Lesser Evils

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Tam never stopped watching Maspero, as the zhent picked through the shadovar’s belongings, and Maspero never stopped watching Tam, as the Harper examined the bodies of the Shadovar. The two shadar-kai still clutched angry-looking weapons, and wore the streaks of dead flesh that signaled death by powerful magic. The shade had bled out, both shadow and fluid, from the belly wound. Tam gently prodded it with the tip of a dagger.

“It looks like these two attacked the shade.” Tam said.

“Shouldn’t have killed him though,” Maspero said.

Tam straightened. “Must have been poisoned. Doesn’t look like he was healing himself like they do.”

“You been around many shadow folk?” Maspero asked.

“Not many live ones,” Tam replied. “Sounds like not as many as you.”

Maspero smiled cruelly at him. “Are you implying something?”

“Why would I do that?” Tam wiped the dagger down. “At least we know it’s not something new that killed them. Did you find anything in there?”

“Rations,” Maspero said, pointing to each item he’d laid out on the floor. “Some candles. Bottle of poison-well, there we go. Map. A recreation of that stone fragment. Bloody thing.” He picked up a slim leather-bound book. “Here. Can’t read this.”

Tam took it from him. The shade’s handwriting was sharp and condensed-the runes of Loross, linked and shortened into script. The ritual he’d cast gave only the slightest hesitation at the variation.

“It’s a log of their mission.” He frowned. “It’s mostly coded. ‘Message to W. Six units past.’ They started out right after the revel. Looks like Rhand was more prepared than we’d thought.” He flipped to the end, the last entries before the party’s death.

“There were five of them,” he said in surprise.

“Five of what?”

“Five in their party. The shade, the two shadar-kai, and two humans.” He skimmed the coy notes. “Definitely five. He was keeping track of supplies.”

“You think they’re still here somewhere?”

“If they are they’re in trouble. Those rations look like the last of their supplies.” Tam looked down at the pale eyes of the shade. “Attacking a shade … that’s a fool’s move.”

“You think those ghosts engineered it?”

“Makes sense.” Tam turned back to the journal, skimming ahead. “Looks like the doors sealed on them too. And … Hells.”

“What?”

“There’s a third floor. A third floor, and he had them retreat here to keep clear of it.”

“Doesn’t say why?”

The walking dead themselves would flee, the journal read. Not flame, not blades, not the power of Shar Herself seems to halt it. Tam shut the book between both hands and pursed his lips. “Not clearly.” He cursed. “We need to get back. We need to pull Mira and Pernika out of there before they find that third floor.”

Maspero grunted. “Could be he was keeping his people away from the good stuff.”

Tam slipped the journal into his bag. “What’s your business with my daughter?”

“Better to ask what’s her business with me.”

“I couldn’t place you before,” Tam said. “I’ll admit, I was thrown by the mercenary act. Maspero of Everlund-you don’t even bother hiding your identity.” He faced him. “You work for the Zhentarim.”

Maspero didn’t flinch. “I work for myself.”

“Oh, don’t be modest,” Tam said. “You head a cell of Zhentarim. You’re gaining enough of a foothold in the North to be in Harper sights, anyway. I’m going to assume you’re in a lot of rivals’ sights as well.”

“Not for long if your girl succeeds.” He set his hands on his hips, on the hilt of his dagger. “People tend to leave you to your own devices when you make it known you have magic capable of destroying whole cities.”

I could end him here, Tam thought. Leave him in the library and no one would know it hadn’t been a ghost or a trap or one of the lost Shadovar.

But he’d done nothing. Yet. It would be murder, nothing less. And Tam wasn’t the hot-blooded fool Viridi had found elbows-deep in blood and shadow.

“What’s Mira owe you?” he said. “What are you holding over her?”

Maspero chuckled, eyeing Tam as if he weren’t sure if Tam were serious. Then he chuckled again. “She’s right about you, isn’t she?” he said. “Always have to play the hero. Always saving people, even when they don’t want to be saved.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You assume she owes me something,” Maspero said, “that we forced her into this, and you can undo her debt? But it never crosses your mind, does it, that she might have come to us? That she might appreciate what the Zhentarim can offer her.”

