by Erin Evans
“Depends,” Caisys said. “Because I think your goals are getting tangled up in other things.”
“I want to save Havilar,” Farideh said. But even as she did, she thought of Havilar’s words from the dream: If you thought it would kill a plane full of people to save me, karshoj yes, you shouldn’t do that. She bit her lip. “But are they right? Is that going to make everything worse?”
Caisys raised an eyebrow. “For your sister?”
“For everyone.”
“The gods cannot occupy the same space,” Ilstan said. “They vie for the same divinity, the same entity. When the Lord of Spells speaks, sometimes it is him and sometimes it is the Raging Fiend. As Azuth grows stronger, I think the king of the Hells grows weaker.”
“No,” said Lorcan. “That is not remotely what is happening.”
“Then enlighten us,” Caisys said.
Lorcan scowled. “Azuth grows stronger, I’ll agree to that. But Asmodeus is not weakening. Azuth is merely succeeding in gaining control of Asmodeus—but never completely. I suspect the best you can hope for is that they merge into one god.”
“Perhaps for you!” Ilstan cried.
“Well considering the alternative is that they destroy each other, I’d say so,” Lorcan replied. “There’s only one spark between them. And while your god might have once been powerful enough to claim it, he’s also been dead a century and doesn’t exactly possess a defender’s advantage in the depths of Nessus.”
“He said …” Farideh swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “Asmodeus said that if she succeeds, then the Hells will break into civil war and spill out onto the planes.”
“Sounds right,” Caisys said dryly. “Plus, I’d wager your wizard god is starting to reach out beyond his prison. Last time gods of the arcane died, they took a whole lot of spellcasters with them.”
Farideh’s heart felt as if it were turning to lead. “Bryseis Kakistos wants to feed power from the Hells through the staff, into Azuth, so that he overpowers Asmodeus and kills him. That’s what Sairché said.”
“Who’s Sairché?” Caisys asked.
“Never mind,” Lorcan said.
“If that’s the ritual,” Farideh went on, “can we … change it? Can we give Azuth enough power to survive, without killing Asmodeus?”
Caisys made a face and ran a hand through his beard. “Ah, gods, I’m not the one you want for this nonsense. Pity Bisera’s the one you’re up against. She’s a crack at ridiculous rituals.” He sighed and thought a moment. “It won’t work, though. You only have one godhead to divvy up.”
“Can we split it?” Farideh asked.
“If you could split it that simply, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?” He dragged his fingers through his beard again. “I mean, it’s happened before, but not because of desperate mortals. No, you’d have to find another spark of divinity.”
Farideh thought of the internment camp, the purpose of gathering all those souls, and pushed her panic down. “What about from a Chosen?”
“Not enough.”
She looked over at Ilstan. “What about two?”
“Two’s going to get you a god of field mice or somesuch,” Caisys said. “You’d need a thousand to secure someone like Asmodeus.”
“What about a spark from a dead god?”
Mehen stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his arm in its sling. Caisys turned slowly to look at him.
“Well, well,” he said. “You holding out on us?”
“Would it work?”
“I love how you ask that as if I’ve done anything like that before,” Caisys said. “It should work. Assuming you have a dead god.”
“Djerad Thymar does,” Mehen said to Farideh. “Which means if you can get the magic and the ritual to do this, you’re going to have to convince Dumuzi and his god.”
Farideh pursed her lips. Dumuzi, she felt could be convinced. He was, like a lot of the Vayemniri, fairly even-tempered about devils and such. But Enlil was a mystery.
“We can solve that next.” She turned to Caisys. “So you’ll help us?”
“Well, I don’t want every archdevil spilling out onto the plain inserting themselves into people’s business,” he said. “Come on, you lot. I’ll show you the ‘library.’ ”
Beneath the open stairs and behind what had once been the back wall, Caisys’s cottage had a little space crammed quite full of books and scrolls and odd magic items. He set them to work emptying it out, sorting the scrolls and books and searching for particular spells and mentions. For all Caisys insisted he was nothing special, he had a notion of what to do, how to cobble it together.
