The Devil You Know

by Erin Evans

  “More than fair,” Mehen said reluctantly. He felt every eye on him, and it made him want to curse and spit. “I don’t want to leave you here, you know?”

  “That’s sweet,” Kallan said. “But you got me this damned job I have to do.”

  Mehen held out the sending stone. “You keep this. If Farideh sends another message, tell her I’m on my way. I’ll … I’ll let you know when I get there.”

  Kallan smiled as he took it. “Go. Be quick. Be safe.”

  “You too.” Mehen started out the door, then turned back. Karshoj to audiences. “I’ll miss you,” he said.

  “Oh, you’d best,” Kallan said, with a cheeky grin that made Mehen hope Kallan would keep the Vanquisher’s piercings away. It would be a shame to mar that pretty face.

  • • •

  THE CAMBION SAT, straight-backed against the niche of her wings, with her hands folded neatly in her lap, for all the world an emissary awaiting guests, despite the mess of the sheets around her. Lachs sat in the chair beside the door, leaning on his cane, an unlikely guard. These mock trappings made Dumuzi nervous, despite the fact that the cambion had no power to speak of.

  “Well met,” she said, flicking her golden eyes over him. “I don’t believe we’ve had a proper introduction.”

  “We haven’t needed one,” Dumuzi said. The powers of the god seethed all around him, disliking this fiend in his midst.

  “Too true,” she said. “So I’m Sairché, and you’re the boy with the dead god in your head.”

  Enlil flooded Dumuzi’s nerves, lightning crackling all down his arms at the presence of this, another fiend in his city. “What do you want?” Dumuzi asked.

  She pursed her mouth. “Straight to the point. I like that. As you can see,” she said, “I’m a rather unwilling guest of your city. Which, from the sound of things, is soon to have more guests it’s unwilling to host. The one you call the King of Dust and his demon army. I cannot leave this circle, you understand. If they siege the city, if it falls—”

  “It won’t fall,” Dumuzi said. “We are Vayemniri.”

  Sairché chuckled. “You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that refrain. Let’s just consider it—think of it as an exercise if you will. If the city falls, then I will be sitting here when demons tear it down. I don’t want that, and while I suspect you don’t care overmuch about my particular circumstances, I suspect the part about the city being torn down does in fact resonate with you. So you see, we are both invested in the success of … What is it you call this place again?”

  “Djerad Thymar.”

  “Yes, that.” Sairché smiled at him once more. “It so happens, I have a very valuable connection to offer to your leaders. A mercenary army, of sorts.”

  “You want to flood Djerad Thymar with devils,” Dumuzi said flatly.

  “ ‘Flood’ sounds terribly dramatic,” Sairché said. “No, no, you choose the right devils, and you’ll send a signal. Tell the demons that you mean business. After all, there’s no one in the multiverse that can fight demons like we can. Practice,” she added. “Does your god have that?”

  Dumuzi didn’t answer. “We have a lamia imprisoned who’s made us a similar offer. Why should—”

  Sairché’s snort interrupted him. “A lamia? A lamia can’t promise you anything. They’re useless boot suckers. You shouldn’t listen to her anyway. She’ll kick you under the cart, the first chance she gets. They always do.”

  “And a devil?”

  “A devil,” she said, “will adhere to her word.” Her bravado flickered. “The consequences of doing otherwise can be most unpleasant. You deal with the lamia, all you’ll get is heartache. You deal with me, and I’ll gain you and your god the sort of army that can crush the demons.”

  “And everything else in their way?”

  “My half sisters are very disciplined,” Sairché said. “If all you want are demons dispatched, they will take the field and never touch a mortal head. They will remain until the Abyssal threat is vanquished and then leave. We’ll never have to speak of this again. No one ever need find out whether your god is strong enough to cut through their forces.”

  “Just like that?” Dumuzi asked. “Here and gone?”

  “Happily,” she said. “Whatever stories they tell on this plane, it isn’t meant for us. You have … things we need, but … well, you may fish, but you don’t linger in the depths of the sea, now do you? Once the deal is complete, we will go.”

  As horrifying as that sounded, Farideh trusted them—that thought cut through the unhappy rumblings of the god beyond. Farideh trusted them, used them. They used each other, he thought. “And what do you want in return?” Dumuzi asked.

