by Erin Evans
Havilar sat, pulled her knees close to her chest, tried to sort through how many things were going wrong. Poor Brin—she thought of the little boy romping in the snow with Zoonie, of how hard it would be to protect him. Poor Fari—for all she got annoyed with Farideh for not catching on faster when Havilar dipped into her dreams, it was clear she was dealing with enough to make anyone distracted. The archdevil, growing more and more solid, seeming to suck all the light out of the room, out of Havilar—
She shuddered and laid her head against her knees. Poor Fari and poor me, she thought, even though that wasn’t going to do any good. She sighed, even though it stirred no breath, and looked around again.
For a terrible moment she imagined Brin succeeding, stealing the soul sapphire and freeing Alyona while Havilar was still stuck in Farideh’s dreams. But then surely there would be no misty place to come to or perhaps …
If Alyona was gone then …
… But she had made a glaive, so—
Havilar blinked hard. She’d lost track of herself again. Shit, she said without actually saying it. Shit and karshoji gods. How long did it take before she was as worn and fluttery as Alyona? Would it take fifty years or a hundred? Or would she come apart faster, since she’d come later, since it wasn’t her sister’s powers keeping her alive?
She said she’d give my body back, Havilar told herself.
And make one of them get her a new one.
Once all those heirs were dead.
She thought again of the little boy in the snow, and felt her thoughts start to drift. Havilar squeezed her eyes shut. Keep yourself together, she thought. Snow, snow, snow.
You started in the snow, she said out loud. Left at the gates of a village on no one’s maps, one and two, and who came to claim twin tiefling foundlings but Clanless Mehen.
The words picked up the cadence of a story—her story. If she kept telling it, maybe she’d stop losing track of who she was and where she was. She told the mists the silly, cherished stories of her babyhood in Mehen’s words—you would not sleep unless I sang battle anthems and stomped about the house with you facedown across an arm. She told her first memories of the snow and the old stone barn. She told the story of breaking her arm and building her first trap, the story of Arjhani and the winter storm, the story of the imp who turned out to be Lorcan, and leaving Farideh to unwind all their fates.
Havilar suddenly ran out of words at that. For all she wanted to be mad at Farideh for starting this, she couldn’t have done any such thing without Havilar summoning Lorcan in the first place.
And if she got mad at Farideh, then didn’t she have to be mad about Brin—who she would never have met—or Kallan or every adventure? She’d have to be mad about the little blue-eyed boy in the snow too.
Remzi, she said, and it didn’t sound like a word, but it still made her heart squeeze.
What’s that? Alyona stood behind her, hands clasped before her, looking as if she’d been standing there for ages.
Havilar stood swiftly. Where have you been?
Alyona frowned. Here and there. Why? Did something happen?
I talked to Brin, Havilar began.
I see, Alyona wrapped her arms around herself. So. He’s agreed.
Havilar felt her tail lashing the memory of a solid floor. What happens if she calls his bluff? What happens if the soul sapphire gets destroyed?
She won’t do that, Alyona said firmly.
You’re sure? Havilar asked. Brin seems to think she might.
She’s my sister. She promised—
She promised you that she wouldn’t hurt people this time, didn’t she? She promised she could do it without killing anyone?
This will remind her, Alyona said. She won’t … She knows, deep down … I’m sure she remembers.
Havilar’s stomach knotted. She could hear herself saying the same things about Farideh. Or Farideh saying the same things about her. But Bryseis Kakistos wasn’t either of them.
And if she calls his bluff? She asked again.
Alyona pursed her lips. If she calls his bluff, she said, then I suspect you and I will die. She looked away. Do you think she will?
I think if it’s even a possibility, you need to talk to her, Havilar said. Stupid things happen when you don’t talk.
I have talked to her. She won’t listen.
You haven’t said the right things. You know she’s doing this for you. She thinks she’s doing this for you.
No, Alyona said sadly. Maybe once. But now she’s doing it for power.
I don’t think so, Havilar said. Did you see her before? That was a grave she was fussing with. Nobody fusses with graves to get power—nobody fusses with graves at all, I guess, but still.
