Lesser Evils

CHAPTER TWELVE

MALBOLGE, THE HELLS

Lorcan sat cross-legged on the bone-tiled floor, watching his Phrenike heir attempt to summon a book imp and trying to quell the tic he’d developed under one eye. He twirled the leather scourge pendant between his fingers, back and forth, and tried once more to get that idiot tiefling’s attention. The Phrenike heir shook his head at the summons, as if trying to dislodge an unpleasant thought.

Bastard, Lorcan thought. Not for the first time, he wished he’d worked the same spells on all his warlocks that he had on Farideh. At least Farideh noticed when he called. He reached for the mirror. And stopped.

If you call her, he thought, Sairche wins and Glasya will have no problems with her killing you. Gods be damned, there had to be a way out of this.

He waved a hand over the mirror’s surface and called up another warlock’s image. The heir of Titus Graybeard was probably among the least valuable of his warlocks, not merely because of her ancestor’s potency, but also because she was not particularly adept at the pact. He called her as well, watched as she lifted her head and looked around, and watched as she retreated into ever more private environs, waiting for Lorcan to appear. He gritted his teeth. Stupid cow-clearly he needed help.

He was painfully aware that he had no plan but this. If he couldn’t get a warlock to call him back to Toril, he would have to face Sairche again. And likely soon. He’d started ranking the secrets he held, the only currency he had with which to stall his sister. She wanted Farideh, so what could he tell her that would make her think she could get the tiefling’s pact? What would keep her busy and keep Farideh safe, but more importantly, keep him safe?

Shit and ashes, he thought, I hate the whole Lords-blasted hierarchy.

Lorcan had turned the mirror’s focus to a third warlock when he heard the door open. His pulsed jumped-too soon.

“Have you come to gloat some more?” he asked without looking up. “Or are you finally going to kill me?”

“Oh gloat. For now,” Sairche said. He let the mirror go dark, so that it reflected his sister in her shining, false armor, standing in the doorway, flanked again by Bibracte and Noreia.

And holding a terrified-looking Farideh. She shoved the tiefling into the room, tumbling her to the ground.

He had not been locked away from the viciousness of the hierarchy so long that he couldn’t stop himself from reacting-the curse that he would have liked to shout bitten back, the urge to leap forward and catch her tossed aside. He checked himself and came to his feet with a cool expression-it did none of them any good to let Sairche think the warlock mattered too much. “I see you didn’t need the mirror.”

“Nor do I need you,” Sairche said, her chin high.

He smirked, even though his blood was suddenly full of rage worthy of his mother’s kind. Kill her, it said. Dash her head against the floor.

“Is that so? Nothing you’ve forgotten?” Farideh scrambled to her feet and came to stand near him, watching Sairche and the erinyes in horror.

Sairche chuckled. “Lords, you do act foolish when your options are spent,” she said. “Say your good-byes, Lorcan. Make them count-I don’t expect she’ll be seeing much of you at all.” She turned on her heel and let the door seal shut behind her.

“Shit and ashes!” he burst out, once the door was gone. He should have taken the chance and attacked Sairche. He should have at least tried. Now he was doomed.

And so was Farideh.

“How did she find you?” he demanded. He turned and startled to find her standing just behind him, all wide-eyed and fearful. He stepped around her.

“I don’t know,” Farideh said. “All of a sudden … there were just so many of them!” She covered her face with her hands.

“That is why you have a pact, you little fool,” he said. “Tell me I at least leave the world a sister shorter.”

“I did what I could.”

“And Mehen? Havilar? That snot-nosed Brin? Did they just stand there and watch?” Sairche must have frightened her badly, he thought, when she merely shrugged and hugged her arms to herself, looking cold and lonesome, instead of lashing out at him for blaming her family. “You do understand I’m going to die,” he tried again, “and you’re not coming out of this much better.”

“I’m sorry.” She moved nearer to him, watching him intently. Tears sprang to her eyes. “Tell me what to do.”

Lorcan stepped back from her reflexively, and caught himself. “Did Sairche do something to you?”

She bit her lip, as if she might break down, but her gaze didn’t waver. “Bruises,” she said. Those … devils with her were rough.” She swallowed. “What does she intend to do?”

“I don’t know,” Lorcan said. There was absolutely no reason to have dragged her to the Hells-a foolish move if he’d ever seen one. Sairche must be getting desperate to make such a wild gesture. “She’s likely going to shift your pact.”

“To another devil?” Farideh said. “Oh, gods, you can’t let her!”

“Well you were happy to do it yourself before,” he snapped.

“No,” she said, tearful. “I’m sorry. Please. You must have a way to send me back?”

“You know I don’t,” he said. “The portal is gone.”

“Please,” she said, coming nearer. “I’ll do anything.”

He took another step backward. Something was very wrong here. Farideh was still staring into his eyes, still leaning awfully close. Still acting, he realized, as if she weren’t in the Hells with her life in peril, but in some sort of ridiculous narrative …

Those … devils with her were rough, she’d said.

She knows, he remembered, what an erinyes is.

Oh, he thought as everything came together. To the pit of the Abyss with you, Sairche. She really did think he was an idiot.

Lorcan grabbed hold of Farideh’s shoulder and shoved her backward, rocking her off balance. He snatched her arm as she threw it out for balance and turned her so it was wrenched behind her. He grabbed the other too and held her tight-he had to keep her hands off him.

“What are you doing?” Farideh cried, struggling to break free. Hells, but this one was strong. “Let go!”

Instead he slammed the succubus against the floor and held her there with all his weight, one hand on the back of her skull.

“The trouble,” he panted, “with going off of Sairche’s memories is that she’s seen this girl twice. Too many details to get wrong.”

“What do you-”

“She knows what a shitting erinyes is,” he went on. “And you’re about an inch too short and a shade too pale, and entirely too forward, so quit pretending I haven’t figured you out!”

“Close enough to confuse you,” the succubus said, calmer now. She wriggled under him. “Maybe you just like this version better.”

