The Adversary

by Erin M. Evans

  “I suspect that will depend on how your question comes across.”

  A shriek, a heavy whump—Farideh’s eyes snapped open as a scream tore out of her throat. Havilar lay half under the log, pinned in the snow. She started forward, even as her younger self did the same—ready to push the log with all her might, terrified to find Havi dead under there— Dahl caught her arm and stopped her. “Hey! It’s not real!”

  Farideh kept pulling against him, watching her younger self snatch up the stick Havilar had held and lever up the log enough for Havilar to wriggle out. Overhead the pale clouds began to darken and billow, heralding a storm.

  Dahl held her tight. “You were very . . . strong little girls.”

  “Swordswomen need to be strong. Mehen makes us lift rocks,” Farideh said flatly, as the little her wept and cradled her wailing sister.

  “Made you lift rocks,” Dahl said, turning her toward him again. “Made. This isn’t real. You have to remember that.”

  Farideh shook her head. “Then what is it?”

  Who do you serve? Oota’s question echoed over the snowy village, dragging behind it a roll of thunder. The snow, the village, the girls clinging to each other bled together like ink on wet parchment. Only the wooden palisade remained. The sky darkened, swollen with clouds and blood-red lightning while the rest of the world faded.

  And Farideh was suddenly very afraid.

  “It’s not real,” Dahl reminded her. “Gods’ books, you have to calm down.” She looked over at him. His breath was coming hard and rattled. “Farideh, this is all coming from you—the visions, the sounds, all of it. You have to calm down.”

  But out of the palisade’s shadows a figure unfolded: Havilar, all armed and armored, and eyeing the group of them with a very un-Havilarlike malevolence. She carried a glaive, but at its tip there was a crystal like the end of a warlock’s rod instead of a metal spike.

  Rohini, Farideh thought, trying to step back, to move away from Havilar. The succubus who had possessed her sister. Dahl was still holding onto her arm, and someone else was holding her by the hair.

  “You’ll be fine,” Mehen said. “You’ll have your sister with you. A blade at your side.”

  “They love her, don’t they?” Lorcan was suddenly there, so close by her side that she could feel the heat of him. “But only so long as you keep after her, cleaning her messes and making sure no one realizes that she’s causing so much trouble.”

  “Havi’s not trouble,” Farideh said, not taking her eyes off the devil nested in her sister’s skin, even though her thoughts were all on Lorcan. The memory of him kissing her—when had that been? Not here, not now. He chuckled. Dahl squeezed her arm.

  “Stop that too. It’s not real,” Dahl said, and it sounded as much like he was reminding himself as her. “Farideh, what . . . what are we looking at? Tell me what happened.”

  A stone wall erupted out of the ground on their left, followed by a crag of pale rock that looked like broken bone ahead. Havilar slipped into the shadows between them and vanished.

  “I can help you, you know,” Lorcan crooned. She shut her eyes. “Simple as it comes. No one will ever hurt you. No one will ever hurt her either.”

  “It’s Lorcan from the day I took the pact,” she said. “After Havi summoned him. He tells me all the ways I can use it to protect myself, protect her, and I say yes, even though I shouldn’t. Mehen is from the day I went out on patrol for the first time. I don’t want to go, I know it will end badly—it does. I nearly take the blacksmith’s foot off, jumping at a marten. Havilar . . .” Her blood flooded with the powers of the Hells. She had to save Havilar, somehow, without hurting her too. “It’s not Havilar, but it is. A devil in her skin. We have to be careful—she’ll fight and not care if Havi—”

  “It’s not real,” Dahl reminded her. “The only dangers are the feelings it stirs up.”

  “There is dangerous,” Mehen said. “And there is dangerous.”

  Oota cried out suddenly. Farideh opened her eyes as Dahl pulled her behind him—she glimpsed Havilar darting past, her grin wicked and her glaive dripping blood. Oota held a hand to her upper arm.

  “Gods’ books,” Dahl swore. He looked around and grabbed the dagger Mehen wore at his belt. It came away, solid as the real thing. The memory of her father made no sign he’d noticed or cared—after all, Dahl hadn’t been there when Mehen had readied Farideh for patrol. Dahl tested it in his hand. “Remember someone with a sword,” he told Farideh.

