The spy master then asked Lauzoril to pay for rare reagents that would, she assured him, insure that the plums fell in Enchantment's basket, not Illusion nor Invocation's. Lauzoril had balked and ended his never-firm association with the nameless spy master.
Within Thay, Lauzoril had no qualms about pursuing his rivalries with Thrul and the other zulkirs, but if the debacle at Gauros Gorge had accomplished nothing else, it had convinced him that personal rivalries should never stretch across Thay's borders. If the zulkirs couldn't work together to conquer Aglarond and Rashemen, then they should stay home until they could. His conscience, however, did not compel him to alert Aznar Thrul to the traitor coiled close to his heart.
In the depths of his mind Lauzoril knew the spy master's revelations were only part of his reasoning: He didn't have the stomach for all-out bloody war whether in Thay or Aglarond, and he didn't have the steel ambition to grind his rivals into dust. He'd learned the first at Gauros Gorge and the second at the recent Convocation. When the balance of Thayan power slewed between Aznar Thrul and Szass Tam, Lauzoril had seen the way, with the spy master's help, to set himself above his peers. If he'd taken that first step, though, he could never rest again in Thazalhar or teach his daughter the ways of magic.
Were you happy? Mimuay had asked. Lauzoril had the power of wealth, the power of enchantment, but she made him happy, Thazalhar made him happy. He'd come home after the Convocation and left Aglarond for those who didn't know better.
Mimuay interrupted her father's introspection: 'Look, Poppa, it's gone all black.'
'Kemzali is a knife in a sheath. We can't see anything unless we can persuade someone to take it out.'
Someone whose mind Lauzoril touched with a powerful, subtle spell, implanting a desire to be alone, a desire to examine the knife closely. He would have resorted to the scrying bowl eventually; there was no other way to see the knife's new owner.
After several moments, smears of color stretched across the bowl's oily surface.
'Is that all, Poppa? What can anyone learn from that?'
'That Kemzali's owner is alive and has dark hair,' the zulkir informed her sharply, but he held his hands over the bowl. Scrying inside Aglarond was always chancy; the Yuirwood, between Thay and the coastal cities, threw a pall of interference in the path of every spell. But sometimes a wizard got lucky. Lauzoril closed his eyes and shaped the air above the bowl.
'Poppa! Poppa, look! What kind of person is that?'
Lauzoril looked. The mustard oil's bronze sheen colored the images it reflected, but Lauzoril knew the Yuirwood type and knew the knife's new owner looked very much the way he and Mimuay saw him, with golden-green skin and eyes, and hair that was black, or very nearly so.
'Is he a man?'
'A man, yes. A young man, but not human.'
There were goblins, gnolls, and orcs aplenty in Thay. Lauzoril kept a few such slaves himself to do the meanest estate work. Elves, however, were rare, a few drow kept hidden in the cities. As a race-an inferior race-they'd sooner die than serve a Thayan master. The only elves his daughters had ever seen were painted in the picture books he brought home for their mother. Those painted elves were full-blooded; the youth to whom the Simbul had given Lauzoril's enchanted knife was neither human, nor elf. In Thay, such mongrels were not kept, not even for slavery.
'What is he, then, Poppa? Not an elf?'
'A half-elf, Mimuay. Kemzali is in Aglarond and Aglarond is full of half-elves. They call themselves the chattel- kessir.'
Of necessity, Red Wizards learned the more common goblin-kin languages. Lauzoril could speak fluently with his goblin slaves. Some wizards learned elvish, too; Lauzoril refused, on principle. He mispronounced the few words he did know, turning them, without second thought, into slurs. A mistake. Mimuay, who knew nothing of elven arrogance or condescension, sat back on her stool, blinking. She never heard coarse, cursing language, not from her father.
'They're all thieves and blackhearts,' Lauzoril continued clumsily. 'This one probably stole Kemzali from the-' He couldn't finish the sentence. The Simbul had to have given the knife to this mongrel or the youth wouldn't be alive with it in his hands. He wondered why.