At that moment, Lorcan figured he’d had enough succubi for an eternity, regardless of who they did or didn’t look like. The shape-changing devils were renowned for their skills of seduction-a well-deserved reputation, he knew-but he’d also seen close up how dangerous they could be. Even one low-ranking enough to be compelled by Sairche.

“Are you watching this, Sairche?” he called.

“Please,” the succubus said. “You underestimate how much she loathes you. She doesn’t want to see you enjoy yourself.”

“So that’s her clever plan? Seduce the way around the warlock’s binding spell out of me? Did you really think that would work?”

“No. She thought you’d show me the way back. But no one said I couldn’t amuse myself.” The succubus arched her back, and he fought to hold her down. “I can always do it the hard way.”

He didn’t doubt it-if he let her get too close, she’d have him charmed and his thoughts spread out like wares on a market blanket.

“You can’t hold me forever,” she said.

“I can do it until Sairche comes back and sees how you failed,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure that was true. If she changed form and sprouted wings again she’d knock him right off. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, piecing together secrets and scenarios. This might work. “But you stay on the other side of the room, understand?”

“You’re going to take my word?” she said. “How sweet.”

He moved off her, swiftly as he could, and was back, in front of the window, before she gained her feet. “You’ll find I’m a lot more … accepting than my sisters. If you wanted to stay a demon, you had the whole Abyss to hide in.”

The succubus didn’t change her form and so Farideh stood there leering at him in a disconcerting way he didn’t want to think about. “What’s the deal?”

“What’s Sairche want from you?”

“She wants the warlock. Nothing less.”

“And I can’t give her that.” Not a lie-Farideh had to take Sairche’s offer as much as he had to undo the pact. “But I can tell you why she can’t find her.”

The succubus shook her head, sending Farideh’s dark locks shifting unnaturally in the dim light. “Not enough. She wants the key to undoing it.”

Lorcan eyed her a long moment, weighing his options. “I can tell you how I managed it.”

“And I can take that from you, easy as you please.”

“Or,” Lorcan said, “you can trade with me. Make no mistake, if you try to take it, I’ll go down fighting, and even if you win, I’ll make sure it’s not easy.”

The succubus smirked. She’d made the upper lip too thin, he thought, and the lower too full. “That’s what they all say. What do you want to trade?”

“I want to know why she’s stopped torturing me,” he said, “and who her buyer is. And I want a message carried for me.”

“Back to the warlock?”

“No,” he said. He took a deep breath, hardly willing to ask it. But he needed a portal, and quickly. If he gave Sairche the information about the protective spells, she’d be one step closer to Farideh-and one step closer to killing him-unless he could move quickly.

“To the succubus aeries,” he said. “To Invadiah.”

The succubus didn’t laugh like Farideh either. “That I’ll do, just to see her face when I tell her that her traitor son wants a boon.”

“A boon that will thwart her twice-traitorous daughter,” he said. “Invadiah is vicious but she isn’t a fool. By now it should be clear that Sairche doomed us both. You have portals to the other planes in the aerie-tell her I beg use of hers. Tell her it will bring about Sairche’s downfall. And tell her it will exile me; I won’t come out of this well either. Find out what she wants for that.”

The succubus nodded. “That I can do. I don’t know the buyer-I’ve heard things, here and there. A collector in Phlegethos. A collector in Minauros. Another archdevil. People talk, even about the dull fancies of collectors, but this one … it’s clear there’s something else going on. It’s a select group that wants this one.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “That wasn’t part of the deal. But we can always renegotiate.” She paced along the wall, daring closer. “Tell me the key.”

Lorcan wished she’d change form already, but the succubus seemed to sense his discomfort, and relish it. She’d edged closer, still technically on the opposite side of the room. “There’s a protection laid on her,” he said. “Laid thick. If it’s not the result of some god’s old interest, then I’m meant for Ao’s army. No amount of scrying will get around it, no matter the method. And whoever Sairche’s found to take up the pact will find that connection isn’t enough either.”

“But you found a way?” the succubus said skeptically.

“There’s more to me than first blush,” he said. He waited, holding tight to the last secret, turning it over as if there were some way to substitute it with a lesser detail. “She’ll regret what she’s doing,” he said. “Or perhaps, someone could make sure she regrets it.”

“And how is that?”

“When I was taken, before I was brought here, the archduchess spoke to me. Told me to be careful as she would have need of me and the Kakistos heir in the future.”

Farideh’s odd eyes narrowed. “What for?”

Lorcan hadn’t the faintest idea. Glasya’s counsel had come without warning, and her presence had vanished the moment she’d delivered it. “Now that wasn’t part of the deal,” he said with a smile. “Especially when I gave you Glasya’s interest in Farideh for free.”

The succubus tilted her head. “Farideh. Is that her name? How ugly.” She sucked her lower lip, deep in thought. “They say it’s because of Glasya that Sairche stopped torturing you.”

That surprised Lorcan. The archduchess was well known for her elaborate methods of torment. “That hardly seems likely.”

“Well, we all know she had you close to death,” the succubus said. “I hear she had plenty more surprises for you too. Then the archduchess called her to court out of nowhere and said if she’d like you to be tortured, then she should hand you over to her lordship’s tender mercies.” Farideh’s gold and silver eyes flashed with the succubus’s amusement. “Sairche declined, they say. How could she do anything else, if what you’re saying is true? You might tell Glasya what Sairche needs to know. What I need to know,” she said, coming nearer, close enough now to reach out and trail her knuckles down his arm. Shitting demoness, he thought. “You want to renegotiate? I’ll tell you what I’ve heard about your Brimstone Angel. You give me a peek inside.”

Lorcan kept himself from flinching. What a perfect example of Malbolge, here in front of him-something to make him want to recoil in horror and throw himself headlong into corruption at the same time. Maybe he’d been locked away too long. Maybe he was tired of waiting to die. Maybe he did like this version better.

“It’s very boring, I assure you,” he said. “Go ahead and see for yourself, if you really want to be pulled into the archduchess’s mess.” The succubus’s piercing gaze wavered, and she eased back, hardly at all, but enough to notice. Enough to be confident she wouldn’t touch him.

“You owe me still,” the succubus said. “The key to getting past the protection.”

