Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

  The ghost, Havilar had said. Bryseis Kakistos. Which you would know if you hadn’t mucked everything up with Farideh. Asmodeus wasn’t the only one with an interest in his warlock that Lorcan couldn’t ignore.

  Lorcan thought a moment, about warlocks, about archdevils, about the Blood War and the Ascension. Bryseis Kakistos and the Brimstone Angels. There was only one collector devil in the Sixth Layer who might have the keys to this puzzle. “Send a message to Shetai,” he said finally. “I would speak with it.”

  “Shetai?” Ctesiphon said. “Invadiah never—”

  “Invadiah is not here,” Lorcan snapped.

  Ctesiphon’s eyebrow arched, a glimmer of the distaste his sisters normally dealt him. “Invadiah could never match the Vulgar Inquisitor. Be wary.”

  “Tell Shetai I would speak with it,” Lorcan said once more. “About Brimstone Angels.” In the meantime, he would have to make certain to gather enough information to sate the Vulgar Inquisitor. Shetai gave nothing without a price being paid.

  FARIDEH DREAMS, A patchwork of panic—voices, monsters, the ghost of the Brimstone Angel dogging her. One moment she’s trying to follow Dahl through a cavern full of twisting passages, the next she’s standing in Arush Vayem, the village on no one’s maps, and the snow is thick around her ankles. She calls for Dahl—he must be here somewhere—but she only hears the merry voices of her childhood neighbors, celebrating. She moves from house to house, fighting through the drifting snow, looking for Dahl.

  But every house she reaches is cold and empty. The villagers are somewhere else. Dahl is somewhere else. She can’t find them.

  And something is following her through the shadows.

  She starts to run, floundering in the snow, managing somehow to take the wrong paths through a village of only a dozen houses. She turns a corner, into Old Garago’s house and the smell of brimstone hits her like a brick. A tiefling woman with small sharp horns like a mountain goat’s, her golden eyes hard, stands in the middle of the wizard’s empty study. Bryseis Kakistos, the Brimstone Angel, her robes splattered with blood.

  “What is the secret?” she whispers. “One of us knows how to defeat him—is it you?”

  “Don’t think about that,” Lorcan’s voice says.

  Farideh turns and finds him standing, inches from her.

  “I don’t want to be here,” she says.

  He holds out a hand to her, and she wants to take it—can remember the feeling of those hands on her arms, on her hips, on her breasts. For a moment, she might be somewhere else, tangled in another life, wrapped in his arms and sheltered by his wings.

  He poisoned you, she remembers.

  And it isn’t Lorcan. She’s sure down to her bones. Someone else is watching her through those black, black eyes.

  “There is a weakness in the god of sin,” she hears herself say. “We can punish him for his treachery. We can unseat him.” She looks down at her hands, realizes they aren’t cold. “This is a dream.” She looks up at the thing that isn’t Lorcan, and knows who it is. “Are you checking up on me?”

  Asmodeus blinks with Lorcan’s eyes. The village is suddenly on fire, the cheerful voices screaming, and above them all Dahl shouts—

  Farideh sat up, Dahl’s shout changing into a shrill note. The powers of Asmodeus, primed by the dream, flooded into Farideh and only instinct propelled her from the bed before flames erupted from her skin. As it was, the edge of the rug smoldered, and once she’d calmed herself enough to extinguish the fire, she stamped it out. She tested the edges of the pact, but in the same moment she realized the source of the sound—a flute, played in the little sitting room by idle hands.

  Farideh said a little curse and stormed out into the sitting room. “Brin, it’s the middle of the karshoji night, will you give the flute a rest, please.”

  He startled at her appearance and sheepishly let the flute he’d inherited from his father drop into his lap. “Sorry,” he said. He nodded at the open door, the darkened room beside Farideh’s. “Havi’s not back yet. I can’t sleep. I came out to wait for her.”

  “She’s still taking Zoonie for a run?”

  Brin nodded, drumming his fingers against the holes of the flute. “Look, I have to ask you something. And you don’t have to answer, but if you can … ye gods, please tell me. Because … Look. Is she pregnant?”

