Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

At the corner of Market street and Clockmaker’s Way, since long before the ruin of Neverwinter, a stone building full of narrow, private rooms had hidden the Cult of Glasya behind the facade of a brothel. In some decades it was plush and fine, in others rude and dirty, but in all times-even, quietly and secretly, when the rest of Neverwinter was empty-the altar in the basement to the copper-skinned princess of the Hells was varnished with fresh blood at regular intervals.

That day, the blood of its previous worshipers made the varnish.

Yvon surveyed the carnage. Twenty bodies-or rather the combined parts of twenty bodies-lay butchered on the floor. Sekata had stopped Lector from branding them all with the mark of Asmodeus.

“Eventually they will start to stink,” she said, “and you don’t want the Lord Pretender getting ideas. Let him think it was adventurers.”

Lector had reluctantly agreed. He wiped his dagger on his robes, subdued. The Glasyans had managed to kill Imarella. Yvon felt a stab of pity for his old friend. If a lover had to die, better it was by one’s own hand.

For the reaping, the cell had gathered another ten followers to them and crept up on the Glasyans. As an understanding of peace had been agreed to, the Glasyans had not expected the attack. Only three of the Ashmadai had fallen. They’d tortured the high priestess at length, searching for more information about the orc, but got little. Still the Sixth Layer cultists would think twice before stepping out of line next time, Yvon thought. The Ashmadai ruled Neverwinter as their god ruled the Hells.

The Ashmadai stripped off their ceremonial robes so as not to arouse suspicion and stuffed them into several haversacks, before heading back up the stairs and out into the street in small groups. Above they would separate and take different paths back to their superior cell, where they could regale their betters with the tale of clearing out the Clockmaker’s Way whores and sending a message to the Glasyans that their actions had been noticed.

Yvon went up last, alone, and so it was only he who spotted the line of orcs.

Traveling down the street, like ducklings trailing their mother, four orcs dripping the magic of the spellplague followed a half-elf wearing austere blue robes and the insignia of the hospital and Temple of Oghma.

To Yvon’s trained eyes, the corruption of the Sixth Layer twisted over the man and the orcs like the curling threads of a mold beneath the molten light of the spellscars they all bore. The strange parade passed the temple-brothel by, oblivious to the abattoir their compatriots’ hideaway had become.

“Well, well,” Yvon murmured. “The plot thickens.”

He trailed the strange parade through the narrow, shady streets, the spellscars electric in the fading light. They passed into the main thoroughfare only to cross the Dolphin Bridge, and thereafter veered down the riverside road, and into the yard of a forbidding old mansion.

Yvon’s talent did not extend to structures, but even he could tell there was something peculiar about that odd and listing abode. He found a spot in a nearby doorway and watched.

Half an hour passed. Lamplighters made their way over the span of the bridge, turning back at the Blacklake side to leave the less secure district to the night. Yvon was ready to give up and hurry back to his shop-where no doubt, all his confederates had gathered-when the door of the strange house opened again, and the half-elf came out once more.

The orcs no longer followed him. Instead, the half-elf carried a wooden casket no wider than his shoulders. He stared down at it as he walked, as if transfixed by the bleached and cracked container. He did not notice Yvon, who stood and peered closely at him.

The Sixth Layer’s signature was still there, faint and wispy and ready to dissolve. Overlaying it was something far stronger, far stranger. It was no mark of the Hells. The light of it was strange and made his eyes feel as if they were trying to boil. He looked away.

The mark wound around the half-elf’s very bones. Whatever the Glasyans were toying with, it had no interest in being coy.

Sairche returned to Osseia and all but ran from the treasure room. Lorcan would be back soon, and he’d be furious. There was nothing to do but give him as wide a berth as possible until he calmed down enough to listen to reason.

She cursed a steady stream under her breath. What line had he sold that girl that she couldn’t see the merit in coming with Sairche? She should have agreed. She should have seen reason.

Sairche slowed as she neared her mother’s chambers. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps it was time to bring Lorcan into her plans. After all, her brother was obviously good at convincing mortals to take the pact. He’d have to see Sairche had a good plan in place-transfer the pacts to high-bidding devils and build up enough treasure or favors to keep them well into the millennia. Lorcan was in the exact same position that she was: outside the hierarchy, barely clinging to their mother’s good graces, not enough influence to gain any real power. He’d have to acknowledge it was best to guard against-

Sairche froze.

