The Devil You Know

by Erin Evans

  Farideh found an empty spot on the couch. As much as she didn’t want to face Dahl’s family without him, she wanted answers more. “Do you think Lorcan trapped you in that cave on purpose?”

  Bodhar shrugged. “Damned if I know. Just a lot of shouting and madness and then there we were.”

  “He knew,” Thost supplied. “Said some things that made it sound that way, anyhow. ‘All that counts is I didn’t break my word to Farideh’—like that.”

  Which fit with Dahl’s version and fit with Lorcan’s version fine. And altogether made Farideh wish she’d never let them cross paths, somehow. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About your grandmother.”

  Bodhar nodded once. “Many thanks. It was her idea, make no mistake. Dahl was bound to stay behind himself, I wager, and she was having none of it. Feisty old lady.”

  “ ’Twouldn’t surprise me she’s still alive down there,” Thost said. “Ordering drow about.”

  Lachs cocked his head. “You’ve never met a drow, have you?”

  “You never met my granny,” Thost pointed out.

  Farideh glanced over at her door again—still shut. As tangled and troubled as everything was—as worse as this new complication had made things—all she wanted to do was go to him, to take a moment and just deal with this small, safe problem and see it resolved. If it could be resolved, she thought. There was every chance that the staff of Azuth would be less a snarl than Dahl would. The others took food from the platters, but she found her appetite lacking.

  “Is he very angry?” she asked.

  “At you?” Bodhar asked. “Don’t think so. Think he’s worried you’re angry at him. Pretty mad at the devil, though—and not just about the Underdark, you catch my meaning.”

  “He shouldn’t worry about that,” Farideh said.

  “Yeah, but that’s Dahl,” Bodhar said. He cast a glance at Thost and chuckled. “Knarp hunting.”

  Farideh sat down. “What’s a knarp?”

  “Nothing,” Thost said, grinning through his beard. “ ’Tweren’t kind.”

  “So Dahl’s maybe five, maybe six.” Bodhar said. “Which’d put me and Thost around about seventeen and nineteen. And he’s a serious little cuss. Smart as a whip and stlarning hates being talked to like a little’un. Well, so we play a little joke on him, right? Try to make him crack. We start stealing the laces out of his boots at night, leaving them all tied up in knots in the middle of his toys. Tell him, ‘Oh, that’s a sure sign you’ve got a knarp on you. Better leave it your share of ma’s apple cake to appease it.’

  “But Dahl, no, he’s all riled. He decides, to the Abyss with the knarp, he’s going to give it what for. Doesn’t tell a soul, mind, what he’s got planned—not me, not Thost, not anyone.”

  “Ma was furious,” Thost said. “Figured it was on a level with letting him go leucrotta hunting all on his own.”

  “Oh yeah,” Bodhar said. “All ‘what if there had really been a knarp? What then?’ But that’s getting ahead. So Dahl’s decided he’s doing this. Thost and I slip into his room, middle of the night, expecting a bit more than our share of the cake, and what’s waiting for us? Our mite of a brother, fireplace poker in hand, sitting in front of his boots and his apple cake, and watching the door.”

  “Looking fierce as an orc in winter,” Thost said. “For a little’un.”

  “You don’t have kids,” Bodhar said, “so maybe you don’t know how unlikely it is for a kiddo of five to be sitting up past deepnight, not giving in and not eating the damned apple cake, because he’s going to have it out with a bogie. Doesn’t happen, but Dahl, he’s determined. Well, he saw us and he knew. All of it. Came flying at us. Threw the poker down, screamed like a banshee and managed to kick me in the shins before Thost threw him over his shoulder. Then we went back downstairs, calmed him down, and shared his apple cake and thought we’d made up.” He started chuckling again. “Then, next night, he stole the laces outta our boots and threw them in the pig pen.”

  Thost chuckled. “Da made him dig them out.”

  “And Granny said, ‘Serves ’em right for acting like fools. Don’t prod a wasp’s nest and act surprised when it stings.’ ” He said it fondly, as if he missed her sharpness. He smiled at Farideh. “He can get a bit up in his own thoughts and you’d think he’s pretty mild given that. But see, you push too far and he’ll push back. You try and take something important, he’s not going to let you.”

