A Zulkir's Gift and a Queen's True Name

This is the payoff. Two chapters. Everything the book has been building toward lands here, and it lands in a way I genuinely did not expect from a D&D novel.

Chapter 27: Loose Ends and a Long Ride

The chapter opens back in Bezantur with Aznar Thrul’s spy master. She wakes up to frantic magical messages from the Yuirwood. Something terrible killed the Cha’Tel’Quessir scouts during the storm. Something equally powerful defended them with lightning. That would be the Simbul.

Then her essence eggs start exploding. Every single egg bound to a Yuirwood spy shatters. All of them, dead. She checks the cabinet where she keeps her own egg and Deaizul’s. His is still intact and glowing. He’s alive, trapped in Rizcarn’s body, but alive.

She calms down. Pours herself a drink. Rationalizes. She can tell Thrul that the Yuirwood unmasked her spies. He’ll be angry, sure, but once Deaizul has the forest’s power in his grasp, none of it will matter.

Then Thrul summons her.

And here’s where it gets ugly. Thrul has a duplicate box of essence eggs. He’s had one the whole time. He traced the spy master’s reagent purchases, mixed in cinnabar and red iron to create mirror copies of every egg she made. He knows everything. The two teams she sent. The plans she hatched with Deaizul and Mythrell’aa to lure him out of Bezantur.

He juggles her egg and Deaizul’s between his hands. Feigns clumsiness. Never drops them. “How are your nerves today?” he asks.

Then he smashes both eggs together. The spy master’s last thought is that Thrul is a greater fool than she imagined. And just like that, her whole subplot ends. Aznar Thrul is as brutal as advertised.

The Sunglade at Sunset

Meanwhile, the Simbul and her group reach the Sunglade. It’s a stone circle in the Yuirwood, ancient and powerful. Rizcarn has been stumbling the last stretch of the journey and finally collapses.

But here’s the twist. When Halaern heals him and checks his mind, it’s actually Rizcarn in there. Just Rizcarn. The Red Wizard influence (Deaizul possessing him) is gone. Relkath, his god, freed him as they approached the sacred ground. Rizcarn wakes up lucid for the first time in the entire book. He remembers everything, including killing his friend Lanig.

He sends Halaern away. The forester serves the Simbul, not Relkath, and apparently that creates a breach at a sacred site. The Simbul argues, but Halaern goes quietly. He’ll stay nearby in the laurel, connected to her through the circlet.

Then comes the dancing.

Rizcarn plays silver pipes. The Simbul is supposed to dance Zandilar’s part at the center of the circle. She hates it. She’s awkward. She’s angry. She strikes the man behind her hard enough to knock him down. The Simbul would rather face a hundred Red Wizards than dance in a stone circle.

But the moon rises. Her frustration boils over. She tears out Chayan’s brown hair and lets her own silver hair flow free. She throws back her head and screams. The power of the Yuirwood rises through her and then fades.

And Zandilar appears. A column of light. A twilight horse. A woman formed from moonlight and mist.

“Who will dance with me?” she asks.

The Trap Springs

Then a gate opens. Mythrell’aa’s gate from her illusory pocket dimension. Three figures step out: Mythrell’aa herself, and two companions. One of them is not Bro. It’s Lailomun Zerad, the Simbul’s long-lost love, marked with Gur’s death spell. Running toward her. Smiling.

This is Mythrell’aa’s final play. Send a man the Simbul loved, centuries ago, marked with a suicide spell that will detonate when he reaches her. If the Simbul hesitates for even a second because of who she sees coming toward her, the blast will kill them both.

But the Simbul’s defenses are automatic. She researched every variation of Lusaka Gur’s death spells years ago and made the counterspells reflexive. She doesn’t have to think. If she’d had to think, if she’d had to consciously defend herself from Lailomun, she would have died.

And then a spell comes from somewhere. Not from the Simbul. Maybe from the Yuirwood itself, maybe from Zandilar. It falls around Lailomun’s shoulders and he stops running. He looks at her. All love and longing. He looks at his arm for some reason she can’t understand. His lips move but she can’t hear the words. Then he turns and runs back toward Mythrell’aa.

The mark of Gur detonates. The blast is massive, compounded by Mythrell’aa’s own modifications. It scorches a circle twenty paces wide. The Simbul’s automatic counterspells try to carry her back to Velprintalar, but she chooses to drift instead. To float between guilt and despair.

The Simbul Meets the Simbul

And here the book does something wonderful. Alassra drifts into a place of gentle darkness and meets the actual Simbul. Not herself. The forgotten god whose name she carries.

