"Then how is that better than serving yourself?" the half-fiend demanded, tears welling up in her eyes. "How can you mark one as good and the other, evil? I see no difference."
"Yes, you do," the angel said. "You know you do."
Aliisza tried to shake her head, tried to tell her counterpart that it was all the same, but she knew otherwise. In goodness, there was boon for all.
And in that moment, in that instant when she finally grasped how wonderful kindness and compassion could be, how it built and reverberated among all living things instead of destroying them, she felt ashamed. Her entire life had been nothing more than an endless series of terrible acts, all designed to bring her satisfaction at the expense of others.
She leaned close to Tauran, reached out for him. The angel took her in his arms, hugged her close. She pressed herself against him and sobbed.
For a long time, they remained like that. Aliisza simply let the grief wash through her, scouring away all of her shame and guilt. The catharsis was profound, immediate. Somehow, the angel was drawing her taint from her, and she felt clean, new, alive for the first time. The energy Tauran gave off didn't pain her anymore. It fed her, nourished her body and spirit together.
At last, they drew apart. Tauran peered into Aliisza's eyes, as though searching for something there. She smiled at him, a grin that grew. She knew it showed her affection for the angel, her appreciation for all that he had done to bring her to that moment.
"I am whole," she said, and she reached up and caressed the deva's cheek.
He was so beautiful, she realized. Not just physically, though there was that. No, his inner strength, his convictions shone from within. She would have envied that if she didn't understand how he could share it with her. What she once would have wanted to wrest from him for her own use, she instead craved that he share with her. For in sharing it, it became even more bountiful, limitless.
"I have a surprise for you," the angel said, standing. He reached down and pulled Aliisza to her feet. "It's time."
The alu looked at her friend, confused. "Time for what?" she asked.
"To meet him," Tauran replied.
Aliisza's heart leaped into her throat. Her son! It was time to meet her child.
"N-no," she stammered, afraid. "I–I cannot."
"Why?" Tauran asked, genuinely puzzled. "You want to love him, and he you."
"Yes, but…" How could she explain it? she thought. How could she make sense of it herself? "I'm afraid," she said at last, raising her arms helplessly.
"Of what?"
"That he will not love me," she replied, and the tears welled up again. "That he will look upon his mother and know all the terrible things she has done, and he will turn away."
"That is possible," the deva said.
Aliisza looked at him, taken aback. His words surprised her. She had expected the angel to try to dismiss her fears, make her believe that all would be fine.
"You cannot predict, nor can you control, what is in another's heart," Tauran explained. "You can only give of yourself and see if something good comes in return."
"The risk…" Aliisza began, knowing it would always be there.
"Is worth the reward," the angel finished for her. "Without one, you cannot truly have the other."
Aliisza took a deep breath. "I know," she admitted. "But I am still afraid."
"Look how close you are, though," Tauran said. "Look what you've come through to achieve this. To turn away now would be tragic."
Aliisza thought through everything that had happened to her. Her struggle had been monumental, and through it all, the only thing that had ultimately mattered to her was to see her child born, and grow, and be happy. In a way, she had already sacrificed everything on his behalf. She knew then that it didn't matter what he thought of her. She had already given him everything she had.
"Take me to him," Aliisza said, mustering her conviction. "I want to see what he has become."
Tauran smiled and took her hand. "I don't need to," he said. "He's been here, with us, the whole time."
Aliisza felt a lump form in her throat. Here? All this time? He's watched me! Saw me laid open, bare, all of my failures! Oh, by the gods, no!
Tauran tugged at the half-fiend, gently pulled her along to the far side of the garden.
There, in the shadows, Aliisza could see a form. He was sitting on a bench, his face masked in darkness.
Her son.
He was larger than she expected, an adult. Much time had passed since his birth. Tauran had warned of it, but the impact didn't truly hit her until just then.
I've missed his childhood, she lamented. I wonder how much he will look like me, how much he will resemble Kaanyr. Thinking of the cambion made her pause a second time. Kaanyr. What will he think? What will he do?
As they approached, her son stood. He wore a simple white tunic and leggings, very similar to the clothing many of the inhabitants of the House donned. He was not as tall as Aliisza would have expected, given Kaanyr's stature. But he was graceful.
He stepped into the soft light of the moon, and Aliisza realized she didn't even know his name, but the thought that she ought to ask Tauran that question vanished the moment she saw his face.
Ghost white hair, shorn short, framed an aquiline face the color of a dusky evening sky.
The garnet eyes of Pharaun Mizzrym's progeny stared back at Aliisza.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Aliisza felt the world shudder around her. So many emotions, so many thoughts hit her all at once. A part of her mind thought it was a trick. Tauran had brought some imposter to her, some half-drow that could not possibly be her son, in order to trick her, to test her somehow. But peering at that face, with its slightly arched eyebrows and high, delicate cheekbones, she knew it was her son.
Hers and Pharaun's.
All that time, she had believed she carried Kaanyr Vhok's whelp within her. It was the only outcome she had considered, and when the error of her thinking made itself clear, she wanted to kick herself for her own foolish shortsightedness.
