Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

  “If by chance,” Lorcan said, “you’ve taken to thinking of me as a surprisingly large imp, I’d like to remind you that if you order me around like that, I’ll make my Brimstone Angel more valuable in one stroke.”

  Havilar shook her head. “Pothachi—as if you wouldn’t lose Farideh the second you killed me.”

  “You make it sound like your sister always knows what I do.”

  “She’d find out eventually. She always does.” Havilar clicked her tongue at the hellhound. She dropped to her belly beside Havilar, standing the moment Havilar’s leg swung over. “Careful, Zoonie!” she cried, catching her balance. “I’ll tell her not to run if you stop being a henish.”

  They didn’t speak again until they were nearly to the city. “You couldn’t have asked me to come somewhere a bit closer?” Lorcan said as the gates of Djerad Thymar came into sight. “Tell me what you want and let’s get this over with.”

  “First,” Havilar said, “I think you ought to apologize to Farideh. Whatever it is you’ve done.”

  “I did.”

  “Right. Sure you did.”

  “Like it or not, your sister isn’t innocent in our dealings. I’ve forgiven her, she ought to forgive me. What I did was trivial, anyway.”

  “Maybe if you’re in the Hells.” Havilar shook her head. “Don’t talk to her if you’re not going to apologize, you’ll just make it worse.”

  “How wonderful that you thought it worth my time and magic to haul myself across the planes to hear this. Especially when I could have gotten it free from my own sister.”

  “Second,” Havilar said forcefully, “it’ll help you if you help me. Because she wants to leave Djerad Thymar as soon as possible, and we can’t leave until Mehen finds out who killed some people. I called you because I think it’s something Abyssal.”

  Lorcan frowned. She climbed off the dog and took the chain around her waist. “Look,” he said, “just as you shouldn’t consider me an oversized imp, you shouldn’t think that those imps know anything at all—”

  “It’s not the imps,” Havilar said. “It’s me.”

  Though the dragonborn guarding the gates of the city eyed Havilar and the hellhound as they passed, the little token she flashed at them seemed to ensure their goodwill. They skirted the edge of a market, more crowd than streets, and nearly every face among them a dragonborn’s. Twice Lorcan’s eyes lit on tiefling women, islands in that sea of scales, but neither one was Farideh.

  Havilar led him to a door set into the stone floor of the city, and they descended into a network of catacombs. Havilar dismounted from the hellhound and led both it and Lorcan through the tunnels some distance, before stopping in a large tomb dominated by a quartet of sepulchers.

  The smell of rot lingered, though whatever bodies had been there had long since been carted away. The fine hairs on the back of Lorcan’s neck prickled—more than rot. Lorcan drew his sword.

  “That’s the first thing,” Havilar said. “It smells bad. I know someone died in here, but—”

  “Zoonie?” The hellhound lifted her head. “Parosh renoutaa,” he said in Infernal.

  Zoonie lowered herself, growling, to the floor, ready to spring. She bared her iron-gray teeth, sparks raining from her jaws.

  “Zoonie, stop it!” Havilar snapped. Zoonie straightened and backed toward her, still tense, still watching Lorcan. “Stop giving my dog orders!”

  “Hush.” Lorcan racked his memory, searching the scattering of lessons his erinyes sisters had given him. “Chizaći chizaći gerje ghod ze!” he called, a rough string of Abyssal that echoed through the tomb.

  “What’s that?” Havilar whispered.

  “The all clear,” Lorcan said. Or he hoped at least—he had never been the most attentive pupil where the erinyes were concerned, especially not when it came to information only suited for the long-ended Blood War.

  The echoes faded. “Ah! Lhayox’ales!” he called.

  Lhayox’xales? The mewling voice nudged into Lorcan’s thoughts, echoing strangely. Takhi okhznay? Ang ostarkija murta … Something rustled at the other end of the tomb. A chill ran down his spine.

  “Zoonie? Renoutaa.”

  The hellhound didn’t move. Lorcan looked back over his shoulder—Zoonie stared at Havilar, who was watching Lorcan, looking fairly peaked. He gestured at the tomb, the source of the strange voice.

  Havilar nodded. “R-renoutaa.”

