And then: the wordless, imageless knowledge that Asmodeus had not been able to tear the spark out of the Lord of Spells.
That’s the secret, a little part of Farideh whispered. That’s what Asmodeus fears.
The spell completed and Farideh’s legs collapsed under her. She hit the floor only a heartbeat before Sairché did, the ghost remaining over her, traced in the dim light. She looked exactly as she had in the prison camp, cool and terrible and not entirely of this world, as she drifted nearer.
She gestured to Havilar, hands opening like a book: Read.
For a brief, absurd moment, Farideh felt sure her sister would refuse, would find some way to thwart the ghost.
But Havilar took the chain off the scroll, unrolling it with one hand. The words shivered as she spoke them, and Farideh found herself remembering another time, Havilar practicing Garago’s lessons, the old wizard of Arush Vayem perpetually annoyed by Havi’s cadence. This had been how it all started, Havilar reading a scroll to summon an imp but calling Lorcan instead.
Farideh pushed herself up onto her knees, limbs shaking. It felt as if the whole world were shaking. She looked up and saw Havilar’s mouth open, the ghost stretching into something almost unrecognizable as she flowed into Farideh’s twin. Zoonie howled and Farideh’s marrow shook.
The magic ceased, though the shaking continued a few moments more. Havilar blinked and put the chain around her neck. She looked over at Farideh, and for the briefest moment, Farideh thought perhaps this was still Havilar. The sneering expression that had twisted Sairché’s face was nowhere in evidence. Only a vague confusion. But as the moment stretched, Farideh felt surer and surer, this wasn’t Havilar.
Bryseis Kakistos looked down at Havilar’s hands with Havilar’s eyes, but her expression shifted from puzzled to horrified. “Oh Watching Gods,” she whispered. “I’d forgotten.” Again, the expression on her face grew distant, dim. Farideh pushed to her feet, weaving.
Bryseis Kakistos shook her head. “No. I have to finish what I’ve started. I have to … Yes, whatever the specifics, I have to destroy him.” She considered Farideh. “Believe me when I say, I intend to give her back. But I will need a body. Bodies.” She searched the room, anxious and nervy. “That is your task, my dear—difficult and simple together. If something goes awry, I will do the same for this one. That’s fair.” She nodded as if to convince herself.
“I don’t understand,” Farideh said. “You have to explain.”
Bryseis Kakistos blinked at her. “If you want Havilar back, you have to make us new bodies.”
“How?”
“The usual way.”
Farideh recoiled. “You want me to stay here and get pregnant?”
Bryseis Kakistos frowned at her. “It’s what you are for. Do you think I bore heirs because I wanted children? You are a precaution. This way we can start over.” Her eyes flicked over Farideh’s shoulder. “You have the cambion. He would do. If I can free the Harper, all the better. Not as handsome, but steadier.” She turned, flexing her hands.
Zoonie whined and pranced, as if she knew this was not Havilar, as if she couldn’t decide what she ought to do. She grabbed hold of Brin’s jerkin, tugging him toward Bryseis Kakistos. His eyes were red, Farideh noticed. He grabbed Zoonie’s muzzle, clearing his throat.
“Let me come with you,” Brin said. Bryseis Kakistos looked back over her shoulder. “She and I have an agreement, right? You need to know something about her, I might. And … you want heirs? Worse comes to worse, you’ll have me.”
Bryseis Kakistos narrowed her eyes a moment, and again it seemed as if she were somewhere else, as if Havilar’s body were vacant entirely. Then she frowned. “Where is it now?”
Brin paused before answering. “I haven’t had the chance to determine that,” he said, every bit Lord Crownsilver. “But I’m probably the best one to find it, don’t you think?”
“Stands to reason.”
“I need resources, though. I assume … I assume you can help with that.”
“Better than anyone alive.”
Farideh felt as if she were in a dream—none of this made sense. Brin shot a glance at her, and she knew, he had no idea either. He was bluffing like mad in the hopes he could stay close to Havilar.
“We were going to try the hellhound,” he said. “Zoonie. She can track like nothing. I need to bring her too.”
Bryseis Kakistos smiled with Havilar’s mouth. “Of course.” She held out a hand. After a long, distrusting look, Brin took hold of it, his other hand on Zoonie’s muzzle.