  Farideh bristled. “I’m not bootlaces.”

  Bodhar wrinkled his nose. “No, see, you’re the apple cake.” He looked to Thost, who only shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t translate too well if you’re not Dallish.”

  But Farideh understood all too well, and it wasn’t a sentiment she wanted. Whether it was supposed to make her feel prized or guilty, the whole notion left a sour taste in her mouth. She filled up a plate with easily grabbed things and excused herself, heading into her room.

  The priest was young and silver-scaled, calm in a way that Farideh didn’t believe as he moved his clawed hands over Dahl, a disk of gleaming platinum in one hand. Farideh stood just inside the door, holding the plate, not wanting to disrupt anything. Demon lords, deals with devils—do something, Bahamut, Farideh thought.

  The priest clenched his fists shut as the faint echo of a roar in a depthless cavern shivered through the air. “I’m sure it’s only temporary,” he said, growing flustered. “Perhaps it’s … poor timing?”

  Mehen sighed, nostrils flaring, and Dahl cut a glance to her she couldn’t decipher. The young priest turned to Mehen. “Perhaps Bahamut would save his blessings for someone … someone more of our sort.”

  “Dahl’s as much our sort as a karshoji silver dragon,” Mehen said.

  “Platinum,” the young priest corrected. But he knew enough to show himself out.

  “What about Dumuzi?” Farideh asked as the door closed. “Can he do anything?”

  “Go ask Dumuzi how many prayers to Enlil a curse costs and see how that goes,” Mehen said. “You’d be better off cutting Lorcan loose and not worrying about it any further.”

  “I like that plan,” Dahl chimed in, not looking at her.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” Mehen asked.

  “Fine,” Farideh said. “I won’t do it. We don’t have another way to get a portal, we don’t have anyone else who can keep track of what’s happening in the Nine Hells—”

  “Karshoj to the Hells,” Mehen said irritably. “Worry about your sister.”

  “I am worried about my sister.”

  “And what do we have to show for it?” Mehen said. “Lorcan’s distracting you with this Hells nonsense.”

  “No,” Farideh said. “Lorcan is the only source I have of a portal. He’s the only way I could find the other heirs—”

  “And what good are they?”

  “He’s the only way I found Havi’s son!” Farideh said, raising her voice. “All right? You don’t have to like him—neither of you have to like him, but will you trust for a karshoji heartbeat that maybe I’m doing what’s best this time?”

  Whatever triumph she might have found in knocking Mehen off-balance was gone the moment he heard her. He looked as if someone had made all the air in the room vanish, leaving him breathless and startled. “What son?”

  Farideh wet her mouth. “That’s what I was about to tell you when you came in. There’s another heir, and Sairché says he’s Havi’s son. That she had a baby while we were trapped in the Nine Hells and Sairché hid him away.”

  “Oghma’s bloody—” Dahl swore. He turned to Mehen and continued as if he had always meant to be speaking to Mehen “… papercuts. Mehen.”

  Mehen’s gaze didn’t leave Farideh. “Did … did you find him?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And then before I could convince his parents to come back here, Bryseis Kakistos showed up and took him.”

  Mehen drew back. “You saw Havilar? You saw her and you waited until now to say something
?”

  “I didn’t exactly get a chance.”

  “You make a chance for something like that!” he all but roared.

  Farideh started to protest, but then Dahl stood. “Gods’ books! Cut her a little slack—you don’t think I threw the conversation more than a little askew? And you might have missed the fact that she’s got stlarning burns up her neck—if I’m catching any of this, I’m going to say that seeing Havilar didn’t go like you’re imagining it, so maybe you ought to try again.”

  Farideh was stunned. Mehen looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to yell at Dahl, to yell at Farideh, to storm out of the room, and to go rescue Havilar himself, and maybe the boy too.

  “She looks well enough,” Farideh said, more quietly. She tugged the collar of her armor as if she could hide the marks. “Havi, I mean. I tried to stop … her, but I couldn’t do much. Not without hurting Havi. She knew that.”

  “Was Brin with her?” Mehen finally asked.

