The Devil You Know

by Erin Evans

  But this time as his feet touch the center, a voice calls his name. Ilstan stops. Remembers.

  He looks toward the altar, but it’s not Oghma’s, not anymore. There’s only a simple stone table, and an old man in gray silk robes that seem to float on the currents of the air. A beard hangs to his belt, and he holds a pale wood staff in one hand.

  “My lord?” Ilstan says. The man inclines his head, then beckons Ilstan nearer.

  “My lord,” he says again, “I’ve come to petition you—”

  The Silent Room stretches as he moves, Azuth still and speechless in the distance. Ilstan’s breath stops—he feels as if he’s smothering, but still he begins to run. It’s as if a cord snaps, and Ilstan finds himself at the edge of the dais, looking up at the Lord of Spells.

  You don’t have much time, he says. I cannot remain as I once could.

  “My lord, I bring an offer of assistance,” Ilstan says. He explains the offers of Enlil and Asmodeus. The plan as it stands.

  Azuth smiles crookedly. His face becomes Ganrahast, the Royal Wizard of Cormyr. It becomes Ilstan’s father, Tildor Nyaril, with his trim beard and graying hair. It becomes poor dead Devora, one eyebrow raised in challenge.

  … When they say the devils are bound to the rule of law, the Lord of Spells voice comes, dreamy and distant again, they do not mean laws like those of mortals, lean and uninspired … How could a creature—destined to be bound by its agreements, its promises, the power of its very words … how could such a creature not, in the long millennia of its life, create laws of a sort that wind themselves around the realities, the expectations of mere mortals, twisting these prisons into freedoms? They need you, you see … Thriving and endless …

  “That may be so,” Ilstan says. He studies the shifting faces, feeling madness pull him in like a whirlpool. “My lord, I think you will know better than I. Who else can say what is in the mind and the heart of Asmodeus than you who have shared a form? But … all proof seems to say that he doesn’t wish to be unmade, that he knows he will be. All proof suggests that the Chosen who remains to him doesn’t seek to undermine us.” He cannot say when the god’s face returns, but when it does, the presence of the Weave becomes palpable, and his whole self is buoyed. “You must decide, and swiftly. The ritual is prepared.”

  Azuth looks down at Ilstan, as if he is a student presenting ancient treatises as his own notions. I am the Lord of Spells, he says, all traces of madness gone. I know what you intend.

  “Will it succeed?” Ilstan asks.

  You may. You should know, the Lord of Spells says, a mortal body wasn’t meant to hold a god’s power. There’s a very good chance it will kill you.

  “But not a certainty,” Ilstan says. “Others have survived it.”

  You may, Azuth allows. He reaches down, sets a hand upon Ilstan’s shoulder. Every bone in his body is suddenly aflame with magic. Or you may not, he says. Take no more action until you are prepared for that.

  In his dreams, Ilstan Nyaril weeps as the magic of the Weave, stronger than he’s ever known it, knits his flesh to his bones to the plane to the god. This is everything he has devoted himself to, condensed and shaped and given life. If his life is the price? It is a worthy price, he thinks, to make certain this isn’t lost.

  “I have done so many terrible things in my madness,” Ilstan says. “If death is my penance, then I am glad this is the death I’m granted.”

  Azuth pats his shoulder, regarding him sadly. He puts the staff into Ilstan’s hands—it feels as if he’s holding a moonbeam or a cold breeze.

  Ilstan Nyaril, he murmurs, you are a worthy vessel.

  • • •

  THE BONES LITTER the floor, so thick Farideh cannot see the stones beneath. The ossuaries lie tipped and scattered, this one’s lid against the wall, that one’s overturned in the nest of a pelvis. She must sort them all, a kind of penance, for a sin no one’s named. She wonders if these are the people she’s killed, and she thinks of cultists and devils and the poor Chosen of the internment camp, but there’s no way of knowing. The bones have their secrets, and they’re not telling her.

  She sorts out the skulls, and the whispering starts. Dragonborn, human, gracile elf, tiefling—she realizes holding one that it can only be Criella, the midwife of Arush Vayem, with her horns polled, and the sadness that strikes her burrows down into her core. Does she know all of them? She looks again, and they all have horns. They’ve all become tieflings.

