Because I traded his life for theirs.
A hand closed on his arm above his elbow, pulling him to the side. He looked up, opening his eyes at last. It was a woman: sharp-nosed, stern-jawed, her shoulders held rigidly back and her dark hair bound in a severe knot. Dirakah? Isiem wondered, dazed. It did not seem impossible, after everything else he'd seen tonight, that the dead might walk again.
But no—this woman had two arms, and her eyes were the lustrous, empty black of the shadow-seized.
"Come," she said.
∗ ∗ ∗
"You knew what she would do."
"I guessed," Isiem admitted, turning toward where he thought the speaker stood. He could not see them—any of them. A veil of gray blindness sheeted his vision.
The Black Triune, legendary rulers of Nidal, often employed such spells as part of their interrogations. Blindness made their subjects feel more vulnerable, and their naked expressions were easier for their questioners to read. It also, Isiem knew, served to maintain the shroud of intimidating secrecy around the Triune. Stripped of his most familiar sense, he was powerless. He could not meet their eyes to impress them with his honesty, or try to guess their thoughts from the flickers on their faces.
The effect was calculated to frighten him, and it did. But at the same time, in a way, it was a relief. Isiem had never expected to stand face to face with the Black Triune, any more than he would have expected to stand before the devil-lords in Asmodeus's infernal court. He certainly would never have been able to withstand their stares without quailing. The Black Triune were ancient, unfathomably powerful; they had governed Nidal since it first swore allegiance to Zon-Kuthon, and if they had been human in the beginning, they had not been for centuries since.
What they were today, no one knew. Even wondering seemed dangerous. Sweat crept down his back. "I guessed," he repeated.
"You knew." A different voice. Female. "Or are we to imagine that you happened to have a cleric of Sarenrae—a good soul, a rare soul, and precisely the key to Iskarioth's freedom—simply by accident? That the cleric was coincidentally drugged to the brink of death just when you offered him to the demon? Are we to accept that all of this was happenstance?"
"No." Isiem swallowed. His throat was so dry it ached. "Not happenstance. I knew what Helis planned. I heard her bargain with the demon through a nightglass, and I prepared myself to break that bargain. But I did not know what she would do. Until the very last moment, there was always a chance that she might come to her senses and stop."
"Generous," the first voice said. Was that a hint of approval? Or condemnation? Isiem strained to tell.
"Foolish," said the woman. "What if your cleric died before you could offer him? What if the demon betrayed you instead of Helis? Your plan was fraught with unnecessary risk, and why? Because you believed a madwoman might turn back from her revenge?"
"I had to give her the chance," Isiem said.
"Even after she murdered Dirakah?" The female voice laughed softly at his expression. "Yes, we know about that."
"You knew, but you still punished Serevil?"
"Even if Helis deceived his eye, it was Serevil's hand that drove in the spike. He had the opportunity to heal his victim once he realized his mistake. He did not. That was weakness, and it was failure. It proved him unworthy of his gifts."
"But you did not punish Helis."
"No," the woman agreed calmly. "Because we, like you, wanted to see what she would do. Would she be content with a single act of revenge? Or would she want more? Dirakah was no great loss. We judged it better to wait and watch rather than destroy a promising student whose only sin, to that point, was excessive loyalty."
"We were blind to her scheme with the demon," the first voice admitted. "Had we known, we might have eliminated her immediately ...but we might have done as you did, and given her the chance to seal her doom. We cannot say your choice was wrong. Or disloyal."
"Loyalty is to be commended." This was a third voice, one that had not spoken before. It was neither male nor female, as far as Isiem could discern, but simply old. So old that trivialities such as gender had lost their meaning.
A shiver danced along Isiem's spine. "You will not punish me?" he ventured.
The woman laughed again. "You might perceive it as a punishment, but that is not our intent. You have proven yourself cunning and cautious. Loyal to your friends, but ruthless when they endanger Nidal. We need servants of such quality. So, our loyal servant, you are not being punished ...but you are being sent away. It is time for you to leave the Dusk Hall."
"But I have not earned my ring," Isiem said.
