by Erin Evans
“Why do the Zhentarim care?” Mehen returned as they crossed one of the bridges.
“Stlarn the Zhentarim, I care about who I bunk down with.”
Mehen snorted. “You can still choose the inn.”
What would happen when the wider world heard tell of Dumuzi, and Enlil’s return? It wasn’t a question Mehen had even thought to consider. The sudden attentions of the Vayemniri had seemed trouble enough, but if this opened the floodgates and sent the servants of every karshoji god in the Astral Sea crashing through their gates? If it meant sending out priests to proselytize and preach the gospel of Enlil? Or worse: if it meant would-be priests came there to Djerad Thymar—
Not your problem, Mehen thought.
But it might soon be Kallan’s, and he didn’t relish that either.
He delivered Volibar along with Anala’s requests to a well-mannered young man with his first blade at his belt, and then went back to his own rooms, to check for Farideh and delay the inevitable—he would go to find Kallan, much as he wanted to defy Anala. He thought back to that morning in the sparring room. I want some karshoji answers.
She can’t make him be Vanquisher, Mehen reminded himself.
To his surprise, Farideh was in the guest quarters, but Lorcan was missing. Instead there was another tiefling, a middle-aged woman, sitting on one of the long, padded benches, wand in hand. Farideh looked up, startled and guilty, when Mehen came in, and he scowled—he knew that look.
“What did you …”
But his demand trailed away. The woman beside her raised a purplish-black eyebrow.
Mehen’s heart squeezed in on itself. An heir of the same line his daughters descended from. An heir who seemed to have twenty-seven years or so on Farideh. An heir with the shadow of his daughters’ faces in her own.
He should have guessed. He should have known from the moment he found the note. He squeezed his hands into fists. Farideh pushed him back, gently, away from the woman, into his room. “Mehen, truly, not now. It’s all right.” She shut the door behind her. “I’m back. I’m fine.”
“Is that who I think it is?” he asked, lightning in his teeth. “Is she the one who dumped you in the snow?”
“Yes,” Farideh said. “But no—she gave us to someone else to dump in the snow.” She told him the story, the brief sketches of a gathered coven, a ghost, an ancient warlock who’d borne them away. Her voice shook and they both pretended it didn’t. “I think we have to find this Caisys.”
“Did you ask Lorcan?”
She shook her head. “He tore off as soon as we got back. I think he’s … upset with me, maybe?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m worried about him.”
Mehen narrowed his eyes, nostrils flaring. “Let Lorcan worry about himself. He’s probably trying to play on your pity.”
“That is not why,” she said, sounding weary.
“Is it so far from what he’s done before?”
“A bit,” Farideh replied. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m a woman grown and I have better things to do in this moment, like stop my sister getting killed. I can do that a lot better with him than without him.” She swallowed. “Besides … I’m not made of ice.”
Mehen folded his arms, fighting not to bare his teeth in annoyance. The cambion was like a houseguest that never seemed to leave, no matter how many times he got out the door. “We got a messenger while you were gone,” he said. “A halfling with the Zhentarim. The one who sent the snakes. He came from Dahl.”
Farideh looked up, wide-eyed. “What? Where is he?”
“The maurezhi’s ‘King of Dust’ has him captive.”
She shook her head, as if trying to lose some measure of sudden frantic energy, and guilt surged over Mehen. “Where … Who’s gone after them?” she demanded. “When do we leave? No, that’s all there is to it—when do we leave?”
“We don’t,” Mehen said, taking her by the shoulders. “Fari, that King of Dust fellow, he’s mad. He’s mad and he hates folks who aren’t human, like … like you hate heights. It’s not safe for you to go after him.”
She shoved his hands off of her. “You want me to sit here and what? Wait for the Lance Defenders? Wait for another message that says he’s dead? You can’t ask me—”
“I can ask you to,” Mehen said. “You’re no weakling, but you’re not facing down an army, and not an army who wants to wipe anyone different from them off the plane. Be sensible.”
