The Adversary

Chapter Eleven

21 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) Three days ride from Waterdeep

Lorcan took hold of Sairché’s necklace of rings and leaped aside as his sister vanished in a tangle of glowing threads and a gust of flame. The chain snapped as its wearer was pulled through the fabric of the planes, sending magical rings scattering over the forest floor.

He had expected to feel a rush of triumph, a certain glee as she was sucked away to the same cage she’d trapped Farideh and Havilar in. But the utter calm surprised him: their quarrels were finished, his revenge complete. Sairché would stay, trapped in the stasis cage for as long as he liked-one of the rings would open it.

“Now what?” Havilar demanded.

Lorcan turned to her, relishing the moment. “Now? Now I take my new trinkets and return to the Hells.” He stooped to pluck the rings from the deadfall, nearly a score in all.

“And then?” Havilar asked after a moment. “She knew how to get to Farideh, and you just. . did you kill her?”

“I sent her away,” Lorcan said, stringing rings onto their chain. “Back to where she kept you all those years.” He looked up at her. “You’re welcome.”

“She knew where to find Farideh,” Havilar repeated. “She knew and it’s not like she was going to attack you.”

“You underestimate Sairché.”

“I don’t underestimate Sairché, I listen to Farideh!” Havilar shouted. “We needed her to find Farideh, you karshoji bastard!”

“You needed her,” Lorcan said savagely. “Your sister threw me over-did you really think I was eager to rescue her? To swoop in like someone out of one of your silly chapbooks and go on like she hadn’t betrayed me? You’re a lot more foolish than even she thinks you are.”

Havilar’s cheeks reddened. “Farideh was trying to protect us!” That was just a twist of the knife-Lorcan ought to save her because Farideh was only doing what was in her and Havilar’s best interests. You thought she was different, Sairché had chuckled. They all try and scale the hierarchy eventually. They all choose someone else. He twisted the broken links together and put the chain of rings around his neck.

“Well I do hope that works out for you,” he said snidely. “Good luck finding her without Sairché’s help.” He spread his wings and flapped into the air. “Don’t you run away!” Havilar shouted. “She’s in this because of you, don’t you karshoji run away!”

“Havi,” Brin said. “Let him go.”

Lorcan didn’t wait to hear what followed, what entreaties, what insults, what outbursts. He was done. There was nothing Havilar or Brin could say to change that. Done with warlocks. Done with Brimstone Angels. Done with Farideh. .

Are you in love with my sister?

And he had nineteen new magical rings to distract him from that. But he had gone only far enough to lose sight of Havilar and Brin’s fire, when the air in front of him peeled open like a rotten wound. Lorcan dropped back as three enormous insects with bladed arms darted out of it, surrounding him.

Shit and ashes, he thought, hanging in the air. Hellwasps.

The leader dropped down to the level of Lorcan’s face, tilting its head as it considered him. “You are Lorcan,” it said. “Son of Invadiah.”

“None other,” he said, wondering if he jammed his fingers into as many rings as he could whether he’d find the one that took him away from Glasya’s monstrous messengers before he found the one that turned him to stone-or worse.

The hellwasp clicked its mandibles. “Her Highness wishes to speak to you.” Its bladed legs extended toward Lorcan. “You will come.”

Havilar watched as the night sky swallowed Lorcan and with him her last scrap of hope of finding Farideh. She clutched her glaive, hardly daring to move. “It’s better this way,” Brin said behind her. “I promise.”

She whirled on him. “How? How is this possibly better?”

“Havi,” he all but sighed. “With Lorcan? This was never going to end well.”

“He said he could find Farideh, and-”

“And he lied,” Brin said. “Can’t you see that?”

“He didn’t lie,” Havilar said. “He doesn’t lie-Farideh said so.”

“He was playing you all along, to get back at his sister.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“Damn it, Havi! He just did!” Havilar took a step back, and Brin shook his head. “Look, the Harpers will go after her. They’ll get her back, I promise. Let’s just go home, all right?”

Havilar’s chest tightened around her heart. She’d been right the first time: she didn’t really know him anymore. “I don’t have a home,” she said fiercely. “I have a sister. And no matter what miserable nonsense she’s put me through, if something happens to her. .” Her voice caught and she clapped a hand to her mouth. She swallowed the fear and the tears. “I’m not going back. Not without Farideh. You’ll have to knock me out and sling me over a horse to make me, and best of luck with that. So go back alone if you have to.”

Brin looked at her for a long moment, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t. As if he wanted to say a whole swarm of somethings, Havilar thought, and was swallowing them instead. Finally he sighed. “All right. Then let’s get moving. We have too much ground to cover in too little time.”

Havilar held her glaive closer. “You. . you’ll come with me?” He smiled wanly. “I already said I would. Besides, as much as I’m sure Mehen will threaten to beat me senseless for not stopping you, I know he’ll do it if I let you go on alone. And you know as well as I do I’m not slinging you over any horse. Let’s go.”

“But the sun’s gone down,” Havilar said. “You’re not supposed to ride in the dark.”

“Trust me,” Brin said. “I’ll break camp. You get the horses ready. There’s a jar in my saddlebag, about the size of a walnut, and a pouch of herbs. Smear the unguent on their fetlocks and haunches, and get a pinch of the herbs in behind the bit. And tie Lorcan’s horse to mine,” he added, packing up their bedrolls. “We’ll see if it can keep up.”

She did as he said, still smarting from Brin’s outburst, still puzzled by his reversal. When the horses were saddled again, she rubbed the greasy paste into their muscles.

“My hands feel like bees,” she said to Brin as he loaded their gear onto Lorcan’s horse. She flexed her fingers-they were definitely buzzing. He laughed to himself, and for a moment he looked so familiar she wanted to fall into his arms.

“It’s the unguent,” he said, grinning. “Has a kick to it.”

The horses pranced as if they’d been shut up tight all day-not exhausted after miles and miles of traveling. Alusair started off before Havilar had even settled herself in the saddle.

“South,” Brin told her, turning his and Lorcan’s horses to the road.

Havilar bristled. “I’m not going back to Waterdeep.”

“No,” Brin said. “We’re going to an inn.”

The herbs, Brin explained, were for darkvision. The unguent, for speed. The horses would be no good to anyone for a tenday or so, but they’d recover.

“Just hold on tight,” he advised.

There was enough moon for Havilar to see, vaguely, where they were going, but it was still dark enough that barreling up the road felt like she imagined flying would-utterly thrilling.

At first. After a few hours, she was only sore and sleepy and tired of riding. When the walls around the inn appeared on the edge of the moor, she nearly sighed in relief. Brin talked to the guards at the gate, who-despite the hour and the sour looks they gave Havilar-let them in. The horses had slowed down, plodding through the muddy field between the gate and the inn. They seemed almost grateful when Brin handed them over to a stabler in exchange for a small purse of coins.