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Oota said grimly. She checked her wound. “ ’Course it doesn’t usually work like this either.”

  “Think, Fari!” Dahl said. “Anyone with a sword.”

  Who do you serve?

  “There’s a very rare heir among the Toril Thirteen,” a woman’s voice said. The room sizzled and dissolved into a city in the heart of summer, and another cambion stood in front of them: Sairché, flanked by two erinyes. “The descendent of Bryseis Kakistos, the Brimstone Angel herself. Only three other devils have collected Kakistos heirs. Lorcan must have one. I think it’s you.”

  Farideh’s pulse started drumming again. Three, and herself—and Havilar, who was somewhere here, all too near. Sairché couldn’t be allowed to find her.

  Dahl moved toward the nearer erinyes, as if convinced she would strike. He pulled the sword and the devil didn’t so much as flinch. But as soon as the weapon was free, Sairché and the erinyes vanished.

  And Havilar’s glaive swung out of the shadows once more, aimed straight for his neck. Farideh cried out, and Dahl turned in time to drop out of the polearm’s path. He ducked under its swing and slashed at Havilar’s face with the dagger. A line of blood appeared across her cheek. But she smiled.

  And a line of pain seared over Farideh’s cheek, right up to her silver eye. She touched her face, and met Dahl’s gaze over her bloody fingers. Havilar laughed and vanished into the shadows again. Dahl cursed loudly, and both he and Oota moved to stand at Farideh’s back. Red lightning raced over the sky and the roll of thunder echoed Farideh’s runaway pulse.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  “Fine,” Farideh said mechanically, studying the shadows for Havilar again.

  “Hamdir and Antama will be working at waking us up,” Dahl said, passing the dagger to Oota and readying the sword. “We just have to stay alert until they do. Don’t hit the tiefling. Just don’t let her hit you.”

  “And if they can’t?” Oota asked. “You know the best way to get out of this.”

  “Give them half a chance,” Dahl said coldly.

  Bodies erupted out of the ground two by two, fine lords and ladies turning with assassins and shadar-kai in a gently whirling dance that closed in around the three of them. Dahl reached out and grabbed hold of her wrist again. Adolican Rhand’s revel.

  “Your sister wants things well within her reach,” Lorcan’s voice said in her ear. “She never needed help. Though”—and the crowd parted to reveal Brin and Havilar, their arms wrapped around each other, and Sairché beyond them, watching—“that can always change.”

  A scream rang over the dancers, and all the gentility vanished as the assassins and shadar-kai drew weapons and attacked. The woman in front of Farideh swatted desperately with a fan at the grinning shadar-kai who’d slashed a deep rent through her bodice and down to her skirt. Farideh hardly thought, throwing up a hand, pulsing with the bruised and dancing magic of the Hells.

  “Adaestuo!” But as the blast of energy hit the shadar-kai, he turned into Havilar once more, and it was her sister who took the brunt of the spell, and a heartbeat later, Farideh herself felt the concussion of power, the sharp electric crackle of the spell. It stole her breath and blanked her mind for a moment.

  But she had to do it again, she thought panting, taking in the rampant carnage around her. She had to stop this. Stop all of this. Even if it was Havilar at the root. Even if it meant—

  Dahl grabbed her and she nearly hit him with a secon
d spell, before he wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head against his chest.

  “Stop looking!” he said. “Stop. None of this is real, I promise. You have to remember that.”

  None of it was real, and yet all of it was real—Farideh’s memories filtered through her very worst fears. That Havilar would be hurt. That Havilar would be lost. That Havilar would be turned into something terrible by sweet-voiced devils promising her easy answers.

  “A favor,” Sairché’s voice said, over the screams and the sounds of fighting. “And I’ll protect you and your sister from death and from devils, until you turn twenty-seven.”

  Just as they did to you, a little voice said. Something terrible. Something that destroys everything it touches, thinking it knows best.

  “That’s not true,” she murmured. Dahl held her closer.

  Who do you serve?