"That is so," the first speaker said, "and that is good. It will cause them to underestimate you." A smile seemed to come into his voice. It did not sound like a kind one. "Gather your spellbooks and bid farewell to your friends. You are going to our allies. The Chelaxians."
Chapter Nine
Escape
He did not go to Cheliax.
He didn't even leave Pangolais, although they did at least allow him out of the Dusk Hall. When the Black Triune promised to send him to the Chelaxians, Isiem soon realized, they did not mean he would be sent out of Nidal. Rather, he was sent to apprentice with a dignitary visiting the Umbral Court: a small, elegant woman whose dark hair and pale skin bespoke the blood of old Azlant. Her name was Velenne, and she was a diabolist.
"It is a distinctly Chelish discipline," one of the Triune had said before they released him. "It would be useful for us to learn all we can of it."
"You want me to spy?"
"We want you to study. Both what she intends for you to learn, and what she does not."
Of course, Isiem thought.
Four hundred years ago, Nidal had been conquered by the empire of Cheliax, one of the great powers of Golarion, and the humiliation of their defeat had rankled for centuries thereafter. Cheliax was itself an ancient and storied nation, with nearly two thousand years of tradition to its name ...and yet, compared to Nidal, it was but a raw green upstart. For the chosen people of Zon-Kuthon to lose their sovereignty to any terrestrial ruler, let alone a relative novice to the world stage, was a bitter blow.
But not, they had come to understand, an accidental one.
In the year 4606, at the dawn of the Age of Lost Omens, the god Aroden died and cast the world into turmoil. The Empire of Cheliax, which had claimed Aroden's particular favor, lost its divine mandate and collapsed into thirty years of civil war.
From that war, the diabolists rose victorious. Sweeping the old faith of Aroden aside, they brought the empire under the rule of the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune—and through House Thrune to Asmodeus, Prince of Darkness, the silver-tongued lord of devils, whom the diabolists worshiped and served.
And the Nidalese came to see why Zon-Kuthon had allowed them to fall under Cheliax's reign. Aroden's Cheliax had distrusted and subjugated their shadow-sworn nation, but Asmodeus's Cheliax welcomed them as allies.
Diabolists came to Pangolais to study the Kuthite arts. Nidalese shadowcallers served in the Midnight Guard of Westcrown and other hotspots of rebellion against House Thrune, using their arcane powers to subdue the very people who had once subdued them. There was a delightful irony in the conquest of their conquerors, and many in Pangolais believed the opportunity was ripe for the Umbral Court to extend its influence even further. Isiem's apprenticeship with Velenne was one small way of doing so.
But, in the beginning, it did not seem that she intended for him to learn anything. While Ascaros and the rest of his old classmates from the Dusk Hall apprenticed under Nidalese masters, learning to weave magic into darkness and pain, Isiem—once the best among them—sat idle. The Chelaxian paid him no mind, except occasionally to order him to make tea or fetch a finished necklace from the jeweler. The latter was more common than the former; the woman loved her jewelry.
Isiem did too. In the long, lonely hours that he spent in his assigned quarters, waiting for the diabolist to remember he
was there, he often tumbled her rings and pendants over his fingers. The colors dazzled him: glowing pink spinels, emeralds like mist-hazed gardens, diamonds that split moonlight into rainbows. Nothing in Nidal was ever so vibrant, so full of life, as Velenne's jewels in their scented ivory boxes.
Even the names of the places they'd been found were fascinating. Katheer. Oppara. Nantambu. Each of the stones had an entry in a ledger that recorded its type, price, and point of origin.
The first two things meant nothing to Isiem, but the names of the cities and lands that had birthed such marvels entranced him. He read through them again and again, trying to imagine these exotic places where the earth was not dull muted gray, but brilliant enough to shame the sun. He envisioned gilded cities, fragrant with spice, where birds sang and musicians strummed: places where he would hear joyous sounds, instead of Helis's screams echoing endlessly in his mind. Somehow, Isiem imagined—knowing it was foolish, but unwilling to shake the fancy—there were no shadows there.
One afternoon he did not put the jewels away quickly enough when he heard Velenne's steps approaching. The gems were tangled across his fingers in webs of gold when the diabolist opened the door.
