LORCAN DID NOT CARE WHO THE WIZARD WAS OR WASN’T. BUT IF ONE WERE going to care about such things, he supposed he would be disappointed in Caisys the Vicelord. In tales, he had been called handsome in a way that suggested something short of obscenity, clever and ruthless and undeniable in a way that bespoke succubus blood. “Garago” muttered to himself while he poured five cups of tea, missing or ignoring the fact that eight people were crowding his little cottage’s front room. He said nothing as he set small spoons alongside each chipped cup. Then he paused and counted, frowning as if suddenly realizing he hadn’t made enough tea for the mob of people massed in his sitting room—but instead, he muttered, “Right,” and pulled the fifth spoon from the tangled depths of his beard.
Lorcan stayed where he was, standing against the wall, and hated every moment.
“Are you all right?” Farideh had whispered as they waited for the others.
“I wish you’d stop asking that,” Lorcan said.
“I meant about Caisys. I didn’t expect we’d find him so soon.”
“Quite a surprise,” he said, keeping his voice as neutral, as empty as possible, and failing.
Dahl sat at the wizard’s table, watching them talk and sending ripples through Lorcan’s temper. Maybe that was the curse’s effect wearing off and maybe that was just his frustration at the stunning lack of chasms to shove the Harper down. He should have given up back in the Dalelands. This wouldn’t end unless Lorcan forced it, but his promise to Farideh itched along his thoughts: Swear to me right now that you won’t harm Dahl. Ever.
“Did you not suspect?” he asked suddenly, the question bursting out without his leave.
“About … About Garago?” she asked. “No. Maybe I can see a little now. You have the same eyes, when you look human, I mean.” She looked down at her hands. “I don’t think you should grow a beard. Are you going to tell him who you are?”
“Why should I?” Lorcan had asked. “I said it before. He doesn’t matter.”
Caisys polished the spoon on the front of his robes, staring down Farideh with black eyes that Lorcan managed a little more hate for.
“That one,” he said, nodding at Adastreia standing against the wall, “I remember. But not all these others—when did you start tramping around with a gang? And I thought you had a sister.”
“You know I do,” Farideh said. “And you remember Mehen.”
“They all look alike to me,” he said in a low voice, though not low enough to keep Mehen from hearing it. He slid a cup of tea toward Farideh, hand caged over the steaming liquid as if he hadn’t even considered the heat of it. “He used to live here?”
“You know damned well who I am, Garago,” Mehen said. “I used to live here and I used to fix your karshoji roof for you whenever you blew a hole in it.”
Caisys scratched his beard. “All right, that tone I remember. And I remember you don’t like downheather tea.” He slid Mehen’s cup over in front of himself and sat down. He took a delicate sip of the tea and considered Farideh. “You’ve been gone a long while.” He jerked his head toward Lorcan. “See the rumors are true enough.”
“Is this one true?” Lorcan asked, his voice cold and hard. “Are you Caisys the Vicelord?”
He turned to consider Lorcan, as if he’d just posed a curious puzzle, and for a moment he said nothing, only studied Lorcan’s face. For a moment, Lorcan felt the tide of his mother’s blood, surging up from wherever Dahl’s curse had buried it—even though he had no idea why. Caisys was no one. Nothing.
“Have we met before?” he asked.
Lorcan kept his face impassive. “No,” Lorcan said. “Are you Caisys the Vicelord?”
He stared at Lorcan a moment longer, before turning back to Farideh. “What gave it away?”
She shook her head. “Just odds. Adastreia said Caisys took us, so he had to have come here. The staff is hidden in the same place as the village only in Abeir, and he hid it. If you weren’t him, you had to have known him. But no one comes to the village. So I don’t think you had a visitor.”
“Or,” Caisys said, “perhaps I was driven mad by him in order to keep his secrets.”
“You already admitted it,” Farideh said. She shot a look at Lorcan—the madness wasn’t an act.
I don’t care if he’s mad, Lorcan thought. Or perhaps, he cared only so much as it made Farideh kind to him. He hated that it took him a moment to remember that. They couldn’t leave Arush Vayem soon enough.
“We need the staff,” Farideh said.
He shrugged. “What do you want that for?”
“Bryseis Kakistos is looking for it. She possessed Havilar and she’s planning to destroy the gods with it. We have to stop her.”
His oddly sleek eyebrows rose. “She’s around again? How does she look?”
“Like Havilar!” Mehen barked. “She’s a ghost and she’s possessing my daughter.”
“Right,” Caisys said. “Hmm … Anyway, I do so have visitors.” He looked over at Dahl and nodded. “Drink your tea. It’ll warm you up.”
Dahl frowned. “How are you still alive?”
