'Yes, Poppa. I promise.'
'As you promised to stay out of the grove?'
She pulled away from him, staring back at the trees. This was not a conversation he'd ever meant to have and, not surprisingly, it wasn't going well. They were alike-he'd known that since she was old enough to talk-now they were both angry, both frightened. He took a deep breath and tried again.
'Does your friend have a name?'
'Ferrin. He's been dead a long time.'
In Thazalhar, that was almost a certainty. 'So, this Ferrin-whatever-did he tell you to disobey your father?'
Mimuay hesitated, plucking leaf bits from her hair and crumbling them to dust. 'He said… He said I had a gift, but you had a greater one that you'd share with me if… if I went to the grove while you were gone and stayed there until you returned.'
Of course, Mimuay had a gift. She was his daughter, as he was Chazsinal's son and Gweltaz's grandson. She was his wife's daughter, as well, and despite what Wenne had become she, too, was the daughter and granddaughter of wizards. The aptitude for magic wasn't completely heritable, but breeding was important. Lauzoril's daughters were well-bred; both could find themselves held as hostages or worse in another Red Wizard's schemes for power. But Mimuay was special. She stood before him, as sunset became twilight, with her fists clenched and tears glistening in her eyes. Lauzoril could only guess what her gifts might measure. He feared her as much as he feared for her.
'Did your friend tell you what this gift I'd share with you might be?'
'No,' she answered, a palpable lie, but one he'd overlook for the moment. 'Did you bring me anything?'
Lauzoril pointed to the packs heaped behind him. While Mimuay burrowed with unseemly haste, he swore privately that he'd find Ferrin, the friend who'd stolen his daughter's innocence.
'O-o-o, Poppa! The colors-they're lovely!'
Mimuay had found her gift: skeins of jewel-toned silk from the Kara-Turan jungles and a coil of gold wire drawn finer than a single strand of the silk. His eldest daughter was an embroiderer, an enchanter with threads of silk and precious metals. Wenne had taught her; embroidery was the only magic Wenne understood. Lauzoril had hoped- even prayed-that embroidery would be enough for Mimuay.
'How can you tell in this light?' he asked, an honest question considering the circumstances.
'Because you chose them for me,' Mimuay answered, a new maturity in her voice. 'Because you're angry with me, and I want so much for you not to be.' She stood up, a chapbook, not the silks, clutched in her hands. 'Nyasia will like the doll. It's pretty, like her. Is this for Mother?'
'It is,' Lauzoril replied. He knew where their conversation headed now, and liked it not at all, but he'd survived all these years because he could face what he didn't like.
'Will you read it to her?'
'If she asks me to. Perhaps she'll ask you instead.'
'Is it about a princess locked in a tower, waiting for a prince to rescue her from her cruel grandfather?'
'Of course-and, yes, there are pictures on every page. The princess has dark brown hair, like yours. The prince… The prince's eyes are green, like yours, too.'
'Was he a cruel man, Poppa?'
'The prince? He did what must be done, Mimuay, and made his peace with the consequences.'
'Not the prince in the story, Poppa. The grandfather-Mother's grandfather. Was he a cruel man?'
'Both your grandfathers were cruel men, Mimuay, who despised their sons. But your mother's grandfather cherished your mother. He tried to protect her the only way he could.'
'Was my great-grandfather the Zulkir of Enchantment?'
A man who'd faced Szass Tam's wrath didn't quake or crumble no matter what his daughter said, but that didn't stop Lauzoril's heart from skipping a beat or two. 'More gifts from your friend Ferrin, Mimuay?'
'No, Poppa-and that's the truth, believe me. He's very careful with what he tells me. He says you're very powerful and he doesn't want to anger you.'
'What Ferrin wants and what Ferrin will receive are entirely different, daughter.'
'No, Poppa. No! Please! I guessed myself. Mother talks sometimes when you're gone. Mostly… mostly she lives in her storybooks but sometimes she makes sense.'
Lauzoril lashed out with the back of his many-ringed hand, catching the blow just before it struck Mimuay's cheek. 'Never-Never!-speak so ill of your mother.'
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)