The air had shifted as she turned the corner, and the sensation of being pulled into something vast and dark gripped her. She took a few cautious steps. The unmistakable scent of rotting flowers. She peered down the corridor. There were hellwasps hovering on either side of the door to her mother’s audience chambers.

Glasya herself called on Invadiah.

Sairche paused, watching the hellwasps dart back and forth. The sudden smell of her was agitating them, no doubt. Worse than that, they had their many, shining black eyes fixed on her as she watched them. Glasya’s hellwasps could track down a body by its scent, but those gleaming eyes were how they pinpointed their prey, striking out with their bladed arms and poisoned stingers.

Mostly, though, the hellwasps hung in the air around Glasya, their adopted queen. The perfect position for gathering all manner of interesting secrets, Sairche thought. A pity hellwasps did not deal in anything but Glasya’s pleasure.

“Identity,” the nearer one said in a hard, dispassionate voice.

“Sairche, daughter of Exalted Invadiah,” she said. “Is my mother in?”

“Impermissible,” the hellwasp said. “You are a threat. Leave this area.”

“I am not a threat,” Sairche said, with a little laugh. “May I at least pass by? I need to-”

“All unknowns are threats. You will leave this area or you will be killed.”

Sairche sighed and backed off twenty steps down the hallway. The difference was enough to satisfy the hellwasps, and they returned to their patrol around the entrance to Invadiah’s chambers. What Sairche wouldn’t give to be able to listen to what was happening in that room.

She bit her lip. From the pockets of her robes, she pulled a small crystal sphere and a vial of mixed powders. She didn’t doubt Glasya had laid a powerful forbiddance upon the room, turning aside anyone who tried to spy on her. Sairche would have, had she been the archduchess. Hells, she would have if she were nothing but a talented mage.

But if Sairche didn’t try to peer inside the room, she would never be certain. She sprinkled the powder over the crystal and touched it to her eyelids and her ears. She closed her eyes and pictured in her mind’s eye the brazier that burned in the corner. The scrying might create a disturbance in the air, but so did the fire, and it might not be noticed. She took a deep breath, waiting for the forbiddance to shut her out.

Instead, she felt the connection tighten, and when she opened her eyes, her mother’s audience chamber was repeated in miniature within the crystal sphere.

“Twenty,” Glasya said. “Twenty cultists dead.” Her voice rang like the pealing of a bell. She sat upon an ornate litter, two more hellwasps hovering beside her.

Invadiah kneeled on the floor before the archduchess, her head bowed. “The Ashmadai are overbold, my lady. We would gladly alter our plans to see them punished.”

“They may be overbold,” Glasya said, “but something has spurred them to this. The imps watching over that cell tell me that the attackers claimed retaliation. And while I’m well aware my followers may have crossed paths with my lord father in the past, all has been quiet for months.” She smiled, and even to see the pale reproduction, Sairche shuddered. “Tense, of course, but quiet. The only change has been in your task.”

“I swear, my lady,” Invadiah said, “we have made no such overtures.”

Glasya ran one of the thongs of her scourge through the pinch of her fingernails. “I would suggest, Invadiah,” she said, and a shiver went through the erinyes as the archduchess spoke her name, “that you make certain dear Rohini hasn’t been keeping certain details from you. Otherwise”-she reached out with the butt of the scourge and forced Invadiah’s head up with it-“we will have to discuss your failure to follow orders.”

Instinctively, all four hellwasp guards surrounded her, took up the corners of the litter, and sped off through the doors of the balcony. The crystal turned cloudy again.

Sairche let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Better than she ever could have imagined! Asmodean cultists attacking Glasyan cultists, and her mother’s Neverwinter mission caught in the middle while-

Sairche stopped herself and narrowed her eyes at the crystal. Plenty of sensitive, secret information. Why hadn’t Glasya cast a forbiddance? Sairche might have a talent for ferreting out secrets, but she was a dabbler-there were plenty of more powerful mages among the devils of the Hells. Any of them could have been listening. Had Glasya wanted to be heard? Had she left the conversation open as a warning? But then why the hellwasps scaring everyone off? Sairche scowled at the crystal. Something didn’t fit.

