by Erin Evans
“What were you making?” Farideh asked as she fastened the irons.
“Sending stones,” Ilstan said. “It seems you all use that spell so much, it might come in handy. Before that, scrolls. I have one … You might use it to bind her, when you find her. On the table.” He smiled uneasily back at her. “Do you really intend to rescue Azuth?”
Farideh turned the key. Rescuing Azuth was a side effect of rescuing Havilar as much as rescuing Asmodeus was, but she had to admit, the fate of the Lord of Spells didn’t seem fair. “Has he told you his story?” she asked. “Do you know him well?”
Ilstan’s smile took on a wild quality. “There once was a wizard who wanted power beyond all mortal reach,” he said, the cadence of his words not at all his own. “Such stories always end poorly, but luckily for the wizard, the Lady of the Mysteries took a shine to him and became his queen. She granted him powers—such powers—until he was no longer a mere wizard but a god in truth. A god dedicated to his lady and all who wore her crown. He forgot what it was to be human. What it was to not wear the god’s mantle. He forgot what it was to crave power.
“Down, down, the wizard fell, from the heights of the heavens to the depths of the Hells, the fabric of the very planes tearing as he passed …” Ilstan’s voice broke and he went silent.
“What made him fall?” Farideh asked.
Ilstan didn’t answer, but a moment later he said, “And perhaps, then, it was a fitting punishment, for the wizard who forgot what it was to want, that he landed broken at the feet of one who was nothing but want incarnate. He remembers now, too late, what it means, the perils and the potentials.” He shut his eyes. “And now this.”
Like much of what Ilstan said of late, it didn’t make sense to Farideh. “Is that how he speaks to you?”
“Yes. But there is always a reason,” Ilstan said, sounding sad. “Always wisdom I must glean from his words, and when I can, I am saved.”
“It sounds as if he cares for you at least.”
“It is what the gods must do, in some sense,” Ilstan said. “They must have us, and we must have them.”
“Even gods like Asmodeus?” Farideh said. “What does he give his followers?”
“Strife,” Ilstan intoned.
Farideh leaned her head on her hand. “I thought there was already a god of strife.”
Ilstan gave her an irritable look. “Death, destruction, unease—do you deny it?”
She did. None of those sounded right—they sounded like the warnings of Criella, the village midwife in Arush Vayem, who was always convinced every bit of mischief would turn the twins evil as the pit of the Abyss. Farideh frowned to herself. People worshiped Asmodeus—they must. Without worshipers, he couldn’t be as powerful as Ilstan and Lorcan and the others made him out to be—even with all the actions of the Toril Thirteen. She thought of the Ashmadai in Neverwinter, the violent cult of Asmodeus worshipers who had sacrificed more than a few souls to the Nine Hells and nearly killed her too.
But how many Ashmadai would it take to make a god so powerful as Asmodeus? Too many, Farideh thought. Every village would need to be stocked with murderers. So what good was the god of sin?
“His destruction would benefit many,” Ilstan said. “It would be a boon to us all, and—”
“Is he like Shar?” Farideh asked. Ilstan frowned at her. “Dahl told me once you worship Shar when grief overtakes you. You give her a little honor so that she eases the sadness through your life. That the evil of Shar is that she’ll try to pull you down into that darkness, to make you stay. Is he like that?”
Ilstan shifted uneasily. “One might say so.”
“Have you given him worship then?”
“I’ve … You can’t ask me that.”
Perhaps, but Farideh could picture it: you pray to Asmodeus in the dark, for protection from the darker things, from the darkness inside you, for the blindness of other gods to the sins of your heart, for a silver tongue and a weight on Kelemvor’s scales, come the day. Freedom from consequence.
Asmodeus is the god of easy paths, Farideh thought. A god of happiness, as he says it.
“So he has a purpose.”
“A purpose we didn’t need for thousands of years.” He turned his mournful eyes on her. “If you find the staff, what will you do? Which side will you choose?”
Farideh hesitated. “I don’t know that there is a side. If we let her destroy Asmodeus, she’ll use Azuth to do it. If we stop her, Asmodeus lives, but so does Azuth.”