“Clean living.” Caisys snickered to himself, trailing away when no one seemed to catch the joke. “Oh. See it’s funny, because I have never been an advocate of anything … Well. They did wind up calling me ‘the Vicelord’ didn’t they? Terribly dramatic. Though,” he added, “you wouldn’t believe how many people—and not-quite-people—will line up to notch the bedposts of ‘the Vicelord.’ It has a ring to it.” He chuckled to himself and took another sip of tea. “But to answer your question, mind your own damned business and drink your tea so you can go on your way.”
“It’s a spellscar.”
Lorcan frowned at Ilstan. One madman faced the other, and in that moment it would have been easy for anyone to believe both of them were perfectly sane. And perfectly dangerous. Caisys dropped his gaze to the Purple Dragon insignia, faint as lichen dappling a rock against Ilstan’s filthy robes. “Well, well,” he said. “What a combination. A dragonborn, a cambion, a war wizard, a Brimstone Angel, a nosy Oghmanyte—”
“It’s a fairly large one,” Ilstan broke in. He drew a circle in the air, level with Caisys’s chest. “There is a … collapsing of the Weave, approximately there. It’s keeping you alive but it’s driving you mad, isn’t it? It’s too much magic for a body to hold.”
Caisys’s mouth quirked. “I’ve had practice.”
Ilstan dropped his hand. “What does it do?”
He shrugged. “As you said, keeps me alive.”
“Oh no,” Ilstan said. “It’s too powerful for only that.”
Caisys chuckled again and turned back to Farideh. “Obviously the war wizard’s a good addition. It’s hard to find a good wizard. We were stuck with Phrenike so long, I suspect that’s why Bisera finally stopped shillyshallying and took steps.”
Farideh frowned. “Aren’t you a wizard? And who’s Bisera?”
“I mean Bryseis. She hates when I call her that.” He sipped his tea noisily. “So, you’ve come back to stay or do you prefer cold tea?”
“I told you,” Farideh said. “I came back for the staff.” Caisys made a dismissive noise. “If she gets the staff—”
“She’s not going to get the staff. Do you think I’m an idiot?” he demanded. “Asmodeus passed it to her, she passed it to me, and I made sure to hide it where nobody could find it.”
“In Abeir,” Adastreia said.
“Right, in Abeir.” He frowned. “No, wait, how did you find out about that?”
“Because nobody’s found it,” Dahl said. “Anyone looking to resurrect Azuth would want it. Anyone looking to topple Asmodeus would too. Hells, any wizard with more than a little ambition would probably sell half their apprentices into bondage to get their hands on the staff of Azuth. But nobody has it. So it’s someplace they don’t know how to reach.”
“Someplace where the gods may not tread,” Ilstan added.
“Someplace that lines up almost exactly with Arush Vayem,” Farideh said. “Did you found this village? Just to protect the staff?”
Caisys’s dark eyes glittered dangerously, but then he smiled. “I told you I get visitors.” He studied Farideh for a long moment. “I watched you. Seventeen years I watched, waiting to see if there was some phantom of her in you. Now you show up and I’ll be damned if you’ve not become exactly as pigheaded.” He looked over at Lorcan again, squinting as if he weren’t quite sure what he was looking at. “Which of them are you with?”
“Technically?” Lorcan said. “Glasya.”
“She want the staff?”
“Her Highness doesn’t know about the staff,” Lorcan said. “And I don’t much want to enlighten her.”
“Could get you a hell of a boon.”
“More likely to get me killed.” This was going to go on forever. “Are you familiar,” he asked, “with the ritual Bryseis Kakistos intends to use to kill the king of the Hells?”
“Intimately? No.” He watched Lorcan in a wary sort of way. “But maybe she mentioned it once. Maybe I know you can’t do it without the staff.”
“Or the heirs,” Lorcan said. “The most powerful she can get her hands on, the better to make the conduit to the Nine Hells’ magic. The most potent. So far that hasn’t always meant the closest to the source … but speaking as a collector? Your descendants aren’t anything special. They litter the multiverse—I myself have gone through six. They are weak and unambitious. No one cares if you lose one. There’s always another Vicelord heir.”
“Sounds about right.” Caisys’s dark eyes sharpened. “You want me to save them?”
Lorcan shrugged. “Do as you like. But I think you’d be more concerned with saving yourself.” He moved toward the table, leaned against its surface, vaguely threatening, entirely sure. It felt awkward, as if he were trying to wield a weapon after a long injury—he knew this was the right gesture, but he doubted nonetheless.
“You’ve hidden yourself out here,” he went on, “where no one can find you. No one comes to this village except if they want to hide—so who do you hide from?”
“Does it matter?”
“Not particularly,” Lorcan said. “Though mere distance doesn’t do much when it comes to gods and archdevils, so I’d guess you’re more worried about mortal threats. You don’t want to die. And if Bryseis Kakistos is looking for the most powerful individual in the line of Caisys the Vicelord? Well, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d make a wager that it’s you.”
