The Devil You Know

by Erin Evans

  “Bisera!” Alyona shouted. Her twin’s attention didn’t leave the stones as she started stacking them again.

  “That isn’t my name anymore,” she murmured, laying the largest stone against the faint mound in the dirt. “That girl is innocent. I’m not.”

  Havilar stared at the statue, but unlike the stone and the smells, it didn’t change. She stared at it, willing it to disappear. The statue only smiled back, until she had to look away.

  Alyona grabbed her sister by the wrist as she reached for another stone. “Stop. Stop.” She kneeled down beside Bryseis Kakistos. “This isn’t going like it’s supposed to. The girl is … Bisera? Bisera, listen to me.”

  Bryseis Kakistos looked up at her, eyes blazing. “I’m busy. It has to be right—you know that. I’m not leaving until it’s right.”

  “The girl is losing her memory,” Alyona said. “She needs to get back into her body.”

  Bryseis Kakistos blinked. She looked over Alyona’s shoulder at Havilar standing there, then turned back to the stones. “You shouldn’t have brought her. Everything is going according to plans. I have the heirs.”

  “Are you planning to hurt them?” Alyona demanded.

  Bryseis Kakistos balanced a triangular stone atop the last. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “I am going to worry about it,” her sister said. “Because that’s not what you promised.”

  “I’ve come too far to abandon everything now.” She picked up another rock. “We can’t remake the world without disrupting what’s here already.”

  “You can’t steal my body and kill a child!” Havilar shouted. Bryseis Kakistos didn’t so much as flinch—as if she hadn’t even spoken. Karshoj to that, Havilar thought, balling her hands into fists.

  Her fingers didn’t touch her palms, though. Suddenly the smooth wooden surface of her glaive materialized in her hands, as if in answer to her need.

  “You know what’s going to happen if you don’t hurry,” Alyona said. “And you know the Moonmaiden won’t be happy if—”

  Bryseis Kakistos knocked over the cairn with a sweep of one arm, surging to her feet. “To the Abyss with Selûne! Who do you think has stood in our way all these years? Who do you think made the vessel split? Whose blessing sealed them off from us?” Overhead, the lightning sprouted wildly, filling the clouds with thorny vines of light.

  Alyona’s expression hardened. “Your plan didn’t work. Her blessings protected them—and us, you’ll remember—from more devils, more meddling.”

  “She’s a god!” Bryseis Kakistos shouted. Flames started pouring into her hands. “If she gave a care, she could have stopped it. We wouldn’t be here. Any of us.”

  “Including me,” Havilar said. Glaive in hand, she felt a measure of security she couldn’t have conjured on her own. This was her head; these dreams were hers as much as Bryseis Kakistos’s. “Give my body back.”

  Bryseis Kakistos glanced at Havilar from the corner of her eyes. One hand shot out, and an invisible, irresistible force yanked the glaive from Havilar’s grip. The weapon flew from her, disappearing into the dark and shadowed forest. Thunder shook the mountainsides and when Havilar tried to shout, she found her voice had evaporated.

  “You,” Bryseis Kakistos said, “are nothing. Don’t speak again.”

  “Enough!” Alyona bellowed. Moonlight split the storm like a plow made of pearlescent light, shoving the thick clouds aside, uprooting the shadows of the dark forest. The stone statue remained, swaddled in an unnatural darkness. Bryseis Kakistos turned to her twin, startled.

  “She is helping you,” Alyona said. “More than any soul out there, she is helping you, so don’t take that tone. You owe her better—you owe all of us better!”

  Bryseis Kakistos said nothing for a long moment. She looked down at the scattered cairn, the slight mound of dirt. “I’m trying to fix it,” she said softly. “Please don’t be angry.”

  “Please let her go,” Alyona said. “It’s taking too long. We can find another way.”

  Bryseis Kakistos shook her head. “I need more time. I need to find where Caisys went. I need … Please. Don’t be angry. We’ll make right what we need to, afterward.”

  Alyona embraced her sister, and the Brimstone Angel hugged her back as if she were afraid one or both of them would break. “I’m not angry,” Alyona said. “But you have to rethink this plan, Bisera.”