“Won’t we need them?” Havilar asked.

“Not for a tenday at least,” Brin reminded her. “Come on.” They hiked up the short hill to the sprawling inn at its peak.

“ ‘The Bargewright Inn,’ ” Havilar said. “Is that a joke?” Brin chuckled and held the door open for her.

“Havilar.” She looked back-he was rubbing the base of his throat.

“What?”

Brin shook his head, smiling pleasantly. “I didn’t say anything.”

She looked around the taproom, still full of travelers-most sleeping on the floor, but more than a few still drinking even at the late hour. “What are we doing here?”

“Come on,” he said, crossing the taproom and heading straight for the tiredlooking innkeeper, stacking flagons behind the bar. “Goodman Bargewright?”

“Aye,” the man said. “What’s your pleasure?”

“I need a room,” Brin said. “Your best room.”

A room. Havilar’s breath caught and a flush spread across her cheeks. “One with a fireplace,” Brin added.

The innkeeper looked at him, brow furrowed. “I have one,” he said slowly. “But the chimney’s blocked up.”

Brin smiled and shrugged. “Might be fine. It’s plenty hot down here.” He pulled on his collar, as if to let in the air. . and flashed the dark edges of a tattoo inked across the left side of his chest. Havilar wondered how far it went, and realized she was very likely about to find out.

The innkeeper’s eyebrows rose a fraction. He rummaged beneath the bar and pulled out a tarnished-looking key. “Through the door on the left, near the end of the hall. Can’t miss it.”

“Many thanks,” Brin said, sliding the man a pair of gold coins.

“Any news I should worry about?” the man asked, pocketing the coins.

“Nothing new,” Brin said. “We haven’t passed a soul on the road.”

Havilar frowned. That wasn’t true at all. She started to correct Brin, but he grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and she stopped. She squeezed his hand back.

“Though I meant to ask in Beliard after a cousin of mine who was passing this way, out of Noanar’s Hold,” he said. “Called Laird Harldrake?”

The innkeeper nodded thoughtfully. “Haven’t heard tell of him. But, I’ve heard no news out of Noanar’s Hold since Marpenoth. Good or ill.” He picked up another flagon and dried it carefully. “ ’Course, I never do hear bad news out of Noanar’s Hold. Get a little fuss from the farther reaches, mind.”

“Hmph,” Brin said. “Well many thanks. We should leave quite early tomorrow.” The innkeeper nodded again and told Brin to be careful. Havilar flushed-a blur of shyness and anger. Did he mean her? What else would he mean?

“What was all that about cousins?” she asked Brin, as they passed down the hall.

“I’ll tell you in a bit,” he said, peering at the frame of each door they passed.

“I didn’t know you had cousins in the North,” she said, looking at the doors herself. They all looked the same, but it was better than worrying. She’d been trying very hard not to think about the last time they’d shared a bed, the last time he’d had his arms around her. She tried not to get her hopes up too quickly, to be brave and above all, careful.

And here was Brin, being the not-careful one. And all at once she found it thrilling and awful. She wasn’t supposed to be the careful one, after all.

“Brin,” she started, “I don’t know if-”

“Ah!” he cried, his fingers on a particularly battered doorframe. He looked back the way they’d come, and then down the hall again. “This one.”

“Brin,” she tried again. “Can we. . can we talk first?”

“In a moment,” he said, unlocking the door. “Come on.”

Her stomach flipped as she stepped inside. The “best” room looked like every other inn room Havilar had ever seen, clean and shabby and sparse. A bed, a table, a chair, a window, a little fireplace that Brin had crawled half-into. .

She frowned. “What are you doing?”

Clink. Thunk.

Brin scuttled back and Havilar saw a hole where the fire would have sat. . a hole with the edge of a ladder peeking up out of the darkness. He smiled at her. “There we are.”

Havilar peered down into the darkness. A faint, greenish light hinted at the bottom of the ladder, fifteen feet down. Brin dumped their packs and weapons down the hole, then gestured for Havilar to go ahead.

She stepped down onto the wet stone ground, scanning the dark passage as Brin fixed the stone back into the fireplace.

“If this were a chapbook,” she said, slipping her glaive and harness back on, “this ends with you being killed by some madman, and me running screaming through a hundred tunnels.”

“Don’t be silly,” Brin said, coming to stand beside her. “You and I could handle some madman.” He took up his pack and strode ahead, toward the greenish light. “This is a secret portal the Harpers have made use of for ages. If there were a madman down here, we’d have heard of it.”

“Oh,” she said, holding tightly to her haversack’s straps. “So before, with the innkeeper, that was all Harper code-talk.”

“Right,” he said. “Don’t repeat any of that, would you? I was just asking if the portal’s behaving and such. Letting him know we’re not running from anyone.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I should have told you what was going on.”

“It’s fine,” she said, even though it wasn’t.

The portal sat in a dead end of the cave, a flickering green pool in the floor. Beside it, a woman waited, the perfect picture of a chapbook witch. Wild eyes flicked over Brin and Havilar through a snarl of steel-gray hair. Purple motes of light swam around her gnarled fingers as she pointed at them. “You got a key?” she demanded.

Brin handed over the tarnished key the innkeeper had given him. She turned it over, sniffed it once, then fixed an eye on Havilar. “What’re you? Some kinda demon?”

Havilar stiffened. “A tiefling.”

“Huh.” The woman spat. “If you say so. Where you going?”

“Noanar’s Hold,” Brin said.

The woman sent the purple motes into the portal with a whispery trail of magic. “You could walk there cheaper, you know?” she said, once the portal glowed bright and ready.

“Next time,” Brin said, clearly unfazed by the portalkeeper. He held out a hand to Havilar. “Ready?”

Havilar stared at his outstretched hand. “If this were a chapbook, this would be the part where the portal eats us, you know.” The woman guffawed, and Havilar scowled at her.

Brin took hold of her hand, smiling again. “Then how would they sell more chapbooks about us?” he said, teasing. She flushed all over again, not sure of what to say, and instead of guessing, Havilar stepped into the pool of green light.

Passing through the portal felt almost like riding through the dark had- lightless, rapid, death defying. There was no wind to blow through her hair as they traveled through the fabric of the planes, and a peculiar scent like wintergreen and old wine filled her nostrils. The air around her-if it was air-was no temperature at all. Not hot, not cold, not even there.

She only felt Brin’s hand, holding tight to hers.

And then suddenly they were stepping out into the world again, through a stone doorway and into a root cellar that made the previous cave look cheery. Havilar stumbled, narrowly avoiding a thick patch of cobwebs, heavy with dead bugs. Brin, still holding her hand, pulled her back on balance.

“Thanks,” she murmured, embarrassed at her clumsiness. That wasn’t going to impress him either. She took her hand back. “How do we get out?”