Ilstan shook his head. “You misunderstand. Both speak to me now, because they must share the same space—but they cannot. This will not last. Azuth will continue to wake. Asmodeus will continue to fight it. You have to choose a side.” He stared at her. “Take the scroll at least. It’s ready.”
No matter what you do, Farideh realized—aid Bryseis Kakistos, end her, or walk away—the two gods might well kill each other, the Nine Hells might well spill out, and there might be no stopping the world from ending.
Ilstan began humming to himself in an off-key way, as if Farideh weren’t there at all—and she realized that whatever she did, she was going to have to do it alone.
• • •
THE SOLDIERS MARCHED Dahl and his brothers through the camp, led by the jackal-shouldered woman dragging Mira and followed by the shadowy demons. Dahl glimpsed more armored soldiers, but commoners besides—men, women, and children with kohl-marked eyes and dark hair. Everyone gave the demons a wide berth.
The crowds grew denser, thicker with soldiers—and more demons of more sorts—as they neared the center of the encampment. No escape, Dahl thought, not without abandoning Mira. And not without finding some way to alert his brothers.
“Is this how you do things with the Harpers?” Bodhar whispered.
“Sometimes,” Dahl said, sweeping the crowd. No sign of casters—that was odd. “Don’t say anything when we get where we’re going, unless they make you. Let me and Mira do the talking.” One of the bowmen barked an order at them, gesturing with his arrow. Shut up or I’ll make you shut up—that much was clear in any language.
Near the center of the camp, a tent rose like a mound, far finer than any of the ones they’d passed already—opulent only in comparison to what lay around it. Bright strips of fabric made a pattern of chevrons on the side, not all dyed quite the same shade of blue. A row of gold disks trimmed the entrance, and here sat a throne made of the bones of a strange beast, the armrests covered with more gold, hammered thin. And here sat a man.
The man made the opulence of the tent seem mean and ordinary, though Dahl could not have quite said why or how. He seemed larger than any of the men surrounding him, and more striking. His head was shaved so close that, had his eyebrows not made two forceful arches of suspicion, Dahl would have thought he grew no hair at all. Dark eyes watched them approach, watched the woman lower the sledge and prostrate herself. Watched as the bowmen forced Dahl and his brothers down to the bent grass.
The man asked a question: What have you brought? Dahl imagined. The jackal-shouldered woman responded, a long and rolling answer in tones of humility and apology. Eme bala—those words again. She fell silent and Dahl risked a glance up at the man in the monster-bone chair.
He was looking directly at Dahl. “Stand up,” the man said, in perfect Common. “All of you.” Dahl rose, taking the opportunity to move a step in front of his brothers, a step nearer to Mira. Still sitting on the sledge, Mira held herself straight.
“Forgive me, saer,” she said. “My ankle is broken. I cannot accommodate you.”
The man considered Mira a moment, his black eyes endless. “Yes. And so you should have fed the labashu. But my sikati, Namshita”—he gestured to the woman with the jackal-shoulders—“tells me you can translate from our tongue to yours. Is this true?”
“A little,” Mira said. “Yours is not a tongue widely spoken, and what I know is old, from days long past.”
The man smiled, his teeth a sea cliff, white
and endless and sharp. “Days of splendor,” he said. “Do they still tell tales of Unther’s might? Of the glory of Gilgeam, the Father of Victory?”
Gilgeam—Dahl racked his brain. A god—a dead god, a very dead god. A dead demigod, he amended. The god-king of lost Unther, killed in the Time of Troubles and returned weaker and sullen. Whatever glory Unther had gained, it was lost in the hands of Gilgeam.
Mira’s smile petrified upon her face, and Dahl suspected she was as anxious as he was. Mira wasn’t the sort of agent the Harpers or the Zhentarim used to grease a path into more dangerous company. For all she’d charmed their leader and for all she knew about Unther, there remained the fact that Mira worked best when she was at her task—head down and seeming too distracted to hear everything around her. Eventually, it seemed, everyone grew frustrated with Mira, and this madman with his demon-spangled army would not be an enemy they wanted to make.
You could say the same for yourself, he thought. At least Bodhar and Thost were keeping mum.
“Among the wise, they have never ceased,” Mira said, her caution barely disguised by obsequiousness. The man didn’t seem to notice. “But it’s said that Unther was destroyed in the Spellplague. No one claiming Unther’s blood has walked this plane in almost a century.”