  For a heartbeat, Farideh thought she hadn’t woken after all. “What?”

  “She threw up—she never throws up,” Brin said. “Even I didn’t throw up. And … she’s acting cagey about it. I don’t know if it’s the only time. She seems like she’s sleeping a lot. Have you asked her? Why she was sick?”

  Havilar’s irritated dodge the other night made Farideh’s stomach tighten. “She’s embarrassed,” she said. “I mean, you’re right she doesn’t get sick and then she was the only one …” It sounded false and flimsy. “She can’t be, right? I mean … you two … It was well before the siege the last time …”

  Brin looked away.

  “Are you joking? You were hardly talking to each other!” Farideh said. “You were giving it a break! How could you have slept together?”

  “Don’t try to tell me that things weren’t … complicated by the fact that there was an army trying to kill us all on the other side of the gates,” Brin said hotly. “We made up. A bit. Twice.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know what day she was on and she wasn’t taking those herbs yet, so it’s possible. I don’t know.”

  Farideh covered her face with both hands. “I don’t know either,” she said after a moment. “She would have told me.”

  “I’d hope so,” Brin said. “Of course, I would have hoped she’d tell me too.”

  Farideh didn’t know what to say to that.

  The jangle of Zoonie’s muzzle broke her reverie. The hellhound trotted into the room, followed by Havilar. And Mehen.

  “When did you leave?” Brin asked Mehen.

  “Before,” Mehen answered. “Go to bed.”

  “I woke him up,” Havilar said, sounding rattled and punchy. “Our murder got stranger. I found another body in the tomb. Also a demon. So I got Mehen so he would get Anala, so she would get the guards. Adjudicators.” She looked up at Mehen for confirmation, then added, “I don’t actually know who she got. I had to go walk Zoonie again. She ate the demon and I had to wait for her to pass it. Worse than shades.”

  “I … You,” Brin fumbled, “you were in a tomb with a demon?”

  “And Zoonie,” Havilar said. Then, “And Lorcan.” Her eyes darted up to Farideh’s. “I sent the imps for him. I … had a hunch. And I figured he might know things about demons.”

  Farideh found she couldn’t breathe for a moment. Lorcan had been here. Lorcan had been in this very city, and he hadn’t spoken to her. She folded her arms across her stomach. But he’d been watching her. He’d pulled on the brand. “Oh,” she said. “Did he help?”

  “He knows a lot of commands for Zoonie that I don’t,” Havilar said irritably. “But yeah, he found the demon. Not a big one.” She glared at Mehen. “But it came from somewhere.”

  “We can worry about where in the morning.”

  “Was the body one of the hatchlings’?” Farideh asked.

  Mehen’s nostrils flared. “Right age for it. A Yrjixtilex boy. But he wasn’t killed like the others. Hardly a scratch on him. Looks like he died of shock.”

  “Inside a stone sarcophagus it took Zoonie three tries to unlid,” Havilar said.

  “We will worry about it in the morning,” Mehen said more firmly. “Everyone go to bed.” Without waiting for them, he went to his own room and slammed the door.

  “Well,” Brin said with a false-sounding briskness. “I’m glad you’re all right. Are you feeling any better, from earlier?”

  Havilar scowled at her sister. “Gods! Did you tell him I threw up?”

  “Give me a little credit,” Brin said. “You were gray when I came in.” A pause. “I care if you don’t feel well is all. If t
here’s something … You know, if you need to take it slow—”

  “It’s fine,” Havilar said firmly. “Look, it’s late. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Havilar clicked her tongue, and Zoonie trotted after her, her nails clicking across the stone floor.

  “Hrast,” Brin said. “That’s not good.” Farideh said nothing, and he wished her a good night, and went into his room. Farideh didn’t move from where she sat. Every edge of Farideh’s brand hummed with the memory of Lorcan’s summons.

  If he left her, she’d be in worse straits than she was now, without a patron or a pact. But every time she thought of him, she remembered the shaking fever, the threats to Dahl before they were anything but friends, and the cruel way he’d rubbed Dahl’s absence in her face. Don’t cry for him, Lorcan had said. You were never his.

