Brin watched him go, the glaive still held before him like a barrier. What, by every watching god, was happening in the House of Knowledge?
You need to leave.
Farideh sat up, startled, and glanced around. Night had fallen and the temple was dark but for the fall of moonlight that struck the statue of Selûne. She was alone still, the temple quiet as a tomb. She stretched against stiff muscles. How on earth had she managed to fall asleep? She eyed the statue.
You need to leave.
Farideh startled. It was her own voice in her own thoughts, but it came so suddenly, so insistently. Not an order. Not a threat. A certainty. She needed to be somewhere else. Soon. Now …
The statue looked down at her with a beatific smile.
Farideh’s stomach tightened. She stood and backed away from the altar. She did need to leave. She’d known that. It wasn’t the statue telling her what to do. It couldn’t be. But the hazy memories of the hours before drifted back … the strange calm that had overtaken her with the scent of incense …
Please just make him go away. Please tell me what to do.
You need to leave.
The statue shone in the moonlight, still and quiet. A cloud passed overhead, shadowing the statue, but somehow it seemed to gleam just as brightly. Farideh backed away.
“Thank you,” she said as she reached the door, uncertain of the form, “for the … protection.”
Outside the shrine, all was quiet. Lorcan had left for the moment. She peered up at the broken rooftops around her. He might be anywhere.
“Stay calm,” she whispered to herself, as if hearing her own voice would ground her. The shadows reached out for her, and in turn, out of her more shadows crept, swaddling her like a blanket. She crept across the square and edged her way down the road.
Neverwinter loomed all around Farideh, a toothy monster all shadows and voids. With every step she put between herself and the chapel, her unease grew, and whatever had cooled and calmed her pulse, began to wear away. Her hip still ached where she’d fallen on it, and the rough fabric of the hospital’s robes rasped her scraped tail.
Somewhere, in the dark and broken city, Lorcan was looking for her. Somewhere Rohini might be more dangerous than she’d thought. Somewhere there were Ashmadai. Somewhere Sairché might be watching.
Farideh reached the bridge and scanned the sky. No dark shapes circling the river. No devils, all fire and talons or silver tongues and hungry hands, ready to pluck her up. She hurried across the river.
Lorcan had laid bare the full extent of her foolishness: he was a monster, he had always been a monster, and she was the only one who’d gone along hoping, wishing, pretending it wasn’t so. Such a lamb-brained little idiot, she thought. Only you would be surprised he’d sent an assassin after your family.
How Mehen would crow if he knew.
She passed near the House of Knowledge and thought of what Lorcan had said about Rohini. The biggest viper of them all. Because she was dangerous to Lorcan or dangerous to Farideh? She glanced up again at the sky, at the gathering clouds. A distant roll of thunder rumbled somewhere over the sea.
Lorcan first, she thought. Whatever threat Rohini was, she could wait until Farideh was sure Lorcan wasn’t going to kill anyone.
For Lorcan … she would go to Yvon.
She hurried down the road, glancing up at the darkening sky for the shape of Lorcan diving at her. Yvon had said his warlock friends would be gathering tonight. She’d be safer with them around. And after all, Yvon had managed to protect her from the orc and—
A great clash of thunder startled her, and moments later, the rain started pouring down. Farideh pushed aside her thoughts and sprinted the rest of the way to Yvon’s shop.
The door was locked, but when she tapped, the assistant—Kalam—peered out the window and unlocked it for her. He gave her a stiff nod. “They’re downstairs.”
“Thank you,” she said, trying to shake the rain from her borrowed robes. “Do you have any bandages?”
He shook his head. “You’ll have to ask Master Claven. I’m only on door duty.”
She thanked him again, and passed through the curtain and down into the room Yvon had led her through before. Cold-burning torches lit the room now, and Farideh could see it was much larger than the shop above. A dozen people sat in a rough circle near the center of the room listening to Yvon talking. He paused, looked up at her, and beckoned her down.