“You’re going to need something to hold them in,” he muttered, scrawling notes on the edge of a parchment. “Or someone.”
“Like a soul sapphire?” Lorcan asked.
Caisys looked up. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t fit a god in a soul sapphire.”
“Why do we need anything?” Farideh asked. “Can’t they hold themselves?”
Caisys hesitated, dragged his hand through his beard, and plucked a small bone out of it. “Hmph. No. Not for the middle part. You have to help them do a little reorganizing.” He looked back down at his notes. “Better draw straws for who brings it up to them, by the by.”
Later, Farideh thought. First it remained to be seen that such a thing could even be done.
“You might want to get some rest,” Caisys told her. He dropped his voice. “I don’t actually need all of you, I just don’t like them standing around with empty hands.”
“Maybe send Dahl’s brothers to chop firewood,” she said.
“Your cambion’s the one I’m worried about.” He considered Lorcan, sorting through a case of small vials on the floor of the front room. “He has quite the talent for making enemies.”
“I don’t think he knows how not to,” Farideh said. The truth was on the tip of her tongue, but it wasn’t hers to tell. “You should be a little kinder to him,” she said, and went back into the dark space under the stairs.
Her chest felt tight around her breath. She couldn’t pretend this was the first time she’d leaped in with a risky, half-formed plan, but neither could she pretend this wasn’t on an entirely different plane of difficulty. It felt as if she had leaped off a cliff so high she had time to consider the ground beneath her and how badly it would hurt to land. You’re going to need something to hold them in, she thought of Caisys saying. Or someone.
Sometimes the only choice is a sacrifice, Azuth had said.
Sometimes we forget the power we wield, Asmodeus had warned.
Farideh swallowed against her twisting stomach. She glanced up at the spaces between the stairs, wishing to see the shadow of Dahl’s feet descending once more, but there was nothing.
Farideh pulled out a wooden box from just inside the door to the addition. Beyond, things were better organized, set upon shelves at the least. She came back out, setting the box on the table and emptying it: An old map of the coast of Aglarond. Six silver pieces with star-shaped holes in them. An old dagger rusted into its sheath. Two spells that she set to one side to reconsider. A scroll wrapped in leather with copper caps at its ends.
Farideh frowned and picked up the last one. It was the very double of the one Bryseis Kakistos had offered her.
“Is this your pact?” she asked softly, turning to Caisys.
He sniffed and looked up from his notes. “That? No. Pact’s in the brand. On the skin, written in magic. Pretty simple agreement usually—though some might lash another deal to the back of it.” He went back to drawing.
“What is it then?”
He looked up again, narrowing his bright black eyes at the cylinder. “Copper means Malbolge. Sixth Layer.” He raked a hand through his beard and smiled impishly. “I knew an erinyes from Malbolge once. That’s probably the deal I held with her.”
Farideh tilted it. A deal. A Malbolgean deal. I have something of yours, Bryseis Kakistos had said to Lorcan. Bu
t then, Have you seen this? I think you’ll find it interesting. Full of answers.
Bryseis Kakistos had gotten a copy of … what? Her finished deal with Sairché? Lorcan would have inherited it when he took Sairché’s place. Was something else waiting in the cambion’s tricky phrasing? She’d been sure her soul was safe after all—two favors done and Asmodeus negating everything anyway. “What was your deal with—”
“Fari,” Caisys said, suddenly serious, “think about all you’ve learned and ask yourself if you want the answer to that question, because I don’t relish making you blush.”
She returned his gaze. “I didn’t think you needed a deal for that.”
“Eh, things get complicated when it’s a devil. Transactional. I got some spells out of it. She got some offspring, I think.”
Lorcan and Sairché, she thought. “What do you still owe her?”
“Nothing,” Caisys said, returning to his work. “But it pays to hold on to your deals. Make sure there’s nothing hanging over you.” Eyes on the parchment, he added, “Anything hanging over you?”
