Brimstone Angels

by Erin M. Evans

  “You’re such a worrywart. He’s safe. He can’t harm anyone as long as he’s in the circle and look—” She turned and made a series of rude gestures at the cambion. He regarded her with the same mild smile. “He’s locked right in. He can’t do any harm.”

  He can, Farideh thought. He is. She felt as if her mind were slowing down, as if her tongue were turning to clay. “Send him back. If anyone finds out you’ve summoned a devil—”

  “I’m not sending him anywhere until Mehen has seen him. Maybe you won’t be the smart one forever. This is a hundred times better than that dire rat he had me trap.” She pulled off Farideh’s scarf the rest of the way and wrapped it around her own neck. “Here, you watch him for a minute.”

  “What? I can’t! You can’t leave me—”

  Havilar took up Farideh’s cloak as well. “Yes, you can. Just don’t mar the circle. That’s important. Probably.”

  “Wait!” Farideh said, but Havilar was already out the door and into the snow.

  Leaving Farideh alone with a devil who looked like walking sin.

  He stood there—quiet, still, watching her intently. The silence felt so fragile, as if the slightest breath would shatter it. She thought of Criella’s concern, of the fiendish blood undeniably coursing through her veins, ready to make her do something foolish. Or dangerous. For a long time she didn’t dare move.

  But then, neither did the devil. The circle—despite the fact that Havilar shouldn’t have been able to do anything of the sort—was holding. He was only standing there.

  She told herself to relax—she wasn’t going to talk to him, she knew better than that, Criella was wrong—and bent down to pick up the book.

  “You’re not like that one,” the cambion said.

  Farideh lost her grip on the book and dropped it again. She stared up at the devil, but he was still standing there, still trapped in the circle. “What?”

  “You are not like her,” he said. His voice slithered into her ears and Farideh shivered. She scooped up the book and held it to her like a shield.

  “I … I thought you weren’t supposed to talk,” she said.

  “I’m not able to do any harm,” he said, “and what harm is talking?” He smiled again, as if he knew what Farideh had been thinking before. “You’re not like her,” he repeated. “Like night and day. Like sweet and sour. Like the ocean and the desert.” He tilted his head. “It’s astonishing.”

  Farideh flushed. “I don’t know what you mean by that. We’re twins. We’re alike tip to toe.”

  The cambion tapped a finger below his right eye, the same eye as Farideh’s silver one. Farideh’s flush burned hotter.

  “It’s only an eye.”

  More than an eye though. Even the dragonborn who refused to see fate or the hands of the gods in anything, touched the hafts of their weapons when they spied her odd eyes. Bad enough to be a tiefling, the descendent of humans and fiends; worse still to be marked like that. If she’d come by it honestly—she knew they thought—by a blinding stroke, it would be one thing … but nothing normal was born with two-colored eyes.

  “It’s a very clever eye,” the cambion said. “Both of them are. They see things your sister’s don’t.”

  Farideh scowled at him. “It’s just an eye. It can’t see invisible doors. No spell-hidden creatures. No silver pieces in your ear—”

  “Of course not,” he said, and like that, the wheedling tone was gone. “But you do see the way people look at you, devil’s child.”

  Those black eyes, cold as a winter storm, were staring right into her heart and the sudden seriousness in his voice jolted her.

  “What is it they say?” he asked. “One’s a curiosity, two’s a conspiracy—”

  “Three’s a curse,” she finished. “You think I haven’t heard that rubbish before?”

  “I know you have.” When she glared at him, he added, “It’s not as if I’m plumbing the depths of your mind, dear girl. That is the burden of every tiefling. Some break under it, some make it the millstone around their neck, some revel in it.” He tilted his head again, scrutinizing her, with that wicked glint in his eyes. “You fight it, don’t you? Like a little wildcat, I wager. Every little jab and comment just sharpens your claws.”

  “I …” Farideh realized she was doing exactly what she had sworn not to do, and took hold of the book, crossing over to the shelves on the opposite side of the barn. So he was right—as he said, it wasn’t hard to guess. She slid the tome onto the shelf.

