Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The blade of the Gods will sever the cord of the Moon. Shit, bloody shit!” Rohini strained against the bindings that held her to the heavy chair and the curling madness that held tight to her mind. Arrayed around her, Vartan, the quartet of spellscarred orcs, and a trio of abolethic servitors dripping clear slime watched her.

“Why did you come?” they asked, again and again. “Why did you seek us out?”

The questions were more puzzled than angry, as if they only wanted her to see the error of her ways. She wondered why they hadn’t just fed her to the aboleths in the Chasm, but as soon as she thought it, the corruption agent in her set her giggling. She was a useful tool after all-the Sovereignty knew so, the Hells knew so.

“You piss-swilling apes can the last of the anchors hides in the city of crowns, and the shadow will extinguish the light therein.” Rohini screeched in frustration.

Give in, the part of her swallowed by the corrupting light crooned. The voices, the prophetic words, the abrupt changes to her senses-at some point after the contents of the cask had overwhelmed her, Rohini had lost control long enough for Vartan to tie her to the chair and fetch these servitors.

Rohini made her shape shift in subtle ways, gave herself limpid eyes and heaving breasts. She looked up at Vartan, her lower lip trembling.

But he was too far gone to be such an easy target. He regarded her as a trophy now, or a curiosity. Something for the Sovereignty to claim dominion over. Just like him.

With a roar of rage, Rohini’s shape flowed again into a hulking bugbear’s, straining against the bindings. Vartan stepped back, but the servitors merely watched her.

“Why did you come, devil?” one asked. “Why have you aided this one?”

“What benefits us, benefits Asmodeus.” She sneered. “And what benefits Asmodeus the daughter will claim-” She shut her mouth resolutely against the bubbling prophecy. Better they kill her than know her mission.

They’ll know soon enough, the crooning voice said. Embrace it. After all, Glasya isn’t here to save you. She doesn’t care what happens to you now.

“Her plan was always that I died in the process,” she said aloud, startling herself.

“The process of what?” Vartan asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said. She threw her head backward against the chair, studying the ceiling as if the lines of the stone and the ancient stains left behind by collecting water, persisting beyond the shifting colors that clouded her vision, would anchor her. She had to find a way out.

She locked her eyes on one particular stain-the size and shape of a grown man’s liver-and smiled. She knew this room-and what lay near it.

She lowered her head and with all her effort hurled her charm like a net over Vartan. He stilled, sensing the change and not understanding it. Good, she thought, ignoring the splintering lights that filled her vision. “I’ll tell you all about it, if you do something for me.”

“Of course,” he said.

She nodded at the back of the room. “Open the door.”

Vartan started to do as she bid. One of the servitors, a tall, lanky man, caught him by the wrist. “That is unwise.”

But Rohini’s charm held firm, and Vartan shook off the servitor and pulled open the door.

“Mehen!” Rohini screamed. “Mehen, help!”

The dragonborn was faster than she’d expected, and more agile, despite her magic dragging against his reserves for the past two days. Clever her for leaving him his weapons-the wide blade that hacked at the orc nearest the door and sent a slash of blood and slime spraying across the stone. The servitors were quicker and avoided the dragonborn’s next swing.

The tall, lanky man drove his shoulder hard, as if his body didn’t matter, into Mehen’s lower back. It didn’t fell the dragonborn, but it took his attention and gave the other servitor a chance to pull his blade.

And Rohini a chance to escape. Her flesh shifted again, dwindled, as the bones of her arms tapered into the thin limbs of a young elf girl. She wriggled out of the restraints and worked her feet free of the manacles, only stripping the first layer of her skin away, the blood making it easier to slip free. She didn’t feel anything except a rush of glee as she retook her own form, the madness curling itself around her mind.

“Stop him,” one of the servitors said.

“Stop,” Rohini repeated, her tongue turned traitor. Mehen froze, his sword raised over the servitor now lying on the floor. The corruption settled on her mind in an uneasy truce.

“Your resources are impressive,” the wounded servitor said.

“I can bring him to bear again,” she said. “Him and more.”