Lorcan shrugged, insouciant. “She has to find something that isn’t affected by the spell.”

The succubus reached out and wrapped a curl of his hair around one finger. “Is that all?”

“Simple as they come,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. “Just make sure the warlock holds onto it.”

“Hmm.” The fingers that had been toying with his hair lengthened into talons, tangled in the locks, and she wrenched his head back. Her face was feral and terrible and so far from his warlock as she loomed over him before lunging in with a kiss she had no need to disguise from what it was: she meant to devour him from the inside out.

His mind went blank, black, and then thoughts began to race across it-out of his mind and into the succubus’s. Neverwinter and the ruins and the racing anger in him as she fled … the rod at his throat, the rod pointed at his attackers, the rod he’d stolen from Invadiah to protect her with … You should have run. You aren’t worth this … Her face in the firelight, the beat of her pulse … Does it hurt? You’ll be fine. No, I mean you. Does it hurt you? The ring of the Kakistos heir. Havilar and her knife on the other side of the summoning. The book, the fire, the brand, the knife in his hand and the slit he made at the center of the brand, the extra wound she never noticed. The vial he squeezes the blood into …

He broke through the succubus’s spell and threw her off of him with a forearm across her throat. He scrambled back as, panting and wild-eyed, she came to her feet and spread her wings, the illusion of her shape shed as the ill-fitting robes fell away into a succubus’s leather armor. She kept a face that hinted at Farideh’s, but the eyes had become red as rubies.

You are such a shitting idiot, Lorcan thought. He let his hands fill with flames-not enough to kill her, but certainly enough to do a little damage if she tried that again.

She smirked at him. “Oh, none of that. I have enough to make your sister happy.”

“Sairche? I doubt that.”

“We’ll have to see. Blood magic? Clever, clever.” She licked her teeth. “I was expecting a trinket you connected to. I think she was too.”

Lords, had she seen the focus? No-surely not. He’d stopped her at the vial. “What are you going to tell Sairche?”

The succubus shrugged. “We’ll see. I don’t like having a cambion lording secrets over me. Especially not when I’m doing them favors.” She backed away from him, out onto the balcony. “Maybe Sairche will send me down to Toril,” she said. “Maybe she’ll have me wear your skin for the Brimstone Angel to bring her into hand. Won’t that be fun?”

Lorcan bit back a laugh. “She’ll see right through you,” he warned.

“That’s what they all say,” she replied. “I’ll let you know what Fallen Invadiah says.” She launched herself off the balcony and into the sickly skies of Malbolge.

Lorcan stood a while, watching her fly toward the aeries built into a cliff of hip bone, rolling the copper-tipped scourge he wore around his neck between two fingers, the blood- stiffened thongs splaying as it spun.

“Karshoj!” Farideh shouted at Brin. She swatted at him with the last of the scrolls. “Don’t creep up on me like that!”

Brin kept his hands up in a gesture of calm, glad she hadn’t been really surprised and unleashed a spray of fire at him as he came up behind her. “I wasn’t being all that quiet,” he said. “It’s this place, I think. It makes people jumpy.” He bent down alongside her to help gather up the fallen scrolls. “Tam nearly took my head off earlier.”

“You’re very lucky I wasn’t Pernika,” she said. “Or Havilar.”

At the moment, Brin thought that anyway. “I need you to do the ritual for me. Mine’s run out and Tam’s not feeling well.” He handed her the pile of scrolls.

“Ask Dahl,” she said. “He has all the components.”

Brin would rather have asked Pernika for a shave than ask Dahl for a favor. “I can’t find him,” he lied. “You don’t have enough for even one?”

“I have enough for one, but mine’s run out too. Don’t you have a ritual book?” she asked, as they started back toward the camp. “I thought … I mean the priests …”

“I didn’t take it with me,” Brin said. He’d had the same conversation with Mira when they’d first arrived. “They’re heavy, and I don’t need it.”

“You need it now,” Farideh pointed out. “Maybe you can help Havi with the traps.”

He could, he thought. Maybe she’d need help. Maybe she’d be glad he offered and apologize for that stupid fight, for ignoring his concerns about Pernika.

“You should tell her you’re sorry for calling her daft,” Farideh said. “She won’t forget, but she’ll forgive you.”

“Stop doing that,” Brin said irritably. “I’ll say my apologies when she does.”

“Oh, gods, Brin, just …” She shook her head. “Be the bigger one. We’ll all be happier for it.” She left him standing just beyond the camp’s edge.

Brin cursed to himself, looking down the wide corridor that led to the gates. He was tired of being angry, tired of avoiding Havilar, and of her avoiding him. And maybe … she seemed as if she was tired too. Maybe, he thought, heading out into the library, listening for the sounds of Havilar springing traps, she would admit he was right.

Because the more he thought about it, the more he watched Pernika and Maspero, the more he was certain something was awry. These weren’t the sort of people with whom you wanted to be caught in a dark alley.

Which meant, the more he thought about it, Mira wasn’t either.

She’d known the two mercenaries. She’d said she had worked with them before. He couldn’t pretend that she was possibly foolish enough to not notice the emblem of Bane on Pernika’s upper arm. She couldn’t have missed Maspero’s dark expression.

And Brin couldn’t possibly ignore the fact that Mira was definitely not giving orders to Maspero. What that meant, Brin wasn’t sure, but the memory of the black-clad assassins in Waterdeep was hard to shake. The Shadovar weren’t the only ones who wanted what Tarchamus had left behind. And Cyric wasn’t the only god the Zhentarim held dear.

He was mulling over what exactly he ought to say when Havilar stepped into his path. “Well met,” she said.

“Well met,” he said, surprised. “I was looking for you. Are you … in the middle of anything?”

“No,” she said, not moving. “Would you like to be in the middle of something?”

He squinted at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” she said, reaching behind his head and sinking her fingers into his hair, “I think you should come with me.”

“I …” Brin shut his mouth, blushing furiously. He looked away, but from the corner of his eye he could still see her staring at him. “Isn’t this a bit … abrupt?” he managed.