"Is it so tempting to deck yourself like a Taldan dowager?" she inquired.
"No, mistress." Isiem fumbled with a pair of sapphire earrings, trying to separate their interlocked wires so he could hang them back in their boxes. "I only —"
"Only what?" She stepped into the room and let the ebony door fall shut behind her. It made no sound, but Isiem flinched anyway. "You were not stealing from me, I hope."
"No, mistress." The earrings were hopelessly tangled. He dropped them into the box, closed the lid, and drew a breath before meeting her eyes. "But you give me nothing else to do. I came to study at your side, but it seems you have no wish to teach me."
"Ah. And so you grow impatient, and imagine how else you might profit by my neglect." Velenne smiled, but her eyes remained dark and unrevealing; he could not tell if she was joking. "Well, it is true I have been a poor teacher. What do you wish to learn?"
"Magic. Diabolism. Whatever you wish to teach me."
"Those are three different things," she murmured, nearing. She plucked a green garnet necklace from his nerveless fingers and dropped it into a velvet-lined box. "But one of them, I suppose, you might learn."
∗ ∗ ∗
Velenne was as good as her word. Over the next several months, she taught Isiem numerous spells. Some were known to him already, but others were disfavored by Nidalese wizards or shunned as anathema. If Velenne were any example, the Chelaxians preferred to rely on conjurations and compulsions to force others to do their bidding. She had little interest in the undead and no reverence for darkness, which she viewed as useful for confounding enemies on the battlefield and nothing else. Spells that inflicted pain amused her, but she did not treat them with the holy reverence that the Kuthites did.
To her, Isiem thought, arcana was just another tool to manipulate. A powerful one, to be sure, and a useful one, but a servant all the same. The diabolist was no fool—she treated magic with respect, and her spellcraft was as precise as any shadowcaller's—but she had none of the bone-deep dread that he, himself, had never been able to escape.
"Why aren't you afraid?" he asked her late one night, after finishing the last of the scrolls she had ordered him to transcribe.
Velenne looked up from her book. "Afraid of what?"
"The magic. You don't fear it."
She gave him a quizzical look, then closed her book, smiling faintly. "You Nidalese. You see traps everywhere. No surprise, really, given what you are."
"And what is that?" Isiem asked, feeling as if he should be nettled but not quite knowing why.
"Slaves. Slaves so thoroughly cowed, so utterly broken, that you're afraid even to look at your chains. As if merely acknowledging your enslavement might tempt punishment from your master—which, to be fair, it might. Zon-Kuthon is not noted for his temperance."
Her blasphemy was astounding. Even after months of studying under the Chelaxian, the things she said amazed him. Isiem bit his tongue. He couldn't rebuke his teacher, but if the Umbral Court knew that he'd sat in silence while she uttered such profanities ...
What would they do? What could they do? The question brought him up short. It was the Black Triune that had instructed him to spy on their visitor, so perhaps they wanted him to uncover Velenne's disrespect. If that was so, he served them best by remaining quiet.
And, he admitted in his most private heart, it was oddly thrilling to hear such illicit ideas spoken aloud. The Nidalese were slaves. Zon-Kuthon's rule was cruel. And Isiem had often, so often, been afraid to admit even to himself how badly his god's yoke chafed. Or that he wore it at all.
"But you're a diabolist," he said. "You don't fear the devils?"
Velenne waved two fingers dismissively and opened her book again. "Not as you fear your master. I serve, yes. But I also command. I have a contract: my duties and obligations are set forth clearly, as are the risks I take and the rewards I might win. There is no uncertainty, so there is less fear. I know what I face, and I accepted it freely. But you ...you didn't even strike your own bargain, did you? You stumble in the fetters your ancestors forged, bound by terms you never negotiated and barely know. At any misstep, you risk punishment, but you've only the vaguest idea where the true path lies. And so you live in terror. Even now, you're afraid that someone is watching, aren't you? Looking for transgressions you don't know."
That cut too close to the bone. "Why are you here, then?" Isiem blurted. "If all you see in us is such horror, why come to Nidal?"