'If he's a half-elf, Poppa, what's his other half? Did he have half-elves for his parents, or is he like a mule with a horse and a donkey for his momma and poppa?'
'Such questions!'
Half-breeds occurred whenever humans consorted with elves, a living badge of shame. Mules didn't breed, but human-elf mongrels did. Lauzoril had heard that the Aglarondan mongrels bred true in the Yuirwood, but elsewhere in Faerun, the mongrels reverted to ancestral type. By rumor, every human Aglarondan had a mongrel lurking in his pedigree.
Including Aglarond's queen? Aglarond had been ruled by mongrels before Thay was founded. Humans-suspect humans-had claimed its throne only within the last few generations. The Simbul appeared human, but in a hundred years, her appearance never changed. Red Wizards cribbed a sort of immortality with spells and potions. The Simbul, a mighty wizard, could have done the same-or, perhaps, she wasn't quite human.
And the mongrel to whom she'd given his knife? What was the youth to her? He stood in the Yuirwood-there were trees visible behind him-yet he wore a well-made shirt. Not the sort of garment Lauzoril expected to see in the middle of a forest, though, in truth, this was the first time he'd successfully envisioned the Yuirwood. He had only his prejudices to guide his assumptions.
The scrying image blurred. The mongrel youth had examined his knife and, finding nothing unusual about it, was returning it to its sheath. Lauzoril could have intervened, pricked the youth's thoughts and kept him staring at the blade, but sooner or later even a kobold would guess that something affected his thoughts.
'I think his momma was an elf,' Mimuay announced.
The zulkir disagreed, but asked: 'Why do you think that?'
'I could feel his thoughts. They were tangled around his momma and very sad. He's alone. He's frightened, too. Someone's tried to kill him, Poppa. A wizard. A Red Wizard.'
Lauzoril had punched his compulsions into the mongrel's mind, but he hadn't perceived anything in return-blame the damned Yuirwood. It was inconceivable that his daughter, a mere witness to his spellcasting had perceived what he could not. Mummy's imagination, fired by Wenne's picture books and his own admissions, had taken over. A little imagination was useful for a wizard; too much was dangerous. His mentors had beaten his into submission; he'd have to find another way to curb his daughter's.
'A Red Wizard? Are you sure, Mimuay? You began by saying his mother was an elf, now you say a Thayan wizard has tried to kill him. Are you very sure?'
She hesitated. 'I couldn't understand him, Poppa, not the way I understand Ferrin-'
Her dear, dead friend Ferrin, for whom Lauzoril had searched without success.
'I had to fill in the spaces between his thoughts. He thought of his momma and her ears were pointed, like an elf's. I saw them sticking through her brown hair. She has a spear, Poppa. Do elf-mommas always carry spears? When he thinks of her, he thinks of Red Wizards-' Mimuay stared at her hands, nervous and ashamed. 'There's death-ugly death-when he thinks of Red Wizards, Poppa. He's afraid and he's angry, too; he hates them… you… us.'
Lauzoril measured his next words carefully. If Mimuay hadn't perceived the mongrel's thoughts, from where was she getting these notions? 'Aglarond is Thay's enemy. Where there are enemies, there is hate and fear; it cannot be avoided. In western Thay, near Aglarond, little girls fear Aglarond and learn to hate the Aglarondan queen.'
'The Simbul?'
He swallowed hard. 'Where did you learn that name, Mimuay?'
'From the boy in the mirror, Poppa. In the space between his momma and the Red Wizards is a silver-haired woman he calls the Simbul.'
'We've done enough for today, Mimuay.'
'I haven't done anything, Poppa. I've just watched. You're angry with me: you don't believe me. You think I'm telling stories. I'm not, Poppa; I wouldn't lie to you, not ever.'
There was fear in his daughter's voice. She was too old to become a Red Wizard. By the time he was old