  Zoonie raced forward, toward the sarcophagus. She slammed into it with all her weight, knocking the lid ajar. She pounced it once, twice, and the stone slab crashed against the granite. Something within screeched as the hellhound lunged in and pulled out a scrabbling, screaming little beast. Gray and hairless with long, clawed arms and tapered ears, it shivered, clutching a piece of a partly mummified dragonborn corpse that it struck Zoonie with over and over as she returned it to Lorcan.

  Ja naghinuxara! Ja naghinuxara! its little voice said, and Lorcan struggled to pick out words that he knew. Ang ostarkija murta! Khanakho ni, ni Graz’zt znayat san xi! Graz’zt ja naghpadakha!

  I’m alone. The others are dead.

  A cloud of green gas spread off it, and Zoonie dropped it, coughing sparks. “Dretch,” Lorcan spat. Of course that smarmy little imp had to be right. “T’Ikaw sijusa ka?” Who summoned you?

  The dretch jibbered more Abyssal, protesting that it had not been summoned and that a great demon lord would devour Lorcan and it both if he didn’t—

  Zoonie lunged again and grabbed the little demon by one arm. Before Lorcan could so much as take a step, she shook it furiously and snap—the arm broke, her jaws closed, and the rest of the dretch went flying. The dretch screamed like a creature ten times the size, and vanished in a puff of fire as it hit the wall.

  “I wasn’t finished,” Lorcan said. Zoonie coughed and licked the roof of her mouth before trotting back over to the sarcophagus.

  Havilar crouched down on the floor, gray-faced and shaking. Lorcan frowned. “It’s just a dretch.”

  In answer she heaved again and sprinted toward the corner where she vomited noisily. Zoonie whined and looked from Lorcan to Havilar.

  “We should go,” Lorcan said. “That noise is likely to call people.”

  “Wait,” Havilar said. She straightened, wiping her mouth and breathing hard. “Why does it make me sick?”

  “Because it smells like a pile of corpses washed in vomit and dogshit?”

  “It happened before,” Havilar said. “Not this bad, but I know what it feels like. She said it was the Abyss that made my skin crawl and my bones itch. She called it a gift befitting the Chosen of the king of devils. What kind of gift is throwing up at demons?”

  Lorcan’s wings twitched. “Who said that?”

  “The ghost,” Havilar said “Bryseis Kakistos. Which you would know if you hadn’t mucked everything up with Farideh.”

  Lorcan’s heart nearly stopped. “The ghost of Bryseis Kakistos contacted you?”

  “She came to Farideh in the internment camp, only Fari didn’t know who it was. She went after me while we were traveling, possessed some people. Including Brin.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?” Lorcan demanded. “What in the name of the shitting Nine does she want? What did you tell her? Why did you not tell me?”

  “Because Farideh said not to!” Havilar shouted back. “Anyway, I’m telling you now. Because she also made me sick and that thing made me sick and I can’t really live my life throwing up at odd moments, especially when its people I need to be able to fight that make it happen.” She folded her arms over her stomach. “Anyway, she hasn’t come back since Constancia turned her after she possessed Brin. Unless she’s involved with this—I don’t understand how any of this works.”

  This was not a development Lorcan particularly knew how to contend with. The Brimstone Angel had been one of the greatest champions of Asmodeus, but she’d died in conflict with the god, and her soul had vanished from the Nine Hells nearly fifty years before. What
she might be up to, what she might want now, whether she still existed as the same soul—no one knew the answers to these questions. No one, outside the very foolish, wanted to know. Bryseis Kakistos was a special sort of anathema. A problem that could not be ignored but that must not be dug into.

  “It is very unlikely that the Brimstone Angel is skulking the catacombs murdering dragonborn,” Lorcan said. “I wouldn’t rule it out completely, but signs suggest someone got a boon from some demon in the form of a cluster of dretches dropped on their enemies. This was the last of them—I gathered that much before your unruly hound stepped in. The others are dead or pulled back to the Abyss by now. Again, we should go.”

  “So there’s nothing to worry about?”

  “No one sicced demons on you, I assume? The worst you could do is bother yourself looking for the one who summoned them, or had them sent. You’ll likely know them because you’ll vomit on their boots, so I would just steer clear of anyone who makes you feel sick.”

  “Will I get used to it? Do I have to practice?”

