Undead Grandpa and Thayan Spy Games

Chapter 3 is where this book goes from interesting to genuinely wild. We leave Bro and the Yuirwood behind and drop into a crypt in Thazalhar, eastern Thay. And we meet Lauzoril’s family.

His dead family.

Meet the Worst Family Tree in Faerun

So here’s the situation. In a dark crypt beneath Lauzoril’s estate, two undead necromancers sit in warded chairs, wrapped in bandages, waiting for supper. They are Gweltaz and Chazsinal. Grandfather and father. Neither of them alive. Both of them hungry.

Let me explain how they got here, because it’s a whole thing.

Gweltaz was an aspiring necromancer who caught Szass Tam’s eye. He became the Zulkir of Necromancy’s favorite student. Then, in classic Thayan fashion, he tried to overthrow his teacher. Failed. Spectacularly. Tam killed him and dumped his charred bones in a demon-guarded trash pile on Thaymount.

His son Chazsinal rescued the bones. Spent ten years collecting rare ingredients to bring his dad back to some kind of undead life. Cast the spells successfully. And then, because this is Thay and nothing good ever happens here, Gweltaz immediately started demanding Chazsinal’s obedience again.

They tried to take down Szass Tam together. Seven times. Failed all seven times so badly that Tam never even noticed their plots. Gweltaz decided his son was an idiot. Chazsinal, beaten down by years of abuse, started to believe it.

But then Chazsinal did one genuinely brave thing. He had a son, little baby Lauzoril. And when Gweltaz found out about the baby and demanded the boy be brought to the crypt to be raised as a new apprentice, Chazsinal refused. He hid Lauzoril with the enchanters in Eltabbar instead. Paid a sack of gold. Wiped his own memory to protect the secret.

It wasn’t enough. Gweltaz saw through the deception and killed his own son for it. Instantly regretted it, couldn’t undo it, and trapped Chazsinal’s spirit alongside him in undeath.

Here’s the thing about this backstory. It’s three generations of Thayan men destroying each other out of ambition and twisted love. Gweltaz loved Chazsinal the way Thayans love anything, which is to say he wanted to own and use him. Chazsinal loved Lauzoril enough to die for hiding him. And Lauzoril, the only one who escaped this cycle, now feeds his undead relatives strangled piglets and keeps them locked in a warded basement.

That is genuinely one of the most messed up family dynamics I’ve read in a D&D novel.

Lauzoril, the Charming Tyrant

When Lauzoril walks into the crypt, the dynamic is immediately clear. He’s in control and he knows it. One word from him and both of these undead things would burn up inside their bandages.

But he keeps them around. Why? Because every zulkir needs confidants. Real ones. The kind who actually celebrate your wins and commiserate your losses. And when you’re a paranoid wizard ruler in the most backstabby political system on the planet, your undead grandfather and father are about as trustworthy as it gets.

Lauzoril has just finished destroying Druxus Rhym, the Zulkir of Alteration. Not by attacking him directly. He disguised himself as a cook, worked his way through Rhym’s household, planted false clues everywhere, and tricked Rhym into purging his own faction. Six ranking transmuters dead. A score more disappeared. And nobody suspects Enchantment had anything to do with it.

This is how Lauzoril plays the game. Don’t waste your own strength. Make your enemy waste his.

But Gweltaz isn’t impressed. He never is. He tells Lauzoril that one of his men died in Nethra, killed by the “witch-queen.” And then he pushes Lauzoril to attack the Simbul directly.

Lauzoril refuses. “I won’t start a war that no one will win.” He’s the rare Thayan who actually thinks about consequences.

And then we learn about the knife.

The Enchanted Knife and the Weird Connection

Lauzoril has an enchanted knife hidden in the Simbul’s workroom. It’s not really a spy tool. He made it as a personal challenge, to see how much magic he could stabilize in one small object. He snuck it into Aglarond for the same reason. It gives him brief glimpses of her life, once a day, never longer than a heartbeat.

He treats these stolen moments like a private treasure. Nobody knows except his dead relatives. And here’s where it gets strange. As he’s scrying through the knife, the Simbul happens to be holding it. Their minds brush against each other. He feels her silver power, almost falls down the stairs from the intensity. And when he focuses past her to her thoughts, he finds she’s thinking about Thay. About Nethra. About two dead wizards there, including one of his.

And then his own face appears in her thoughts. They both ask the same question: Why?

He pulls away without waiting for an answer.

Lynn Abbey is setting up something really interesting here. This isn’t enemies-to-lovers in the cheap sense. This is two powerful people who’ve been circling each other for years without ever meeting. He’s fascinated by her. She’s aware of him, green flame and all. There’s a tension that has nothing to do with romance and everything to do with two people who are maybe too similar to be enemies and too different to be anything else.

