The Devil You Know

by Erin Evans

  Maybe she wouldn’t, he thought. Maybe there would be another path.

  He watched Adastreia walking ahead of him. She spoke from experience. She knew what would happen because it had happened. Was there any future that didn’t conspire to destroy them?

  As they reached the encampment, Ilstan threw his head back and his arms wide. “What splendor is this?” he murmured. “What new shape of magic?”

  “Peculiar, you ask me,” Thost said, taking the reins of Ilstan’s horse.

  “Come on,” Dahl said, to no one in particular. But as he passed, Farideh took his hand in hers. He didn’t look back at Lorcan, for all he wanted to.

  The chieftain sat beside a young giant, chisel in her hand, carving pictures directly into his skin and singing softly as she did. The young giant’s eyes were closed, his head drooping, as if he sat sleeping.

  Dahl squeezed Farideh’s hand tight, until Somni’s song drifted into stillness. She turned and smiled at him in a beatific way. “So you did come back. And you brought so many more.” She brushed the stone dust from her charge’s arm, flicking rocks from the channels that made the shape of a serpent wreathed in flames.

  “Sadly I haven’t come to stay, not yet,” Dahl said. “We have a serious problem, and I think you might be able to help us.” He introduced the others. Somni nodded at each.

  “They have interesting markings as well,” she said, her gaze lingering on Farideh. Farideh’s hand twitched in his, and he thought of the raised scars of her warlock brand. He held tight. “What is it you want help with?” Somni asked.

  “You mentioned artifacts,” Dahl said, “things from this world that were thrown into yours when the planes last crossed. We’re looking for a powerful artifact that we believe was smuggled into Abeir around the time of the last collision—a staff, belonging to a god.”

  Somni considered him. “What will you do with this knowledge, Dahl Peredur?”

  Dahl hesitated. Save Havilar—but that was only a fraction of the problem. Return Azuth to his previous strength—but he couldn’t say that was even possible, or that Farideh even meant to do it. Bring the staff into Toril, where Asmodeus might be able to snatch it—that was uncomfortably true, a problem they hadn’t even begun to consider.

  Dahl glanced sidelong at Farideh. Had she considered it?

  “We need the staff to stop a dangerous spellcaster,” Farideh answered when he didn’t. “She wants it in order to punish a god, to kill him. But doing so will kill my sister.”

  Somni frowned. “Do you normally kill your god-things?”

  “It’s complicated,” Dahl said. “Do you recall anyone ever seeing a staff?”

  For a long moment, Somni didn’t speak. “In the other world, in a cave in the mountains, in the caverns where we mine the crystal for the draumrting, there is something that does not belong. In one of these caves there is no crystal, but the whole place pulses with a magic that would be much more at home in this place. We don’t go there—others have. I have not seen it or sought it out myself, but they say it is only a stick of wood, but that it glows and gives strange and terrible dreams.”

  Dahl nearly shouted in triumph. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you. If you could just—”

  “How will you get there, Dahl Peredur?”

  A complex question. “We have ideas,” he said. “Places to start. There are still places here that bear the scars of the last collision. There’s the possibility the planes are close still. There’s the one who hid the staff in the first place. But if we don’t have a map of where to find the staff, it won’t matter. We don’t have time to search a whole plane.”

  “You always talk of not having time.” Somni studied the lot of them—human, tiefling, half-devil—for so long, Dahl began to wonder if she’d even understood the question. But then she nodded once. “I will give you the map,” Somni agreed. “The price is three dreams.”

  Dahl frowned. “Forgive me, I don’t understand what you mean. You … want us to give you the power from three dreams?”

  “Yes,” Somni said. “As well as the visions in them. In your dreams, I will see that you can be trusted with this—or not. Our bond will strengthen and so will our draumrtings. This is the price.”

  Dahl glanced over at Farideh. For as long as he’d known her, she’d suffered from nightmares and she didn’t like talking about them. He thought of the time in the prison camp that they’d both drunk a tainted potion called the wizard’s finest, that hurtled them into a distorted dream of Farideh’s. She didn’t look at him, but her expression looked grim.

