The Adversary

by Erin M. Evans

  “Well,” he said. “You’ve returned. How fortunate.” He looked around the room, his gaze hesitating momentarily on Nisibis and the twins and stopping altogether on Sulci. His expression shifted in a way Sairché had not been expecting. “And how intriguing. Where is my Chosen? She has much to make up for.”

  Sairché feigned surprise “My dear Saer Rhand—don’t you read your agreements?”

  “Always,” Rhand said, icily.

  “Then I shall remind you of the sixty-first section of our contract,” she said sweetly. “And let you choose her proxy.” She gestured at the erinyes, then leaned in, conspiratorially. “I would personally opt to waive the proxy option. They are none of them polite company. Particularly Sulci here. She has many impolite ideas about your skull, for example.”

  Rhand stared at Sairché, as if his gaze alone could make her quail, and despite herself, Sairché checked her shields. “They are none of them capable of the sort of magic I require,” he said. “Bring me my tiefling.”

  Sairché feigned surprise. “The messenger hasn’t reached you? My, my.” She did not break her gaze but activated the little serpent ring she’d reclaimed, and reached into the pocket it created. In the cold void, her hand closed on Rhand’s agreement. She jerked her head to Faventia as the heavy scroll broke into the plane, and her much stronger sister took hold of it and held the voluminous parchment up for Sairché to read. “From the third section: ‘They will be kept and maintained within the walls of the camp Adolican Rhand builds with assistance from the Nine Hells,’ ” she read. She waved Faventia away. “And I come to find that you have decided that means ‘any camp you build with any assistance which might have once had its origins in the Hells.’ Those are not, if you ask me, the same thing.”

  “Does your lord care?” Rhand said. “There are plenty of souls for his use left in this one.”

  “My lord cares about mere mortals assuming his preferences,” Sairché said. “And I care about being made to seem a fool. So it would seem,” she went on, as she’d rehearsed all the hours of the night, “I’m very fortunate to have that sixty-first section to fall back on. You’ll find it very clear: in case of dispute, His Majesty, Asmodeus, Lord of the Ninth Layer and All the Hells Beyond, Ascended God of Evil, claims temporary ownership over all Hellish assets involved for three days, during which the dispute is decided. By him. You are entitled to a fiend to stand as proxy for said assets and your requirements are not in force during the deliberations—although I don’t suggest you dawdle, you have quite a few souls outstanding—and your own soul is not in forfeit.”

  “Until it is,” Rhand said.

  “Now, now,” Sairché said. “We have rules about this sort of thing. That’s why they’re in the contract.”

  Sairché kept smiling, wishing privately this had been Lorcan’s problem to deal with. What she’d said was true—every word—but she hadn’t claimed the contract in dispute, and she wouldn’t. Even if there was no chance of Rhand being in the right, Sairché wouldn’t run the risk of drawing Asmodeus’s attention to what she had or hadn’t been doing. Since Farideh hadn’t left the camp, she remained—in the most technical of senses—in Rhand’s possession and all the terms of their agreement were being met well enough to stand. Still, it made Sairché’s nerves itch—too close to failing the agreement. To finding out what happened if she reneged.

  “It does get a bit dull by the sixty-first section,” Sairché said, to cover her nerves. “I don’t blame you for skimming.”

  The dark rage lingering under Rhand’s calm facade took over. “I don’t have three days to spare. You call her back.”

  Sairché shrugged. “Alas, I cannot.”

  Rhand pointed the wand at her head. “Yuetteviexquedot.” The shielding spell dissolved with a dull whine. Sairché tensed, but in the same moment, the erinyes struck. Sulci’s sword swung up like a club, setting off Adolican Rhand’s own shield. He startled as it erupted, throwing Sulci back to the floor, and giving Nisibis a chance to dart in and clout him hard behind the head. The wizard fell to his hands and knees . . . and found Nisibis’s sword held close under his chin.

  “You can’t kill me,” he said.