She wants revenge, Alyona said.
Revenge for you, Havilar said. Look, I know that Farideh would do pretty much anything to save me. Your sister has put her in a position where she has to do a lot of it to try and save me. The only thing that would stop her is if I said stop.
The soul sapphire—
That’s not saying “stop,” Havilar said. That’s saying “do it my way.” And I’m pretty sure your sister is at least twice as stubborn as mine, so that’s just going to make her push back even more. You have to tell her you’re done.
Alyona looked away, off into the mists, and said nothing. Havilar held her breath—or at least, she did something that felt like holding her breath. Done meant dead when it came to Alyona, but Havilar couldn’t imagine that didn’t appeal at least a little after all these years bound to Bryseis Kakistos.
If it didn’t appeal … well, then, neither of their plans was going to work and Havilar was going to have to do something drastic.
My sister isn’t your sister, Alyona said after a long while. She sighed. My sister isn’t even really my sister anymore. Bisera is long gone. I doubt … Perhaps it’s better just to wait. To see … Maybe she can achieve her goal and we’ll be freed?
If she achieves her goal, innocent people die, Havilar reminded her. Two gods die and there’s no way to know what happens.
Innocent people die all the time. Alyona’s silver eyes slid to her. A tiefling’s first lesson, isn’t it?
Havilar balled her fists, but didn’t answer. Maybe she could stop Bryseis Kakistos without Alyona and maybe she couldn’t, but she could think of two lessons she’d been taught before that: One, when someone’s being stubborn, go around them. Two, don’t let shady, skull-cracked warlocks kill your kin.
More or less, Havilar thought, heading toward the split in the mists before Alyona could stop her.
• • •
DAARDENDRIEN NIJANA, DAUGHTER of Turan, of the line of Garshabin, tugged the chain that bound her to a line of twenty other Vayemniri and waited for the response, eyes on the Untheran army, on their golden god-general standing atop one of the jagged edges of earth dragged up by the planar storm. Overhead, the clouds had grown thick and heavy, and Nijana worried about a second storm.
The god-king’s priests in their tattered skins had walked all down the line of prisoners, white feathers in hand, smearing ink on their eyelids and ears. None would miss the words of the Son of Victory, they said.
“You may be saying, ‘this is not the battle he promised us,’ ” Gilgeam cried, his voice echoing, buoyed by magic. “ ‘This is not the victory we deserved, the kingdom we were meant for!’ I say to you, no! I say to you instead that this place is our true reward, this battle is the one we have remade ourselves for.”
Nijana looked sidelong to the next Vayemniri along the chain, a red-scaled Yrjixtilex girl hardly old enough to wield a sword. Her tongue rattled dryly against the roof of her mouth, little flames bursting between her teeth. When she caught Nijana’s eye, she stopped and swallowed hard.
“Who was responsible for our misfortune?” Gilgeam bellowed. “Who profited by our collapse? And in answer: the Vayemniri flourish, they do not suffer. In the other world, they make their empire, they treat with the genasi as though
they are righteous. In this world—in our world—they claim our fields and our monuments, our riches and our mines. Our cities are laid to ruin and we are cast into the wilderness. ‘We too have suffered the predations of tyrants’ they say to us, but they do not suffer. They make themselves fat on the efforts of our ancestors. They claim what is ours and now that we have returned to our glorious homeland, they refuse to cede it. What choice do we have? We cannot feed ourselves on memories and broken stone! They will make us slaves again, demanding labor and riches for the slightest morsel. I cannot allow that.”
The Untherans shouted, angry and exultant, and the sound agitated the demons. Nijana counted the nearest ones to the line of Vayemniri prisoners staked along the outside edge of the army’s encampment—two of the vulturelike vrocks perched close to her end, a succubus lounging as if disinterested and lazy beside the stake. Nijana had seen well enough that they moved from inaction to action faster than she would have credited.
“We have raised ourselves out of bondage,” Gilgeam went on. “We have fostered the virtue of bravery. Our ranks number in the ten thousands and we have, each and every one of us, proven with our blood, our determination, that the strength of Unther has not ended. Not yet.”
