Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

  She needed a new body. That was the most important.

  “Fare well, Phrenike,” she said. “I hope we never see one another again.”

  “Likewise,” the lich said, as Bryseis Kakistos plucked up the portal ring Sairché wore, and cast the portal that drew her back into the Nine Hells.

  Something at the core of her grew frantic and animal as she stepped into the nightmarish layer of Malbolge. It always did, a tenacious and powerful memory of her time trapped in Asmodeus’s realm. She pushed it down.

  “You and I need to have a chat.”

  Bryseis Kakistos fought not to grin as she turned to find Lorcan crouched in the corner. A memory jolted through her: the cambion man’s sire, the source of those obscenely handsome features, standing over the remains of one of those first sacrifices. Well, he’d said, this is going to take time, isn’t it?

  “About what?” she asked as the memory faded.

  “About where in the Hells you keep running off to.” Lorcan straightened, long and lean and muscular, clad in black leathers. “Our agreement means we each can’t hurt the other, or let them come to harm, but if you’re trying to run the sands through the glass by preparing something, might I remind you that none of those strictures matter if His Majesty decides we’ve wasted his time. I need you here.”

  “What for?”

  Lorcan peered at her, his black eyes puzzled. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Bryseis Kakistos shrugged. “Of the matters you’ve been tasked with, His Majesty cares about none of them so much as those two Chosen. You have that in hand … or do you?”

  Lorcan’s wings flicked in an irritable way and flames sparked between his fingers, the beginnings of a fireball. “Oh go ahead, Sairché. Prod it. See where it gets you.”

  Bryseis Kakistos clucked her tongue. Here was a moment to be glad she held the reins once more. When she’d pressed Sairché to put her manipulative skills to use on her brother’s fond feelings, Sairché had been all but incapable of doing anything besides throwing barbs.

  “This is a waste of time,” Sairché had said when the Brimstone Angel had upbraided her. “Even if he manages to get back into Farideh’s good graces—and I think there’s even coin on the table in that wager—and then he manages to talk her into an unwise assignation, you will still have to wait the better part of a score of years before you have a body that can manage anything remotely like what you’re talking about—during which you are of absolutely no use to anyone. Focus on the spell to split the twins’ souls. Get the information you need first, so we can set things in motion.”

  Sairché didn’t understand, Bryseis Kakistos thought … even though the ghost wasn’t sure she understood either. She didn’t have to understand—she knew this was the most important step, the one she couldn’t fail at.

  She needed another heir.

  “It’s simply a question,” she said to Lorcan. “I have to imagine she’s not the usual sort you spend your time on. Mortals are always more … finicky than one expects. But, too, they’re more tractable. You ought to try making amends. Admit you were wrong. That goes a lot further than it ought to.”

  Lorcan’s eyes narrowed, but the fire in his hands went out. “What’s your game?”

  Bryseis Kakistos made Sairché smile. “I like the idea of you humbling yourself? And more, I like the idea of keeping her in line. You know perfectly well you have to fix this.” She leaned in. “I’m sure Mother has some artifacts to make her a little more compliant.”

  He started to reply—no doubt a declamation that he wasn’t a shitting demon, to judge by the furious sneer—but Bryseis cut him off. “No,” she said. “You have charm enough if you opt to use it. You can convince her of your more tolerable qualities. Shall I go and check on her?”

  Something jolted Bryseis Kakistos, like a burst of vertigo. Sairché was waking. She held perfectly still.

  Lorcan hesitated. “No. See to the pradixikai. The archduchess has guests planned.” He looked discomfited, as if he meant to say something else but thought better of it, and left the little room.

  Bryseis Kakistos took the jar from Sairché’s pocket as another jolt went through her. Tymora favors the reckless, she thought, taking one of the hollow beads out. She considered the room, the marrow-weeping walls. Crossing to a particularly fleshy section beside the portal, she tested the tissues there. A shuddering wail howled through the fingerbone tower, and she felt a pang of disgust at this other, trapped spirit.

  Not so strongly that she didn’t plunge the jar into the flesh of the wall, marrow and blood oozing over her borrowed hand. As she pulled free, the wall closed over the wound, leaving behind the faintest scar. She wiped Sairché’s hand clean on her crimson skirts.

