Ashes of the Tyrant

by Erin M. Evans

  Dahl spotted the leader before he registered the masses of bloodied and torn Zhentarim, the bodies of the dead: the shadow of a man, so rich and vibrant that he seemed in his darkness to invert the space, to will the shadows into solidity and the Underdark around them into fluttering, negative phantasm.

  He saw the man, and the man saw him, saw within him the furious dread, the desperate need, the dark things that had overtaken his mind in his pursuit of Oghma’s favor. Arrogance, ambition, ego. He saw the hunger in him, and the pure rage that coiled around his every thought of Lorcan. The man saw all of this, Dahl felt sure, and he smiled, as if someone had left a great gift in his hands.

  A smell like strong, cheap perfume sliced through Dahl’s nostrils, a smell like salt and brimstone. His mouth suddenly tasted of ashes and his mind seemed to break apart.

  Oh my boy, a voice like velvet said in Dahl’s thoughts. What a rich and fertile field you make.

  HAVILAR WALKED ALONGSIDE Zoonie, keeping the hellhound to an easy pace and keeping herself out of Mehen’s reach. He tapped his tongue nervously, memories of that long-ago autumn night on the edge of the hardest winter Arush Vayem had ever seen circling through his head. They would find Arjhani and he would be alive, and then what?

  “I have to ask,” Kallan said quietly, falling in beside him. “Did you really think you could get the dog and not the daughter?”

  “I hoped.”

  Kallan shook his head, eyeing the darkness of a crypt off to the left. “The way you all tiptoe around this fellow, I’m half expecting some kind of charm-casting, mind-controlling vampire.”

  Mehen kept his eyes on his daughter’s back, the memory of a long-ago late autumn night playing over and over in his memory. Maybe, he thought, Arjhani will be dead.

  The thought stung, and he wished he hadn’t had it. Just behind Zoonie, Dumuzi marched, straight-backed and solemn. You are too old to think the world is all about you, Mehen thought.

  “Are you that hung up on him?” Kallan asked in a curious way. “Afraid you can’t keep your head on straight?”

  “I’m not hung up on him!” Mehen snapped.

  Kallan held a hand up in a gesture of surrender. “Obviously I read that wrong. Sorry.”

  Mehen’s chest squeezed tight. “No, I’m sorry. It’s … Did the girls tell you anything? About him?”

  “I think I overheard once from Havilar that Arjhani had nothing on me,” Kallan said with a playful smile. “Beyond that, nothing.”

  Mehen kept silent, not wanting to air out the past, not wanting to go any longer holding tight to it. How many years have you let all of this rule your life? “I don’t like talking about …” He bit off the end of the thought.

  “Anything?” Kallan said. “I get that. You’re a private fellow.”

  Because it’s nobody’s karshoji business—but that, too, was a lie. Maybe at the start, but Pandjed, Arjhani, Uadjit, the snowstorm—these moments and decisions and memories pushed and pulled him, and in turn pushed and pulled his daughters and Brin and even Kallan.

  “I’m not hung up on Arjhani,” he said again. “No more than …” He shook his head, feeling foolish. “I loved him. That never goes away completely.”

  “Fair.” Then, “You don’t look at him like that’s it.”

  Mehen snapped his teeth in annoyance. “Are you jealous of someone who might be dead?”

  “A little,” Kallan said matter-of-factly. “Although dead or not’s got nothing to do with it. I certainly don’t wish him ill.”

  Mehen said nothing for a long time, while the memories of that autumn night ran through their steps like players at a fair, over and over the same lines. You have to come back. No one else can stand against him. The little bottle of mud-brown syrup falling out of the haversack. How could you think I would use it?

  You have to come back … wouldn’t you leave them here?

  “You can wish him a little ill,” Mehen blurted.

  Ahead Zoonie jerked against the lead, heading down a right-hand corridor. They followed—this passage was wider, winding toward the center of the city. “Is he the reason you were exiled?” Kallan asked.

  “I’m the reason I was exiled.” The words were no more out of his mouth, but he regretted their cheapness. “My father agreed to a marriage contract with Kepeshkmolik Uadjit. I refused, and so he exiled me.” Still cheap, he thought. Still little better than a lie.

  “He didn’t care you weren’t keen on women?”