The Simbul (the god) explains what she is. She’s not a god of worship or temples. She’s the edge. The moment when the hunter facing a charging beast has to decide whether to throw the spear or dodge. The instant when the hunted reaches two paths and must choose without knowing. The bending branch, the cliff edge, the moment you jump.

“When you decide, without knowing why, without knowing anything at all, at that moment I am with you.”

Alassra figures out why the Tel’Quessir (elves) couldn’t handle this. Elves are deliberate, careful, patient. They don’t do blind leaps. “You’d have done better with humans,” she tells the god.

“We began with humans, when humans were young,” the Simbul replies.

Before Alassra leaves, the god gives her advice. Alassra could have had a child tonight. She could have one any day. But she’ll never have one if she keeps turning back from the edge. It’s not a threat or a promise. It’s just the truth. Alassra has been trying to control the uncontrollable, planning motherhood the way she plans battles, and that’s exactly why it hasn’t happened.

“I’ll think about it,” Alassra says. “And I’ll remember.”

“That is all I ask. Remember the Simbul. Remember what has been forgotten.”

Chapter 28: Two Enemies, One Sunrise

Now we get Lauzoril’s chapter. And it’s a beauty.

He has ridden his marble stallion for two days and two nights straight from Thay into the Yuirwood. Following the enchanted knife he gave Bro. The knife signal vanished the previous afternoon (when Mythrell’aa snatched Bro), but Lauzoril pressed on to where he last felt it.

He found dead Red Wizards along the way. Invokers and archers paid in Bezantur coin. Thrul’s people. He followed the trails to the Sunglade.

The stallion balked at the ridge above the stone circle. Lauzoril hid it in the laurel, disguised as a mossy boulder. His enchanted dagger Shazzelurt screamed warnings in his mind the whole time. Nothing is what it seems, Master. Leave now.

But Lauzoril stayed. He watched the Cha’Tel’Quessir from behind the outer stones. He watched the stubborn brown-haired woman argue, then dance, then tear her hair and transform into a silver-haired queen. He realized who she was and nearly cursed himself for ignoring Shazzelurt’s warnings.

Then Zandilar appeared. Then Mythrell’aa’s gate opened. Three figures emerged. One of them bore the mark of Gur, running toward the Simbul.

And Lauzoril acted. Not for Thay. Not for political advantage. For Mimuay.

He cast a sphere of freedom on the running man. It couldn’t remove the death mark, but it freed Lailomun from Mythrell’aa’s compulsions long enough for him to realize what he was carrying. The man stopped. Looked at the Simbul. Looked at his arm. Chose to run back toward Mythrell’aa instead.

While everyone was distracted, Lauzoril whispered the word that teleported him to Mythrell’aa’s side. While her tattooed brow was still writhing in confusion, he grabbed Bro with one hand and punched Mythrell’aa in the face with the other.

“Magic spells had their place in Thay, but a well-made fist was still a man’s best weapon in close quarters.”

I love this line so much. The Zulkir of Enchantment, master of mind magic, saves the day with a right hook.

He wrapped both arms around Bro and broke the seal on a coward’s retreat, a one-use teleportation artifact, that brought them both back to the mossy boulder where his horse was hidden. Just as the mark of Gur detonated behind them.

Dawn at the Sunglade

Morning. Lauzoril and Bro sit together at the ruined Sunglade. Bro’s eyes are hollow and haunted. His body shows the marks of Mythrell’aa’s cruelty. Lauzoril offered healing elixirs. Bro refused Thayan magic. Said he’d wait for Zandilar.

Lauzoril charmed Bro with a simple spell so the young man sees what he wants to see instead of the scorched blast radius and bits of hair and leather that mark where people died. It’s a quiet kindness from a man who’s supposed to be the villain.

Then the Simbul materializes in the inner circle. Silver haired. Blue eyed. Stepping onto charred grass and scorched soil.

Lauzoril puts Bro between himself and her. Digs a fingernail into another coward’s retreat, just in case. Smart man.

“Lord Lauzoril? The Mighty Zulkir of Enchantment and Charm?”

He confirms. They know each other by reputation only. This is the first time they’ve ever stood face to face.

Then Halaern steps out of the bushes with his bow aimed at Lauzoril’s flank. Clean angle. The forester has been watching all night.

“He is a Red Wizard, my lady. He has held Ebroin since midnight.”