She smiled and took him by the arm, her hand like ice through his sleeve. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

Yes, he thought. All right. “Havi, wait,” he said. “You can’t just pretend we’re not arguing about-”

“You were right,” she said, still pulling him along. “I see that now. I found the answers in the Book of Tarchamus.” She turned to face him, still pulling. “You should see it. That’s where we’re going.”

“Wait, we’re going to look at a book?” he demanded. “What about … all that …?”

“Later,” she said.

Brin dug his heels in. “What in the Hells and Abyss would a five-thousand-year-old book know about Pernika any-Havi, let go.”

She yanked him closer, and her eyes were like lanterns. “Promise you’ll follow,” she said.

“I will,” he said, “if you promise to stop acting like this. Gods damn it, let go!”

She released him, and the blood rushed back into his arm. He rubbed his wrist. “What is the matter with you?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you’ll see.” She beckoned to him and, rather than risk her trying to lead him by the hand again, he followed. She didn’t look back as they wound through the maze of shelves toward the Book’s alcove.

Loyal Torm, it shouldn’t be this hard, he thought. It shouldn’t be confusing and I shouldn’t have to fight her on so much.

It shouldn’t take a goddamned book to get her to trust that he might have something to say. And, he thought, raising his eyes to the back of her head, well aware he was making himself blush, you should not have a crush on a girl with a tail no matter what her legs look like.

“Here,” she said, when they reached the alcove. She waved him toward the pedestal, and Brin pointedly didn’t look at the tormented-looking gnome that made the base. “Pick it up,” she urged. “Ask it something.”

Brin glowered at her and scooped up the Book, so roughly he must have sent a cloud of dust up into his eyes. He winced and coughed to clear his throat. Havilar stood by, watching eagerly and completely missing the fact that he was angry at her.

“How much time,” he said acidly, “is this wasting while we’re being tracked by Netherese and Zhentarim and the gods know what else?” Havilar smiled at him blithely-gods, she didn’t listen at all.

I believe you’re in a better position to answer that, the Book chided. The ink swirled, making pictures of scholars in a scriptorium. But is the search for knowledge ever truly time wasted?

It is if it’s the difference between living and dying, Brin thought irritably. “Thank you,” he said, and he dropped the Book back in its spot. “I don’t need more.”

No, no, the Book said. It’s my pleasure.

“Happy?” Brin said to Havilar. But when he looked up she was gone. “Havi?” he called. He could almost feel her watching from a distance. Or someone watching. “Havi!” he called again. There was no answer. “Damn it.” What in all the broken planes had that been about? Brin wended his way back to the camp at the center of the library.

She doesn’t listen, he told himself. She doesn’t care if you’re angry. She doesn’t bother to wait around when you’ve done as she asked. He could practically hear Constancia clucking her tongue. “It will run its course,” he could imagine her saying. “Just bide your time and ignore her ’til it does.”

The camp was empty by the time he made it back-a blessing and a pity, he thought. He didn’t want to talk about Havilar to anyone else … but he’d even talk to Dahl if it meant he could be distracted for a bit.

She probably went off to find him, a little voice in his thoughts chimed in. He shook his head-so what if she did? Bide your time. It will pass.

Stlarn and hrast, he thought bitterly. He couldn’t sit here waiting, all useless and full of nerves. There was a library full of paths, full of potential distractions. He set off into it, wending his way through the shelves and stacks, sunk in his own bad mood. He pulled a scroll or two, but none were in any language he knew-fitting, he thought. As if the whole place were keeping him from being diverted. Footsteps echoed through the caverns, his companions everywhere and nowhere. None of them crossed his path.

Brin walked until he found himself in an open space near the outer wall, a little courtyard with a statue of a wizard looking up at an enormous glowing rune. He followed the statue’s gaze-not a trap, he thought, if he remembered his lessons right. It looked more like a seal or a ward or-

“Well, here we are,” a woman’s voice said. Brin turned to see Pernika standing a dozen feet behind him, and his stomach dropped.

“You and I have business to attend to, Lord Crownsilver.”

Once again, Dahl thought, you’re stuck following orders that make no sense. He marked the end of his shelf with a cross of chalk. And wasting components, he thought grimly. How long had they been down here? A day and a half? Two? There was no way to tell, and though the piles of codices and scrolls were growing in their little camp, no one had found the promised spellbooks.

“Keep looking,” Mira had told him earlier, when he’d expressed his doubts. “The spellbooks are somewhere. But in the meantime … there’s not a thing wrong with seeing what else is here. Surely there’s something of interest to you. Some topic that strikes your fancy? Some question you want answered?”

Yes, Dahl nearly said. But he kept his thoughts to himself-what he wanted to know was surely not kept in an arcanist’s library.

The sound of voices bounced past him, and it took Dahl a moment to recognize them: Tam and the Book they’d found before. The Book Mira had said to leave where it was. He followed the curving shelves back to the alcove, where Tam stood over the text. “Such wonders,” he said to himself.

Dahl stopped short, eyeing Tam. “Thought you were supposed to be searching the inner shelves.”

Tam did not look up. “You haven’t consulted the Book yet, have you?” he said.

“I’ve been busy,” Dahl said.

“A pity,” Tam said. He looked up at Dahl with that patronizing expression. “You really ought to make time. There’s much here to be enlightened by.”

“You know,” Dahl said, struggling to guard his words, “you might find I’m not so utterly unenlightened.”

Tam shrugged, with that same bland smile.

“For example,” Dahl continued, biting off the words, “do you have any idea how many books and scrolls are in here? I’ve counted one hundred and twenty shelves radiating out from the center-and that doesn’t even address all the bits that seem to be tucked in here and there like afterthoughts. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of texts. Even if a tenth of them were Tarchamus’s spellbooks, we couldn’t find every one of them without a lot more time than you’re giving us.”

“I think you’re underestimating, actually,” Tam said.

“Then my point stands all the stronger. This is a futile effort-we have no time to search, and we have no plans for contingencies.”

“Such as?”