  Sairché fluttered her silver eyelashes, a gesture he found disquieting. She nodded at the runes shimmering around the bed. “You’ve noticed, no doubt, the magic circle. Unlike your lamia, I’m not imprisoned—I’m protected. I’ve been cursed, and should I step outside this circle, the very devils I could gain for you would kill me. What I need is someone to wipe the curse from me. Do that, and I can call my sisters here safely.” She smiled. “So, Boy with the Dead God in His Head, have we got a deal?”

  Dumuzi imagined himself standing on the pyramid, watching all manner of fiends battling for Tymanther, for Unther. Let them cut each other’s throats—he tested the thought. If Gilgeam would bring demons, couldn’t he bring devils? Assuming he could muster the power to clear her curse. Assuming he could convince Enlil. But if Farideh trusted them …

  In a wary sort of way—he thought of how cautious she’d been about Lorcan, even when it had clearly not been about assignations and private things. How she kept things from him, for safety, it seemed. How she didn’t like to sleep. How she’d come to Cormyr—

  Dumuzi frowned. “Sairché? You’re Lorcan’s sister.”

  The cambion hesitated. “Yes.”

  “The sister who bound my father’s clan-kin to the Nine Hells.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sairché said with a little laugh. “You’re the first dragonborn I’ve dealt with.”

  “Farideh,” Dumuzi supplied. “And Havilar.”

  Sairché paled. For a moment she didn’t speak. “You have to understand,” she said, “a deal is a deal—”

  “And you have to understand I owe you nothing,” Dumuzi said, feeling the lightning itch in his teeth, the god heavy on his thoughts. “Less than nothing—you’ve harmed my clan-kin, and more importantly, my friends. By rights I ought to break your circle and claim vengeance for Verthisathurgiesh.”

  Sairché rose to her knees, her smile frozen. “Don’t be hasty!”

  “I won’t be,” Dumuzi said. “If Farideh has you here, it’s clearly for a reason. I assume you have a purpose. At least for now.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Sairché said in a small voice.

  Dumuzi shook his head. “I don’t know. But if I were you, I would hope she is kinder than she has any right to be. Don’t call for me again, please.” He left the room, trailed by Lachs.

  “Showed her, huh?” the old tiefling said, slowing as they reached the middle of the sitting room. “Do you know where the brother and the warlock are?”

  “No,” Dumuzi said. He paused. “Do you need me to find you someone who can send you back home? I can’t promise anything, but I know people who are clan-kin to decent wizards.”

  Lachs shrugged, then shook his head. “Don’t bother yet. Not as if I’m needed elsewhere.” He settled himself on the couch before the spread of maps. “But I’ll certainly take some more of that salty mutton, if you don’t mind.”

  Dumuzi left, arms folded close. Wondering if everything Sairché had said about the demons in Gilgeam’s army were true. Wondering if he ought to have listened to her offer.

  You’re not the Vanquisher, he reminded himself. It’s not your place.

  It will keep happening—he thought or Enlil said. Let it be Enlil, he told himself. The more powerful the god became, the less it felt
as if he had a friend standing just behind his shoulder. The less mortal it all seemed.

  It will keep happening—because he was the first, the speaker of the god, the one who would always seem to have Enlil’s ear. First Zillah, then Sairché, next who? Would Bahamut’s notice fall upon him, the Platinum Cadre making overtures? Would he have to speak to other priests, other gods?

  Dumuzi stopped, studying the frieze that ran along the top of the hallway, a depiction of the building of Djerad Thymar. He wouldn’t mind talking to another priest or two, he thought, eyes on the small carnelian figure of Shestandeliath Maruzith, the great-granduncle of Geshthax, and former patriarch. He bore the clan’s most precious artifact, a strange branching flute called the Breath of Petron. With it, the powers of the dead titan were turned against the earth and stone on Toril, helping to pull the pyramid together and seal the granite in place.

  The closest thing to priests or wizards in Abeir, he thought. Grave robbers of the fallen titans.

  As he neared the entrance, Dumuzi peered into the rooms that lined the entryway, looking for one of the younger Verthisathurgiesh to send to the kitchens to bring Lachs something to eat. In the third of these, a little sitting room overlooked by a bust of his great-grandmother, Verthisathurgiesh Gharizani, he found not dawdling hatchlings, but a human man and woman.