“You want me to believe Mira’s interested in your power struggles?”

“Cold-blooded Mira?” Maspero chuckled again. “I wouldn’t ask your glaive-girl to buy that nonsense. Mira’s got her own agenda. Always has. But we all line up nice and neat, don’t we? At least,” he added, “so long as I get my spellbooks.” He stepped around the corpse and back out through the swinging shelf.

Zhentarim. Tam had hoped he’d been wrong, guessing after Brin’s intimations. That Maspero was only a mercenary with an over-inflated sense of his own worth. He cursed under his breath. Once they left the library, he’d have to be careful-he’d have to get the twins and Brin and Dahl away from Maspero, away from Pernika.

Away from Mira, he thought. His heart squeezed. Silver Lady, let him be wrong. Please, he thought, please let them have found a way out. Please let them have found something to disarm the seal. Please, let Shar pass us by.

If the Lady of Loss could be persuaded, he thought, you’d have a much easier job.

Havilar leaped in front of him as he approached the camp, her glaive ready. “Are you Tam?” she demanded. Then, “Wait, how are we supposed to tell?”

“He’s got Maspero with him,” Brin supplied from behind her.

“Have the others come back?” Tam asked.

“No,” Brin said. “You’re the first.”

“Right.” Tam considered the camp, the supplies strewn across the space, the tall shelves of books surrounding them, and tried to imagine the mind of an arcanist who built such a fortress for his knowledge. The ghosts, the Book, the illusions-something wasn’t right.

Footsteps pattered through the maze of shelves, and Farideh crossed the border into the camp, her fists balled and and her expression fierce.

Brin pointed his sword and holy symbol at her. “Stop. She’s by herself.” Farideh halted, glanced back over her shoulder, and cursed softly.

“No,” Havilar said mildly. “That’s definitely Farideh.”

Farideh gave her a puzzled look. “How can you be sure?”

“How can you not be sure?” Havilar asked. “If the ghost could sound like you, move like you, look like you, and make that face you make when you’re annoyed”-she scrunched up her nose and pursed her mouth in an exaggeration of Farideh’s earlier expression-“well, then I don’t think you’d have ever figured out they were ghosts, right?” She stopped, as if she’d remembered something, and turned back to her glaive with a scowl of her own.

“Where’s Dahl?” Tam demanded.

Farideh’s mouth tightened again. “Behind me.”

Mother of the moon, Tam thought, give me patience. “What part of ‘No one goes anywhere from now on without a partner,’ did you misunderstand?”

She folded her arms. “My partner didn’t seem to think that was important.”

“Enough,” Tam said, as Dahl returned a moment later. “Did you get the door open?”

“No,” Dahl said sharply. “And worse, Rhand and his people are on the other side of it.”

“Hrast,” Tam spat.

“I set an alarm to go off if they make it through,” Dahl said quickly. “It should slow them down and warn us too.”

Maspero sneered. “Does it sound like a rockfall? How in the broken planes does an alarm slow a body down?”

Dahl spared him a glare. “It will be very loud.”

“Good work,” Tam said, assessing the situation. Six of them back, no way out the doors. Still no Mira. The shade’s cryptic worries repeating in his mind. And Zhentarim-gods, the Zhentarim.

There was no more time to wait. “Everyone get your weapons ready and come along,” he said. “We may have more trouble than we thought.”

The ritual deposited Lorcan back in the room of the fingerbone tower as unceremoniously as it had dropped him in the cavern. He stood and brushed the traces of marrow grease from the knees of his breeches. His luck the spell would work so neatly-it couldn’t have dropped him outside the tower, closer to some other portal, no. She’d had to do it right.

Gods be damned, he thought. Who had helped her? She’d distracted him with that nonsense about Bryseis Kakistos, and then …

It was probably that gawking paladin. Probably thought he was impressing her. Probably thought he could save her. Lorcan thought of the frayed feeling the divine powers around Dahl had possessed. A fallen paladin ought to be useful for keeping her virtuous streak in check. Just not that one.

Not any one, he thought, that waves swords at you and calls you a monster. Puts the wrong ideas in her head.