“Such as what in the bloody planes do we do when the Shadovar find this place if it’s so full of dangerous information? Even if we find the spellbooks, all you have are vague notions about sealing the doors and gaining reinforcements. Have you even contacted Everlund yet?”

Tam strode nearer and laid his hand on Dahl’s shoulder so lightly he hardly felt it. “Perhaps you should look for answers in the sources we’ve been left.” And with another patronizing smile, he turned and vanished into the stacks.

Watching Gods-Dahl fought the urge to kick something. He wasn’t a fool and he wasn’t an innocent. He didn’t need someone chiding him to do his research and check his sums. It didn’t take a seer to divine that the Harpers needed capable agents-so why was he being forced through paces so remedial he might as well have been a lame pony?

Tarchamus’s peers never truly appreciated him either, said the voice of the Book, breaking the silence. It’s partly why he hid all of his knowledge here. Not everyone is worthy of knowledge.

“All are worthy,” Dahl murmured. He looked back at the Book. “ ‘Knowledge is not to be hidden, not from the world and not from the self.’ ”

An Oghmanyte? the Book said. The text shivered into the shape of Oghma’s harp, the lines of hymns. Well, well.

“I … no,” Dahl said. “Once.”

Nevertheless, the Book said, we can agree-can we not? — that … display was unworthy of you. You are a bit old, by my reckoning, to be his apprentice.

“I’m not his apprentice,” Dahl snapped.

Precisely, the Book said. Why are you no longer an Oghmanyte?

“The gods are fickle.” He stared after Tam. “Have you texts on the worship of Oghma here?”

But of course. What do you want to find in particular?

Dahl hesitated. “Spells. Covenants. The laws of paladins.”

Paladins of Oghma? An interesting course of study, the Book said. One might surmise this is personal for you. If you ask the question you’re looking for answers to, I may be able to cut your search short.

Dahl considered the shifting inks. “Never mind.”

What if I guess? the Book said. Might it be that you … know someone, someone who had been sworn to the Binder’s church? But who has been unceremoniously cast aside?

When Dahl didn’t answer, the voice chuckled. There’s few enough who realize that gods like Oghma have paladins in service to them. Fewer still who realize even a god as … fickle as Oghma has rules.

“I said ‘never mind.’ ” Dahl started to follow the aisle back to the camp at the center.

I think I have your answer.

He stopped.

Eight rows on, follow the shelf to your left. You’ll cross two paths and find a column with a rune carved onto it.

Dahl turned. “Go on.”

The rune holds the power to a trap that guards the shelf you need, the Book said. You need to destroy it before you go any further. Once that’s done, go around the column and down the path there. There’s a narrow set of shelves, and the volume you want is a slim one, bound in blue cloth. It chuckled again. That whole shelf is probably something that woman who led you here would like to see. I’ll let you be the one to tell her, though.

You should know better than to hope, Dahl told himself as he crossed the cavern and came upon the column. It was one of the few, he noticed, that seemed to reinforce the ceiling.

The rune shimmered halfway up the limestone column. It was some language older than Loross, older than Draconic perhaps. Add it to the list, he thought, digging through his pockets, of things I do not know. Right below runic magic.

He found what he was looking for: a leather bag of a powdered, potent acid collected from basilisk droppings. He poured a measure of water from his canteen and tied it quickly shut. He counted to twenty, and just as the rehydrated powder had dissolved and started to eat through the leather of the pouch, Dahl hurled the pouch at the column so that it burst across the rune. The sizzle of the acid ate into the stone column and destroyed the rune.

“Right,” Dahl said, trying not to be too pleased with himself. He passed the column and found the short path the Book had mentioned, the narrow shelf. He moved with caution, but the trap didn’t spring. Well done, he thought.

The volume the Book had suggested turned out to be a handwritten text … a diary, it seemed. Dahl pulled another book down, and another-all the same. Personal journals.

Not spellbooks, he noted. Though they were marked up with notes on spells being created or broken down in between the long stretches of day-to-day tedium. Perhaps worth mentioning to Mira anyway …

The diary in his hands had belonged to an arcanist by the name of Emrys, and the dates-gods’ books, five thousand years past-made him a contemporary of Tarchamus by Mira’s estimates. Magic slicked the pages, somehow, even after all the years and all the powers of the Spellplague. The entries began in the summer, focusing on Emrys’s successful execution of a spell that brought a storm of ice to earth.

The potential for defense is extraordinary, it read. Let us see that fool Arion “accidentally” unleash his winds on us again; we shall see! Have warned Sadebreth repeatedly that he has a poor grip on his council, but to no avail. The ice shall be my own warning. Tarchamus is terribly amused, in his fashion, says preemptive measures are appropriate. I do not agree, but the thought of Arion waking up to find his city encased, that false look of perpetual surprise genuine for once, did keep me laughing.

Dahl frowned. Not only a contemporary, but a friend, it seemed. And a powerful wizard. He skimmed ahead.

The pages that followed painted a world where the arcanists wielded astounding powers over the ordinary Netherese who lived under them-often literally, beneath their floating cities. A world where the wizards bickered like gods, tormented apprentices, and stole wildly from one another. Emrys, as it was his own narrative, came off a bit better than others. As did Tarchamus.

Until Dahl turned past the center of the diary. It was autumn then, a few years on.

Sadebreth has finally granted me audience, Dahl read. After the disaster that brought Tenish to ground, how could he refuse? It did not take much to convince him that censure is not enough for Tarchamus. He will convince the council to come together and work spells to block Tarchamus’s access to the Weave completely.

Dahl’s stomach tightened. Not a simple thing. Magic had changed in so many ways since then, but … to block access to the Weave, they might have needed the goddess of magic’s intercession to keep Tarchamus from reaching her Weave. To teach him a lesson. To rein him in.

No god would have done that, he told himself.

I must regretfully confess, the entry went on, I struggle with the probable fallout-not only the possibility that Tarchamus will manage to carry on with his planar magic, but also the precedent this sets.

He closed the diary, the very notion of what the Book seemed to be suggesting intolerable. That couldn’t be what happened to Dahl. It would be too simple. And who would have done such a thing? Not Jedik, surely. Jedik had never made an example of him like that …

But others … others had. If nothing else, it was a possibility he hadn’t considered. He tucked the book under one arm to read later on.