“Cellar door,” Brin said, pointing to a crack of grayish light off to their left. The portal’s shifting green light flared briefly, painting his face in stark shadows. “Not better than a room at the inn, but much closer. .” He trailed off. “Wait, did you think, back there, that I meant. .”

“I didn’t think anything,” Havilar said.

“Gods, I’m sorry.”

She pressed through the maze of old crates and barrels. “I said it’s fine.”

“Havi. . we should talk. When you’re ready, I mean.”

No, she thought. No, no, no. If they talked now, he’d only tell her what she didn’t want to hear. If they talked now, she wouldn’t even know what to tell him she wanted. I don’t really know me anymore, she realized.

“Later,” she said. “Definitely not down here.” She moved through the darkness toward the angled doors and heaved them open. Outside the sun was just beginning to tint the sky gray and blue. A handful of stone buildings peeked out from the edge of a forest so thick and dark that Havilar wondered if there were any way to walk through it at all. A shattered keep stood behind them, spilling stones down a rise toward the river, while new timber held new masonry in place.

Brin came to stand beside her and pointed over the forest, toward the tips of two mountains peeking over the trees. “There,” he said. “That’s where we’re heading.”

Gray morning light rushed into the cell Dahl spent the night in, wrenching his pupils wide. He flinched as the headache that had been pounding harder and harder since his flask ran dry surged up behind his eyeballs.

“Get up,” a man said. “Oota says she’ll see you now.”

When Dahl didn’t get up fast enough, the man-a big human fellow- hauled him to his feet and out the door. A second man-a half-orc-wrapped a rope around Dahl’s wrists, tying them behind his back.

They didn’t go far-down the road a ways, every step guarded by a third man and a woman sweeping the cross-paths. A door opened, and the men pushed him through it. He blinked as his eyes readjusted to the gloom.

It looked as if the villagers had torn down one of the huts to make a courtyard, and what thatch they could reclaim had been built over the space, sheltering it from the weather. Dahl was dropped in the middle of the muddy space, facing a hut whose front wall was missing and a mountain of a man standing there.

Not a man, he corrected himself. A half-orc. A half-orc woman in men’s clothing, her dark hair cropped short, her bosom crushed into a hide chestplate. She was taller than Dahl by a head and a half and outweighed him, surely, by himself again. One parent’s blood had claimed her brutish features, her massive frame. But the cleverness in the single black eye that watched him struggle to his feet was something a human would gladly claim.

A shiver ran down Dahl’s back: Oota, and she was no one to trifle with, he was certain of that. A gesture and the big man untied Dahl-he knew as well as Oota did that it would be suicide to try anything.

“People tell me,” Oota said, “you’ve been asking how to find me. People tell me,” she continued stepping down from her dais, “you’ve been asking a lot of questions. Stirring people up. Making them worry.” She stopped in front of him. “I don’t like my people to worry.”

“You make it sound as if I were specifically harassing your folk,” Dahl said, “when I was asking everybody I found. Half-orcs, humans, elves. .” His throbbing eyes had settled enough to see that in the dimmer corners where the firelight didn’t touch, there were scores more watching-humans and half-orcs. . and dwarves, and half-elves, a tiefling, a pair of dragonborn. All Oota’s charges. Dahl cursed.

“You rule this place?” Dahl asked, trying again.

“I run it,” Oota said. “The parts that matter. There’s a difference.” She stooped so that their faces were nearly level-still too far for him to reach- and said softly, “One which you should appreciate, whoever you are. If I ruled this place, I’d have executed you already.”

She straightened. “First Tharra tells me she clashed with a man about your height and description, wearing one of the guard’s uniforms. Tells me I need eyes and hands ready, because someone else has a fool idea about serving the wizard and it might cost us in the end.”

“Are you going to wait for my end of it?” Dahl asked.

Oota chuckled. “What is it you think we’re doing here, son?”

Dahl tried to think of an answer. None made any more sense than “a farm for Chosen.” He saw Tharra ease in a side door, Oota’s guardsmen watching. He was caught-another mission falling apart. Time to be honest, he thought, and see what happens.

“My name is Dahl Peredur,” he said. “I was taken by accident, brought to this place with another. I stole the uniform to escape the fortress. And then I stole these clothes when I realized walking around in that uniform gets me punched. I’m not with the wizard, I don’t know the wizard. I’m just trying to figure out what in all the Hells and farther planes is going on so I can get word out to the proper people and maybe-maybe-save you all.”

“How soon?” Tharra asked from the shadows. Oota shot her a dirty look.

“What makes you think we need saving?”

“Look, you’re not military-the children make that clear,” Dahl said. “You’re not a village-you have almost no way of feeding yourselves beyond the rations and the gardens, and I haven’t found a drop of bloody liquor in this whole town. That wall says this is a prison-a war camp-but I can’t figure out what it is you’ve done to deserve that. You clearly weren’t here before. If you’re displaced, then no one has good intelligence on what Shade is doing. What is it?”

Oota gave him a toothy smile. “We like to say ‘the misfortune of being blessed.’ ” The crowd tittered.

Dahl bit back his frustration. “What does that even mean? You’re all being so damned cryptic-I can help you.” He looked over at Tharra and rolled his right sleeve up past the elbow. He rubbed his forearm, as if it were bothering him, and muttered under his breath, “Vivex prujedj.” Under his fingers, a harp and moon sigil burned up through the skin, shining blue with hidden magic before fading to a normal, indigo tattoo. He moved his hand to his wrist, so that Tharra could see the mark.

“You have something to say, Goodman Peredur,” Oota said, “you need to speak up.”

“I’m on your side,” Dahl said to Tharra. “What do I need to do to convince you of that?”

Oota laughed once, as if he’d made a weak jest. “Hamdir,” she said, and one of the human guards stood. “Our guest complains he’s thirsty. Get him a flagon of the wizard’s finest.” She looked to Tharra. “Unless you object?” she said, all false compliance.

Tharra stared at Dahl. “It’s the only way to be sure.” Dahl’s stomach knotted.

Behind Oota, the guard poured a measure of dark liquid into a plain flagon, then an equal measure of water. He held the flagon as far from his body as possible as he carried it to Oota, but Tharra intervened and took the vessel from him.

“Who do you intend to share the vision with?” she asked.

Oota lifted her chin. “Do you imply I can’t?”

Tharra gave her a look of disappointment. “When did we become enemies, Oota? Of course that’s not what I mean.” She looked into the vessel. “I’m offering to do it myself. Take the headache off your hands,” she added with a friendly smile. “You’ve too much to do.”

Oota watched her, guarded. “We’re not enemies,” she said, somewhat warily. As if she were saying it as much for the crowd’s benefit as Tharra’s. “We are good friends and allies. But why,” she added, slyer, “are you offering yourself?”