  He’d been so close to kind before that, Farideh thought. She couldn’t help feeling as if she’d somehow broken Lorcan.

  Farideh covered her face with both hands and cursed into her palms. You didn’t make Lorcan what he is, she told herself. Maybe you just made him a little less like himself for a time.

  And if she agreed to Asmodeus’s offers, then she could make Lorcan into whatever she wanted. Her stomach turned. You don’t want that.

  Farideh went back to bed and lay staring at the cold, false moonlight for longer than she could gauge. It might have been a few minutes, it might have been all of the night, when she finally stood, realizing she wouldn’t sleep. Her chest felt hot and tight as she found her way to Havilar’s door and let herself in. “Havi?”

  Zoonie sat up, her muzzle jingling. Havilar turned over, groggy and puzzled. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  A lump built in Farideh’s throat, and when she tried to speak, a shuddering sob went through her and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Havilar sprang out of bed and wrapped her arms around Farideh.

  “What happened?” she demanded. “Why are you crying?”

  “The usual reasons,” Farideh managed. “Can I stay with you?”

  “Yes,” Havilar said, tucking an arm around her and walking her back. “These beds are too big in every way. It’s like floating in a lake. I almost let Zoonie in,” she admitted, “just so it didn’t feel so lonely.” Farideh climbed in beside Havilar, just like old times, and pulled the sheets up over her shoulder. Havilar studied her face. “I’m sorry about Lorcan. Do you want me to sic Zoonie on him? I will.” As if on cue, the hellhound laid her enormous head on Havilar’s hip and snuffled.

  “Not yet,” Farideh said.

  “I told him he has to talk to you. For what it’s worth.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him,” Farideh lied. “So you killed a demon?”

  “Zoonie killed it. It was just a little grubby thing. Like maybe a demon’s version of an imp. It looked kind of like a shaved dog. Lorcan said it was probably part of a group, but the rest of them are gone. That someone probably had another demon drop them on the group to punish an enemy or something.”

  Farideh frowned. “It doesn’t make sense that a handful of little demons could have killed ten or twelve people who all had to have been trained to weapons at least a little. And what about the sarcophagus lid?”

  “Maybe there were a hundred of them? Anyway, someone summoned them. I think we’ll have to figure that out too.”

  Farideh cursed to herself. “We’re never leaving here, are we?”

  “Killers are easier than fellows, at least. At least it’s not Dahl and Lorcan this time. Romance is the worst,” Havilar said again. “Waste of energy. You should be done with both of them.”

  “As if you’re really done with Brin,” Farideh pointed out. “Anyway, I can’t be done with Lorcan, not while we’re both karshoji Chosen and every devil in the Hells wants a pact. We’re stuck with him.”

  “And Dahl?”

  “He’s on the other side of the world,” Farideh said, her stomach twisting. “So … I can hardly worry about him as much as the problems at my feet.”

  But she did. Oh, gods, she did. Where was he and who was he caught by? Why didn’t he talk to her and was it because of devils or something new and worse? “Don’t tell me to forget him. Please.”

  Havilar snuggled down into the bed. “Fine. And … I don’t know if I’m done with Brin. I’m gauging my options,” she said, a little loftily.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Havilar was quiet a moment. “It means I’m wasting energy,” she said. Before Farideh could press her further, she went on, “Which of them is better in bed?”

  Farideh blushed to her temples. “No.”

  “I’m not asking for details! I’m just curious. You’ve got something to compare—I don’t. Not yet anyway,” she added quickly. “So … is it that different? Or is it all basically—”

  “Oh karshoji gods!” Farideh pulled the blanket over her head. “It’s different, all right?”

  “I figured. I figure, too, that Dahl has to be a little interesting because I can’t imagine that Lorcan is anything but ridiculously good. I suspect if you asked him, he wouldn’t understand why anybody would bother being bad at it. But then you like Dahl better, so—”

  “I’m going to go sleep in my room if you don’t stop.” Farideh pulled the blanket down. “Sleeping with Lorcan is like …” She shut her eyes tight. “Watching someone in a fighting exhibition, like at a fair or something. You can’t pretend he’s not really skilled, but after a while, it feels like it doesn’t matter that much who’s on the other side of the blade. And Dahl … it matters. A lot.” She held tight to that knowledge—whatever else, he did love her and she loved him. “I miss him,” she said quickly. “It’s … so strange to miss him this much. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know where he is or if it’s my fault or if he misses me, and I still miss him so much.”