With the hellwasps gone, it was a simple matter to slip in through the door, tuck herself away in a corner, and become invisible. Invadiah stood facing the open balcony doors, her shoulders looking high and tense even through her armor.

In the corner, the fabric of the plane suddenly wrinkled and split, emitting a red-haired human woman with a sneer on her face. Sairche raised her eyebrows. She had wondered why Invadiah had been ignoring the Needle of the Crossroads, letting Lorcan come and go with it in the last few years-Glasya must have given her a proper portal for this Neverwinter business.

As the woman stepped out of the portal and toward Invadiah, the glamour melted off of her like wax: bat wings sprouted from her back, her frizzy red curls wafted around her head like a cloud of steam, and the drab robes she wore became a suit of tight-fitting black leather armor.

Rohini did not look happy.

“I can’t leap back here every time you get tetchy!” she snarled. “I’m in the middle of things that cannot-”

“What do you know about dead Glasyan cultists?” Invadiah interrupted. Rohini caught her tongue and frowned.

“Nothing at all. Why? Should I?”

Invadiah’s lip curled. “I thought you were the best? You haven’t noticed the Ashmadai have decided to slaughter an entire cell of the archduchess’s cultists in Neverwinter-an act they claim as retaliation?”

“Of course they claim so,” Rohini said. “The Ashmadai have such fragile, petulant little egos. They’d kill a man for getting mud on their doorstep.”

“The imps reported the lead priestess was tortured at length for information about an orc who was serving them, and hunting warlocks.”

Sairche raised her eyebrows at that. She had a very bad feeling.

Rohini rolled her eyes. “Well, what benefits Asmodeus-”

“This benefits us none at all!” Invadiah shouted. “Glasya is watching. Glasya knows we have slipped. How close are you? And I don’t want to hear your nonsense about caution-we are too late for caution.”

Rohini scowled at Invadiah. “He is with the ones who serve the Sovereignty as we speak. They should be impressed with the potential servitors, and they should give him further information regarding the aboleths which live in the Chasm. And then I will convince him to make the offer. And,” she added with a snarl, “I would be a good deal further if I didn’t have to keep your bastard son and his warlock out of my business.”

Invadiah straightened. “What has Lorcan been doing?”

“Getting his fingers in Neverwinter,” Rohini said, folding her arms over her chest. “Getting in my way. His warlock is a nuisance, but I deferred to your superiority, Lady Invadiah, and merely set her aside for the moment.”

“I see.” Invadiah stormed out the open doors and onto the balcony. “Nemea!” she bellowed. “Aornos! To me now!”

“What are you going to do?” Rohini said. “Have them rend me and rip me and make me say I’m lying? It won’t change facts. In fact, I’d wager if anyone’s responsible for the Ashmadai getting reckless, it’s Lorcan.”

Invadiah backhanded her, knocking Rohini off her feet, just as Nemea and Aornos, fully armored, galloped into the room.

Oh, this is going to solve everything, Sairche thought. She let the invisibility fall.

“Good afternoon, Mother,” she said. Invadiah bared her teeth at her youngest daughter.

“How long have you been skulking in the corner, girl?”

“Long enough to hear that you might like some information about what Lorcan’s been up to.” Sairche fluttered her silvery lashes. “Just a few things you might like to know before you go ahead and kill the succubus.”

Invadiah didn’t reply, but she didn’t reach out to strangle her daughter either, so Sairche assumed she had the floor.

“To begin,” she said, “Lorcan does have a warlock in Neverwinter. I just saw her there. Though I highly doubt she has been much trouble for Rohini. She isn’t a particularly skilled caster.” Rohini glowered at her, still crumpled on the floor. “And then, did I hear you correctly? An orc is tangled up in this?”

Invadiah eyed her stonily and did not answer, but neither did she slap the teeth from Sairche’s mouth.

“I may have seen Lorcan-in fact, a great many may have seen him-the other day, borrowing the Axe of Exigency for an orc he had dragged to Malbolge as punishment for harming that warlock.”

“My Axe of Exigency?” Invadiah said.