Lauzoril shouts back: “I am the Zulkir of Enchantment and you are alive only because I have no reason to slay you. Do not give me that reason.”

Tense standoff. Bro is shaking badly between them. Then the Simbul tells Halaern to stand down. Lauzoril shoves Bro forward.

And Bro, stubborn Bro, doesn’t go to the Simbul gratefully. He curses her. “All gods’ curse on you, Queen of Aglarond, again and again. You deceived me. You used me!”

Abbey notes, almost casually, that Mythrell’aa chose the wrong messenger. If she’d sent Bro forward instead of Lailomun, the map of Faerun would look very different today. Bro would have walked right up to the Simbul with the death mark, and she might not have defended herself against a kid she felt responsible for.

“Go Home, Ebroin”

Lauzoril looks at Bro. Bro looks at Lauzoril. There’s respect between them. The best that can be shared by enemies. Bro raises his eyebrows in inquiry.

“Go home, Ebroin,” the zulkir says. “Go to the place where your heart is at rest and begin your life anew from there.”

It’s the advice Lauzoril always gives himself. It’s the advice he’ll give Mimuay when she’s old enough.

Bro stands straighter. A faint smile crosses his lips. Then he turns and walks away with Halaern.

And now it’s just the two of them. The Simbul and the Zulkir. Aglarond’s queen and Thay’s enchanter. Alone at the Sunglade at dawn.

The Name

She asks why he came. He says for his daughter. She doesn’t believe him at first. He explains about Mimuay, how the little girl saw Bro in a scrying bowl and decided he was sad and frightened and needed saving from the Red Wizards.

“And you did,” the Simbul says.

“She is my child.”

Lauzoril starts walking away. She calls him back.

“Lauzoril, I owe you, and I pay my debts. What do you want?”

The witch-queen of Aglarond owing a zulkir. The map of Faerun has changed overnight. He thinks of a thousand requests. Power, favors, concessions, treaties. He rejects them all in a heartbeat.

“A name. The name you give to your friends.”

She hesitates. A wizard’s true name is power. He thinks she’ll refuse.

“Nethreene.”

He repeats it. Shazzelurt, the dagger in his mind, confirms: it is her true name.

He holds out his hand. Even in Thay, a handshake is a gesture of trust. She takes it. They stand there, eye to eye. Her grip is firm as any man’s. Then she raises her hand, unselfconsciously, and touches his cheek. He doesn’t risk the same familiarity.

She seems disappointed when they step apart.

“Consider my name a gift, Lauzoril. Remember it when you look at your daughter. Say it aloud when you need to collect a debt.”

“Perhaps I will,” he says with a smile. “Perhaps someday I will.”

The zulkir starts walking.

This time the Simbul does not call him back.

My Take

This is the moment the entire book has been building toward. And it’s perfect because it’s so small.

No wizard duel. No armies clashing. No dramatic last stand. Just two enemies standing in scorched grass at sunrise, and one of them asking for a name.

The title of the book is “The Simbul’s Gift.” We’ve spent the whole novel wondering what that gift is. It’s her name. Nethreene. Given freely to a Red Wizard of Thay. That’s the gift.

And it works because Lynn Abbey spent 28 chapters making sure we understand both of these people. Lauzoril isn’t a hero. He’s a man who believes Thay is born to dominate Faerun. He feeds undead grandparents strangled piglets. He navigates a political system built on murder and doesn’t lose sleep over it.

But he also rode two days without rest into enemy territory to save a half-elf kid because his daughter asked him to.

The Simbul isn’t a villain. She’s a woman who has fought Red Wizards for a hundred years and is tired of it. She’s powerful beyond measure but can’t dance in a stone circle without wanting to punch someone. She hid behind a dead god’s name for six centuries and didn’t even know it.

But she gives that name to her enemy because he earned it.

Neither of them changes. Thay and Aglarond are still enemies. The Red Wizards will keep scheming. The Simbul will keep fighting them. Nothing has been solved.

But for one moment, at dawn, two people chose grace over war. And that’s enough. That’s the whole point. Sometimes the gift isn’t peace or victory or power. Sometimes it’s just a name, and the trust that comes with it.

For a D&D novel published in 1997, that’s remarkably grown-up storytelling.

Previous: Dancing With Gods at the Sunglade

Next: Why The Simbul’s Gift Still Holds Up

Book Details

• Title: The Simbul’s Gift
• Author: Lynn Abbey
• Series: The Nobles, Book 6
• Setting: Forgotten Realms (D&D)
• ISBN: 0-7869-0763-0