  The air in the room shifts. She looks up and sees Asmodeus, standing in the midst of the scattered bones of the dead. She remembers the deal and the danger.

  So it comes to this, he says, his voice hot and terrible and beautiful as a wildfire roaring through a forest, and there’s no pretending he’s some fiction of her sleeping mind. Your granddam would be proud.

  “I suspect she’d rather I ended you,” Farideh says, fighting the urge to fall to her knees. “If this works, you’ll have another chance. Enlil will let you have Nanna-Sin’s divinity to replace Azuth’s. You just have to let Azuth separate and resurrect Nanna-Sin.”

  Minus what makes him a god?

  “Minus what makes him a god,” Farideh agrees. “He’ll live, and that’s enough for Enlil.”

  Asmodeus drags a path through the bones, describing a circle around Farideh. Her pulse shifts, slowing to match his footfalls, while her fear yanks on her heart like it’s a fallen comrade—move, move, move.

  Perhaps he should manage it on his own, Asmodeus says. If he wants the Night’s Light returned, he can use his own magic.

  “He can’t,” Farideh says. “He isn’t powerful enough, not yet. But you can.”

  Until I trade what I’ve gained for myself for the dregs of a manifestation that’s been dead for millennia. Did you consider that?

  The weight of his disappointment threatens to crush her, even as she’s sure she doesn’t care. She lowers her eyes, though, a compromise of servility and pride. “I have. You’ve been looking for another spark for some time, haven’t you? That was the aim of the internment camps, to steal enough from other gods to make yourself something. You knew Azuth was bound to escape.”

  Clever girl, Asmodeus says. That was the aim of more schemes than you can fathom. Did you know, then, in Neverwinter, that the Nine Hells reached out to claim what the aboleths have been hoarding? You’ve been in the thick of things since—

  The next moment he is gone, and she is alone with the whispering bones of tieflings and her own clattering heart. The absence shakes her nearly as much as his presence does, and for a terrible moment she feels unmoored, half-emptied. What was she doing here?

  The next breath the god returns. He considers her with eyes like dying stars. What do you gain from this?

  “The world doesn’t end.”

  He chuckles, and her blood simmers, her nerves writhe. I didn’t ask what the world gains. I asked what you gain.

  “Am I not a part of the world?”

  It doesn’t do, his terrible, beautiful voice rolls through her, to let debts hang.

  I would not owe you for this. So name your price.

  Farideh exhales, every want, every wish boiling up in her thoughts—no desire is too impossible, too hedonistic, too small to be dragged up by the promises of the god of sin. She says nothing.

  Do you want to survive it? he asks.

  “I want this to work,” she says, and her voice trembles. “Nothing can get in the way of it working. Not even that.”

  Asmodeus smiles, and it’s like the world is ending, with all the terror and relief that comes with such ends. Clever, clever. Then what will you ask for?”

  Farideh swallows. “You’ll leave my family and my friends alone. The Hells do not touch them unless they request it.”

  The mortal ones.

  “Yes,” she says. “And Lorcan.”

  For a moment there are only the whispers of the bones, and when she looks up, Asmodeus is gone. She waits this time, and it’s hardly a breath later that he
says in her ear, Lorcan is my willing vassal.

  “And you can let him go,” she says. “Cast him out of the Hells. He has a soul. He should have a chance.”

  You don’t think his nature will lead him right back to me?

  “Maybe,” Farideh says. “But how can you know, if Lorcan never has the choice?”

  I am a god, he reminds her.

  “If you knew what every soul was bound to do,” she said, “then there would be no reason for devils to tempt us.”

  True enough, he says. I notice Sairché has pledged the pradixikai to your cause. An interesting … choice. Will you bargain for her as well?

  Farideh looks down at the tiefling bones. “When did she—”

  Farideh startled awake, every nerve in her body screaming, as the dream abruptly ended. “Wait!” she gasped, before she could recognize it was over.

  “Is it done?” Dumuzi asked, sounding hoarse. Beside him Ilstan was also awake—though the smile he turned on her was so dreamy and beatific that she thought perhaps they should make certain. Lorcan stood between them, staring at her as though she had a scorpion perched on her chest.