“This is the young woman I was telling you about,” he said, as she slid in behind a blonde elf woman. “It’s she who our late, ahem, ‘friend’ was sent after. Farideh, I shall have to introduce you around later, as we’re in the middle of discussing—”
“I don’t see what there is to discuss,” a big tiefling man interrupted. “We’ve dealt with the Glasyans.”
“This isn’t merely about Glasyans,” Yvon said, sounding annoyed. “So let me finish, Creed. The orcs were marked by Sixth Layer magic, but as before, only faintly.”
“And spellscarred,” the tiefling beside Creed said. “You’ve said that.”
“So the Glasyans are trying to use the spellplague,” the elf woman said with a shrug. “They wouldn’t be the first.”
“That would be the simple answer,” Yvon said, “but I suspect it would be the incorrect one. I followed them, you see. The house he brought the orcs to was most interesting. The edge of the Blacklake—”
“Yvon, get to the bloody point!” the elf said.
“The orcs didn’t come out. Not with our priest.”
“So?”
“So, the priest came out, one cask and one mark richer. The second mark overwhelms the first, in most unexpected ways.”
The tiefling man frowned. “Another archduke?”
“No. It was …” Yvon shuddered. “Something else. Let us simply say I did not wish to test it any further than I did. Either the Glasyans are arming some other force, or they are comrades to it. Or they are slaves of it. And more,” he added, “I did some asking. The man is no mere priest. He heads the hospital they run in the House of Knowledge.”
“Brother Vartan?” Farideh asked.
Suddenly a dozen pairs of eyes were on her. On the hospital robes she was wearing. She flushed deeply. Yvon gave her a quizzical look. “Do you know the good brother then?”
“I … I’ve met him.”
“Really?” Yvon asked. He stepped closer to her, eyeing her robes. “And how did that happen?”
She opened her mouth but the words didn’t come. Her gaze swept the gathered group, but every one of them was watching her as if she were a rat come in through the floorboards.
And then she saw between the two tiefling men, beyond them, a wide table with strange markings all over it stood in front of a hanging—
Farideh closed her mouth, her heart in her throat.
The hanging banner showed three black triangles surrounded by a larger triangle and a nine-sided circle.
You see that symbol, you run.
“I think,” Yvon said. “There’s quite a lot you have to tell us still.”
Oh gods, she thought. You must know how to turn back time to keep that orc from being sacrificed to the king of the Hells.
She had only the merest moment to feel like a fool, to chastise herself for the mistake that was about to cost her her life. Yvon’s friends were the Ashmadai Lorcan had been warning her about, and she had come to them like a supplicant.
No, she thought, noticing the many eyes on her. Like a sacrifice.
Yvon’s expression had gone cold. He’s pieced it together too, Farideh thought. “Your robes are from the hospital,” he noted. “Might I wager your Lorcan is a cambion who wears the copper scourge?”
Farideh’s tongue was not made to lie. She knew her terror was plain on her face. She couldn’t pretend that Lorcan had set her up for this. She couldn’t pretend she dressed in the robes because she was trying to undo things like a wicked cultist would. She couldn’t pretend she had any way out of
the basement room.
The shadow-smoke curled out of her, and the powers rushed in. She took a step backward and felt several similar surges throughout the room—other warlocks calling on their patrons’ powers.
“It isn’t what it seems,” she said.
“Don’t be foolish,” Yvon warned. “You alone are no match for us.”
A sharp cry sliced through the door at the top of the stairs. Yvon’s gaze darted up to it, then back to Farideh. “What have you—”
The door slammed open with a crack. Thirteen pairs of eyes watched as Havilar, dressed in her armor and carrying Farideh’s rod and sword, descended into the Ashmadai’s ritual chamber.
HAVI!” FARIDEH CRIED. “GET AWAY!”
Havilar didn’t look at her sister. Her golden eyes were locked on Yvon instead, burning hot and hateful. The shopkeeper for his part seemed to scour Havilar with his gaze, as if searching for the secret at the core of her. She pointed the rod at his head. “Sixth Layer,” he hissed.
Havilar stood perfectly still, rod outstretched. For the merest of moments, no one moved and all eyes were on the quartz tip of the rod. But nothing happened.
