Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

  “Who’s having ideas?” he said, all innocence.

  She locked her eyes on the floor. “Thank you. I appreciate your help. Don’t do that again.”

  “Fari!” Havilar’s shout from the doorway sent Farideh back another step from Lorcan. Her sister stopped just inside the room, and Farideh found herself searching Havilar for some sign of what Arjhani had said, why he’d come back, what had happened. Havilar looked stoic—maybe surprised … and Farideh realized her sister was staring right back, as if she’d seen that moment in Lorcan’s arms. As if she were saying, What is wrong with you?

  Farideh gave a little shake of her head. There was nothing there, and there was no point bringing Arjhani up.

  “There you are,” Lorcan said. “Was there a purpose to your dallying?”

  Havilar glared at him. “That demon is possessing people. And it’s walking around the city.”

  13

  21 Nightal, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR)

  Djerad Thymar, Kepeshkmolik Enclave

  HOW LONG DO YOU INTEND TO STAY?” MEHEN SAID TO ANALA. SHE turned from the elderly Clethtinthtiallor man she had been speaking with, her smile stiff.

  “As long as it takes to make certain I’ve spoken to everyone,” she said. “You could help, instead of skulking at the edges.”

  Mehen resumed his post against the wall. He had attempted to speak to enough people to realize that he wasn’t going to get anything useful here. Faces with a dozen different piercings stared at Mehen, whispering, wondering. Uadjit avoided him and he couldn’t blame her. The past and Verthisathurgiesh trailed his every move, echoed his every word.

  Narghon strode toward him, powerful still despite his advancing years, and Mehen found himself calculating how fast he could draw his falchion, how much space he’d have to get himself before Narghon had his own blade out. How fast he’d have to leave Djerad Thymar if it came to that.

  “You have quite a lot of nerve showing up here,” the Kepeshkmolik said.

  “I’d be happy to leave,” Mehen said. “But I’ve promised to find Baruz’s killer.”

  Narghon’s eyes flicked over Mehen’s face. “I’m sure those piercings are relevant to your search.”

  “According to Matriarch Anala they are,” Mehen said. “Your scion has her match. Pandjed is dead and has no hold on you. My presence ought to only increase Kepeshkmolik’s standing, since obviously”—he gestured at a staring cluster of hatchlings—“everyone knows Verthisathurgiesh harbors the disrespectful and the dispossessed.”

  Narghon’s expression twisted. “Don’t play the fool. You know exactly the damage you do.”

  The patriarch walked away before Mehen could reply. Enough, he thought. There was nothing for him here, and so he left. Anala caught up to him at the walkways.

  “If you wished to leave,” she said, “then you should have said. There are appearances to consider.”

  “That’s about what Narghon said.”

  “Of course he did. Look, you can hardly expect to make any headway if you leave people thinking you’re still the sullen rebel of your youth.”

  Mehen didn’t respond—it wasn’t worth the response. It didn’t matter if Anala thought him a sullen rebel, a spoiled boy, or a hero. “Does Narghon know everything that happened?” he asked.

  “I assume he knows everything Pandjed told him, perhaps more if he asked Arjhani.”

  “So let’s assume I’ll never find myself on Narghon’s good side.”

  Anala waved this away. “It’s not that valuable a place.”

  “You say that as if you’ve ever been on Kepeshkmolik Narghon’s good side.”

  “I don’t like Narghon,” Anala said, adjusting her scarves. “And I don’t mind flicking his snout, given the option. Uadjit is hardly the perfect heir he pretends her to be.”

  Mehen left that alone too—he didn’t care. Kepeshkmolik could do what it liked and it didn’t affect him, not anymore—

  Uadjit’s interest in Farideh came back to him. A mother’s worry, he thought. An elder’s concern. It almost sounded likely.

  “To the tyrants with Narghon,” Anala said. “Did you find out what you were looking for?”

  “Some,” Mehen said. He scratched his piercings, fumbling over the smooth stone plugs. He’d gone longer not wearing them, he realized, than he’d worn them in the first place. “No one wants to talk about the murders because it would reflect badly on them,” he said. “Which of them would balk at finding out their children were planning to run away to Abeir?”

