Maybe he shouldn’t, she thought.
Brin and Havilar were staring at her. “I have to …,” she started. “I have to get the snake inside.”
And I have to talk to Lorcan, she thought. For better or worse.
THE ELDERS’ AUDIENCE chamber, filled with Verthisathurgiesh’s veterans, the commanders of the clan’s emergency army, was nowhere near as crowded as it had been in Mehen’s youth, the commanders all ancient or else shockingly youthful, Anala’s court of advisors a paltry handful of uncles and aunties. The swath Pandjed had cut through Mehen’s generation apparent as the track of a marauding army.
Anala listened to their reports, their elaborate ways of saying, “We’ve found nothing. We’re running in circles. But no one else has found it either, so there is that.” Here, she seemed the matriarch without question, stern and cool and stony. No sign of her earlier ease and humor. Clad in new-made mourning white, she did not so much as look at Mehen, even though she’d demanded his presence.
In some deep, ungrown part of Mehen, the chastisement burned the way she meant it to, and that annoyed him. Though not quite enough to leave.
“As much as I would like to advise that you increase your search,” Anala said after all the commanders had spoken, “we cannot justify Verthisathurgiesh overreaching thus. Remain within a few tombs of the clan crypts. Do not divide your force any further than groups of three. Offer unqualified assistance to the Lance Defenders if you encounter them.”
“What about the Adjudicators?” a young man who couldn’t have been any older than the twins called out.
A dark look crossed Anala’s expression. “If you’re asked, do not slight them either. Those of you not instructed to remain, return when the light dims. To your posts.”
As the army of Verthisathurgiesh filed out, the old ones avoided looking at Mehen, while the young ones watched from the corners of their eyes, as if Mehen would not spot it. When they had been gone long enough that the silence felt thick and smothering as a burial shroud, Mehen spoke.
“Pandjed would have torn down that boy, asking about giving aid to the Adjudicators.”
“It is more of a question than it would have been in your father’s day.” Anala regarded him with the solemn distaste of one of the ancestor statues. “Verthisathurgiesh is no longer strong enough to sneer at the strong arm of the Vanquisher’s law-bringers. Besides,” she added, “you’ve already signaled us as the Adjudicators’ trained ponies.”
“This is not Verthisathurgiesh’s crisis,” Mehen said. “It affects every person in the city, clanless or scion, Vayemniri or not.”
Anala said nothing, only folded her long sleeves back, descending the dais for a side table, as though Mehen were not even there.
“This is a waste of time,” Mehen said, crossing his arms reflexively, feeling like a sullen hatchling. “My girls are the only ones who can absolutely identify the maurezhi. We should be down there, hunting it.”
Anala poured tea—spiked with apple brandy, Mehen knew—into two clay cups before speaking. “Do you know how large the catacombs are?” she asked. “How many rooms and tombs and dead ends and tunnels are currently being searched? Are your girls somehow capable of being in all of them at once?” She blew across the surface of the tea. “Swallow your breath, hatchling. The Lance Defenders will gather up anyone who might be the creature, and your tieflings can sort through them.”
Mehen bared his teeth. “It makes no sense—”
“It does, actually,” Anala interrupted. “You’ve been gone too long. You forget how things are done in Djerad Thymar. Vayemniri don’t deal with gods and fiends and other outsiders. We do things with our own two hands. And we don’t stomp around ignoring clan to declare a demon is running rampant and every enclave should bar its doors.”
“You’re exaggerating the matter.”
“I assure you, I am not.” Anala set her cup down on the table once more. “If you’ve truly forgotten what it signals to have my newly returned nephew, the last patriarch’s exiled scion, running off to Kepeshkmolik and Shestandeliath and Yrjixtilex and karshoji Tarhun to tell of this grave threat before he ever breathes a word to me, the leader of his clan, well, then you will just have to trust me: you have made yourself noticeable in all the wrong ways.”
I have been noticeable in all the wrong ways since I set foot in this city, Mehen thought. Guilt still gnawed at him for not telling Anala first, for not confirming the identity of Baruz’s murderer the moment he’d discovered it.