The last of the texts the Book had sent Farideh to find was perched on a shelf high over her head, past the big rune Havilar had mentioned and on the other side of a little courtyard around a statue of a wizard. It was a thick tome bound in green brocade that looked like nothing so much as the sort of robes she’d seen for sale in Waterdeep-and she said a little thanks for that. It was easily spotted at least. She set the other scrolls on the ground and hauled herself up, climbing the shelf like a ladder. Just this last one, and the Book said it could help her construct a ritual. Her outstretched fingertips hooked the top of the book.

“Well met? Do you need a hand?”

Mira’s sudden presence surprised Farideh, and she yanked the book down. Mira caught it before it hit the ground, and Farideh managed to catch hold of the shelf again, before she lost her balance.

“Many thanks,” Farideh said, coming to the ground again. Mira handed back the book. “I suppose … I haven’t really searched this section yet.”

Mira waved her off. “Look when you can. We have time.”

“Do we?” Farideh gathered her remaining scrolls from the floor. “I know I don’t want to be here if …” She didn’t even want to say Rhand’s name. “If the Netherese are on the way.”

Mira shrugged, unconcerned. “They haven’t come yet. I have something for you.” She pulled a rolled sheaf of parchment from her jerkin and handed it over. It was a copy of a ritual-the protective circle.

“Heavens knew Dahl wasn’t going to show you,” Mira said. “And it sounded to me as if you wanted it rather dearly.”

“Thank you,” Farideh said. “That’s very kind.”

Mira bobbed her head as if it was and it wasn’t. “Consider it a gesture of friendship,” she said.

Farideh looked down at the scroll. “Thank you,” she said again. “I need to get back.”

“Of course. I’ll come with you.”

Farideh would rather she didn’t. She wanted to read what she could of the texts she’d gathered before she got back to the Book. But Mira fell into step beside her regardless.

“You know,” Mira said, “I’ve been considering taking on an assistant. You have a good eye, a sharp mind, and”-she nodded at the pile of scrolls in Farideh’s arms with a smile-“a bit of an interest. You also have a little ritual magic, which should come in handy. I could help you find whatever it is that you’re looking for.”

Farideh looked down at the other woman. “What makes you think I’m looking for something?”

Mira chuckled. “Please. It’s your business, and I certainly don’t begrudge you that. But I know all too well exactly what it looks like to be consumed by something you’re not keen on sharing. We’re not that different, you and I.” She grinned. “And, I’ll bet you’ve heard that before. I know I have. But let’s just talk about this case in which we’re similar. After all, are you planning to sign up with the Harpers when this is through? Or are you still looking for something else?”

“At the moment,” Farideh said, “I’ve got enough to keep me busy. But I’ll think about it.”

“Do,” Mira said.

Farideh watched her head off into the deeper stacks, turning over the strange offer in her mind. She’d never thought of being a historian, and couldn’t imagine what made Mira think she ought to consider it.

Are you planning to sign up with the Harpers when this is through? There’d been a bite to that, a reminder she wasn’t welcome in those ranks. A reminder Farideh ought not to be choosy-it rubbed her the wrong way.

Then again, Mira had gotten Farideh the protective circle spell, and she appreciated the gesture. She unrolled the parchment again-gods, that made everything a lot easier. And Mira had been right without Farideh telling her that she needed the spell. Maybe there was something to her assertions …

She frowned. She knew the handwriting, and it wasn’t Mira’s. The steeply slanted letters were the same ones that made the reports Tam had written on the way back from Neverwinter. The silverstar had copied the ritual. She pulled the sheaf flat-the left-hand edge made a gentle curve instead of a straight line. As if someone had sliced it from the book that bound it.

Farideh shut her eyes and cursed: Mira had stolen it straight out of Tam’s ritual book.

Later, she told herself. Later she would have to confront Mira. Later she would have to give it back and hope that Mira did the right thing. Later she would have to decide if she would tell Tam.

Right now, she thought heading into the Book’s alcove, she had a ritual to unravel.

Brin composed himself as Pernika stalked toward him, as if he weren’t already rattled, as if he weren’t already sure she was trouble. As if she hadn’t just called him ‘Lord Crownsilver.’ ”

“Well, well,” Pernika said, stalking toward Brin. “I hear you’ve been holding out on us. Hear you’ve got some … royal roots.”

Brin stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t. But let’s pretend we’re past the part where you lie to me, and we argue, and then I point out I heard it from your idiot girl’s own mouth.” She smiled and Brin’s stomach clenched. “Let’s get to the part where we all agree you’ve got some deep pockets behind you.”

“I also have some friends with sharp blades,” he said, all cool and courtly. Gods damn it, Havi, he thought. Even after he’d told her Pernika wasn’t to be trusted, she’d just blabbed away. How much had she said? How much could he deny?

“Calm down,” she said. “No one’s got their knives drawn. I’ve just got a little offer for you. A … partnership.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Hear me out. Sounds to me like there are people who are awfully concerned about your well-being, seeing as you’re … ‘a secret prince.’ Hmm? People who might be willing to pay a goodly amount to secure your safety?” She waited for him to say something, but Brin knew better than to give her the satisfaction. “I’ll demand a ransom. We’ll send them one of your fingers or something for effect. Then they’ll gather up the coin, and we can split it. You don’t even have to get hurt.”

“Aside from the finger,” Brin said dryly. Cool, he thought, calm. Like you’re in audience with Helindra. Pernika won’t do a thing while you’re down here. His stomach was twisting all the same, and when he tried to move past her, she blocked his path.

“We can always send someone else’s finger,” she said, “if you’re too faint of heart.”

“I believe I’ll pass.”

She leered down at him. “Don’t believe I gave you the option,” Pernika said. “After all, I can always carry on without your permission once we’re out of this miserable place.”

“Hey!” a voice called. Pernika turned, and Brin could see past her shoulder, Havilar and her glaive looking perfectly deadly. “Try that again.”

“Which part?” Pernika asked, unconcerned, as Havilar stormed across the space. “Did you want in on it too?”