Then the smaller tiefling man, the warlock, cast a blast of heat that washed over Havilar as harmless as a gale. She flinched away and he leaped closer, his hand outstretched with some foul spell on his fingertips, ready to end things.
Havilar struck him across the frailest part of his cheekbone with the heavy quartz tip. The strike was perfect. His face erupted in a spray of blood and snapped something deeper in his skull—a dull wheeze accompanied the crunch of bone, and he collapsed, his eyes glazing. Havilar flipped Farideh’s sword into a stabbing grip and shoved it halfway through the elf woman’s chest and back out without so much as looking. The woman gasped and collapsed onto Farideh.
The Ashmadai erupted.
Yvon may have been right—Farideh alone stood little chance against the assembled cultists. Inevitably, Havilar would fall as well. But Havilar would take a great many of them with her, regardless of the madness that seemed to grip her.
And Farideh would keep her from falling.
She cast a stream of flames into the crowd, neatly parting it and keeping Havilar from being overrun. Her sister seemed, again, to try and cast through the rod, again, frustrated when nothing came of it. She dodged one of the Ashmadai warlocks, tripping him into a comrade so his spell discharged in a messy burst of burning smoke that left the Ashmadai screaming in pain.
Farideh cast a similar cloud of miasma around her, catching the four cultists advancing toward her. She stepped through a rent in the planes and reappeared on the other side of the room, where she could more easily—
A sharp pain exploded from the side of her skull, and her head rocked sideways as something caught her horn and wrenched her neck. She fell to her knees, her vision crumbling into stars. Instinct urged her to move, and she rolled onto her back in time to dodge the big tiefling’s bludgeon smashing into the floor beside her. She threw up her arms and he grinned wickedly, pulling back for another strike.
“Adaestuo.” The blast streaked past the tiefling and crashed into the ceiling above him, punching a hole through to the shop above. Chunks of plaster and floorboard hailed down on them both, but the heavy joist swung down into the man’s head, knocking him senseless for a moment. Farideh cast another blast at him, throwing him backward into the fray. He slammed into Havilar, who caught his weight and threw him to the ground before pinning him down with Farideh’s sword.
Yvon lunged at Havilar. Farideh’s blast caught him and he stumbled, enough to give Havilar time to pull the sword free and turn her attention to the shopkeeper. She slammed her palm against his breastbone, arresting him, and gave him a wicked grin. The flash of magic that pulsed over Yvon’s body shimmered like a slick of lamp oil. His face contorted in pain, his eyes rolled back, and he fell to his knees. The pulse came again and he collapsed.
Havilar looked up at Farideh and sneered. She pulled the sword free of the tiefling man’s body. There were only three Ashmadai still standing, and those had sense enough to stay back.
“Havi, come on,” Farideh said, one hand pressed to the lump growing on the back of her head. The bludgeon had half caught on her horn, but it had hit her hard enough to make her head spin as she lurched toward her sister.
Havilar regarded her, cruel and amused, as if she were watching a spider whose legs she’d plucked one by one try to cross the floor. She turned her attention, unhurried, to the remaining Ashmadai—all armed with daggers. She dropped the sword and the rod and gestured with her hands at the nearest one, the one wounded by Farideh’s miasma. His eyes seemed to glaze over and he turned from Havilar to the cultist beside him, a tiefling woman with wild, white curls. Without a word, he plunged his dagger to the hilt in her back.
Farideh froze, watching as Havilar directed the cultist to go after his final fellow. The last man bolted for the stairs, but as he did, he passed Havilar, and again she caught him with that strange pulse of oily magic, and he collapsed. The other Ashamadai was on him in an instant.
Farideh bent and picked up the rod, uncertain of what was happening, of how much she was imagining. She pressed a hand to her skull again and the hand came away sticky with blood.
“Havi,” she said, her voice shaking, “stop.”
Havilar didn’t respond and kicked the final Ashmadai under the chin so that his head snapped back hard. Dazed, he hardly fought as she stabbed his comrade’s dagger into the fleshy part of his throat. Dark blood gushed out and he collapsed.