“We are pleased to hear it,” the other said. “It is a skill we covet dearly.”

“You think to convert me as you did Anthus,” she said.

“After a fashion,” the servitor said mildly. “We had thought Brother Anthus would suit, but in the end he proved himself less ideal than we had previously assumed. You are much preferable. For one, you have resisted the powers of the Hex Locus like no other has. You are too willful to be a singer, and we are pleased to have found you.”

They sounded like the sort of things she found herself blurting out. The strange phrases were bubbling up in her thoughts again, and Rohini clenched her jaw until they subsided, her tongue flicking around her mouth trying to shape the words. “What are you talking about?” she said once she was sure she could say it.

“You are the Prophet,” the servitor said, bowing. “You are the one who will gather the Choir, to sing the Symphony of Madness into being.”

Rohini wavered, the blur of the corruption surging through her, twisting her thoughts into a sort of pleasure at the opportunity. She could spoil a hundred Anthuses and Vartans with the power of the Sovereignty, it told her. You can bring Arunika back from the grave tomorrow. Power like she could never gain in the Hells. Power to unmake those who’d treated her as if she were disposable.

Rohini laughed, a high, mad sound. “You want me to trade one master for another and thank you for it. Fool.”

The servitor smiled. “It is too late for that. The Hex Locus has blessed you. The mark of the Far Realm is on you. You have already been granted a new master.”

“It does not mean I will serve.”

“It is your nature to serve,” the servitor said. “It is in all of our natures. But put yourself in the yoke of the Sovereignty and we promise you a longer lead than that of the Hells. You will be a queen.”

“Among slaves,” Rohini snarled.

The servitor shrugged, almost beatifically, his slimy palms turned up. “Is that not better than what you have now, devil? We are not privy to the current state of the Nine Hells, but our masters know what your kind gave up. Is it worth it, Asmodeus’s bridle? Your former enemies now your mistresses, your reward the dissolution of your true form?” The servitor stepped toward her. “If you tell us who sent you, and why you are here, we can help you destroy them.”

Arunika would have relished such an offer, the voice reminded her, and not so long ago, Rohini would have relished it too-they’d been raised from the cradle to corrupt and undo. The murmuring of the Hex Locus’s infection sang to her of the unparalleled pleasures of careful unmaking, of bringing down such complex schemes as the one she now lay tangled in. To hand over Glasya and Invadiah when they least expected it-the demon in her would have reveled in their falls.

The servitor was watching her expectantly.

I am not Arunika, she thought.

“What benefits Asmodeus, benefits us all,” she said again, as the prophecy bubbled up to her lips once more. Even though it wasn’t true in the least.

Sairche crept through her mother’s apartments to the treasure room and slipped inside. Someone had sliced the damaged door away and cleared the rubble of the Needle of the Crossroads. The faintest shadow of its interwoven spells still disturbed the air-otherwise not a pebble remained.

She slid the ring she’d shaped and enchanted from one of the iron curls of the scrying mirror’s frame onto her finger. Not a piece she’d wear to court, but it did the job. As she waved it before the mirror, the surface shimmered, hiccupped, then solidified on the temple of Oghma, the House of Knowledge in Neverwinter. And did not move.

Sairche cursed. She’d spent good, long hours adding to the mirror’s spells, pouring holy water with heavily gloved hands and painting monstrous bloods onto the mirror with a stolen angel’s feather, for just such an occasion. It should have circumvented its previous limitations. She seized the frame and shook it on its hook. Still nothing.

“Piece of rubbish.” She pursed her lips. Fine. Rohini could have her privacy a little longer. She’d warm the mirror up to breaking through the temple’s protections. Spy on someone less interesting and easier to get at.

Sairche waved the ring again and bade the mirror show her Aornos. The mirror swirled and formed an empty street under a dark, drizzling sky. Neverwinter again. But there was no sign of red-haired Aornos. Sairche peered at the image, but as she did, the image blurred and wavered and reformed into the plains of Malbolge. Into the Birthing Pit, where the damned became devils and the devils killed out in the world incubated.

