wants paled beside Bro's needs. Zandilar's Dancer was the youth's only link to his past and to the Yuirwood itself. He'd said it himself: he wasn't a farmer and it was a rare Cha'Tel'Quessir who truly enjoyed city life.