  The landscape changed with a grinding sound, and Dahl gasped. She pulled away. All traces of the revel, of Arush Vayem, of Waterdeep had burned away, and they were standing at the edge of a hideous landscape—the suppurating ground sprouted tangles of wiry brush, sores of lava, and bony protrusions, watched over by a distant, enormous skull. A scream echoed across the plains, chased by another and another, a chorus of the tortured. Even the sky seemed to loom, ready to crash down on them. Oota was nowhere to be seen.

  “Malbolge,” Farideh said, feeling her very core start to shake. “It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.”

  Bars like thick insect legs burst out of the ground around Farideh, trapping her in place. Havilar eased out of the shadows, glaive still in hand. Dahl set the sword against the cage, reached through the bars, and took her face in his shaking hands. “Look at me,” he said. “Look at me, gods damn it, not at her.”

  Farideh drew several long, slow breaths, trying to ignore the glimpses of Havilar she saw from the corner of her eye, and the spikes of panic that came with them—you have to save her, have to save her. The nightmare spun and spun around them, the Hells growing larger and more detailed beyond the terrible cage, hemming them in as surely as the bars.

  “This is all my fault,” Farideh said.

  “This is that scheming Tharra’s fault,” Dahl said. “Unless you gave her the hamadryad’s ash powder, you’re just as much a victim as the rest of us are.”

  But Farideh had made this place, this terrible place—and she couldn’t control it the way she needed to. If she hadn’t taken Sairché’s deal, if she hadn’t ended up in the fortress, if she hadn’t helped Rhand—

  “What was yours like?” she asked, making herself look at Dahl. “You said you did this before. What was it like then?”

  His eyes flicked to Havilar and back, almost as if he were weighing which was worse. “Embarrassing,” he said. “But not deadly.”

  “What did they ask? What did you see?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “If I have to stay calm, to stop paying attention to all of this, then yes, it is important.”

  Dahl scowled at her, still holding her face. “They asked how I got here. And it started with my fall. Followed by every . . . shameful, awful moment of my life, and then you jumping in here.” He averted his gaze. “I think I’d gladly trade you.”

  Farideh leaned closer, so that she couldn’t see Havilar, her horn ridge resting against the bars. It was as close as she’d ever been to another person—save Lorcan. Dahl’s gray eyes slid back to hers, and belatedly Farideh remembered the dreamscape echoed her reactions. She bit her lip. And Dahl looked down at her mouth.

  “You would not trade,” Farideh said quickly. “Watching your . . . what do you have? Brothers? I forget.”

  “Brothers,” Dahl agreed, looking up again. “Older. But they’re farmers, the both of them. I’m not really afraid they’ll turn on me with blades in hand.”

  “I’m not afraid of that!” Dahl gave her a look, and she flushed. “I’m not,” she said. “I’m afraid they’ll turn her. They’ll hurt her.” Her heart squeezed and Havilar darted forward again. Dahl let go, scooping up the sword in time to block the weapon.

  “I’d still trade,” he said quickly, blocking a second strike. He glanced back at her. “It’s not real.”

  Farideh started to retort, started to tell him it was karshoji real enough—but Havilar’s glaive found an opening, slashing up through Dahl’s belly, into his chest. He gasped . . . and vanished. Farideh cried out before she could stop herself. It’s not real, it’s not real—

  Havilar turned and gave her a lazy smile. “Are you surprised?” she said, not at all in Havilar’s voice. She stalked toward the cage. “It was always going to come down to the two of us.”

  Stay calm, she told herself. When she’d been able to keep herself from getting lost in the fear, things had slowed down. Havilar tossed her glaive from hand to hand, eyeing Farideh like a choice prize.

  But it wasn’t Havilar—those weren’t Havilar’s words, and those weren’t Havilar’s actions. What would Havilar really say? she asked herself. If you’re doing all of this for Havilar, what would she actually do?

  “Gods,” her sister’s voice said beside her. “You really think I’m a terror, don’t you?” Havilar crouched atop a spur of bone, looking down at her devilself with a wrinkled nose.

  “It’s not you,” Farideh said.

  “Right,” Havilar said. “Then why do you care about saving it?” She shook her head. “That’s definitely supposed to be me. Only you made me fight like I’m shoveling with that stupid thing. And you couldn’t give me nicer armor? You wonder why I’m angry at you—it’s ’cause you put me in ugly armor that makes me look like I have a ham for a backside.”