  “Really?” Sairché replied. “Where in our agreement does it say that?” She stepped down from her perch. “Did you really think you could twist an agreement better than a devil from the Hells?” Lords of the Nine, how satisfying would it be to give the signal, let Nisibis cut his throat, let Rhand clutch and the blood that fountained from the wound? She drew a breath—not now. Killing him now would mean she’d failed. She nodded to Nisibis instead, and the erinyes moved to stand beside her.

  “You are still of a use to me, fortunately,” Sairché said, opening the portal to Malbolge again. She looked down at Rhand, crouched on the carpet, and smiled. “Don’t disappoint.”

  But she had no more than turned her back on him before he spoke once more.

  “If those are the terms,” he said, “then I select you as my proxy, Lady Sairché. If you’ll come with me?”

  Havilar woke, hazy and aching. When Brin had tried to brew the tea for her the night before, she’d put him off and climbed into her bedroll where she willed herself to sleep before he could say another word to her. She did not need caring for.

  Brin dozed against a tree, on the other side of the fire. When she stood, he stirred and turned toward her, hand on his sword, and altogether she was still angry at him, and still so glad to see him.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  He smiled crookedly and let go of the weapon. “Good morning. You sleep all right?”

  Havilar shrugged. “I guess.” She still wasn’t happy about being told to sleep. “Did you stand watch all night?”

  “Not exactly. I sleep lightly,” he said. “You never know when some noble’s going to get it into his or her head that offing me in the night is in their best interests.” He rubbed his eyes. “Usually, though, my room’s not full of owls and voles and things. I feel as if I woke a hundred times last night.”

  Havilar wondered what his rooms were full of, what noises he was used to. How many of them were someone else. It wasn’t her business—not yet and maybe not ever. “You should have woken me.”

  “I’m all right.” He stretched and tried to smother the yawn that escaped him. Havilar gave him a very pointed look. “All right,” he admitted. “I should probably have woken you. You seemed like you needed the rest.”

  Havilar squatted down beside the fire. “You could sleep now. I’ll pack things up. Or just rest your eyes at least, if I’m too noisy.”

  He gave her another crooked smile. “That would be perfect.” He eyed her a moment. “Are we going to talk today, do you think?”

  Terror sank its teeth into Havilar. “We’re talking now,” she said lightly. “Havi,” Brin sighed.

  Havilar stood and went over to her bedroll. “Can we just get on our way before we worry about this?” He sighed again, but said nothing else, and when she glanced back, he was settling down to sleep.

  She ought to be brave enough to hear him say that there was nothing between them. She ought to be sure enough to know if that was what she wanted or not. She ought to be more concerned with finding Farideh who— yet again—deserved the worry more than she did. It made her feel unseated and upset, like a plant pulled up by its roots and tossed onto the stones. She finished packing everything up, and considered waking Brin.

  Havilar picked up her glaive instead and turned her attention to the pull of her muscles, the solidness of her bones. The weight of the glaive steadied in her hands. She didn’t imagine opponents, this time, or make an enemy of a tree or a shrub. She moved the glaive through careful steps, patterns she knew by rote—a sweep, a slice, a carve, a chop. Step and slide and step and turn. Once upon a time, people had said her glaive was as good as her right hand. Once upon a time, Devilslayer had been the perfect anchor—as long as she had her glaive, Havilar knew who she was.

  And now everyth
ing was different, but Havilar was the same. And she wasn’t sure she ought to be.

  Slash, sweep, pull the blade up.

  Brin was certainly different—he was so sure, and so bossy, and she hated thatpothac beard. Every time something dangerous came up, he tried to make her go home, back down, turn into someone else. Every time he sighed at her, she wanted to curl up and hide.

  Chop, press forward, sweep low. Step forward. Turn.

  And then he would laugh when she said something funny and everything was the same again. He would smile at her with that glint in his eye that made her think they were sharing a secret, and she was his again, and that was exactly right.

  But then he’d sigh.

