The Simbul's Gift by Lynn Abbey Page B

the fish at a very private banquet, least of all the zulkirs of Enchantment, Invocation, and Conjuration, each of whom had lost a handful of reliable aides that night. Lauzoril hadn’t consulted with Lord Thrul of Invocation or Lord Nevron of Conjuration. Disguised as a cook—a very charming and persuasive cook—he’d started with the pot slaves and worked his way up to Druxus Rhym. Then he’d plotted his revenge.
    His plan was simple: a few false clues planted in fertile ground throughout Thay, a few rumors whispered in suspicious ears, and Rhym imagined himself the victim of conspiracy and rebellion within his own school. By last night, six ranking transmuters were known dead, another score had disappeared. No one suspected Enchantment’s role in the purge. Lauzoril gained no glory for his schemes, but he’d taken no risk, either and that was the way he liked to play the zulkirs’ game.
Don’t waste your own strength
, that was the supreme lesson he’d learned from his predecessor:
Make your enemy waste his
.
    â€œYou’re not as good as you think you are, boy,” Gweltaz said, as if he could pluck a man’s thoughts from his head—which, perhaps, he could: Lauzoril did not know the limits of his grandfather’s abilities, only that he, Lauzoril, held the upper hand. “While you were celebrating, a man died in Nethra—your man in Nethra. He suffered, too.”
    Lauzoril uncrossed his feet, then crossed them again and remained where he was, though his calm had been shattered. He racked his memory to remember who he had in Nethra and why. A face swam out of memory: Vur Bract, a youngish man with a bent for merchantry. He tended the enchanters’ affairs, buying cheap and selling dear; he’d had a rewarding life ahead of him.
    â€œHow did he die?” Chazsinal interrupted his son’s remembering. “Who killed him—the witch-queen?”
    Despite himself, Lauzoril stiffened; Gweltaz noticed.
    â€œOh, come now—who else would kill one of yours in Nethra? Just because you spy on her, did you think you were exempt from her wrath, boy? If she knew—
when
she finds out, you’ll find yourself strung across the abyss with Tam on one side, her on the other.”
    â€œThe spell will fade before the Simbul thinks to look for it.”
    â€œOf course it will—enchantments fade rather quickly, don’t they?”
    Lauzoril’s answer was a sneer and a shower of sparks that swirled around the pitch-soaked bandages. The zulkir didn’t think of the dagger as a spy. He’d enchanted both blade and studded-leather hilt with a variety of spells for the challenge of stabilizing so much magic in so small and mundane an object. He’d maneuvered it into Aglarond for the same reasons. The glimpses his enchantments provided of the Simbul’s workroom—once a day, but never at the same time and never longer than the pause between two heartbeats—were scarcely the useful information a zulkir expected from his spies. She was seldom there and the knife had not become one of her favorites.
    No one except Gweltaz and Chazsinal knew what he’d accomplished or the pleasure he derived from the stolen moments of the Simbul’s life. At times like this, Lauzoril wished he’d never told them—but they werehis confidants. With them, he took risks.
    â€œForget her, Lauzoril,” Gweltaz advised when the sparks were dead coals peppering Chazsinal’s bandages. “A man like you—you’re still in your natural prime. Add some spice to your celebrations, O Mighty Zulkir. Visit the stews and the brothels; it worked well enough for your own father. You need a son, Lauzoril.”
    â€œThat’s not open to discussion,” Lauzoril said, raising three fingers of his right hand in a gesture that made both necromancers fade within their bandages.
    Whatever Lauzoril’s interest in Thay’s