Tharra considered Dahl again. “Well, I did give him that bruise. I like to know I’m right. Or at least, take my lumps if I’m wrong.” She kneeled beside Dahl. The fumes of alcohol were enough to tickle Dahl’s nose even at that distance. Twenty-five ales behind schedule, he thought, and he’d take what he could.

Tharra gave the murky liquid a distasteful grimace. “I’d like to say you should have told me you were one of the Shepherd’s flock right at the start,” she murmured. “But I suspect you’d tell me that’s not how you do things.” Tharra swirled the flagon. “And I’d wager Oota’d demand you drink anyway.”

“If that’s all I have to do-”

“Two things you ought to know: This dungwater is what the shadar-kai drink when they’re feeling bored. I don’t know what they distill it from, I don’t care to know. It’s potent, rough, doesn’t slow you down like regular alcohol will. Sweeter than a penniless wastrel with a sick old granny.”

“But it’s just spirits? I can handle a rough round.” Dahl gave a short laugh. “Right now, I could take a few rough rounds.”

“Not just spirits,” Tharra said. “You drink it straight it’s as like to make you blind as mad. Or worse. You want something better than our bucketbrewed scrap-wine, you have to water it down.”

“What’s the other thing?” Dahl asked, after she’d been silent a moment.

Tharra looked up at him. “You shouldn’t drink the water around here either. Welcome to your first taste of ‘the wizard’s finest.’ ” Tharra looked down into the cup. “How did you get here?”

Dahl frowned as Tharra pushed the liquid toward him. He started to answer, to repeat what he’d said before, but she tipped a measure of the drink into his mouth. Even watered, it was sweet as honey and burned like fire as it tripped over his windpipe and set him coughing. He managed to swallow it down.

Tharra forced another gulp on him and another, and by the third drink, Dahl’s head was already spinning-potent stuff. Tharra seemed to steel herself and drained the rest of the cup.

“That it?” Dahl asked, his tongue feeling thick.

And then everything went black.

When Dahl’s vision cleared, he was standing in the middle of a temple. Rust-colored tiles. Pews and reading stands. A high domed ceiling. And a familiar face walking toward him. The bottom of his heart dropped out.

“No,” he shouted. “No! I’ve lived this enough.”

“Nothing happened,” he heard himself say, as he had eleven years before. Dahl turned around and saw a younger version of himself, sad and sick with fear.

“Oghma, Mystra, and lost Deneir,” he said. “Don’t make me do this.”

“I know,” Jedik said, walking straight through Dahl, to stand beside his younger self.

“I tried. I tried, and tried,” the younger Dahl said. “It’s still broken and I can’t fix it, I can’t fix it!” The paladins behind the old loremaster looked on, stern and cold. Looking for all the world as if they had never thought anything of Dahl but that he was trouble and a nuisance. A poor use of the order’s charity. A millstone.

“You smug bastards,” he cried, the words he wished he’d said. “Stop standing there gloating and help me fix this or go to the Hells.” They didn’t move. “I don’t care what you think!” But he caught himself: he did. He had. Dahl blinked hard as if he could clear the illusion from his eyes.

“Can’t hear you,” Tharra called. She was standing a distance away, watching. She shook her head. “Not that you’re going to realize that in a few more breaths.”

“This isn’t your business!” Dahl shouted. “This is nobody’s business.”

“Apologies,” Tharra said. “The wizard’s finest can be a bit particular. I should have been more specific this time. But it will be over soon enough.”

Behind Dahl, his younger self was weeping uncontrollably as everything he’d worked for, everything he’d sought was ripped away without warning or reason. He squeezed his eyes shut as he heard Jedik say, “Tell me, Dahl, how does it serve Oghma to simply give you the answers you’ve been sent to seek? When you are sworn to the God of Knowledge, you are sworn to serve knowledge, to seek it, to free it.” He shook his head. “It is in your power to know. So find the answers.”

The world blurred away from him, stretching Jedik’s words into a buzz of nonsense. Tharra’s voice spoke over the clamor, How did you get here?

“I have a name for you,” Jedik was saying. It was nearly three years later, and Dahl had returned from another fruitless quest to find the answer to Oghma’s question. “Aron Vishter. Go to Waterdeep.”

“And what will he tell me,” the younger Dahl said bitterly.

“Lies,” Dahl said. Aron Vishter had been a traitor of the highest order. But he hadn’t known that then, and neither had Jedik.

“He will give you another path. When you stare ahead too long and hard, you miss what passes by the side.” Jedik squeezed his shoulder. “Let the Harpers give you something else to look at.”

How did you get here?

The loremaster’s quarters were abruptly gone, replaced by a shabby tavern, and Dahl was sitting on a stool, beside his younger self-their edges blurring together. He was shuffling papers nervously, sipping an ale, waiting to meet Tam Zawad for the first time. That was when the twins came in.

“He’s not here,” Farideh said, and it was strange to feel his younger self’s revulsion and fear. Was there something there he should have known? “We should wait.” She looked up at Dahl, and they were suddenly sitting nearby at the bar as well. She frowned at Dahl, at his younger self. “Can we help you?”

“No,” his younger self said, all full of venom and anger. Dahl winced.

“Gods,” Havilar said. “Are you listening to yourself? This is probably how you attract such creepers. One fellow-one good-looking fellow! — in this whole taproom is giving you notice, and you jump down his throat.” She grinned at Dahl. “Excuse my sister. She’s better at worrying than enjoying herself, but she’s in the market for a good tutor.”

Tharra snorted from behind the bar, and Dahl scowled at her as the room turned blurry, and things jumped around. Tam was suddenly standing in front of him.

“Good gods,” Tam said, looking Dahl up and down. “You? Where did you get the impression that eavesdropping like a gawping spectator made for good spycraft?”

Dahl colored, even though this had happened years ago, even though he’d been right. He started to answer, but the tavern was gone, and they were in a cave, deep under the Nether Mountains, the warped mummy of a mad arcanist stomping toward him, away from a cluster of devils. Farideh looked back at him. “Go,” she said to Dahl. Her expression softened. “Many thanks. For coming back for me.”

He was lost in the jumbled memories now. “No-are you mad? That thing-”

How did you get here?

Between steps the arcanist turned into a pillar of flames, the cavern, the library burned all around him. He was standing in the flames. He was sitting in the woods, showing Farideh a ritual while her sulking devil watched over them. He was talking to the devil in a shabby inn, handing him the rod he’d gotten her as an apology. Did she still have that?

Still? he thought. You just gave it to her.

He was in Baldur’s Gate, collecting the evidence he’d gathered in Neverwinter, then slipping out the door he’d used in Proskur to visit the woman he’d been seeing while he kept tabs on the Dragon Lords. A man in ornate armor passed him by, laughing, and Dahl shivered at the avatar’s passing. He wet his mouth, but the dryness persisted.