More emotion flooded through her. It began with a tingling, a feeling of something pressing against the back of her skull, at the base. Some dam that was on the verge of bursting hovered there.
And it was gone, and a torrent of memories hit her.
Aliisza staggered at the arrival of the onrushing visions. She watched them unfold inside her head as though she were there all over again.
She was standing in the passage of the Master's Hall, facing Zasian Menz. She was disguised as Ansa, dressed only in a nightshirt, and he was reprimanding her for her prowling so late at night.
"You put me in a very difficult position, child," he said.
"Yes, sir," she replied. "I will be more careful."
"And now," the seneschal added, pulling a pendant from his shirt, "I must prepare you for your impending journey."
Aliisza started, unsure what the handsome man meant, but suddenly wary. "What journey?" she asked, prepared to edge away from whatever the man had been about to inflict upon her.
"Kaanyr Vhok needs you to do this," Zasian replied, twirling the pendant in his fingers. "A very long and arduous journey, a potentially deadly one."
Aliisza's mouth gaped. "Who is Kaanyr?" she asked, feigning ignorance. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"It's all right, Aliisza," the seneschal answered. "I'm helping him. We've entered a pact to take the city together. I know your task is to secretly discredit Helm Dwarf-friend, but Vhok needs you for something more important now. We're going to meet you at the other end of this journey. You will be our key, to unlock the portal that is hidden. Without you, we cannot hope to succeed."
And he had proceeded to tell her many things. He had known she was with child, and he explained that her condition was necessary to make her journey. Her pregnancy would be the bait that would draw Tyr's lackeys to her, would tease them into capturing her with the intention of sparing her. He admonished he
r that she would need to protect the baby, whatever the cost. He had gone so far as to place a magical spell, a geas, he had called it, upon her to force her to comply. He explained that it would act subtly, without her knowledge, because she would not know that it existed. She would not know her own role in the game, for the angels would ferret it out of her. She had to be ignorant, he explained. He had given her instructions to follow, a litany of tasks to complete once she remembered them.
And, before she could protest, before she could resist, Zasian Menz had made her forget it all.
She had gone through all the trials and tribulations without that knowledge, believing she had simply been caught and confronted, a quirk of unfortunate chance. She had spent her captivity fearful and ashamed that she had somehow failed her cambion lover.
But it came rushing back. Every last bit of it, including her anger and feelings of betrayal that Kaanyr would use her so, would endanger their child for some greater scheme of his. He had put her in that position himself.
Aliisza understood, too, that Zasian had set conditions for her to recall those forgotten memories. He had set the trigger to be her first glimpse of her own child.
All of that recollection, the whole of it, had been locked away in Aliisza's mind. Seeing her son had unleashed it. It had taken but an instant to regain, but the flood so overwhelmed her that she gasped and dropped to the ground, exhausted.
She tried to draw air. She needed to make sense of what she had just learned, to reconcile it with everything that had changed about herself during the tendays and months of solitude, of self-reflection. She struggled to wrap her mind around it, but it was just too much.
And something more bombarded the alu.
Magic coursed into Aliisza's mind. Spells materialized, planted there by Zasian, powerful dweomers set to trigger once she had regained her lost memories. He had hidden them away, like the memories themselves, to keep the celestials from seeing them. She understood his intentions in the heartbeat it took for the arcane power to manifest.
In a second heartbeat, the magic activated.
Aliisza felt a rush. Something vanished from her, some veil that had been drawn over her mind. Magic, she saw. Powerful and blinding force, designed to make her view certain events a particular way. All of the agony she had experienced, all of the doubt and guilt that had consumed her during her visions became an artificial thing. The shame she had felt, the divine guidance that had led her to exhibit compassion and kindness lifted, separated from her. Aliisza saw it at last for what it was.
Trickery. Deception. Manipulation.
Tauran the holy celestial, Tauran the kind angel, Tauran of the uncompromising, idealistic convictions, had used magical coercion to change her point of view. The pain, the sorrow she had felt on Lizel's behalf was not her own. It had not come from the visions alone. Divine magic conjured by the lackeys of Tyr had created it, amplified it, and thrust it upon her.
And Zasian's spell had cast it off again.
She saw the world without guise once more. She understood her role within it, her part to play. She was a half-fiend, a powerful and cunning entity who showed no mercy, who tolerated no weakness. She knew what she wanted, and she claimed it for herself. That was how it had always been, and that was how it would remain forevermore. No one would control Aliisza through foolish, weepy emotions. Not Tauran, not Kaanyr, not ghosts from past lives.
Aliisza wanted to shout, wanted to jump up into the air and crow. A shout of triumph, to show she could not be chained. But she was still a prisoner, and there was more of Zasian's magic at hand.
A blinding flash of light struck her, knocked her consciousness from her body.
The disorientation of the seneschal's magic made Aliisza's awareness spin. It felt as though she had left her body, was floating somewhere far beyond herself, like she had felt within the gray void. But it was different, much more frightening. And it lasted only an instant.
Then the alu discovered that she was staring at herself. She felt odd, not entirely right. Some sensations were missing, some new ones replaced them. As she stared, Aliisza watched her own body crumple to the ground. It looked as if she had fainted, but she was still awake.
