The Devil You Know

by Erin Evans

  “Wait.” She presses away from him, as a stream of people cross through the room, war wizards and Harpers and holy champions. “This is important. If you start dreaming again or you wake up, you have to remember this. All right? You need to tell Farideh that Caisys is the one who knows where the staff is, and Alyona says he watched over us in Arush Vayem. Maybe someone was reporting to him, or there’s a spell or something. A scrying surface? Tell her that?”

  “I have to find more components,” Brin says. “All I’ve got is my Harper kit. That only—”

  A baby’s high wailing breaks his attention. Where the farther wall once was has become a waterfall with sea elves lounging in its spray, tossing a ball back and forth. A snake as thick as a man’s leg slithers around the stones and the legs of the settee, as the dead king and the High Harper consider the chess board.

  “You have such weird dreams,” Havilar says.

  “I have to find the baby,” Brin says, pulling away from her.

  “There’s no baby.”

  “No, there is, he …” A dream, Brin reminds himself. A dream. “Havi, there is a baby, I think. I think we have a son.”

  Havilar peers at him, as if she’s trying to decide how mad he might be. “Uh, I’m fairly sure I’d remember that.”

  “I think you were trapped in the Hells when he was born,” Brin said. “There’s a sixth heir. He looks like you and he looks like me. Bryseis Kakistos didn’t know about him until she was in your body, and the lich used my blood to find him.” He wants to ask if she’s sure she didn’t know, if this is really a surprise and not a secret—but the expression that crosses her face holds all the answers.

  “How …” she manages, as tears rise up in her eyes and the flames beyond the window break the panes of glass. “How did she—”

  Brin woke to Zoonie snuffling at his cheek, his heart in his throat. He pushed the hellhound away, rubbing slobber and ash from his stubbled cheek, trying to take control of his breath again. A dream, he told himself. Just a dream. Just …

  Not a dream—he felt sure of that. Not just a dream. Havilar had been there.

  “You talk in your sleep,” Bosh said. Both imps were perched on the footboard. “That’s a liability. You shouldn’t do that.”

  Brin sat up. The blue-eyed tiefling boy. “Has she come back?”

  “No,” Mot said. “Neither of them.”

  He got up and dressed quickly, checking his stores of components—not enough of the dried formian blood to make another sending, even if he’d had another scroll on him. Two scrolls, he thought. One to warn Farideh, one to warn the boy.

  “Do you need to know a name to make a sending ritual?”

  “You need to know how to cast a sending ritual without some hand-holding scroll,” Mot pointed out. “I thought you were some kind of priest. Don’t you have a ritual book?”

  “I don’t think he’s a priest,” Bosh said. “Priests should be taller. Unless they’re halflings.”

  “Never mind,” Brin said. “Do you know anything about dream magic? Like … how could someone appear in your dreams?”

  Mot looked at him as if he’d asked about stuffing eels in a coinpurse. “Why would you do that?”

  “Where do you think Bryseis Kakistos has Havilar?” Brin said, trying a different tack as he pulled on his boots.

  “There’s lots of places you could shift a soul,” Mot said. “I mean, I’ve heard of some. I can’t do that. I might know some people. She could just be dormant in there, for one.”

  “What if she’s not?”

  Bosh screwed up his face. “Souls are either in their bodies or in the afterlife. Anything else is too complicated.”

  “Shut up, Bosh,” Mot said. “You can put a soul in a vessel. That’s definitely been done before. Since she says that she’s planning to give Havilar back and she’s got a contingency for what happens if all this falls apart, it’s probably that. Dormant means it’s more likely she’d just get snapped up by some god or other when the body got killed.”

  Brin nearly asked what contingency Mot was talking about, but then he remembered Bryseis Kakistos’s cryptic, muddled orders to Farideh—make some new bodies. If Havilar died, the soul would be protected, ready to slip into some other body, the way Bryseis Kakistos had meant to slip into Farideh and Havilar.

  He donned the furs he’d been given and left the little room, Zoonie following close at his heels, Mot and Bosh flapping along ahead of him. “What things make vessels?”

  “Magic things,” Mot said.