“Have a karshoji heart!” she returned. “He is here and he’s in danger and you want me to—”
“I want you to survive so I don’t lose both my daughters!” Mehen shouted. He nodded at the closed door. “Maybe she can live with that, but I can’t!” Farideh fell silent, as stunned as if he’d slapped her, and Mehen cursed under his breath. “Fari, I’m sorry. I know—”
“You don’t know,” she said. “Not this time.”
And he could argue he knew near enough, that she had to trust him—but it wouldn’t be true and she wouldn’t believe him. “They are sending forces from Djerad Kethendi to press this Gilgeam’s forces back,” he said. “They know to look for Dahl. Give them a chance before you put yourself in another madman’s sights. Please. Give me this, if nothing else.”
She pursed her mouth, as if she were pressing all her protests, all her sadness back in. “Fine,” she said. “For you.”
Mehen gathered his daughter into a fierce embrace. In the hollow of his heart, he wished there were some way to protect her from all this danger, all this heartache, all these villains who wanted to harm her, to strip her from the world.
This, he thought, holding her tight. This is what Dumuzi meant. Ah, karshoj.
• • •
HAVILAR RETURNED TO the plane of mist so dizzied and drained she couldn’t tell for sure at first that she was there—that she existed at all. It seemed an eternity before she felt like she had limbs and a trunk and a self again. Alyona was looking down at her, frowning.
That might have been too far, she said. You have to remember you’re extending yourself quite a lot. It’s hard—I remember … I … It was difficult to figure out, how to do it. You can’t leave, you know, but this way you leave without leaving.
Havilar shut her eyes. It made as much sense as anything in this place. It made as much sense as standing in her sister’s dreams, watching a dead mercenary pick grapes in a blue fog.
She sat up. Where do I go when I do that? Am I in Farideh’s head or another world or what?
Alyona’s frown deepened. You’re in her dreams.
Right, Havilar said. But I’m not here. So where do I go?
To her dreams, Alyona said again. The specifics don’t matter.
Havilar wanted to protest that it most certainly did matter—she for one did not go traipsing through strange planes if she could help it, and not at all if she didn’t know where she was treading—but Alyona sighed and continued, Was it strange? I found it strange at first—dreams are so intimate. You see in them your sister’s hopes, her fears, her darkness and her light. I knew things suddenly that I’m sure Bisera wished to stay secret, even from me, and things I did not wish to face the truth of, alongside happier memories, happier truths. I stayed away at first, but then … I missed her. I miss her. You understand.
What does she dream of now? Havilar asked.
Alyona’s expression grew distant, as if she weren’t entirely there, and Havilar had to feel at least a little sorry for her. Whatever Farideh’s failings, she didn’t think she’d lock Havilar up in a little planar prison like this.
When did Bisera become Bryseis Kakistos? she asked.
Alyona toyed with the charm she wore around her neck. After I died.
• • •
“TELL ME YOU’VE got a plan,” Thost said, leaning on his shovel where they were digging another trench alongside around forty of the dragonborn refugees.
Dahl blew out a breath, searching the horizon once more. Two days had passed since they’d arrived in
the ruins—there were ramshackle buildings rising from the rubble, scouts circling, circling, and not a single sign of anything that might possibly be a priest of Oghma. Djerad Thymar was too far over the horizon to spot anymore, but still he marked the point where the river touched the horizon, an arrow to the pyramid city. So close and yet so far. They could make it to Djerad Kethendi, he thought, and from there to Djerad Thymar.
But you wouldn’t be where the salmon demand the tide, he thought. There is nowhere else Oghma’s message might be true.
“I’ve got several plans at the moment,” Dahl said. “I haven’t worked out which is best.”
“All of them are better than sitting here, being slaves,” Bodhar told him. “Mostly sure being in the stlarning Underdark is better.”
A whip cracked near them—though not too near. “No talking!” Namshita shouted. Dahl shot her a look of irritation. She’d been incautious talking to him, she said. After the first trip to the water, she’d followed him again, asking questions of Old Unther, of the Mulhorandi, of the genasi to the north. None of these were Dahl’s expertise, but she took whatever he could give her, as if these were waymarkers to the world as she understood it.
“Were you a slave in the other world?” he asked as he lifted the water.