Caisys chuckled. “Silver-tongued, this one. So you think Bryseis is coming after me. You think I can’t stand against her? I’d wager you know by now that I already had dealings with her ghost and Alyona’s. If you think she’s given up on her kinder, gentler plans for survival, then I’d say I’m ready for her. I can handle a ghost.”
That name again—Alyona. But there wasn’t time to press him. Lorcan clucked his tongue. “A ghost with three times your knowledge and the blessings of a Chosen of Asmodeus in the body of a woman with twice your strength and a blade that might as well be her right hand?”
Caisys squinted. He looked over at Mehen. “She’s still carting around that damned glaive?” He shook his head. “Waste. Girl had a memory like a godsbedamned aboleth. Assuming she paid attention.” He slurped his tea. “Piecemeal mess when she didn’t pay attention. Bisera is probably hating that.”
“She’s probably enjoying having that youthful, well-trained body,” Lorcan said. “Having those memories to search through.” He tilted his head as if it gave him a new angle on Caisys’s features. Studied him right back, the bastard. “How long,” he said, “before she sees a certain wizard from a certain village on no one’s maps, do you think?”
Caisys’s eyebrows rose again. He took another deliberate sip of tea, before setting the cup down and turning to Farideh.
“What are you going to do with it?” he said.
“Trap her,” Farideh said. “That’s the bait. Ilstan and I can make a prison.”
“Then what?”
Farideh wet her mouth. “Then,” she said finally, “we figure out how to get Havilar back. How to push the ghost back out.”
“What about Asmodeus?”
Farideh shook her head. “I don’t think he cares.”
Caisys snorted and shot a look at Lorcan. “You have not done a good job here. Of course he cares! You bring that staff onto this plane and you’ll be horn-deep in devils. Are you prepared for that?”
“Asmodeus has other concerns at the moment,” Lorcan said. “The planes are … shifting. The gods changing.” He hesitated, unable to bring himself to say it. “Azuth is alive and waking up. Asmodeus has sealed himself in Nessus.”
Caisys scratched his beard. “Sounds like he’ll want that staff all the more.”
“Why?” Farideh asked. “He wouldn’t want to strengthen Azuth.”
“Who the Hells even knows?” Caisys said. “But he surely doesn’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”
“Then we’ll be the right hands,” Farideh said. “We have to get her out of that fortress, away from that ritual. I don’t know how else to save Havilar.” She hesitated. “Or you.”
For a long moment, Caisys said nothing, only considered each of them in turn. “It’s not a simple quarterstaff, you know. You have a way to transport it?”
“I think so,” Farideh said. She glanced at Ilstan. “He’s the Chosen of Azuth.”
“Well,” Caisys said, sounding surprised. “If anyone can hold onto it …” He glanced around the room. “How many of you plan on coming along?”
“All of us,” Farideh said.
“If it’s all the same,” Bodhar interrupted, “maybe Thost and I stay behind. Guard the back way, so to speak.” He smiled at Caisys. “We’re simple fellows. That portal business … not for us.”
“Six of you is still pushing the limits,” Caisys said. He drained his tea cup. “But you’re going to need the muscle, so I suppose we’ll make it work.” He stood. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Farideh looked over at Lorcan, and for a moment he wondered how she’d ever been that wide-eyed girl too stunned to even hold onto her book. “What do we need to do?”
“Farm boys, back up,” Caisys said. He stood as well and pulled open his shirt to reveal a splatter of a scar, like the remnants of hot oil thrown against his skin. It pulsed with a faint blue light. “Spellscar,” he confirmed. “I don’t recommend it. Everyone who’s coming along on this ridiculous errand come a little closer.”
Lorcan moved to stand behind Farideh. And Dahl—godsdamned Dahl. The Harper looked over his shoulder, as if marking Lorcan’s exact position, and took Farideh by the hand. Maybe there’d be a monster on the other side or a shitting sinkhole.
“Ready?” Caisys asked. But without waiting for an answer, he set a hand against his spellscar, and all the light around him bled through the air, sucked away into a doorway no one ever suspected was there.
• • •
WHEN HAVILAR RETURNED to the mists, Alyona was nowhere to be seen and Havilar couldn’t shake the feeling she needed to catch the breath she didn’t have. The image of the archdevil, the rising feeling of unease and then terror as she realized he was not—he couldn’t possibly be—a figment of her sister’s dreams. She felt as if her pulse was racing, but with no body, there was nothing she could do to slow it down.