“I couldn’t say. Though it does seem likely. It was meant to kill some priest or another for him.” Sairche tipped her head. “So you see, though Rohini speculates, she isn’t lying.”

Invadiah scowled and turned back to Rohini and the shimmering portal. “Where is Lorcan now?” she asked, and it wasn’t until her scowling eyes rolled back to Sairche that her daughter realized the question had been meant for her.

“On Toril,” she said quickly. “Last I saw. In Neverwinter.”

“And the warlock?”

“With him. Though,” Sairche added, “she didn’t seem happy to see him. They might have separated.”

Invadiah nodded, and Sairche could see they were all very lucky indeed that Invadiah didn’t slap the teeth from all of their mouths, and luckier still that they were none of them Lorcan.

“Aornos, Nemea,” Invadiah growled. “Fetch your brother.”

“Your wish, Mother,” Nemea said. “Whole or in parts?”

Invadiah’s scowl deepened. “Whatever you see fit.”

Nemea and Aornos grinned at one another, and Sairche schooled her expression to one of indifference. On some level, she certainly pitied Lorcan, but if he was as clever as he seemed to think he was, he would figure out a way to escape Invadiah’s wrath, and if he wasn’t.…

At least I am not so foolish, Sairche thought with a suppressed giggle.

“You can use the Needle to get in,” Invadiah said. “The rings are in the treasury.”

Sairche fingered the pilfered ring on her chain. “I’ll fetch them for you,” she offered, and she scurried out the door before Invadiah could tell her no.

But she hung back and pressed herself to the hard bone wall beside the door, listening as Invadiah said, “You can have the warlock. Consider her a gift for your good work. Do what you need to get things done.”

“Oh,” Rohini said, and the purr had returned to her voice, “I’ll make very good use of her.” There was a muted flash as the succubus reactivated the portal, and was gone, followed by a few choice insults from the erinyes.

Sairche pursed her lips and waited long enough to mimic a sprint to the treasury and back. Damn it, gods damn it. Rohini didn’t even know the value of what she’d been handed, didn’t even care. Sairche’s plans were ruined.

No. The game’s not over, she thought, slipping back into the room, holding the green stone ring.

“There was only one,” she said apologetically. “I suspect Lorcan has the other.”

Invadiah curled her lip and grabbed the ring roughly from Sairche. She stormed from the room and down the hall to the antechamber, her daughters trailing.

Ahead of the door, she stopped. Sairche ducked to peer around her half-sisters’ knees. Hovering beside the door to the Needle of the Crossroads were two hellwasps, smaller than the ones that had been guarding Invadiah’s chambers.

“Invadiah,” one said. “We are to assist you.”

“Assist me in what?”

“In correcting the error that resulted in the deaths of the queen’s worshipers.”

“I have my agents,” Invadiah replied.

“We are to accompany them,” the hellwasp replied. “The queen commands it, and so we must.”

“It is ill-advised to delay in this manner,” the other hellwasp said, its mandibles clicking in agitation. Or something, Sairche thought, wrinkling her nose. Who knew what the hellwasps felt. “We are ordered and we must follow orders.”

Invadiah grit her teeth a moment. “Very well. Move aside.”

The hellwasps parted, and Invadiah entered the room. As Lorcan had before, she activated the mirror. The surface shimmered and cleared to show Lorcan, skulking through the ruined streets of Neverwinter. Invadiah grabbed Aornos by the arm and hauled her in front of the mirror.

“There, that place. Study it. Fix it in your mind.” She stuffed the other erinyes’s finger into the green stone ring. When Aornos turned away from the mirror, and toward the Needle, it took several long moments of her concentrating to make the portal open.

“Grab hold of your sister’s hand,” Invadiah ordered. “The ring will allow you to carry her through. But no one else.” She turned to where the hellwasps hovered. “And that is where your orders cannot be followed,” she said. “There is no other trigger ring left in the Hells. If Aornos ferries you back and forth, she risks disrupting the portal and-worse-alerting Lorcan.”

“We are prepared,” one of the hellwasps said. “The queen has readied us.”

Its mandibles parted and from its soft, center mouth a third green stone ring protruded, thick with mucus.