Sairche raised her eyebrows, and felt a small smile sneaking its way across her lips. “Oh no.”

She pressed the mirror to find Nemea, and again it showed her the same twitching images that settled, resolutely, on the boiling pit of souls. No doubting its message: Nemea and Aornos were dead.

Had Aornos and Nemea been stupid enough to pick a fight with Glasya’s hellwasps? Sairche shook her head sadly at the bubbling pit. Why did she even ask? Poor stupid Nemea. Poor stupid Aornos. They were exactly the sort to take Invadiah’s rage as an exhortation to kill the hellwasps.

With luck they would emerge as erinyes once more, though Sairche doubted their luck was that good. If Sairche was lucky, they wouldn’t remember her at all when they were reborn.

Hellwasps, she ordered the mirror. It snapped but flowed more smoothly, forming a window into Glasya’s audience chamber, where the hive of hellwasps swooped and swarmed around the throne of their chosen queen. Sairche frowned.

The ring, she remembered, and directed the mirror to find the hellwasp which carried the green stone ring in its mouth. The mirror’s surface dissolved into wavering light, as if the request were too difficult to manage, but then, abruptly, it cleared to show another rainy street. Then the Birthing Pit. Sairche’s eyebrows went up again.

As if for good measure, the mirror changed to the street again, then a wide, ancient wall, under the same drizzling sky. Nestled in a crack in the poorly repaired mortar sat the green stone ring-the second hellwasp must have snatched it up when the first was destroyed. Organized little beasties, Sairche thought. She would have liked a swarm of her own.

But then the mirror shimmered again and returned to the pit.

Sairche took a step back from the mirror. Both hellwasps dead. Both erinyes dead.

Lorcan, she ordered the mirror, her throat tightening. Show me Lorcan.

The mirror moved smoothly this time, but when it stopped, it showed her Lorcan launching up from a city street, a woman clinging to his neck as he took to the air. She peered at the woman-the Brimstone Angel.

Sairche grinned. Not one part of Invadiah’s retaliation had come out right.

She stirred the scrying mirror once more, and this time her adaptations worked. The mirror parted the temple’s forbiddances and obliged her-for only scant seconds, but still-with a glimpse of how Rohini’s end of the plan was going.

Rohini stood, exposed, unglamored, traces of tainted blue magic squirming over her dusky skin. She swayed on her feet like a drunk. Four people stood arrayed around her-a dragonborn and a man she had clearly charmed, and two empty-eyed, slime-skinned slaves of the aboleths. There was no question that they knew what she was. There was no question, in Sairche’s view, that Rohini was under their control.

Delicious, she thought again. And Invadiah was out on her training field without an inkling that everything was falling apart. Heads were going to roll this time. Starting with Rohini or with Lorcan? she wondered.

Starting with the messenger, she thought grimly. Sairche wet her lips, and racked her brain for a devil who was foolish enough or desperate enough or indebted enough to deliver such a message to Invadiah. If she wrote it down, they didn’t have to know the contents.…

Or, she thought, perhaps not Invadiah.

The Neverwinter mission, after all, was a disaster, and such disasters led to dramatic shifts of power. If Sairche played her hand right, she could gain some of that power. She had Glasya’s ear, after all. Invadiah would call her traitor, but that wouldn’t matter if Invadiah fell.

Both, she decided. She would find a stupid imp to carry her message to Invadiah and then find a way to get an audience with the archduchess.

Because regardless of whether Glasya thought Invadiah had ruined things right now, things would start to crumble when Invadiah inevitably went blazing into Neverwinter.

The moment Lorcan’s feet were solidly on the ground, Farideh untangled herself from him, falling to her knees as if to reassure herself the ground was solid beneath her. Lorcan unwound her tail from his knee where it had wrapped itself.

“You know,” he said, “most people literally dream of flying.” He helped her to her feet, still smirking. “I rather enjoyed it.”