  Another jolt—

  The world lurched as if all of Sairché’s bones shifted, an earthquake of the self—the cambion was waking. Bryseis Kakistos crushed the capsule between her fingers, releasing a glowing green vapor that snaked up the cambion’s nostrils as she inhaled. The ghost slipped back behind the walls of Sairché’s magic, moments before the cambion’s consciousness stirred and settled, dizzied and bemused.

  “Well,” she said, a few moments later, “that was a spectacular waste of time. I dearly hope the rest of your former confederates are less odious than that one.”

  “HOW MANY?” DAHL demanded, moving toward the top of the stairs. The door below was ajar, and highsun light shaded and flashed through the gap as bodies moved through the front room. Someone shouted, then several voices barked orders, followed by the clatter of feet. A child—Aggie—wailed. The Zhentarim had arrived—there was no doubt.

  “I don’t know,” Mira said. “Depends who came. Grathson rides with a dozen, all soldiers—they clear out ruins and knock skulls—”

  More shouts, more children shrieking, Wilmot’s little voice rising above the chaos—“Don’t hit my brother!”

  Thost nearly bowled Dahl over, rushing for the stairs. “Wait,” Dahl hissed, bracing against his brother’s arm. “You run down there and scare them—”

  “Xulfaril’s force will be smaller, few of them are really fighters,” Mira said quickly. “But she’s got spells.” She blew out a breath. “Go out the window. Get your brothers out of the way, come around the front. I’ll distract them.”

  Dahl shook his head. “They’ve got too many held hostage.” He considered the numbers. “Would they flinch if you’re a hostage on our end?”

  “Not a chance. They don’t need me if they have your grandmother.”

  Sessaca rose to her feet. “Stop yammering and get down there.”

  There wasn’t another option—but this was no option Dahl wanted. Too many chances for someone to get hurt, for someone to get killed. “No sudden moves,” he ordered. “No threats. See what they want, and we’ll get in the way if we need to. Mira first, then me, Thost and Bodhar at the back. Granny,” he said firmly, “don’t leave that chair.”

  If Sessaca had anything to say to that, Dahl didn’t hear it as they moved swiftly down the stairs.

  On the lower floor, black-armored mercenaries had arranged themselves around the clustered family. Dahl’s mother, his sisters-in-law, and the eldest of the children made a second circle around the smallest members of the family. Aggie peered out at him from behind Eurdila’s skirts. Jens sported a swollen cheekbone and Dellora’s lip dripped blood—but one of the mercenaries was clearly favoring her shoulder, another had an angry red line across his jaw where something hard had cracked him, and a third sat to the side, trying to reset a shoulder pulled free of its socket. A halfling man in a high-collared cloak perched on the kitchen table, well out of reach—he whistled as he spotted Dahl and Mira.

  All the mercenaries’ eyes turned to their leaders, two humans: a middle-aged man in scarred armor and scarred skin, with graying sandy curls; and a woman in robes with a shock of dark hair and a patch over her left eye. Grathson and Xulfaril.

  “There you are, Mira dear,” Xulfaril said, without
a hint of real concern. “We were wondering where you’d gotten to.”

  “Obviously it wasn’t hard to guess,” Mira said lightly. “You’ll be happy to know I’m close.”

  “You’ve been close for long enough.” Grathson’s gaze swept over Dahl and his brothers. “You,” he said, pointing at Dahl. “You’re the one feeding her information, aren’t you? You have the look of someone who knows too much.” He pointed his sword at Dellora’s throat. “So share a little. Where’s the Master’s Library?”

  “He doesn’t know,” Mira said.

  “I really don’t,” Dahl said. He held his empty hands up, as if to placate Grathson, all the while calculating how quickly he could draw his sword, his dagger, what in reach might make a weapon. “We’re still looking for an answer.”

  Xulfaril clucked her tongue. “That’s not what I want to hear.”

  “Let’s start with the little ones,” Grathson said. “Get everyone on the same page.”

  A flicker of images—how it would look if he grabbed Aggie, Wilmot. Slow breath—he’s baiting you. Dahl gritted his teeth. “We are on the same page.”