Invadiah’s rage was a palpable thing, and Sairche stepped back, into the shadows.

“Very well,” she said tersely.

“We have memorized the spot,” the other hellwasp said. It hovered near to its compatriot and landed in the center of its back. “We will follow.”

Invadiah turned to Nemea. “Should you have trouble returning this way,” she said, through her teeth, “make use of Rohini’s portal?”

Nemea raised an eyebrow. “Aye, Mother.” She took hold of Aornos’s hand and with two bright flashes, the erinyes and the hellwasps passed out of the Hells and into Neverwinter.

Invadiah stood before the obelisk, her breath heaving, her teeth bared, for so long that Sairche was both too afraid and too curious to move. Invadiah snapped her gaze to her youngest daughter, and all the fury of the Hells boiled behind her eyes.

“Sairche!” she barked. “Hand me that hammer.”

From the piles of forgotten treasures, Sairche hauled an ancient terror hammer nearly as tall as she was and, trembling, dragged it to her monstrous mother.

Invadiah took hold of it as if it were nothing but a reed, testing its weight with a slow, wicked smile. With a great and terrible cry, she swung the hammer into the Needle of the Crossroads, shattering it with a great cloud of dust and a greater burst of crackling magic. Sairche threw up her hands to protect herself, and when she dared to look again, the ancient artifact was no more than a pile of mundane rubble over which Invadiah stood, panting and triumphant.

“You would do well to remember this moment, Sairche,” she said. “Before you go on dancing on the edges of my good graces.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Sairche walked the halls of Osseia, faintly dazed. The Kakistos heir was lost. Lorcan was doomed. Sairche was very much in her mother’s eye. Things were going to be very trying in the coming days. Perhaps she’d do well to find somewhere else to hole up. Beyond Osseia. Beyond Malbolge. Beyond the Hells even.

And then? she asked herself. She would always be under Invadiah’s thumb if she fled.

An imp popped into the space before her. “You Sairche?”

“What do you want?”

“Her ladyship would like you to know she was impressed with your resourcefulness. This is for you.” The imp handed her an ornate envelope, made of heavy parchment and trimmed in layers of hammered copper. Twitching scarabs struggled in the corners, and a large tassel of … well, Sairche had never been particularly good at identifying skins, but if pressed she would guess it had been a halfling. A bloodred wax seal bore the sigil of Glasya-a scourge with six thongs. She unfolded it and skimmed the contents.

“A conditional summons?” she asked.

“Indeed,” said the imp with a serrated grin. “T’will burst into flames when she’s ready to see you. I suggest you be in court before the smoke clears.”

Lorcan slammed his fist against the barrier of the shrine’s door once more. Every entry point to the temple blocked him as firmly as a brick wall. Even the skylight cut into the roof threw him back when he alighted on it. And Farideh either couldn’t hear him shouting at her, or she was still angry and ignoring him.

The options left to him were unpleasant. He couldn’t solve this himself. He needed to get someone to pull her out of there. He eyed the door once more and cursed.

Lorcan kept to the shadows as he slinked down the roads, keeping an eye out for the massive temple he’d seen in the mirror. If Rohini could put up with working there, surely the spells that barred fiends had worn down enough to slip in and grab Farideh’s sister. He just had to find the temple. And not be seen.

He ducked into an alley as he heard footsteps approaching. A group of humans in rags strolled by, taking far longer than Lorcan wanted to wait. He looked at his hands-there was a way he could move more quickly … But Lorcan hated that spell. Something about it made his skin feel like it was peeling off.

It’s fine, he thought. You won’t die of waiting. These fools will pass, you will find the temple, Havilar will be worried enough to help, and you will get Farideh out of that blasted chapel.

And then what? Lorcan hated to admit it but he wasn’t sure. The way she’d looked at him-Hells, the fact that she’d run as if he were a hungry demon … she had never been that angry at him, that afraid of what he would do, that determined to stop him. If he succeeded and pulled her out of Neverwinter, out of harm’s way, she would almost certainly break the pact. She would have never forgiven him if he’d left Havilar behind-he realized that now.

He wondered if Havilar would make him this mad.

