The Adversary

Chapter Thirteen

23 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) The Lost Peaks

Farideh nearly leaped from her hiding space at the sight of the girl-she could not have been more than thirteen. She was slight as a willow switch with dark hair unbound to the middle of her back. Her skin had a dark, grayish cast, though, and her eyes were faintly luminous. Rhand watched her back as she walked calmly into the study, his expression sending a curl of terror through Farideh.

She knew that look. She knew what was going to happen. “This. .” Rhand stopped and cleared his throat. “Ah. This is where we bring the waters for further use.” Rhand stopped before the table blocked Farideh’s view of him, looking drawn and beaded with sweat. “My lady,” he added.

Jump out, Farideh thought. Grab the girl. You can cast without the rod, well enough to get out the door. .

Then what? Run and find Dahl? Run and hit the barrier? Somehow kill every guard in this place and wait for someone who could break her out?

She couldn’t just watch, that much was certain.

What else are you going to do? a little voice in her thoughts seemed to say. You’re trapped and so is she. There’s nothing you can do.

Fatigue settled on Farideh, and though her nerves were drawn, ready to whip her to her feet and out the door, all her muscles drooped. She sat back and heaved a breath as softly as she could to shake the feeling. It didn’t work.

“So you look into the past,” the girl said, unconcerned with Rhand looming over her, “holding tight to what was.”

“Not at all, my lady,” Rhand said. “It’s a tool. The waters will show the point at which a potential-” He cleared his throat again, hard. “When one of the possible. . ah. .”

She turned and gave him a beatific smile. “You dislike the term.”

“I think it overstates what we are dealing with,” Rhand said irritably. “In most cases.”

“But not all.”

Rhand gritted his teeth a moment, before continuing. “If you ask the waters when a likely person’s patron took notice of them, it separates those with such blessings from imposters. Would you like to try, my lady?”

They will catch you, the little voice in Farideh’s thoughts went on. You might as well come out. The hanging robes felt as if they’d smother her. Her own armor might smother her. She dug her hands into her hair, the pain sent a shock of sense through her.

Focus, she told herself. That girl will be dead if you can’t focus.

“ ‘Patron,’ ” the girl said. “That seems like it will give you many unwanted answers. Lords. Benefactors. Weak entities with ideas above their station. Plenty of things the Church of Shar is not remotely interested in. Why not say ‘god’?”

“It would reject too many,” Rhand said patiently. “There is no way to know where the waters draw the line. If an exarch has reached out, must we say ‘exarch’ or ‘god’ or ‘demigod’? ‘Saint’ or ‘devil’ or else? ‘Patron’ covers all options-any who might bestow the powers under any guise. If it gathers a few artisans with nothing to mark them, that is a minor difficulty, I assure you. My lady.”

“Is it?” the girl said. “There are those who would say it’s a drain on the princes’ coffers. A waste of Shar’s clemency.”

Rhand looked at the girl, as if he were fighting once more with something dark and powerful inside himself. “And have you listened to them, my dear?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said, and through the confusing swirl of panic and despair, Farideh dimly thought it was the first time she’d actually sounded like a young girl. The girl prodded the edge of the magical field surrounding the basin, making it spark. “It does seem awfully involved. And expensive.”

“As I mentioned,” Rhand said. “My system is improved. I have someone capable of spotting them before they know they aren’t merely captives, finding even the most minor ones hiding among the fold, before they are ready to claim.”

You, Farideh thought. He means you. And when he’s done with her, you’ll be next. Go-grab her. Run. She imagined Nirka and her knives coming after Farideh. The blades slicing into her skin. It would drive away this awful, smothering feeling. Cut the heavy layer of skin off, that would do it-

Farideh bit down hard on her tongue, disrupting her runaway thoughts. What was happening?

“And what ‘patron’ bestowed that blessing?” the girl said, disinterested. She crossed the room, toward Rhand. Toward the door. “Who chose her?”

Farideh had to get out. She had to get away. It felt too much like that revel in Waterdeep, with the pull of Rhand’s poison dragging her down. But if she so much as moved, Rhand would find her. She concentrated on the sound of her breath, hissing in and out of her nostrils.

“I have an agreement with someone from the Nine Hells.”