  “We’ll make right what we need to, afterward,” she said again. “Go back to the soul sapphire. I need to wake up.” She returned to her stone-stacking, not saying another word to Havilar. Alyona pursed her mouth, but took Havilar by the hand, heading away from the grave and the dark forest.

  The return to the soul sapphire’s prison left Havilar feeling thinner, less real, confirming the urgency Alyona had been trying to convince her sister of. Havilar wrapped her arms around her chest—was this how Alyona felt? Would there be any “making it right”?

  Don’t panic, she told herself. Brin’s out there. Farideh’s out there. Mehen’s out there.

  And she’d made a glaive in the dream world—that was something.

  Is she always like that? Havilar asked Alyona, trying not to let the panic leak into her voice.

  Alyona stared into the depths of the swirling mists, as if lost in grim thought. No, she said finally. Are you feeling well enough to travel again?

  Havilar’s tail slashed the mists. Where? And why?

  Alyona turned to her, every bit the priestess who’d split the storm of Bryseis Kakistos’s madness. You need to go back to your young man, Alyona said. You need to tell him to take the soul sapphire from my sister. She isn’t on our side any longer.

  14

  3 Hammer, the Year of the Rune Lords Triumphant (1487 DR)

  Djerad Thymar, Tymanther

  DAHL’S BROTHERS HAULED HIM OFF THE FLOOR BEFORE FARIDEH COULD. His breath came in rapid gasps, his skin clammy, but as he came upright, his eyes found Farideh’s, fearful and fully aware of what he’d done—this wasn’t just rage or madness. All she wanted for a moment was to go with him, to make sure he was all right.

  But that wouldn’t solve things, a part of her thought.

  “Get Adastreia,” she told Mehen. “Tell her she needs to heal him. Or both of them.”

  “A healing won’t work,” Sairché called. Up on her knees, she was peering down at Lorcan and Dahl. “That’s a curse.”

  “No.” Lorcan’s skin had a terrible pallor, his veins still carving dark lines across his face. “It’s not … It’s worse. It’s him and it’s worse and … You can’t change him.” He turned to Dahl, a flicker of something devilish persisting in his dark eyes. “Can she? He doesn’t just curse you, they say—he finds how you’ve cursed yourself.”

  “Who?” Farideh demanded.

  Dahl lunged against his brothers' grip. “Get up, you stlarning bastard!”

  “He needs a priest,” Bodhar said again. “It’s a curse that—all right, hrast Dahl, stop it.” Thost yanked hard on Dahl’s arm, pulling him back on his heels and nearly knocking him over. “No one’s saying you don’t have reason to hit him,” Bodhar went on.

  “Get him in the other room,” Farideh said.

  Dahl looked at her, the rage in his expression melting into something fearful. He turned deliberately to Mehen. “Do you know what he did? He left us trapped in the Underdark. Pulled us to a cave with no exit but a fathomless lake and used his portal to get himself out of there. We only escaped because my grandmother sacrificed herself.”

  Mehen gave Farideh a significant look over Dahl’s head. “Sounds like an excellent reason to punch a fellow.”

  Farideh couldn’t deny that Dahl probably had lists of reasons to hit Lorcan, even setting aside the death of his grandmother. But no matter how terrible Lorcan was, without him, she didn’t have a portal, she didn’t have access to the Hells, she didn’t have her powers. “Send one of the hatchlings to find a priest,” she told Mehen. “It doesn’t matter who and it doesn’t
matter how they know them, just that they can get here fast. Tell them that.” To Dahl she said, more gently, “Let them take you into the other room. I’ll come soon.”

  Dahl said nothing, and anxiety curdled her stomach. She pushed it away. One thing at a time. As the others left the room, she turned to Lorcan, still collapsed on the floor, skin still half a shade from a corpse’s.

  “Do you want to hear my side of it?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Oh this should be good,” Sairché crowed. “The grandmother was an assassin? Hm? An Abyssal plant? The demonic daughter of a murderous cultist sent to hunt the Brimstone Angel?”

  “Did you leave him trapped in the Underdark?” Farideh asked.

  Lorcan sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do know,” Farideh said. “I think it’s pretty karshoji hard not to know if you left someone trapped in the Underdark.”