The man stood, spreading his hands, wide as the wings of a griffon. “Perhaps your wisest are not so very wise. Behold the might of Unther. Behold”—the barest of pauses, a faint smirk on the man’s face—“the Father of Victory reborn the Son. We cannot be ended. We cannot be diminished, not while I lead.”
Oghma’s bloody papercuts, Dahl thought. An army of ten thousand and they’re led by a madman who thinks he’s a god.
“Well met,” Dahl said, stepping even with Mira, head bowed, “Your … Eminence. Welcome back.”
Gilgeam turned to consider Dahl as though he had interrupted something personal and private. “And who are you?”
Dahl quickly considered his options—what would appeal most to this man who claimed the godhead, who preened and posed and surrounded himself with deadly demons. “My name is Dahl Peredur,” he said. “I’m a priest of Oghma, our god of knowledge, and these are my traveling companions. We were drawn here, and I see now it is to learn what … was lost when Unther was stolen. What you gained in the other world.”
“The other world is a place of chaos and uncertainty,” Gilgeam said, louder than necessary—loud enough for it to carry well beyond his filigreed tent. “Dragons perverting what it means to be human with their magic and their experiments, littering the landscape with monstrous mistakes. Genies playing at humanity and lording over kingdoms—pressing us, pressing the children of the gods into servitude to their hateful enemies, who in turn serve the genasi, willing slaves and toadies. It became clear, in that other world, that only humans are meant for power and freedom. That only we are meant to rule.
“Had we remained,” the man said, clutching the amulet around his neck, “we would have crushed the genasi, ground their bones into vapor and flame and dust. Look around at my army, my might—they would not have stood, those tyrants of Shyr. But clearly, the land remembers us. The gods of Toril favor us—of course they do. We are returned and we shall reclaim our rightful empire here and now!”
A cheer went up around them and Dahl carefully did not look at his brothers. Madmen, he thought. They always want a stlarning empire.
“Then we are glad to assist you,” Dahl said. “If you tell me your story, I will carry it far and wide. That will be Oghma’s gift to you.” To all of us, Dahl thought. The more people he could warn, the faster this might be contained.
Gilgeam narrowed his eyes. “Your god gives you magic, yes? Can you gift the language of this place to another?”
Dahl hesitated—he could do that, but by ritual only, not by Oghma’s grace. Would Gilgeam know the difference? “Of course, Your Eminence,” he said. “I can grant any tongue I speak, for a time. Perhaps we could trade—”
“No,” Gilgeam said. He turned to Mira, “Shunigin gesh-tuku-ze akkil e, Gurun?”
Mira frowned. “I understand, though not the last part.”
Gilgeam nodded, satisfied. “It is your new name. I would keep our tongue pure,” he said. He turned back to Dahl, “You have no reason to speak it, arad, and Gurun here can remain near to me, so I will give you nothing. Instead, you will cast your magic upon my sikatis, beginning with Namshita here, that she may better make your duties known.”
The woman with the jackals on her shoulders bowed to Gilgeam, her stony expression betraying nothing. Dahl cast a glance at Mira—if Gilgeam wanted him to cast such a simple spell, that suggested he didn’t have the power to do it himself. He thought back to Farideh’s ancestor stories—they never used magic, unless it came from an artifact of the titans. They might not have magic, Dahl thought. Which meant he’d have to be careful. If he made himself seem more powerful in any fashion, Dahl didn’t doubt Gilgeam would become far, far less accommodating.
He counted the men surrounding the monster-bone throne—four of them wearing strange skins and necklaces of gold. Priests? If so, what magic could they wield?
“A boon, Your Eminence,” Dahl asked. “I would gladly bring the common tongue to your sikatis, but in return, would you aid us? Mira, your translator, is injured and it’s beyond my skills to heal her. My god is a scholar,” he said, trying for embarrassed, “not a power for the battlefield and its needs. Have you healers who might see to her?”
Dahl said a little apology to Oghma as Gilgeam’s dark eyes pierced him once more. The Son of Victory stooped beside Mira, and his advisors all crouched to stay as low as their leader. One hand on the amulet, he set the other on Mira’s swollen ankle, met her eyes, and smiled that sea-cliff smile.