  “Which of us do you want?” she asked Somni.

  Somni regarded her as if she were an anxious child. “It is best if you all sleep,” Somni said. “And I will find the dreams that need to be found.”

  16

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

  Tymanther, near the Smoking Mountains

  THE MOON ROSE, WANING GIBBOUS OVER SOMNI’S LEFT SHOULDER, AS THE Tusendraumren Steinjotunen chanted a loop of song, blending their magic into the powers of the Weave. Farideh could feel the edges of it, closing like a gossamer-fine net around them. She had never wanted so badly not to sleep.

  She wasn’t the only one. Dahl sat close to Somni, writing notes in a leather-bound book. Thost and Bodhar’s bedrolls were laid out but unoccupied, the brothers wandering the camp. Ilstan lay staring up at the stars, unblinking, and Lorcan stood at the edge of the magic’s reach, arms folded, eyes shadowed. Only Adastreia slept, as if nothing they were doing mattered in the least.

  Farideh rubbed the pinch of her brow. The night before, what little she’d slept had been plagued by nightmares, frantic races to find Havilar, battles with warlock after warlock, the armies of Bryseis Kakistos, Lorcan, and nothing she wanted the giant to ask questions about. Farideh watched Dahl scribbling notes. Every time she’d spoken to him, there was a moment where he’d almost speak—an intake of breath shaped around the thought of a word—but he’d catch himself, close his mouth around it. It frightened her. The danger in speaking so clear and yet unexplained.

  This is what happens when you make deals with devils, she thought. This is what happens to the people you love.

  Farideh walked to the farther side of the circle and sat down next to Lorcan. “You’re going to need to sleep.”

  “I don’t particularly want an odd giant sifting through my thoughts,” Lorcan said, still standing. “Or dreams, or whatever. Why does she care? So far as I can tell, it’s an extreme waste of time, dreaming. Sleeping. All of this.”

  “How else do we find the staff?” she asked. She reached up and tugged on the edge of his sleeve. “Sit, at least. I’m tired and so are you.”

  Lorcan scowled at her, but he settled beside her. “Your brightbird clearly thinks I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Do you blame him?” she asked. “You’re hardly trying to be pleasant.”

  “Why would I be pleasant to him, darling?” Lorcan said softly. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s an impediment. The one thing I can’t resolve.”

  Farideh sighed. Leave it, she told herself. You need him. Even as she thought it, Lachs’s words rose up in her thoughts: Sounds just right for “dear grandmama.” All of us tools, none of us dear.

  “Are you feeling any better?” she asked.

  “No,” Lorcan said. “Everything hurts. I’m tired and I’m hungry again, and I have no idea what I can or can’t eat, because who’s to say I won’t drop dead of a little venom now?”

  Farideh looked across the circle at Dahl. “No one’s going to feed you anything poisonous.”

  “Please: Dahl, for one. His brothers make three. Ilstan, cheerfully—assuming he remembers what food is. Adastreia, without a doubt—especially if Kulaga has a mind to expand his collection or make her more valuable in a stroke. You are the only person I can trust. More so than usual.”

  Dahl looked back at them, meeting her eyes for only a breath before he looked away. Her he
art squeezed. “I have some dried meat in my saddlebag,” she said. “Probably more waybread. Do you want me to get it for you?”

  “I do not want to eat another crumb of that horrible waybread.”

  “Would you rather undo the protection?” Farideh asked. “If you want to go home—”

  “I can’t go home.” Then softer, “I don’t think you can appreciate, darling, how far and wide this stretches. Your eyes are locked on saving your sister, one small piece of this horrible puzzle, but the ramifications are … extraordinary.