“Not like this,” she said. So what was Bryseis Kakistos trying to buy her with?
“Your fancyman probably has one like it,” Caisys said. “One or the other of them.”
Farideh froze, eyes locked on her warped reflection in the copper cap. She didn’t have a deal, but Dahl had a deal.
I have something of yours, Bryseis Kakistos had said to Lorcan.
I think you’ll find it interesting, she’d said to Farideh. Full of answers.
And there was one question that burned brighter than all the others, one answer she would give nearly anything for: What happened to Dahl?
She felt suddenly sick and cold and faint. She dropped the scroll in the box as if it had come alive, backing from the table. Lorcan kept sorting old components on the floor and she thought she would vomit.
“Fari?” Caisys said. “Are you all right?”
She tore her gaze from Lorcan. “I have to talk to Dahl,” she said, or thought she said, only she was already heading up the stairs, before anyone could stop her.
Farideh pushed into the spare room, slamming the door behind her. Dahl kneeled near to an old, thin bed covered in a moth-eaten quilt, as if he’d been praying, inkwell and book upon the side table like a makeshift altar. When she came in he stood, looking worried.
“It was Lorcan,” she said, feeling sick and dizzy. “Lorcan’s the one you made a deal with, isn’t he?”
Dahl looked startled, a relieved sort of smile flickering at the corners of his mouth—that was answer enough. He pulled the parchment from his pocket, unfolding it and turning it, hunting for a clean corner. Tears broke down her cheeks, and she saw his relief harden as he dipped the stylus.
I don’t know why that would surprise you, he wrote, cramming the words into a clear patch.
She took the stylus and the parchment, but it was so full of questions and answers and promises and flirtations that there wasn’t any room. She dropped the page, pushed the sleeve of her blouse up instead, scratched across her arm, I asked him if he did anything to you. I asked him outright and he told me he hadn’t. He’d never lied before.
He took the stylus from her, laid a hand against her wrist to make her arm flat. The stylus tickled. I told you not to trust him.
She wrote across his arm this time, ink catching on the dark hairs. And you didn’t tell me why.
I couldn’t, Dahl wrote. Then, again, Why would this surprise you?
Farideh grit her teeth. She was getting so karshoji sick of all of this. You don’t like him but you know I have to
He yanked the stylus from her, You don’t have to comfort him.
“Don’t interrupt me!” Farideh cried. “What are you karshoji implying?”
I might as well be Dumuzi if he’s watching, Dahl wrote, his mouth a hard line. I’m starting to wonder if you’re playing the odds.
She snatched the stylus, splattering black across the floor and the edge of his arm as she dipped it in the ink. I don’t want him to hurt you.
You don’t want him to get upset, Dahl corrected across her elbow.
Farideh’s tail slashed. They go together.
Well he and I don’t.
“I’m not your karshoji apple cake, Dahl!” she burst out, another round of tears springing from her eyes.
Dahl stared at her, utterly baffled and clenching his jaw hard as if trying not to speak. I don’t know what that means, he wrote finally.
Knarp hunting, she wrote underneath.
Dahl stared at the words a long moment. “Oh stlarn off, Bodhar,” he said after a moment.
I’m not a prize, she wrote, hand shaking. I’m not something you get to rub in his face. You don’t fight him for me. I make my choice. I made my choice.
Farideh stopped and wiped her eyes with the heel of her right hand—already sick and furious at Lorcan, now Dahl had come at her out of nothing and …
And he wasn’t wrong, she thought. Lorcan had all the rein in the world to needle him, and then what did she do but try and make all of this smoother for Lorcan. Dahl wasn’t the one she ought to be looking to for comfort—not about this.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes stinging with tears again. “I’m sorry. I—”
Dahl tapped a finger to his lips. He pulled her closer.
Don’t listen to Bodhar, he wrote along the inside of her biceps, slow and smooth so the stylus didn’t scratch. He’s trying to help, but he’s got no idea what he’s talking about. I never called you apple cake—and if I were going to hang a pet name on you, it would not be one that necessitates telling that.