  “Who could blame you?” the cambion went on. “Who wants to be held responsible for something they can’t control? Turned away because of something their foremothers and forefathers did to gain a little power?”

  She was trying, but gods, he was prodding her in sore spots. “What do you know about my foremothers and forefathers?” she said. She kept her eyes on the spines of the books. “Maybe it was power that made them cross with devils, or maybe they didn’t have much choice. Maybe it was for some … greater good. Maybe it was love.”

  The cambion broke into raucous laughter, and she felt herself flush.

  “Ah! Is that what they tell you?”

  “They … It just might have been that way, that’s all.” She looked back over her shoulder. “You weren’t there.”

  A smile twisted the cambion’s lips, and Farideh blushed again. She’d been staring at his mouth. “Of course. All those mortal women swooning over gallant pit fiends. All those golden-hearted succubi blushing as men kiss their burning hands. My darling, let me tell you a secret: devils don’t love.”

  Farideh looked at the door. Havilar would be back any minute, and with her, Mehen. Mehen would tell Havilar what a stupid thing it was to call a devil and make her send him back. Or maybe he’d just pull out his falchion and slice the cambion in half.

  When she looked back, the devil had taken a few steps closer to her, still toeing the edge of the circle of runes. She was still a good eight feet away, but there was nothing between them, and she was very aware of those eight empty feet.

  “You’re a half-devil,” she said. “So if it’s all about power, who wanted it there?”

  His smile twitched, and for a moment she wondered if he had sore spots of his own. “Nobody. Least of all my father.”

  “Is he the devil?”

  “No, that would be my mother,” he said. “Invadiah, the fiercest erinyes of the Lady of Malbolge.” There was a sour note to the way he said it.

  Farideh didn’t know what an erinyes was, but she suspected Criella would tell Mehen to keep a tighter rein on her if she did. Malbolge was the name of one of the Nine Hells. Her sense of dread deepened, though she pushed it aside. He was a devil—of course he came out of the Hells. He was still trapped in a circle Havilar made.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Farideh,” she said.

  The cambion clucked his tongue. “Anyone ever tell you, Farideh, that there’s power in names?”

  “You told me your mother’s name pretty easily,” she replied.

  “True enough,” he said. “And I’ll even tell you mine, since I know you want to hear it. It’s Lorcan.”

  “Well met,” she said, and instantly felt foolish.

  “Better than you think,” he said. “We’re even now. You can see I’m not like the others.”

  “What others?”

  “Why, the ones who judge you,” he said, with a wide gesture at the world beyond. “The ones who wait for you to fail.”

  “There’s no one like that here,” she said, even though that wasn’t true. Criella. The dairyman, the blacksmith’s apprentice, the tinkers, and others. They thought they were hiding it, but they watched her when they thought she wouldn’t notice, gauging her, waiting for her true nature to burst forth like a bud coming to poisonous bloom.

  “So is that what this is?” Farideh said, hotly. “You’re going to try and convince me to … to … what? Kill my neighbors? Corrupt them? I’m not going to—”
<
br />   “Heavens to Hells, you’re an excitable one,” Lorcan said. “How old are you? Sixteen?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “All but grown,” he said. “Regardless, you’re smart enough to know better than to do something just because I said it, I’d wager. I would have had an easier time snatching up your sister if I were that sort of fiend. I’m only here to help.”

  “I thought you were here because Havilar called you.”

  “And I came,” he said, “because I wanted to help.”

  “You can’t help me.”

  “Oh? It doesn’t take a seer to work out how your life will go.”

  Farideh shook her head again, as if she could stop listening to him. Leave, she told herself, leave now. She started toward the door.

  “You’ll live in this village for all of your life,” Lorcan said, keeping pace with her along the border of the circle. “You’ll spend every day trying your hardest to be what they want, and you’ll never meet their expectations, because you were not made for this. You will always be their burden, the creature that turned up at the gates in swaddling.”