“Where are you going?” Farideh cried.
Havilar’s eyes regarded her, cool and distant. “Somewhere safer than this.” And with that, Bryseis Kakistos and her hostages vanished.
DESPITE THE NUMBER of wounded Vayemniri, no one asked Dumuzi to help as they made their way down to the Vanquisher’s enclave. He followed regardless, still feeling the echo of the pulse of power that shook his very bones, the crackle of lightning that danced on his skin. Wherever he looked, it seemed as if he were seeing things but also seeing their ghosts—as if stones and statues and banners and even empty air could have ghosts. He walked as if he were dreaming or maybe watching himself dream. He came into the Vanquisher’s enclave not sure of who he was.
The enclave was half-filled with elders—Dumuzi spotted Narghon and Anala, Geshthax and Vardhira and more. Healers, still hollow-eyed from interrupted sleep, swarmed Dokaan and Mehen and Kallan with herbs and bandages, helped Arjhani to sit.
“What in all the broken planes is going on?” Anala demanded.
A storm is coming, the voice in his thoughts repeated. A storm is coming.
The sky above the pyramid had been clear. What few clouds remained were too far away, moving too swiftly toward the sea to be any kind of danger for Djerad Thymar.
A storm is coming.
The air, though, felt like a storm. Humid, but thin—somehow. Electric as the taste of nerves in his mouth. A storm is coming.
“What do you mean?” It took a heartbeat for Dumuzi to realize he’d spoken aloud. His mother watched him with concern etched across her features.
“Dumuzi,” she said gently, “are you all right?”
He wet his mouth. “I’ve done something,” he said. “He says it’s not a yoke.” Uadjit’s frown deepened.
The lanky wizard—Ilstan—appeared in their midst. One moment there was a gap between Anala and Dokaan, the next the wizard was there, frantic and wild-eyed. Both Anala and Dokaan leaped away from him. The Adjudicators’ swords came out quickly.
“I have to warn you!” the wizard shouted. “I have to tell you! There’s a significant disturbance in the stability of the planes. We must find a way to shelter or we’ll be doomed!”
“Shelter from what?” Dokaan demanded. He looked at Uadjit. “Your Munthrarechi is better, Kepeshkmolik. What’s he mean?”
Uadjit frowned. “The planes? What do you mean the stability of the planes? Are you talking about the old world? Are you talking about Abeir?”
“How do you shelter from another plane?” Mehen demanded. “What are you warning us of?”
A storm is coming, Dumuzi thought. “The Blue Fire is coming.”
“That can’t happen!” one of the patriarchs shouted.
But the pressure in Dumuzi’s head became exultant and fearful all at once, as if now, finally, Dumuzi understood him. As if now, finally, the warning was clear: The world is about to end. Tymanther is in grave danger. He cannot let it happen again.
I have no children. He needed believers. He needed someone to anchor him to this world. You have to take the yoke, Dumuzi thought.
“Help us,” Dumuzi implored. “What one cannot do, many can manage. Be one of ours, please, one of our many.” He reached beyond himself, for the growing presence of the god.
And the god reached back as Abeir returned once more.
THE LAND REMEMBERS what the people forget: where the mountains were, where the shoreline la
y, where the grasslands stretched flat and where caverns crawled beneath the surface. Where magic pulsed within it. It remembers what was, what is, what shall be again. When the planes unite, it knows what will come and what will go.
From the vantage of overgods, the planes kiss as they pass, but the land remembers this violence: earthquake, flood, unnatural fire. For the people, some will survive while some will take the brunt of Abeir’s return—it doesn’t matter to the land. It was, it is, it shall be.
But from the vantage of overgods, one thing is changed: an island in the storm, a city born of both worlds. The force of the planes passing through one another is enough to level it, the way it leveled the tower that once stood in its place. Magic, birthed by union and disunion, rolls toward the stone city like a tidal wave … only to break upon a wall of lightning that curves around the city like the wings of a mother vulture.