Self-consciously, he wiped his cheek. Was that the wrong idea or the right one? It meant she wasn’t going to leave him. I don’t think of

our pact that way, she’d said. Not anymore. If she wasn’t going to corrupt all at once in a spectacular collapse of morals for love of power, bit by bit through good intentions and fond feelings was nearly as good.

Except …

It was true, what he’d said. There was no one else on any plane who cared whether he lived or died or hurt. It got under his skin, right from the start, and he was glad she was worried about him.

And Lorcan wasn’t completely sure that, had Glasya never said a word to him, he wouldn’t keep defying Sairche all the same. Which was dangerous, he thought, scanning the room. Alliances were for players, tools of the hierarchy. Alliances tangled you in other devils’ schemes and tied you to other devils’ fortunes. Alliances mired you in the hierarchy, whether you were a miserable lemure or a Lord of the Nine, no mistake.

Glasya’s voice echoed in his head-Do be careful, little Lorcan. I may have need of you and her in the future-and he shivered. He was already in it, up to his neck. Even if he abandoned Farideh, he was still caught in the Lord of Malbolge’s plans.

All the more reason, he thought, to get out.

He turned toward the window and froze.

Leaning against the lacy bone balustrade was another succubus, one he’d recognize anywhere in any skin. She’d kept her deepnight hair and her eyes, sharp and shining gold. But her skin was as pale as dunes beneath the moon and the batlike wings that she held high, as if ready to launch into the air and attack her traitorous son, were mottled brown and bronze.

“Mother,” he said, wondering if he could summon up a burst of flames fast enough. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I can see that,” she said. As an erinyes, her voice had been as terrible as the roar of waves dashed against the rocks. Now when Fallen Invadiah spoke it was a melody that threatened to calm Lorcan, to make him drop his guard. “Nor does it seem you need me all that dearly. Does your sister know you have a portal?”

“She doesn’t,” he said. “And to be fair, I don’t. I have an enterprising warlock with more ambition than sense. I gather you got my message?”

“I’d hoped it was that slattern’s idea of a jest.” Invadiah swept into the room, her wings filling the space. “That no son of mine was so foolish as to ask for favors from someone he wronged so deeply.”

Lorcan bit back a laugh. “You’ll recall, I was wronged right alongside you. Sairche’s the one who pitted us each against the other. She’s the one you want. She’s the one we both want.”

Invadiah gave him a pitying look, unsuited even on that unfamiliar face. “If you’re going to try and sway me, kindly put a little effort into it. I’m not one of your mortals.”

“What is there to convince you of?” he said. “Sairche’s the one lording over your armies, decking herself in your treasures, wielding your authority. She’s the one who drew Glasya’s eye to your mission when Rohini turned on you. You cannot tell me you still favor her.”

Invadiah’s mouth quirked into a smirk, and now that she’d lost her fangs, Lorcan realized he’d inherited his mother’s mouth. “An improvement,” she allowed. “But I never favored Sairche.”

“She had the pradixikai beat me within an inch of my life,” he said. “You’ll have to forgive me for painting her with too broad a brush.”

“That temper doesn’t suit you. You’ll never have the power and the strength of an erinyes to follow through on it.” Invadiah considered him, as a snake considers a vole. “I hear you’d like access to Toril again. I can provide that.”

The change Glasya’s punishment had wrought in Invadiah carried from her skin down to her very core-clever as she’d been as an erinyes, she’d been prouder and crueler too. If she’d come at all, she would have surely denied him and perhaps cuffed him for asking. He almost preferred the certainty of his mother as he’d known her.

“What’s the price?” he asked.

Invadiah’s smile shifted, flashing some measure of that missing cruelty. It was comforting in a way he was sure didn’t exist outside of the Hells. “You know, it’s a pity you and Sairche never got along.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s a clever girl. Secrets unfold for her like a man’s heart under a sword. But for all her cleverness she is not nearly so silver-tongued as you are. You might rather hide from what you know, Lorcan, but you know how to bring unlikely allies to your side.” She tilted her head, considering him in the singularly predacious way succubi had. “How to make them forgive and forget you as a nuisance and nothing more. Together, you might have been something to make even devils quake. Together you might have proved me wrong.”

