Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

  Or maybe there was nothing he or Thost could say—‘little’ brother—Dahl had grown taller than Bodhar while he’d lived in Procampur, coming back one Greengrass a handspan over his older brother, much to Barron’s delight. Bodhar was always the cheerful one, but a hundred teasing barbs came back at Dahl. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who struggled in his family.

  “Your friends in Harrowdale,” Dahl blurted. Someone outside the farm, someone Bodhar didn’t have too much history with. Bodhar didn’t answer, only launched himself at Dahl again, stumbling past when Dahl ducked out of the way.

  He glanced back at Lorcan—the cambion had the scroll out already. Oghma’s bloody papercuts.

  “Stlarn it, Bodhar!” Thost shouted. “You’re going to break Ma’s heart!”

  Bodhar froze. Where nothing else had cracked the demon lord’s madness, that seemed to strike their brother in the very core. Maybe he’d been as anxious as Dahl to gain Barron’s approval—but he’d never doubted for a moment that his mother loved and treasured him with all her heart, and always would.

  Xulfaril’s lackey swung wildly at him, but he ducked instead of striking back at her. Thost shoved her off her feet with one good push, while Dahl grabbed Bodhar by the elbow, pulling him back toward Lorcan and the shelf. Nearly there, nearly done.

  “Come on,” Dahl said. “We’re getting out.”

  He caught hold of Mira, just as she was about to run at the erinyes. She tensed—ready to slam her elbow into his gut, he was sure. But Mira, at least, would be easy to distract.

  “If you don’t run with me now,” Dahl said in her ear, “the Master’s Library will be lost again. Forever.” She looked at him, alarmed, as the tension in her shifted.

  Thost boosted first Bodhar, then Dahl up onto the rock shelf. Mira scrambled up unaided, while Thost came last, hauled up by his brothers. Behind them, Dahl could feel the spell binding itself together, the magic sparking and snapping as it gathered its strength. Dahl grabbed hold of Sessaca and Thost as they chained themselves together.

  “Volibar!” Mira shouted. The halfling dashed at them, blade high. Grim-faced, Mira broke the chain of hands, rushing out toward the halfling. He swung the blade at her as she tried to catch his hand, and she dodged, twisting her ankle too far and tripping over a rock. The halfling raised his sword.

  “Haslam!” Mira shouted, as Dahl ran to intervene. “Come on, we’ll save your damned snake!”

  Volibar stumbled. Looking puzzled at the blade in his hand. Dahl hauled Mira up under her arms, then grabbed Volibar by the arm, yanking the halfling close.

  Oh little mice, are you trying to skitter away? The demon lord’s attention fell upon them, dark as a bank of rain clouds, smothering Dahl’s good sense—

  Dahl shut his eyes. Farideh, walking under the rain clouds in Suzail from one terrible tavern to another, her arm around his, telling him an ancestor story called the Crippled Mountain. “But the Tyrant of Tyrants thought himself undefeatable,” she said. “He watched the massing armies—thousands upon thousands armed and armored—with the cruel amusement of a hatchling considering ants upon the stones.”

  “Honestly,” he’d said, “this is a bedtime story?”

  The taste of wintergreen and old wine filled his mouth, overlaying the bitterness of ashes and thick perfume. He squeezed Thost’s hand hard.

  You think you’re escaping, Graz’zt sang in Dahl’s head. But you can’t flee your own true nature …

  The magic clutched tight around them, so tight Dahl found he couldn’t breathe. A moment later, the flavor of ashes and perfume, the electric taste of the portal was gone, as were the sounds of fighting. Thost’s hand was still in his, Mira still leaning on him. He opened his eyes and found himself facing Lorcan.

  “Tluin and buggering Shar,” Volibar swore. “What happened?”

  The cave around them was quiet but for the gentle sounds of water brushing against rock. Dahl’s eyes adjusted to the soft, sickly light of the fungi on the wall—a lake of dark water nearly filled the space. He helped Mira to the ground. On the cave wall behind them, the rock had been roughly chiseled into a crude altar, sinuous pillars around a wide, curved niche.

  There were bones in the niche. There was also no exit to be seen.

  “Where in the Hells are we?” Dahl demanded.

  Lorcan had limped backward away from the others to lean against the wall. In his hand was a ring. “I don’t know,” he said panting. “I don’t care.”