  “Expensive magic things,” Bosh said. “You have to spend—”

  “Amulets,” Mot interrupted. “Figurines. Phylacteries. Other bodies.”

  Brin cast a glance back at Zoonie as they headed down a corridor. The hellhound wagged her tail happily, then caught sight of it and chased it in a circle a few times, scattering sparks. Probably not Zoonie.

  “It would have been in the room when they did the spell,” Mot added.

  “Ah, ye gods. The amulet.” Brin had nearly forgotten the blue stone on the chain that Havilar had been given to hold. “Is she still wearing that blue-gray stone?”

  “You can ask her that,” Mot said as they came to the library.

  To Brin’s surprise, Bryseis Kakistos and Phrenike’s voices echoed through the rows of books.

  “It’s in here somewhere,” Phrenike was saying. “Everything’s in here somewhere.”

  “And none of it has been touched in twenty years!” Bryseis Kakistos snapped.

  “Oh twenty years,” the lich said dismissively. “We have time to find it. We’re still missing three heirs.”

  Brin peered around a shelf in time to see Havilar drop down from halfway up one of the stone shelves. “And none of that will matter without the staff. Which means we need Caisys. Which means we need the notes in his spellbook. Now let me ask you again: Are you certain that you still have it?”

  Phrenike didn’t answer. The sight of the lich, looking wary and perhaps fearful when faced with what looked like Havilar, made Brin’s stomach twist up his throat. He edged forward, ever so slightly, eyes on the chain along the back of Havilar’s neck. Phrenike’s violet eyes fell on him, and she cleared her throat. Bryseis Kakistos whipped around.

  “Well met,” she said, straightening. “Can I help you?”

  “No,” he said. “Just gathering some things.”

  “Any luck with the stolen scion?”

  Behind her, Phrenike grinned. “Oh, he hasn’t told you yet?” she said, not giving Brin even a breath to consider a way to lie about the boy. “He’s found it. A boy. In Aglarond—isn’t that ironic?”

  Bryseis Kakistos shot her confederate a dark look. “Quite. Well done,” she said to Brin. She considered him. “I wasn’t sure you’d manage it. Especially after the business with Nalam.”

  “I didn’t have much choice, did I?” Brin said.

  “Choice is overrated,” she said. “But I’ll give you this one: Do you want to see him? He can stay with you when we return.”

  “Please.” The lump in Brin’s throat was so thick he could hardly breathe. “What are you going to do to them?” he asked quietly.

  Havilar’s golden eyes pierced him in a way that betrayed the being inside. “Make them useful. For all our sakes.”.

  • • •

  DOWN OVER THE rise, Uadjit and Kallan had been bickering, the giants were settling in, calling up rocks and a fence of brambles with their curious magic. All around them, a carpet of bodies of nearly a thousand humans and Vayemniri, antsy and anxious, waiting for an answer.

  “What in the karshoji Hells have you been doing?” Mehen asked Dahl in amazement.

  “Trying not to die, mostly,” Dahl said. He seemed less prickly somehow, less inclined to take the slight. Worn, Mehen thought. He’d been disappointed to find that Farideh wasn’t with Mehen, and completely incapable of hiding it. The giant that accompanied him to the ridge sat some distance away, watching him speak to Mehen with a
n unnerving level of attention.

  “When did you take the Vayemniri?” Uadjit asked from beside Mehen.

  When Dahl hesitated, Mehen snapped, “Dragonborn. Where did the dragonborn come from?”

  “Refugees from the same planar storm that brought Gilgeam and the Untherans, maybe half a tenday—”

  “We know which planar storm,” Mehen interrupted. “There’s only one karshoji planar storm. Do you think we live in the middle of that?”

  “What are they doing with you?” Uadjit said.

  “Gilgeam took them,” Dahl said. “Made them slaves.” They were Shestandeliath and Clethtinthtiallor, which thirty years ago would have put them three days north and east of Djerad Thymar, on a pair of horse farms raising warhorses like the one Mehen rode. Not Yrjixtilex, he thought, spotting Kallan moving among the survivors.

  “How many?” Uadjit asked.

  “Sixty-two. We lost about a dozen.”

  “Which means they lost around a third in the storm,” Uadjit said. “And presumably the homesteads as well.”