The skin of his arm seared and he flinched against the tattooist’s needle. “This will be safer,” Tam was saying. “You can’t lose it, can’t show it accidentally, can’t have it stolen.” The shape of the harp and moon surged up under his skin, the tattoo filling in, healing over seconds, not days. “It might take a while to get used to.”

He looked up and saw Tharra, watching him curiously. The wizard’s finest, Dahl thought, rubbing his arm. This isn’t real.

And then they were in Procampur.

“Whatever you think you’ve discovered, it’s clear Oghma was right to oust you from our ranks,” the stern paladin told him, while Jedik sat watching, at a loss for words. “Whether it was your own doing or the poor advice of your companions, you participated in the destruction of priceless wisdom.”

“Wisdom that would have destroyed tens of thousands of people,” Dahl protested. “Especially when the Shadovar closing in took hold of it.”

“And the knowledge is not to blame for the actor’s use of it!” the leader of his order had shouted. “You made your decisions. And Oghma has made his.”

How did you get here?

The desk became his father’s grave, and Dahl was kneeling before it, in the middle of the night, clutching a bottle and trying to get numb. He’d died after Dahl admitted he’d fallen, and the Oghmanytes didn’t want him back. He’d died thinking Dahl was a failure. He toasted the headstone, tipped the bottle back, and he was in Nera’s taproom.

“I think you need some time out of the field,” Tam was saying.

“A demotion,” Dahl said, angry, aching.

“Not a demotion,” Tam said. “You’re clever at analyzing reports, I’ve said it before. I could use that.” He drank from his own ale. “Some would say I could use someone who keeps me from going out and seeing what’s happening for myself. And I trust your eyes.”

“But it’s a demotion.”

Tam regarded him seriously. “Not a demotion. There’s nothing wrong with honing your skills inside the house-it’s where I spent most of my early years, and here I am.” Then he added quieter, “But as your friend, I’ll not deny, I think you could use some time out of the field after the last year.”

A desk, a desk, a desk. More parchment than Dahl could remember blurring into a drift of the stuff, then a blizzard. A mission in the city here and there. And pinning down Rhand, that one hot summer. The desk melted into the figure of the brown-haired apprentice, hastily dumped in the alley near to Rhand’s manor, before the Shadovar fled. One eye missing, one hand at the wrist, the fingers of the other hand blunted short with a sharp knife. He bolted far enough to vomit. When he stood, his Zhentarim agent was standing there. “From what I understand,” she said carefully, “they are dead. Killed between here and Suzail. Maybe Brin has better details.” And he closed his eyes and thought of Farideh, missing a hand at the wrist, a silver eye, a bloom of blood staining half her blouse.

“Dahl?” Farideh said, and he was in the taproom once more, Tharra beside him instead of Khochen. The urge to repair things Farideh didn’t know were broken was hard to fight. He looked down at the deck of cards in his hand. It wouldn’t fix this. It would only slow it down.

Farideh stumbled into him again, again acting oddly. She didn’t look at him, but somewhere in between. Was she drunk or drugged or something else? No time to tell-he reached out to steady her and they both vanished.

They fought the shadar-kai again. She told him to run. He stole the armor, sent the message, found his way to the wall. All over again, he made his way to Oota’s court, to the cup of the wizard’s finest easing toward his lips. Not again, he thought. Not again. .

But it came again, fast and hard. Dahl’s fall, that first mission to find the library, the blur of grief and anger, Farideh, Rhand, the shadar-kai. Tharra and Oota and the cup of the wizard’s finest easing toward him.

How did you get here?

And it started again. And again. It would go on forever, he felt sure, and Dahl would be trapped, reliving the painful past, battered by moment after moment, until-

“No!” he shouted. Dahl opened his eyes, years and years and years later, looking up at a patchy thatch roof. He lay spread-eagled in the dirt, his head pounding and his stomach rebelling against his ribs. He shut his eyes again and that sent the world spinning. “Gods’ books.”

“So does he lie?” a too-loud voice said. Dahl curled away from it, hands over his head. Oota-the name sifted up through his memory like a lost coin drifting in the sand. With it came the rest: the camp, the fortress, and the wizard’s finest. He shuddered.

“No,” Tharra said, sounding hoarse. “Not a word. He’s what he says.” Dahl tried opening his eyes again. She was standing over him. “Bit more too.”

“Tell me there’s an antidote.”

Tharra smiled. “Time. Few good heaves. The spirits aren’t the worst of it, but you can’t much avoid the visions.” She hauled Dahl to his feet, and Dahl swallowed the saliva that flooded his mouth. He wasn’t going to vomit in the middle of everyone like some common drunk.

Again, he thought, noticing the puddle of sick near where he’d fallen.

“Get him out of here,” Oota said. “We can talk later.”

“Come on,” Tharra said. “Let’s get you somewhere quiet.” She helped Dahl back out into the sunlight, and Dahl’s resolve failed. He was messily sick in an alley before Tharra got him back into the hut he’d spent the night in and ducked back out. She came back shortly with a bundle of rations and a small bucket.

“Here-this is safe. From the cistern,” Tharra said, handing Dahl a dipper of water.

Dahl gulped it down. Tharra grinned at him. “So. You’re out of Waterdeep. They always said you lot were skilled. How in the Hells did you get past the wall? The waters skipped over that.”

“Luck,” Dahl said. Bad luck, he thought. “I got pulled in by mistake. I got a pair of sendings out to Waterdeep already. Tam’s sending reinforcements.” That sounded better than rescuers. “If I can get more components I might be able to find out how many and how soon.”

Tharra took the dipper from his shaking hands and filled it again. “You Waterdhavians,” she said, sounding like his eldest sister-in-law. “Excess is in your blood, isn’t it?”

“I’m not from Waterdeep,” Dahl said. “I’m from Harrowdale.”

“Harrowdale?”

“Near enough. My father’s farm-” Dahl stopped-not his father’s, his brothers’ now. “It’s to the west of New Velar. About a day.”

Tharra’s smile widened. “My brother-in-law had family outside Harrowdale. Tassadrans originally, but they’ve been there since the Sembians invaded. Did you know a fellow called Melias by some happenstance?”

“Bearded fellow with a field full of beehives?”

Tharra laughed. “Second cousin.”

“He traded honey for my mother’s apple butter every year.” He finished the dipper. “So you’re from the Dalelands too?”

“Mistledale. Though lately,” she said, with a wry smile, “I wander. A Harper’s lot.”

“I suppose.”

“Funny though,” Tharra said. “I’ve got watchers up along the border line. Not a far reach to grab a Harran lad clever enough to slip out of a fortress that well-guarded. A few different turnings and you might have been my fledgling instead of the Shepherd’s.”

More than a few, Dahl thought. And if he had? He wouldn’t have gone to Procampur, he wouldn’t have become a paladin. He wouldn’t have lost his powers. Would he have let the contact in Rhand’s manor die? Would his father have died? Would he have been prouder of Dahl if he’d stayed in Harrowdale and kept a farmer’s cover?

