Lesser Evils

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When Tam woke again, Mira was sitting amid the piles of books and scrolls she’d gathered, sorting through them as somberly as if she were deciding which wounded could be saved and which would have to be left to die. The other five were all elsewhere. The devil was missing from his circle. “Ah stlarning gods,” Tam said.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Mira said, looking down at him. “She has him well in hand.”

Tam started to protest that there was no such thing with regards to a devil-but Mira wasn’t the one who needed to hear that. Farideh’s admonishments still hung over his thoughts. “Your maps are finished, I gather?”

“Ages ago. Are you feeling better?”

“Much,” he said. “You ought to lie down for a bit as well.”

“I’m fine.” She smiled to herself. “Not the life you wanted for me, is it?” she said, closing the tome on her lap and adding it to one of the stacks. “Better to be married to a farmer somewhere quiet, somewhere close to Mother. Keeping cattle, raising children.”

“No,” Tam sighed. “I could wish it a hundred times for you, but it would never make you happy.” He sat up. “I just don’t see how this makes you happy.”

“You mean the Zhentarim,” she said. “Just say it.”

Tam ran a hand over his beard and tried his hardest to stop thinking of her as being eight and small. “I can’t help but think,” he said, knowing even as he did that it was the wrong thing to say, “that if I’d just done something differently things would have turned out better.”

“It’s possible,” Mira said, still focused on her scrolls. “If you could go back, though, what would you change? Would you have stopped? Would you have stayed there, in that little house in Baldur’s Gate? Would you have stayed away?” The tide of anger in her voice rose. “Never come around? Or would you go back, and never have noticed Mother-”

“Don’t,” he said. He sighed again. “Let’s be honest, I wouldn’t have done any of those things. And they probably wouldn’t have made a difference. You make your own decisions.” She looked up from her books, as if daring him to press her. It wouldn’t get him any closer to understanding. “Silver Lady, Mira, why the Zhentarim?”

“They sought me out. They offered me a job.” She smiled fondly. “You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. The ruins of the Serpent Kings. The traces of Athalantar. The stories of the Crown Wars, writ to the tiniest detail in the remains of an elven stronghold.”

“The deaths of the Zhentarim’s enemies?”

“Because the Harpers never kill anyone,” she said acidly.

“Don’t pretend they’re the same,” he said, sharper than he meant to. “You could see those things without the Black Network.”

“Then maybe you should have offered me a pin.”

That surprised him. “If I offered it now?” he managed.

Mira unrolled another scroll, her eyes flicking over the text so quickly, he was sure she wasn’t really reading it. “If you offered it to me now, it would just be to keep me under your wing. Don’t pretend it wouldn’t be. I won’t be kept-not by my father and not by some farmer.”

“Mira, I could be hanged for letting you go. Do you understand that?”

“And for letting Harpers live with Zhentarim secrets, I could take a dagger in the back.” And she chuckled to herself. “We do like to live dangerously, don’t we?”

And despite himself, Tam smiled too. It should have broken his heart, he thought, that the fact that she trusted he wouldn’t turn on her made him so glad. “Much as I suspect we both wish the other didn’t.”

“Yes,” Mira said. Then, “Do you really think they’ll hang you?”

“They can’t spare an old warhorse like me,” he added lightly. “They wouldn’t hang me for anything short of pure treachery. And accidentally allying with an old enemy-and not the worst of our enemies-I’ll make them see reason. I hope.”

“If they try it …” Mira grew quiet. “There are rats in the Harpers’ house,” she said after a moment. “This isn’t the only time the Zhentarim has gotten their hands into one of your missions.”

“There’s a traitor?”

“There are many,” she said. “The Fisher, to begin with, is not to be trusted.”

For all Tam wished, that surprised him; it fit more neatly than any other bit of knowledge he’d gained in the last few tendays. A Harper spymaster, traitor to his oath-gods. He didn’t like to think how far and wide such a betrayal would reach. “How long?”

She shook her head. “You’ll have to ask him.”

Oh, and he would. He might not be a proper Harper by the Fisher’s measure, but he knew the Code and moreover he knew what a spymaster owed his spies. Putting them into danger was part of the job. Putting them into enemy hands was not.

The thought of Mira in those same enemy hands didn’t sit any better. Tam pulled his pack nearer and withdrew from the small pocket sewn into the bottom a medallion the size of a gold coin. Embossed with a harp and stars and shivering with enchantment. He held it out to Mira. “Take it.”

Her brows raised. “A Harper token?”