“An agreement?” the girl said. “If you’re venerating someone other than the Lady-”

“Your pardon, but nothing could be further from the truth. The devils have their purpose, but godhood is not one of them. What happens to her patron is irrelevant. All will aid Shar in the end, by their assistance or by their destruction.”

The girl looked back at Rhand, her expression peaceful. Farideh leaned forward enough to see Rhand, paler still with a wildness to his eyes and his breath coming hard, as the girl stood just within reach. The silence stretched out. Farideh held her breath.

“Nothing is everything,” the girl pronounced. “Shall we see what you have managed?”

Rhand drew a single, shuddering breath. “This way, my lady.”

You have to move, Farideh told herself. You have to save that girl. But she felt as if her bones had turned to stone, and it took an eternity before she could haul herself up. Rhand and the girl were long gone.

You have to find them, she told herself, even while a little voice seemed to murmur, Why? So you can fail her too? Even once she’d left the study, the feeling that she didn’t quite have the strength in her to continue in her own body persisted.

A good thing the guards are gone, she thought, pausing on a landing to catch the cold air on her face. She needed a weapon, she needed to find Rhand, she needed to stop him. The armory-she all but tumbled down the stairs, all traces of stealth long gone.

What was she doing? she thought. She couldn’t manage this-even if she could save the girl from Rhand, there was nowhere to run. If Dahl couldn’t save himself, then maybe he was doomed too.

You’ll never get out of here, the same little voice said, as she made her way down to the lowest level. No longer sure of her plans, no longer sure of anything except that if she didn’t follow through, she didn’t know what to do next. Get a weapon. Get the girl. Get out.

You’ll never manage. You can’t save her anymore than you could save Havilar. If you try you’ll only make things worse.

She pressed a hand to her head. What was the matter with her?

By the time she found the armory, she felt as if she was drowning. Nirka’s strange words popped into her head-He knows what it is to fight the Shadowfell. The home plane of the shadar-kai, the path-they said-to the world of the dead. The shadar-kai feared fading away into it, their essence drawn away into the shadows of the plane. Was that what this was? Was that what was happening to her?

In the armory, she stood amid the wicked-looking weapons, unable to hold her thoughts together, unable to decide what to do next.

The air shivered, and when the tiefling woman’s ghost appeared again, Farideh nearly wept in relief. She tore the comb from her haversack, not caring if it doomed her or damned the whole fortress. She slid it into her hair, the teeth scraping her scalp.

I’m glad you changed your mind, the ghost said. She didn’t move her lips, but her voice rang in Farideh’s thoughts as clearly as if the dead woman had spoken. And not a moment too soon.

“What is this?” she asked. “What’s happening?”

You’ve been poisoned, the ghost observed. She made a sound, as if she were clucking her tongue, but again, her mouth did not move.

“I didn’t eat anything,” Farideh said. “Tell me what to do?”

It’s a poisoning of the mind. The ghost’s face peeled back to muscle and bone, the globe of one silvery eye laid bare in its socket. It will take a blade and a stern stomach. An act to shock the thoughts out of you.

Farideh shuddered. Of course-that was how the shadar-kai fought off the Shadowfell, wasn’t it? They would tear each other apart and make it stop. She made her way to a rack of short, cruel-looking knives, and picked up one with a scarlet handle. Sharp enough to part flesh easily. Broad enough to cause a lot of pain. She imagined how it would feel, plunging into someone’s back.

She shuddered again, so hard she nearly dropped the blade. Even if she found a guard. .

It won’t end on its own, the ghost chided. You have to take action. A little suffering now, greater rewards later.

Farideh took a firmer grip on the knife. Perhaps she could use it on Rhand. . and then Sairché would say she hadn’t kept her deal, and Havilar was as doomed as the rest of them. Besides, she couldn’t go after Rhand with her head spinning like this. It will take a knife. An act to shock the thoughts out of you.

Farideh squeezed the knife’s hilt hard enough to make her palm ache, and steeled herself for what she had to do.

Once the sun had set and the moon was low, Dahl-dressed once more in his stolen uniform-met the drow near the fortress’s postern gate, near where Dahl had made his initial escape. The walls swarmed with guards.

It’s impossible, Dahl thought. They’re waiting for exactly this. But at the same time, his pulse started drumming with excitement, and he found himself sizing up the wall, the guards, the entrance. There were ways to do this, if you were bold enough to seize what you deserved.