She swatted him away. “Never again,” she vowed. But at least he had gotten them there quicker than the streets would have, and far ahead of the Ashmadai. “Thank you,” she added. She pulled the rod from her belt and scanned the empty courtyard. “Where’s your portal?”

He drew his sword and wand, ignoring her question. “You’d do well to get that sword out,” he said pointedly. “Who knows what’s waiting for us.”

“Acolytes,” she said, “who will panic when they see you with a bare sword. Show me where you left Mehen at least.”

They crept through the dim corridors, Lorcan leading the way. Farideh’s heart was in her throat, and at every turn, she expected to find herself facing one of the acolytes or new-marked Brother Vartan or Rohini herself.

“You do know,” Lorcan murmured, “that if Mehen doesn’t break free of his domination, you’re going to have to break it for him.”

Farideh nodded. “I’ll just tell him Havilar’s in trouble.”

“No,” Lorcan said, “I mean I hope you’ve learned enough about swordwork from him because you’re going to have to subdue him, and I’d rather you didn’t get hit with that cleaver of his.” He glanced back at her. “Still certain you don’t want to come with me?”

Farideh bristled at that. “If I’m killed, you can always go make a pact with Havilar. Get yourself a Kakistos heir who knows her bladework.”

Lorcan muttered a curse under his breath. “Look, don’t start this now. You … I’m going to get upset and you don’t want me to get us both killed by doing something like shouting at you not to be so stupid as to listen to bloody Sairche.” He started moving again. “I hope you are not such a fool as to believe she has your best interests at heart.”

“And you do?”

He spun on her again. “No,” he said. “But your interests are closer to mine than any other devil in the Hells. I guarantee you there is not a one among them willing to venture into a shitting temple to help you rescue a man that hates him above all others.”

She returned his glare. “What were you going to do with Havilar? She’s just as valuable.”

For a long tense moment, Lorcan didn’t speak. His mouth twitched as if he were choking on the words, and a muscle in his jaw pulsed as he bit down on them.

“You want to talk about this, fine,” he finally said. “We will. Not now. She’s safe,” he added. “Nobody knows there are two of you. No one’s going to find her.”

Off the main hall, Lorcan turned down the corridor that led to the acolytes’ quarters and abruptly stopped. Lying half out of the open door on their left, the body of an orc scintillating with blue fire blocked the path.

Lorcan reached back to press Farideh against the wall, but she’d dropped low, out of the eye line of anyone in the doorway. She crept forward, ever so slowly, until she could see the form of Brother Vartan standing near the door. Beyond him there were more of the spellscarred orcs and two men whose skin glistened in the torchlight. One stood to the side holding a wooden box. The bodies of another orc and one of the men lay on the ground. Beyond them stood Mehen, holding his falchion and rocking on his feet. Beyond Mehen, standing on a chair with her wings spread as if she could fly from the small room, was Rohini.

The succubus looked only vaguely like the hospitaler she’d portrayed before. If Farideh had not been told what to expect, she would never have put the proper name to the creature. Aside from the vibrant red hair, the only thing Rohini had in common with her former mask was the inexorable air of competence-Rohini the hospitaler seemed like she could cure anything. Rohini the succubus could easily bring anyone down.

The succubus twitched, a scatter of blue lightning racing over her bronze skin. “In the space between twilights the favored one will return-you let me pass or I’ll show you what you ought to fear!”

“If you accept it,” the slimy man closest to her said, “it shall not hurt anymore.”

“Mehen,” she said, in a strained voice. “Kill them.”

Rushing forward, Farideh tried to cry out, but Lorcan’s hand covered her mouth. The amulet flared, and he muffled his own cry of pain against her hair.

Brother Vartan turned to look out the door, his face a mask. Lorcan held her tighter with one arm, and with the other grabbed hold of one of the charms pinned to his breastplate. A rush of cold air wrapped around them and Brother Vartan’s eyes swept by.

“Hold still,” Lorcan murmured, hardly speaking. “Mehen can take a few beatings. Let him thin that crowd out. Tymora smiles, he gets knocked out in the process.”

