mighty magic that shields them against the dark and greedy grasp of Thay. A few have the boldness or business needs to venture into it, and most such penetrate only so far as a particular, memorable chamber.
It can be found not far beyond the darkly soaring forechamber of the palace, an audience chamber, one of nearly a dozen rooms in several buildings in the vicinity of Velprintalar that can be described as a throne room. This one was to the smaller, plainer end of Aglarond's array of throne rooms. Its walls were flame-gleaming sheets of burnished copper, and its floor a smooth expanse of scarlet tile broken only by the dark needle of an obsidian and cast metal throne that rose in dark, many-curved, irregular splendor like a watchful open hand, facing the distant entry door. A few chairs floated about this chamber, and a few plants also hung from nothing within its walls, their fronds trailing down gently as they drifted idly about. Something had caused them to cluster near the front right corner of the room this day, as the duty sorceress and the door steward sat in gently-wandering chairs and chatted, keeping within easy hearing of each other by the mage keeping one slip shy;pered foot hooked on the hilt of the steward's extended, scabbarded sword.
A dark and familiar figure appeared in the air nearby, descending to the tiles with a thump. The sorceress and the steward rose hastily to attention, but the Simbul paid them no heed. She was staring into nothingness and nodding slightly. After a moment she smiled and said, 'Thank you, sister. May your city and the realm rising around it both prosper. Hesitate not to call on me if you have need.'
She brought her gaze down to focus on them both, and murmured, 'Roeblen, Azmyrandyr, and Thaltar. Three scores to settle, and time to teach Thay the lesson once more that a little mastery of magic and a lot of arrogance do not give one any right, divine or otherwise, to rule all Toril-or even a small corner of Faerun.'
She opened her clenched hand, and the sorceress and the steward saw a tiny chip of stone riding in her palm. The queen of Aglarond looked down at it and chuckled. 'Well of course I'm different. Gentle prudence governs my every imperial act.'
She turned and set the chip of stone carefully on the seat cushions of her throne. 'Undignified,' she told it, 'but I need you to be where they'll sit on you from time to time-and always when there feeling most regal and headstrong. Help them only if you feel they need it. You can be most useful to us all if they don't suspect your presence for as long as possible.'
The stone under her fingers hummed, and her smile broadened. 'Why, with pleasure, sister dear, and I’ll tell Elminster you charged me to do it, too!'
The Simbul gave the stone a gentle pat and turned away to face the sorceress and the steward. Her boots moved with uncanny silence, their soles walking on air a finger's width or so above the tile.
'Well met this fair evening,' she greeted the two, a customarily imperious tone returning to her voice. 'I need haste in this, so both of you go, and escort Evenyl, Thorneira, Phaeldara, and the Masked One hence. I've already mindspoken them to spare embarrassments, delays for dressing, and the like. Evenyl is down in the city, the Masked One will appear shortly in the Twilight Chamber, and the other two are in their apartments here. Go.'
She gave them a gentle smile of dismissal and turned back to her throne, which began to wriggle and shake. Curved doors popped open and trays thrust forth. Hum shy;ming, the queen of Aglarond selected several wands and scepters from the compartments, but the duty sorceress and the steward did not tarry to watch. They exchanged grim glances and a hug that failed to confer the reas shy;surance it was meant to before they parted. The uncom shy;fortable fear was growing in them both that this was one of those times when there was a real risk that fair Aglarond would soon be left undefended against the enraged survivors of a ravaged Thay. That jaunty hum shy;ming of sad old ballads meant only one thing. In earnest, and uncaring of her own safety, the Simbul was truly going to war.
The fiery-haired, impish sorceress that some in Velprintalar call 'the Small Fury'-the queen, of course, being the larger one-was the first to enter the audience chamber, striding in without ceremony. She was barefoot and tousle-haired, more or less wearing the first gown she'd had at hand to pull on, which happened to be the same rumpled one the captain of the palace guard had laughingly helped her to remove not long before. She'd curtly ordered away his hairy, fumbling hands as he tried to help her lace up and adjust this and shake out that, and told him that finding his own uniform, in all haste, might be a wise act. Roused and unsatisfied, she was not in the best of humors. This had better not be just another of the Simbul's wild whims….