Tharra gave him a thin smile. “You spend a lot of time with tieflings?”

“No,” Dahl said, rubbing his eyes “That’s. . new. Temporary.”

“Hm. Seems slippery,” she said. “A pity we don’t have more resources.”

“Do you have agents coming?” Dahl said.

Tharra chuckled. “No. We’re not all wizards like you lot, hauling around scrolls, casting sendings like they were stones into the sea.”

“That’s not. .” Dahl shook his head and winced when it started spinning. “Look, I’ll defer to you here. Clearly, you know what’s going on better than I do. But for the love of every watching god, you have to tell me what’s happening.”

Tharra shook her head, as if all the words in every tongue on Faerûn couldn’t sum up what was happening in the camp. “Something strange and something wonderful and something far more dangerous than we can comprehend. The gods are stirring, mark my words, and in a way we’ve never seen before. The wars? The way powers who were content to bide their time have all leaped at each others’ throats? — if that isn’t the hand of the gods moving things, I don’t know what it is.”

“Politics,” Dahl said. “Tensions past their breaking point. Wars happen, then people think ‘Why not us too? Why not our problem?’ It spills over.”

“And the earthmotes? The plaguepockets fading? The world is getting ready for something,” Tharra said. “These people, all of them, were stolen out of their lands, their homes. Gods above know what makes him choose them exactly, but he’s not grabbing at random. Sometimes he takes a whole village. Sometimes he takes a single child.” Tharra dropped her voice. “But the ones he takes, some of them, when the time is right, gain powers by the grace of the gods. Right out of the blue. Strange powers.”

“Like the boy trailing flowers.”

Tharra nodded. “Samayan? Chosen of Chauntea, near as we can figure.”

Dahl eyed Tharra. “Funny way for the Earthmother to spread her influence.”

“Depends on what it is She’s trying to do.”

A god grants a mortal powers, but not the powers that can save them, Dahl thought. “It doesn’t sound like any Chosen I’ve heard of.”

Tharra shrugged. “They call it what they call it. A lot of the ones we find are like Samayan-their gifts are modest, but you can’t deny they’re something rare. No use against the shadar-kai, but the wizard gathers them up as if they’re precious things-the ones they catch. Those powers usually come on quiet, and the wizard doesn’t always notice it’s happening. We can keep them away, shifting them around the camp ahead of the guards’ sweeps. They haven’t caught on yet. Others you get are like Oota-can’t put your finger to it, but you know something’s strange. Your thoughts just go a little crooked, a little changed. If we weren’t noticing daisies and such, we might not realize it was something unique. They can usually blend in.

“A few gain much more impressive powers. The sort of thing you expect when you hear ‘Chosen.’ They don’t tend to be quiet. The guards come for them much quicker, catch them as they manifest.” Her expression darkened. “Not all of them survive for the wizard’s use.”

“And you? Or do you Dales Harpers get that odd influence with your pins?”

Tharra flushed and shrugged, and Dahl realized there must be an etiquette here he didn’t know. “Not all of us get a clear message. And the majority of us are just ordinary. Or ordinary for now. We’ve found signs the powers are coming-a persistent ill-feeling, or sometimes a euphoria no one can explain, vertigo or dreams about the gods. It’s not perfect, but everyone knows to look out for strangeness.”

People touched by the powers of the gods. People disappearing-whole villages disappearing. Was that what had happened to Vescaras’s farmstead? Or any of the missing Harpers? Were Vescaras’s lost agents, or Dahl’s Sembian handler, among the dead Chosen?

“If you’re all touched by the gods,” Dahl asked, “why are you still here?”

“Because the wizard is very prepared.” Tharra scooped another dipper of water for Dahl. “Drink it and get some rest. You can sleep off the vision’s side effects, but your head’s going to feel like it’s the Chosen of Tempus’s Warhammer tomorrow.”

Glasya’s words echoed in Lorcan’s thoughts as he flew low over a dense forest, searching for the devil Sairché was meant to meet with that evening, according to her imps.

“Your sister understood my particular needs,” she’d said. “Asmodeus’s particular needs. I cannot say I was pleased with her results thus far. But I had my hopes.” She had smiled, and Lorcan had been too terrified to breathe for a moment. “You have her tools. Prove to me the children of Fallen Invadiah don’t repeat their mother’s weaknesses.”

Lorcan searched the ground below. Whatever Sairché had been planning, she had been careful not to leave the details lying around. The erinyes only knew about scattered schemes involving cultists who largely ran on their own. The imps told him about a devil named Magros who sent an avalanche of scrolls. And he’d found the empty case that had held the original orders, passed down from the god of evil himself, buried in a box of useless rods, tucked beneath a settee and behind a rolled up skin-rug.

This wasn’t just about Sairché’s revenge on him.

Lorcan spotted the violet-and-white flash of a portal in the trees below, and dropped straight down, catching the air again to hang near to the clearing, out of the portal’s lingering light.

There was the devil, Magros, decked in heavy furs. . and there was a cluster of strange creatures besides. Leashed ghouls. A boneclaw, towering over its companions with fingers like scimitars dragging in the litterfall. A handful of robed humans. A woman in red robes with a pale line of hair down the center of her skull. A palanquin besides, hauled by a pair of massive zombies too degraded for him to be sure what exactly they had once been.

“You are no more than four days from the site,” the devil said. “I trust you can find it.”

“Of course,” the woman said. “As much as I trust you’ll be there to see the ritual through and claim your prize.”

“A prize for all the Hells,” he corrected gently. Unctuously, Lorcan thought. Oh, this one would be trouble. The necromancer said something else that Lorcan couldn’t hear, then she and her macabre retinue disappeared into the ancient wood, their way lit by globes of floating light.

Magros turned, and before he could wake the portal once more, Lorcan dropped to the ground in front of him, earning a gratifying cry of surprise.

Lorcan sketched a little bow, marking the hooves, the small horns, the oily expression-a misfortune devil. Smug bastards, he thought. “You’re Magros, I presume,” he said.

“You have the advantage of me.” The misfortune devil’s eyes flicked over Lorcan, resting a moment on the flail-shaped pendent he wore. “A Malbolgian?” He narrowed his eyes. “Did Sairché send you?”

Lorcan smirked. “In a sense.”

“Ah-you’re the brother, aren’t you? The resemblance is uncanny.”

“I doubt that,” Lorcan said. He was supposed to ask, supposed to wonder why it was uncanny. But he didn’t.

“Word was Sairché made short work of you some time ago,” Magros said. “I take it I shouldn’t be expecting her to keep our appointment.”

“She’s indisposed,” Lorcan agreed. “So I have the pleasure of taking her place.”

“Is it a pleasure?”

“It could be.”

“I doubt that if you’ve seen what a mess your sister left behind.”