  She lunged forward, barely holding on to the weapon’s haft, the weight nearly pulling it out of her hands. She took an extra step trying to keep it, and stopped, panting. Again, she told herself, and she started over. She hadn’t done these passes in years—more years she amended. She hadn’t done all manner of things in years. It made her feel a little melancholy and a little giddy at the same time—like she was a girl again, learning for the first time.

  She’d run through the passes once again and started a third time, when she realized Brin wasn’t sleeping, but lay on his side watching her practice. She faltered, and pulled the glaive close. “Sorry. Was I loud?”

  “No. I just wanted to watch. You’re getting better.”

  She ran a hand over the end of her braid, and realized its shortened length wasn’t surprising her anymore. “Thank you.”

  “It’ll come back,” he promised.

  It had to, Havilar thought. Because otherwise she wasn’t sure about a single other thing. Especially not Brin.

  “What would you be doing today if you were at home?” she asked. “If you hadn’t come with me? If I hadn’t come back?”

  Brin screwed up his face as if he were trying to remember his calendar. “I had a meeting planned about now, with one of my contacts, to talk about the state of things in the Dales.”

  “This early?”

  “People assume if you’re noble, you sleep in,” Brin said. “Or, if you’re a young noble, that you are finishing up a night of drinking and carousing.” He shifted his position, as if trying to find a more comfortable bit of dirt. “They don’t tend to look for you in back rooms with tinkers.”

  “Do you do a lot of that? Carousing?”

  Brin laughed once. “No. People think there’s something off about me,” he admitted. “I don’t carouse or whore or drink. I’m a terrible young noble.”

  Havilar looked away—she realized she was blushing. She wanted to know and she didn’t want to know what he did in his free time. Whoring and carousing wasn’t an answer she wanted, but then, did that mean he was off with sweethearts and brightbirds and romances? Did that mean he’d become someone who wanted none of those things? Or maybe—maybe—was he holding out for her to return?

  You aren’t going to know unless you ask, she told herself. She dug a little hole into the dirt with the butt of her glaive.

  Before she could ask more, though, a line of bright light split the air and tore wide to reveal Lorcan stepping into the plane.

  “Ye gods!” Brin shouted, suddenly on his feet.

  “Well met to you too,” Lorcan said.

  “Where’s Farideh?” Havilar said. “You said you were going to rescue her.”

  Lorcan looked at her with that irritatingly blank expression. “Safe,” he said. “Out of the tower. But she won’t leave the camp without first rescuing the people held prisoner there, so unfortunately your stubborn sister says this little adventure’s not through.”

  “But she’s safe?” Havilar asked. “She’s all right?”

  “Oh, safe as a ruby in Asmodeus’s strong box,” Lorcan drawled. “She’s with Dahl, after all.” Havilar gave him a knowing look, but Lorcan just glared at her. “As for Mehen, I’m finding him next, and I’ll send him your way. Get around the mountain, toward the peak on the southeast slope. There’s a plateau there where you can meet easily.” He blew out a breath. “They’re traveling with a Red Wizard and her attendant undead. Ghouls and such. Be forewarned.”

  Brin belted his sword. “Why are they traveling with undead?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea, nor do I know how far off they are, but I assume you can find some way to occupy yourselves if there’s a wait.” He gave Havilar a significant look of his own, before he leaped into the air, flapped up through the gaps in the canopy, and disappeared from view.

  Brin cursed, kicked the dirt, and cursed again. “Gods damn it.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Havilar said. “We’d have to climb anyway.”

  “That’s not it.” Brin heaved another sigh. “If that had been anyone else. If that had been another devil”—he shook his head—“I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”

  Havilar swallowed and turned back to the pile of gear. She tightened her grip on the glaive, the one thing no one could take from her, even if they knocked the weapon from her hands, burned the haft, and melted down the blade. I just have to get this right, she thought. Maybe nothing else could be fixed, but she’d die taking back the glaive.

  “Well, at least we know where we’re headed now,” she said.