  “Because he’s better with his ‘blade,’ ” Havilar snickered.

  If it were as simple as that, Farideh thought, I would be done with all of this. But instead she kept looking for him before she could remember he was gone, thinking of things she wanted to tell him before she could recall he wouldn’t hear them. Looking up at the impossible bulk of Djerad Thymar, she’d thought about how dazzled Dahl would have been by it … and then remembered he wasn’t coming.

  “I didn’t tell Brin, you know. Are you feeling better?”

  “Why are you two so obsessed with me throwing up!”

  “You never throw up,” Farideh reminded her. “Did you catch something in Djerad Kethendi?”

  “It’s passed,” Havilar said after a moment. “And good thing, because we don’t need anything else to worry about. Ghosts and gods and murders and …” She trailed off, and the name neither of them wanted to speak hid in the silence. “I suppose we’ll leave soon.”

  “I hope so,” said Farideh, even though she couldn’t begin to guess what would come next.

  FEIYEN WANTED TO believe the man made of night was just some kind of drow, just another madman, another monster that the Underdark spat out. But in the moments of lucidness that came—between bouts of rage, bouts of passion, bouts of emotion so wild and animal that Feiyen was sure she was watching someone else—she knew it wasn’t so. It couldn’t be so. Where the drow were alien and terrible, the man made of night was nothing of this world.

  I want an answer, he said, his voice angry and beautiful as he dug through the Zhentarim’s minds, one by one. These things don’t happen by accident.

  How many of them were dead now? How many of them were compromised? Feiyen eyed Louc beside the man made of night, a puppet of his whims—in that moment, a reflection of his coiled rage, his fierce hungers. What did she look like to Louc?

  The man made of night turned and met Feiyen’s eyes. Her mind seemed to break apart into scrabbling, animal reactions—fear, fury, lust, an urge to claw her way up by blood or bed or cunning. Each fought against the others, churning her thoughts into a maddening cacophony.

  An
d then the man made of night blinked and everything in her froze.

  Is this truly all you’ve ever striven for? he said in her mind. All you’ve craved? To be the guard of a trading outpost so remote even your superiors don’t realize it’s fallen? You could be more, much more, Feiyen …

  If she were only willing to claim her place. To use everything she had, regardless of how well it suited others, how well it suited her image of herself. To the Abyss with the rules and order. Tooth and claw and desire were all that ruled in the end.

  Show me what you’re made of, the man made of night said. What’s behind that civilized facade?

  Feiyen looked down at her blood-soaked hands, closing them into fists.

  6

  19 Nightal, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR)

  Raven’s Bluff

  DUMUZI RACES THROUGH THE VERTHISATHURGIESH ENCLAVE, CHASED BY THE roars of a ghost. He can’t remember the passages, can’t remember the exits. The walls are somehow not so towering as they seemed in his youth, but not the height he knows them to be now.

  Pandjed shouts again—stupid weakling shitbrain broken-egg—Dumuzi’s heart is ready to explode. He ducks into someone else’s living area and, finding it empty, races through the door into the tallhouse in Suzail. The wrongness strikes him the moment he crosses the threshold, but Pandjed is still coming and he cannot stop.

  He throws open the door to the garden and sprints across Westgate’s dark and dangerous streets.

  He bursts into a taproom and dodges tables, then he leaps through a window into Djerad Kethendi’s harbor. He’s drowning, drowning, drowning—

  Someone grabs him by the collar and heaves him up out of the water, flinging him high into the sky. Dumuzi clutches at the air, but there is no slowing him, no controlling his rise. Beneath him, autumn kisses Tymanther’s waving fields golden. Clouds race alongside him, burning red and roiling with rain and storm. Dumuzi searches, searches—where can he land, where can he come down?