Thorneira Thalance tossed her head back as her determined march along the warm tile brought her near the throne. As she slowed, she lifted her eyes for the first time, nostrils flaring in fresh irritation. Three dawn-to- lastcandle days of spell weaving,
Thorneira saw what loomed before her, and screamed. Her cry was echoed from the door behind her. Phael shy;dara, too, was staring at the thing in front of the throne. It stood ten feet tall or more, a toadlike, glimmer-eyed mass of loose, billowing gray- and pink-streaked flesh. Five or six eel-like limbs were plunging busily among its folds, stuffing wands and scepters and small, hovering pouches of spell components-which it snatched in curv shy;ing tentacles, like an octopus-out of sight inside itself, or rather, inside pouches of flesh that were opening like obscenely gaping wounds all over its wriggling body.
Thorneira raised her hands, not quite knowing what spell to hurl, and one large, dark toad eye expanded and split at the same time, receding like an opening iris to reveal the familiar face of the Simbul inside, her hair writhing around her in all directions in a dark, fleshy tent within the monstrous mass, as the silvery tresses manipulated the rippling movements of the sagging, toadlike body.
'Oh, you'll do fine,' the Witch-Queen of Aglarond said sarcastically. 'I call you here to take the throne while I flit away on a brief pleasure excursion, and you scream at the very sight of me then hesitate-
'I-ah-Great Lady-' Thorneira stammered, face flaming.
The Simbul winked, laughed heartily, and shot forth a tentacle to give the Small Fury an affectionate slap. 'I'm sorry I startled you. I'll be done in a moment. Phaeldara, put away that wand.'
The two summoned sorceresses relaxed, sinking into seats with identical sighs of mingled relief and exasper shy;ation, as the misshapen mound of flesh before them dwindled, roiled, tightened, then faded down to a more familiar form. The Witch-Queen of Aglarond stood before them, in a dark, bulging garment that looked like a second skin-that is, like the skin of some leathery beast that carried things about in a series of bulging pouches made of its own hide, and had decided to mate its flesh with the head and upright bipedal shape of the Simbul. She grinned at them, and struck a pose with a hand on her hip.
'Going hunting?' Phaeldara asked with a smile, the gems in her dark purple hair gleaming in the glow from the ceiling. The Simbul winked.
'Red Wizards, of course,' Thorneira put in. Her queen pouted.
'Am I so predictable?' she cried, in mock sorrow. 'Does Aglarond offer such limited opportunities?'
'For magical mayhem to the point of spellstorms, yes,' came a dry voice from the doorway. The Masked One had arrived, her face hidden as always behind a fantastical mask. This one was long, narrow, and curved, resembling the mandibled head of a giant beetle. Its metal shone with a glass-green hue, and the silver runes that mounted its center caught and held all eyes that strayed to them; a useful thing if those eyes should belong to an armed foe. A magic of clinging mists eddied teasingly around the full, floor-sweeping dark blue state gown the sorceress wore beneath the helmlike mask. The bodice of the gown was unseen beneath a pectoral of polished metal plates attached to the bottom of the mask; similar tongues of flexible metal cloaked the Masked One's shoulders and upper back.
'By Mystra's vigilance, don't you get hot under all that?' Thorneira murmured.
'Yes,' the Masked One replied cheerfully, as a small commotion at the door behind her announced the breathless arrival of the last of the four summoned sor shy;ceresses. Evenyl gave them all a little smile and a wave as she gasped. The Simbul nodded and stepped forward.
'I'm off to hunt Red Wizards-particular and not very exalted ones, so a few zulkirs may find unmolested time and personal stupidity enough to strike out at Aglarond while I'm away. I don't plan to be long, but for me plans always fall before whims, of course. Try not to lose the realm while I'm gone.' The queen gave them all a wolflike smile, and lifted her hands to begin a spell.
'What should we do?' Phaeldara asked quickly. 'I mean..' she gestured toward the throne.
The Simbul shrugged. 'Take turns sitting on it. Pull each other's hair, have spitting contests, try jumping over more prone courtiers than each other-determine who rules however you please, or just take it in shifts. You're all capable enough. See how you take to com shy;manding without any warning. I'm off!'
