Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

  BEFORE SHE COULD register what the smell was, Farideh’s stomach twisted, as if it were trying to escape out her back. In the hall of the catacombs, she looked back at Havilar, who threw up a hand to stop Brin.

  “Brin, maybe you should stay back here,” Havilar said.

  “I’ve seen a dead body before.”

  “These … have been dead for some time,” Farideh said. A few days, by the smell.

  “You’re going to vomit,” Havilar said bluntly. Brin’s mouth tightened. “You know you are.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  Havilar looked as if she were going to protest further, but she shook her head. “Fine,” she said. “It’s your stomach.” Brin started to reply, but Havilar was already striding off. He watched her with an expression that suggested he’d let his stomach turn inside out before he threw up.

  Farideh struggled to find something reassuring to say. She hardly knew what to do with the two of them these days. Brin regarded her as though he knew there was nothing she could say. “What are you worried about?” he asked. “With Havi, I mean. You’re getting jumpy. Why do we need to leave so fast?”

  Farideh bit her lip. “Has she ever told you about Arjhani?”

  “A little. He was Mehen’s lover?”

  Farideh watched her sister heading down the passageway. Its height and breadth had been carved for dragonborn, and so Havilar seemed dwarfed and delicate. “It would be bad if she were to see Arjhani again.”

  “Why?” Brin asked. “What happened?”

  Farideh shook her head. It was complicated, snarled and tangled around the time and the place. How could she explain without making her or Havilar sound mad, without explaining everything Arjhani had meant and represented? “Not now.”

  “And not later,” Brin finished. “Since you two say we have to leave right away. I get it.”

  The stink of death became stronger with each doorway, until they ended in a long room dominated by a series of sepulchers and lined with niches. On the far wall, names in Draconic etched the granite surface. The Roll of the Lost, the runes over it read. Those ancestors who remained in Abeir, Farideh thought, whose bones were never recovered. A handful of dragonborn already stood around the room, holding torches.

  On the floor lay the bodies, or what was left of them.

  Someone had drawn sheets over the dead, but even at a glance Farideh could tell they were many and they were none of them intact. Blood stained the stone around the bodies, great pools of it, drying against the polished granite. Farideh pressed her sleeve against her nose and mouth, and counted ten skull-sized lumps.

  Brin turned gray and gritted his teeth. He quickly left the room, Havilar watching him with a sympathetic expression she dropped as soon as she saw Farideh watching her.

  “Here now,” someone said. A dragonborn man with graying, rusty scales and long tasseled plumes. Silver chains draped from the piercings on his face, and the right sleeve of his shirt was tacked up where his arm had been lost. At his feet, a dead woman with the same silver-chain piercing lay on a stretcher, half covered by a cloth. Blood spots oozed through the sheet at her midsection. “This is a matter for clans—”

  “Oh, Gesh,” Anala said, pressing a handkerchief to her snout. “Don’t be ridiculous. Did you think I stroll around trailing miscreants?” She looked back at Farideh and smiled in a way Farideh couldn’t decipher. “They’ve come with me.”

  “May I present,” Anala said to Mehen, “Shestandeliath Geshthax, son of Orothain and patriarch of his clan.” She gestured to a second dragonborn standing against the far wall, her patina-green scaled hands clutching a walking stick. Two jade rings pierced the scales on the side of her neck, and a deep scar marked her chest. “And Ophinshtalajiir Kaijia, daughter of Laerysth and matriarch of her clan. You remember my nephew?” she asked. “Mehen?”

  The dragonborn elders hid their surprise better than their followers—two women and a man who were seeing to the bodies. “Pandjed’s son?” the younger woman said, earning her a sharp look from Geshthax.

  “The very same,” Anala said, as though no insult worth such a look were offered. Farideh and Havilar glanced at each other—Djerad Thymar wouldn’t be so simple as they’d hoped. Anala turned back to the circle of bodies. “Which is Baruz?” she asked softly.

  Verthisathurgiesh Baruz lay a short distance away from the others, against one of the smaller tombs, a wand lying at the fingertips of one outstretched hand and his sword half-drawn from its sheath. Anala lifted the covering from his face. The bronze scales of his throat had been torn away in a deep, brutal wound. She let out a soft, shuddering breath, and Mehen reached over to pull the cloth back up.