He could tell her of Dumuzi’s sick-shocked expression, of the way the creature had taken the form of the Shestandeliath girl, even as it had fed. How the boy had fought bravely, but after … after he had seemed so close to collapse, that Mehen could do nothing but think like a father: get him home, get him safe, get him dosed with chmertehoschta, and put him to bed. He’s too young for this, for any of this—and it had rattled his heart that his own daughter faced the maurezhi and the Black Axe besides with a grim solemnity beyond her years.
“You have my apologies,” Mehen said. “Again.”
“Ah, I don’t want your apologies,” Anala said. “I want your amends.”
The doors parted, and a young man stuck his head in. “Matriarch Anala? You have a visitor.”
“Hencin, dear,” Anala said, oozing false patience. “I’m with someone.”
The doors opened wider and a stout woman, broad-shouldered and round-bellied slipped around Hencin. Her scales were coppery-tinged with a silvery-gray patina, and the bright axes of Yrjixtilex traced her brow ridge. She wore plate over a white mourning shirt, a cape of lavender capping her shoulders.
“Oh, Anala, don’t be silly,” she said in a surprisingly breathy voice. “If it were a private matter, I would have said so.” She turned to Mehen, her smile and her stare so persistent, so expecting, that he fought the urge to bow unasked. A pair of pierced Yrjixtilex, armed and armored and too old to be hatchlings on guard duty, came in behind her, followed by Kallan, looking vaguely annoyed. Mehen raised an eyebrow at him. He smiled and shook his head—don’t ask.
Anala’s stony expression had returned. “Mehen, may I present Yrjixtilex Vardhira, daughter of Chamnatis, of the line of Esham-Ana, matriarch of Yrjixtilex; her scion, Laivesdeh; and her son, Sirrush.” Anala gestured to the woman and the man flanking the elder in turn. “Vardhira, my nephew, Mehen.”
“Pandjed’s son,” Vardhira added, cheerful and guileless. “Yes, I know. A pleasure. Kallan speaks well of you.” Mehen made a little bow. She smiled at Anala and gestured to Kallan. “My youngest brother’s—Cayshan? Do you remember? He’s his grandson. From the homesteads, obviously.”
“We’ve met,” Anala said. “I trust you haven’t come to trade sheep.”
Vardhira’s eyes took on a dangerous glint, and Mehen reconsidered the Yrjixtilex matriarch. “If you want to strengthen your herds, there are better times to talk about that,” Vardhira said. “But this is far more important—Kallan brought it straight to me, and I said, ‘If this isn’t a matter for elders, well, I don’t know what is!’ ”
“I’d heard you’d locked down your enclave,” Anala said.
Vardhira nodded. “Considering the circumstances, it seemed wisest. But Kallan has convinced me that matters have progressed beyond what we were previously told.” Unasked for, Kallan skirted the guards and came to stand beside Vardhira.
Anala’s brow ridge arched. “Did he?”
“Ophinshtalajiir has a survivor,” Kallan said, his impatience with the slow politics of these two clans colliding evident to Mehen. “I talked to her.”
“How?” Anala demanded. “Kaijia locked the enclave down immediately.”
“He’s very clever,” Vardhira said in a way that meant she might be annoyed and she might be delighted, but either way she was pleased to have one up on Anala.
“Ophinshtalajiir’s got a clan-kin called Perra, who travels regularly up to Chessenta for diplomatic business. She’s good friends with my m
other and one of her daughters has eggs with my first cousin on my father’s side.” Kallan spread his arms. “And so I explained things and asked very nicely. She talked to Kaijia.”
“What things?” Anala asked.
And here at least, Kallan knew his place and looked to his elder.
“All blades on the table, Anala,” Vardhira said. “We’re not talking about some monster those hatchlings unleashed from the old world. Something’s running wild and someone sent it. Whatever your nephew told the Lance Defenders, it’s not clear to me that it took—not that anyone asked me, but it wouldn’t be the first time Dokaan and Tarhun got a little prideful about what could and could not be managed by their warriors alone.”
“The maurezhi’s particular about how it feeds, right?” Kallan said, to Mehen and to Anala. “This much we know: the body’s got to be fresh, and it can’t be interrupted before it polishes off every bit. Otherwise the whole scheme falls apart and all it’s got is a full belly. But think about that—it’s only so big. It can’t bolt down a few at once, unless it wants to split its guts.”