  “Why in the world would I know?” Lorcan said. “It’s not as if this is a common skill. Presumably at some point your stomach will tire of vomiting.” That was true of almost everything—given time, anything could be tolerable. “Until then, you can always stay back.”

  Havilar made a face at him. “I don’t stand at the back.”

  “Stand where you like. I assume your sister’s waiting on you. Zoonie! Eshata!”

  The hellhound didn’t move. She glanced back at Havilar, whining and scratching at the sarcophagus. “What is it?” Havilar asked, crossing to the dog. “Is there something—Oh karshoji gods! There’s a body.”

  “It’s a sarcophagus,” Lorcan said. “They tend to have those.”

  “No, afresh body.” She peered over the stone edge again. “I think it’s one of the young ones … It …”

  Lorcan came to stand beside her. Lying on the withered bones of the sarcophagus’s previous occupant was a young dragonborn man. Small cuts raked his yellowish scales, and a row of red-jasper piercings arched over his wide, staring eyes.

  “How did he get inside?” Havilar asked. “That lid’s not light.”

  “Perseverance?” Lorcan said. He marked the exits, the sound of distant feet and cursed. “Come on. You don’t want to be caught here with a fresh body, do you?”

  “I should tell Mehen.” Havilar clicked her tongue at Zoonie, urging the hellhound to follow, and hurried after Lorcan. “Do you want me to pretend we didn’t talk?”

  “Do as you like,” Lorcan said, trying for careless. “If she’s still sulking, let her sulk.” Near the exit to the catacombs he plucked a ring from the chain he wore around his neck, blowing through the center to cast the whirlwind that sucked him back to the Nine Hells and the fingerbone tower. Letting the disguise fall, Lorcan flicked his wings, agitated and off-balance.

  The iron-framed scrying mirror hung on a wall of weeping marrow. With the portal shut and the lock of sinews sealed over the door, Lorcan stood before the scrying mirror, the scourge pendant he wore clutched in one hand.

  Farideh’s blood soaked the charm, and through it, the magic of the scrying mirror raced across the planes, slipping past the protection spell that still hung heavy around Farideh, preventing anyone from locating her with spells alone.

  The magic sought out the wound that Lorcan had stolen the blood from, and as Farideh appeared—alone, sitting on the edge of an enormous bed in a stone-walled room, hair unbound, and garbed only in a plain shift—she gasped and clapped a hand over the brand on her upper arm.

  She went completely still, as if bracing for something. He tugged the lines of magic that bound them, gentler this time, a caress of power. She shut her eyes, but still she didn’t move.

  “What do you want?” she asked the empty room.

  Lorcan sat a long moment, staring at the mirror, staring at the tiefling woman sitting on the edge of the bed. There were a hundred answers to that question, and not all of them agreed with one another. What would happen if he went? If he was charming? If he was kind? If he lied again? Would things go back the way they were supposed to, or would he regret rushing in?

  He thought of the fight they’d had, the image in the mirror of her and Dahl together. The rage that had overtaken him, like a tide of erinyes blood in his veins. Almost as if another devil altogether had stepped into his skin. He’d moved too quickly, too devilishly. What worked in the Nine Hells wasn’t what worked on Toril, with Farideh.

  He didn’t regret it. Not exactly. With Dahl out of the way, the Harper could hardly pretend to be a rival. But he shouldn’t have gone back to make sure Farideh knew Dahl was gone, he shouldn’t have rubbed it in her face. Now she was angry at him, regardless of everything else.

  He should never have promised Farideh he wouldn’t hurt Dahl. He’d lied once—how different was breaking a promise? Would it unmake him the way it might a full devil?

  He waited. He watched. The vein at the curve of her throat pulsed, a flutter of blood and heat and life.

  She’s safe, he assured himself. You’re not out of chances. And you’ll have to go to her, sooner or later.

  But he sat for a long time, watching the last of his warlocks wait for him to return, fiddling with the scourge pendant and the lines of connection that bound Farideh to him, pointedly not thinking about how much he’d weakened them.

  With Neferis at his back, Osseia welcomed Lorcan with the howls of the long-dead Hag Countess whose skull formed the palace. The pit fiends guarding the gate of its mouth eyed Lorcan and his guard, but they knew better than to stop them. Everyone knew better, it seemed, and it made Lorcan a little giddy. You are all but a devil here, he thought. No one knows how far you can step from the Hells’ grasp.