“A granary guard,” she said. “Then they made me an overseer—they gave me a whip and told me to punish the slow workers. I ran instead, and took the slow ones with me.” She scowled past him, as if she weren’t taking notice of Dahl at all. “I’ve spread the word that we can still escape. That there is sanctuary to be had. That the signal still holds.”
“What’s the signal?” Dahl asked.
“Too dangerous,” Namshita said. “Get that water back.”
Dahl had spread a similar word through the dragonborns’ ranks: Be ready to run. Soon.
The next day, Namshita told him one of the priests had noticed her talking to him, had noticed him talking to the other slaves. “It’s too dangerous,” she said. “The Son of Victory cannot think I’m disloyal. Too much depends on it.”
“Why don’t you tell him some of what I’ve told you?” Dahl said. “Give him information he can use—maybe you’re just using me for his gain?”
Namshita’s rough smile twisted in amusement. “You don’t boast to the Son of Victory. If I tell him I found something out from you that he couldn’t, we would both be dead.”
Hence the whip, that always just missed them. Hence the priest that stuck close beside. Hence the blazing eyes of Gilgeam on them, and Zillah besides. At their feet, Mira watched too, her dark gaze burrowing into Dahl—move faster.
Dahl shoved the blade of his shovel into the swiftly dampening dirt. One might run, maybe three. Maybe four if they could make a plan that freed Mira first. Five became a problem—Namshita would be noticed. Two thousand an impossibility. Two thousand plus seventy-five dragonborn? Asking for the godsbedamned moon.
Volibar would make it to Djerad Thymar—unless, he thought, one of the demons caught him and we never heard. Unless he fell into the River Alamber. Farideh would convince the dragonborn—unless they never brought the message to her. Unless she was long gone. Unless Lorcan had given her all the reasons she should turn away a message from Dahl. The army of Djerad Thymar would clash with Gilgeam and they would have a chance.
Unless they don’t, he thought, and he cursed and cursed. Too many pieces, too many unknowns.
“Turning a war is a matter of shifting a hundred battles,” Tam Zawad, the High Harper of Waterdeep and Dahl’s superior, had once told him, long before the war of the Shadovar or the Son of Victory. Long before it mattered. “Turning a battle is a matter of shifting an army. Turning an army is a matter of shifting all the right souls.”
“What happens if you pick the wrong ones?” Dahl had asked.
“You knuckle down,” Tam said. “This business isn’t for the faint of heart.”
Nor is it for agents without resources or contacts, Dahl thought. He was well out of his depth. He’d furtively cast the ritual that morning to understand the language of the Untherans, in the hopes of gleaning some sense of when they would attack and where. How long he had to wait Oghma out. But all he’d learned were plans to build the camp up, including these trenches.
He glanced up at Gilgeam. The so-called god watched him like a guard dog watches a gate. Something deep and uncomfortable seethed in Dahl—what he wouldn’t give for the space to call this bastard out, to measure his might against Oghma’s, to break his stlarning face—
Dahl turned back to the trench, his pulse galloping and uneven. The remnants of Graz’zt’s maddening touch. The demon lord had pulled upon Dahl’s strings as if he were a puppet, drawing up something animal and angry in him. A need for power and control. A need to stand supreme and unchallenged, whatever it took to reach that place. A need to be right.
With that need, Graz’zt had driven Dahl mad enough to attack Lorcan on sight. With that spell, he had wounded the cambion gravely, in ways he wasn’t entirely sure of. He glanced up at Gilgeam from the corner of his eye, the same fury simmering in him, the same madness seeming to ooze off the god-king. What would happen if he did hit Gilgeam?
You prove yourself an idiot, he thought. Oghma was stronger than this pretender—that wouldn’t change if Gilgeam refused the truth of it or conceded because Dahl forced him to. Oghma is stronger, Dahl told himself. Knowledge is stronger. You are not this stupid, and you’re waiting for a priest.
Who could be a lot quicker, he added. Unless they were already here. Unless it was one of the Untherans. Unless they were a prisoner of Zillah. The lamia watched them digging with a smug, mild expression that hid the power she held.