THE FARTHER EDGE of the shore held the only place wide enough to wake a portal. At loose ends, Dahl kicked bits of stone into the lake, out of the way, making the surface smooth when it didn’t need to be. His brothers were deep in conversation with Sessaca, who sat like a queen hearing grievances, upon her throne of a rock. Dahl had taken the brunt of Thost and Bodhar’s protests—she was too old to leave behind, she was too frail to cast the spell, she wasn’t in her right mind always.
“You can’t possibly believe that anymore,” Dahl had said. “She was playing us all those times.” Sessaca listened, but there was no swaying her.
Volibar came to stand beside him. “The others are up the wrong end of the tluinstick, aren’t they? The Zhentarim?”
“It’s in Tymora’s hands,” Dahl said. “We’ll weight the dice all we can, once we’re out.”
“Yeah, they’re up the wrong end.” The halfling sighed. “Appreciate you bringing me along.”
“Again, thank Tymora not me,” Dahl said.
“I’ll thank her when I get Haslam back.”
Dahl shook his head. Where the snake was now would be anyone’s guess. By now Farideh would have gotten his letter, would have written her own reply. Haslam would have been sent on its way to its master’s last location, winging along the path Volibar had given it. Maybe it would curl up in the Master’s Library and somehow survive the cold winter of the Earthfasts. Maybe Tymora would roll high again.
Thost and Bodhar approached, helping Mira limp her way to where the portal would be. Dahl nodded at his brothers. “Ready to go home?”
“No,” Thost said.
“We’ve been talking,” Bodhar added. “Granny’s going to aim the portal for … ah, hrast, how do you say it?”
“Djerad Thymar,” Mira supplied.
Dahl’s pulse sped. “That’s a bad idea. You’ll be at least a tenday from home—”
“They’ve got boats,” Thost said. “Right?”
“And a better market for your spell components, I’d wager,” Bodhar said. “We can tell the womenfolk where we’ve gotten to with another little casting.”
“And Zhentarim contacts,” Mira said. “Which means we can warn them faster of Graz’zt and the fallen outpost.”
“You’ve been doing a lot more for us than I think any of us appreciated,” Bodhar said. “Now we’re doing this for you.”
Dahl shook his head. “I can’t let you—”
“Lambkin,” Sessaca called. “You’ve been outvoted. Let it go and stand in your spot.”
Feeling dazed, Dahl found his way to the middle of the group, hemmed in by his brothers. He could not have felt more uneasy if they’d stood on the edge of battle. In a moment, they’d be free of the Underdark. In a moment, he’d be near Farideh again. But he’d still be caught in Lorcan’s deal.
One thing at a time, he told himself. Get yourself rescued first.
Sessaca unrolled the scroll, holding it high over the assemblage of components meant to help it focus along the still-mending Weave. The words left her, a singsong chant half demand, half prayer, that pulled together all the magic within reach as if it were swiftly training vines of power to wind around the cluster of people. His mouth took on the taste of wintergreen and old wine again. Sessaca looked up.
Good-bye, he mouthed. She nodded once, spoke the last word. The cave dissolved in a flash of light.
Dahl felt as if he dissolved with it, and suddenly he was falling without the pull of the ground, flying without wind in his hair. He was everywhere and nowhere but moving, without motion. The clammy air was gone, replaced with a sense like none other—not hot, not cold, not even there.
Suddenly, that nothingness became somethingness, as if the air had become gelatinous all around him, squeezing him down into nothing. An impossible vortex pulled at his very self, knotting him, twisting him, threatening to break him apart.
Lord of All Knowledge, Dahl prayed, reflexively. Binder of What Is Known. He reached for his sword, but he had no sword, no hands to reach. His mind filled with flashing colors—silver, red, violet, blue. So much blue.
His body hit a solid wall—
Then he slammed against a parched, grassy ground as if he’d fallen from a height, knocking all the breath from his lungs. He rolled over, all his senses coming back and reminding him of exactly how many bones he possessed and exactly how hard they were. He heard others around him, and forced himself up. Thost, Bodhar, Mira, Volibar. Every one breathing, moving. Alive, at least.
“Gods be damned!” Bodhar gasped. “You do that often?”