  But then Ctesiphon stopped him at the entrance to the apartments, her face pale. “There’s a … problem.”

  “What?” Lorcan said. “Does it want a tour of the pleasure gardens now?”

  The powerful erinyes wet her mouth. “You have a visitor … The visitor.”

  Lorcan’s blood ran cold. “Is he still here?”

  Ctesiphon only nodded. Lorcan looked past her, into the audience chamber where only the bone devil should have waited for him. There was no running, he reminded himself. There was nowhere to flee.

  He entered the room as if in a dream, saw the goblet resting on a table beside a cushioned iron chair, saw the lacunae windows that opened out onto the plains of Malbolge. Heard the faint rustle of cloth—

  Lorcan’s vision went black and his knees buckled, his body suddenly slammed prostrate on the bone-tiled floor.

  One would assume, came a voice like a landslide speaking from the center of Lorcan’s brain, that you understand your position, Lorcan. That you understand what is required of you. And yet, you come perilously close to failing me, over and over and over.

  Lorcan could not speak. Asmodeus had no interest in his excuses, his explanations. Invadiah did not matter, Glasya did not matter, the Brimstone Angel did not matter. None of those things were Lorcan, after all.

  She cannot die, the god said. She cannot be allowed to ask too many questions. She …

  The god’s voice faded, as did the supernatural grip on Lorcan’s senses. His left eye saw once more, fuzzy and distorted. Without thinking, he lifted his head, enough to see the edge of Asmodeus, the eye-searing existence of something that belonged to the Nine Hells and yet outstripped it. He closed his eyes again.

  You have no idea how much power you hold, said a voice Lorcan had heard only once before; a voice that was the god of sin’s and yet not at all Asmodeus. You have no idea … It will be you that determines if she succeeds or she succeeds … If she has the tools and the weapons she needs to untangle … to right … or destroy … But then, the voice went on as if it had completed its thought, it would be unwise to hang all ones hopes on what is, in essence, a house divided …

  Lorcan’s pulse felt like a constant vibratio
n, hard enough to rattle his every vein. I don’t want to know this, he thought over and over. I don’t want to know this.

  Suddenly the god’s will over him surged again, pressing him briefly into oblivion before he found himself once more, blind and prostrate on the bone-tile floor. Asmodeus’s presence was a palpable thing, a swarm of wasps, a building thunderhead.

  This time, he said, and Lorcan felt a trickle of blood run from his ear down his jaw, I took care of it for you. See that it doesn’t happen again.

  All at once the presence lifted. Lorcan was whole again and Asmodeus was no longer in the Sixth Layer. The cambion straightened, carefully, cautiously. There was no sign of the bone devil.

  Save one: As Lorcan stood, he saw the long bone lying in the chair, the half-moon shape of its end hooked over the chair’s armrest. He stared at it for long moments, as if it might disappear if he didn’t touch it. He wasn’t so lucky. He plucked it up—a bone of the forearm, slender and gently twisted. Along the length of the shaft, burned in lacy glyphs, was a message:

  You all live at my mercy.

  Lorcan dropped the bone, staring at his open hands as though they might burst into flames by the contact alone.

  Why? Lorcan’s whole being screamed the question. Why did he care about a bone devil? Why care about Farideh in the first place? What was so important it needed this much attention? What was going to happen to Lorcan if he didn’t make sure all of those issues were dealt with?

  And who in all the Nine Hells was calling him a house divided?

  It will be you that determines if she succeeds or she succeeds. Farideh. Glasya. Invadiah. Bryseis Kakistos. There could hardly be a less useful bit of babbling. And yet the strange speaker’s words rattled through his thoughts.

  Lorcan left the room, aware that he was shaking to the tips of his wings. For once, his sisters didn’t mock his weakness, his fragile nature. They only watched, wide-eyed, waiting for orders from the one who had skimmed so close to Asmodeus’s displeasure and survived.

  You won’t survive long if you don’t know what you’re avoiding, Lorcan thought, a little wildly. You need to know what the other Kakistos heirs are doing. You need to know why these are so special. You need to know what he’s hiding, without him finding out.