  Mehen snorted. “Maybe in the homesteads you can use that as an excuse not to get eggs for your clan, but in the city, you knuckle down and do what’s needful.” Then, “Our clans have never seen eye to eye. Kepeshkmolik is a bunch of self-important upstarts, Verthisathurgiesh breeds tyrants. This would have been a bridge. Anything that would have given either side room for scrutiny would be dangerous.”

  Kallan made a face. “So why make the contract?”

  Why indeed? Kepeshkmolik had made the offer, because Narghon doted on his scion and Uadjit had examined all her options and asked for Mehen. At the time it had infuriated him—they were friends, she knew about Arjhani, she knew he wouldn’t want this, Uadjit was forcing his hand, making him do what she thought was right. Now, looking back, he wondered if she’d been trying to protect him. He wondered if she’d been fond of him in a foolish, teenaged way, or if she’d seen, as he could see now, how she and he could have leaned on each other, each making the other stronger at the cost of some happiness.

  The agreement is made. You live at my pleasure. You will wed her, or you will be no son of mine.

  “I don’t know,” Mehen said. “I only found out after it had been made without my say.”

  You say that to me, toe to toe, let’s see what comes of it.

  “I refused,” he said, avoiding all the rest. “I was exiled. And Arjhani didn’t come with me. That’s it.”

  Kallan looked at him sidelong. “Aithyas. You don’t need to tell me a damned thing, but that’s not it. None of that has to do with Havilar. You went back to him?”

  How could you think I would use it? The little bottle of mud-brown syrup falling out of the haversack. Arjhani, playing with Havilar and a pair of makeshift toy glaives. Wouldn’t you leave them here? With their own kind? It’s probably for the best.

  “No,” Mehen said, feeling that unwelcome anger rise up through his blood. “He came and found me.”

  “And the girls?”

  “And the girls.” Mehen tapped his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “The thing about Arjhani is that everyone adores him. Even you—if you met him, you’d wonder what I’m so angry about. And Havi …”

  “Havi doesn’t like someone halfway,” Kallan finished as Mehen let the thought hang, half-made. “He didn’t stick around?”

  The lie Mehen had told so many times sat ready in his mouth. But this time, to Kallan—this man who didn’t have a disingenuous bone in his body, who wouldn’t take the easy lie, who still thought there was something worthwhile in him—Mehen couldn’t tell it.

  “No. I threw him out.” He kept his eyes on Havilar’s back. “I let the girls think he left on his own. It was simpler. The whole business … My father was more than fearsome. He was a tyrant in his own right, the kind of person that slips up unnoticed, until you look around and realize you’re living in a karshoji ancestor story, only the dragon’s one of you.

  “I don’t know where Pandjed heard I’d made a new life in Arush Vayem, but he was still so angry at me. He sent Arjhani. He sent him to kill me. ‘To wipe the stain from Verthisathurgiesh’s rolls.’ ”

  How could you think I would use it? But there was the little bottle of mud-brown syrup in Mehen’s hand, not bumping down the river, not at the bottom of a ravine, not broken on the rocks of the Smoking Mountains. I was afraid—is that what you want to hear? He said kill you or he’d kill me. I wasn’t going to do it, but …

  “Your father sounds like a karshoji lunatic,” Kallan said. “And I can’t say much for Arjh
ani at this point.”

  Mehen shook his head. It was all more complicated than that. “Arjhani … he was terrified of Pandjed in a way he couldn’t even name. Sometimes I think he didn’t love me, he only stuck with me, because I could defend him. And then I was gone. He begged me to come back, to depose Pandjed. Said I was the only one who could. I pointed out that I could never be patriarch with my daughters so young and so far from being Vayemniri.”

  Had it been Pandjed’s plan all along that Arjhani wouldn’t be able to kill Mehen? That he would lure Mehen back by confessing the whole awful situation, and Pandjed would get another chance to make his son bow? What had Arjhani suffered when he’d returned without Mehen and without proof he’d been dealt with?

  “Someone told me once a fellow had best know going in that he’d always come second to your daughters,” Kallan said. “I’m going to guess no one warned Arjhani.”

  You have to come back. No one else can stand against him.

  Jhani, you’re not thinking. Nobody’s making me patriarch this young—nobody’s making me patriarch after what happened! And all that aside, nobody’s going to accept the girls.

