Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sairche waited outside the door to Invadiah’s chambers, counting the erinyes that entered in full armor: Eretria. Chaeronea. Suessula. Zela. Megara. Sabis. Tanagra. Bibracte. Lutetia. Oenophyta. Noreia. Alesia. With Invadiah a full thirteen armed to the teeth and ready for Invadiah’s command, to kill Lorcan, to kill Rohini, and to finish what had been started in Neverwinter.

The imp she’d sent to Invadiah had predictably not returned, but another imp had brought her a summons to appear before her mother. She took it graciously, and tucked it into her sleeve where she continued ignoring it. Obviously, Invadiah trusted Sairche’s word if she was amassing so many armed erinyes to her side. She didn’t need to hear from Sairche until after she’d returned.

A small part of Sairche wished she could go to Neverwinter and watch everything unfold, but she quashed it: It wasn’t necessary. In fact, it would be extremely foolish. Besides-she had no way to cross the planes anymore, short of asking Invadiah.

Another imp appeared beside her with a soft pop. “Her Highness wishes you to pay her audience.”

Sairche shuddered and pulled her cloak around her. “Tell her I will be with her presently.”

Farideh’s lungs were screaming, her muscles aching as she ran-for the second time that night-as fast as she could along the main roads. And Mehen was gaining on her. Close enough to hear his labored breath-

The crack of his lightning breath rattled the alleyway. The lightning scoured her skin, the sudden pain driving the air from her lungs with a sharp cry. But still she ran, slower now and gasping. Her nerves threatened to overtake her and make her cry like a child, as Clanless Mehen sought to slay his foster daughter.

Farideh drew on the powers of the Hells and split the fabric of the world enough for her to dart through, and come clear around the corner and several buildings farther on. She ducked into an alleyway and flattened herself against the wall. Mehen ran past, but only a short distance before he circled back to the intersection where she’d lost him, tapping his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Farideh drew her breath in such slow, even drafts that she thought she would surely faint.

I’m sorry, she thought. But Lorcan was, as ever, right.

She stepped into the street and pointed the rod at her father. “Adaestuo.”

The bolt of eldritch light slammed into Mehen, and he roared in shock and pain, but he did not fall. He turned jerkily to face her and drew his falchion.

“Mehen,” she said, “don’t do this. You don’t need to do this. Rohini’s not here.”

“She will be there when I …” He stilled, blinked … and then bared his teeth in sudden rage. “When I bring back your head, warlock.”

“Mehen, put your sword down,” she said, holding up the rod and feeling the magical energy of the Hells flooding through her. “It’s me.”

Mehen answered with a vicious swing level with her head. She ducked beneath it and took a step back. She took the rod in her left hand and drew her sword.

The whoosh of Lorcan’s wings as he plummeted brought Mehen’s head up a second before the cambion dropped solidly into his back. Mehen’s head cracked against the cobbles and he went slack.

“Tie him!” Lorcan shouted. “Tie him, damn it!”

“Calm down,” Farideh said. She kneeled down beside Mehen and reached a shaking hand toward his face. He was breathing, but out cold.

Farideh nudged Lorcan off Mehen and jerked the harness off Mehen’s shoulders. She slid it down to his elbows, knotting the loose loops together, so that his arms were bound. “Help me move him.”

She had a perverse sense of satisfaction watching Lorcan struggle as much as she with Mehen’s heavy bulk. They would never have gotten him from the temple into the city. But when his arm brushed hers, she flushed nonetheless.

They settled Mehen against a wall, behind a pile of rubble. Farideh kneeled down, assessing the dragonborn’s wounds. “He doesn’t look good.”

Lorcan jerked her to her feet. The amulet exploded with a cold, silvery light. Lorcan threw his hands up to ward it off and fell back.

“Godsdamn it!”

“If you don’t like it, don’t shove me around,” she said, her voice shaking. The air was simmering again. “No one said you had to come back.”

He seized his hair in his fists. “Planes and ashes, you do understand Rohini’s not a shitting goblin you can wave your hands and distract?”

“I had to do something.” She gestured at Mehen. “He’s half-dead as it is. She had him …” Her voice caught. “She had him fighting like it didn’t matter. Like he could simply take the cuts and bruises and … whatever her magic does. She would have killed him.”

“She’s going to kill you. She knows you’re alive now.”

“She knows you’re alive too! You should have taken the chance,” she said. “You can’t get to the portal now.”

“So I was supposed to just-” He waved his hands vaguely. “I should have. I should have run past while she was distracted.” He cursed to himself. “You’re not worth this.” He cursed again. “Neither is a bloody aboleth.”

“No it isn’t.” And suddenly things fit together a little better. “Oh.”