Meanwhile, Back in Sulalk

Chapter 4 gives us a quick Sulalk interlude. Bro is fishing with his sister Tay-Fay. It’s gentle and warm, the last normal morning these kids will ever have. Tay-Fay asks why fish are slimy and why they don’t close their eyes. Bro tells her to be quiet because she’s scaring the fish. She points out fish don’t have ears.

I really like these sibling moments. They feel real. Tay-Fay is this stubborn little kid who never listens and Bro pretends to be annoyed but clearly loves her.

And then the Simbul is watching through her mirror, thinking about Thay and her enchanted knife collection, and we learn about Lailomun. Her lost lover. Mythrell’aa, the Zulkir of Illusion, took him from her. All that remains is a rose-thorn branch that the Simbul keeps in her private chamber.

That detail will matter later. A lot.

The Naked Petitioners of Bezantur

Chapter 5 takes us to Bezantur during “Reeking Heat,” which is exactly what it sounds like. The harbor mud bakes in the sun. The smoke from ovens gives the wind texture. Stale perfume becomes the worst stench of all. Everyone who can leave has left. Everyone who can’t, suffers.

And in the middle of this, Aznar Thrul, Zulkir of Invocation and Tharchion of the Priador, is holding court. His petitioners must appear completely naked. His logic: conventional weapons are impossible to conceal, and most wizards can’t concentrate when they’re embarrassed. There are undead slaves everywhere, staring. Three petitioners faint between the door and his chair.

This is peak Thay. Peak ridiculous, peak cruel, peak darkly funny. The incense cauldrons have coated his ceiling in grease where bugs have made permanent homes. His murals are unrecognizable blotches. But he won’t admit the incense was a mistake, so the cauldrons keep burning. This is a man who would rather live in filth than admit he was wrong about interior decorating.

Then his spy master Neema Gaz arrives. She’s older, weathered, covered in tattoos, and very sharp. She has news.

The Spy Game Gets Complicated

Here’s what Neema tells Thrul, and this is where the Thayan political web starts to show its real shape.

First, they have their own spy network over Aglarond. A careful, expensive web of agents protected by potions and hidden identities. This is Thrul’s project.

Second, Lauzoril has his own independent spies in Aglarond. Thrul considers this acceptable. Enchantment’s people are allies, sort of.

Third, and this is the bad news, Mythrell’aa of the Serpent Tower has spies disguised as grain traders all over Aglarond. They’ve been paying too much for grain nobody needs. And three of her best illusionists are converging on a small village near Mesring.

That village is Sulalk. We already know what’s going to happen there.

Thrul realizes Mythrell’aa might be setting a trap for the Simbul. He also realizes she might be spying on his own network. But Neema has a plan: their own wizards have surrounded the illusionists. If Mythrell’aa fails, Thrul humiliates her. If she succeeds and kills the Simbul, Thrul claims Aglarond for Thay. No risk either way.

After the meeting, Neema goes home, disguises herself as an old hag, tests every coin Thrul gave her for magic traps (two glow yellow in flame), and drinks alone in her room. She’s thinking about Deaizul, her mentor, the man who taught her everything. He’s the one who tracked Mythrell’aa’s spies to the village. And now he’s gone deeper, into the Yuirwood, following a lead about “gods in search of worshipers.” He’s going to become someone else for a while. He’s done it a hundred times before.

That name, Deaizul, should be filed away for later.

Thayan Politics Are Just Corporate Backstabbing With Necromancy

I keep coming back to this thought while reading these chapters. The zulkirs of Thay operate exactly like executives at a dysfunctional company, except the office politics involve actual murder.

Lauzoril plays the long game, never taking direct credit, never taking direct risk. Thrul surrounds himself with yes-men and demands naked vulnerability from everyone who approaches him. Mythrell’aa works in secret, building her own projects while publicly claiming she has no ambitions. Szass Tam sits at the top, barely visible, playing all of them against each other.

Everyone has spies watching everyone else’s spies. Nobody fully trusts anyone. The information economy runs on suspicion, and the currency is “how much can I learn about my allies before they learn about me.”

And all of these threads are converging on one small farming village where a half-elf boy is trying to teach his sister to gut fish.

Lynn Abbey is building something here. These aren’t just villain chapters to add flavor. She’s constructing a web of overlapping interests that all point at Aglarond, all aimed at different targets, and none of them aware of the full picture. It’s really well done.

Next up, the threads start crashing together.

Previous: A Half-Elf Boy, A Twilight Colt, and A Goddess Named Zandilar

Next: The Storm Queen Throws Hands in the Yuirwood

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