Lorcan smiled-Magros must have driven Sairché mad. He was hardly trying to provoke Lorcan into defending his position, revealing what he knew. “Is it a mess?” he said. “The site looks quite. . sharp.”

“Do you have a better leash on the wizard, then?” Magros asked. “Or the armies?”

Lorcan gave him a pitying look. “Did she tell you there were armies involved? How adorable.”

Magros considered Lorcan a long moment-likely Sairché had said no such thing. Likely Magros was simply trying to trick Lorcan as much as Lorcan was trying to trick him. But there would be no chance his erinyes half sisters would not have had plenty to say about Sairché’s handling of an army. The wizard who wouldn’t behave was a better bit of information.

The out-of-place Thayans better still.

“I can tell from her notes that she doesn’t care for you,” Lorcan said. “So we should get along very well.”

“She does have quite the little temper. Takes after your storied mother?”

Lorcan smirked. “You’ve obviously never met Invadiah.”

“I have little reason to travel to Malbolge.” Magros sat on a boulder at the edge of the clearing and crossed his hoofed legs. “If you’re here in Sairché’s place, I assume you have some information. Have you gotten things back on track?” He gave Lorcan a wicked smile. “Or are you the one who’s going to fall in your sister’s place?”

“Please,” Lorcan said witheringly. “Unlike my sister, I know where I stand. If you decide to step on my neck to advance, you’ll have to clamber down the hierarchy to do it. I’ve long since realized there’s nothing to gain by rising above my station-if I could escape this honor, believe me, I would. If there’s any devil in the Hells you can trust-for the moment-it’s me.”

Magros smiled politely, and the effect made Lorcan want to shudder. “You’ll forgive me. I wasn’t promoted yesterday.”

Lorcan shrugged. “And I wasn’t born a fool. There’s a great deal more going on here than it seems. More than even our archlords would ever say-more than my sister was ever going to be foolish enough to leave written. Why would I try and overtake you, Magros? I have enough to do trying to make sure this looks like it was all Sairché’s fault.”

“Will blaming a corpse catch your mistress’s eye?”

“Corpse?” Lorcan said. “I said indisposed. Not dead. Why would I waste a perfectly good piece?” He took a risk and sat on the ground near to Magros. “And why would I care about catching the eye of a mad witch who dragged me right out of my comfortable life?”

Magros raised his eyebrows. “Your words.”

“Indeed.”

“So you’re looking to cross layers?”

“If you threw in the furs, perhaps I’d consider it,” Lorcan said. “But at the moment, all I want is room to make sure whatever collapses lands in Sairché’s hands and not mine.”

Magros tilted his head. “His Highness can offer many perquisites for a little assistance.”

And all the same dangers, Lorcan thought. Stygia might be as far from Malbolge as a mind could imagine-a frigid sea, encased in perpetual ice, the waters below stirring only for hungry, mindless beasts. Its master, Prince Levistus-leagues from beautiful, terrible Glasya with her voice in every devil’s ears-present only in mind, his body sealed in a massive iceberg.

But there was no layer of the Hells where Lorcan’s situation would truly be improved.

“In exchange for your indulgence, I could consider it. What is it he wants?”

“A trifle,” Magros said. “I need someone who can get past the wall your sister’s wizard has around that fortress and take care of my own agent.” He stood once more and gathered up his furs. “Do it right and we shall neatly entrap Sairché. All I need is for you to use this.” Magros suddenly held a gleaming knife, the length of a long bone in one hand. “Shadar-kai make. Run my little traitor through and leave it near. Or better still, run that troublesome wizard through as well and put the weapon in her warlock’s hands. Sairché hasn’t prepared her nearly enough-Lords of the Nine know. . she might snap.”

The blade’s hilt didn’t warm in Lorcan’s hand, but the center of his chest burned hot. “So that’s where her warlock is,” he murmured, hoping it would cover anything else his face showed. He would have to go there next. He would have to face her. And a wizard who wouldn’t behave.

“What’s the wizard’s name?” he asked idly. “She didn’t mark that down, I’m afraid, and I’ll have to go sort him soon.” Magros gave him an oily smile, and for a heartbeat Lorcan thought he might be wrong, the wizard might be some other nuisance. Sairché might have been lying.

“Rhand,” Magros said. “Although Sairché doesn’t know I know that.”

Even though Lorcan had been expecting to hear the name, his temper threatened to make Invadiah blush.

“Well,” he said. “That should help.”

Draped once more in fur robes, Magros gave him the sort of smile that shone politeness but oozed condescension.

“At least you don’t need to recall it long. Here.” He pulled a bundle of cloth from a pocket hidden in the robes and held it out, peeling back the cloth to reveal an iron cube, its sides etched with frost. “When you’ve taken care of things, let me know. Just squeeze the cube tight.” He dumped it into Lorcan’s hand, and the cambion bit back a cry of pain at the sudden, intense cold. Magros chuckled and dropped the cloth on top. “You’ll have to get used to that.”

The portal gaped and exhaled a frigid breath that made Lorcan fight not to shiver. The misfortune devil vanished, along with the obvious markers of the portal.

He hadn’t mentioned what his agent was doing, Lorcan thought. He hadn’t mentioned why he wanted that one dead. He hadn’t explained about the Thayans. Worse, Magros clearly thought he was an idiot if he was going to go around murdering his pieces and taking the blame.

Lorcan pieced through the details he knew of Sairché’s plan, of Glasya’s. Of Asmodeus’s. There was nothing that would suggest the best course of action lay in allying with the followers of Szass Tam. If rumors were true, the calculating lich was keen to repeat Asmodeus’s feat of snatching the divine spark away from a god and canny enough to manage it. Not the sort of being to hitch your fortunes to, if you were concerned with hanging on to your own ill-gotten gains.

Lorcan wondered whose mistake that was, and if they even knew, before reopening his own portal and stepping back into Malbolge to prepare for his next meeting.

His feet had no more than touched the bone-tiled floor when his mind registered that something was very, very wrong on the other side of the portal. His knees buckled, slamming his body down into a supplicant’s bow. His vision turned black, as if someone had plucked his eyes entirely from his skull. The air burned hot enough Lorcan imagined it would burst into flames if he exhaled too hard. There was only the sound of his frightened breath against the floor.

And then Asmodeus spoke.

The ancient wood swallowed Mehen and the Harpers, the sun lost behind a canopy of emerald leaves. Even in the heart of Ches, the forest felt mild, the air brisk but nothing compared to Everlund’s chill. A carpet of feathermoss and brittle bracken muffled their footsteps, but the sharp, grassy scent of broken plants marked their path wherever they trod.

Daranna checked Mehen’s pace often, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of being the slow, ungainly creature she expected. He knew how to move through the wood, quickly and stealthily. They made camp late and broke early the first night, and by the time they stopped on a high hilltop for the second night, Mehen had to admit at least that the Harpers weren’t the worst folks to be traveling with.