“A pity Sairche sees a better use for me dead. What do you want for the portal?”

“Your sister’s reign won’t last forever,” Invadiah said. “Nor will my demotion. Eventually the tide will shift and I will rise and shed this hateful form. When that happens … you’ll serve me however you can until Sairche is overthrown.”

Lorcan smiled. “Gladly.”

“Don’t be too certain.” She held out a hand and in the center of her palm was a small pouch. He took it and found a pearl the size of his thumbnail inside. “Crush it,” she said, “and have a good idea where you want to go. It will pull you through my aerie’s portal.”

The surface of the pearl seemed to swirl gently in the nauseating light. “And if I want to come back?”

“Then you wait until I come for you,” Invadiah said, and she turned to leave. She paused at the edge of the balcony. “Sairche doesn’t know, does she?” She looked back over her shoulder, over the curve of her wing. “She has no idea you’ve kept a spare all this time. Twins-it’s clever really.”

Lorcan held perfectly still. “I’ve only pacted one Kakistos heir.”

“Of course,” Invadiah said. “But it was her double that killed Rohini. You may leave the pradixikai to believe they saw one girl, but don’t think I can’t tell the difference.” Without waiting for an answer, Invadiah vaulted over the balustrade, and flapped off to the edges of Malbolge where the succubus aeries lay.

Nothing to be done, Lorcan reminded himself. Even if he’d thought of a way to deny Havilar, there was no being certain Invadiah would believe him. And even if she didn’t, there remained the protection that sealed the twins from searching eyes. Invadiah became no more than a dark spot on the plane’s blood-stained sky. Lorcan rolled the pearl between his fingers, and wondered what she would ask of him eventually.

The stretch of land between the tower and the palace writhed with the movements of scores of fiendish creatures. None of them his sister. No matter-he could wait. She’d come back eventually.

He had not been bold enough to tell Farideh the extent of his plans: that if there were anyone who would know how to hide someone away, it was Sairche. If only he could tease it from her.

The door was as Mira had left it earlier, the image of the arcanist still glowering down at them. She bit her tongue as Pernika took a pry bar to the entry. Part of the silver chasing popped free of its channel, along with the garnet in his pendant.

The mercenary pocketed it. “Windfall.”

Mira struck a fresh sunrod and said nothing, forging ahead down the stairs she’d been sure were there.

The lower floor was smaller than the one above, still roughly circular, and still ringed with shelves of scrolls and books. But these, Mira noted as they crept into the dimly lit space, were arranged in an even more tangled fashion, with hardly enough space to pass between two of the wooden shelves, that stretched two or three times her height to the ceiling. The floor was piled with stacks of books all along the widest aisle, and Mira had to sidestep more than a few teetering collections.

She picked one up and flipped through it-detailed notes, diagrams, and the crackle of ancient magic. She breathed a sigh of relief. Here, at last were the spellbooks. Maspero would be glad.

She traced the lines of runes with one finger, parsing out the Loross as best she could-the language of magic was complex and nuanced. But if she didn’t miss her guess … this was just an apprentice’s book, the spells simple cantrips and minor incantations. Nothing more deadly than a fireball. She plucked another from a different shelf-another spellbook, full of still more minor spells. Another shelf-another student’s spellbook. Her heart sped, as she counted shelves into the dozens.

“Piss and hrast,” she muttered. So close, so very close. But not close enough to stall her father. Not close enough to stall Shade, either.

“Think I found another exit!” Pernika called from farther in. Mira wedged the spellbook back on the overstuffed shelf and hurried along the walkway to the center of the floor, where Pernika stood, at the very edge of a pit fifteen feet across.

“Long fall,” Pernika commented as Mira came to stand beside her. The light from the sconces and her sunrod wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the bottom of the pit, but something down there cast a greenish light that illumined an uneven floor, scattered with detritus.

“We should explore the rest of this floor,” Mira said.

Pernika made a disinterested grunt. “Send the Harper’s people down. You know Maspero’s going to want them killed when we’re done.” She grinned at Mira. “Even your dear old da.”