  Wouldn’t you leave them here? With their own kind? A blade in his heart. The words stirred up an animal rage in him even all these years later, a moment where he saw with perfect clarity how people could say he was his father’s son, breath and scale.

  What did you karshoji say?

  Don’t take it like that. I didn’t say they weren’t fine. Just that they’re not really yours—they’re not like us.

  Ahead, Zoonie stopped at a crossway, sniffing the air in an agitated way. Havilar glanced back at Mehen, then turned to scratch Zoonie’s shoulder.

  “Shouldn’t need a karshoji warning.” Mehen said. “They’re my daughters. Not my pets.” He started toward Havilar.

  “Hey.” Kallan tugged him to a stop out of earshot, pulling him closer. “You know that’s not going to go well. She’s still angry. Now you’re angry.” He rubbed Mehen’s arm in a comforting way. “I don’t think anyone with half a brain would say you didn’t do exactly the right thing. The hard thing, but the right one. Also, I think Havilar’s clearly right,” he added. “Arjhani has nothing on me.”

  That jolted a laugh from Mehen, and much of his tension with it. He glanced ahead at Havilar, who was still carefully not watching him. “I’ve never told anybody that,” he said. “Not even the girls.”

  “Well I’m flattered. I don’t know what you’re keeping exactly.”

  Mehen looked away. “The girls think he left on his own. And two tendays later, my heartbroken little girl chased after him, into the heart of a snowstorm, because she thought it was her fault. She almost died.”

  “Chaubask vur kepeshk,” Kallan swore. He looked after Havilar, the full horror of the situation evident in his features, and Mehen found it harder to forget the handsome sellsword. “All right so that’s why you’re trying to keep her back.”

  “I have to tell her, don’t I?”

  Kallan shook his head. “No. Bite your tongue. She thinks he left because he didn’t love her enough? Why confirm it? All you’d give her is the knowledge you love her beyond measure, and she knows it. Besides, she seems all right.”

  Mehen shook his head. “She says so.”

  “You don’t believe her.”

  “I will never believe her,” Mehen said. “I’ve seen what happens when I’m wrong.”

  “You’re leaving things out, aren’t you?”

  “Some. Let me have it.” He hesitated. “I meant it, when I said it wasn’t you.”

  “But you were lying when you said it was your girls,” Kallan said in a mild way. “How long you planning to punish yourself for someone else’s crimes?”

  “I don’t know,” Mehen said honestly. Then, “How long can you wait?”

  Kallan chuckled. “I’ve got nothing else in my sights. But as fine as you are, I’m not the kind to pine forever. So, you do know most fellows aren’t interested in breaking up your family?” Kallan said. “Even if they want more than a tumble.”

  “Course not,” Mehen said grimly. “Nobody plans for that.”

  Suddenly, Zoonie pressed her nose to the wall, going stiff all over. She threw back her shaggy head and howled, a sound that shook Mehen’s bones. Havilar grabbed hold of the hellhound’s thick fur, and—as the beast bunched her legs to run—pulled herself up onto the creature with one smooth motion.

  All three of the dragonborn took off running after the hellhound. She slowed at another crossway, letting Mehen get within arm’s reach before taking off down a shallow set of stairs. They were into the oldest parts of the catacombs now, the resting place of those who’d died in the Blue Fire, down far enough that each ancestor had their own tomb to protect their bones from dark magics, instead of the ossuaries above.

  Zoonie skidded to a stop, whining and prancing.

  Havilar rubbed the side of her neck. “It’s all right, good girl. It’s all right. She held out Arjhani’s shirt again. “Just that. Find that.”

  Zoonie sniffed it again, eyeing the long hallway mistrustfully. She shook her head once, sneezed, and backed down the narrow hallway, turning with a little trouble. She snuffled along the stone hallway, stopping beside an ancient Linxakasendalor tomb. Havilar slipped from the hellhound’s shoulders, and the beast padded into the dark space. Here a trio of Vayemniri, ended by the violence of the planar shift, had been interred together.

  Zoonie lay flat in front of the center sarcophagus, growling deeply enough to shake the whole city. All four of them went to the corners of the stone lid, heaving hard to move the heavy granite slab. Mehen’s heart climbed up his throat.