“Just in case,” he said. In case she changed her mind, in case she ran afoul of other agents, in case the Zhentarim turned on her and she needed to run. A Harper would know the signal. A Harper would keep her safe.

She looked at it, flat in the palm of her hand. “You aren’t afraid I’ll take advantage of it? Sully your good name?”

“It didn’t even cross my mind,” he said. “If you use it, I’m sure it will be because you need it.” He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “You would make a good Harper, you know.”

“That isn’t where the dice fell this time,” she said firmly. But she tucked the token into a pocket all the same, and Tam took it for what it was: a start.

The rune still glowed where Farideh had left it. What would have happened if she’d shattered it, expecting the doors to the library to swing wide? Would the space have opened, revealing the remains of Emrys and the last scroll of Tarchamus? Would she have thought to take the scroll or left it there for the ghosts to reclaim, seeing the corpse as a warning?

“Why do you think the ghosts haven’t smashed it?” she asked.

“They’re afraid of magic,” Dahl answered. “They know it hurts them.” He considered the rune. “Which means it might discharge when it’s triggered. We should keep back.”

“He would have warned us.”

Dahl shook his head. “He knows there’s more than one of us. And he was Netherese. He probably wouldn’t think to care if his spell killed someone not human.” Farideh started to argue, but he cut her off, “Look, just move back and when you don’t die, both of us can be happy.”

From off in the distance came the din of the others pulling down shelves and books. Every crash made Farideh want to jump, to cast after the Netherese who might any moment break through the door. She imagined Adolican Rhand striding down the aisle toward her, and wished she hadn’t. Farideh repositioned herself, and Lorcan with her-off to the left and as far back as she could go and still have her spells reach the wall. The cambion came up behind her.

“Here,” he said, putting his hands over hers.

“I can handle it.”

“It’s not a lump of firewood. Plus your rod is in splinters. Take the assistance, darling. Stop being difficult.”

She glowered at him over one shoulder. “Which of us is being difficult?” She positioned her hands again. “You don’t have to like him, but stop trying to prod him into a fight. You’re acting like an owlbear marking territory nobody wants.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short, darling,” he said low and in her ear, and she shivered. She was almost positive he was looking at Dahl when he said it, too. Gods.

She cast the spell and left Lorcan where he was, channeling an extra burst of power through her, like a sudden flood of water forced through a narrow stream. The rune shattered with a sound like thunder and a burst of blazing light. The air smelled of sulfur and burnt cedar and stone dust, and there was no doubt if she’d been standing in front of the sigil she would have been obliterated by the blast. She stepped out of Lorcan’s arms, toward the revealed room.

“See?” Dahl said smugly. “Now we’re both glad.”

Beyond the wall lay the scroll, untouched and shining pale as the day it was made, along the crumbling hand bones of Emrys’s sad remains. The empty skull seemed to look up at her, its jaw hanging askew, with an expression of disbelief. “Poor fellow,” she said.

Dahl crouched down, picked up the scroll, and carefully unrolled it. “I wasn’t making it up before. The Netherese were terrible bigots. No one’s worth as much as a human in their eyes. He really wouldn’t have thought well of you.”

“Well, he wouldn’t be alone, would he?” If they can set hands on it, then it is theirs. Tarchamus was not the rarity I thought. I did not see it in time … Whatever Emrys had thought in life, she suspected the ghost had changed its mind, at least a little.

“Is it the right scroll?” she asked.

Dahl nodded, rolling the parchment back up. “It looks like the sketches.” He considered the skeleton. “Maybe we could just destroy the scroll. Maybe we don’t need to destroy the entire library.”

“There are all the spellbooks,” she said. “And the notes about breaching the planes. And the Book.” She looked at him solemnly. “And the arcanist.”

Dahl considered Emrys a moment longer. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s such a shame. But you’re right.” He sighed. “At least I don’t have to worry about what Oghma will do if I blow up a library.” He frowned and looked up at her. “What did you mean, ‘he wouldn’t be alone’?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, knowing he wouldn’t be able to tell, and left the little hidden room. “If Mira’s finished the maps, we should be able to find the best point to cast from. Maybe where the arcanist escapes.” She was still turning that over in her memories-where had the roar come from? Where might the hidden door be?

“Do you actually think I would have let that explosion kill you?” Dahl demanded, following after her.

“No,” she said tartly. “And I will be forever grateful you don’t hate me as much as the wicked Netherese. Good work.” She collected Lorcan. “We need to hurry. Before that alarm goes off and we don’t have the time to plan.”