Mira squinted at the bottom of the pit-lots of smooth-edged pieces of white stone. The remains of columns and intricate carvings, maybe. “It should be interesting to see you try it. Him, the one with the glaive, the warlock.” She looked over at Pernika. “Haven’t seen Dahl pull his blade, beyond the hydra, you could get lucky there. The lordling priest … But then you have plans for that one, don’t you, Pernika?”

The mercenary narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get clever. You’re not better than the rest of us.”

“Never said I was,” Mira replied. She clenched her jaw-please, gods, don’t let Maspero be so foolish. Please, gods, let us get out of here and not make unnecessary messes. Please don’t let my father try to stop Pernika himself. “Help me search the rest of this place. We’ll go up after and you can push whoever you can into the pit.”

“Preening bitch,” Pernika muttered. Mira took a slow breath and concentrated on not pushing the mercenary into the pit herself.

Mira pulled more books from the shelves on the opposite side, and found more of the same thing. Spellbooks, certainly, and these more learned than the first batch, but none of them full of the legendary magic of Tarchamus the Unyielding. She thought of Maspero’s threats, and pushed deeper into the teetering shelves.

And found herself … not wedged between books. Standing in the middle of a room, a cottage, her mother’s cottage. Too large though, she thought, looking around. It was as if she were …

A child. She looked down at her hands, and they seemed the same … No, they were the hands she’d always had, of course. Small and short-fingered. She was eleven. It was raining outside, and her father was leaving today. Again.

“Mira,” he said on cue, “will you sit with me?”

She turned and saw him at the table, patting the chair beside him. She stayed where she was.

“I have to go,” he said.

“You always have to go,” she said. There was a knot in her stomach this time, too, and a lump in her throat. She’d cried the last time, and that had surprised him. As if he thought she was too old for that. But this time she wouldn’t. No matter what he said.

“Mira, please,” he said. “I will be back.”

“As you say.” Her father wasn’t a big man, but he’d always seemed enormous. Larger than life. She knew better now, and it was strange to see him that way again-

The thought went through her head and startled her. Again. Now. When was it? Where was she? Her father watched her, his dark eyes sad.

“Mira,” he said. “I have to go. And … so do you.”

That startled her too. Go? Where? With him? He’d said it was too dangerous. Her mother had said it was too dangerous-even if Mira could hear the envy in her voice, the yearning for the life she’d left behind.

“You … could stay,” she said, unsure. This wasn’t how it went, she thought, and again the thought confused her. This has happened already, she thought. This isn’t real. But the weight in her chest that threatened to drive her to tears wouldn’t dissipate.

“Mira, listen,” her father said, his voice uneven. Insistent. “It’s not safe. It’s less safe every time. You have to go. You have to go back.”

“Go where?” she asked.

“Leave,” he said. And then he was suddenly standing, suddenly older. Reaching out toward her. “There’s nothing worth-”

He vanished. The cottage vanished. Mira stood, hemmed in on all sides by towers of books. And in the place of the fire’s crackle, something else was crackling. Pernika suddenly shouted in surprise.

“Balls,” Mira heard her say. “Where’d you two come from?”

Mira extricated herself from the books, trembling. Stlarning illusions, she thought.

“You want to make good on your little threats?” Pernika said. Mira heard her draw her sword. “I’m warning you.”

Mira came around the corner-Havilar stood opposite Pernika, weaponless and watching. Brin came around Pernika’s side, the same placid expression on his face.

Mira started to shout at Pernika, to tell her to drop the blades-even threatening her father’s little tagalongs was a poor plan. But neither of them seemed bothered, only drifted around Pernika, to stand …

So that Pernika was between them and the pit.

“Move!” Mira shouted. “They’re ghosts!”

The mercenary dived at Havilar, slashing out with her sword, but the ghosts were prepared. The blade seemed to pass right through Havilar. The one that looked like Brin shot forward, catching Pernika off balance and knocking her to the ground.