“The part,” Havilar said, “where you assume you’re going to get away with that rot. Leave him alone, if you know what’s good for you.” She set herself, toe-to-toe with the mercenary. “He said he passes.”

Pernika smirked at her. “You only got by me twice. Don’t think you’ll do it again.”

Havilar didn’t budge. “That was sparring. I was going easy on you.”

“Were you, little girl? You know how many people have threatened me? Cemeteries worth. Sparring’s one thing. Blood’s another.”

Havilar snorted. “I’ve brought down devils and orcs and a whole room full of cultists. In the last month. One mercenary past her prime will be nothing.” She leaned a little closer. “You leave your guard open on the left when you do that silly lunge. Doesn’t matter sword to sword, but a glaive … a glaive goes a lot farther. And next time you’ll wish I broke your wrist.”

Pernika’s smirk seemed to flatten out, as if she were no longer convinced Havilar was just a stupid, overconfident girl. She stepped back and tossed a glance Brin’s way.

“Consider it,” she said, and she backed out of the camp, her dark eyes once again locked on Havilar, and her smirk still mocking, despite the changing odds.

“Stay away from him!” Havilar shouted after. “Karshoj,” she said to Brin. “The gall of her! I thought we might be friends, but now … ooh!” She stomped her foot. “Tiamash. Are you all right?”

Brin could not have wished harder for the floor to open up and swallow him. Gods damn it, she thought he was too weak to do anything. She thought he was a coward too. And worse-she’d spilled the only semblance of a secret they’d had.

“Perfectly,” he said coldly. “Only I’m getting fed up with trying to convince you that I can take care of myself.”

“I know that,” Havilar said.

“Then stop rescuing me. I don’t need it.”

Havilar looked at him-surprised and hurt and confused. “You want to have that madwoman bothering you?”

“Well,” Brin said, “she wouldn’t have bothered me at all if you hadn’t told her who I was.” His cool failed him. “How could you? Didn’t I say it was private?”

“I didn’t. I’ve hardly said a word to her that wasn’t about traps since we came down here.”

“She was pretty clear she’d heard about my family from you,” he said.

“Why would I say anything about you and your family …” Havilar waved her hand vaguely. “See, I don’t even know what I’d say. You won’t tell me a thing about them unless I find out by accident, and you haven’t said a word to me since we got down here that wasn’t about pothac books.”

“Well someone told Pernika I’m ‘a secret prince,’ ” he said. “Which doesn’t sound like anyone else I know.”

Havilar’s cheeks colored. “Oh.”

“So you admit it?” he demanded. “You told her?”

“No. I … I said that to someone else.”

Gods, it just got worse and worse, he thought. “Who?”

Havilar looked as if she would have liked to vanish into the floor as well, and Brin feared the worst. “That book,” she said. “The one that everyone’s asking questions of. I know you said it was private, but I thought-”

“Why in the Hells and Abyss were you asking that thing about me?” he demanded. “It’s not your business. Why do you care about my family?”

Because they’re wealthy, he thought. Because they’re powerful. Because you’re a madman for rejecting all of that. She didn’t have to say-it was the same reasons anyone cared.

“Because I wanted to know why you’re acting like this!” Havilar shouted. “I didn’t ask about your pothac family, I asked why you’re avoiding me, and the Book didn’t know either!”

Brin’s anger fled. “Avoiding you?”

“You act like you’re fond of me,” she went on, “and then you act like I’m no one, and then you won’t tell me things as if you don’t trust me or you want me to keep my distance. And then you call me daft. But whatever it is that’s bothering you, I just want to help. But when I help you get angry.”

Flushed and flustered, she folded her arms around the glaive and tugged on the end of her braid. “I give up,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. It’s not like chapbooks at all.”

Ah, ye Watching Gods-someone could have knocked the floor out from under his feet and he would have felt surer. For a moment he was almost afraid to breathe. It shouldn’t have hurt her feelings for him to keep such a secret, but it had-there it was. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do either.

“Listen …,” he started. He glanced around to be sure Pernika had gone and no one else was near, before taking her by the hand. She stiffened, but followed him into a little nook of shelves around an ugly bust of some ancient arcanist.

“Oh, just yell if you’re going to!” she said. “Everyone can hear anyway.”

“No,” he said, and he sat down on the floor, sure this was the right thing to do, even though every part of him rebelled at it. She eyed him a moment, but sat down beside him at last, laying the glaive on the floor.

“Listen,” he started again. “The thing is …” He pursed his lips a moment-these were the last seconds before everything changed again. “I do trust you. So I’ll tell you everything. But it’s … more than a secret. You can’t even tell Farideh.”

Solemnity didn’t suit Havilar, but she wore it for the moment.

“All right.”

“My mother,” he said, “she was a Cormaeril-parts of this aren’t going to mean anything to you, right, but let me finish. Her father’s father’s father was the king of Cormyr, back before the Spellplague. Azoun Obarskyr the fourth. Not an ‘official’ son, but … the king claimed him anyway. So she has a little royal blood-but not enough to inherit anything, right? And my father … everyone thought my father was just a Crownsilver for ages, just the old lord’s eldest son. Nothing special.

“But then Granny-on her death bed, mind-announced that he wasn’t the old lord’s son at all. That she’d dallied with the prince, the current king’s brother. And so my father was really an Obarskyr by blood. Everyone went mad and there were fights in the halls and arguments in the king’s court, and tests and sworn statements, and for a few tendays my father was in line for the throne. Until he died … Until someone had him killed.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, Brin, I’m sorry.”

“Which means,” Brin said, feeling as if he might throw up the words if they didn’t get spoken, “when you put them together, I’m … I’m in line to be king.”

She stared at him a moment, then shook her head. “Aren’t a lot of people?”

He had been ready for a lot of things-for her to pull away, for her to start in on some wild fantasy, for her to laugh hysterically at him-but nonchalance was not one of them. “What?”

“I mean, in stories there’s always a line of succession that goes on for ages and then some catastrophe happens and everyone dies and some swineherd’s the king. You’re some kind of lord-I figured that out-so of course you’re ahead of the swineherd.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I might be in a line of succession for all you know.”