“We may have a problem,” Dahl said after they’d walked a ways. “If I’m reading this right, the caster ends up at the center of the eruption. With as much fire as this makes … it could kill a body. Quickly.”

“How did Tarchamus manage it?”

He shook his head. “The diary didn’t say. It could be he had a complementary spell. It could be he made one of his more dispensable apprentices cast it. It looks like there’s a little delay-there’s a plume of flames and then the ground opens. That should give everyone else enough time to get away.”

Farideh pursed her lips. “I won’t burn as easily,” she said. “Give it to me.”

“You will burn up if a volcano opens under your feet,” Dahl said, as they came to the alcove. “We need another solution.”

The Book sat open on its pedestal, the shift of its inks a frenetic swirl of runes. The air as they crossed into the alcove buzzed as if a swarm of bees were hidden in the shelves around it. As peaceful as the scene seemed to the eye, there was no pretending that they weren’t walking into a special kind of danger. Dahl drew his sword.

“Do you have a plan here?”

“Well, you’re the Harper,” she whispered. “And he’s a devil. I would think between the two of you I wouldn’t need to tell you how to trick information out of someone.” She considered the Book, and the conversations she’d had with it. “It’s proud. It doesn’t like getting caught in mistakes.” She thought of the vision, of the Book’s claim to be a victim of Tarchamus, same as the dead wizards. “It doesn’t want to be here-or it didn’t a few millennia ago. I think it hates Tarchamus.” More than just hates him, she thought. And more than hated Emrys.

“It’s never seen the Hells,” Dahl said. “Maybe your devil’s thoughts are prize enough.”

“It’s not going to make a trade,” she said, cutting Lorcan’s protests off. “I’m pretty sure it thinks it’s smarter than you by a lot.”

“Oh,” Dahl said, surprised. “All right. I might know how to do this. Follow my lead.” He strode toward the Book.

“This is the Book that told you tales of the Brimstone Angel?” Lorcan murmured to her as they followed. She nodded. “Perhaps if your paladin’s plans fall apart, we can see how well tearing out the pages one by one works.”

“Stop calling him that,” Farideh said.

“You missed something,” Dahl was saying to the Book.

Did I? The inks traced line after line after line of tiny runes. I doubt that very much.

“You sent me after the diary,” Dahl said, all smugness. “You thought I’d side with Tarchamus. You thought I’d come back to you after finding out about the interession? But there was more there. Emrys mentions the scroll. The one you claimed didn’t exist.”

Do you think I didn’t know that? the Book sneered. I wanted you to find the scroll, wherever Emrys had it hidden. The promise of solving your puzzle was bait so obvious I worried you’d see through it.

Dahl cast his eyes at Farideh. “Liar,” he said, sounding petulant. “What good is the scroll to you?”

Oh, I’m far past needing scrolls. But let’s see what good it does you.

Farideh frowned at the swirling text. Such an odd thing to say. When would a Book have needed scrolls?

Dahl hesitated. Be nice, he mouthed to Farideh. He jerked his head toward the Book.

“To … to be honest,” she said, “it’s Mira who wants the scroll, the woman who led us here. I can hardly see why. You seem more valuable.”

Leagues more valuable. Not that most people know it.

Dahl mouthed more instructions. Why not you?

“Why is it no one’s taken you from this place?” Farideh asked. “I mean, the scroll was hidden. But I would think they’d find you first, and then … well why bother looking further?”

You aren’t the first ones to be trapped in this place, it said bitterly. If anyone meant to rescue me, they’d soon need rescuing of their own.

“Tarchamus controls the doors?” Dahl asked, genuinely surprised. “Not you?”

Those brats of apprentices control the doors. And they answer to that rotting husk, not to me.

“It sounds an awful lot like you hate Tarchamus,” Dahl said.

Our relationship is complicated, the Book said. All his relationships are complicated.

The vision of the ritual, the mummy, and poor Emrys-You could take me, the Book had said. We could flee this place and its magic. There’s such a lot of world I never saw.

Farewell, my friend, Emrys had said.

“Oh gods-you are him,” Farideh said. “You’re Tarchamus.”

Dahl looked at her as if she had lost her mind entirely.

The Book paused. Clever girl.

“But the arcanist is in the crypt,” Dahl said.