Mira pulled her own knives and sprinted toward her partner. Could a blade even harm a ghost? Hrast. Havilar looked up, saw her coming, and seized the shelf beside her, yanking it down with inhuman strength. Books scattered, tumbling into the pit as the heavy structure hit the floor, blocking Mira’s path. She turned and raced around the other side.

Pernika’s sword slashed across Brin’s midsection-but as it connected, the ghost became incorporeal, dissolving into a cloud of shifting lights. Havilar took the opportunity to kick the side of Pernika’s head, and when the mercenary rolled away, the ghost in the tiefling’s form bent down, seized the knot of Pernika’s hair, and leaped into the pit, hurling a screaming Pernika over the side with her.

Mira cried out and stopped in her tracks.

“This is what comes of hubris,” a voice said behind her. She turned and saw something like and wholly unlike Farideh standing there. “You thought he could be stopped. You thought he could be silenced. You forget why they call him ‘the Unyielding.’ ”

“The arcanist?” Mira said, her blades high. “He’s dead.” She wet her mouth, easing around the pit. Keeping the ghost from coming around her flank. This wasn’t some spectre intent on luring her away. Threatening to bruise her and frighten her. “Do you know he’s dead?”

Someone else’s smirk showed through on the tiefling girl’s mouth. “Death is no impediment to a true archwizard.”

There was a whoosh like the sound of a fireball catching, and someone shoved Mira forward with a force like a charging bull. She fell to her knees, the knives skittering from her hands. She rolled to her back as the one that looked like Brin, solid once more, came at her with hands lengthening into claws. She kicked out and caught it in the stomach-her foot glancing off as if it were made of something both soft and resilient like old jelly. The ghost leaped aside, looking startled. As if it hadn’t expected her to fight back. As if it expected her to be weak.

Mira snatched up her knives and rolled back to her feet. The ghosts slid around her, trying to pin her between them. A shimmer of light rose up from the pit, taking shape as it drifted over the edge, until Havilar’s double stepped out of the air.

“You’ve given up your knowledge,” she said. “Time to give up your life.”

The only advantage Mira had on poor Pernika was knowing it was coming. She hadn’t the mercenary’s skill with a sword. There were three ghosts and not two. She was dead.

Mira stared down the ghost who had taken Pernika over the edge. She wasn’t going quietly. “Come and take it then,” she said, her knives ready.

The other two came up along her sides. The one that looked like Farideh sprang at her, latching on to Mira’s right arm with a grip like a street dog’s bite. Mira slashed at it with her knife, dragging the blade across the same viscous, not-quite-solid flesh. The ghost hissed and held her tighter, twisting the knife out of her hand. Another whoosh, and the Brin-shaped one was on top of her, pushing her toward the pit again. She struggled as the edge neared …

A corona of light seared Mira’s eyes. The ghosts dissolved with a shrill whine. Mira blinked, eyes watering, and, as the light faded, saw Tam closing the distance, his chain shining with holy light. It lashed out and struck the ghost that had looked like Brin, sending sparks through the cloud of light.

“Move!” he shouted. Mira picked up her fallen blade and started toward the door. A cloud of crackling lights formed in her path, taking the shape once more of Havilar. Momentum carried Mira into it, and its arms wound around her, tight as steel bands.

She struggled and kicked and bit and thrashed-but the ghost reacted to her frantic strikes as though she were a child, having a tantrum. The edge came closer.

Light flashed again as Tam clapped a hand filled with the blessings of the moon goddess to the side of the ghost’s head. The ghost howled and turned into light and shadow again. Mira stumbled free. Tam caught her arm and pulled her past him, toward the door. Toward where the rest of the party were descending the stairs. Realizing there was trouble.

And in the process, he turned his back on the third ghost.

Mira heard only the thud of him hitting the ground, the sound of the air going out of her father. She turned. The third ghost, leaking wafts of vapor and light where the blessings had hurt it, gave her a wicked smile, took hold of one of his legs, and dragged him into the pit.

His fingers scrabbled at the edge. Mira cried out and dived forward to catch his hands. She missed. She glimpsed only his terrified expression before he slipped over the edge and into the darkness of the pit, chased by the insubstantial forms of the remaining ghosts.