  “No,” she said. “I want to know what we’re up against.”

  Havilar slipped up beside Farideh, sleeve over her nose. “I should get credit for not telling Brin I told him so. I can barely manage.” She looked down at Baruz. “Oh. Wizard?”

  Farideh shook her head, eyes on Anala. “I don’t know.”

  Farideh looked over the other bodies. They had fallen in a rough circle, four fleeing out into the crypt before dying. All of them bloodied. Something or someone fast indeed, she thought. Something that surprised them. She wasn’t sure how old the others were, but if Mehen had known Baruz, he was old enough to have trained as a Lance Defender. He was old enough to have some skill with a weapon and maybe with spells.

  And someone had still killed him as if he were helpless.

  “It smells disgusting in here,” Havilar whispered. “Do you smell that?”

  Farideh shook her head—besides the strange odor of rot, only the flinty smell of blood overlay the kind of dampness she expected from being underground.

  “It smells like the kind of perfume you buy from a tinker.” Havilar wrinkled her nose. “And Lorcan.”

  Farideh turned fully to her sister, alarmed, but before she could ask what that meant, another dragonborn trailing followers entered the crypt.

  His scales were the color of tarnished brass, green and dark, and the row of piercings along his brow ridges traced the waxing and waning of silvery, miniature moons, just like Dumuzi’s. Kepeshkmolik, Farideh thought. Every one of the dragonborn watched him, watched Mehen.

  “Narghon,” the Ophinshtalajiir matriarch said, nodding to the man. Anala straightened, spun, still smiling but suddenly stiff as a poker. Mehen kept his eyes down, locked on Baruz’s corpse.

  Kepeshkmolik Narghon’s gaze swept over the room, the carnage, the other elders. Mehen. “I see your guest arrived, Anala,” he said coldly.

  “And in good health,” Anala said. “Better than I can say for these young ones.”

  Narghon’s nostrils flared over his curled lip. He scanned the room once more, spotting Havilar and Farideh. Surprise overtook his features, and he stared at Farideh with bald confusion. Farideh stared back, unwilling to blink first, and the powers of Asmodeus nipped at her temper. She made herself look away, slow her breathing.

  “Which of them called you down, Kepeshkmolik?” Kaijia asked. She shook her head. “These hatchlings running wild, hither and yon, carrying gossip like it’s water from the river.” Her own followers traded glances, as if they were used to such dressing-downs.

  “Atchni,” Narghon spat. “I don’t know where she heard it from. I grieve your losses.”

  Beside Farideh, Havilar exhaled noisily, nervously. Her fingers drummed against her thighs, and the faint sheen of sweat stood out on her upper lip. Farideh nudged her—was she all right? Havilar swallowed hard and gave her head a little shake.

  “Cover your nose,” Farideh said. “And go stand with Brin.”

  “It’s not that,” Havilar whispered. “It’s … I can handle it. Stop fussing.”

  “Has anyone sent for the Adjudicators?” Narghon asked. Anala’s brow ridges shifted, and she turned to the other two elders. Geshthax tapped his tongue to the roof of his mouth, very deliberately, and Kaijia’s hands closed more tightly over the walking stick. />
  “I don’t see how that’s necessary at this point,” she said. “It’s not clear to me that we’re dealing with anything so dire. A falling out, perhaps?”

  How it could be anything but dire, Farideh couldn’t imagine. The smell of rot, the lack of survivors. She turned to Mehen, but her father said nothing, only kept his eyes locked on the sarcophagus against the wall.

  “A matter for clans,” Geshthax agreed. “Someone should send a message to Yrjixtilex and Daardendrien. Theirs are here as well.”

  Farideh sidled up beside her father. “Are we … Should we be here while they’re seeing to their dead? What is it Anala wants us to do?”

  Mehen didn’t answer. He was staring at the largest of the tombs, draped with a cloth of gold. Carvings lined the sides, a relief of dragonborn warriors dying in battle and bringing terrible beasts with them.