Havilar sat, pulled her knees close to her chest, tried to sort through how many things were going wrong. Poor Brin—she thought of the little boy romping in the snow with Zoonie, of how hard it would be to protect him. Poor Fari—for all she got annoyed with Farideh for not catching on faster when Havilar dipped into her dreams, it was clear she was dealing with enough to make anyone distracted. The archdevil, growing more and more solid, seeming to suck all the light out of the room, out of Havilar—
She shuddered and laid her head against her knees. Poor Fari and poor me, she thought, even though that wasn’t going to do any good. She sighed, even though it stirred no breath, and looked around again.
For a terrible moment she imagined Brin succeeding, stealing the soul sapphire and freeing Alyona while Havilar was still stuck in Farideh’s dreams. But then surely there would be no misty place to come to or perhaps …
If Alyona was gone then …
… But she had made a glaive, so—
Havilar blinked hard. She’d lost track of herself again. Shit, she said without actually saying it. Shit and karshoji gods. How long did it take before she was as worn and fluttery as Alyona? Would it take fifty years or a hundred? Or would she come apart faster, since she’d come later, since it wasn’t her sister’s powers keeping her alive?
She said she’d give my body back, Havilar told herself.
And make one of them get her a new one.
Once all those heirs were dead.
She thought again of the little boy in the snow, and felt her thoughts start to drift. Havilar squeezed her eyes shut. Keep yourself together, she thought. Snow, snow, snow.
You started in the snow, she said out loud. Left at the gates of a village on no one’s maps, one and two, and who came to claim twin tiefling foundlings but Clanless Mehen.
The words picked up the cadence of a story—her story. If she kept telling it, maybe she’d stop losing track of who she was and where she was. She told the mists the silly, cherished stories of her babyhood in Mehen’s words—you would not sleep unless I sang battle anthems and stomped about the house with you facedown across an arm. She told her first memories of the snow and the old stone barn. She told the story of breaking her arm and building her first trap, the story of Arjhani and the winter storm, the story of the imp who turned out to be Lorcan, and leaving Farideh to unwind all their fates.
Havilar suddenly ran out of words at that. For all she wanted to be mad at Farideh for starting this, she couldn’t have done any such thing without Havilar summoning Lorcan in the first place.
And if she got mad at Farideh, then didn’t she have to be mad about Brin—who she would never have met—or Kallan or every adventure? She’d have to be mad about the little blue-eyed boy in the snow too.
Remzi, she said, and it didn’t sound like a word, but it still made her heart squeeze.
What’s that? Alyona stood behind her, hands clasped before her, looking as if she’d been standing there for ages.
Havilar stood swiftly. Where have you been?
Alyona frowned. Here and there. Why? Did something happen?
I talked to Brin, Havilar began.
I see, Alyona wrapped her arms around herself. So. He’s agreed.
Havilar felt her tail lashing the memory of a solid floor. What happens if she calls his bluff? What happens if the soul sapphire gets destroyed?
She won’t do that, Alyona said firmly.
You’re sure? Havilar asked. Brin seems to think she might.
She’s my sister. She promised—
She promised you that she wouldn’t hurt people this time, didn’t she? She promised she could do it without killing anyone?
This will remind her, Alyona said. She won’t … She knows, deep down … I’m sure she remembers.
Havilar’s stomach knotted. She could hear herself saying the same things about Farideh. Or Farideh saying the same things about her. But Bryseis Kakistos wasn’t either of them.
And if she calls his bluff? She asked again.
Alyona pursed her lips. If she calls his bluff, she said, then I suspect you and I will die. She looked away. Do you think she will?
I think if it’s even a possibility, you need to talk to her, Havilar said. Stupid things happen when you don’t talk.
I have talked to her. She won’t listen.
You haven’t said the right things. You know she’s doing this for you. She thinks she’s doing this for you.
No, Alyona said sadly. Maybe once. But now she’s doing it for power.
I don’t think so, Havilar said. Did you see her before? That was a grave she was fussing with. Nobody fusses with graves to get power—nobody fusses with graves at all, I guess, but still.
She wants revenge, Alyona said.
Revenge for you, Havilar said. Look, I know that Farideh would do pretty much anything to save me. Your sister has put her in a position where she has to do a lot of it to try and save me. The only thing that would stop her is if I said stop.
The soul sapphire—
That’s not saying “stop,” Havilar said. That’s saying “do it my way.” And I’m pretty sure your sister is at least twice as stubborn as mine, so that’s just going to make her push back even more. You have to tell her you’re done.
Alyona looked away, off into the mists, and said nothing. Havilar held her breath—or at least, she did something that felt like holding her breath. Done meant dead when it came to Alyona, but Havilar couldn’t imagine that didn’t appeal at least a little after all these years bound to Bryseis Kakistos.
If it didn’t appeal … well, then, neither of their plans was going to work and Havilar was going to have to do something drastic.
My sister isn’t your sister, Alyona said after a long while. She sighed. My sister isn’t even really my sister anymore. Bisera is long gone. I doubt … Perhaps it’s better just to wait. To see … Maybe she can achieve her goal and we’ll be freed?