Phalar chuckled under his breath. “Oh good. You’re ready.” Dahl blinked, suddenly aware of how out of place those thoughts were.

Oota’s warning came back to him.

“Stay close,” Phalar said, and he walked toward the wall, toward the spot where the shadows clung close. As Dahl sprinted after him, a ball of darkness formed around Phalar, so complete the drow seemed to disappear. Clinging tight to that sense of boldness, Dahl stepped into the dark as well, one hand shooting out to catch the drow’s shoulder, trying to keep track of how many steps they’d taken, before the drow crashed them both into the stone wall.

A clammy sensation rushed over Dahl as he counted too many steps.

Phalar stopped, then pushed him backward-into the other side of stone wall. The darkness dissipated. They stood at the edge of the courtyard, alongside the large stable Dahl had noticed earlier and behind a disused smithy. The veserabs inside stirred with a sound like leather cloaks slapping in the wind.

Phalar smirked. “There you are. Blessed be. . Let us say you owe someone a very quiet favor.”

“I owe you a dagger,” Dahl said. “Your god can keep his blessings.” He scanned the courtyard-there were a handful of shadar-kai at the door, and more still dicing in the courtyard. “Which wall do we hit next?”

“We don’t,” Phalar said. “I’m not a ghost. I need a chance to recover.” Dahl turned to him. “So what are you planning?”

“Oh calm down, cahalil. I’ve done this scores of times-do you think I leave a body behind every time?” A deep booming sound echoed off the crater’s ridge.

Phalar peered around the edge of the shack. “Ah! There’s what we’re waiting for.” Through the low clouds, a great dark shape descended into the courtyard-

a long, deep box big as a barque, dangling from a half a dozen cables. The booming came again as the carrier landed, and six enormous, shadow-winged drakes swooped low.

Phalar turned and scaled the wall of the building beside them where it met the curtain wall, finding footholds in the rippling stone. Dahl followed, saying a quiet prayer to Selûne that she kept herself hidden behind the thick clouds. No cry of alarm followed, and Dahl shortly hauled himself up onto the low roof. Phalar had not waited, but stretched out on his belly and crept along the slates toward the tower. Crouched, Dahl hurried to catch up to Phalar, where he’d slowed beside some damaged tiles.

“Does that come every night?” he panted.

“It came tonight,” Phalar said. “It’s come on other nights.”

“What do you do when it doesn’t come?”

Down below, the drakes squalled and boomed, and the shadar-kai and humans holding on to their lines struggled and shouted at each other. The clouds split, revealing Selûne in all her glory. Phalar cursed and flinched back, away from the edge of the roof, away from Dahl.

“Make the darkness,” Dahl hissed. “Hide us!”

“I have a better idea,” Phalar said. And he kicked Dahl into the patch of damaged tiles.

The tiles fell in, and so did Dahl, slipping between the broken beams of the roof to land roughly on a loft piled with detritus and old hay. He’d hardly gotten his breath back, but the veserab’s flexing mouth appeared beside his head, as likely trying to take a bite of the intruder as goading him into riding.

There were two of them now, thrashing and fighting the lines that held their harnesses in agitation.

Dahl rolled to his feet-all too aware of the shouts outside, the nearing voices. He climbed down from the loft, cursing Phalar and skirting the veserab’s wild wings. There were two doors, he noted, one on the side where the carrier had landed, one on the farther wall.

Two shadar-kai men came into the stable, weapons out, muttering to each other in Netherese. Dahl ducked behind a bale of hay, landing in a pile of the veserabs’ stinking shadowstuff castings. He watched the shadar-kai split up, edging around the stable. Looking for the intruder.

Oghma don’t forsake me, Dahl said to himself. He eased from his hiding place enough to gauge the distance, and when the shadar-kai were as far behind the fitful veserabs as they could be, he leaped out. He pulled loose the tethers holding down the veserabs one by one as he ran for the door. Behind him the shadar-kai shouted, and Dahl dared to glance back. One veserab threw itself at the nearer guard, battering him to the ground. The other disentangled itself quickly from the ropes and threw itself at the other door, knocking it wide.

Dahl didn’t wait to see what happened next. He ran through the opposite courtyard, wondering what in the world had possessed him to do something so mad. As he reached the shadows of the fortress wall, hands seized him and pulled him into the darkness.

“See?” Phalar said. “A much better idea.”