  The woman perched on the edge of the seat closest to the entrance, as if she hadn’t noticed it was built for someone much larger, and she’d rather sit there anyway. She looked up at Dumuzi, her dark eyes searching his face for a moment, before she gave him an easy smile. “Well met,” she said. “Dumuzi, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he answered. Mira, he remembered. The other Harper who traveled with Dahl. “Well met. Are you waiting for—”

  “Anyone, really,” Mira said. “But Dahl in particular.”

  The man had looked up when she started speaking. His skin was the same sort of brown as the Untherans, but his hair and beard were silver as the scales of Sepideh, his dead tactics teacher … or the Vayemniri woman the moon had become.

  It means he’s older, Dumuzi recalled. He wore plain, gray robes and a silver necklace with a medallion impressed with a crescent moon. He looked up at Dumuzi and a shiver ran down his scales. The man closed his book, his dark eyes studying the Kepeshkmolik piercings across Dumuzi’s brow ridges.

  “My father,” Mira said, though she didn’t name him.

  “Well met,” he said, sounding curious. “You’re not Verthisathurgiesh, are you?”

  “My father is,” Dumuzi said. When Mira didn’t make introductions, he went on, “I’m Kepeshkmolik Dumuzi, son of Uadjit, of the line of Shasphur. And you are?”

  The man’s eyes traced the moons once more. Dumuzi found his own gaze drawn to the medallion. “Apologies, my name is Tam Zawad. I’m a friend of Dahl’s. Mira tells me he could use some assistance. Is he here?”

  “No,” Dumuzi said. “Dahl went with Farideh and the others to speak with the giants.” He nodded at the medallion. “Are you a priest of the moon?”

  Tam smiled in a way that Dumuzi didn’t quite believe. “I am. Though not to worry, I’m a bit beyond the days of fiery proselytizing.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Dumuzi said. He hesitated. “I saw her in a dream.”

  Tam’s eyebrows rose. “You … sorry, what?”

  “The moon. However you call her.” Dumuzi considered the medallion again. “Are you in a hurry to find Dahl, or can I ask for your help with something?”

  19

  6 Hammer, the Year of the Rune Lords Triumphant (1487 DR)

  Djerad Thymar, Tymanther

  The Tomb of the Moon’s Warrior

  TAM ZAWAD STARED AT THE LIFELESS BODY OF NANNA-SIN AS IF IT MIGHT spell doom or salvation, a riddle that wound itself around his faith. The god lay in repose, the vestiges of some unearthly vitality murmuring through the stone around him. Dumuzi watched the priest for any sign of whether he ought to be afraid or awestruck or at ease.

  Mira kneeled beside the sunken sarcophagus, studying the dead god with a detachment that made clear to Dumuzi the difference between serving a god and simply existing alongside them. She reached her tapered fingers toward Nanna-Sin’s dusty profile.

  “Don’t touch him!” her father cried. Beyond the door, a pair of Kepeshkmolik guards—Uadjit’s agemates, wily and well-experienced—looked in, ready for trouble.

  “Apologies, Aunties,” Dumuzi said in Draconic. “Everything’s fine.”

  “I doubt he minds,” Mira said, all mildness.

  Tam rubbed a hand over his face, stroking his beard. Dumuzi had told him the ancestor story of Thymara and the Moon’s Champion on the way down to the tomb. Clearly, Tam hadn’t thought to take it literally until now. He muttered a curse under his breath, then stared down at Nanna-Sin again, his face a mask.

  “What do you know about the Untheran gods?” he said.

  Dumuzi racked his brain, pulling up the names Enlil had spoken, but Mira answered first. “Untheran texts claim they came through from another world, during the height of the Imaskar Empire. Imaskar had kidnapped the Untherans from their kingdom in that other world and blocked the gods from reaching here and rescuing them. Most all of them died in the Orcgate Wars. They say there used to be gods’ tombs all over this country before the Spellplague.”

  “And Djerad Thymar began as a ruined god’s tomb?” Tam asked, looking up at Dumuzi.

  “Parts,” Dumuzi answered. “The rest was quarried from the Smoking Mountains.”

  “But you kept … him.”

  Dumuzi felt his nostrils flare. “What else would we have done? Toss his corpse in the river? We’re not animals.” He considered Nanna-Sin. The god’s placid expression seemed to change each time he looked at him—now gently amused, now mournful, now on the brink of fury. “Why does he have a corpse? I thought gods … I mean, Enlil doesn’t have a form. But Gilgeam does?”