  “Yes,” she said. But she hadn’t gotten an answer. She cursed every devil in the Nine Hells—they never answered straight—before she realized there was something lying in her lap.

  The rod stretched across her knees, its ruby shaft engraved with strange runes that seemed to run backward, to blur her eyes and whisper in her ears as she tried to read them. One end was broken off in a jagged stump, the other formed a claw around a black stone shaped like a skull. The whole thing made her bones itch.

  She picked it up gingerly and the creeping feeling stopped. She wet her mouth. “I suppose he says yes.”

  “That makes three,” Ilstan said.

  “But we need four,” Dumuzi said. “Someone has to stand for Nanna-Sin and wield the black axe.”

  “Can’t you?” Lorcan asked, staring at the ruby rod.

  Dumuzi shook his head. “Enlil intends to be there as well.” He held up a javelin, its points covered in gleaming platinum. “Nanna-Sin doesn’t have a Chosen, exactly.”

  Lorcan looked up and met Farideh’s gaze as she stood. “Can anyone do it?”

  Dumuzi hesitated. “No, I mean, the axe … chose. It showed me who it wants. In the dream. But I don’t know—”

  Just then the door to the guest chambers opened, and Havilar came in, panting. Lorcan’s hands filled with flames. But Farideh knew at a glance this wasn’t Bryseis Kakistos. She stood so quickly she dropped the ruby rod, and rushed to her sister. Not until she embraced Havilar did she believe it was real.

  “Oh gods,” she gasped, sobbing despite herself. “Oh gods, you’re all right.”

  “Sort of,” Havilar said anxiously. “I need some help.”

  “So do we,” Dumuzi said, sounding relieved. Farideh let go of her sister and looked back to see Dumuzi holding out the Black Axe of Nanna-Sin. “This is yours after all.”

  Havilar’s eyes widened greedily. “Really?” She snatched the axe from Dumuzi, grinning as if she no longer noticed whatever was making her sweat so. Farideh laughed to herself, so grateful to have Havilar back that gods and planes and devils didn’t matter. She glanced toward the door, toward the crowd of people who’d come into the room along with Havilar. Brin and Remzi, Zoonie—dangerously unmuzzled. She smiled as Dahl followed them in, glad he was close again. And then Tam—

  “Tam?” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  The High Harper had begun to answer when someone else floated across Farideh’s field of view, and Farideh’s cry of alarm cut him off. The Brimstone Angel—no, two Brimstone Angels—in ghostly form, took shape between her and the door, their forms fading in and out of substance, just as she had in the prison camp.

  “Havi!” Farideh cried, grabbing her sister’s arm. “The ghosts!”

  “You can see them too?’ Havilar said. She looked back at the tieflings and they grew slightly more solid. “So can Remzi. That one’s Alyona and the other’s Bryseis Kakistos.” The first held the second as if she feared her twin would fling herself off a cliff, while the second twisted against her as if it were only a matter of time before she fell.

  “Twins,” Farideh said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I need help with. Alyona and I are still tethered to her.” Havilar considered the axe keenly. “Maybe I can chop the connections with this fabulous relic.”

  “No,” Dumuzi said. “You need that to be the vessel of Nanna-Sin.”

  “The what?”

  Farideh cast an eye over the crowd—she didn’t relish explaining their plans to this many people.

  But then they were all in this with her. She went back to the couches, to where Caisys’s scroll waited. Lorcan set a hand on her shoulder, stopping her, before pointing to the ruby rod lying on the floor. She picked it up, and suddenly the humming in her bones she hadn’t noticed stopped. She relaxed.

  “You have to be careful with that,” he whispered. “Promise me, darling, you’ll be careful.”

  “I’ll be careful.” She looked up at him, stomach twisting. She still had to tell him that she wanted to end the pact. That she didn’t want to see him again. The very idea seemed so mad, so dangerous, it made her balk. But then she remembered everything he’d done, all the ways he’d hurt Dahl. I’ll be careful, she told herself.

  Farideh unrolled the scroll. “You may know,” she started, “that Azuth and Asmodeus are currently … linked and battling over the same divinity. It’s going to destroy both of them if they’re not stopped, and they can’t stop themselves. Caisys—a warlock from the original Toril Thirteen—helped us make this ritual to prevent that.”