I’m more him than what he made of himself, the Book sneered. Tarchamus duplicated his mind-his knowledge, his wisdom, his consciousness-and placed it in these pages. Quite a feat, it said cynically. One he never bothered sharing. The apprentices never acknowledged me-just hauled me around Netheril like a dumb object, taunting me with everything Tarchamus had kept from himself.

Dahl shook his head in disbelief. “We mean to leave,” he said finally. “We could take you with us. Destroy the creature Tarchamus became.”

You think to bargain with me, little boy? I have much better rescuers at hand. I have seen Risen Netheril-in your thoughts and in those of the ones who came before you. They will appreciate me. Once you lot feed that thing, he’ll be sated enough for the army at the gates to swoop in. It chuckled. It’s been two thousand years since I had a chance like this. I won’t miss it. I’ll tell them where to get the scroll and they’ll take me out of this wretched hole in the ground.

“Tarchamus won’t open the doors until we’re dead,” Dahl pointed out. “And we’re well-fortified and ready for a siege. We know to avoid the pit and we know the ghosts’ tricks. If you wait too long, your rescuers are bound to give up. If you convince him to open the doors, they’ll make much simpler prey.”

For one, I’m well aware that you are low on water in particular. My apprentices make careful note of such things. For another, Netheril is nearly through the doors on their own. My rescue is at hand.

“So that your ghosts can chase them into the arcanist’s pit,” Farideh said.

He’ll be far too busy devouring you, the Book said sweetly. Your camp’s not even far enough to make a decent chase.

Farideh nearly sighed in relief. The trapdoor must be near the camp-with Mira’s maps that might be enough to find it. Dahl pursed his lips, considering the Book for a long moment. He looked up at Farideh.

They couldn’t take the chance that the Book might fall into Netheril’s hands. If the doors opened and they didn’t have time to do anything but flee, the Book was at least as important as the scroll. But both of them knew too much about their plans to escape, and had very little new knowledge with which to distract the Book.

“Lorcan,” she said, “would you take it?”

The cambion picked up the tome in both hands, flinching as if about to sneeze as the Book’s magic scoured his thoughts. Well, well, it said, sounding slightly rattled. When did you come in?

“Heavens to Hells,” she heard Lorcan say, as they walked back to the camp. “What did you think you were helping my warlock to do? Those runes you had them destroy made space for a portal, and the spell you assisted her in creating pulled me through.”

I assisted nothing, the Book said. That girl was but my hands and eyes.

“Of course,” Lorcan said. “The heir of Bryseis Kakistos needed a Book to do her spellwork.” He held the book close. “Did you enjoy spinning that tale for her?” he said, low and deadly. “Trying to undermine me? They say you can read people’s thoughts-are you enjoying mine right now?”

The Book did not answer.

By the time the others finally returned, Tam was back on his feet and pacing a hole in the floor. He’d thought through a dozen potential plans-but every one of them needed more information, more hands, more magic. A riot of questions jangled his nerves.

“There you are,” he said, as Dahl and Farideh returned, trailing the freed devil. “Where’s my plan?”

“We’re working on it,” Dahl answered. He nodded to the cambion who was carrying the Book. He and Farideh wrapped the Book in cloaks and stuffed it into a haversack, then Dahl told Tam about Emrys and the scroll, about Farideh’s vision and the escape of the arcanist. “That’s the largest piece remaining,” he said quietly. “If we can get the mummy out of that crypt and trap him up here, we’re free to escape.”

“Indeed,” Tam said. “I don’t suppose you took out any more of the ghosts.”

Farideh shook her head. “Lorcan burned one fairly bad. They kept back after that.”

Tam made a little hmph and she stiffened, as if braced for his reprimand, but Tam held his tongue. Not worth it. Not when the devil had been a help. Brin and Havilar came back then with Maspero.

“How are the doors?” Dahl asked.

“Solid for the moment,” Brin said. “But they’ve gotten through fooling around with battering rams and such. There are wizards working on it.”

“They’ll have a time if they get through,” Maspero said.

“Oh we made a fantastic mess,” Havilar said. “Maspero, Brin, and me together are excellent at figuring out how to trick shady Netherese armies.” She grinned at Farideh. “They might not even know they’re being tricked.”

“Should you get your arcanist free,” Lorcan said, “I’ll wager he’ll make an excellent distraction for the Shadovar as well.”

Tam ignored him. “Mira, you’ve got the maps?”