  “Enough to unleash a monster?” Anala asked. “I would level such a charge at no one. Besides, you can’t be sure that’s what was happening.”

  Mehen swallowed a sigh. “Fair. But you cannot pretend it’s a wild assumption. Others might come to it.” They climbed stairs toward Verthisathurgiesh’s enclave. “Did you know Baruz was interested in Abeir?”

  “No,” she said tersely. “And neither do you.” Her teeth gapped, a glimpse of nerves. “There are plenty of elders who might react badly. I can’t believe any of them would go to these lengths. You know the families who deal in magic. Why not look at them first?”

  Kanjentellequor, Yrjixtilex, Shestandeliath—and there were others. But there was magic, and there was this. “It is,” Mehen admitted, “a monstrous step.”

  “Some people take omin’ iejirkkessh quite seriously,” she said, coming to a stop beside an archway that overlooked the market below, thick with plants. “Which returns us to the ceremony—don’t embarrass me like that again. You may feel you are not Verthisathurgiesh any longer, but when you wear that jade, you are my responsibility and you will act like it.”

  Mehen popped the jade plugs from his jaw. “Fair enough. Take them back.”

  “Is your pride that precious?” Anala asked. “Worth the lives of a dozen hatchlings?” She walked away before he could respond, leaving Mehen holding the piercings in the cup of his hand.

  It’s no different than following the fool rules of some caravansary, Mehen told himself. No different than dancing for the sake of Cormyr’s long-past mistakes. He didn’t put the piercings back in, though.

  In the enclave’s entryway, he was struck by the sudden sense of home, sneaking up out of his memories, like a bandit sliding through the shadows only to spring out in ambush. He moved into the wider atrium, lit through grates to the center of the city and smaller magical lights. He stood, looking up at the carvings of Reshvemi, of Clever Nala, of Khorsaya and the thighbone sword, and the warrior-twins.

  You come from here, he told himself, whether you like it or not.

  “Any luck?” a voice came from behind him. Mehen turned to see Kallan standing before the double doors.

  “Some,” Mehen said. “Where’s Farideh?”

  “Meeting with some fellow who brought her a message.”

  “What fellow?”

  Kallan arched a brow ridge. “Am I your spy now? Just some tiefling fellow. There are guards right there with them.”

  A pair of gangly hatchlings with swords they’re still learning to use, Mehen thought. At least he trusted Farideh more than those.

  Probably, he amended. “Did you take her to see the wizard?” Mehen asked as he started walking again, through the atrium, heading after Anala.

  Beside him, Kallan’s smile flickered. “I would say she took me. For all the good it did.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “He tried to throw a fireball at her, but the bars bounced it. Fellow’s madder than a mouther. My opinion is moot here, but she’s going to have to get someone else to go with her if she’s going to do that again.” He hesitated. “You angry?”

  Mehen rolled the jade plugs in his hand, grinding them against one another. “I know my daughter. And like you said, you’re not my spy.”

  “Well you look angry.” Kallan moved in front of him. “Anywhere in this place that makes you less angry?”

  Mehen stopped, ready to snap back that the whole
day left him rattled and irritated and the whole karshoji enclave did too. He rolled his shoulders, as if he could shake off the ghosts. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Come on.”

  They wound through several passages until they came to a little alcove near the elders’ audience chamber. It was nothing much—a pair of couches beneath a carving of a man called Ana-Patrin, some long-dead patriarch without much to say for himself. “No one notices this,” Mehen said sitting down. “Almost like it doesn’t exist.”

  “Cozy,” Kallan said, sitting opposite him. He nodded at the archway that led to Anala’s audience chamber. “And convenient if you’re watching for someone.”

  “Did you find out anything about our fiend?” Mehen asked.

  Kallan’s expression sobered. “Figured out the guard couldn’t have made it into the tomb without passing the demon. We ask the guard, maybe he saw something that didn’t seem dangerous, or some other clue.”

  Mehen cursed quietly. “One problem: he doesn’t exist. Kepeshkmolik says there were no guards of theirs in that part of the catacombs, and they’re right—the Kepeshkmolik tombs are miles away, on the other side of the pyramid. That guard had no reason to be there, and he hasn’t turned up since he went missing.”