Mehen’s falchion was too large for the little room. He tossed it aside, well out of the reach of orcs or servitors, and pulled his ancient daggers instead. The nearest orc’s spellscar bulged into ropey vines that streamed toward Mehen. The dragonborn dropped beneath them, darting out with one thin blade to pierce the orc’s hamstring. But the blue tendrils plunged down after him and sank into the dragonborn’s scales. Mehen did not cry out, but the blue magic crackled over his skin. It took a heart-stopping moment for Mehen to stand.

Farideh pried Lorcan’s hand off. “We can’t resurrect him if he’s dead!” She fought against his hold. “And we can’t carry him if he’s unconscious!” She shoved Lorcan away, trying to break his grip on her.

“Mehen knows what he’s doing.”

But Farideh had watched Mehen’s drill her entire life-this Mehen was slower, not caring if he left his guard open, not caring if his strikes brought him to a better counterattack. The only thing this Mehen did well was protect Rohini.

Farideh had to get him away from her.

“Adaestuo!”

The blast of energy struck Brother Vartan, hurling him back away from the doorway. Farideh shoved her elbow into Lorcan’s chest and broke free of his grasp. She cast a second bolt into the room, into the cluster of orcs attacking Mehen. Whether due to luck or the frailty of the orcs from their transformation, the bolt exploded with a spray of blood, and one of them fell.

“You!” Rohini cried, the strange blue magic surging up through her unruly mane. She shuddered and looked for a moment as if she would fall from her perch. “You’re supposed to be dead, the dead will swarm the gates of the city of skulls.” She broke into a string of infernal curses.

Farideh answered with a blast of fire. It washed over Rohini with no more effect than a gust of wind. But now eyes were on her-the slime-skinned men, the remaining two orcs … and Mehen. She took a step back, into another body, into hands that grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her backward. Brother Vartan’s blank eyes looked down at her-

Lorcan struck Vartan hard with the pommel of his sword and the half-elf collapsed with a sickly crunch of bone. “Not fire,” he ordered as she regained her balance. “We and she are of a type.”

“And Lorcan,” Rohini snarled. She spread her hands and flames built in them. The sickly light of a hundred colors suffused the fire, and Rohini’s body gave a violent jerk. The flames exploded across the room, but what struck Farideh and Lorcan only singed them and didn’t burn as hot. The unprotected orcs, the men, and Mehen on the other hand-their skin blistered and the hair on the orcs burned, sending up a stench like nothing Farideh had smelled before.

“The dead walk,” Rohini said with a laugh. “Or were your sisters not up to the task?”

Lorcan smiled, a slow cunning grin. “Oh, they’ve failed all right. They were to meet me here-or didn’t they tell you?” He slashed at the encroaching orc. “I’ve been exonerated … and now they come for you, traitor.”

“Liar!” Rohini’s wings spread as if she would take off. “I have done all the archduchess has asked, all your bitch mother has ordered. I am no traitor.”

“You are no devil either.” Lorcan sneered. “Foulspawn demoness.”

Rohini shrieked in rage, and as if to underscore Lorcan’s insult, the scintillating magic crackled over her again: she was no longer simply a devil. Farideh felt the course of Hellish magic thrumming through Rohini, but the crackling light was something else, something stranger.

Farideh kept her rod high, ready to cast, but gods, she wished to run. Rohini was more dangerous than Lorcan, the orcs, Criella, the man from the inn, and the mad shopkeeper combined. Even maddened by that alien power, even clearly angry and beset on at least two sides, she was deadly. Farideh cast a bolt of fire toward the orcs-it burst outward and set fire to one of the slimy men.

You do not get to be a coward, she thought. Especially when Lorcan isn’t. She cast another bolt at Rohini.

“Deny it all you like,” she said, mimicking Lorcan’s cruel and haughty tones. “But it won’t save you from the erinyes’ blades.”

Rohini’s focus trained on her. “How did you escape that nest of Ashmadai, little mouse?”

Farideh smiled, though she felt sick under the succubus’s ruby gaze, and let the shadows curl around her as she drew her powers up to cast again. “Did you never suspect you were only leaving your mark on someone else’s dirty work? I was never meant to die.”