He slipped out into the empty street again. Perhaps he ought to have told Farideh everything: the orc, the Ashmadai, Rohini’s naked threats. She wasn’t an idiot. She had to see the danger. If he sat her down and reasoned with her, surely she’d see he was only doing what was best for them both and listen to him-

The air suddenly sizzled with magic. Lorcan spun around, reaching for his sword, when the fabric of the planes split, and a path to the Hells appeared.

Nemea and Aornos stepped through the portal, undisguised and heavily armed. Surging out from behind them came a pair of Glasya’s hellwasps.

“Well, well, baby brother,” Nemea said. “Looks as if you’ve finally gotten Mother’s notice.”

“There’s been a mistake,” he said, holding his arms up in a gesture of surrender.

“Has there?” Nemea drawled. “We’ll have to sort that out another time.”

“Exonerate you after death,” Aornos added.

“Or not,” Nemea said. “Whatever you’ve done, Invadiah is furious. She says we don’t need to be careful. She says Rohini can have your little warlock.”

Shit and fire, Lorcan thought. What did Invadiah think he’d done? The orc? Not hellwasps for a bloody orc whose soul Asmodeus couldn’t claim as fast as he wanted.

“And then we can help Rohini finish things.” Aornos grinned, her pointed white teeth as sharp and hungry as any predator’s. “In proper fashion.”

“So thank you, little brother,” Nemea said. “If you hadn’t gotten all those cultists killed, we would still be on guard duty.”

“Cultists?” Lorcan said. He twisted the ring. Nothing. “I haven’t killed any cultists.”

Nemea clucked her tongue. “Seems you might have done something foolish.”

Aornos drew her sword. “Something that gave some Ashmadai the idea they ought to be killing Glasyans. Hmm?”

Lorcan turned the ring again, and still he was standing on Toril, his half-sisters advancing on him with naked blades, and a pair of hellwasps circling them. He let loose a stream of curses, spinning the ring over and over. Nothing.

“Perhaps,” Aornos said, waving her blade, “Asmodeus will resurrect you. Then we can hear the full story.”

“Or perhaps not,” Nemea said drawing her own blade.

“Adaestuo!” Lorcan shouted. The sizzling blast struck Aornos, and gave him time to pull his own sword. But in that breath between the casting and drawing his sword, the hellwasps struck.

He was fortunate-not every devil’s blood burned hot enough to temper the poison of a hellwasp, but, even tempered, the pain was excruciating, so bad his arms and legs refused it and went briefly numb. He flung his sword outward, missing the darting hellwasp but forcing Nemea to step back.

He could not defend against all of them. Aornos slipped into the breach and slashed across his back, while the second hellwasp closed and drove its saberlike arms into his shoulders. Nemea sprang forward again, this time aiming at the joint of his left wing. Lorcan twisted, and her blade struck the hellwasp instead.

The creature screeched as Nemea’s sword smashed through its carapace as if it were no more than an eggshell. The hellwasp’s sharp forelegs slid from Lorcan’s wounds and the devil vanished in a gust of flame.

Lorcan stood no chance against Nemea and Aornos, let alone against a hellwasp. He loosed another dart of fire at Aornos as she broke forward, but it only gave Nemea another chance to crash her sword against his armor, the hellwasp a chance to sting him again.

The poison flooded his veins once more and Lorcan’s knees buckled. He threw his sword up to block Nemea’s, and Aornos’s sword forced past his leather armor and into the muscles of his back.

This was how he’d always suspected he’d die.

Shit and ashes-if he died now, not only would Farideh be dead for certain, but she’d be right. He’d be a useless bastard.

Blood weeping from his many wounds, Lorcan drew on everything he had. The powers of Malbolge poured into him and burst out in a ring of flames that burned his sisters and threw the hellwasp back. The magical explosion propelled him into the air, his wings catching the hot air and launching him forward.

He flew, one hand pressed against the deeper wound to his shoulder, one wing rapidly stiffening from the poison. Nemea and Aornos might not be able to pursue, but the hellwasp would be winging after him-and without Aornos or Nemea, he couldn’t count on an accidental ally. He had to slow the hellwasp down.

He headed toward the Chasm.

Along the wall he spied a stretch where no soldiers patrolled-just beyond a jut of broken bricks. He pulled the straps of his armor tighter, making sure what was left of the leather pressed against his wounds to staunch the blood. Landing unevenly, he glanced back. The hellwasp was closing.