She spread out a pair of scrolls, neat lines and notes etched over what looked like a ballad and a hymn to the goddess of the sea. “They’re not exact,” she said. “I didn’t dare go measure. But I think I can pinpoint the trapdoor.” She laid a finger on the corner of the arcanist’s crypt. “The floors actually rotate around a central point as they go down. This is the spot that overlaps with the floor we’re on. If there’s a trapdoor near to here, that is where it comes out.”

“Where do you think the weak point of this place is?” Dahl asked quietly. “Structurally.”

Mira frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If we were going to set off the eruption scroll,” he said, “where would we need to do it to bring down the roof?”

Mira blinked at him, appalled. “You can’t.”

“I don’t want to,” Dahl said. He looked to Tam. “There’s no getting around it though-this place is a trap, a tomb for people who were only seeking knowledge. We can’t disarm the trap without destroying it. And destroying it is …” He sighed. “Compared to leaving Tarchamus’s trap wide open, it’s a minor sin.”

“You can’t ask me to do that,” Mira said.

“Then we are leaving it all for Netheril,” he said. “All the spellbooks. All the scrolls. All the information that a maniac wizard deemed precious. We are condemning whole nations to death.”

“Mira,” Tam said sadly. “Do what you will. But you know he’s right.”

Mira pursed her lips, as if willing herself calm. “The column at the centerline of the dome. The one to the left of the entrance, when you face the rear wall. It’s not decorative. If you catch that in the blast, the ceiling will be damaged. It will bury the place.” She tapped the door they’d found to the second level. “And if you keep it close to here, the lava should flow down and block the lower levels, if not destroying them. So about here.” She drew a tight circle around the area beyond the Book’s alcove.

“So you’d have to run for the trapdoor?” Tam said.

Dahl hesitated. “The scroll doesn’t bode well for the caster. We need to find a way to protect them from the flames before worrying about how fast they can run.”

“What do you mean?”

“The spell might consume the caster,” Dahl said to Tam. “We can’t be sure how likely it is without casting it, but by that point, they’ll be dead or they won’t be.”

Is this your destiny then? Tam thought, staring at the scroll. If these were his people, as Viridi’s memory had put it, then he couldn’t ask any one of them to take the chance. He met Dahl’s worried gaze-at least Tam felt sure the younger Harper would lead them out all right. He reached for the scroll.

But Lorcan’s bright-red hand reached over him. “Give it to me.”

Dahl pulled the scroll closer. “I don’t think so.”

“Unless you haven’t mentioned the fact that you are the burning Chosen of Kossuth, both of you would certainly die if you were there when that thing goes off,” Lorcan said. “Whereas I would find it unpleasantly similar to home.” He made a face at the scroll. “Probably. And anything you were planning to do to assist would go a lot further.”

“The ritual against the elements,” Farideh said. “Could that do?”

Tam shook his head. “Even if it helped, it wouldn’t be enough. That spell is meant for bad weather, not fire.”

“But it’s based off the object,” Dahl said, staring at the devil with new eyes. “It couldn’t boost a human’s tolerance, but … the ritual I used on the alarm. It would make it stronger.” He considered Lorcan. “Depending on how much heat you can take and how much the scroll creates, it could make the difference. If Farideh casts the ritual to fortify the both of you against the heat, Tam and I can …” He shook his head. “It needs silver-gobs of silver-and I’m down to a few grains. Without it, we won’t-”

A haversack hit the ground between Dahl and Tam. Pernika’s. “Search it,” Mira said. “She chipped half the inlay out of most of these portraits. See if it’s enough.”

The twisted pieces of the edging made a tidy pile, and Farideh’s destructive spells made short work of it. Dahl scraped the very last tracings of dust into vials. “Not enough,” he said.

“Here.” Tam took the holy symbol from his chest and the Harper pin from the inside of his shirt. They would be little use if he was dead, though he’d miss the mark of Selune. He couldn’t recall how long he’d had that one.

Longer than you’ve had Mira, he thought.

Maspero removed his silver rings. Brin and the twins turned all the silver coins from their pockets. Farideh pulled the amulet Tam had given her out from under her shirt. He was surprised she still had it.

“Hold on,” he said. “See if we’ve got enough as is.”

She pointed a finger at the pile. “Assulam.”

The burst of silver dust glittered briefly on the air, before settling like an early snow across the field of limestone slate. Dahl scraped and swept it together, measuring the results.

“Close,” he said. “But it should do.”

“Good,” Tam said. “Then, about the arcanist-”

Out of the library’s silence, the sound they were all waiting for exploded as the Shadovar breached the doors and Dahl’s alarm triggered, its wail bouncing off the walls of the cavern.