  “Oh for gods’ sakes,” Farideh said. “I did not.”

  “Fine,” Havilar said. “Forget the pothac armor. You’re still convinced you have to save me, and that I’m this big scary something. Do you see that?”

  “I don’t, though,” Farideh said. “You’re not.”

  “Then why do you have to be in charge of everything? Why is everything sitting on your shoulders?”

  “I’m trying to protect you!”

  The ground rumbled, shattering the bars of her cage and raining pieces onto Farideh. A great, spiked beast—a dragon made wormlike and twisted by the Hells—burst out of the rock and shot skyward. The creature went stiff, clawed arms waving almost boneless and vinelike, before splitting neatly into three parts that fell away like the petals of a hideous blossom around a heart of stone.

  Standing atop the heart was a devil—not merely a devil, Farideh knew down to her marrow. Where Lorcan was beautiful in a way that had made her listen when she shouldn’t, the man on the stone, holding a ruby rod, was beautiful in a way that she wasn’t sure she ought to be looking at. As if her eyes were going to turn inside out at the sight. He pointed the rod at her and spoke, in a voice like ground glass.

  You have one task: Stay alive, tiefling. Give no ground. You may find we have more than one goal in common.

  The core of the archdevil glowed suddenly blue and bright as a falling star, the light resolving into another of the strange glyphs that marked the Chosen.

  “That’s the secret,” the devil-Havilar said.

  For a terrible moment, Farideh couldn’t breathe.

  Then she shot up, out of the vision, gasping and wet. Dahl stood over her, similarly soaked, and holding a bucket. She sat, trying to make sense of the world. Trying to forget the threat of her possessed sister and the disappointment of her true one.

  Trying to forget the glorious, terrifying devil standing on the stone heart.

  Trying to pretend she wasn’t sure with every fiber of her being that that had been the king of the Hells himself, Asmodeus.

  She covered her face with her hands and fought the urge to wail, to scream, to be sick all over the floor.

  “It’s all right,” Dahl said, easing her up to a seated position. “It’s all right.”

  “Get her down to the shelter r
ooms,” Oota said. She was sitting beside the big human man, drenched as well. “You’ve got ’til morning to recover, tiefling.” As Dahl helped Farideh to her feet, Oota turned her furious gaze to Tharra, sitting bound and stern-faced between two more guards.

  “Lock her up,” Oota said. “I want to be at my best before I deal with this traitor.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  25 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) The Lost Peaks

  When the guard in the tower opened the door to Farideh’s quarters, Sairché was waiting, along with four erinyes. The shadar-kai woman’s dark eyes flicked from Sairché perched on the foot of the bed, to Faventia and Fidentia sulking silently at the posts, to Nisibis standing beside the window and leaning on a massive sword, and finally to one-eyed Sulci standing alltoo-close to the door. Sulci grinned.

  “Fetch your master,” Sairché ordered.

  The guard did not, as Sairché had hoped, try to test her steel against the erinyes, but turned and vanished down the dark corridors.

  “Pity,” Nisibis said, as if she read Sairché’s thoughts. “That one seemed entertaining.”

  “The wizard will be entertaining,” Sulci said. She grinned at Sairché. “They always think they’re so clever. But a clever mind doesn’t hold your skull together when my hoof comes down.”

  “You’re not killing him,” Sairché reminded her half sisters. “Not yet.”

  “Nor are we to kill Lorcan,” Faventia drawled. “Isn’t that strange?”

  “There are complex deals in place,” Sairché said. “Deals that will end one day.” She smiled at her half-sister, easily one of the most reckless erinyes she commanded. “Which Lorcan surely knows. Savor his fear. You’ll get your chance.”

  “And the wizard?” Fidentia asked.

  “Is less aware,” Sairché said, turning her eyes to the door once more. “Which is why I’ve brought you along. Now play your parts.”

  Rhand arrived, wand in hand and regarding her with that easy contempt she’d come to expect and loathe. But there was something worse there this time. His robes were tidily arranged but spattered with blood. A lot of blood, Sairché observed. She’d interrupted something.