Lorcan had no time to cast the spell gently.

Every inch of his skin felt as if it were full of nettles and sparks. He bit down on his lip to keep from screaming and broke through, filling his mouth with scalding hot blood.

He held his hands out in front of him as the pain ebbed, starting at the core of his body and spreading to his limbs. At the edge of the agony, his skin faded from red to tan, his nails turned pink. His wings collapsed into nothing, rocking him off-balance as he lost their weight. He ran his fingers through his hair, noting the missing horns. It had worked, hopefully enough to fool the hellwasp that was diving straight toward him.

The hellwasp halted, hovering in the air ahead of Lorcan. Darting back and forth, peering at him with each of its multifaceted eyes. It might have scented Lorcan, or something like him. But with the Chasm so close, whatever magical trace it might have tasted was obscured. And there, before it, was a man who looked nothing like a cambion. Agitated, its darting paths took it wider and wider as it tried to discern where its prey had gone.

Lorcan drew his sword, quickly-the hellwasp heard and focused on him, but its moment of disorientation had served its purpose.

With a great cry, Lorcan swung the sword into the narrowest part of the hellwasp’s abdomen, shearing through the carapace. Like its sibling, the hellwasp screeched and burst into flames, to be reborn-like its sibling-in the Hells.

Lorcan collapsed bleeding onto the brick wall.

Ashmadai killing other cultists … Rohini and his mother’s plans in Neverwinter in jeopardy … that bloody orc could only be blamed for a portion of this catastrophe. For while Goruc’s murder by the Ashmadai hands might have incited them to kill Glasyans, only Sairche would have the wits to tie it to Lorcan.

He pulled himself up and limped to the nearby tower, a cracked and damaged thing still being built. He had to get Farideh out of Neverwinter. He had to get himself back to the Hells. And now in addition to Ashmadai, mad Rohini, and bloody Sairche, he had Nemea and Aornos to worry about.

Lorcan hobbled down the stairs, taking little solace in the suspicion that in this case, Havilar would be exactly as much trouble as her sister.

Brin left a trail of chalky white footprints across the flagstones of the entry hall. He paused, weary, and regarded the mess. The thought that he should do something about it slipped in and out of his thoughts again. He rubbed the back of his neck with a blistered hand and glanced around the empty corridors.

Brother Vartan had talked at him for what felt like ages before Rohini had come and insisted the priest come with her and that Brin get to clearing the courtyard …

Which he’d done, for ages more, until it occurred to him he hadn’t eaten or rested since Rohini left, and he didn’t recall how the grounds had been cleared of so much rubble, or when he’d emptied the barrow that must have carried it out to the rubble pile beside the Chasm wall. It was as if he’d been entranced.

He stared at the footprints again, still feeling muzzy and hating the feeling of stonedust on his skin. Change of clothes. But first, put his feet up. No, first get some food.

The cooks tried to make him sit down and eat something, but Brin only took a bit of bread and cheese and a jug of cider as he shuffled back toward his room. He was too tired for company, even just the cooks talking over him.

In the wardrooms, the spellscarred flickered as they slept, and some, no longer burdened by the eager watch of acolytes, sat up in their cots and chatted or played cards. Brin watched a moment, recognizing the camaraderie of soldiers. Memories twitched behind the familiarity, but when they didn’t rise up, he just shook his head. He was tired, after all. He’d been … somewhere doing … something. He cursed and finished the bread and cheese, and drank a little more cider.

Which room was his? He turned into a likely one, the light of a distant streetlamp the only illumination.

His foot banged into something and he stumbled to the flagstones, the jug of cider shattering under him. He cursed and reached for whatever it was he’d tripped on-

His hand closed on the haft of Havilar’s glaive.

Havilar …

She’d been in the courtyard. She’d left when Brother Vartan came-no, he’d covered for her so she didn’t have to stay. But she was supposed to come back, he thought irritably. She was supposed to come get you for supper.