If she achieves her goal, innocent people die, Havilar reminded her. Two gods die and there’s no way to know what happens.
Innocent people die all the time. Alyona’s silver eyes slid to her. A tiefling’s first lesson, isn’t it?
Havilar balled her fists, but didn’t answer. Maybe she could stop Bryseis Kakistos without Alyona and maybe she couldn’t, but she could think of two lessons she’d been taught before that: One, when someone’s being stubborn, go around them. Two, don’t let shady, skull-cracked warlocks kill your kin.
More or less, Havilar thought, heading toward the split in the mists before Alyona could stop her.
• • •
DAARDENDRIEN NIJANA, DAUGHTER of Turan, of the line of Garshabin, tugged the chain that bound her to a line of twenty other Vayemniri and waited for the response, eyes on the Untheran army, on their golden god-general standing atop one of the jagged edges of earth dragged up by the planar storm. Overhead, the clouds had grown thick and heavy, and Nijana worried about a second storm.
The god-king’s priests in their tattered skins had walked all down the line of prisoners, white feathers in hand, smearing ink on their eyelids and ears. None would miss the words of the Son of Victory, they said.
“You may be saying, ‘this is not the battle he promised us,’ ” Gilgeam cried, his voice echoing, buoyed by magic. “ ‘This is not the victory we deserved, the kingdom we were meant for!’ I say to you, no! I say to you instead that this place is our true reward, this battle is the one we have remade ourselves for.”
Nijana looked sidelong to the next Vayemniri along the chain, a red-scaled Yrjixtilex girl hardly old enough to wield a sword. Her tongue rattled dryly against the roof of her mouth, little flames bursting between her teeth. When she caught Nijana’s eye, she stopped and swallowed hard.
“Who was responsible for our misfortune?” Gilgeam bellowed. “Who profited by our collapse? And in answer: the Vayemniri flourish, they do not suffer. In the other world, they make their empire, they treat with the genasi as though they are righteous. In this world—in our world—they claim our fields and our monuments, our riches and our mines. Our cities are laid to ruin and we are cast into the wilderness. ‘We too have suffered the predations of tyrants’ they say to us, but they do not suffer. They make themselves fat on the efforts of our ancestors. They claim what is ours and now that we have returned to our glorious homeland, they refuse to cede it. What choice do we have? We cannot feed ourselves on memories and broken stone! They will make us slaves again, demanding labor and riches for the slightest morsel. I cannot allow that.”
The Untherans shouted, angry and exultant, and the sound agitated the demons. Nijana counted the nearest ones to the line of Vayemniri prisoners staked along the outside edge of the army’s encampment—two of the vulturelike vrocks perched close to her end, a succubus lounging as if disinterested and lazy beside the stake. Nijana had seen well enough that they moved from inaction to action faster than she would have credited.
“We have raised ourselves out of bondage,” Gilgeam went on. “We have fostered the virtue of bravery. Our ranks number in the ten thousands and we have, each and every one of us, proven with our blood, our determination, that the strength of Unther has not ended. Not yet.”
Nijana heard the chain clank along the line before she felt the tug, and started counting to a hundred, her eyes darting from the Untheran guard to the god-general he watched with rapt attention. With any luck he would not pay the slightest attention to the living fence they’d laid along this edge of the camp.
“If we, the last bastion of this plane’s greatest empire, should fall into servitude once more, if we should fall to these creatures, then what? Who is there to come after us? The blood of Unther is on the way to extinction unless we reclaim our lands and make ourselves free!”
Fifty, Nijana counted. Fifty-one, fifty-two … She slowly increased the tension of the chain against the stake. Beside her, the Yrjixtilex girl shifted up onto her heels, ready to straighten.
“They have left us with only two possibilities,” Gilgeam went on. “Either we remain Untheran or we let ourselves come under the dominion of the Vayemniri. This latter must not occur. It cannot be allowed to occur. And so the Son of Victory stands before you, the new god, the new king of Unther, and says that though we are outnumbered, we are of a purpose. We are given strength. And if you trust in me we will be victorious over the hateful Vayemniri.”
Light built around Gilgeam with each rising word, each chorus of shouts from the Untherans. How much of what he said was true? How much should they fear? Seventy-six, Nijana counted. Seventy-seven, Seventy-eight …
“In two days’ time,” Gilgeam went on, “we shall reach the stolen city of Djerad Thymar. We shall reclaim it, reclaim the bones of my fallen brother, and with our victory, reclaim Unther’s might.”
Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety … Thunder rumbled in the distance. Nijana shifted onto one knee, surreptitiously taking hold of the chain in both shackled hands. Her mouth flooded with acid, her breath burning with it.
