a crystal bowl, already knuckle-deep in darkness. When her fist was empty, Mythrell'aa scooped another handful from a smoldering brazier. She whispered two words-the name of her antagonist-Alassra Shentrantra, and began again.
Mythrell'aa's bowl filled with the residue of incense and empty visions. The sky lightened to a bruised lavender. Her time for private pleasures faded with the night.
'Where are you?' Mythrell'aa's black-enameled fingernails scraped the bottom of the brazier and brought up a handful of glowing embers. 'Not beyond my reach.'
A statement of faith, not fact. Every zulkir knew the Simbul had mastered spells they could only dream of. She could vanish for months and reappear in the thick of battle, radiating fire and lightning, ambushing them when they had thought they had the advantage.
Mythrell'aa had a true advantage over her Thayan peers: an older name, a private quarrel, and a thorn stem, the last token of an ill-fated love, which Alassra Shentrantra had unexpectedly preserved in her most private chamber.
'Come home, Alassra,' Mythrell'aa wished as she shook the embers like dice in her loosely clenched fist. Blood-red lips parted in an eager smile. Yesterday, two years of scrying and spying had been fulfilled when Alassra came face-to-face with Mythrell'aa's minions in a no-account Aglarondan village. It was almost too much to believe that her illusionists had achieved the penultimate victory, but as the day passed and Alassra failed to appear in her private chamber…
After decades of waiting, Mythrell'aa began to hope.
The spilling embers formed a shape, like wine in a transparent glass. Mythrell'aa's smile froze. Her breath escaped in an enraged gasp.
'A child!'
The dangling lump in Alassra's arms was unmistakable to anyone who could read fire and ash. Mythrell'aa's hand was empty. Alassra's glowing shape was complete and began to move above the bowl.
'A horse! You were looking for a gods-all-be-damned horse!' The zulkir made a fist. 'What else went wrong?'
She considered her imperiled illusionists by face and name. She'd taught each of them magic and more, but they were all expendable, when Alassra Shentrantra was the prey. Before they left Thay, Mythrell'aa had made certain they knew none of her secrets. They couldn't betray her if they fell into the witch-queen's hands.
Intrigue was a dangerous game and a game she hadn't played until recently. Mythrell'aa's life had been simpler before the Salamander War, before Zulkir Aznar Thrul established himself as Tharchion Aznar Thrul here in Bezantur. Before all that, Mythrell'aa had maintained cozy relationships with Bezantur's tharchions. She handled the magic and kept herself amused; they handled the intrigue.
Thrul had changed all that. He had no need of her spell-casting talents and treated her like a child. No, worse than a child, he'd treated her like a slave, expecting her-who'd been a zulkir before he was born-to cater to his whims. So she'd turned to Szass Tam and he'd taught her… for a price.
But not even Szass Tam knew about Alassra Shentrantra: he hadn't asked; she hadn't told. It was the first lesson he'd taught her, and she'd learned it well. Someday Mythrell'aa imagined she'd reveal what she knew about the witch-queen of Aglarond. Until then, Mythrell'aa kept her secret to herself. Countless Red Wizards moldered in lonely graves because they'd underestimated the witch-queen's power. Illusion's zulkir wouldn't be among them.
Mythrell'aa turned away from the animated embers, to the narrow windows where a man stood, as if in a trance, his face to the horizon. The past and the future were beyond Mythrell'aa's control, but in the present, in this room, there was nothing about Alassra Shentrantra that couldn't be used to hurt someone.
'Lailomun. Lailomun, my pretty pet, come here.'
Lailomun started when she called his name. He reached for the open window, encountered the wards and fell back, nursing his numbed hands.
He hadn't changed since Mythrell'aa surprised him that night, decades past, in the trysting room Alassra Shentrantra prepared for them. His handsome face remained unmarked by time, except for a small bluish scar above his right brow, where Mythrell'aa's vengeance burrowed through his skull.
She hadn't changed him, not the way zulkirs usually changed the annoyances of their lives. Lailomun knew himself and recognized her: His thoughts, a mixture of hate and horror, were poetry written in wide eyes, flared nostrils and quivering lips. He said nothing. Lailomun hadn't spoken since Mythrell'aa brought him back to Serpent Tower, but that was his decision, an act of futile willfulness that delighted the zulkir each time she roused him.
'Come. I have something to show you.'
Having failed with the window, Lailomun headed for the door. Mythrell'aa let him take a few strides, then dropped him to his knees with an effortless spell: They'd played this game countless times before.
'How many times must I tell you, my pet? You're mine. You'll never leave me again.'
Lailomun froze-his will, again, not hers. He studied his surroundings with the wit that made him so attractive to experienced and mighty women. This morning, because she'd been disturbed and another experienced, mighty woman was the source, Mythrell'aa gave her one-time lover an extra heartbeat's contemplation before she tightened his chain again.
'Shall I drag you?'
He rose and came to her, proud and dignified in defeat. The zulkir could have procured his cooperation, as she did with her body servants, but she'd left Lailomun's nature intact and tampered with his memory instead. Whatever Lailomun had remembered when she extracted him from the trysting room he remembered still. After that moment, however, his memory held nothing. Each time Mythrell'aa called Lailomun, she awoke him from an open-eyed sleep that, from his crippled perspective, had begun in the trysting room. He'd remain alert for a little while, thinking his captivity had just begun, dreading what lay ahead. Then, gradually he'd fall into a trance until she roused him again.
Mythrell'aa opened her arms above the ember images. 'See who I've found.'
Her voice was sweet and deadly. Lailomun knew better than to trust her, but he looked at the images and recognized his ladylove.
'See, my pet, she has a child. Not yours, is it? Surely it's too big, too old to be yours. You were together, what-two years? Less? That child must have a different father.'
Lailomun was surprised. More than surprised, he was shocked. Where another man might have lost his voice, Mythrell'aa hoped, when his lips parted, that Lailomun might find his. He caught himself before he spoke a word.
'Always the same decision,' Mythrell'aa said softly, a trace of affection in her voice. She reached up to caress Lailomun's cheek. He held his breath as her sharpened nails moved across his flesh.
'She never loved you, Lailomun, not as I loved you. I could show you more. I could show you Alassra Shentrantra in the arms of a score of men, I could reveal her naked in the lairs of beasts and demons. She's made a fool of you, Lailomun, used you up and thrown you aside.'
The zulkir, who was head and shoulders shorter than Lailomun, retreated, the better to observe his reaction. But there was no reaction. Shock had shattered the man's fragile awareness. He'd become, again, a living statue. She could awaken him. He'd have no memory of these last moments. The game could be played and replayed until Lailomun's nerves frayed and he collapsed into a stupor from which even a zulkir could not arouse him.
'Lailomun. Lailomun, my pet. Pay attention to me.'
Mythrell'aa had designed the perfect punishment for a wayward lover. The incantation she'd used to cripple his memory might have made her rich, if she'd needed more wealth or written down the spells she devised. Once she'd cast the spell successfully, she'd lost interest in it. Her notes had disappeared years ago, and Lailomun's torment so amused her that while he lived-an unexpected side effect of the addling spell had given him an odd kind of immortality-she'd needed no other pets.
The brazier cooled, the ember images crumbled, but that hardly mattered as Mythrell'aa put her pet through his paces, sharpening her tongue on his wounds. Dawn had become morning before she grew bored. She left him twitching on the floor, returning her attention to the brazier.
Using a bone-and-brass poker, the zulkir stirred hot coals from the bottom to the top, feeding them incense powders. Wisps of pungent smoke arched toward her when Mythrell'aa uttered the names of her minions, but none