  Dahl’s stomach clenched. “What happened to ‘we’re both damned’?”

  “Do you see a demon lord? You die, it doesn’t matter. All that counts is that I don’t lose your soul to the one shitting entity my mistress hates more than the Lord of the Fifth. All that counts is I didn’t break my word to Farideh.” He inched up the wall. “Actually this all works fine for me—not hurting you, not losing your soul, not breaking the deal.”

  “I don’t think Farideh would agree.”

  Lorcan laughed. “I don’t think Farideh’s going to know. You shitting bastard. You had to get in the middle of everything. You had to think you knew best.” He raised the ring to his lips. The portal ring. “I don’t have enough to spare what you want to take from me.”

  Dahl ran at him, but he wasn’t quick enough. Lorcan blew unevenly through the ring. A terrible wind, reeking of brimstone, pulled the cambion out of the plane, out of Dahl’s grasp, leaving them behind, lost in the Underdark.

  BRYSEIS KAKISTOS HELD the struggling consciousness of Sairché off with the very last shreds of her power as she stepped into the Nine Hells once more. The room was clear, the erinyes too driven by the lure of the curse to think about covering their retreat. She released her control on Sairché’s limbs, her voice, her self.

  Play your shitting part and you don’t die, Bryseis Kakistos said to Sairché, a coil of magic around the delicate vessels at the base of the cambion’s skull. I can always find another body.

  “You’ve made me an oathbreaker,” Sairché said in a small frantic voice. “Dying now would be quicker.”

  But more certain. Your brother’s agreement means he can’t let the erinyes have you. Go to the mirror. As Sairché limped over to the scrying surface, Bryseis Kakistos took stock of what reserves she still had, of how much Sairché could still manage.

  The demon lord had been quick to blame Asmodeus for his state—but in a way that said Graz’zt had no more notion of how he had come to the material world than the mortals in his thrall. To bring a demon lord out of the Abyss against his will took massive power. To do so without that demon lord knowing you were the one who had done it? That suggested massive power and an even more massive error.

  “What do you want?” Sairché asked.

  Ask it to show Demogorgon. The one they called the Prince of Demons—if someone had thrown Graz’zt from the Abyss, it would be that most hated enemy of the lord of Azzagrat.

  Shaking, Sairché did as she was told. The scrying mirror’s surface wavered and buckled, as if it didn’t want to find the Prince of Demons. The vision came in bursts: the two-headed demon lord roaring over a drow settlement too minor and murky to place anywhere but the Underdark. Curious.

  And promising.

  Sairché let the image drop and Bryseis Kakistos considered the myriad enemies of the Dark Prince. The one enemy she knew might not kill her on sight. If Demogorgon walked the Material Plane, so might he.

  “I know where there’s a healing potion,” Sairché said in a small, rasping voice. “It would only take—”

  Ask it to show Orcus.

  Sairché hesitated, as if Bryseis Kakistos would reconsider. The ghost of the Brimstone Angel nudged the vein, enough to give Sairché a flutter of lightheadedness. The cambion complied with shaking hands.

  Again, the mirror managed. Again, the demon lord was not in the Abyss. Orcus, Prince of the Undead, perched upon a throne of gathered bones, a whole cemetery of bodies to support his massive bulk. At his cloven feet, a crowd of shadowy fig
ures—stolen denizens of the Underdark made temporary vassals—gave the appearance of an ever-shifting floor around a pool of water that glowed with an unsettling amber light.

  Bryseis Kakistos chuckled. Someone has made a very grave mistake.

  “That’s fairly rich,” Sairché said. “Coming from you.”

  Bryseis Kakistos did not grant Sairché a response but gathered all her remaining strength and seized the body once more, one tendril of magic still looped around that vital vein. As she came into it, all the pain that wracked Sairché came into the ghost—she could no longer keep that from herself—and the legs beneath her nearly buckled.

  You don’t have time, she told herself. From the table beside the portal, she stole parchment and quill, scratching out the key to her success. Then, grabbing the portal ring and focusing on the image of the dank, crowded cave, she activated the portal. The gash in the wall split with a scream, and the ghost and her borrowed body were yanked through, into the Underdark once more.