  “Well there’s a clue in its own right,” Kallan said. He shook his head. “Weirdest job I’ve ever taken, this.”

  Mehen laughed once. “You get a little used to it.”

  “Don’t worry, I got no reason to settle.” Kallan’s laugh faltered as if he’d heard the rebuke in that. “This is … awkward. Isn’t it?”

  Mehen rolled the jade plugs against each other. “It really wasn’t you. I mean that. I’m just a poor option, historically. My daughters …”

  “Your adult daughters?” Kallan said skeptically. “Noachi, you don’t have to dip it in honey. You want to have done with me, I can take it. But don’t tell me you wish it didn’t have to be this way, that your girls can’t cope with it—like they’re too innocent to understand.”

  Mehen looked away, off down the corridor. “It’s more complicated than it sounds.”

  As if the point needed proving, as if the very ghost of Verthisathurgiesh Ana-Patrin had reached down the corridor himself just to make his mark, the doors banged open and Arjhani stormed down the corridor.

  It would be a lie to say that in sixteen years Mehen hadn’t thought of Arjhani, of what he might look like now, of what he might say if he saw again the man who’d broken his heart twice, who’d broken his daughters’ hearts without a word. Age hadn’t softened him. He seemed smoother, harder, the edges of his scales silvered but not dulled. He did not wear his glaive, but there was no doubt he’d kept at it—the power in his stride, the muscles of his narrow chest.

  He would be quick, Mehen thought without meaning to think. Get him off his feet, fast as possible. Arm around the neck, up against the wall—

  “Who’s that?” Kallan asked.

  At the sound of his voice, Arjhani turned and finally saw Mehen.

  What did he see? Mehen wondered. Doom or passion or some old man? Their doubles ran rampant in his own thoughts, bandits at ambush once more. Kiss him. Break him like you swore to. Pass him by.

  Arjhani said nothing for a moment so long and terrible Mehen forgot everything else. He took a step toward the alcove. “Mehen?” he breathed. “Is that really you?”

  But Mehen could say nothing.

  The doors to the elder’s audience chamber beyond him parted for Matriarch Anala. She did not have the same hesitance as the younger men. She spied Arjhani and her eyes widened with alarm. She sprang forward and grabbed him by the arm. “You are meant to be in the barracks,” she hissed. “Into my chambers this instant.”

  Arjhani shot a look back at Mehen—alarm, apology, longing. Mehen wondered what his own expression betrayed. Anala shoved Arjhani toward the elders’ chamber and pointed a clawed finger back at Mehen.

  “I will deal with this,” she said. “And find you later.”

  And they were gone, leaving Mehen feeling as though he’d shot back through time and then forward again. He exhaled hard, as if he could drive all the unwelcome emotion out of him. He had not been prepared to see Arjhani again, but in that moment he had to accept that there was never any being prepared to see Arjhani again.

  Havilar, he thought. Farideh. He needed to find them, right now.

  “So,” Kallan said.

  Mehen turned, embarrassed. “It’s, um … He’s …”

  The sellsword stood and clapped a hand on Mehen’s shoulder. “Let me save you a few steps: noachi, don’t tell me it’s about what your daughters can handle and then look at that fellow like you just did right where I can see.”

  It’s complicated, Mehen started to protest, but how complicated? How gnarled? He couldn’t pretend he was done with Arjhani. His tongue rattled against the roof of his mouth and he cursed softly to himself.

  “I need to find the girls,” he said.

  “All right,” Kallan said. “You need me, you know where to find me.”

  Mehen watched him leave, all too aware of the stern glare of Ana-Patrin looking down on him. Verthisathurgiesh is never soft, he thought. Verthisathurgiesh knows its own mind. So what the karshoji Hells do we call you?

  YOU ARE HERE for a reason, Lorcan told himself as Havilar faced him down, as if she were planning to pin him to the wall with her glaive. Zoonie settled herself along the wall and watched him with softly glowing eyes. He rubbed his thumb against the flat gold ring he wore around the second finger of his left hand. “I’d assumed your sister would be joining us.”