  “No. Just her.” She blew out a breath. “Bryseis Kakistos has a good deal of magic gathered up—tattoos, stored magic, spells that I don’t recognize. And the Chosen powers. Mine, at least. I don’t think she has a pact exactly, which means we can’t count on Asmodeus closing that off to her.” She wet her mouth. “I’m sorry I couldn’t catch her. I wasn’t ready.”

  Mehen rubbed a hand over his face. “I should have asked about the burns,” he said after a moment. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “She hit me pretty hard with a spell. Adastreia had some healing spells, and the salve in your room took care of what was left. I don’t think it will scar. But she took him, so trying to stop her by holding onto the Kakistos heirs won’t work. We have to find the staff of Azuth.” And then, because it needed saying, “His name’s Remzi.”

  Mehen cursed and cursed and cursed. Farideh stood, unmoving, the enormity of all of this suddenly threatening to overwhelm her. Somehow it was one thing to know all of it, but another to tell the story, to pass that heartache on to someone else. Dahl looked back at her, and wordlessly came to stand beside her, taking her free hand in his. She shut her eyes.

  Mehen snapped his teeth once. “I have to go and talk to Uadjit,” he said, sounding grim. “Do not leave again until I’ve come back. Please.”

  Farideh shook her head. “I’ll make sure you know.” Mehen scowled—it wasn’t the answer he wanted—but embraced her, forcing Dahl aside. The door closed behind Mehen, sealing Farideh and Dahl in with a silence so foreign and complete, it felt like a tide rising up to swallow them both.

  Farideh set the plate down on the dressing table, and clenched her hands to hide the tremor there.

  The silence stretched. Too many feelings, too many things she ought to say, she wanted to say, crowded in her head: That he couldn’t hit Lorcan, she needed Lorcan, whatever else he’d done. That she didn’t have time or space for being someone’s “apple cake” while her sister was in danger—and little interest in it otherwise. That she still wasn’t sure she wasn’t angry at him for telling her not to come to Harrowdale, for vanishing, for not explaining what had happened. That she’d noticed how twitchy Mira had been acting and the way he’d looked at her in Lorcan’s scrying pool.

  A lump built in her throat. That she was sorry, so sorry, about his grandmother, whether it had been Lorcan’s fault or not. That she knew he was caught in something devilish, something he’d surely been tricked into. That she was beyond glad he was here, so happy she didn’t deserve it. That she’d let Lorcan kiss her and thought about more, so maybe it didn’t matter if she wanted to be anyone’s apple cake anyway.

  She swallowed hard, too full of too much to keep the careful control she’d managed. She hadn’t cried since Havilar disappeared—what claimed her thoughts now had no business breaking her resolve.

  Dahl came over beside her. A clink, a scratching, and then he slid a piece of foolscap over beside the plate. Are you all right?

  “No.” Her tears broke. “Karshoj. Gods, I … karshoj.” And whether he’d been joking when he’d sworn he would never face her father, enough truth lingered in the jest to make her certain. She wiped her eyes. “You faced Clanless Mehen for me. You really love me, don’t you?”

  Dahl chuckled and scratched another line. Gods’ books, you never listen.

  She laughed, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her near, so they fitted together more perfectly than Farideh could have dared imagine. She couldn’t have said if it was she or he who shifted first, if her hand reached for his cheek before his hand pressed to the middle of her back, drawing her near. But when they kissed, the tide of silence lost its danger, and left this moment, an island of real in a sea of wrong. It was as if they’d never left Suzail, never lost what they’d had in the little tallhouse off the Promenade.

  And the door definitely locked.

  Dahl pulled back, kissed her jaw, and she heard the beginnings of a word shaped in his exhale. His whole body went rigid. She bit her lip, heart sinking. It wasn’t that he couldn’t talk to her—it was that he wasn’t allowed.

  “All right,” she said, catching her breath. “None of that for now.”

  He fumbled for the paper. I won’t talk.

  Farideh bit back a laugh and kissed him. “You know you can’t promise that.”

  I will find a silence ritual?

  “Just hold me a moment?” she asked. Dahl rested his forehead against hers, wordlessly stroking her back.

  “Everything’s terrible,” she told him. “Except that I have you back.”

  He reached for the ink pot once more, left arm still looped around her waist. Mehen told me. I’m so sorry about your sister. I know she

  Farideh grabbed his hand, stopped the stylus. “Don’t be sorry. Please don’t be sorry. It’s not permanent yet.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry about your grandmother.”