  Deeper than Graz’zt had been—Bryseis Kakistos marked the twisted stalagmites, the faint hum in the air. The fact that there were far more illithids among the milling minions than one would otherwise have expected. That the glowing pool seemed to pulse with a life—or unlife, perhaps—of its very own.

  Orcus’s eyes glowed like moons above a burning plain. His wings spread, blacker than the shadows beyond him. Who dares trespass? a horrible voice echoed through her skull.

  “Bryseis Kakistos,” she said. “We had a deal once. Or the beginnings of one.”

  That deal was finished. The phylactery made for another. Still counts.

  “Yet Asmodeus stands. I have another deal for you,” she said, panting through the pain. “Simpler, maybe, but sweeter.” The demon lord shifted in his new-made throne, and every sunken eye in the cavern fell upon her.

  “You’re not the only one down here, my lord. The bastard Graz’zt is within your reach and making for the surface. Just as weakened, just as cut off from his realm. Maybe more so. I’ll trade you his location.” She held up the scroll. “The only way you’ll get it. Make me a deal”

  That gave undead Orcus pause.

  What do you want? the horrible voice whispered in Bryseis Kakistos’s thoughts, but she had come too far and seen too much to shiver at it. Graz’zt would regret the day he underestimated the Brimstone Angel.

  24

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

  Djerad Thymar, Tymanther

  MEHEN REALIZED WHAT DUMUZI WAS PLANNING TO DO A MOMENT too late. One moment Uadjit was shouting her son’s name, the next Mehen was trying to catch Dumuzi as he raced by, bounding up the pyramid’s blocks as though they were only steps. Beside him, Kallan eyed the slope.

  “Give me a boost,” Kallan said.

  “You’ll never make it,” Mehen said. The pyramid’s slope was steep and nearly a half-mile to the peak. He’d been made to climb it more than once—punishment for insubordination doled out by instructors—and even at his fittest, the climb was punishing. Two-thirds of the way up the pyramid, someone was climbing, and in spite of all sense, Dumuzi was gaining on them.

  Let him—the thought went through his head, before he could catch it and crush it. Let him—because there were bound to be others at the peak who would stop the maurezhi, eventually. Let him—because what problem was this of his? Of Verthisathurgiesh?

  The thought went through him before he could recognize the echoes of his father’s voice.

  Farideh and Havilar came up beside him. “How do we get up there?” Farideh demanded. “The stairs? The side?”

  “Zoonie,” Havilar said. She whistled through her fingers and the hellhound came loping up. “You want to ride, or do your jumping-in-the-planes thing?”

  These are the voices you listen to, he told himself. These are the voices you helped shape. His girls would never think to leave Dumuzi to his own mad decisions, to leave a city that wasn’t even theirs to a monster’s predations. Pandjed may have shaped you, he thought. But you shaped them. This is Verthisathurgiesh’s true advantage: determination, defiance, adaptability.

  The drumbeats started up again and Mehen glanced back. Uadjit had snatched the nearer drummer’s sticks, pounding out a beat he was surprised she still remembered—bum ba babum bumbum—the emergency order to land, to return to the city. Above, the last few bats to lift off wheeled around. Arjhani ran out, waving his arms at them.

  “It’s not as big a space up there as you imagine,” Mehen said. “Don’t let her run off the side of the pyramid, and don’t let her eat anyone.”

  Havilar pulled herself up onto the hellhound’s back with a wicked grin. “Except demons.”

  “You’re cleaning it up,” Mehen warned.

  A moment later, one of the giant bats landed, wings spread against the ground.

  “What’s at your back, sathi?” the rider demanded. He seemed to recognize Arjhani and straightened. “I mean, Commander.”

  “Get us up to the platform,” Arjhani ordered. “Your comrades and the city itself are in danger. I need three bats down, now.”

  Brin had pulled himself up onto Zoonie’s back behind Havilar. Farideh looked from the hellhound to the giant bat, going faintly pale. “Havi? Can we switch?”

  For a moment, Mehen was certain Havilar was about to leap off the hellhound and onto the bat, she stared at the creature with such bare excitement. But instead she reached down and unlocked Zoonie’s muzzle. “She doesn’t listen as well to you,” she added apologetically. She nudged the dog’s ribs and the hellhound howled, a sound that threatened to snuff the spark in Mehen’s chest, before bounding up the stepped side of the pyramid.