"To witness the warning," Velenne replied coolly, turning a page. "Imperial Cheliax, in her wisdom and glory, has chosen to walk a path not far from yours. It serves us well to remember what might happen if we bargain poorly."
"That's what we are to you? A cautionary tale?"
"Everyone is a cautionary tale. You needn't be insulted on Nidal's behalf." She glanced up, brushing a lock of hair behind one ear. "Really, you should be pleased. Your masters will be delighted you've uncovered such sedition. Few spies are so successful."
He shrugged her mockery away. "Are those the only choices? Slavery or servitude?"
"Those are the only choices for us. And they aren't really choices, are they?"
He had no answer for that. Velenne read it on his face, smiled again, and set her book aside. "Ah, you're afraid of me now. Or angry. Which is it?"
"Neither."
"You shouldn't lie to your betters," Velenne said. Unhurriedly she stood, loosed the ties of her soft gray robe, and walked past his cramped desk on the way to her bedroom. Two steps away, just as the first whisper of her perfume reached him, she beckoned for her student to follow.
Isiem felt the blood drain from his face. Something fluttered deep in his stomach. It was not a surprise, precisely, that she might invite him to her bed—master shadowcallers frequently took such liberties with their students—but after months of inaction he had assumed that Chelish customs were different, or that she simply had no interest in him. Learning otherwise, now, after such a perplexing conversation, was ...disconcerting. And, he realized with a flicker of uneasy surprise, he was afraid of disappointing her.
"I can't," he said, swallowing.
Her smile did not waver. "It wasn't a request."
She had that right, if she wanted it. Isiem stood. Then he hesitated, uncertain again. "You never told me why you aren't afraid of the magic."
"Because I control it," Velenne replied, as if stating a most obvious fact. "And you fear it because you control nothing." She rested a hand lightly on his arm, then closed her grip. He could feel her nails dig in through the cloth of his sleeve.
"Nothing," she repeated, amused. "Come."
∗ ∗ ∗
She taught him more about that, too, as the days rolled into months. Yet no matter how diligently Isiem applied himself to those lessons, he sensed that
it was never quite what she wanted.
Velenne liked pain. She liked inflicting it and enduring it, and Isiem came to believe that her predilections played some role in why she had come to Nidal. Certainly she seemed to delight in their refinements of the torturer's art. His training should have made him adept enough to please her, and yet it seemed he seldom did.
"What am I doing wrong?" he asked her once, in the dim hours between the end of night and the beginning of morning. Velenne was a blur of warmth and fragrance in the darkness beside him, but he knew that she had her back turned to him. "I love you. I want it to be right."
The sheets rustled as she rolled over. Her hair brushed his shoulder and swung away. "Love?" she repeated, inflecting the word with a wealth of irony. Neither of them had uttered it before.
"Yes."
"Ah." There was a pause, as if Velenne were considering what to say next. Then she shrugged and, in a determinedly light tone, said, "Did I ever tell you about the first boy I loved?"
Isiem had no wish to hear the story, but he could think of no polite way to decline. "No."
"I call him a boy, although I suppose he was a man—albeit boyish in many ways. His name was Ederras. Ederras Celverian. Scion of a storied noble house, paladin of Iomedae, dedicated fighter for the freedom of Westcrown." She laughed quietly, tracing her fingertips along the inside of Isiem's elbow. He shivered, but did not draw away. "He was brave and beautiful and bold, and oh so innocently stupid.
"My duty was to spy on him. I was new to diabolism then, and less well known in Cheliax than I am now, so my superiors believed I should be able to infiltrate the Wiscrani rebellion easily. I arrived in the city with a false name and a background full of lies, and immediately I set about seducing Ederras Celverian. No magic; he might have sensed that and grown suspicious. Only charm. So it took a very long time, but in the end he succumbed.
"He wore armor the first night he came to me, as if that would protect him. It didn't, of course, but I broke a nail on his plate. He never did it again. And for a while we were ...happy. Truly happy, I believe. Both of us. I didn't file the reports I'd taken on him or his compatriots. I even helped him, in small ways, and counseled him away from mistakes. Because I had come to love him—really love him, forthright and foolish as he was—and I wanted to shield him from the disasters he was inviting.
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