Dahl tried to shove the drow back, but Phalar was quick and the darkness, complete. “You nearly killed me.”

“Yes,” Phalar said. “Because I like you, cahalil.” Dahl felt the drow clap him on the arm, and the darkness evaporated. “So you get to be ‘nearly’ dead.” He chuckled again. “Come along.”

They skirted the fortress wall, before slipping in through a trapdoor that led to the cistern.

“There you are,” Phalar said. “Swim through and you’ll come out in the fortress.”

“You really think I’m an idiot.”

“It’s rainwater,” Phalar said. He pulled a pair of skins from his pack. “No one wants to drink the tainted stuff.” He held out a hand. “My dagger?”

“You’re supposed to get me into the fortress,” Dahl said.

“I don’t go into the fortress,” Phalar told him, filling the first skin. “All the stores I steal from are in the outbuildings-where I can get out quickly.

A drow in the fortress would be a little suspect, don’t you think?”

“So how do I know this doesn’t end with me drowning in some underground river?”

“You don’t,” Phalar allowed. He gave Dahl a wicked smile. “I could snatch that blade, cut your throat, and leave you here for some jack to find the next time the wizard gets thirsty.”

Dahl was sure Phalar wasn’t lying-the drow likely had plenty of practice cutting throats in the darkness. But he was also sure that he wasn’t the easy target Phalar expected-especially with the drow god stirring up his adrenalin, urging him to keep the dagger, or maybe leave it buried in Phalar’s gut. “You could,” he said evenly, pushing down that alien brashness for all he was worth. “But then your chances of getting out of here get a little slimmer.

I can’t imagine you like being caged up, put to work for a stlarning half-orc.

But maybe you’re more of a cahalil than you think.”

Phalar smirked. “Well. You’re no fun.”

Dahl waded into the water, up to his waist. The water moved from the small pond he stood in through a narrow passageway. He could see lights beyond, filtered through the cold, dark water. He swam right up to the passage, turned and threw the dagger to Phalar, before ducking under and swimming to the other side.

The cistern room within the fortress was empty, thank the gods. Dahl squeezed as much water as he could from his cloak and shirt, and poured out his boots before donning them once more, half-hoping that the drow would swim up from the cistern and attack him after all-

Dahl shook the urge off and said a little prayer to Oghma as he slipped down the hallway, looking for the armory once more. Much as he’d like to pretend Phalar’s powers were nothing notable, the force still thrumming through him called his bluff. Even with Phalar far behind him. How long was this going to last?

Dahl found the armory and slipped inside. He considered the array of weaponry. Blades, arrows, whips, chains-how much would fit in the sack? How much can you take before they notice? he thought, looking for a new dagger. He was certainly cleverer than some shadow-kissing mercenaries.

Dahl stopped to collect himself-he knew better. He’d worked hard not to be the sort of man that took everything as a challenge. After all, look where that had gotten him.

You’ll be fine in a bit, he told himself. Just don’t make any decisions you can’t undo and keep your steel sheathed. Find a dry uniform, stay calm- As unexpectedly as she’d appeared in the taproom, Farideh stood in front of him, holding a dagger. She looked up at him lazily. Unconcerned. Dahl hadn’t planned this far ahead, what to do or say when he found her, and all the options he’d considered crowded up into his thoughts. For once, Phalar’s damned god had a use.

She’ll cut you down if you don’t take her first, the voice in his thoughts murmured. Dahl reached for his sword, his sureness bolstered by Phalar’s powers. Good, he thought. He wouldn’t be able to do this without it. “Drop the blade,” he said.

Farideh blinked at him, as if she didn’t quite believe he was there. “Dahl?”

“Drop,” he said again, “the blade.”

She looked down at the knife, as if she weren’t sure where it had come from. The dagger fell out of her hands and she threw her arms around him in a way he was very much unprepared for. “You’re all right. Oh gods.” He froze and let go of the sword. Not even Phalar’s god had an answer for this.

“You’re all right,” she said again. “I didn’t know which was the safe one. I was sure. .” She exhaled again, as if it were taking all of her effort to talk. For a moment, he was entirely too aware of her-the curve of her breasts, the strength of her arms, the faint wind of her exhalation, damp with tears on the edge of his collar. She was tall enough to rest her chin on his shoulder, and he noticed this, too, without meaning to.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

She pushed back from him, looking. . tired? Dazed? Embarrassed? Gods, he was still so bad with tiefling eyes. “I don’t know. Something happened.