  “You save her, you kill Bryseis Kakistos once and for all—don’t tell me you don’t intend to do it, you might not, but given the right circumstances you would—then you stop the downfall of Asmodeus. You let the god of sin persist in the world and you make yourself an enemy of every archdevil hoping to bring him low.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” Farideh said, even though it made her stomach tighten. “I don’t have that kind of power.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Lorcan agreed. “That is how bad things have gotten. If you aid her, if you decide she has a point—and don’t tell me you don’t intend to do that either, if she offers you Havilar’s safety and an end to Asmodeus, then what will stop you?—if you aid her, then Asmodeus and Azuth will both be destroyed, there is no guaranteeing the continued stability of the Nine Hells, and you will have colluded in the deaths of thirteen innocents at the very minimum. And if you do nothing at all, the risk rises by the day that Asmodeus will find your sister and destroy her and Bryseis Kakistos together—which, in the broadest scheme of things is the wisest choice of action, and the only one I think you’ll refuse to do.”

  “All I want is Havilar safe,” Farideh said. “That’s it.”

  Still, the thought of the thirteen heirs, of little Remzi, of the balance of power that might crush tens of thousands or more … Farideh blew out a breath. I don’t have that kind of power, she reminded herself. I can only protect my own.

  “Liar,” Lorcan said, his remark stretching into a yawn.

  Farideh yawned too, unable to stifle it. The song of the giants, the way the music, the sounds of the strange words, looped and looped like a nighthawk, seemed to drag her down toward sleep, even as she was speaking. Thoughts of her nightmares crowded the worries about gods and ghosts and wars. She looked over at Somni, the grooves carved into her skin slowly building with a milky light.

  “I hope this works,” she said, trying to ignore the very real fear that it wouldn’t. She wet her mouth. “Do you know much about Caisys the Vicelord? Where he might be?”

  Lorcan said nothing, a silence so pointed that Farideh turned back to him, expecting to have set him off somehow. But instead he was watching the giants, grim and pensive. “Lorcan?” she said.

  “Caisys the Vicelord was one of the Brimstone Angel’s first recruits,” Lorcan said, as if he were being forced to recite, “a demonborn tiefling well-known for his … wide-ranging tastes. His heirs are by far the cheapest, the most common. My last Caisys heir …” He broke off and swallowed, looking away as if he’d said something profoundly uncomfortable.

  “What’s wrong?” Farideh asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. What’s wrong?” But he kept his silence. “You can tell me,” she reminded him. “Did something happen to the heir?” Nothing. “Did something happen with the heir?”

  “No. The heir was a louche little dabbler. He’s my father,” he added all in a rush. “So my warlock was … kin or something. I hadn’t thought of it until now. It’s … unsettling is all.”

  “Holy gods,” Farideh said. “How … How long have you known that?”

  “Sairché told me, I don’t know, some days ago. I don’t keep track.” He looked away again.

  Farideh shifted a little nearer. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “He’s just some deviant who made a deal with Invadiah.”

  “And left you in the Hells.”

  “Yes, I’m sure I would have fared so well up here. With a wizard-coinlad father.”

  Maybe, Farideh thought. “We could go looking for him anyway. After.”

  “No. If I sleep,” he said, “if I let this lunatic giant sift through my dreams, do you think that will increase our chances of never having to bother increasing my knowledge of Caisys the Vicelord again?”

  “You’re not curious what happened? Where he is?”

  Lorcan looked at her sidelong. “Having seen how extraordinarily well things have gone between you and Adastreia, I’m surprised you’d even ask.”

  Farideh wanted to protest that she didn’t care about Adastreia, that she never had. But the more the warlock involved herself, the more Farideh began to think perhaps … perhaps she wasn’t so terrible. Perhaps it was a good thing to have met her. She thought of the argument she’d had with Mehen before they’d left, and pushed it all aside.

  “What do you dream about?” she asked Lorcan.

  For a long moment, he said nothing. “I assume the same things you do,” he said loftily. “I assume everyone gets to watch their heart turned inside out and all your terrors capering about for the amusement of gods only know what. Where are you planning to sleep?”

  “I have to go get my bedroll,” she said without answering. “Do you want something to eat or not?”

  “You always said you hated sleeping alone,” Lorcan said, returning the favor. “I will say this much—I understand now. I suspect the dreams aren’t so bad, are they? Not when there’s someone close. Someone reminding you of what’s real with every breath.” The tips of his fingers brushed the side of her hand, lingering and suggestive.