  “I don’t know that we’re even in the same book,” Grathson said, swinging his sword between Dellora and Jens, pointed at the little ones like the needle of a compass. “Which one, which one?” Dellora’s expression darkened, Meribelle tensed. None of them would let Grathson’s blade touch a child without leaping to action, and then everything would fall apart fast.

  “A moment,” Xulfaril said. Grathson kept sliding his sword over the children, as if he hadn’t heard her.

  Xulfaril drew her wand, the tip dancing with a spark of gold energy. “Put your sword down, Captain,” she said, enunciating. “No need to leap in.”

  Grathson sneered at her. “Thought we were short of time? Thought this was an emergency?”

  “And I thought you could follow simple directions. Put the sword down.”

  “You want my help, we do things my way.”

  The wand’s spark built. “Your way is going to keep anything from getting done at all.”

  “Enough!”

  Sessaca’s order cut through the din, as sharp and demanding as a swung battle-axe, and with the same effect on the tension in the room. Xulfaril’s wand brightened as Sessaca pushed past her grandsons, near enough a sneering Grathson turned his sword point to her crepey throat.

  “Are you volunteering, my beldam?”

  Sessaca turned to the one-eyed wizard, ignoring the blade. “Watching Gods, you have no control over him at all, do you?”

  The woman tilted her head. “My apologies if he offends your sense of propriety, old mother.”

  “You should be so lucky,” Sessaca said, “as to offend my sense of propriety. This is the work of idiot striplings who’ve been handed their first swords. Blundering around, bellowing threats. Have you been taught nothing? This is not the Black Network I recall.”

  Xulfaril’s smirk faltered. “You recall?”

  Grathson’s sword touched Sessaca’s throat. She only raised her eyebrows. “You have one clue, you little donkey shit,” she pointed out. “Are you prepared to lose it just to show off what a sharpjaw you are? You can’t very well talk to me if you cut my throat.”

  Xulfaril lowered her wand, the spark dying out. “You’re Sessaca Peredur? The Viper of the Earthfasts?”

  “The very same.” Sessaca pushed Grathson’s blade away as if it were a stick wielded by one of her great-grandchildren. “I made my bones before you were even born, so let’s have a little courtesy.”

  “You were the Viper of the Earthfasts,” Grathson said. “Now you’re a sack of skin.” He flicked a hand at one of his subordinates, a thick, ugly fellow who pointed a blade at Dellora’s heart. “Now tell us where the Master’s Library is, or I start motivating you.” Thost went tense all over. Dellora’s eyes met her husband’s, and she drew a deep breath. Thost gave the smallest of nods.

  Hrast, Dahl thought.

  Sessaca only sighed and shook her head. In the same moment, Thost moved. “Don’t you touch her! Please! I’m begging you!” He clutched his fists together, as if frantic for some aid. “Granny, for gods’ sakes!”

  Grathson smirked. The brute with the blade laughed, as if this big man’s helplessness was the height of humor. He laughed, and he let his grip soften.

  Which was when Dellora’s arm came up, flinging the sword aside, and her booted foot slammed into the Zhentarim’s underarm. Grathson turned, giving Thost a heartbeat to crash his massive fist into the side of the Zhentarim leader’s head. A grunt of surprise and pain, a moment of confusion. Dahl pulled his sword and slashed at the woman holding her knife on his mother and Aggie. She parried, pulling her blade away from Eurdila’s neck. Dahl’s mother twisted away, pushing Aggie out of reach.

  Xulfaril pulled a wand, thrust it into the air with a sibilant word, and a torus of energy burst out around her, knocking Dahl, the Zhentarim he fought, and Eurdila to the ground. Mira, Thost, and Bodhar had toppled as well, and Dellora and the big Zhentarim. Only Sessaca, Grathson, and Xulfaril kept their feet.

  “Welcome,” Sessaca said, “to the Viper’s Nest. Or did you think I’d tuck myself away and become soft? Did you think farmers were only for stolen supplies and watering the wheat with their spilt blood? My children may not be the Black Network’s, but there is nothing weak in them, and you were fools to count on that.”