Awake in another's body.
The half-fiend gasped, and her voice was different, more masculine. She swayed and stuck a hand out to the bench to steady herself. That hand was charcoal in color, with thicker fingers. Aliisza stared at it, realizing at last where she was.
She inhabited her son's form.
The half-fiend sank down, taking a seat on the bench, overwhelmed. She watched Tauran kneel down to check on her body, concern on his face. He leaned in close and listened to her breathing and sighed in relief.
"She fainted," he said, looking at Aliisza. "Your mother just wasn't expecting to see you as your father's son," he explained, kindness in his voice.
Aliisza didn't trust herself to answer. She swallowed hard and nodded.
"I guess you're a bit overwhelmed, too," the angel said. "You rest for a moment while I take her to her bed. Then we'll talk. You still have a lot to figure out, I suppose."
You don't know the half of it, Aliisza thought. She felt like glaring at the deva, but she instead gave him a weak, uncertain smile.
Tauran hoisted the alu's body onto his shoulder. Then he turned and trudged from the garden, through the portico toward the half-fiend's quarters.
Once he was out of sight, Aliisza drew a great, shuddering breath and tried to steady her nerves. Everything at last made some sense. Zasian had embedded latent magic within her that would cause her to shift bodies. She wondered what became of her son's consciousness.
Did we trade places? Does he now inhabit my form?
The alu felt a brief pang of regret, but it was short-lived. An opportunity lay before her, one that she was just beginning to recognize and understand. Zasian had locked so many secrets inside her that when they finally were released, it had been a flood. All of the memories, the magic, had come out in a rapid jumble, too fast to comprehend. They had slammed into the alu in only a few heartbeats, the moment she had seen her son's face. But with a few moments to herself, sitting on the bench, she was starting to grasp the seneschal's intentions. Zasian had thought everything through.
And he'd set it all up, she realized, so that Tauran wouldn't notice a thing. As far as the angel was concerned, Aliisza still resided in her own body, was still adjusting to her newfound sense of compassion and selflessness. Zasian had planned well. He had given the alu a means to escape, and to escape notice in the process.
Aliisza smiled to herself. She had an appointment to keep. Kaanyr was waiting on the far side of a portal, and she was the only one who could open it for him. She had to keep the deva from guessing the truth, would have to play it all carefully, but she would get to that doorway. She would unlock the ancient path. Nothing was going to stop her, so long as she kept her cool.
And there would be hell to pay. Everyone was accountable. Tauran, Kaanyr, Zasian. They all would answer to her wrath.
With his back pressed against the stone wall, surrounded by furious efreet who towered twice as tall as himself, Vhok had but one place to go. He levitated. As his feet left the ground and he rose into the air, Amak recognized the trick. The genie snarled in rage and leaped forward to deliver a killing blow before Vhok could evade him.
The cambion doubted he could slip away in time.
At that moment, the wall beside the half-fiend distorted. An arm, clad in black and silver, jutted from the rock as though it had grown there. It elongated, became a torso and head, and the rest of Zasian appeared, stepping free of the wall. He held his arm out, pointed, and uttered a phrase of power.
The Banite emerged from the wall slightly to one side of Vhok and the genie. Amak had been so focused on reaching the cambion that he did not see the priest in time. The efreeti jerked and stumbled to a stop, understanding that the human was bringing magic to bear, but he could not retreat from Zasian's o
utstretched finger or swing the falchion to defend himself.
Zasian nimbly darted toward the efreeti and tapped him once on the hip with the tip of his finger. As the priest sprang away again, out of reach of the genie's blade, a crackling sheen of dark energy swarmed over Amak. The black force flowed like roiling tendrils across the genie's body.
Amak shuddered and seized up. He arched his back and his eyes rolled back in his head. A great, primal scream emanated from him. He dropped the falchion and fell to his knees. The black energy crackled and faded, then the genie pitched forward, facedown. His body twitched a time or two, but otherwise lay still.
The other efreet stared in shock and awe at the corpse of their companion.
Vhok floated down to the ground. He came to rest beside Zasian, who stood glaring at the genies with his arms folded across his chest. The cambion drew a deep breath and added his own baleful stare.
"I trust no one else wishes to continue the folly of this dispute," Vhok said.
The gathered efreet began to mumble among themselves. None stepped forward.
"Excellent," Vhok said with a smile. "Then let me reiterate that my associate and I merely wish to find a guide to the City of Brass. We have no interest in wresting your precious mine from you."
Negotiating a trip to the efreet's capital was surprisingly easy. Vhok and Zasian observed a brief power struggle among the remaining genies to determine who would assume control of the mine. That task was interrupted by a short-lived slave revolt, which Vhok and Zasian helpfully put down. When the dust settled, the new efreeti leader agreed to transport the two visitors to the City of Brass as quickly as possible.
Before long, the cambion and the priest were racing across the Infernals, the small sea of magma between themselves and their destination, upon a magical flying carpet. A single efreeti commanded the conveyance, sitting cross-legged at the front. Vhok and Zasian sat side by side behind their guide, keeping a careful watch all around. They did not care to have another unpleasant visit from the flying beasts.
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