“So it stashes others for later,” Mehen finished. “The Yrjixtilex boy in the sarcophagus—”
“Died lucky,” Kallan said grimly. “The Ophinshtalajiir girl—Rimi—she said she was on patrol, the same day Ravar was meant to meet the maurezhi. She saw Zaroshni, told her off for wandering through Ophinshtalajiir’s tombs. The next thing she new, some invisible thing had grabbed her and she couldn’t move. Then it stuck her in the sarcophagus, and she was trapped there.”
“It knew it was heading to meet Ravar,” Mehen said. “And it couldn’t go back once you’d chased it off—that area was swarmed with guards.” He cursed. “It can turn itself invisible? What is this karshoji thing?”
“Every clan needs to ascertain their every member’s location,” Vardhira said. “It’s not just who could be the fiend in a mask, but who might be missing and need recovery. We do not leave our own behind.”
“None of us do, noachi,” Anala said, folding her wrap around herself. “Not if we can help it. Who have you warned?”
Vardhira shook her head. “You. I set my sisters to checking our rolls. Next we go to Ophinshtalajiir, make sure they understand the matter. Kanjentellequor and Linxakasendalor will hear me. We have ongoing qallim agreements, on good terms.”
Anala tapped her claws against her folded arms. “Fenkenkabradon. And Prexijandilin, Churirajachi. We don’t have as many allies as we used to—obviously—but those I can be certain of. Can you warn Geshthax?”
“Do I look like I came carrying a battering ram?” Vardhira asked.
“Kepeshkmolik,” Mehen said. Anala gave him a sidelong look, and Vardhira raised her brow ridges. “I’ll go,” he said. “No one else is going to break through Shestandeliath’s damned blockade but Narghon and Uadjit. Besides, whatever you think about Narghon, they should know people are missing.”
“We know.” Mehen turned toward the opened doors. Uadjit stood there, Dumuzi beside her. The boy looked so agitated and exhausted that Mehen felt sure he hadn’t slept. “Arjhani’s missing,” she said, with such forced crispness that her own anxiety could not be clearer. “Should I take it that you haven’t pushed him to leave the city once and for all?”
The fear that surged in Mehen seemed a separate thing, divorced from the core of him, but no less real. Who was Arjhani to him now, after all? A heartache, a betrayer twice over. If he’d gone all the rest of his life without seeing Arjhani again, a colder, older part of him reasoned, then Arjhani would have died and he’d never know it, never shed another tear.
But that distant surging fear made the ghost of his youth scream.
“When’s the last time you saw him?” Mehen asked.
“Two days ago,” Dumuzi supplied.
“He went up to the barracks,” Uadjit said. “People saw him there, but he was supposed to return to Kepeshkmolik that night and he didn’t, nor the next. No one’s seen him.”
“That’s one for Verthisathurgiesh,” Vardhira said grimly.
Anala turned to Mehen. “A full accounting, if you please, of our assets, before we go tearing through the pyramid. Havilar can spot the creature.”
“She can tell when it’s close,” Mehen said. “Her hound can track, though—anything she can get the scent of. If we can get something of Arjhani’s to Zoonie, she’ll track him down.” And Havilar will have to come, he thought, fighting not to tap his tongue to the roof of his mouth. And you will have to explain everything.
“Farideh,” he said instead. “She might be helpful too. She can see …” He weighed the best way to put it, and there really wasn’t one. “She can see the state of people’s souls, which means she can tell if something’s missing one, the way a demon would be.”
Anala cursed softly. “Well, as I’ve said before, Verthisathurgiesh is nothing if not adaptable. Vardhira, if you will go with yours to those clans, I will go with mine. Uadjit, if you would be so kind, we need every clan to make an accounting of their members so we know how many we might be missing, and you have already slipped past Geshthax with that gilded manner of yours.”
Uadjit did not so much as smile at the compliment. “I should look for Arjhani.”
“Mehen and the hound are going to have to do that, dear. You’d be extraneous.”
“I’m going,” Dumuzi piped up.
“You are going back to the enclave,” Uadjit said.
“Mehen and the hound will handle it,” Anala repeated. “He’s in good hands.”