He stopped at the slight protrusion of bone at her elbow, frowning at her ink covered arm. His eyes skimmed over her shoulders, her chest, her throat, before she held out her right arm, and he set the stylus to her wrist.
Stlarning story, he finished, and a laugh burst out of her. Dahl smiled. He wrote, I am not trying to fight Lorcan for you. But you can’t ask me to sit and smile and try and make him happy while he’s driving us apart.
Farideh’s chest grew tight. She moved closer to him, pushed up the sleeve to write along the curve of his upper arm. He’s not. I promise. I promise. You’re the only one I want. Please don’t leave.
Don’t say that because you’re afraid I’m going to leave, he wrote. I’m not going to leave.
Farideh shook her head. “You already did,” she whispered.
Dahl shut his eyes a moment, pursed his mouth. Farideh started to step back, not thinking, just moving as if her feet knew where this was going and wanted to be away. But Dahl caught her around the waist with one arm, half a breath shaped around a protest. Both of them froze, as if that fumbled word might summon Lorcan up the stairs and finish undoing everything in one breath.
When that didn’t happen, Dahl held up the stylus, as if asking to continue. She offered her arm. You’re right, he wrote. And look where it got me. I’m not making that mistake again. He paused, swallowed. I adore you. I’m terrified of how much I adore you. You’re not some prize, you’re the woman I love, and you are the only soul on this or any other plane who gets to have a say in that, so to the Abyss with Lorcan and his godsbedamned deal.
“It’s too dangerous,” Farideh said. “We keep coming so close to breaking your deal. And Lorcan—”
Dahl drew a line under to the Abyss with Lorcan. Then he wrote, What do you want?
Farideh hesitated, the weight of all her choices and dilemmas laid upon her at once—the memory of Lorcan and the memory of Dahl and Asmodeus’s promises and threats. It didn’t matter what she wanted—it would be easy to say that, but the fact it didn’t concern gods and archdevils and the spinning plane didn’t matter here and now.
“You,” she said softly. “I want you.”
• • •
LORCAN RUBBED HIS eyes—how could he possibly be tired once again? It had hardly been a day. He picked up the components he’d been sorting and returned them
to Caisys.
“You’ve got some astral diamond dust amid all this mess,” he reported. “But not the other things.” He looked around the increasingly cluttered space. “Where’s Farideh?”
“Busy,” Caisys said. “You want to take another look around the understairs?”
Lorcan set the box of components down, very carefully, considering Caisys, considering the table. His eyes fell on the wooden casket, left open. And the copper-capped scroll half hanging out of its mouth. His blood turned cold. He looked up at the staircase.
Beshaba shit in my eyes, he thought. His heart felt as if it were trying to beat its way up out of his throat.
Caisys had returned to his notes. Lorcan moved carefully, strolled toward the staircase as if he were in no hurry. But in such a small space there was no hope of avoiding notice—Mehen stepped in front of him, blocking his path.
“Stay a moment, Lorcan,” he said.
“Where would I be going?” he said lightly.
Mehen didn’t budge. “I can’t be sure,” he said, “whether you knew what you were doing, casting that spell over Dahl’s shoulder, making him step into the water. I expect that’s just how you want it.”
Lorcan’s palms itched, missing the magic that would have filled his hands with fire, had the demon lord’s curse not wrapped around his soul. “Is there a question in there?”
“You wouldn’t answer it.” Mehen shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m going to bother saying this, but you need to decide for yourself what you’re doing here, because I for one am through giving you the benefit of the doubt.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, are you trying to press a suit with my daughter or are you trying to use her for your own gain?” Mehen said. “You can’t have it both ways.”
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
Mehen smiled, baring all his teeth, as he set his uninjured hand on Lorcan’s shoulder and squeezed. “My girls make their own choices,” he said. “But that doesn’t stop a father from giving advice. Nor from lending his sword. Got it?”
Lorcan jerked away from the dragonborn, temper seething. If he had even a measure of his normal powers …