  Arjhani bolted up as the slab moved away, a broken bone in one hand, his other arm pressed up against his chest. He lunged, blindly, toward the open end of the tomb. Toward Havilar.

  For a brief terrible moment, everything seemed to slow, as if Mehen were trapped in a dream. His hands wouldn’t let go of the granite slab, even as the sharpened weapon arced toward his daughter.

  Havilar dodged to the side, her hand shooting out to grab Arjhani by the wrist and yank the bone down, away from her. On the opposite side, Dumuzi reached out and grabbed his father around the shoulders, pulling him close.

  “It’s me!” he shouted as Arjhani started to struggle. “We came to rescue you. You’re safe! You’re safe!”

  Gasping for air, Arjhani searched their faces as though any one of them might wear a mask. His whole body stayed tense, as if he were preparing to throw off Dumuzi as soon as he’d decided which of them was the worst threat.

  “Easy, sathi,” Kallan said gently. “We can’t all be the maurezhi.”

  “None of us can be the maurezhi,” Havilar said irritably. “I would be throwing up so hard.”

  Arjhani blinked at Mehen. “I …,” he managed. “I …”

  “You’re safe,” Mehen said. “You’re safe now. Come on.” He held out a hand, and Arjhani took it, stepping out of the sarcophagus as Dumuzi released him. His whole body shook and the scales of his hand were burning with fever. Mehen cursed and his arms pulled Arjhani closer. “He needs a healer.”

  Kallan pulled a little bottle from his haversack. “Chmertehoschta?” He tossed the sedative to Mehen who helped the fevered Arjhani take some.

  “Sepideh,” he wheezed. “Help.”

  “Karshoj,” Kallan said. “That’s a Lance Defender commander. We have to move.” Mehen helped Arjhani over to Zoonie, no small feat as the other man shook violently with shock and fever and as the chmertehoschta started to take hold, his knees weakened. Havilar watched, stern and worried, as Mehen helped Arjhani onto the hellhound’s back. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d failed them both.

  “Let me help,” Havilar said, getting her arm around Arjhani’s chest and helping balance him facedown on the dog’s back. Kallan produced long strips of cloth, which they bound Arjhani down with. Mehen stepped back, watching Havilar. Nothing he’
d feared showed in her, and despite the situation he smiled.

  “Where’s Dumuzi?” Kallan asked.

  Mehen looked around the tomb and cursed. The edge of panic was just beginning to take shape around his heart as he stormed out into the corridor. There, at the far end where Zoonie had balked, Dumuzi stood staring up at a larged sealed tomb door.

  “Hey!” Mehen shouted. “What part of don’t go off alone did you mistake?”

  Dumuzi startled. “Sorry. I just … I needed a moment.”

  Mehen came to stand beside Dumuzi. The tomb door had been painted in now flaking blue and red, the shape of a crescent moon spanning the width of the doorway. Beneath it an epitaph of sorts could still be read: Here lies a great warrior of this world. Claimed as clan-kin by Kepeshkmolik and all the Vayemniri of Djerad Thymar, now and forever more under our protection. “Have you ever seen this?” Dumuzi whispered.

  Mehen shook his head. “I’ve never been this deep into the catacombs. Did Ashoka ever tell you the story of the black axe?”

  “Narghon doesn’t like that story,” Dumuzi said. “Says it muddies the waters when it comes to gods. Who do you think he was?”

  Ashoka’s story flowed through Mehen’s thoughts. “Your clan-kin,” Mehen said. “And mine too, I suppose.”

  Dumuzi shook his head. “Narghon won’t like that.”

  “Karshoj to Narghon,” Mehen said. “We weren’t blood-kin when we formed the clans—any and all who would stand against the tyrants. We survived because of that. Because anyone who would be an ally, could. Come on.”

  Dumuzi kept glancing back at the tomb as they hurried back through the catacombs, and Mehen couldn’t shake the feeling that the Gift of the Moon was not through being given.

  FARIDEH MADE HERSELF consider the golden glyphs along the shaft of the Black Axe of Thymara, even as her thoughts drifted elsewhere—to Havilar, to Dahl, to Lorcan, to Ilstan. Focus, she told herself. People are going to die if you don’t. “Maybe it says what we need to do on the axe itself.”

  “Likely,” Brin said. “Have you got the components to cast a language ritual?”