Not as good as his girls, he thought sadly, digging an acorn cap out from beneath one of his foot-claws. He rubbed his sore foot.

“I may owe you a boon,” Khochen said, dropping down beside him. “Daranna swore it would take eight days with you along. I wagered a gold piece we could do it in five. I think you’ll win me my gold yet, goodman. Many thanks.”

“Thank me when you’ve won it,” Mehen said. “Don’t tempt the gods into your business.”

“But they are so easy to tempt, goodman.” Khochen tilted her head. “You must tell me what to call you, at least. ‘Goodman’ is terribly stiff, ‘Mehen’ is too familiar, and no one can tell me your clan or family name-”

“Mehen is fine. And don’t pretend you don’t know perfectly well I have no clan name.” He scratched the empty piercings along his jaw frill. “You know the difference between clan and family, you know what this means.”

“A hit!” she said clasping a hand to her chest. She considered him silently, that twitchy smile mocking him. “I have guesses,” she said. “The size of the holes, the placement. I’m no scholar of Tymanther, but I think you were somebody once.”

Mehen glared down his snout at her. “I’m still somebody: I am Clanless Mehen, Son of No One, Father of Farideh and Havilar.”

Khochen’s smile softened. “But you were Verthisathurgiesh Mehen. Once.”

All these years, and the sound of those words spoken aloud still sent a shock of shame and anger through Mehen. “Don’t you dare say that name,” he said, his voice a hiss. “I am clanless, and that means forever.”

“Indeed,” Khochen said. “I know that well enough too. But someone is looking for your old self.”

Mehen sighed and folded his arms, and all that sudden shock turned back to annoyance. “Let me guess: a dragonborn, clanless, but freshly enough to tell you that they, too, were Verthisathurgiesh once. Wears a symbol of the Platinum Dragon big enough to stop an axe. Tracked me out of Tymanther, but then the trail runs cold. They start asking, you think of Lord Crownsilver’s bodyguard.”

Khochen smiled. “An excellent guess, goodman.”

“I get one every five or seven years. They get themselves expelled from the clan for swearing too loudly to Bahamut. They’re lost and lonely. They’ve heard the tale of the favored son who called Old Pandjed’s bluff and took exile over obedience and they assume-every karshoji one-that it was the same ‘sin’ as theirs. That I will know their hearts and be their mentor, and turn them into the sort of warrior Verthisathurgiesh will be so proud of, that they will make an exception and bring them back into the fold.” Mehen fixed Khochen with a hard stare. “They are wrong on every count. Don’t encourage this one.” Khochen’s eyebrows raised. “Your clan doesn’t talk about what you did?” Mehen snorted. “Doesn’t sound like it.”

“That’s peculiar. Can’t warn anyone off unless an example’s made.”

“There are some things, where if you make an example, you give the young ones ideas,” Mehen pointed out. “Pandjed is nothing if not canny. He knows the difference.”

“So what did you do?” Khochen asked.

Mehen held her gaze. “I told you,” he said. “I told Verthisathurgiesh Pandjed he could exile me.”

“Does Verthisathurgiesh Pandjed do everything you tell. .” Khochen trailed off and peered into the distance over Mehen’s shoulder, down the hillside and into the depths of the darkening forest.

Mehen traced her gaze-nothing there. Not at first. Then the flash of magic, purple and gold, far into the distance peeked through the trees once more. He narrowed his eyes as it flashed again.

“Company,” Khochen noted, coming to her feet and retreating to Daranna’s side. A few quick, whispered words and the four scouts were on their feet once more, slipping through the trees toward the strange lights.

“Goodman,” Daranna said softly. “Hold. Let them do what they do best and get us information before we decide whether to strike.”

Mehen didn’t look back at her, watching the faint lights instead, and trying to pick out where the scouts had vanished into the fortress. He had no way to gauge the time this deep into the forest, but it might have been another seven and a half years before the four scouts returned one by one with the sort of answer Mehen was craving.

Thayans.

“What in the name of every dead god are Thayans doing in the High Forest?” Vescaras asked. Daranna remained silent, pondering the point between the trees where the lights had flashed.

“They’ve had trouble with them up in Neverwinter,” Khochen noted. “Maybe whatever they’re after’s not there but here.”

Mehen tapped the roof of his mouth with his tongue. Karshoji Harpers. “Are they supposed to be here?” he demanded. Daranna looked up at him through her hair.

“No.”

Mehen slid his falchion from its sheath. “Then let’s get rid of them.”

The sun has started its downward path, when one of the apprentices returns, his robes scattered with a constellation of blood droplets. Farideh studies them as he crosses the room, her pulse speeding with every step. Whose is it? The old woman’s? The tall man? The woman wrapped in red light? He bends his head in conversation with his fellows, his voice rushed and excited. Something has changed. The wizards all look up at her, like a herd of spooked deer, and out of habit, she looks away, down at the waters. Mehen would be disappointed-there are times a warrior shouldn’t back down.

She summons a memory of her father. The vision of Mehen plaiting her hair, before she heads out on patrol duty for the first time, back in the village of Arush Vayem, washes up as sharp-edged as it is in her mind. She is so young and gangly at fourteen- she knew it then, and the image only makes her want to hug her younger self close.

“Is it. .,” the younger Farideh starts. She tries again. “It’s just it’s supposed to be so dangerous.”

“It’s not dangerous,” Mehen says. “Stop listening to Criella.”

“If it’s not dangerous, then why is there a wall? Why do we need patrols?”

Mehen ties her hair off, tucks the end of the braid into the band at the nape of her neck, and steps around her to check her armor, her sword belt. “There is dangerous,” he says, “and there is dangerous. You’re watching for signs of bandits and monsters migrating through. Getting a little hunting in. That’s it. The day patrol is nothing, or they wouldn’t let a fourteen-year-old do it.”

“ ‘Make,’ ” the younger Farideh corrects.

“You will be fine,” Mehen says. “You’ll have your sister with you. A blade at your side.” He pauses and his great nostrils flare. “Hmmph. But keep her from running off. She needs you to be her. . voice of reason.”

Farideh looks away. “She doesn’t listen to me.”

“She does,” Mehen says. “She doesn’t listen to everyone, but she listens to you, Fari. Even when it doesn’t look like it.”

He looks her over once, then hugs her tight. “Remember: keep your wrist firm and your grip gentle. And don’t worry about the day patrol.”

Two fat tears send a series of ripples over the scene. Farideh wants to ask if Havilar would have listened this time, if it would have been wiser to tell her the truth about Bryseis Kakistos, the collector devils, and the Toril Thirteen. But the waters don’t know the answer any more than she does, and Farideh is running short of time.

Though not as short as the people she’s doomed, she reminds herself. She steels herself and looks up at the apprentices, who watch her back, appraising. Whatever it is she’s done, their opinion of her is shifting, and it doesn’t soothe her at all.