Rohini’s eyes widened at that, as if Farideh had struck her physically. She most definitely had all the succubus’s attention. Lorcan cast another bolt at Rohini, but when she recovered, she was still focused on Farideh.

“Mehen,” she said. The dragonborn froze, letting two of the orcs strike him while he awaited Rohini’s orders. She stepped down and laid a hand on his shoulder, and a jolt of magic went through Mehen. “Kill the warlock. She’s ever so much trouble, don’t you think?”

Mehen’s yellow eyes were full of hatred. It’s not him, Farideh told herself, taking a step backward. It’s Rohini.

But it wasn’t only Rohini: it was Clanless Mehen, eyeing his daughter like a dire enemy. He curled his lip, baring his long sharp teeth.

“Yes,” he said. “Trouble.”

Stay calm, she told herself as Mehen scooped up his falchion. She edged toward the door, sparing a glance for Lorcan. He was still fighting back the orcs, and looked as if he’d like to strangle her. Rohini stalked toward her, following Mehen.

Farideh needed to slow her down. The slimy-skinned man holding the box hadn’t moved-had only watched as Farideh and Lorcan burst into the room. As Rohini drew near to him, Farideh pointed at the box.

“Assulam!” she cried. The box shattered into a cloud of splinters, forcing Rohini back with a shriek of surprise. Something bright and horrible burst free. Mehen didn’t notice. She turned to run, catching Lorcan’s eye. He could still find the portal if he ran now.

“Farideh!” he shouted after her.

Farideh led Mehen away from Rohini and hopefully into the safety of Neverwinter. As she bolted out the side doors and across the broken remains of the city so close to the Chasm, she wondered if it would be any sanctuary at all.

Rohini’s hands closed on the thing out of impulse, instinct. What her hands touched … there were no words in the languages of mortals. Only the secret parts of Rohini’s brain, the parts that still stoked a demon spark of madness, knew the words to describe what she held.

The Hex Locus froze her hands colder than the blessings of the chapel, colder than the blood of the Stygian general-but blisters erupted allover her palms and up her arms as if she held the sun itself. She was screaming-she could feel her throat tearing and the power of the Hex Locus snaking down, down into her very core. Tendrils of magic seized her limbs, her neck, and squeezed as if to crush the life out of her. As if to bury themselves in her flesh. All she saw was blue as the heart of a glacier, blue as the heart of a flame. The Hex Locus’s tendrils plunged into her eyes, into her nostrils, into her ears, all the while singing the maddening prophecy that already boiled her mind.

Her breath failed. Her lungs sucked into themselves. Her screams echoed into a thin, high vibration and the world swirled-shadows and blue magic fighting for supremacy.

Out of the depths of her dying vision, strange shapes swam closer. The same shapes, perhaps, she had glimpsed when the Hex Locus first insinuated itself into her thoughts. Monstrous shapes that dwarfed Rohini-even though, here, there was no Rohini. There might not even be a Rohini in Toril any longer.…

The creatures moved closer, great behemoths that swam through the nightmare ether she drowned in. Their tentacles encircled her. Their great ruby eyes pierced every layer of her being, through the artifice and the carefully crafted barriers, into what remained: ambition and the demon spark of madness.

The aboleths’ thoughts tore through her like a hurricane wind, exposing that demon spark to the winds of the Far Realm. Coaxing a fire from her as the images of a world reformed, reborn into shifting, shapeless powers that would drive a lesser devil mad.

She had served madness. She had served ambition. She had served chaos and order and destruction and hierarchy. Now Rohini could serve this nameless entity that sought something unnameable which was all this and more.

Rohini returned to her bones and her breath, the sudden grossness, the abruptness more a violation than anything she had ever experienced. She did not belong in a succubus’s skin … and she realized why.

The servitors stood quietly by, watching her stir. Vartan hovered over her, holding the bronze coffer she’d kept possets in. Only now … now Rohini was in it.