Everything’s going wrong. I was coming to save you. . but I have to save the girl first, before. .” She inhaled as if she’d forgotten she ought to be doing that. “But I can hardly keep my thoughts. . ”

“What girl?”

“With Rhand,” Farideh said. “She’s so young. But then she’s so strange too. Like a shadow? Like a nightmare? But he’s the nightmare.” She was squeezing his arms, her hands over the sharp buckles of the bracers, and she was swaying on her feet. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. She met his eyes, and the shade of them shifted, darkened. He wondered if she was trying to focus on his face. “I think I was poisoned.” Horror poured through Dahl. “What did he give you?”

“Not like that,” she said. “He calls her ‘my lady’ like he doesn’t want to.

The Nameless One.”

Dahl steadied her. “Gods damn it, concentrate. What happened?”

“I looked in the waters,” she said. “The Fountains of Memory. There’s no way out, we’re trapped. And then I hid in the cabinet. There was Rhand and the girl, the nameless girl. There’s something. . he seemed ill too-

like he was falling apart and couldn’t stop it. Like he hated her and was afraid of her. And. .” She swallowed. “And now I can’t bear it. It’s like I’m smothering in my own skin. I thought I could drive it out with the knife. But I’m not brave.”

“You tried to fight an arcanist’s mummy alone, last I recall. You’re brave enough,” he said, his mind racing. “This started in the study? Had you seen that girl before?”

She shook her head. “She came today, from Shade. To see about Rhand’s works.”

Dahl cursed again. A girl that Rhand feared and deferred to must be something terrible indeed. If Phalar’s god could fill Dahl with reckless nerve, then someone blessed by the Lady of Loss might fill a soul with melancholy and numbness. He thought of his darkest days, the feeling of despair settling down on him, heavy enough to stop his breath. If a body were swallowed up by that feeling, without a source, without an outlet. .

That body would look for a cure, he thought. Something to shock it out of them. Like a knife through the palm.

“I have to save her,” Farideh said, tears welling in her eyes. “And I can’t save her. Not like this. I can’t save anybody.”

“You shouldn’t save her,” Dahl said, trying to think of a solution. “She’s a bigger problem than Rhand.”

Farideh stared at him a moment, horrified. “She’s just a girl.”

“Would he be scared of a girl?” Dahl demanded. “She’s got powers over him. You need to stay far away from her. Let Rhand handle her.”

“I’m not leaving her to be handled-or worse-by that monster.” Dahl’s mind turned to the mutilated apprentice, and he pushed it aside.

“He wouldn’t dare do anything of the sort,” Dahl said. “Not this time. Not if I’m right.”

Farideh drew back from him, rigid with fury. “Right,” she snapped. “Just like he wouldn’t have done anything of the sort at that revel.” Dahl felt himself color. “Gods’ books,” he spat. “Truly? Now?”

“You could say I’m reminded. Clearly it’s well out of your mind.”

“Do you think I don’t regret that?” he demanded. “It’s plagued me for years, that mistake. When I found out you were dead, I was convinced it had been Rhand’s hand that did it and my fault that it was you. But you’re not

dead, and I’ve apologized, and this is not the same situation, gods damn it!”

“You most certainly did not apologize,” Farideh said. “You said I wasn’t allowed to blame you-which is not a karshoji apology.”

“Fine!” Dahl shouted. “I’m sorry. Did you really think I wasn’t? It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done to someone-of course I’m sorry. How could I not be?”

“You’re unbelievable. How is it you can turn an apology into an insult about what an idiot I am?”

“I didn’t say you were an idiot.”

“You didn’t have to,” she said. “Because I’m not.”

Dahl bristled, churning with Phalar’s recklessness. “Yes. Terribly wise getting us dragged off to a Netherese prison camp. Perhaps you ought to be the loremaster.”

“You don’t even know what-oh.” Farideh gave a little laugh. “It doesn’t

take a knife.” She giggled again, covering her mouth as if to stem the mad laughter.

“Oh gods,” Dahl said. “Is this a fit?”

“I’m not having a fit. I’m fine. It’s passed. Whatever it was, apparently it doesn’t go well with being really karshoji angry.” She smiled. “So thank you for being unpleasant.”