“Among you there are those who fear this fight,” Gilgeam said. “There are those who fear their weapon will betray them, their determination will not let them defeat this threat, that their desire for freedom, for vengeance for our ancestors is evil. To you I say, do not be afraid. Know that anyone whose throat you cut, that is one who will not cut your throat. That is one more claw that will not cut the life from Unther.”
Nijana stood—and the whole line of Vayemniri stood as one. She pulled against the stake with all her strength—and the Yrjixtilex girl and the man beyond her, and those beyond him pulled with her. It broke free of the hard dirt as the succubus came to her feet, wings high, hands reaching for Nijana.
The dragonborn woman spat, a stream of acid spraying through her pointed teeth to splatter the succubus. The Untheran guard turned at the demon’s scream, but the chain beyond was clattering as the other Vayemniri began to run. Nijana pulled the loose end to her, the stake a weapon in her hands.
The vrocks took to the air, the succubus dived at Nijana. She stabbed and stabbed again with the filthy stake and punched through the succubus’s shoulder before the chain yanked her away, into the darkness.
“Stop them!” she heard Gilgeam shouting. “Destroy them!”
A patch of darkness thickened in front of Nijana. Demon! her mind cried as she pulled away, tugging the Yrjixtlex girl from the creature. The shadow sliced through the chain, burning claws cutting the iron as easily as young cheese. The Yrjixtilex girl breathed fire at it, and again at the vrocks that descended to its side. None of the creatures so much as flinched.
A rain of arrows pattered the ground behind them. Nijana risked a look back over her shoulder and saw the building light around Gilgeam, the beginnings of the same spell that had taken Djerad Kethendi’s Lance Defenders out of the sky.
“Karshoj,” she swore. Front lines first, she thought, whipping back toward the demons. The vrocks lunged for the Yrjixtilex girl, for the chain that bound her to Nijana. Nijana yanked on her end of the chain, pulled the girl behind her and spat a stream of acid that caught both vrocks across the face.
The closer one screamed as its eye burst into a fountain of blood. With a cry that sounded like the birth of a whirlwind, the shadow demon surged up and attacked its wounded comrade.
A bolt of lightning sizzled out of the sky, striking the ground beside Gilgeam. The god-general half-fell, half-flew off the back of the rise. Waves of screaming rose out of the night as sleet began pouring out of the billowing clouds.
A stroke of luck, Nijana thought, running after the other prisoners, and hoped they could count on more such luck, tonight as they ran and in the days ahead for Djerad Thymar.
• • •
ABEIR BEGAN AS utter darkness. Humid air, uncomfortably warm and dense, made Mehen’s scales all prickle down to their roots. He tasted the air, reaching back for his falchion. Still there, still whole—the portal hidden in Caisys’s scar hadn’t destroyed them.
“Where are we?” Farideh called. Her voice echoed oddly, as if it were bouncing off Mehen’s bones.
“Shit,” Garago muttered—no, Caisys, he reminded himself. “Forgot torches.”
A bluish light grew off to Mehen’s left, illuminating Dahl who was shaking a glowball into life. “I have three,” he said, reaching back into the bag at his hip.
“Well done,” Adastreia said, taking the lit glowball.
The light built and built, gleaming off crystals the size of castle towers, lying at angles to the walls. Mehen sucked in a breath, tracing the strange and lovely stones with his eyes.
“Gods,” Farideh whispered. Again, that strange vibration and Mehen tasted the air more frantically.
For a thousand years, the titan lay, incorrupt and unapproachable, for all who neared Merciless Petron felt the earthquake in their marrow until they shattered like fragile schist.
Dahl moved closer to the crystal, studying the strangely curved edges. The milky stone seemed to absorb the light from the glowstone, so that the length of it gleamed pale blue.
“Don’t touch that,” Caisys said.
“How is it working?” Ilstan’s voice shook as he stormed toward Dahl. “How did you manage? I can’t … I can’t make anything!”
Mehen looked over at Farideh. She was staring at her up-turned arms as if someone might have etched a map there. “I don’t have any spells,” she said. “I can’t … I can’t feel the Hells or the Weave.”
“We can’t cast magic?” Adastreia asked.
“Of course you can’t,” Caisys said. “Pacts are sealed off. Weave doesn’t exist. You get what you carried in, assuming it’s self-contained. Weren’t you listening?”
“You didn’t tell us that,” Farideh said, her voice rising.
Caisys frowned at her. “Well, I should’ve. No magic. No normal magic. Hope you remembered blades. Anybody have a bow?” No one did, of course. “Well, tluin and buggering Shar,” Caisys said. “This is why you don’t ask me to plan your little outings.”
Mehen scanned the group—swords on Farideh, himself, Lorcan, and Dahl. Adastreia had a dagger, and Ilstan … well, Mehen felt a lot better if Ilstan didn’t have a blade. Besides, the wizard had a job to do.