It was, ironically, one of Mehen’s favorite tactics: burst onto the battlefields with a great storm and thunder, rattling shields and blades and breathing lightning, looking for all the world like your enemy’s worst nightmare. And while they stared at you and pondered how to take you down, your allies came around behind and cut your enemies throats.

“What if that’s it?” she said, half to herself.

“What in the Hells are you talking about?” Lorcan cried. “What if what’s it?”

“Your mistress,” she said, “do you think she’d go to all this trouble to gain a … a monster from another world’s memories?”

“Yes!” he said. “Think of the power-”

“What power though?” Farideh asked. “If they’re as alien as the Chasm, what good would their thoughts be? They might know ten thousand years’ worth of knowledge, but what good is that if they don’t think like her? That didn’t make any sense. It still doesn’t.” She held Lorcan’s gaze. “Especially because the Ashmadai never fit. Is it possible that all of this was meant to get the Ashmadai out in the open? To get them to call down Asmodeus? Or even … just to make him notice the Sovereignty? To focus on that? Why else would the Ashmadai be looking for Glasyans in the hospital?”

Lorcan started to answer, but stopped and pursed his lips. “It’s possible,” he said a moment later. “She likes making trouble. Everyone knows she doesn’t get along with her father.”

“So she might start a war, after all, not between the Layers,” Farideh said, “but between the Sovereignty and the god of evil.”

Lorcan shook his head. “She’s an archduchess of the Hells. She’s too clever to antagonize her father like that, now that he’s a god.”

“But if she were clever and angry,” Farideh said, “she might create a chain of events that … don’t look as though she’s trying to antagonize him. That get Asmodeus’s eye fixed on Neverwinter and another, powerful, alien enemy.”

“So she may act elsewhere,” Lorcan finished. He shuddered. “And you and I got in the way.”

“But what is she doing?”

Lorcan reached forward as if he would clap a hand over her mouth again, but closed his hands on the empty air. “Stop asking that. You don’t need to know. You don’t want to know.”

“Don’t-”

“Shut up, darling, just shut up and trust me here, you do not need to know what the archduchess’s plans are.” He rubbed his wrists where the amulet’s fire had burned them. “And you had best hope like you’ve never hoped, that-”

“They matter,” she said, “because it means the Ashmadai’s plan to attack the temple is just as likely her plan. They will come and burn the place to the ground, and kill everyone in it.” She looked at him gravely. “Something has its powers over Rohini-she isn’t on Glasya’s side anymore. And if you’re right and your mother’s erinyes come to clean things up, Rohini isn’t going to go quietly. It will be a bloodbath. Perhaps not one your lady’s planning on. Certainly not one Neverwinter’s expecting.”

Lorcan ran his hands through his hair. “If you are right, if that is Glasya’s plan, then I don’t think Invadiah knows it. What she threatened Rohini with … she will come as soon as she knows Rohini’s been captured. She will bring the pradixikai. And whatever the Ashmadai might do, whatever Rohini and the Sovereignty might be capable of, whatever the shitting god of evil might stir up, the pradixikai loose in Faerun is reason enough to get far, far away-Hey!” Lorcan shouted.

Farideh looked over her shoulder to see Brin jogging back to the alley’s mouth, his sword unsheathed and his face pale. His eyes were wide and terrified.

“What happened?” Farideh said.

“He took her,” Brin gasped. “The Ashmadai have Havilar.”

“No.” Farideh’s ears were suddenly numb and ringing. She reached behind her to lean on the wall. “Where? When?”

“Outside the shop,” Brin said, still quite out of breath. “The shopkeeper. He came out of nowhere and just … knocked her senseless with some amulet. And that’s not all.”

He explained what he’d heard: the Ashmadai had decided Havilar’s attack was an act of war by the Sovereignty. The shopkeeper seemed to believe that it had been Havilar’s magic that convinced them of the idea, and now the Ashmadai were amassing to attack the House of Knowledge and burn it to the ground.

“Bad to worse,” Lorcan muttered. “You’re right.”

Farideh held her tongue, preoccupied with the repeating images from her nightmares of Havilar being tormented and not being able to save her. She wanted to scream. She wanted to yell at Brin for letting this happen-he’d promised to watch after Havilar.

Brin was watching her, as if he knew all of that. As if he were expecting her ire. Lorcan folded his arms, the smallest of smiles quirking his mouth, as if he knew it too.

She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut a moment.

“First,” she said, “we need to fix Mehen. He’s wounded and-”

“The moment he wakes he’ll try and kill you again!” Lorcan said.

“And,” she continued, “we have to break the domination. The two of us can’t count on saving Havilar alone. And we need Havilar if we’re going to be able to stop the Ashmadai or Rohini.”

“You need far more than just Havilar,” Lorcan said.

“No one is asking for your opinion.”