“Your pardon,” Dumuzi said, very properly, “but it’s partly my fault the maurezhi has run so free. You can’t ask me to go home and wait when I’ve got that to make amends for. And he is my father—whatever you should do, Uadjit, I should do tenfold.”
Mehen frowned. The lad had a stoic quality that looked fairly ridiculous on a lad of fifteen, but there was nothing affected in it. He had a duty to Arjhani, but no affection—an oddity, when Arjhani could make almost anyone love him so easily.
“He can come,” Mehen said. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Kallan, go with them,” Vardhira said. “That will make two pairs. Much safer if something goes awry. Uadjit, you come with us—Kepeshkmolik is not so far from Ophinshtalajiir. And it will give us a chance to talk.”
“Hencin!” Anala called. The young man lurking just outside the door poked his snout in. “Rouse me a guard of three, and go fetch your mother and tell her you are both tasked with accounting for every member of this clan.” She sighed and looked to Mehen. “I think we will come to curse Pandjed and his tendency for making enemies by day’s end.”
LORCAN HANDED OVER a small stack of coins. “A pleasure doing business with you,” he said, taking the pouch of herbs. The woman smiled at him in a way that made Lorcan suspect he could have gotten a better deal still, and for the briefest of moments, he considered other ways to exploit that smile.
Not worth it, he told himself, pushing out of the shop and into the snow-crusted market of Waterdeep. You have more important things to see to. He pulled the collar of his cloak up and wound back through the alleys to where he wouldn’t be disturbed.
He had watched Farideh for the better part of half an hour, late into the night, waiting for her to take action. Waiting, waiting—he felt as if that was all that she’d left for him to do. Wait until she realized she’d made a mistake. Wait until she realized he wasn’t the enemy here. Wait until she realized everything could work out fine.
Lorcan was not good at waiting.
The tea would be a good overture—a reminder he cared about her well-being. It might also stop the dreams that seemed to plague her and give her ideas she ought to avoid. The less she slept, he thought, as he withdrew the portal ring, the more reckless she got. Nobody needed that.
First, he told himself as he stepped into the Nine Hells, help her sleep. Let her see reason again. Second, find Sairché, find out how serious this Brimstone Angel threat was—
&nb
sp; His third thought dissolved into the hum that filled the fingerbone tower. He was surrounded on every side by hellwasps, the dog-sized insects rubbing their sword-arms against one another. At the center of the room, Glasya, Lord of the Sixth, Princess of the Nine Hells sat perched upon a throne of brass.
“Well met, little Lorcan,” she said, her voice like the roar of the endless ocean forced into a song. “Where have you been?”
Lorcan dropped to his knees. “Your Highness. Just a minor errand in Toril, procuring components.”
“For your Chosen?” she asked lightly.
“She will make use of some of them, Your Highness. What can I do for you?”
“You can start,” Glasya sang, “by not pretending you are nothing but my erinyes’ spoiled son. The scepter I gave you is missing. And I think you’ve been asking too many questions.”
Lorcan’s hand closed tight around the pouch of herbs as if it had the power to do anything at all for him. “Which questions are those?”
Glasya stepped down from the throne, her coppery feet stopping just before Lorcan. “My father may have an interest in you,” she said, “or, at least, that to which you provide the conduit. But you are desperately mistaken if you think that will save your pitiful life, cambion. You know what the scepter is.”
She hadn’t mentioned the Vulgar Inquisitor, Lorcan noted. Shetai was still holding tightly to its cards. His thoughts spun, clicking bits of knowledge together like ivory tiles, searching for a play that would let him survive.
“I beg your pardon, Highness,” Lorcan said. “I did not dare trust Invadiah.”
Glasya paused, the span of a butterfly’s heartbeat. “Invadiah has redeemed herself of late,” the archduchess said. “Unless there’s something I don’t know?” One razor-sharp nail lifted Lorcan’s chin. Lorcan met the Lord of the Sixth’s terrible golden gaze—he could not risk looking away.
“Her overreach led to her downfall,” he said. “Her current form encourages that same recklessness to a new degree. I saw the signs of it in her decision to inform me of the scepter’s provenance. The artifact is safe. Away from prying eyes. Away,” he added, “from Fallen Invadiah.”
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