“Why do we need a bow?” Mehen asked. “Can hardly move in here.”
“Because they might not have magic, but they have stlarning monsters,” Caisys said. “Monsters like you haven’t seen. There’s a big bugger in these caverns in particular. If we’re lucky, it’s dormant. If we’re not … well, you don’t want to get close.”
Mehen looked up at the jumble of crystals as if something might be there, moving in the shadows. The cavern stretched up into shadowy pockets, broken by more of the long crystals. He peered at them, trying to make the edges straight, trying to convince himself they were only crystals. But there was no denying the soft curves and strange bulges.
For the second thousand years, the body began to degrade, and any who approached the remains of Merciless Petron were turned to glass where they stood. The dragon tyrants dropped stones upon her body and built the Verthishai Loech Ternesh to protect those who wandered.
“The Dead Stone Mountains,” Mehen murmured.
“Bones,” Lorcan said, looking up at the crystals as well. “What madman carves quartz into giant bones?”
“Nobody,” Caisys said. “Those are Dawn Titan bones. It’s like an ossuary.”
In the third thousand years, Versveshardinazar, the Opaline Terror, mined the Verthishai Loech Ternesh down to its roots, seeking the relics of Merciless Petron. For centuries his slaves broke rocks until they found the corpse, and the precious remains of the Dawn Titan’s magic.
“Is this the ossuary of Petron?” Mehen whispered.
“How would I know?” Caisys replied. “I said don’t touch them!”
Dahl scowled. “I wasn’t touching them. I was looking at the striations.”
“Look from farther back,” Mehen said. He tasted the air, tapping his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “The Dawn Titans were the first of the tyrants of Abeir. Their relics are what magic Abeir has. Shestandeliath carries a fragment of the titan’s lungs—it built Djerad Thymar. Whatever’s condensed into those bones is powerful. And you don’t know what it does, so leave it be.”
“I don’t know why you’re all acting like I’m chipping pieces off these things,” Dahl said. He pointed at the top of one of the nearly horizontal columns—what looked like the twist of a wrist bone. “That a sign of your monster?”
Along the upper edge the stone was a patch of rough stone as long as Mehen’s torso. The light didn’t refract through it, and so it left a patch of opaque white along the bone. “What makes scratches like that?”
“Not scratches,” Mehen said. “That’s acid pitting.” He turned back to Caisys. “What is it?”
“I think it used to be a behir. Then it—or its progenitors—mucked around with those Dawn Titan bits.”
“Yes, very helpful,” Lorcan said caustically. “Because we’re all walking bestiaries. What the shit is a behir?”
Caisys scowled. “Pretend a dragon mated with a giant centipede and then it ate one of that titan’s organs. That’s why you don’t touch the bones!”
Dahl shot Farideh a disbelieving look and threw his hands in the air.
“Never mind him,” she said as she took the third glowball from him. Caisys smirked at Mehen, a reminder he was still Garago, even if he was Caisys too.
Farideh handed Caisys the glowball. “Since you’re leading the way.” She turned to the rest of them. “What have we got in the way of magic that does work?”
Lorcan held out the chain of rings he wore and felt his way along them. “I have one for an emergency portal, a dimensional pocket that I think still has a charged wand in it, and a ring with three frost spells left in it, but I cannot tell if it works. The others aren’t reacting or they need a connection to the Hells, so that’s a shitting lot of good.”
“I’ve got my beads,” Adastreia said. “Three healings, one wind-walk.” She tapped the black pearl. “That’s not going to call my devil, is it?”
“Not a chance,” Caisys said. “Anybody else?”
Dahl dropped his bag in the middle of the group. “Ilstan,” he said very deliberately, “I brought a sizeable number of your creations.” But here too not everything seemed suited to the barren air of Abeir. From the bounty, they had slippers that made one able to climb walls, three wands full of lightning bolts, another two that could cast magical missiles—
“And this.” Dahl held up one hand to show a gold ring etched with a ram barreling around the band. He locked eyes with Lorcan. “I thought I’d borrow it.”
“Better than nothing,” Caisys said.
They passed out the magic items and all shed their cloaks, the humid air making everyone flushed and sweating long before they began their careful passage through the ossuary. The crystals took up the light of the glowballs as they passed, illuminating the path better than the lights alone. The slippers were only large enough for Adastreia, and Lorcan kept his own rings. Mehen tucked the wand Dahl had given him into his belt and moved to the front, alongside Caisys, ahead of Farideh.
“You going to yell at me about keeping all this from you?” Caisys asked, as he ducked under one of the shorter bones—a finger, Mehen thought, or a foot bone.
“As far as I can see,” Mehen said, as he followed, “what you did was keep this nonsense far away from my girls, so there we’re in agreement. Can’t say I understand you not getting involved when Lorcan turned up.”