  Farideh stopped. “How do you know that?”

  He smiled. “Your sister told me. They love her, don’t they? But only so long as you keep after her, cleaning her messes and making sure no one realizes that she’s causing so much trouble.”

  “Havi’s not trouble.”

  “No,” Lorcan said, with a chuckle. “She’d never do something foolish like summoning a devil because she thought it would be fun.” Farideh bit her lip. “If you’re lucky you’ll succeed and she’ll be safe. If you aren’t—and darling, no one’s that lucky—one day you’ll slip, you’ll miss, and she’ll undo everything you’ve worked your entire life to protect. They’ll throw you out of this village and into the real world. She’ll never see it coming because Havilar believes that people are good and they’ll always love her and there’s nothing wrong with playing along the lines of their expectations. Whoever finds her first will take her head if she’s lucky. At least that way’s quick.”

  As he spoke, Farideh saw the village, angry and afraid. A garrote, a chopping block, or an angry mob. Soldiers from somewhere else. Warrior-priests on horseback. Gods, it could come a thousand different ways. She’d heard it a thousand different ways from the villagers. Her blood would melt the snow …

  “I wouldn’t let that happen,” she said. Tears choked her voice.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Lorcan said. “It’s an unhallowed grave, unmourned and alone for the both of you. There’s no escaping that, no matter how perfect you are.”

  There isn’t, Farideh thought—she’d always known that, hadn’t she? Hard as she tried to be good, no one trusted her.

  “I can help you, you know,” Lorcan’s crooning voice slid through her worries. “Simple as it comes. No one will ever hurt you. No one will ever hurt her either.”

  “No,” Farideh said, though her thoughts felt slippery and loose. She covered her eyes and ducked her head. “No. Go away.” Stay, she thought. Tell me.

  “It’s a simple thing,” he said again. Lorcan set his hand, hot as an iron, on the bare spot between her shoulder blades, his fingers sliding just under the edge of her collar. “Not like what they tell you. Just say you’re mine. That’s all it takes.”

  “No.” She couldn’t. It would be everything she wasn’t supposed to …

  “You’ll have the power to do as you please. You’ll have the power to stop them. I’ll give you everything and all you have to do is take it. Take the power. Say you’re mine.”

  “No,” she said, though her voice was growing fainter and her head was spinning. Why would she say no? She would be safe.

  “No one touches a burning coal—and that’s what you’ll be, my darling, something so hot and bright and dangerous they dare not lay a hand on you. Someone tries to harm Havilar and you will stop them. Someone tries to deny you what you truly deserve, you will show them their folly. Anyone comes to this village, looking for anyone who doesn’t want to be found …” He trailed off.

  She could not open her eyes now. “Yes?”

  “You will be their savior,” he whispered in her ear. “Tell me you don’t want that?”

  “I …” Farideh faltered. “I do.”

  “Free. Free to do as you please. Free to find whatever life you want.” He pulled her close, very close. “Free to stop those who would hurt the innocent. Hurt your friends. Hurt Havilar.” His breath burned against her skin. “You want that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to give you that power?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to be mine?”

  “Yes,” she said, and with that her thoughts seemed to clear: He’s out of the circle.

  Farideh looked up in horror at the cambion, whose arms held her like an iron band. “No!” she cried.

  “Too late, darling.” He whispered in her ear, “It wouldn’t have held the imp either.”

  Then everything caught fire.

  Farideh woke to someone calling her name. There was a smell of burned wood and a chill breeze blowing over her skin. She opened her eyes to a heavy black snow swirling through the sky.

  Not snow, she thought. Ashes. Fat black ashes. Like burnt paper.

  She started to sit up and someone grabbed her arm. Havilar. She looked up at her sister, whose cheeks were streaked and spotted with a slurry of tears and clinging cinders. Beyond, the village—the whole village of Arush Vayem—stood, watching from a distance of a good twenty feet. Between the twins and the villagers, the ground was a flat stretch, cleared and charred as if something had exploded, burning away the grass and snow and … what else had been there? Mehen stood in the middle, his falchion out and ready. But he was facing the villagers.