  Havilar’s glare deepened. “I’m not cheering you on,” she said. “Don’t think I am.”

  “Odd—weren’t you the one giving me advice on how to warm her feelings to me again?”

  “Don’t. You made her cry again. You want her back, you have to stop being awful first, otherwise there’s no point.”

  While crying wasn’t good—though one didn’t cry about something they were truly finished with and without care for—the fact that in only a span of days she’d gone from refusing to look him in the eye to nearly falling into his arms again was promising enough that he felt sure things weren’t as hopeless as Havilar painted them. You can fix this, he told himself. The shape of what they had was there. Only to nudge her back into it. Brin came in and shut the door behind him.

  “While that’s all very interesting,” Lorcan said, “I meant it would be useful to her. If one of you needs to wait for Mehen to return, why not the one who has no business fighting demons?”

  Brin looked to Havilar, who didn’t break her glare, and chuckled. “She asked to be the one to wait for Mehen. She doesn’t want to be in here with you.”

  Lorcan smiled to cover the sudden fury that wrapped around his heart. That’s how you get into trouble, he told himself. You have to act human. “Fine. This should be quick enough.”

  He turned away, twisted a magic ring onto his left hand. A shimmering appeared beside him and he plunged both arms into it. He withdrew a case as long as a bone devil’s thighbone, made of joined wood and decorated all over with cinnabar and gold-filled runes of Nar. “Here,” he said, offering the Scepter of Alzrius to Havilar. “Just remember, if you’re going to vomit, don’t do it on my mother’s treasures, if you please.”

  She eyed the box with plain distrust. “What is it?”

  “It’s an Abyssal artifact,” Lorcan said. He unlatched the case and opened it. Havilar winced at the golden scepter, heat shivering the air over it. “It should give off the same sort of power or energy you’re reacting to. Just sit with it a few times a day, until you get used to it.”

  Havilar frowned, the skin above her lip speckled with sweat and her face a little drawn. “It’s not that bad,” she said, although her voice was a little choked. “I think I could handle that a lot longer than the demon. Don’t you have anything stronger?”

  Lorcan snapped the case shut. Shit and ashes, he thought. He h
ad prepared for this, but really, there was no preparing. He steeled himself. “I do have a few more items,” he said, “in case this one wasn’t suitable. They’re all mostly weaker … Just one stronger.”

  “Well give it to me.”

  Lorcan set the scepter aside. This was the only way to make certain the scepter found a new, temporary holder. He reminded himself of that piece, of Invadiah’s threats, of the sword Glasya had set upon his throat, of his gamble with Shetai, as he pulled the third artifact free of the dimensional pocket and opened the case.

  He had hardly revealed the treasure inside—a star sapphire the size of a chicken’s egg, the asterism shivering as though alive—but Havilar turned pale. She took a step back. Beside the wall, Zoonie leaped to her feet and gave a growl that seemed to shake the room.

  “Close it,” Brin said.

  Lorcan wished he could. He took a cloth from his pocket and picked up the gem. A muffled, primordial scream suffused his thoughts. He focused on Havilar, holding the gem out to her. Seal it. Make sure that everything’s safe. Zoonie’s growl became a snarl, and sparks crackled from her bared teeth.

  Havilar’s eyes focused on the stone, her lips white with the force of clamping them shut. She drew a long breath through her nose. “Put it away,” she said in a small voice. “That’s all I can manage.”

  Lorcan put the star sapphire back into its case, latched it, and slid it back into the dimensional pocket. The screaming stopped, and a faint buzzing sensation bloomed in its place. Lorcan winced. Still growling, Zoonie put herself between Havilar and Lorcan, settling down only when Havilar put her hand on the hellhound’s shoulders.

  “Which one?” he managed.

  “The scepter,” she said. “I can handle the scepter.”

  “Very well,” Lorcan said. His stomach curdled and the buzzing grew clamorous. Shit and ashes. “I’ll leave it with you. Sit with it as long as you possibly can, first thing in the morning. Better if you try to do something else at the same time.”

  Havilar nodded, still faintly green. When Lorcan kneeled to slide the case under the bed, she spoke. “Why did it make me sick around the ghost? If Abyssal things make me sick …”