Havilar scooped the sword off the ground and turned to face her sister. Her face was a mess of cuts and swollen lumps, but Havilar didn’t seem to notice at all. She advanced on Farideh.
“What …” Farideh tried to ask. Her head had started spinning again. “What have you done? Why did you—” She turned aside as Havilar lunged forward with the sword, barely missing the blade. “Havi!”
“You’ll have to kill her,” Havilar said, her voice raspy and her grin maniac. “I won’t let her go.”
“What are you talking about?” Farideh shouted. She ducked under another sword strike. “Havi, it’s me!”
“It should have been you, warlock,” Havilar said, pressing her past the altar. “But no mind. Only you will know my mistake, and you were always meant to die.”
“Assulam!” The altar burst into pieces, making Havilar step back and giving Farideh room to retreat. But the shards of stone had no more clattered to the ground but Havilar was advancing on her again.
Suddenly it felt as if a net had been cast over her, and she found herself dragged toward Havilar and the sword. Her hand convulsed around the rod, and trying to move her own arm became a battle fierce as the one they’d just finished. It wasn’t Havilar casting spells, but it was Havilar’s body standing in front of her.
“Who are you?” Farideh whispered, her jaw stiff against the spell.
“Your sister,” the creature in her twin’s skin replied. “For now.” She placed the tip of the sword against Farideh’s breastbone and tilted her head. “I wonder what she’ll do when she realizes that she’s the one who killed you. Will it break her, or will she be glad she finally managed it?”
The force holding Farideh’s body stiff snapped audibly as she wrenched her arm upward. Havilar’s eyes widened, and Farideh felt the being try to close the force back over her again. But Farideh was already shouting the trigger word that vanished in the roar of a wall of flame.
The fire only singed Havilar’s hair and the edges of her armor, but the force of the spell threw her backward. She crashed against the wall, her head snapping back like a discarded doll, and crumpled at its base.
Farideh started toward her sister’s body, but her legs buckled. The strange magic still clung to her. She wrenched herself up and half-stumbled, half-crawled across the mess of bodies and blood and rubble. Havilar lay slack and senseless on the floor, her breath ragged and her pulse thready. She didn’t
stir when Farideh tapped her cheek.
Farideh cursed. She hurried up the stairs. Kalam lay sprawled across the shop floor, cut from throat to belly and leaking blood and gore onto the polished floors. Farideh’s knees buckled before she was messily sick beside him. Her head was still pounding and when she wiped her face, her hand was streaked with blood that dripped from her nose.
Panting, she reached for the healing potions and gathered up an armful before stumbling back downstairs. She fed one to Havilar and watched as her wounds closed and her bruises faded. But she didn’t wake. A ruby drop of syrup pooled in the corner of Havilar’s mouth and ran down her cheek like a stream of blood. Farideh cracked another. And a third, but Havilar didn’t wake. She cursed.
Her hands cold and shaking, she opened the last of them and drank it herself. It tasted like bile and chalk, but it made the pain in her head fade and the shock that kept threatening to overtake her body retreat into a simpler, more focused panic.
There was nothing to be done for the Ashmadai, and if she didn’t hurry, there would be nothing to be done for Havilar either. Farideh could almost hear Mehen bellowing not to move Havilar, especially not when her neck had slammed against the wall like that, to try and wake her before she slipped away.
But whatever was wrong with Havilar, whatever had come over her, no Ashmadai was going to forgive her because she might have been concussed. Farideh shoved the rod into her belt, and the sword as well, maneuvered her arms around her sister’s middle, and hauled her up the back stairs into the little garden. The rain was still coming down in a heavy patter. She laid Havilar on the muddy ground while she unlatched the little shed and led the donkey out.
Havilar needed a priest, and quickly. Farideh couldn’t trust the House of Knowledge, not when Lorcan was probably still looking for her, when the Ashmadai were suspicious of the place, when Rohini was still some sort of threat. She’d take Havilar to the little shrine to Selûne, then go back and find Brin. Or maybe whoever guarded the shrine would be there this time. Either way, it was the safest place she could think of. With quite a bit of struggle, she got both herself and Havilar onto the donkey, and got the donkey moving toward the Blacklake District.
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