No-she fought to press that thought back into a more secure place. It wouldn’t budge. She was in the box because the Hex Locus was in the box. They were entwined now, united. Its song pulsed in her ears, demandingto be spoken, but when she hushed it, it coiled deeper, deep as the heartbeats in the bottom of the Chasm. Waiting.

She looked down at her arms, as if she could see the pulse there, throbbing in time with those of the creatures waiting in the Chasm, ready to be called forth.

“You live,” the proxy said. “We were correct.”

“You are the Prophet,” the second servitor added, bowing. “You are the one who will gather the Choir, to sing the Symphony of Madness into being.”

“I am Rohini,” she said. The Hex Locus buzzed angrily and clenched its powers around her guts. “Your spell cannot change that, whatever it is.”

“It is a fragment of the spellplague,” the proxy said, “made solid and discrete. You held the blue fire.”

She held it still, Rohini knew. The Hex Locus had chained itself to her very being. It thrummed in her blood and in her thoughts. Her secrets were its secrets now. Its powers were hers.

“Most impressive,” the proxy added. “You ought to have died.”

The girl. Rohini looked around. Farideh had burst the box somehow … with Glasya’s magic, she had shattered it.

“Where did she go?” Rohini asked. “Where are the devil and the tiefling warlock?

“Your allies?” said the proxy who remained. “Why do you protect them? They have given you up for lost.”

Rohini didn’t answer. Her mind was reeling. Invadiah had said the erinyes would capture and kill Lorcan, and yet there he’d been. She had herself left the warlock girl to be torn apart by the Ashmadai. And yet there she’d stood, taunting Rohini.… She was the one who’d put the Hex Locus in Rohini’s hands. Using Glasya’s spells.

Invadiah lied, the voice of the Hex Locus said, and it sounded so like Arunika, taunting her. Glasya lied. You were meant to die.

“Not my allies,” Rohini said. “Not anymore.”

“Then prove your loyalty. Tell us why you came.”

Rohini stared at the proxy, the half-formed words of prophecy fighting to break from her lips. She wanted to snarl, to tell him she was no slave of his.

He would die soon. She could see it in the shifting patterns of the fabric of Toril. Her loyalty wouldn’t matter in the end, and it would nevermatter to those behemoths in the shadows. She was a tool to them-and a tool’s reasons for performing its task did not matter.

A desperate smile tugged at the corners of her lips. It sounded like something Arunika would say, were she not dead and waiting to be reborn under the thumb of the archdevils. The slithering monsters attuned to the Hex Locus’s song, the things waiting in the Chasm-Rohini stared again at her wrists. Would it be so different to command the playthings of the aboleths instead of mortal fools?

You were meant to die, she reminded herself, and the voice in her thoughts might have been hers and it might have been the Hex Locus’s and it might have been her dead sister’s, but it was right. The Hells held no allies of hers. Not anymore.

“I served Glasya, princess of the Nine Hells, Archduchess of the Sixth Layer,” Rohini said. “I answer to Exalted Invadiah, foremost of the erinyes of Malbolge. My orders were to infiltrate the servants of the Sovereignty through Brother Vartan and deliver an offer to your masters. She has in her possession an artifact which she believes they would find most desirable-a portal knife crafted in their Far Realm. I was to deliver the offer, and the meeting place, a warehouse near to the river. She will come only for one of your masters, though. Invadiah believed Glasya would ambush them and use them as she wishes once they are hers.”

“Does she think we are fools?” the servitor asked. “She cannot make servants of the Sovereignty. And now we know of the artifact, what is to stop our masters from breaching the Hells and taking it? What would stop them from agreeing and sending their terrible minions to meet her?”

Rohini hesitated. To say more was beyond treason.

You are already beyond treason, the voice reminded her. If Glasya does not fall, you will.

“Should you or your masters attempt to breach Malbolge, you would fail,” she said. “The Sovereignty is no doubt wise enough to know that. They are also wise enough not to make such a vulnerable gesture for a mere artifact that might or might not even exist.

“But what you miss, to your detriment, is that Glasya is not foolish enough to think you would.”