  “Is that where he is?” Farideh asked, softly. “Pandjed?”

  “Thrik,” he murmured. “She wants us to see what the others are missing. Or ignoring.” He looked past her, at Havilar looking peaked, and cursed. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “I think the smell’s bothering her. I’ll look,” Farideh said, easing around him, her cuff pressed to her nose and mouth. The dragonborn bundling the bodies of their clan-kin eyed her as she kneeled beside him.

  At first, she saw only the horrible injuries, the blood—the way these dragonborn had surely died. She peeked beneath one of the sheets and wished she hadn’t. Kaijia was wrong—whatever had killed them wasn’t normal. She’d wager the whole of her take on it. The wounds were rough and ragged, torn flesh, not sliced. An animal, she thought. But what beast would be running free in the catacombs? So maybe a pet? She thought of Zoonie—Zoonie could kill someone like this, and would the dragonborn even think to look for something like that? How could they help it? Farideh thought, replacing the cloth. A hellhound wouldn’t be ignored for long.

  And then she spotted something out of the ordinary.

  Poking out from the edge of the blood pool, the jagged edge of strange runes outlined in silvery powder caught the torchlight. Farideh leaned nearer, tracing the path of them as it curved … a circle.

  The scent of brimstone threaded through the sweet-sour smell of death, and a chill ran down Farideh’s spine. The smell of a portal. A smell like Lorcan’s, she thought.

  But the runes weren’t the ones she knew—if it were a portal, where was it set to go?

  Or maybe the question is, she thought, what had come out?

  “What were they doing down here?” Farideh called. The dragonborn all stared at her, as if she had sat up from among the dead to speak. “Do you know?”

  “Your guest’s manners leave something to be desired, Verthisathurgiesh,” Geshthax said crisply. Farideh felt her cheeks burn. Anala wouldn’t look at her.

  The Shestandeliath patriarch beckoned his followers. “Come. Parvida deserves a better rest than this.” Two of the dragonborn hauled a litter bearing its sad load from the crypt, and the Ophinshtalajiir contingent followed with their fallen. Kepeshkmolik Narghon left with them, deliberately not looking at Mehen or Farideh now.

  Anala made a little sound, deep in her throat. “Solving these murders,” she said, “would ease many minds when it comes to counting tieflings among Khorsaya’s line.”

  Farideh turned to Mehen in shock. Mehen kept his eyes on the tomb.

  “That’s what you think to tempt me with?” Mehen said.

  “It’s an offer,” Anala said. “Make no mistake, first and foremost I want justice for Baruz. But I still want you to come back.”

  “You think it was one of his companions?”

  Anala shook her head. “I don’t know. But I know none of the elders wishes to make this a matter for Vanquisher Tarhun or his Adjudicators. I know they are all embarrassed that their clan-kin were found dead in Verthisathurgiesh’s vault. They know something else is going on.”

  “Were any of them dabbling in magic?” Farideh asked, thinking of the portal marks. “Other than Baruz?”

  Anala smiled at her thinly. “That is what I need you to discover.”

  The sound of Havilar emptying her stomach interrupted them. She straightened, one hand on the carved stone wall, looking paler than Farideh had left her.

  “Oh karshoj! Did Brin hear that?” she said, wiping her mouth. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth again and crouched down, head between her knees.

  Anala’s smile fell slightly. “Well,” she said. “Better out than in, they say.” More dragonborn arrived, the representatives of still more clans, come to collect their dead before the Adjudicators could arrive. Anala greeted them each as though they were walking into her sitting room, all her grief stuffed down someplace deep.

  Mehen came up beside Havilar and rubbed her back as she straightened. “It’s all right,” he said. “Happens to everyone.”

  “It didn’t happen to you,” she said a little thickly. “But at least I found something.” She held up a thin silver chain. On one end, a bloodied ring, where it had been torn from someone’s skin. At the other, the chain was twisted, mangled, as if it had gone through some sort of grinder. Mehen took it from her, frowning.

  “It looks like jewelry,” Havilar said.

  “It is,” Mehen said. “It’s a clan piercing. Must have been the Shestandeliath girl’s.”