Dahl sighed, still on edge and annoyed and ready to argue. But at least he’d fixed it. Sort of. That was something. “You’re welcome. And I am sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Farideh said, still fighting back giggles. “Gods, sorry-the difference is really nice.” She frowned at him. “Why are you all wet?”

“This girl,” Dahl said, trying to steer her back to the matter at hand, “you didn’t feel strange until she was there, right? And Rhand didn’t look well?”

“He looked like he was about to fall down.”

“But you were fine before,” Dahl asked, “when you were alone with Rhand?

She’s got to be the source.”

“She’s just a girl,” Farideh protested.

And a girl could channel the powers of the gods as easily as a half-orc or a Rashemi woman or a Turmishan boy who trails flowers. “She’s probably one of them,” he said. “Are you likely to run into her again?”

“I have no idea,” Farideh said. “I keep thinking I’ve figured out what’s happening, and then it all changes.” She told him what she’d overheard, what Rhand had shared with her and what she thought she’d missed, and about the waters pulled from the Fountains of Memory. “I don’t know what he’s doing exactly,” she admitted, “but it’s important. And complicated.”

“You don’t know,” Dahl said, overwhelmingly glad that he’d been right.

She wasn’t a sympathizer. She wasn’t a traitor.

Farideh scowled at him. “I’m trying, but he keeps me out-”

“That isn’t what I mean,” Dahl said. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why are you helping him?”

Her expression shifted-was that sadness or annoyance or confusion? “I made a deal with a devil,” she said finally, and he decided it was something in the middle of all three. “Seems Rhand made a deal with the same devil, and that’s my payment. If I don’t help, she gets my soul. Worse, if I don’t help, she’ll go after Havilar. A very stupid thing to do,” she added swiftly.

“I know that.”

Dahl sighed. “I’m not going to tell you it was wise. But we are both in this now, however it happened, and it might be for the best. I don’t know when-or if-we would have found this place otherwise. And then it might have been too late.”

“Too late for what?”

Dahl frowned at her. “You really don’t have any idea what he’s doing.”

“Will you just tell me?”

“These people are Chosen of the gods,” Dahl said.

“Like in chapbooks?”

“Somewhat.” He told her about Oota and Phalar and Torden, about Samayan and the trail of daisies. About the strange things Tharra had told him. Her look of shock was unmistakable.

“So you think the Nameless One is a Chosen of Shar?”

“Fits, doesn’t it?”

She turned from him. “So what does Rhand do with them?”

“No one seems to know,” Dahl said. “They disappear. But no one’s finding bodies.”

“But knowing Rhand, it’s nothing good.” Farideh hugged her arms to herself. “And I’m helping him do it. Karshoj.”

“What are you doing?”

She shook her head. “Something happened in the Hells, I think. I can make myself see things. He says they’re people’s souls. I don’t know. I tell him which ones look different. Which ones are tied to the gods, I suppose, if they’re Chosen.”

He hadn’t been expecting that. “Did you look at mine?”

“Only for a moment.” She gave him a sideways look. “It’s-” He flushed, unexpectedly embarrassed. “Don’t. Please, don’t.” She regarded the blade lying on the floor. “Sorry. I won’t. Not anymore.” Dahl considered her. “He needs you to tell him which people are and which aren’t. So if you lied. .”

She pursed her mouth. “He can’t tell if I’m telling the truth. Not until later on, after he does whatever he does. Makes their powers come out, I suppose. So I’ll just start telling him there’s no Chosen in each group.

Send everyone back out into the camp, until we can figure something out.

I’ve looked at a hundred people easily,” she said. “Maybe I found all the Chosen already? He said he gets a lot of ordinary people. It could be that they’re all ordinary.”

“A hundred?” Dahl said. “No, that’s too many. He’ll notice if you suddenly can’t see anything.”

“What choice do I have?” Farideh demanded.

“We’ll think of something else,” Dahl said. “Don’t make him angry.” An awkward silence passed. “He hasn’t hurt you has he?”

“No. It’s odd. He’s being so polite. I’d started to wonder if I had remembered wrong. If maybe everything from before was in my head.” A hand, an eye, a foot at the ankle-Dahl shuddered. “It wasn’t. In fact, I’d really rather you came back out of here with me. Safer.”