Nijana heard the chain clank along the line before she felt the tug, and started counting to a hundred, her eyes darting from the Untheran guard to the god-general he watched with rapt attention. With any luck he would not pay the slightest attention to the living fence they’d laid along this edge of the camp.
“If we, the last bastion of this plane’s greatest empire, should fall into servitude once more, if we should fall to these creatures, then what? Who is there to come after us? The blood of Unther is on the way to extinction unless we reclaim our lands and make ourselves free!”
Fifty, Nijana counted. Fifty-one, fifty-two … She slowly increased the tension of the chain against the stake. Beside her, the Yrjixtilex girl shifted up onto her heels, ready to straighten.
“They have left us with only two possibilities,” Gilgeam went on. “Either we remain Untheran or we let ourselves come under the dominion of the Vayemniri. This latter must not occur. It cannot be allowed to occur. And so the Son of Victory stands before you, the new god, the new king of Unther, and says that though we are outnumbered, we are of a purpose. We are given strength. And if you trust in me we will be victorious over the hateful Vayemniri.”
Light built around Gilgeam with each rising word, each chorus of shouts from the Untherans. How much of what he said was true? How much should they fear? Seventy-six, Nijana counted. Seventy-seven, Seventy-eight …
“In two days’ time,” Gilgeam went on, “we shall reach the stolen city of Djerad Thymar. We shall reclaim it, reclaim the bones of my fallen brother, and with our victory, reclaim Unther’s might.”
Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety … Thunder rumbled in the distance. Nijana shifted onto one knee, surreptitiously taking hold of the chain in both shackled hands. Her mouth flooded with acid, her breath burning with it.
“Among you there are those who fear this fight,” Gilgeam said. “There are those who fear their weapon will betray them, their determination will not let them defeat this threat, that their desire for freedom, for vengeance for our ancestors is evil. To you I say, do not be afraid. Know that anyone whose throat you cut, that is one who will not cut your throat. That is one more claw that will not cut the life from Unther.”
Nijana stood—and the whole line of Vayemniri stood as one. She pulled against the stake with all her strength—and the Yrjixtilex girl and the man beyond her, and those beyond him pulled with her. It broke free of the hard dirt as the succubus came to her feet, wings high, hands reaching for Nijana.
The dragonborn woman spat, a stream of acid spraying through her pointed teeth to splatter the succubus. The Untheran guard turned at the demon’s scream, but the chain beyond was clattering as the other Vayemniri began to run. Nijana pulled the loose end to her, the stake a weapon in her hands.
The vrocks took to the air, the succubus dived at Nijana. She stabbed and stabbed again with the filthy stake and punched through the succubus’s shoulder before the chain yanked her away, into the darkness.
“Stop them!” she heard Gilgeam shouting. “Destroy them!”
A patch of darkness thickened in front of Nijana. Demon! her mind cried as she pulled away, tugging the Yrjixtlex girl from the creature. The shadow sliced through the chain, burning claws cutting the iron as easily as young cheese. The Yrjixtilex girl breathed fire at it, and again at the vrocks that descended to its side. None of the creatures so much as flinched.
A rain of arrows pattered the ground behind them. Nijana risked a look back over her shoulder and saw the building light around Gilgeam, the beginnings of the same spell that had taken Djerad Kethendi’s Lance Defenders out of the sky.
“Karshoj,” she swore. Front lines first, she thought, whipping back toward the demons. The vrocks lunged for the Yrjixtilex girl, for the chain that bound her to Nijana. Nijana yanked on her end of the chain, pulled the girl behind her and spat a stream of acid that caught both vrocks across the face.
The closer one screamed as its eye burst into a fountain of blood. With a cry that sounded like the birth of a whirlwind, the shadow demon surged up and attacked its wounded comrade.
A bolt of lightning sizzled out of the sky, striking the ground beside Gilgeam. The god-general half-fell, half-flew off the back of the rise. Waves of screaming rose out of the night as sleet began pouring out of the billowing clouds.