  Dahl pursed his mouth, then squeezed her hand back before writing, He said you were looking for heirs and a staff.

  “Right,” she said. “I found the heirs, and then I lost …” Remzi’s terrified face flashed in her thoughts. “The heirs aren’t the choke point anymore. We have to find the staff and we have to find it fast.” And then I have to find a way to stop Bryseis Kakistos, she thought. Without hurting Havilar.

  I can help, Dahl wrote.

  Farideh set a hand on his chest. “It’s dangerous. Even if we don’t consider … you have a deal with someone, don’t you?”

  Dahl’s expression closed. I can’t talk about that.

  “And you can’t talk to me,” she said. “I’m guessing it’s someone, something who wants to make sure I don’t have your help? Maybe someone who thinks this is a good way to thwart Asmodeus?”

  Dahl looked as if he’d like to hurl the ink pot right into the face of whatever fiend had bound him. He drew a careful line under I can’t talk about that.

  “The punishment must be steep,” Farideh said. “I don’t want you getting hurt because we slipped.”

  Well, you don’t get to decide that, he wrote. Also, I think I solved your problem on the way here, so don’t run me off so quick.

  Farideh frowned. “What?”

  The staff of Azuth, he wrote. No one’s seen it since the Spellplague. Asmodeus doesn’t have it—otherwise

  “Right—she wouldn’t be looking for it if it were in his hands.”

  Dahl scowled at her. You have to let me finish, he scribbled. It’s not fair you can interrupt me but I can’t interrupt you.

  Farideh smiled. She took the stylus and wrote under his line, Sorry. Continue?

  Dahl chuckled. Not with Asmodeus. Not in the Hells. Not on this plane, because then he would have sent followers after it. Not on any plane he could grab it or an ally of Azuth could grab it.

  Farideh gestured for the stylus. Adastreia and Lachs guessed that much. But too many planes. I’m afraid the answer is the Abyss. You?

  Grinning, Dahl turned the paper, finding a clear corner. Not the Abyss—Abeir, h
e wrote. Where would you hide an artifact from a god if not the plane that has no gods? And I think I know someone who might be able to help.

  • • •

  ILSTAN’S BED WAS heaped high with treasures. At a glance, they were only ordinary things—stones and scrolls and plain little rings. But what the eyes couldn’t see, the Art could unveil. Every object was imbued with magic, and even Ilstan had to admit the collection was an astonishing thing for as few days as he’d spent on it.

  Magic is a gift and a blessing and a millstone, the voice of Azuth murmured in his thoughts. What can you do but answer it?… What can you do but embrace what will consume you?…

  Ilstan closed his eyes, grieving for the pain in the god’s voice. If I were a more powerful Chosen, he thought. If I were a wiser man. If I were not so weak a vessel.

  If you were those things, the voice replied, you would be someone else entirely, and I shouldn’t have Chosen you. Wish to know the unknowable if you must, but I can think of fewer wastes of time and effort so great.

  Ilstan’s eyes flew open—all the clarity, all the coherence of the voice of the god of sin. But this was not Asmodeus—not this time. “My lord?” he whispered.

  The voice said nothing. Ilstan crossed back over to the pile of magic items, two stones in his hands humming with a force that echoed between them like two matching voices. Linked by magic, they could connect to one another across the vastness of Toril, letting two speakers conduct a sending without needing to cast the spell. He set them reverently on the pile with the rest.

  … power has a rhythm, has a pattern, has a flow … a true wizard knows before something becomes uncontrollable … when the pattern changes, when the flow reverses, when the rhythm shatters … a true wizard knows … but most people do not …

  Ilstan froze. He’d heard those words before, moments before blue fire rolled over Djerad Thymar. Moments before the other voice, the voice of Asmodeus, told him quite bluntly that he needed to go find Kepeshkmolik Dumuzi and tell him what was happening.

  “Is it about to start again?” he whispered.

  Silence. Awful silence. Ilstan shut his eyes, reaching deep into himself, searching for the core of his strength, the touch of the Weave, the edges of the fabric of the plane. The magic did not cling and snap the way it had before, but there was a thickness to the air that felt unnatural.