Lord of All Knowledge, Dahl prayed. Binder of What Is Known. Make my eye clear, my mind open, my heart true. Give me the wisdom to separate the lie from the truth. Give me the strength to accept what is so …
The prayer caught his thoughts, smoothed them out like a sheet upon a bed, even and calm and ready for the word that laid itself across the middle of his mind: Tjáting.
Dahl opened his eyes. Tjáting. Gods’ books, what was that supposed to mean? Not Common, not Elvish, not Draconic, not Untheric—even if the ritual had failed, he knew the sounds of it by now and none of them came close to that.
“Tjáting,” he murmured, testing the sound of it. It made his head hum, undoubtedly the gift of the god. His gaze swept the horizon once more, as if it had become a tic of sorts. A dark shape broke the even line of Tymanther’s plain.
Then three.
Then nothing.
Then a dozen.
A horn blew a frantic warning. Across the camp, the goristros all straightened, lifting their snouts to the wind. The slinking shadow demons boiled up over the crowds, and the succubi sprang into the air. Something began a chorus of howling. Gilgeam seized the amulet he wore, shooting to his feet. “What is it?” he demanded.
Unnoticed for the moment, Dahl climbed out of the trench for a better look. The dark shapes winked out, then reappeared, one by one. There and then gone. There and then a hundred feet farther on. He thought of the spell Farideh cast sometimes, the one that slipped her through a vent in the planes, letting her move a good sprint in a few steps. The bodies approaching them wavered and shone. There and then gone. There and then very, very close.
“Mash-en-li,” Gilgeam snarled.
Giants, Dahl realized. Stone giants. Three or four times the size of himself, long and tapered gray-skinned limbs, heavy clubs and stone swords in hand. Their eyes fell on the army, gems of a score of colors.
They were giants, but they were not: every inch of their stone skin was covered with a pattern of pictographs, deep carvings into the rock of their flesh. A milky iridescence seemed to flow through the grooves, filling them like water through an irrigation ditch, and perhaps feeding their strange magic.
Dahl spotted a male with a scruffy lichenlike beard, who raised his club as if it were a wand, pulling up a row of daisies the
size of siege towers, made of steel. A second giant appeared beside them, slamming his stone sword into the flowers, cutting off their heads in a shower of sparks that came to life as they hit the ground, racing through the crowd. Behind them both, a female rose up in the air as if a column of wind had lifted her stony body from the grasslands, light as a dead leaf.
More lines etched her skin than any of the others Dahl could see—foxes and dragons chased each other over her shoulders, the shape of a wave curled over her breast.
And on her belly, flooded with the strange light, a curious-looking harp.
Dahl’s heart nearly stopped. The Harp shall be your truest guide, he thought. From heav’ns to Hells the plane will ring.
Reflect, and after, my priest speaks.
“Return the draumrting!” the giantess thundered.
“Sodden Hells!” Thost swore.
“Tjáting,” Dahl said to himself. Draumrting, tjáting. A Giant word? What did it mean?
One way to find out. “Out! I’ve got a plan,” he shouted down to his brothers. In the chaos, Namshita was shouting orders across the trench, arguing with one of Gilgeam’s priests in Untheran. “Time to run,” he said. “You got your signal ready?”
Namshita looked at him as if he were mad. “While the Mash-en-li attack?”
The word fought against his thoughts without a translation to be found. “The enemy of our enemy,” he said, a little desperate. “Give the signal. Get to the giants. We’re surrendering.”
But as he said this, another chorus of horns blew their frantic notes. To the south, another army approached: dragonborn on horseback and on giant bats riding hard from the shores where a dozen ships anchored. The forces of Djerad Kethendi, no longer content to sit back and wait.
“Oghma’s bloody papercuts,” Dahl swore. The dragonborn in the trench started shouting back and forth, their Draconic too frantic for Dahl’s thoughts to catch.
“Enemies of our enemies,” Namshita said. She considered the army racing toward them a moment. “Get your friend, the eme-bala, and do what you are planning. If we do this, it must be now.” She pulled her own horn from her belt.