  Another bat had landed, taking on Uadjit and Arjhani. A third was swooping toward Kallan. Mehen climbed on beside Farideh.

  “How do we make sure we don’t fall off?” she asked in a rush.

  “You hold on very tightly,” Mehen said. He hooked an arm around her waist. The bat’s wings pressed against the ground, lifting its body high enough for the wide wings to flap and catch in a jerking, bouncing flight. Farideh was as rigid as a steel rod, her tail trying to tangle itself around Mehen’s right ankle.

  “Go low,” he shouted at the rider, “but don’t stop. We need your squadron back.” The drums still pounded out the order to return, but whatever lay to the north, they needed to pull back as fast as possible.

  “Fari,” he shouted over the bat wings and the wind, “we’re going to have to drop. Keep your knees soft and roll—toward the center. I’ll tell you when.” She nodded tightly, hands knotted in the beast’s coarse fur as they rose in a spiral.

  Below, what seemed to be Tarhun gained the platform—the wide, flat peak of the pyramid, the size of a village square. For a moment, the thought left Mehen disoriented, his references inverted. Lance Defenders standing guard at the platform’s corners turned from their stations. A half-dozen more—first-years tasked with preparing the giant bats and assisting with launches, no doubt—scattered over the platform, looked confused. He spotted Dokaan near the stairs, heard his distant shouts.

  It wasn’t enough to save the eastern sentinel, or the hatchling unlucky enough to approach. The maurezhi killed them swiftly, striking while they still thought it the Vanquisher.

  The bat swooped low. “Now!” Mehen shouted. He gave Farideh a little shove and dropped to the granite platform. His knees crunched angrily as he landed, forcing him into a roll. Farideh landed with a little less grace, but perhaps better intent—she rose to her feet in line of sight of the creature, drawing her rod and spitting a word of power. “Adaestuo!”

  The ugly burst of power hit the demon in the shoulder. It hissed, baring Tarhun’s teeth, and vanished from where it stood, reappearing deeper into the crowd of Vayemniri. It yanked one first-year’s sword away, stabbing it deep into a second’s gut and twisting, before teleporting again to reappear along the southern edge of the platform. It grinned at Mehen, making Tarhun look as if
he had no idea how to shape a smile. The southern sentinel loosed two arrows in close quarters, one sinking deep in the maurezhi’s flank—it hardly flinched. The smell of brimstone and ash and cheap perfume suddenly thickened the air. A chorus of pops and six repulsive little creatures, like hairless dog-goblins, dropped out of the air, encircling the maurezhi. Two leaped at the archer—she swung her bow and knocked one aside, scrabbling at the platform’s edge—and in that moment of distraction the maurezhi reached out and ran her through with the stolen sword.

  Where is my challenge? The creature’s voice echoed in Mehen’s thoughts. Where is my trophy? Bring me the baatezu and you might all survive to be slaves of your new conquerors.

  Mehen brought his falchion down on one of the little monsters hard enough to break its leathery skin and possibly its back. It screamed and let off a cloud of noxious gas. Another strike and it burst into flames. Beyond more gouts of flames as the Lance Defenders made short work of the little demons, one by one. The maurezhi surveyed the damage as if recalculating. Six steps, Mehen thought, starting forward, and then—

  “Back!” Farideh shouted at him. He pivoted on his heel, keeping the maurezhi and his daughter in sight. She had the scroll out, unfamiliar words tumbling from her like a rockslide, piling magic in their wake. Mehen’s scales prickled. The final words burst free of Farideh, the circle etching itself upon the granite—

  —In the same moment, the maurezhi vanished. The circle snapped to the rock, around a single dog-demon. The little creature tried to flee, screaming as it hit the invisible wall.

  Dokaan cried out. The maurezhi stood behind him, holding a bloodied sword. It grinned again, this time at Farideh.

  Blessed of the Blessingless. If I cannot bring a baatezu down with me, then you at least will do. What secrets can I suck from your marrow?

  Dokaan turned and hit the false Vanquisher in the throat with the full force of his elbow. The maurezhi staggered back, startled but not ended. When the northern sentinel rushed it, the maurezhi twisted out of reach, forcing the man to the side, stumbling over one of the first-year’s corpses.