  “It’s an avatar,” Mira said. “The Untheran gods came into this world by …” She cast a glance at her father. “Well, they say they came into the world by projecting a part of their power into a physical body. It’s like a suit, a vessel for the god to walk around in.”

  “So they could be present,” Dumuzi said, “the way the people needed.”

  Mira shrugged. “As you like. They say the Untheran gods led their people in revolt and brought them over the Sea of Fallen Stars. Then they ruled that nation like mortal kings and queens might. I guess if you were starting from almost nothing, it would be needful. Or they could have just let people figure themselves out,” she added dryly.

  Dumuzi frowned at Nanna-Sin and wondered if Enlil had taken such a form, if he meant to again. But as he wondered, he felt his thoughts slip away and—

  Bearded and broad-shouldered, the Ruler of Heaven regards his people from the steps of the ziggurat. Unthalass spreads out, robust and triumphant. Before him stand the others, his children, his comrades. Fierce and furious Inanna. Burning Girru, Shining Utu, Shadowed Nergal. Nanna-Sin, gleaming silver in the noonday light—even the moon watches Enlil’s departure. Proud Gilgeam with the crown of kingship on his brow. Enlil looks out over Unthalass, over his people, over his children. He raises his arms to the sky and in that moment, he is both ended and begun—body dissipating over Abeir-Toril like a vaporous cloud, being surging into a greater self, a greater power—

  Dumuzi suddenly wheezed air, feeling his flesh around him as though someone had squeezed it around his breath like damp clay. The flutter of Nanna-Sin’s pulse felt like a tambourine, slammed against his chest—crash crash crash.

  Tam stood directly in front of him, one hand gripping him by the shoulder. Dumuzi dropped his gaze from the human’s alarmed, dark eyes.

  “Apologies,” he said. “That happens sometimes.”

  “A Chosen dragonborn,” Tam mused. “Watching Gods. You’re all right?”

  Dumuzi nodded. He thanked Enlil, blew a puff of air into his cupped palm, ignoring Tam’
s puzzled expression. “I saw … I saw Enlil’s avatar destroy itself. Why is Nanna-Sin’s still here if he’s dead?”

  Tam looked back at Mira, who shrugged. “The manifestations persist, I suppose, if they’re killed.” She nodded down at the still body. “I mean, clearly.”

  “Do you have any idea why Gilgeam would want him?” Tam asked.

  Mira’s expression shifted into utter stillness. “He felt very strongly that everything from the sea to the mountains was his. Maybe it’s pride. Maybe he thinks he can motivate the Untherans with their history.”

  “How likely?” Tam asked.

  She made a face. “Not very. The lost god-tomb is enough, or even just the land. He’s got them well and wound against anybody not human, besides.” She chewed her upper lip, deep in thought. “He’s curious about magic,” she said. “He’s got Dahl’s ritual book. Maybe he’s got a mind to grind up the body and make it into components.”

  No!—the voice boomed so sudden, so fierce and frantic in Dumuzi’s thoughts that he clapped a hand to the side of his head. A wave of coolness, of comfort came after it, washing over him in time to Nanna-Sin’s pulse. Still a little mortal, Dumuzi thought, and he was glad.

  Tam and Mira were staring again. “That would be very … shocking,” he decided on. “Even for Gilgeam.”

  Mira raised an eyebrow. “That presumes he’s the same Gilgeam.” She looked up at her father. “I was stuck in a tent with him—I saw nothing that proved he was anything but a man with a little magic.”

  “No magic in Abeir,” Tam pointed out.

  “No gods either,” Mira returned.

  “Oh,” Dumuzi said. Nanna-Sin’s expression seemed to radiate knowing, as if the god were a little smug even beyond the grave. “He’s an avatar,” Dumuzi said. “A manifestation. Just like before.”

  “Maybe,” Mira allowed. “He’s not a very powerful one.”

  He didn’t need to be powerful, Dumuzi thought. Not at first. He only needed to make it through, to catch the ears of his people, to gain power bit by bit—maybe by seizing it from the genasi, by demanding the artifacts of the Dawn Titans. But in Toril, the problem of power had other solutions. Maybe Gilgeam was only a Chosen, maybe he was an avatar, maybe by now he was a demigod or a god or some other thing Dumuzi didn’t know the name of—whatever he was, Dumuzi was sure he knew how Gilgeam meant to become more powerful.