“That’s going to make him just as angry. And then we’re still trapped behind the wall,” she said. She turned, searching the racks of weapons. “I haven’t found a way around that either. I asked the waters, no one’s even come close to escaping or damaging the wall.” She hesitated. “But the waters, they make portals too.” Farideh pulled a battered sword and belt from the stacks. “They don’t last long, I don’t think you can control where they open.”

“So we end up on another plane, maybe in another time, and we leave all these people to their probable doom, and Shade to reap some sort of reward.”

An option, Dahl thought. A last resort. Grab a few, fight their way in and go.

“Does he have any maps? Anything that shows where we are?”

“There were some in the study. Nothing marked.”

“I sent a message to Tam, but I could only guess at where we are. A map would be handy if he passes another sending along.”

“Right.” Farideh yanked open her haversack and slid a blue silk-bound ritual book and a bundle of dark cloth out of it. “Here-if it helps. I don’t have any more than when you taught them to me,” she added apologetically. “So nothing spectacular. And I grabbed the components more or less at random.” Dahl leafed through the book-a sending spell, a spell to control fire, a sentinel, a magic circle, a spell to unlock doors, and the amplification ritual he’d inked in there for her, too powerful for her to cast just yet. “Still, thank the Binder, this is something.” The bundle was small-good for maybe a ritual or two if she had taken the right things. “And thank you. Pity there’s no one to buy components from.”

“Tell me what you need and I’ll find it,” Farideh said.

“No. Don’t let him catch you raiding his stores.”

“I’m not the one sneaking through the fortress hoping no one realizes they’ve never seen me before.” She pulled a rod off a shelf, a battered-looking thing with cracked and cloudy amethysts at its tips. Dahl smiled, the last of that strange rashness evaporating.

“You still have it.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Why wouldn’t I?”

The rod had been a peace offering, an apology for all the things he’d said all those years ago. He’d had to give it to her devil instead of Farideh, and he’d half expected to find out that Lorcan had thrown the package out first chance he had.

“Lorcan’s not going to swoop in here and rescue you, right?” he asked.

“And if he is, would he mind a few passengers?”

It was a shoddy joke, and she didn’t smile. “He’s not coming for me.” The sound of the door unlatching made both of them freeze. The wedge of light from the torches beyond cut through the gloom the hanging glowballs couldn’t disperse. Farideh dropped from the shelves, and she’d no more than touched ground but Dahl grabbed her around the waist and pulled her behind the racks where he’d stuffed his clothes that first night. They slipped into the low, dark space, pressed to the floor, peering out as two pairs of feet came around the swords’ rack, jingling with each step.

“Anything missing?” a man’s voice said.

“How could you tell?” a woman sneered. “This place is a mess.”

“Nirka,” Farideh breathed.

“What does it matter?” the man said. “You grab a weapon, you have what you need.”

“It matters if there are intruders stealing from us,” Nirka said. She paced across the room, toward Farideh and Dahl’s hiding place.

“And who said there are intruders?”

“A rumor,” Nirka replied.

Nirka came to stand beside the rack of implements, where Farideh had been, and chuckled roughly. “Ah. The little demon’s rod is gone.” Dahl felt Farideh tense against him. “She’s the one been snooping.”

“It’s her weapon,” the man pointed out. “I’d drag my chain out of here if someone tried to hide it. And then maybe I’d find somewhere to hide it in them.” He paused, then added, “Are you going to ask her about it?” He sounded as if he’d like to watch that.

Nirka sniffed. “Not tonight. Not with the Lady’s Handmaiden up there.” The man laughed. “Chavak says you can master it if you prick your hands four times every step.”

“Best of luck to Chavak,” Nirka said as they walked back out the door.

“I’ll give him a day and a half before he fades, trying that nonsense.” The latch clicked again, and Dahl let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “You know her?”

Farideh nodded, her eyes still on the place where the shadar-kai had stood.

“She’s the guard they put on my room most of the time.”

Dahl thought of Phalar. “Does she guard the wall when she’s not with you?”

“I don’t know,” Farideh said. “I assume they all do at times.” And Dahl had to assume that if a voice whispered from the darkness about intruders in the armory, any one of the guards would leap at the chance to root them out. Stlarning drow.

“Help me thin these weapons out,” Dahl said. “And we’ll make a plan for what comes next.”