And she didn’t, he thought. He picked up the heavy polearm. Loyal Fury, she had to be strong.…

She didn’t come back-the thought was growing more insistent, pressing on the fog of his brain. She hadn’t come back and her glaive-the weapon she loved like a child-was lying on the floor.…

He looked around the room, his eyes adjusting. This was the twins’ room. He was sleeping two doors down. A jumble of cloaks and clothing was piled on the beds, but several things were conspicuous in their absence: Farideh’s sword and both twins’ armor.

Havilar’s armor’s gone, he thought. She’ll be angry she left her glaive. She’ll be furious you kicked it.…

She hadn’t come back, but she’d taken her armor and left her glaive on the floor like something discarded. She hadn’t come back because she’d left.…

Brin grabbed the haft of the weapon in both hands as the haze over his thoughts finally cleared like a cloud break, so sudden he gasped in surprise. Something was wrong.

Still clutching the glaive, he ducked back out into the hallway. It didn’t make sense. They shouldn’t have taken armor and left the weapon. Why would Farideh have taken her sword and Havi left her glaive?

The corridors were still empty. He hurried back to the open wardroom. Three of the soldiers were up and talking still-a thin human man with a bandage over his eye, a tiefling with his leg in a splint, and a rather petite half-orc woman with one arm in a sling and the shimmer of a spellscar encasing the other.

“Have any of you seen a tiefling girl?” Brin asked.

The human nodded at the glaive. “The one running around with that thing? Aye, she was terrorizing the acolytes this afternoon.” The tiefling chuckled.

“They told her to get lost in the unrepaired wing,” the half orc said. “And she offered to beat some sense into them. Or something.”

“Haven’t heard a string of Draconic that blue since I was in Tymanther,” the tiefling noted. “You here to put us to bed?”

Brin shook his head. “I’m not an acolyte.” He hurried back toward the rooms. Surely, surely, the twins had to be somewhere near. He lit a candle off one of the torches and returned to their room. The light fell on their haversacks and cloaks, still piled by one wall. They couldn’t have gone too far.

Unless they didn’t go willingly, he thought. Lorcan, the orc … and something worse than Netherese. When a city gets as old as Neverwinter, old powers entrench themselves in all the gaps and crannies. He hurried to his room, to gather his own swordbelt and his holy symbol.

Old anxieties twined their way up through Brin’s thoughts. Holy champion or not, he knew what he had to do. But gods, if things were as bad as he feared, there was no room to fail. He pushed open the doors of the remaining rooms. In the third one, he found Mehen, sitting alone in a chair missing an armrest, watching a flickering lantern sitting on the floor. He looked up at Brin.

“Thank the gods. Well met,” he said. The dragonborn kept staring at him. “Do you know what happened to Havilar and Farideh?”

“No,” Mehen said coldly. Brin took a step back.

“They’re not in their room. And Havilar’s glaive was just lying on the floor.”

Mehen didn’t answer, he just kept staring at Brin in that unnerving way.

“You don’t seem concerned,” Brin said. Again, no answer, and again, Brin felt an uncertain anxiety, like he was being stared down by a stern Tormtar, unhappy with his arguments about the nature of duty.

He backed out of the room. If Mehen wasn’t worried, perhaps Brin shouldn’t be either … but there was still the glaive that shouldn’t have been there, and the missing armor. Something was definitely wrong.

Brin turned and nearly ran smack into Brother Vartan. The priest didn’t move, but stared down at Brin over a box made of bleached driftwood planks.

“Sorry,” Brin said. “I didn’t see you. I’m looking for-”

“We are all looking,” Brother Vartan said. He pressed toward Brin, his eyes shining with a strange film that made them seem paler somehow. “But will we ever find? Not without new eyes. There is so much you cannot imagine. So much you cannot see.” He giggled, in a strained way. “Your mind is too ephemeral to hear the song.”

Brin swung the glaive between them. “Are you all right, Brother?”

“I brought a gift.” The half-elf giggled. “It’s not for you, not yet. They said to give it to her, and only her. They think perhaps she’ll suit better than Anthus ever did. And if she doesn’t?” He giggled again. “Tomorrow’s always another day!”

Vartan pounced toward Brin, and broke into maniacal laughter when the younger man blocked with the heavy glaive. Vartan turned away with the strange casket, and wandered his way up the corridor.

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 Selune. 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 Sairche 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.