  Dahl shook his head. “We’re lucky they ran when I said. It was a bit dicey.”

  “Do I want to know why you ran headlong into an army of giants?” Mehen asked.

  “You didn’t see what I was running from.”

  The humans were rebels, which didn’t much settle Mehen’s own feelings on the matter. Someone had gone for their leader, Namshita, while Dahl broke things down for Mehen and Uadjit. “She needs to ask you for asylum,” Dahl said. “They have nowhere to go.”

  Mehen snorted. “Good karshoji luck to her. Her master just destroyed the forward regiment of Djerad Kethendi.”

  “Well, she knows things about that army,” Dahl returned, his tone sharpening. “Troop numbers, demon counts, what Gilgeam’s capable of doing. Besides, I was led to believe overthrowing tyrants was what the Vayemniri did best.”

  There was a hint of that prickliness, that sharp edge that Mehen had never liked. And now he was back, as if he’d never strolled out of Farideh’s life, as if he hadn’t vanished for a month, nothing but vague words assuring her that of course he still loved her, he just wasn’t going to respond when she cast sendings, nor come back. Between this one and Lorcan, Mehen was starting to think he’d set a bad example somewhere along the line.

  Kallan came up the rise, looking troubled. “We have a problem.”

  “What now?” Uadjit asked.

  “I was talking to some of the folks down there,” he said. “Got some interesting details from a Shestandeliath called Mazarka. She says the Untherans are still paying Gilgeam worship in secret. Caught a few of them at it when she went walking last night. They chased her, but she lost them in the dark.”

  “Mazarka said that?” Dahl said, sounding surprised. “She didn’t tell me.”

  Mehen frowned. “How many?”

  “She thinks it’s all of them,” Kallan said. “That this is all Gilgeam’s plan to break Djerad Thymar from the inside out.”

  “No.” Mehen turned and found Dumuzi standing there. “She’s wrong,” he said. “I’ve spoken to some of them. We all three have. They want to be free of Gilgeam. They want to know about Enlil.”

  Mehen sighed. “And what do you think they’d say if they were spies sent to end us?”

  “I think this Gilgeam could do better than to send little children and half-starved runaway slaves to end us,” Dumuzi said, sounding disgusted. “Leaving aside what Gilgeam might or might not do, what happened to not turning away would-be allies and the victims of tyrants? Have we fallen so far?”

  “Don’t be dramatic,” Mehen said. “If there aren’t any Gilgeam worshipers among them, then what did this Mazarka see?”

  Dumuzi hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “I would ask,” a new voice said, “what exactly she thinks she saw.” A broad-shouldered human woman with cropped hair and leather armor stood behind Dumuzi, close to Dahl. With her was a Calishite woman who looked vaguely familiar to Mehen, though he couldn’t place where he might have seen her—which usually meant Harpers. The giantess too had moved nearer, crouching beside the group and toying with an odd pendant she wore around her neck.

  “None of the people who fled with me are followers of the Son of Victory,” the woman said. “I would stake my life on that, and in effect I have: I cannot return. None of us can return, without paying the price. I don’t blame your caution, but I would suggest you consider carefully before spreading rumors that might cost lives.”

  Dahl cleared his throat. “May I introduce Namshita. The leader of the Untheran refugees.”

  “Well met,” Mehen said. “No one’s spreading rumors. You want to tell me you wouldn’t look into it if our positions were reversed, and it was your people in peril?”

  Namshita nodded to Dumuzi. “You’ve already sent your little priest out converting my people. Get them on the Vayemniri’s side before we commence?”

  “Or perhaps,” Uadjit said, “there’s no malice here, only misunderstanding. To be fair, whatever Mazarka saw, none of us can say what it looks like to pay Gilgeam worship.” She smiled. “The, ah, priest is my son, and while I would praise him for his many fine qualities, you should know we ourselves don’t have the best of relationships with the gods. He does not speak for Djerad Thymar.”

  Dumuzi stiffened at his mother’s dismissal, turning to look back across the plain, down at his would-be converts.

  “What is the difference,” the giant said, startling them all, “between his god-thing, the Son of Victory, and yours, Dahl Peredur?” She tilted her great, gray head. “Why is one an insult, one a danger, and one a boon?”