  “I got him away from the demon lord. I assumed that’s what you would have wanted.” Lorcan said. The usual edge in his voice was dulled, not sharp enough to cover the hurt in it.

  Farideh squeezed her hands into fists. “How?”

  “Used a teleportation scroll he had. I sent it to the first cavern in range—there wasn’t time for anything else. And then, yes, I got out of there. You saw what happens when I’m alone with him. Why would I want to do that more than once?”

  Farideh could imagine it, how easily such a thing could happen, how easily it might seem purposeful. How easily it might be purposeful, and Lorcan might be turning the telling in such a way that he wasn’t at all to blame.

  Maybe—if whatever had caused Lorcan to start acting so strange, so fragile, so human had been in play then as well, it was hard to see him thinking quickly enough to do anything of the sort. Lorcan considered her a moment.

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “About what?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t been the chastest while he’s been away.”

  Whatever fondness had welled in her for Lorcan dried up. “What were you doing there?” she asked. “Down in the Underdark?”

  “Rescuing Sairché,” Lorcan said. “She went to make a deal with Graz’zt.”

  “That,” Sairché said, “was Bryseis Kakistos—the moment I saw the demon lord, I told her I wasn’t having it. I blacked out thereafter.”

  “Fine,” Lorcan said. “The Brimstone Angel went to make a deal with Graz’zt—all I saw was the sister I have a very strict agreement of protection with in mortal peril. But once there, I found Dahl. You might ask your brightbird what he had going with Bryseis Kakistos and the Dark Prince that they were in the same place at the same time.”

  Farideh didn’t move. “Did Graz’zt make some kind of deal with Dahl? Is that why he can’t talk?”

  “Does he have a deal?” Lorcan asked. Farideh held her tongue—not an answer. After a moment Lorcan sighed. “Fine, he obviously has a deal. I haven’t looked into it. I don’t care if he has a deal. You can’t possibly think it reasonable to ask me to try and salvage the mess he’s made of your happiness.” He looked over at Sairché. “Did you do it?”

  “No,” Sairché said. “I had better things to worry about. But don’t pretend you weren’t trying to bait me into something similar.”

  Lorcan turned back to Farideh. “I won’t,” he told her. “I can say with absolute sincerity I would be very happy if Sairché had Dahl caught in some kind of deal.”

  None of it fit right, Farideh thought, and if there weren’t ten thousand other more important things to worry about, she would have sat here and turned every word Lorcan spoke until all these half-truths made a story that made sense. Sitting on the bed, Sairché scowled in a way that made Farideh think she felt the same way.

  “You didn’t make that deal?” Sairché said. “Lords of the Nine, how did you let that slip you by?”

  Lorcan rubbed his forehead. “I’m tired again,” he told Farideh. “Where can I lie down?”

  “I’ll help you to Mehen’s room,” Farideh said. She pulled Lorcan up from the floor. “At least you know what you need to do to make it better now.”

  The look he gave her was full of such weary sadness, Farideh regretted saying a word. “I don’t know that it’s better,” he said.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Sairché said. “That spell essentially knocks what’s devilish from him. He’s full of nonsense.”

  Farideh turned to Lorcan, startled by the explanation. He didn’t deny it. This was why he couldn’t give her spells, why he was falling asleep, why he was telling her he loved her. Everything devilish, drained away. For a moment, some part of her was elated.

  But no, no. This wasn’t better. This wasn’t Lorcan, to begin with, and if he’d sought out a solution, then it wasn’t what he wanted to be. And this Lorcan couldn’t help her, a mercenary part of her thoughts pointed out. Couldn’t give her the magic she needed, couldn’t negotiate with devils. This Lorcan might love her, but he might also get her killed by the likes of Kulaga.

  This Lorcan might love her, but she didn’t want that, she reminded herself.

  “Is she right?” Farideh asked, letting him lean on her.

  “Near as I can tell?” he said. “Yes.”

  “Wait,” Sairché called. “They’ve returned from the giants, I see? What’s the answer?”

  “I don’t know,” Farideh said. “I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to them.”