The burst of magic that followed smelled of blood and hot steel and the midday sun on stone. For a moment, panic flooded Dahl, as if he’d been suddenly thrust into a battle. Mira cried out as the air filled with the sounds of marching feet.
Then all of it was gone. Mira flexed her ankle and shot Dahl a worried look. Gilgeam regarded her smugly. “Felicitations,” he said. “You are the first upon this plane to accept the blessings of the Son of Victory.”
Behind him, the priests shook rattles, and Dahl’s pulse rattled along with them. There was no doubting the sudden presence of the divine in that spell—if the man wasn’t what he’d claimed, then he was still powerful. A Chosen or perhaps a priest himself. He wished Farideh were here with her soul sight, and then took it back. Gilgeam’s speech might not have mentioned tieflings, but he could guess he wouldn’t make an exception. Suddenly Dahl was very glad Volibar had fled.
Gilgeam straightened and spread his arms as if to encompass Dahl and his brothers and Mira. “You are all honored among the people of this plane,” Gilgeam declared. “You are the first slaves of Unther, the first to bow your heads to our regained might. You shall be venerated among the chattel—the fortunate first. So says the Son of Victory.”
• • •
AS THE SUN set, the camp slowed down—all but the demons, who seemed more restless than ever. Dahl and his brothers were led to the edge of the camp, their manacles tied to a spike hammered down into the hard-packed ground.
There, Dahl cast the language ritual on Namshita, the jackal-shouldered woman, as darkness fell, without her ever speaking a word. Thost and Bodhar sat quiet beside him, shackled at the ankles as Dahl was. Mira had been kept back in the filigreed tent.
“We ought to rescue her,” Bodhar whispered as they were led away.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about Mira,” Dahl murmured.
“He might make her like a concubine or some such, and then what?”
“Then he gets a dagger in his belly for the trouble, but he won’t.” Mira was far more valuable to him as a translator—the only one among them who spoke any degree of Untheric. He finished the ritual, brushing the white feather across the sikati’s eyelids and ears and lips. A flash of magic and Namshita fl
inched.
“Can you understand me?” Dahl asked.
She frowned at him. “Yes,” she said slowly. Then, “How long does this last?”
“An hour,” Dahl said. “Your god can make it permanent, I assume.”
“You speak of the Son of Victory as though you aren’t happy with your fate,” Namshita said, as though she were merely observing the color of boots Dahl had chosen to wear. “Tell me: does that magic work both ways? Can you not cast the spell to speak our tongue just as simply?”
Dahl busied himself tidying components. “Why would I do that?” he asked. “If you can speak the common—”
“But we will not speak your tongue among ourselves,” Namshita pointed out. “And Gilgeam does not know the extent of your spell.” In the distance, the wind stirred the brush. Namshita peered out into the darkness, frowning.
Dahl shrugged. “I would not dare guess at what the Son of Victory knows or does not know. I’ll need more white feathers, saer, and more powdered salts of mithral. If you don’t have them, they can likely be obtained in Djerad Kethendi.”
Namshita regarded him as though he were being purposefully confusing. Which he was. “Where is that?”
“The nearest city,” Dahl said.
“That is Unthalass, the City of Gems,” Namshita said. “Where is Djerad Kethendi?”
Dahl looked up. “Djerad Kethendi is on the other shore of the River Alamber. Opposite the ruins of Unthalass.” He folded the last of his powdered bluefoot mushrooms into a parchment square. “Is he planning to head to Unthalass? That would put you near enough for a supply run.”
Shouts came from deeper in the camp. Namshita stood, hand on her sword, as another woman in heavy armor ran up, speaking rapidly in Untheric, too fast for Dahl to catch much. But her uneasiness was clear in the way her dark eyes darted to the other soldiers standing at the edges of the encampment.
Namshita responded, low and swift, but the words Djerad Kethendi were unmistakable. The other woman shook her head and made a fluttering sort of gesture off to the northwest as she answered. Namshita spat something that was almost certainly a curse. She glanced once at Dahl, who made a point of being very careful with his parchment square, before they both took off, heading toward the filigreed tent.