Dahl climbed unsteadily to his feet. They’d landed on a ridge of sorts, where a long berm of land had crumbled away into the wide grasslands beyond. The moon hung high to the east, over the sea. Still winter, Dahl thought. But south, far south. He scanned the horizon—a rolling plain, a river …
There. Far, far to the southwest, a dark mountain alone and sharp, gleaming silver in the moonlight. Djerad Thymar. It had to be Djerad Thymar. Two day’s ride, he guessed. Four or more walking. He looked down at Mira—maybe more, given her injury.
Mira watched the plain with a grim expression. “Army,” she said. Dahl followed her gaze out to the west. A dark patch of bodies, clumped into groups, between them and the river to the south. Flags, almost unreadable in the darkness, flapping in the occasional breeze. Dahl pressed himself down against the ridge again, trying to make out the emblem.
“A fist?” he said. “That’s a fist. Banites?”
“Wrong color.” Mira peered into the darkness. “Red fist on a golden sun,” she said. She frowned. “Nobody’s used that symbol on the Alamber Sea since before the Spellplague. Before the Time of Troubles, even. Who’s stlarning resurrecting an Untheran battle flag?”
IN THE FIRST heartbeat after Dumuzi’s outburst, Mehen heard the roar, a windstorm in rapids in the mouth of a fathomless beast.
In the second, only whiteness, a light that burned away Mehen’s vision, bursting from where Dumuzi had stood. Lightning-white, he thought, but lightning would never linger so long, nor would he be standing if it came this close. He was blind, defenseless. Dumuzi was surely dead.
In the third, a singing through the roar. Strange words, strange cadence: Enlil aga-ush kur-kur-a ab-ba numun-numunre-ne-ke … Enlil-e kur-Thymar-ah ba-gi-shey. And chasing it, Draconic—Enlil, soldier of all the lands, father of all children, to Djerad Thymar, Enlil comes.
In the fourth, the lightning ended, Mehen’s vision slowly returning in patches. While all else was still a blur, for a moment, he saw Dumuzi his head still thrown back, clear as day. And a man, behind Dumuzi—black scales, golden eyes, no piercings. He looked over at Mehen, and nodded once, the curt respect of warrior to warrior, or father to father. Comrade to comrade. Mehen’s tongue tapped frantically against the roof of his mouth. Soldier of all the lands, father of all children. Suggestion, that was all. The same thing that made his legs think they should bend.
He nodded back instead of bowing. The man set a hand on Dumuzi’s shoulder, and the boy seemed to relax, all the force of what he’d channeled seeping out of him. The
black-scaled Vayemniri patted Dumuzi’s shoulder in an oddly fond way—
Five heartbeats after Dumuzi had shouted a prayer in the middle of the Vanquisher’s Hall, Mehen stood at the edge of a circle of elders and Lance Defenders, all staring at Dumuzi, as if the boy could offer some explanation of what had just happened.
Dumuzi for his part, only stood, staring down at the floor and shaking. But not dead.
Not all with power are tyrants. Not only blood makes a tribe. Ah, Dumuzi, he thought. What have you woken?
“I don’t want to be the kind of person who sits on her hands when she could have done something,” Farideh had said. The gods were present. They were becoming more present by the day, it seemed. How long could the Vayemniri hide?
We can’t, Mehen thought. So we can’t sit on our hands.
It was Uadjit who broke out of the circle first, rushing up and grabbing her son, as if he were new-hatched and she could protect him—as if she knew she could not protect him, not from this.
In front of everyone, Mehen thought, numbly considering the staring elders. Not Uadjit’s sort of careful move. Rash. Instinctive. But as complicated as things were guaranteed to become in Djerad Thymar, not even Kepeshkmolik Uadjit’s silver tongue and smooth manners could save things.
Beside him, Anala watched with the same bewilderment that had struck Mehen. There would be no denying a god had briefly manifested in the Vanquisher’s Hall. There would be no stopping the chaos that would chase the revelation that Tarhun was dead, that the Blue Fire had returned, that an enemy with no name was heading for Djerad Thymar. That Kepeshkmolik Dumuzi was in the middle of it.
“I will stand for Vanquisher,” Mehen told her. “On one condition.”
Anala’s attention snapped to him. “Go on.”
“I will stand for Vanquisher,” he said again, “and you will set Verthisathurgiesh behind Dumuzi. You will protect him, even if that means standing alongside Kepeshkmolik.”
Ashes of the Tyrant Page 58