  “No,” Farideh said. “She was still wearing her piercing.” The silver chain swung gently from her father’s fist. “Do any of the others wear a chain?”

  “Not like that. Just Shestandeliath.”

  “Could it be the killer’s?”

  “Don’t say that too loudly,” Mehen murmured. He pooled the chain into his hand and slipped it into a pocket, eyes on the dragonborn elders.

  “There’s a circle of runes too,” Farideh whispered. “Under the blood.”

  Mehen’s expression hardened. “You recognize it?”

  She shook her head. “The runes that are left are different. But it doesn’t look like they used silver. That would …” She faltered. Missing silver was why Lorcan had been able to get out of the circle, the first time she met him. “It would keep the circle from holding something bad in,” she finished.

  “Anything else?”

  “He’s casting out of the circle.” They turned to Brin, who stood just behind Mehen, still looking a little green. He pointed down at Baruz’s body. “I don’t see how he could have fallen that way if he was casting at something in the center there.” He frowned. “Havi, are you all right?”

  “Fine!” Havilar said, with a hard glare at Mehen.

  Farideh traced the line of Baruz’s wand, out toward the far side of the tomb. Three more sarcophagi rested near that wall, where a hundred niches held a hundred lead ossuaries, the resting bones of Mehen’s ancestors. Another door led deeper into the catacombs.

  “So if it was a falling out, someone got away.”

  “Mehen?” Anala called. The nervous young man who’d led them down was joined by another with a stretcher. “We ought to go. Give them space.”

  Mehen nodded and turned to go, but Farideh caught him. “I want to check something,” Farideh whispered. “All right?”

  “Be quick,” Mehen whispered. “And careful.” He and Brin followed Anala out. Farideh slid her arm through Havilar’s as she turned to go.

  “Come with me a moment,” she whispered. “I have an idea.”

  “Are you going to stir up that portal?” Havilar demanded as they stepped into the dark hallway beyond the sarcophagi.

  “No,” Farideh watched the dragonborn secure their dead. None of them gave any notice to the two tieflings. “It’s not a Hellsportal.”

  Havilar snorted. “Small favors.”

  Farideh took a deep breath. “But it’s something. I think you should call the imps.”

  “What?”

  “The dragonborn aren’t going to admit what was going on down here. But whatever they were doing, we have to know, or we’re missi
ng the most important detail.”

  “We can figure that out without the imps. What happened to staying out of trouble?” Havilar shook her head. “Why are you the one suggesting we get into trouble?”

  “I’m not,” Farideh said. “But we need help—otherwise we’ll end up stuck here for ages. Do you want that?”

  Havilar stared at her as if she’d gone right out of her mind. “Wouldn’t it work better to call Lorcan? I mean—trust me—he’s smarter than these imps.”

  Farideh bit off her reply. “Call the imps. Please.”

  Havilar scowled at her, as if she heard everything Farideh didn’t say and everything she’d thought as well. “Fine,” she spat. Then a little louder, “I need some help.”

  The air behind them popped. Havilar spun around, pulling her glaive in front and moving to block Farideh from …

  A pair of imps who sat on the ground, their stinger-laden tails curved over their heads as if they were no more than curious cats. One was red as clay and the other was deepnight blue.

  “What do you want?” the red one said.

  Havilar sighed. “Well met, Mot.” She glanced at the blue imp. “Who’s that?”

  “Olla,” Mot said with utter disgust. “He’s Dembo’s replacement.”

  “Why are there two of you?” the deepnight blue imp asked in a nasal voice. “There’s only supposed to be one. That’s what they said.”

  “We’re only supposed to take care of this one,” Mot said. “The gold-eyed one. I don’t know why.” He looked up at Havilar. “So what do you want?”

  “That depends. Can either of you read?”

  “Blistering archlords, what do you think we are? Dogs?”

  “I don’t know!” Havilar said. She folded her arms. “There’s some kind of a portal in the other room. And a lot of dead bodies. Can you tell where the portal was supposed to go? Without being seen—that’s important.”

  Olla looked anxiously at Mot. “Is that meddling?”