“Someone should be,” he said. “If … if you are correct about Glasya, you’re assuring your own death to challenge anyone involved in this nonsense-you don’t even know which pieces are hers. Even if you could defeat Rohini or those stupid cultists or the pradixikai or those servitors and whatever monsters they call up, you are forgetting that the archduchess is watching.”

“For now,” Farideh said, “we’re just saving Havilar.” Even though she couldn’t help but remember all the soldiers from the Wall in their sickbeds and the young and preening acolytes who didn’t deserve to burn alive.

Brin squatted down beside Mehen. He held out one tentative hand, the beginnings of divine magic swirling at the tips of his fingers.

“If you heal him,” Lorcan said, “he might still be dominated.”

“Do it,” Farideh said.

Mehen felt his body stir, and then his mind scramble toward waking. Where was he? What had happened? His eyes opened, letting in hazy shapes-Brin kneeling in front of him, Farideh close by. His vision darkened again, his mind sliding away from the world.

He had been running. Chasing. Farideh, seeping hellfire and miasma, trying to kill good people, people like Rohini. In the dark streets of Neverwinter she glowed like a beacon of Hellish magic. He had to stop her.

It was that filthy devil of course, it could only be. She was corrupted, overtaken. Subdue her, subdue her.

No, that won’t work, a voice whispered through his thoughts. She’s too far gone. Do what you must. He’d breathed the lightning.

And then? He couldn’t remember. Didn’t want to remember.

Cool light flared before Mehen’s eyes and the sound of a sword on a whetstone jerked his attention away from the memories. The pain in his head faded, but the fear and adrenaline were still pulsing through him. There again was Brin. Good lad, he thought blinking drowsily at him. He coughed. “Where …”

Be careful, something thought for him and bared his teeth. Right, right-the boy was trouble.

“Mehen.”

He whipped his head around to see Farideh kneeling down beside him, looking worried. Then … no, not worried-cruel. Shadows wafted off of her and her eyes had changed: one red as coals, one black as soot. The devil’s doing. The devil hovering behind her with hateful eyes.

“Mehen,” she said again-a taunt, a slight. He hadn’t stopped her. He tried to reach out, to press the vein that would make her sleep, but his arms were tightly bound behind him, no matter how he struggled. He tapped the roof of his mouth with his tongue: fear, uncertainty, blood. He was as good as dead.

She could have been safe, he thought despairing. She could have been happy.

“Mehen, look at me,” she said. “Please.”

The alley lurched, sharpened. Her eyes were gold and silver again. Brin was nothing but a worried boy. Lorcan still stood behind her, all nerves and irritation.

“I …” He looked off down the alley. “I was supposed to …” He shuddered again and the world blurred.

It’s you’re fault she’s fallen, something whispered, so you have to be the one to stop her. This is the only way to save her.

He shook his head. If Mehen was the cause of his daughter’s fall, then it was because he’d pressed her too hard, driven her when he should have been wary and listened. And planes above, he’d known better-how different was it from Clan Verthisathurgiesh insisting their favored son wed or be cast out? He kept shaking his head. It was his fault. All his fault.

“Fight it off,” Farideh said, this time in Draconic, and again when he opened his eyes, she skipped from something horrible and lost to his daughter, tired and concerned, and back again.

Lorcan laid a hideous hand on her shoulder. “Give it up,” he said, and his voice hissed and snapped. “You can’t break the domination and if you try much longer he’s going to lash out.”

Farideh narrowed those wicked eyes, but didn’t look back at the devil. “Lorcan, you’ve already made your point clear. We’re not leaving him.”

Mehen’s mouth twitched. There’s a girl.

“He’s not safe,” the devil hissed. “That’s all I’m saying. He’s not safe and he might never be safe again.”

“If you’re afraid,” Farideh said, “you can go wait by the gate. Otherwise, kindly keep quiet.” She skipped back to the clear, normal version. Perhaps … perhaps he ought to worry less about whether she could protect herself.

Another burst of cold light shivered over him, and this time he made out the words of Brin’s prayer. The magic shivered over his scales and he felt the spell Rohini had laid on him break apart like a stretched net popping knots.

His mind cleared, the world stayed focused. Mehen drew a long, unsteady breath and focused on Farideh.

“I was trying to kill you,” he said, horrified.

“It’s all right,” she said, relief in her voice. “I’m fine.”

“No,” he said, his heart cracking. He’d chased her down, his blade bare. He’d threatened her, he’d used the lightning breath. “Oh, Fari, tell me I didn’t hurt you.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine. Are you well? Do you feel … odd?”