  They’re angry, Farideh thought muzzily. Something …

  She remembered the stone barn and the cambion. Her breath sped up. Her nerves rattled with fear and pain and she realized her shoulder was screaming, and her dress had been torn open on that side.

  From her collar to her elbow her golden skin had been branded with an elaborate design. She stared at it a moment and the lines seemed to form a flail. A flail and a smattering of lines that looked like a whirlwind. She touched it gingerly—it burned like a fever.

  “Oh Fari,” Havilar whispered. “What have you done?”

  The time between waking in the wreckage of her home and finding herself sitting in the dark beside a campfire, somewhere in the foothills of the Smoking Mountains passed in a blur. She remembered shoving half-burnt things into a haversack. She remembered Mehen cursing the villagers in a string of Common and Draconic, blowing out a fork of lightning breath when the blacksmith’s apprentice got too near. Criella shouting. Everyone shouting. Farideh had to leave. If Farideh was leaving then so was Havilar, if Havilar and Farideh were leaving, then so was Mehen, and damn them all and karshoji Tiamat come down on them. She remembered Havilar clinging to her arm with one hand and her glaive with the other, as if the two were all that could anchor her in the world. Mehen leading them up a mountain trail, muttering to himself in Draconic—they could not go to Tymanther, but where else could they go? The Black Ash Plain lay to the south, riddled with giants and their kin. The great Underchasm split Faerûn to the west. To the north lay Chessenta … and if Farideh’s burn meant what he thought …

  The lines that laced her shoulder were red and oozing. They ached. They itched. Worse, they pulled, as if the burn were a tether and something was holding the other end.

  Mehen settled a blanket over her shoulders. “You should go to sleep,” he said gently. Havilar was already fast asleep, sprawled facedown with her horns curling back from the ground.

  “I’m not tired,” she said, hardly above a whisper. Her throat ached from the effort of not crying. She couldn’t—not after all she’d done.

  He was silent for a moment. “We’ll be all right.”

  Farideh nodded, though she couldn�
��t see how.

  “Farideh,” Mehen said. She looked up. “Trust me. I’ve done this before.”

  “And so we can’t go to Tymanther,” she said dully.

  Mehen snorted. “There’s a lot more world than Arush Vayem and Tymanther. We’ll make our way, take bounties or serve as guards. We’ll find someone to help you get rid of that pact, and we can come back.”

  Farideh pulled the blanket close. “You know we can’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut. The cambion had been right. One mistake, and she was as good as dead.

  Fine—if that was how the world was going to treat her, perhaps she’d just keep whatever the cambion offered, and to the Hells with them all. If they all thought her damned, better to damn herself right.

  The thought frightened her, but there it was.

  Mehen was watching her. “If you’re not going to sleep, keep watch. Wake me when you’re tired. Or if you hear anything.”

  Farideh doubted she would ever be tired again. Once Mehen had gone to his own bedroll and dropped off to sleep, she let herself weep quietly into her hands.

  “What on all the planes are you crying for?” a voice said. “You’re much better off now than you were.”

  She froze like a rabbit before a wolf, looking up at Lorcan silhouetted in the firelight. He was still ferociously handsome, still unspeakably fiendish, and this time there was no circle—not even a broken, haphazard one—to separate them. Havilar and Mehen slept on.

  “Are you here to take my soul then?” she said quietly.

  Lorcan burst into laughter. “Oh, Glasya skin me, that’s adorable. No, I’m not here to harvest you. We have an agreement, and I’m here to see to that.”

  “Oh.” She wondered what exactly it was she had bargained away in the heat of the moment and the tangle of his pretty words. “But you will? Is that what this is?”

  “Dear girl,” he said, “the king of the Hells’ own blood runs in your veins. A soul was never a certainty for you. I’d suggest you stop worrying about it.”