Caisys snorted. “I had to guard the staff. Besides, you were gone before I even knew what happened—and if you haven’t heard yet, your girls are purposely hard to find.” He cleared his throat. “I was checking up. Now and again. Lost track of them, though, maybe eight years back? I’m glad it wasn’t for the worst kind of reasons.”
They eased one after the other around a gently curving rib bone. “What’s the story with the Oghmanyte?” Caisys asked.
Mehen sighed. “He’s better than the cambion.”
“That’s a low bar to set.” He glanced back at Mehen. “What about the other twin? What’s she doing?”
The question sent a cascade of cold panic through Mehen. “She’s being held captive by your mistress.”
“Right,” Caisys said. Then he shook his head. “Bisera’s not my mistress. She’s a friend. The kind of friend who won’t call herself your friend, but still.” He reached back to help Mehen around another bone—something thick and flat on one side—but Mehen ignored the offered hand.
“You mad at me for leaving them at the gate?” Caisys asked.
Mehen tapped his tongue. “It was a pothach plan, Garago. Nobody wanted to keep them but me. And I don’t karshoji remember you arguing all that hard for it. What would you have done if no one had claimed them?”
“Honestly?” He shrugged. “I don’t much remember that part. Kept them myself? Razed the village and gone elsewhere? Worked the right sort of magics to make someone think there was no world where they would have left those babies in the snow?” He smiled at Mehen and again something cold and terrible gripped his core. He could remember that day—he would always remember that day—coming back from patrol, well after the others, having stopped to dress a mountain goat they’d shot. He’d been a stone’s throw from the gates when he heard their little yelping cries, and thought some animal had dropped its kits too close to the village. Instead he found two little tieflings, wrapped in wool blankets, tucked together in the snow. No footprints. No notes. Only them, looking pale and drowsy and dangerously cold. Farideh’s little fist almost blue with the chill, but clinging tight to her sister’s blanket.
“Did you do that to me?” he whispered.
“Does it matter?” Caisys said. “I mean, I didn’t, but I don’t see why it would have been bad. I did do it to other people, mind, once I realized our little village is full of coldhearted hardjacks and you lacked some rather critical resources, such as milk and a basic understanding of non-Vayemniri infants. You needed help and you weren’t going to ask for it.”
“Are you talking about Criella?” Mehen asked, startled. The tiefling midwife had been insistent that the twins could not stay, but once Mehen had shouted her down, once it was clear the twins were his and he wasn’t budging … she’d used Chauntea’s blessings to make milk for the twins, showed him how to change their cloths, talked him down when he thought he was losing his very mind.
Caisys chuckled. “Do you want to know something about Criella? She’s actually the heir of a warlock called Margarites. She came to kill me and I opted to use a little magic instead of a blade, make her more useful. Re-sorted her mind so many times I don’t think she knows what she is.”
“That’s monstrous!” Mehen said.
“It’s a little funny,” Caisys said. “And for the record, I didn’t give her the stick up her arse; that came with the original.”
The shadows between the crystal bones flickered—or had he imagined it? Mehen aimed the glowball’s light as much as it would be aimed into the darkness.
The cavern narrowed, closed off by a wall of the crystal—the base of an enormous skull. Caisys pulled his sleeves down over his hands before crawling through a small round hole. Mehen cast a glance back at Farideh before following, his light blooming through the milky stone of the skull.
He crawled through the hole, careful not to linger too long on the titan’s bones, the stories of titan relics murmuring in his head. Now wasn’t the time to find out if they were exaggerating. Inside the giant skull, plain stone rubble had filled in the space, half burying the curve of its brainpan. He waited to see Farideh come through before slipping out the jagged opening of a mouth.
A stone’s throw beyond the ossuary, the cavern opened up into a huge domelike room. The path broke into ragged rock, then dropped away in a long, shallow slope that rose again on the opposite side, forming a bowl around a small pale streak that cast light enough for Farideh to see the whole of the indentation.
“Is that it?” Adastreia whispered.
“Can you feel it?” Ilstan said, sounding as if he might weep. “Oh, Watching Gods.”
Even Mehen could feel it. The air was … more alive, as if it were thrumming like a hive of bees. Full of magic, she thought.
“The staff of Azuth,” Ilstan intoned.
Mehen studied the slope. The rock was crumbling and loose, an easy slide down and not so simple a climb back up. But if some of them stayed up here, if they tied ropes to—
His eyes fell on the edge of the cliff. On the pitted stone that etched its way as far across the ledge as they stood.
Something in the darkness above them shivered and hissed. “Mine,” a breathy voice said in Draconic. “That is Vozhin’s. So are you.” Mehen looked up in alarm as the shadows bulged and shifted. He reached for his sword.
“Ah, tluin and buggering Shar,” Caisys said. “It’s awake.”