  “Caisys?” Havilar said. Both ghosts stilled, both startled it seemed. “Caisys is alive?”

  “He’s Garago,” Farideh said.

  Havilar made a face. She turned, gaping, to Alyona. “You were mad for Garago?” Alyona seemed to protest—her mouth flickered, her expression turning dark and furious. “He keeps things in his beard,” Havilar said, as though that ended any argument.

  The ghost of Bryseis Kakistos kept her silver eyes on Farideh, calmer now. Drifting.

  “She’s moving,” Remzi said.

  Havilar looked over. Alyona’s attention swung to her sister and pulled her back, away from Farideh and the scroll. Again, the agitated flickering suggested an argument, one with many fierce gestures toward Farideh.

  “The ritual,” Farideh went on, “should pull the gods down, incarnate them briefly. Long enough to move bits around. Enlil’s agreed to let Asmodeus take the divinity of Nanna-Sin.”

  “Who is that?” Havilar asked.

  Farideh hesitated. “The dead moon god in the catacombs.”

  “What are the weapons for?” Havilar asked.

  “Lodestones,” Ilstan said. “They are minor aspects of the gods themselves. That should draw them so as not to let their power scatter, their selves come apart.”

  Both ghosts now drifted nearer to Farideh, Bryseis Kakistos peering over her shoulder but Alyona still holding firm to her sister’s spirit.

  “So I have to hold the axe,” Havilar said, “and then, what? A dead god jumps inside me?”

  “And then jumps out,” Farideh said. “Nanna-Sin should end up raised, immortal, but not a god.” She glanced up at Tam who was staring at her. “You think it’s mad.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I see why. It’s very risky, and if you succeed, then you bolster one of the most evil gods worshiped on Toril.”

  “If he’s a god,” Farideh pointed out, “then he has to follow the rules of a god. Evil, but stable. He wants and needs us to keep surviving, to keep thriving. You can’t say as much for him if he’s only an archdevil.”

  The ghostly face of her ancestress again filled her vision, and Farideh jerked away. Silver eyes glared at her, the skin of her face peeling back to reveal a skeletal jaw, bare teeth. Farideh looked away—there was no argument that would convince
her to go along with Bryseis Kakistos’s plans.

  The ghost swerved in front of her once more, gesturing at the swirling cloud of her hair.

  “She wants to talk to you,” Havilar said. “She says you know how to. I don’t think you ought to bother.” She considered the other ghost, and made a face. “Maybe. All right, maybe she has something to say.”

  Farideh hesitated. “Dahl, there’s a comb in my top drawer. Can you fetch it?”

  The ghost drifted back a pace as Dahl brought her the ruby-studded comb she’d enchanted in the prison camp so that she could speak to Bryseis Kakistos there. He looked uneasy as he handed it to her. “I can’t believe you kept this thing.”

  “Preparing for the worst,” she said and shoved the decorative comb into her hair, scraping her scalp.

  The ghost sharpened, solidified. You have forgotten something important, the ghost said. Caisys wasn’t thinking.

  “I’m not falling for any tricks,” Farideh warned her.

  No tricks, Bryseis Kakisto said. Call it a courtesy. I want with all my being the destruction of Asmodeus. I cannot fathom how you’ve come to a place where you wish to aid him. But … She faltered, then added quickly. I would not let my descendants fall to fiends. That’s all.

  “Why would that happen?”

  The gods will come most easily if you call them near to their planes, she said. You have a god of the storms, a god of the moon, and two gods lingering in the Nine Hells—you need to be outside, high up if you can. Which means you will be exposed to the battle that’s coming. You need to be shielded.

  “I can cast a shield,” Farideh said.

  “You can’t,” Dahl interrupted. “Not while you’re doing something else. You can’t concentrate on both.”

  Precisely, Bryseis Kakistos said, though Dahl couldn’t hear it. Moreover, you will be in the midst of fiends—demons from your enemy’s side. If you don’t set a protective circle around this ritual the moment the gods reach you, you’ve set yourselves up for something very unpleasant taking up residence in your bodies the moment that force vacates them.