  Dahl caught Mehen’s eye a moment before answering. “They are different things to different people. They have different reasons for being, different motives in the world. I, um, I can’t speak to Dumuzi’s god—”

  “Enlil,” Dumuzi supplied.

  Dahl paused, looking still more puzzled. “Somni are you joining us now?”

  The giant considered the group, blinking slowly. “Yes, I think so. I am Somni,” she said. “forer of the Tusendraumren Steinjotunen.”

  “Chieftain,” Dahl supplied. “Of these giants. The Thousand-Dreaming Stone Giants. She’s the one who rescued us from Gilgeam.”

  Uadjit made a low, solemn bow. “Maetrish, I come bearing the gratitude of Djerad Thymar, of Clan Kepeshkmolik, of all the Vayemniri of Tymanther for sheltering our vulnerable and wounded. Your aid has been inestimable and we thank you.”

  Somni inclined her head. “You are very welcome, but this is only our way. When the dreaming intrudes on the waking, then clearly there is something important occurring.”

  Had Mehen been inclined toward such things, he would have thanked Enlil then and there that he wasn’t Uadjit. Faced with the giant chieftain’s hazy, woolgathering way of framing things, he would have certainly said something ill-advised and possibly thrown out the idea of allying with the Tusendraumren altogether.

  Dahl, he noticed, did not so much as wince at Somni’s strange speech.

  “I come also,” Uadjit went on, “to ask your further aid. The man they call Gilgeam, the Son of Victory, seeks to destroy us. We have long been prepared for an attack, but our forces are in disarray from an earlier attack, and this one is a foe unlike what we’ve faced before. You,” she said with significance, “have faced him before. You understand what it is we are up against. Please consider returning with me to Djerad Thymar, to discuss an alliance between the Vayemniri and the Tusendraumren.”

  Somni tilted her head again, letting her eyes drift shut. Mehen glowered at Dahl. “Such allies,” he muttered.

  “Just wait,” Dahl hissed.

  After a moment, Somni lifted her head. “No,” she said. “Gilgeam has stolen the draumrting of my father. But simply because he is our enemy does not mean that an alliance is in the best interests of my stomm or yours. Dahl Peredur has made me curious of the nature of these god-things, but we cannot yet risk allying with
them—Gilgeam or Enlil or Oghma. We have not been in this world long. We must dream and consider.”

  Uadjit’s teeth gapped for the barest of moments—the only hint to her frustration. Mehen folded his arms again, still glad he wasn’t the diplomat. “I understand,” Uadjit said. “I would ask then for your word that you don’t intend to turn against Tymanther. If we cannot be allies, then at least we should not be enemies.”

  Somni’s dark eyes suddenly seemed sharp as obsidian. “That too is a lot to promise.”

  “Somni,” Dahl said, “you’re in their lands now. You can delay, but—”

  “If I return to Djerad Thymar,” Uadjit said, “and tell my elders that the Tusendraumren cannot aid us, cannot promise us that they will not side with our enemies, cannot promise us that they won’t themselves become our enemies, then I cannot promise you that Tymanther will leave you in peace.”

  “What will you do, Vayemniri?” Somni asked. “We are not dragons.”

  “We have a great deal more experience fighting giants,” Uadjit said, “than gods and demons. Don’t mistake our knowledge of our weaknesses for weakness itself.”

  Somni smiled suddenly, openly. “I think we are understood,” she said. “Now, will you take the refugees then? Would you care for some assistance in conveying them back to your city?”

  The moon piercings along Uadjit’s brow shifted as she frowned. “Your pardon, but why would I accept your assistance when you’ve all but threatened me?”

  Somni stood, rising to a height three times Mehen’s own. “That’s how these things are done. We are allies and enemies in one breath, as you said. The Vayemniri did not rise because they were fools who did not understand the nature of people—do not tell me you have grown into weak tyrants of your own on this side.” She looked down at Dahl. “Will you come with me now, or do you wish to talk more before they leave?”

  “No,” Dahl said. “I mean, I have to go with them.”

  Somni tilted her head. “Your god-thing says we must speak, we must learn from each other, does it not?”