injury, but the queen of Aglarond took some pride that she didn't harm her subjects-when they gave her a choice.
Which Bro hadn't.
The troublesome youth had attacked her four times, not counting his initial plunge into the Simbul's spellcasting periphery as she prepared to whisk the colt to safety in Velprintalar, fully intending to return for him and his sister. She'd gone to Sulalk prepared for spell-flinging wizards, not grief-maddened Cha'Tel'Quessir. Alassra knew three-score variations on the simple spells for sleep and tranquillity, but she hadn't foreseen a need for such gentle magic and, notwithstanding the shelves of worn spellbooks in her workroom, there was an absolute limit to the number of spells she could retain in her mind.
The first two times he'd attacked, she'd quenched his rage with paralysis, the least of the wizardly arsenal she'd brought to the village. After that, Alassra had cast her last paralysis spells on the little girl and the colt-lest they compound her problems-and beaten him into submission with her staff.
She could-and feared she might have to-pound the youth to death's threshold with her staff, then heal him back to health several times more.
'Ebroin, this grows tiresome. I have more important concerns.'
He got one arm braced and levered himself into a weary, bleeding crouch. His eyes were narrow when he raised his head, but Alassra thought he'd learned his lesson. She took a step backward, to show she meant no further harm.
'Your gods' curse on you, Queen of Aglarond,' the youth swore-the precise, formal oath of a deep forest Cha'Tel'Quessir and language Aglarond's human queen didn't want to hear when she was standing in the Yuirwood in a time other than her own. 'Your gods' curse on you,' Bro repeated, 'for a murderer and a thief.'
Alassra could hear the trees growing eyes and ears. She'd slain many men for lesser insults but this time she remained calm… relatively calm for a woman who'd been nicknamed the storm queen long before she took possession of Aglarond's throne.
'Murderer? Murderer! The Red Wizards are murderers, Ebroin. They murdered your mother and stepfather.' She'd pieced that much of his history together from his other curses. 'If I hadn't been there, you'd be dead, and your little sister as well.'
'If you hadn't been there to steal Zandilar's Dancer, neither would they.'
'I had-I have no intention of stealing your colt, Ebroin. You'll be handsomely paid, in gold.'
'He's not for sale! I was going to-' Bro stopped in mid-thought. Anger drained from his bruised face, leaving grief behind.
'You were going to what?' Alassra asked, sensing that she might not have to strike him again. 'What were you going to do?'
Bro had collapsed while she asked her questions. His forehead rested in his fingers and his knuckles rested on the leaf-covered ground. Alassra knelt beside him. Compassion was not the Simbul's greatest strength. The Rashemaar witches who'd raised her considered it a luxury. Her own temperament regarded it with suspicion-as the youth might. They certainly shared a tendency toward stubbornness.
'Did you have an argument with your parents?' she asked.
He shook his head; whatever haunted him, it was worse-in his conscience-than a quarrel-opened breach that could never be repaired.
'The past is past, Ebroin, There's no going back to this morning.'
Never mind that they were displaced backward in the world's time, it was the mind and body's time that mattered. The spells locked in Alassra's staff could take them almost anywhere, but they'd arrive there the exact same number of moments after her miscast Sulalk spell as they'd lived out of time in the Yuirwood. There'd be no detours to another morning, no second chances. The gods were very strict about such things, and Mystra's Chosen- especially her Chosen-were bound by the gods' rules.
'You have to face the future, Ebroin. We all do, regardless of our mistakes. Your parents and village will be avenged, I promise you. Ten Red Wizards will die for every villager-twice ten for your parents. They will not be forgotten. And neither will you. You and your sister may come to Velprintalar, to the Verdigris Palace.'
Bro raised his head. Alassra thought they were making progress.
'Never!'
'There's nothing left for you in Sulalk. A village needs more than one farmer.'
'I'm not a farmer!'
Bro's voice was raw and sharp enough to cut rope. Through sheer luck, Alassra had found the key. Silent tears rinsed dirt from the youth's face.
'I'm not a farmer. I wasn't going to stay with them. I was going to run away, back to the Yuirwood. I didn't want to hurt my mother; I knew I would when I left, but I didn't want to. She was happy with Dent; happy in a different way than she'd been in the Yuirwood. Rizcarn… My father… I wanted another way. I prayed… I prayed to Zandilar for a way out of Sulalk that wouldn't break her heart, but not like this. Not with her being dead. I didn't pray for this to happen.'
It was natural to want to comfort him and natural for him to pull away. The Simbul got to her feet, scowling at the trees. So, the youth had prayed to Zandilar, the name she'd heard the night the colt was foaled.
Zandilar was mentioned only a handful of times in Elminster's vast library and not once in the Aglarondan archives. Alassra had checked every scroll and tome. All she knew for certain was that Zandilar was a Yuirwood goddess-possibly elven, possibly not-and that she hadn't been worshiped since the Cha'Tel'Quessir began to be born.
A breeze rustled through the treetops without touching the ground. Apart from the breeze, the forest was quiet-uncommonly, uncannily quiet. Alassra gave a thought for each of the spells she held in her mind, assuring herself that she was as prepared as she could be. She said her own prayer to her own goddess, Mystra.
Give me strength and wisdom… and safe passage to my own time and place!
The breeze died; not likely a coincidence. Alassra switched her staff to her weapon hand.
'If Zandilar is a goddess worthy of your worship,' she said to Bro and any other ears that happened to listen, 'then she did not answer your prayers with the death of your mother.' Alassra left other possibilities unspoken, though her thoughts, which a goddess might overhear, warned that gods who tormented their worshipers were not welcome in her Aglarond.
Bro's tense, silent body spoke eloquently. He wanted to be free from unbearable guilt but he couldn't accept comfort from his queen. Alassra shook her head. The youth was stubborn; give him another six hundred years and he might be as stubborn as her.
'Try to understand, Ebroin,' Alassra said coldly, because cold sometimes worked best with difficult people-or so Elminster claimed.
She bent down to touch his arm. He flinched, but the Simbul's reflexes were lightning fast, and she'd spilled a vial of healing unguent on his skin before he got away. With a pale aura shimmering around him, the time was ripe for brutal honesty.
'Your life has been seized by forces beyond your control, Ebroin. It will never be the same as it was or would have been. Blame me, if you must, though the true fault lies in Thay's malice. They will feel my wrath for this, I promise you. But above all, don't blame yourself. You hadn't the power to shape this day, and you haven't the strength to bear responsibility for it.'
The spell's aura faded. Bro's bones and flesh were whole again. His mind and spirit were another matter. Alassra's grimoires contained spells to lift a man's emotional burdens though a hundred years had passed since she'd cast even one of them. Magic couldn't salve a guilty conscience, not without leaving something much worse in its place.
'Are you ready to get on with your life?'
Bro planted one foot beside the other and pushed himself cautiously upright, as if he didn't trust the power of magic to restore him. His fingers probed his flank; then he brushed the back of his hand across his mouth. Flakes of dried blood fell away. The lips beneath were whole and unswollen.
'I hate you,' Bro swore softly, but stayed where he was. He swept tangled hair away from his eyes and studied their surroundings as if he hadn't noticed them before. His hands shriveled into fists when he saw the horse and his sister both sprawled on the moonlit ground. 'What-?'
The Simbul spun her staff, aiming the metal-wrapped butt squarely at his heart before he could take a stride