“No,” Brin said. “I mean, yeah, you might, I don’t know. But I mean … Right now it’s the Crown Prince, then his son and his daughter, then Baron Boldtree, the king’s nephew, the old prince’s other bastard.” He took a deep breath.

“And if I go back to Cormyr, my Aunt Helindra is going to tell everyone the truth: that because Granny loved the old prince, the line goes: the Crown Prince, his son, his daughter … and then me.”

Now her eyes were like saucers. “Holy gods!” Havilar said, pulling back as if to get a better look at him. “Are you serious? That … that doesn’t even take a big catastrophe for everyone to die and then you’re the king. One nasty carriage accident! A bad cauldron of soup!”

“I know,” he said glumly. “And no one else has any idea. Aunt Helindra let people think I died in a featherlung epidemic when I was eight, before people figured out I land ahead of the Baron. It’s going to shock a lot of people when I turn up not dead.”

“Gods,” she said. “Well, no wonder you ran away.”

“It’s not because I’m afraid.”

“I know,” she said, as if he were reminding her that he was human. “You’re terribly brave.”

He felt his face grow hot. “Don’t tease,” he admonished. “My father didn’t die by accident, and he didn’t die alone. There are a lot of people who take that line of succession very seriously. It’s the best thing for me, for my family, and probably for Cormyr, too, if I just don’t exist. It’s them I’m afraid for.”

“I’m not teasing!” She took his hand and squeezed it, and he was never so aware of his hand as in that moment. “Look, you said that they’re mad, your family-and I’m sorry, if your cousin is the good one, then the rest of them are pretty karshoji lunatic and ready to do some stupid things. But even if they’re lunatic, they’re family, so why would you want them to get hurt for you? And,” she added quickly, taking her hand back, as if she’d just remembered herself, “that is terribly brave. I couldn’t bear to leave Farideh and Mehen. Even if it were for their own good.”

Ye gods, he thought. You don’t give her enough credit. “Yes,” he said. “They don’t … they don’t really understand that. Not many people seem to.” He looked down at his hands, wondering if she’d object if he took hers again. “I’m sorry I called you daft.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen about that henish.”

He smiled. “And I’m sorry I yelled at you before. It’s just … sometimes it doesn’t seem like you’re listening.”

“It’s all right. You’re not the first person to say that,” she said. “I do think you can defend yourself, you know. I’d just hate it … if something happened and I could have helped.” She looked down at her own hands. “I hope you don’t think I’m a nuisance because of that. Sometimes I think you’re the only one who doesn’t, and if I’ve wrecked that … I don’t know what I’ll do.”

He sighed. “No. It’s not you. It’s … Where I come from, the stories aren’t usually about princes getting rescued by pretty girls. It’s hard not to feel sort of stupid and useless, even if it makes a lot more sense to put the sword in your hands, right?”

“Oh.” Havilar went very stiff and flushed, her mouth clamped shut as if she were trying to keep herself from speaking.

Oh gods, Brin thought. “What?”

“Do you think that?” she said very quietly. “That I’m pretty?”

“Um.” He wet his mouth.

For all the time spent on teaching Brin what to say and how to say it; how to tell what parts of information were better kept close to the chest like a trump card, and which were to be played early, to lure others into putting forth details they ought to have held close-for all of that, Brin hadn’t any idea what to do next. For a moment, in the dark of the library, his thoughts scrambled, trying to form a play, trying to decide how badly he’d tipped his hand, and whether Havilar had tipped hers at all. Trying to form a strategy when he didn’t even understand the game they were playing, but he was pretty certain he’d made the wrong move when he wasn’t paying attention.

Havilar was still staring at him, unmoving. Looking like he could break her heart with two words together.

Gods. She wasn’t trying to get something from him, he realized, and he didn’t want to hide from her. He’d said it without thinking, because he meant it and frankly, he didn’t care if she knew so. And if she wasn’t fond of him, if this was all a stupid game to her … well it didn’t change how he felt. He’d bided his time long enough.

“Yes,” he said, more terrified than he’d been in a long time and ignoring it. “I mean, at first … It snuck up on me. But you’re very pretty. And funny. And if someone’s going to save me from assassins or Zhentarim or hydras, I’d be glad it was you.” She was still watching him as if blinking might make him burst into flames, her face growing more and more flushed. “I am,” he said, because if he didn’t get it out, he’d hate himself for being a complete coward forever, “really fond of you, and if-”

She kissed him. She kissed him and every explanation went out of him. Every twistable word, every affectation, every notion of play and counter-this is what he wanted to say, he realized. Just this.

Havilar pulled back. “Is that right?” she asked. “It seemed right. But I’m mostly guessing.”

“It’s a … pretty good guess,” he managed. “Does that mean you’re fond of me?”

“Of course,” she said. “Wasn’t it obvious? It felt awfully obvious.”

Brin laughed. “No. I thought you might be fond of Dahl.”

Havilar wrinkled her nose. “Why? He’s bossy. And rude.”

“And ‘good-looking,’ ” Brin reminded her. “And smart.

And … tall.”

“Well, you can kiss him then.”

He took her hands. “I’d rather kiss you.”

She blushed all over again, as if she hadn’t already done both of those things herself. “You know,” she said, suddenly quiet, suddenly timid, suddenly nothing at all like Havilar, “I think those things about you.”

“That I’m bossy and rude?”

Havilar giggled. “No. That you’re smart. So smart. And I do think you’re nice looking, and you always laugh, but never at me.” She smiled. “And you’re terribly brave.”

He was brave then and kissed her, several times, all the while marveling that it was actually quite simple, once you stopped thinking so hard.

“You know,” he said, “I like this better than before. That was … I don’t know, did you read that in a chapbook or something?”

She pulled back, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“When you were going on about the Book. You were …” He waved his hand, not sure how to put it. “I mean, I don’t mind a little, but I like you the way-”

“Wait,” she said. “I was going on about that Book?” He nodded and her brow furrowed. “You’re not the first person to say that either.”