A stroke of luck, Nijana thought, running after the other prisoners, and hoped they could count on more such luck, tonight as they ran and in the days ahead for Djerad Thymar.
• • •
ABEIR BEGAN AS utter darkness. Humid air, uncomfortably warm and dense, made Mehen’s scales all prickle down to their roots. He tasted the air, reaching back for his falchion. Still there, still whole—the portal hidden in Caisys’s scar hadn’t destroyed them.
“Where are we?” Farideh called. Her voice echoed oddly, as if it were bouncing off Mehen’s bones.
“Shit,” Garago muttered—no, Caisys, he reminded himself. “Forgot torches.”
A bluish light grew off to Mehen’s left, illuminating Dahl who was shaking a glowball into life. “I have three,” he said, reaching back into the bag at his hip.
“Well done,” Adastreia said, taking the lit glowball.
The light built and built, gleaming off crystals the size of castle towers, lying at angles to the walls. Mehen sucked in a breath, tracing the strange and lovely stones with his eyes.
“Gods,” Farideh whispered. Again, that strange vibration and Mehen tasted the air more frantically.
For a thousand years, the titan lay, incorrupt and unapproachable, for all who neared Merciless Petron felt the earthquake in their marrow until they shattered like fragile schist.
Dahl moved closer to the crystal, studying the strangely curved edges. The milky stone seemed to absorb the light from the glowstone, so that the length of it gleamed pale blue.
“Don’t touch that,” Caisys said.
“How is it working?” Ilstan’s voice shook as he stormed toward Dahl. “How did you manage? I can’t … I can’t make anything!”
Mehen looked over at Farideh. She was staring at her up-turned arms as if someone might have etched a map there. “I don’t have any spells,” she said. “I can’t … I can’t feel the Hells or the Weave.”
“We can’t cast magic?” Adastreia asked.
“Of course you can’t,” Caisys said. “Pacts are sealed off. Weave doesn’t exist. You get what you carried in, assuming it’s self-contained. Weren’t you listening?”
“You didn’t tell us that,” Farideh said, her voice rising.
Caisys frowned at her. “Well, I should’ve. No magic. No normal magic. Hope you remembered blades. Anybody have a bow?” No one did, of course. “Well, tluin and buggering Shar,” Caisys said. “This is why
you don’t ask me to plan your little outings.”
Mehen scanned the group—swords on Farideh, himself, Lorcan, and Dahl. Adastreia had a dagger, and Ilstan … well, Mehen felt a lot better if Ilstan didn’t have a blade. Besides, the wizard had a job to do.
“Why do we need a bow?” Mehen asked. “Can hardly move in here.”
“Because they might not have magic, but they have stlarning monsters,” Caisys said. “Monsters like you haven’t seen. There’s a big bugger in these caverns in particular. If we’re lucky, it’s dormant. If we’re not … well, you don’t want to get close.”
Mehen looked up at the jumble of crystals as if something might be there, moving in the shadows. The cavern stretched up into shadowy pockets, broken by more of the long crystals. He peered at them, trying to make the edges straight, trying to convince himself they were only crystals. But there was no denying the soft curves and strange bulges.
For the second thousand years, the body began to degrade, and any who approached the remains of Merciless Petron were turned to glass where they stood. The dragon tyrants dropped stones upon her body and built the Verthishai Loech Ternesh to protect those who wandered.
“The Dead Stone Mountains,” Mehen murmured.
“Bones,” Lorcan said, looking up at the crystals as well. “What madman carves quartz into giant bones?”
“Nobody,” Caisys said. “Those are Dawn Titan bones. It’s like an ossuary.”
In the third thousand years, Versveshardinazar, the Opaline Terror, mined the Verthishai Loech Ternesh down to its roots, seeking the relics of Merciless Petron. For centuries his slaves broke rocks until they found the corpse, and the precious remains of the Dawn Titan’s magic.
“Is this the ossuary of Petron?” Mehen whispered.
“How would I know?” Caisys replied. “I said don’t touch them!”