  There was a limit, Mehen found, to how far the coursing of hot blood would carry a body. He was starved for food that wasn’t Daranna’s dry waybread, company that wasn’t Khochen’s ridiculous playacting, a bed that didn’t lie beside a shambling mockery of a corpse, and most of all for his daughters. One would have guessed that after seven and a half years of their absence, he would bear it better. But when the group paused to send the scouts ahead, to stretch and eat their terrible waybread, Mehen turned to the woods to make water, and stayed alone in the trees to overcome his heavy heart. Never again, he thought. I’ll never let them out of my sight again. It was a lie and he knew it, ugly as it was to realize it. He had no idea what having grown children meant. Except Brin, which wasn’t the same. Or maybe it was? He had no notion anymore.

  One thing at a time, he told himself, one thing—

  He tapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth and tasted a stranger’s scent. The Red Wizard’s. Near enough to have stuck a dagger in his back.

  Mehen spun on her, reaching for his own daggers. Zahnya only smiled.

  “A nice private spot,” she said.

  “It was,” Mehen said, releasing the weapons. “Did I take too long to piss?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Zahnya said. “I have something you should see.” She pulled a small, clear crystal sphere from her sleeve and shook it once. An image formed around it, swallowing her hand and the ball together: Khochen and Vescaras on watch the night before. There was the fire, the shadows of the unsleeping ghouls, his own sleeping form in the distance.

  “Do you have a plan for him?” Khochen asked.

  Vescaras didn’t look at her, peering out into the darkness. “I’m hoping we won’t need one.”

  “It’s his daughter,” Khochen said, and Mehen narrowed his eyes. “We’re not going to be that fortunate.” She glanced swiftly back at the camp. “Daranna will just grab her, you know. Run him through if need be—or rather, try to.”

  “She’s underestimating him less and less,” Vescaras pointed out. “You’re his latest friend, why don’t you prepare him?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t think we can.”

  “Then what is there to discuss? We can’t let a possible Shadovar agent run free. You can’t convince Mehen she needs to be caught. Where lies the middle ground?” He turned to Khochen. “Keep him apart when we get there. We’ll get her in irons, and he’ll have to stay calm once he sees we have her. Fair?”

  Khochen nodded. “Fair.”

  The image disappeared with a pop, and Zahnya smirked at Mehen over her outstretched hand. “Imperfect allies,” she said. “I thought you should know.”

  Mehen sighed. The Thayan was so young. “I kn
ow.”

  “If you like,” Zahnya said, “I could . . . delay them. Allow you your access to the camp first.”

  “Do you know,” Mehen said, “my daughters are tieflings? Foundlings? I suspect you must, with Khochen asking me every question under the sun, and you listening to every answer. If you think this is the first time someone has taken it into their minds to assume the worst about one of my girls, you are a fool indeed. They were always going to try and capture her. I was never going to stop them. But I will be one of your karshoji bone-puppets if that makes a damned bit of difference in the end.”

  Zahnya’s mouth went small. “You’re right. I’ve been listening. I would have thought you’d care enough to protect that girl.”

  “This is protecting her,” Mehen said. Even if he was sure down to his marrow that Farideh had not gone off intending to aid the Shadovar, not been intending to play the traitor in wartime, there was still the small, unshakeable doubt that she’d given him for so long—so very long. There was always the pact. There was always the devil. He wouldn’t let the Harpers have her—not easily—but he wouldn’t let her fall either.

  Zahnya pulled the crystal into her sleeve once more.

  “But many thanks for the offer,” Mehen said with a toothy grin. “And the warning that they’re trying to ‘handle’ me. I’ll make use of that.” He considered her. “They won’t turn on you, you know? Damned Harpers—don’t like breaking their word, even when it seems a bad promise. Especially when it comes to stopping Shar.”

  “I’ll believe that when it happens,” Zahnya said. “Truth be told, I’m surprised we’ve come this far. I did expect the bite of your blade, goodman. Perhaps the infamous interrogations of the Waterdhavian Harpers.”

  “What do you want in the camp?” Mehen asked.

  She looked at him and smiled with a wickedness that reminded Mehen she was not just a girl, and he wondered for a moment if he was in fact outmatched. “To take weapons from Shar.”