  “I thought of something they might consider instead,” Sairché said. “You have that young dragonborn going around talking to a god—presumably the god has minions. Angels, archons, that sort of thing. They could stand against demons, one would presume.”

  “I don’t think he has those things,” Farideh said. “Excuse me.”

  “You have to do something!” Sairché cried. “It hardly matters if you stop the Brimstone Angel if you get killed in the mix.”

  The powers of the Hells boiled up Farideh’s nerves. “It matters if I save Havi.”

  “Are you really just going to flit around trying to find a way to stop Bryseis Kakistos when the obvious answer is to kill your sister?”

  If she’d still held the powers of a Chosen of Asmodeus, Farideh would have burst into flames in that moment. Instead she stepped from the room without a word and slammed the door, trapping Sairché in her prison. It wasn’t as satisfying as she hoped.

  Focus, Farideh told herself. You don’t have time to be distracted. You don’t have time to deal with these momentary things. She ignored Lachs’s and Adastreia’s pointed stares as she helped Lorcan into Mehen’s room.

  “You know he’s going to tell you to break the pact,” Lorcan said, grabbing her hand as he settled on the bed. “Dahl. It’s coming. I think he’ll do anything to make certain we’re apart.”

  That might be wisest, Farideh thought, but then she considered the portal, the Nine Hells, and Havilar on the other side of the world. Absently, she brushed the hair from his forehead. “You need to sleep. I have things to take care of.”

  “Stay,” he said, catching her hand. “I hate this part so much.”

  Wise or not, she sat down on the edge of the bed and waited until his breathing slowed, deepened, until he was past the gates of sleep.

  Out in the sitting room again, Dahl’s brothers had joined the Brimstone Angels and a Verthisathurgiesh hatchling—a boy called Hencin—was setting down a platter of food with a nervous glance at Farideh. And standing beyond them, quiet and calm as ever, Mira Zawad waited. She nodded at Farideh as their eyes met, a nervous half smile on her lips.

  Adastreia looked back over the edge of the couch. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Were you?” Farideh looked over at the closed door to her room. “Did they find a priest?”

  “Yes,” Hencin said. “A cousin of a friend—well, a friend of a friend, really. You don’t need to tell Matriarch Anala, right?”

  Bodhar smiled at Farideh. “Been in there a few breaths. Guess it’ll take a while to
fix him up?”

  Farideh shook her head. “What happened? He’s … I mean I know he can have a temper sometimes, but he doesn’t act like that—”

  “Oh, that’s on account of the demon lord in the Underdark,” Bodhar said. “Did some spell on him.”

  “Gretz,” Thost said, arms folded.

  “Graz’t?” Farideh asked.

  “Graz’zt,” Mira confirmed. “Dark Prince, Lord of Azzagrat. I wouldn’t believe it either if we hadn’t seen it ourselves.” Again that nervous half smile that made Farideh’s tail lash. “His, um, powers affected all of us.”

  “Dahl especially,” Bodhar said. “Anyway, he did that before when that devil fellow turned up the first time. Punched him right in the chest.” He blanched. “I don’t mean like a tiefling. I mean … he’s definitely a devil, right? I wouldn’t call you all … that.”

  “He’s a half-devil,” Farideh said.

  “And … that’s different,” Bodhar said.

  “Difference between a half-elf and a story about your great-great-great-grand-mother being a princess of Cormanthyr,” Lachs supplied. “Fiendish blood doesn’t water out, but it doesn’t cling on your brain and steer you around.”

  “Not anymore,” Adastreia said.

  Mira glanced back at the closed door. “How long do you expect it to take?” she asked Hencin.

  The dragonborn’s tongue hammered the roof of his mouth. “I don’t know. I don’t dabble in that sort of thing.”

  Mira bit her upper lip, deep in thought. Again, it sent an uneasy twitching through Farideh’s tail. “It sounds like he needs a proper priest,” Farideh said. “Do you think Tam would come?”

  Mira hesitated. “He’s rather busy.”

  “Dahl’s rather cursed,” Farideh pointed out. “It can’t hurt to ask. Will you?”

  Again, Mira bit her lip. “Tell Dahl I’ll be back later on, all right?” She excused herself and left, trailed by Hencin carrying his empty tray.