  Dahl eased back onto his feet, and stood beside his grandmother, heart pounding, thoughts buzzing. His father had taught him to use a sword, just as he’d taught Thost and Bodhar. Who taught Barron? Sessaca, of course. Why had Dahl ever thought it was his grandfather?

  He thought of the dagger his mother always wore, the time he watched his mother humming a little tune to herself as she butchered the body of a boar that had come down, all wild out of the Cormanthor to antagonize the sows. She’d killed it herself, with an axe, as you did. For all his nightmares swirled around marauders attacking the farm, an axe could kill a soldier same as a boar.

  He thought of watching his father and brothers teach Meribelle to swing a sword—of course they had. It was safer if everyone could use a blade. He thought of his grandmother’s satisfied expression when Thost brought home Dellora, a former soldier who came with her own blades. He thought of the children sparring giddily between chores.

  Always figured if one of Barron’s boys left that farm, it’d be to sellsword, Reyan had said. And he wasn’t the first to say it. My father wouldn’t have really understood giving up farming for books alone, Dahl had told Farideh. Because the land and the blade were in their blood. The land from his grandfather, Lamhail … the blade from Sessaca Peredur.

  He thought of Sessaca watching over all of this, surveying her oblivious army. Picking at techniques, because—he’d thought—she always had something to criticize. He’d known she’d come from far off Chessenta, and always assumed that was the source of her displeasure, her opinions about how they fought—her people knew better.

  It never would have occurred to him that “her people” might have been the Zhentarim. That she was preparing them for this very moment.

  “Now,” the Viper of the Earthfasts said, “are we going to negotiate like civilized folks, or are you going to persist in acting like children?”

  “Here’s our negotiations,” Grathson said. “You tell us, or we start killing your kin.”

  Sessaca didn’t flinch. Quick as a flash, she yanked the dagger from Dahl’s belt and pressed its tip against her belly. “You shed one drop of blood,” she said calmly, “and you’re not getting so much as the name of a continent.”

  Grathson’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “I’m eighty-eight years old,” Sessaca said. “Gods only know how much time I have left, but I’d give it all up just to spit in your eye, you little donkey shit. You hurt my family, you get nothing.”

  Grathson started to speak again, but Xulfaril cut him off. “What do you want, old mother?
”

  Sessaca gave her that cunning smile. “Well now, you’ve made it clear I can’t just tell you where the Master’s Library lies. Once you have your answer, you’ve got no reason to keep this fool in check, and I think you’ll be happy to hope that my grandchildren haven’t kept their sword practice up.” She gave Xulfaril a pitying look. “But it’s been a bad year for leucrotta. I wouldn’t take that wager if I were you.

  “Plus, my memory’s not what it used to be. The path is tricky. Who’s to say that the markers I give you won’t be the wrong ones? That I can guess what remains behind?”

  “What do you want?” Xulfaril repeated.

  Sessaca spread her hands, the dagger cutting a shaky arc through the air. “Simple. You bring me along.”

  “No,” Dahl burst out.

  “Don’t be an idiot, lambkin,” Sessaca chided, never taking her eyes from Xulfaril’s. “There’s not really a better option. We need out of this mess, and that’s the path.”

  “Granny,” Bodhar said. “You could die.”

  “As if you’re not all waiting for it,” Sessaca said dismissively. “Any day now, any year. I’ve outlasted two children, three grandchildren, and my man. I’m running short of time to have any kind of adventure left, and gods bless us all, I’m tired of watching people mend. Bless you, Eurdila, but you know it’s dull.”

  “Consider our side,” Xulfaril said. “You’ve just shown you have little concern for your own safety. What’s to stop you from throwing yourself into the Dragon Reach as soon as we’re away from New Velar? We’ll have to leave some of ours behind to make sure you stay motivated.”

  “I’ll go as well.” Dahl sheathed his sword. “There. You have a way to motivate her. Let the rest of them go.”

  “Lambkin,” Sessaca warned.

  “You said it yourself: we need out of this mess and this is the path.”

  Xulfaril tilted her head again, considering Dahl, then Bodhar, then Thost with her single eye. “All three of you,” she said. “Obviously the lovebirds need separating—I’m not about to leave the two of you here to play that trick again. I assume the big one can help you along, old mother?”