  “I have to go get my bedroll.” Farideh stood, turning swiftly from him, and headed toward where they’d picketed the horses. What is wrong with you? she thought, wrapping her cloak closer against the chilly night. But she was starting to realize there was nothing wrong—this was how it would always be. Something in her would always drag her back to Lorcan. She could fight it, but she couldn’t begin to imagine how to extinguish it. Time? Distance? All things she didn’t have.

  You can kill him, the words of the long-dead Ashmadai shopkeeper came back to her. You can find another devil. How long could she walk free, the descendent of the Brimstone Angel, without a devil’s pact? Would someone like Kulaga be better, someone she didn’t care about?

  She stopped beside the pillar of stones the giants had erected at the edge of their camp, covering her face with both hands. Calm, she told herself, willing the tears crowding her throat to melt away. But when she thought of breaking her pact, they threatened to choke her. She repeated to herself a litany of Lorcan’s crimes—he’d tried to kill Brin, to kill Mehen, he’d held Havilar’s safety over her, he’d claimed the gift Dahl had given her in apology for his own, he’d abandoned her in the prison camp, he’d infected her with shaking fever to keep her in Suzail. And he had reasons—he’d always had reasons. He’d always made it up to her and to others.

  And none of that would stop the next transgression, Farideh thought.

  She wiped her eyes, more to be certain they were dry than anything else. She couldn’t put off sleeping much longer—not for fear of nightmares or for fear of Somni. She headed toward the horses, their backs blanketed against the chill. And heard voices.

  Thost and Bodhar were checking the picket lines, shifting some of them closer to the camp. “Gotta say,” Bodhar’s voice came, “not what I expected Dahl to be about out in the world. Although, I do notice you and I are making sure the horses get fed proper and he’s writing down peculiar giant songs.”

  “Best we came with him,” Thost said. “What do you think of her?” Farideh stepped back, behind the stone tower.

  “Dunno yet,” Bodhar said. “Prettier than I was thinking. She’s a complicated one, that’s for certain. Kind of … aloof.”

  “Hold’s him at arm’s length.”

  “Hold’s everybody at arm�
��s length,” Bodhar said. “Including her own mother.”

  “Everyone save the devil,” Thost noted.

  “Aye. Don’t know how he stands that. You’d think as clearly mad about her as Dahl is, she’d be a little affectionate. But apart from that greeting?”

  “Pretty clear why Dahl wants to beat the devil brainless,” Thost said, exchanging a knowing look with his brother.

  Farideh’s cheeks burned hot and she stepped away from the horses, fighting the urge to reveal herself and inform them both that what they thought was happening wasn’t at all what was going on—Was it what was going on? a clutching panic in her chest cried. She tried to think back, to sift through the things she’d said and done—maybe she had been too aloof, but all her mind and all her heart were taken up by trying to save Havilar, trying to stop Bryseis Kakistos.

  Your eyes are locked on saving your sister, Lorcan had said, one small piece of this horrible puzzle, but the ramifications are … extraordinary.

  Calm, she told herself, forcing a deep breath into her lungs. Calm. You’ve made it this far, you can keep yourself together.

  She slipped back into the circle of the giants. Despite his protestations, Lorcan lay sprawled across the ground, face slack with sleep, and only then did Farideh realize she hadn’t gotten any of the things she’d gone for. She looked up at the moon and cursed.

  When she looked down, Dahl was watching her. He raised his eyebrows as if asking if everything was all right.

  Wave him off, she thought. Tell him its fine.

  But with everything crowding up around her, with that accusation of aloofness burning in her thoughts, with Lorcan sound asleep and incapable of seeing, she went to Dahl’s side, and tucked herself close to him when he guided her near. The edges of the spell that shared her protection buzzed against her nerves. He pulled out their piece of foolscap, tucked behind his notes, the one they’d been writing on.

  What’s wrong? he wrote.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing new.”

  Are you going to sleep tonight? he wrote, balancing the little notebook on one knee.