For the first time in days, he felt completely himself. “Karshoji Tiamat. Fari. I was so worried … like a horrible nightmare you can’t stir from. And she took hold of those nightmares-” His voice caught. She’d turned him against Farideh, so completely. He would never forgive himself for that. “And worse that I’d snapped at you … when your sister …” He looked around. “Where’s Havi?”

Farideh’s face fell. “Havi …” she started.

Mehen stiffened. “What happened?”

She paused and wet her lips. “Havi’s been captured. It was an accident, I wasn’t-”

“Thrik,” Mehen said gently. Planes, she was so ready for him to blame her. No wonder Rohini had you so easily, he thought. You push her too hard. “You’d never have let it happen if there were any way to stop it.” She unknotted the harness and he listened to Farideh explain what had happened, and what she was afraid was coming. “Do you have a plan?” he asked, coming to his feet.

“It’s … sort of,” she said. “I don’t know if it will work. You’ll go after Havilar,” she said. “The Ashmadai will converge on the House of Knowledge soon, but you need to catch Yvon as far from there as you can. You can’t get near Rohini again.”

“Let me near her and I’ll rip the kothar karshoji’s head off.”

“No,” Farideh said. “She’ll dominate you again, and then we’ll just be in worse shape. Get Havilar and head for the gates.”

“And you?” Mehen said. “Where will you be?”

“Making room for you to get Havilar,” she said. “I’ll find a way to distract Yvon’s fellows so they don’t come after you.” She looked up at Lorcan. “If all of this is just another distraction to keep eyes off Glasya, perhaps everyone would be more interested in what the Sixth Layer might be doing.”

Lorcan looked as if he might have protested, but something changed in the air and both of them, devil and warlock, seemed to have the wind momentarily knocked from them. Mehen reached to steady Farideh.

“What was that?” Farideh said.

Lorcan’s mouth made a line so hard it might have been chiseled there. “That,” he said, “was an extremely large portal opening. Considering our circumstances, I suggest-again-we get out of here, because if we are fortunate that is my mother and her army, and if we are not, the Ashmadai have called down their god.”

Farideh turned a cold eye on Lorcan. “Make up your mind, right now. You’re helping or you’re not: which is it?”

“That depends entirely on your plans-”

“Which I am not stupid enough to tell you if there’s still a good chance you’ll hare back to your mother’s side. Choose.”

He fidgeted. “You cannot fight them all.”

“Choose, Lorcan.”

“Promise me first you won’t try.”

“I swear I won’t try to fight all of them. I want Havilar back safe and the hospital not burned down. If we can manage else, we will.”

Lorcan hesitated. “Fine. I promise I’ll help you get Havilar back safe. And the hospital if it’s convenient.” He scowled. “And I wouldn’t go back to my mother-giving her your silly plans isn’t going to make her want to kill me any less. I’d like to hear your plan for that.”

“We cannot fight them all,” she agreed, “so we deal with them each separately. The Ashmadai first, then the Sovereignty, then the erinyes.”

“Of course,” Lorcan said, “and afterward we bring down the demon princes. You cannot kill any of those!”

“We don’t need to kill them,” she said. “We just need to make them back down. By playing them off each other.”

“My enemies’ enemies are allies not-yet-confirmed,” Mehen quoted.

“Exactly,” Farideh said, turning to Lorcan. “Your mother will deal with Rohini handily enough, yes? So we lead the erinyes to Rohini and let them take care of things. You don’t get in the way when your enemies are willing to kill each other.” She looked to Mehen. “You’d better go. He’ll be between the shop we stopped at the first day and the House of Knowledge. He’ll want as many of the Ashmadai near before …” She swallowed. “Before he makes his point.”

Mehen seized her in a fierce embrace. She went stiff in his arms, as if she didn’t know what was happening. She reached an arm around Mehen and relaxed a little.

“For the love of all the planes, be careful,” he said. “We have too much to say to leave it here.” He squeezed her once and stepped back. He glowered at Lorcan. “And you …” He’d still have liked to punch the cambion right across the jaw, but not now. Not while Farideh needed him. “Prove your damn worth.” He spat.

“To you? I think I have,” the cambion said. “Twice now in fact.”

“Stop it,” Farideh snapped. “Mehen, go. Lorcan and Brin, we have to find where the erinyes’ portal opened.” They all started toward the end of the alley.

“How will you get rid of Invadiah once she’s finished?” he heard Lorcan ask. “And who will kill the Ashmadai? Not the erinyes-you can’t start a battle in the Hells.”

Farideh hesitated. “We don’t kill the Ashmadai,” she said. “We make them think they aren’t needed so they go away.”

Mehen eyed the empty street and turned toward the south.

“Are you going to burn down the House of Knowledge yourself?” he heard Lorcan ask.

Mehen almost wished he’d been too far to hear Farideh’s answer. “Not precisely,” she said. “I need you to set fire to me.”