Erin Evans - The Adversary

“Stop, poppet,” Khochen said, setting a firm hand on the little boy’s shoulder. He looked up at the Harper as if he might scold her. “That’s Samayan’s trail,” he said. “He went this way.”

“If we follow it, we’ll find him?” Farideh asked. The little boy nodded.

“Then you go back,” she told him, “and quickly. We’ll go find Samayan and bring him to you.”

The little boy eyed her skeptically. “All right,” he finally said. “But you have to tell him you won’t make him go past the bottom stair. And that I’ll stay with him.”

“I promise,” Farideh said. “Go.” The little boy ran off, back toward the shelters.

The Harper woman eyed her oddly. Farideh stared right back, not caring what she saw. “Samayan’s only a little older than his friend,” she said.

Khochen’s gaze flicked over her once more.

“Then we ought to find him.”

Farideh ripped the flowers up as they passed, removing any trace the shadar-kai might follow. They went on, twisting through the camp, heading for the lake. When the four of them passed the edge of the buildings and came out onto the broad shores of the icy waters, Farideh saw the trail of flowers, in distant patches as if the boy had bounded over the pebbly beach, ending in the water.

“Gods be damned.” Khochen breathed. They had found Samayan. The boy stood up to his ankles in the water, shivering as half a dozen shadar-kai closed in, another dozen crowding the shore. Samayan backed away, deeper into the water. The shadar-kai’s voices shouting, taunting. “Come out of there, or we come in for you!”

Samayan stood up to his thighs now, struggling against the pull of the water’s strange flow. His lips were turning pale. He kept shaking his head, kept moving backward.

Khochen caught Farideh’s arm as she started forward. “They’ll catch you, and then we’re all done for,” Khochen said. “We just need a distraction.”

“Chase him in,” one of the guards called. There were more of them now, at least a dozen, gathering out of the alleyways to watch the sport of drowning a young boy. Farideh’s temper rose.

“All right,” Khochen said, “Farideh, set one of these huts on fire. Havi and Ebros-”

The nearest guard slashed at Samayan with her blade, scoring a line of blood across his chest. He flinched, curling away from the weapon as she made another slice across his shoulder, cackling as she did. Samayan stumbled backward, as if over an unseen rock, the choppy waters closing over his dark head. And Khochen’s plan didn’t matter anymore.

Khochen cursed and she and the twins raced toward the fight, balls of dark energy peeling off Farideh’s fingertips, Ebros’s arrows sailing over their heads. “Keep them back,” Farideh shouted at her sister. “I’ll get Samayan.”

“What?” Havilar cried, as she stopped a shadar-kai’s sword on her glaive. Ahead of Farideh, Samayan’s face broke the lake’s surface, gasped too little air, and dipped under again.

Farideh ran through the lapping water, toward the bobbing shape of the boy, heedless of the threat of the shadar-kai. The water was cold enough her bones ached-colder than the tarn she’d grown up swimming in, colder than the waters of the Fountains of Memory. She dodged the lash of a spiked chain, and-as Samayan’s head dipped below a wave-she leaped through the fabric of the planes to close the distance. She stepped free, catching hold of the lanky boy in her arms and realizing that the lake bed had dropped off precipitously under her feet.

The icy water closed all around her.

There was no swimming through this-so much cold her every nerve was screaming and fading into numbness already. She could hardly move her arms, locked around Samayan, and each kick of her legs felt as if she were dragging them through concrete. The cold seemed to still her lungs, making it harder to draw breath when she did break the surface. She was turned around, unable to find the shore. Her heart hammered in her chest, and it did no good. She couldn’t warm herself, couldn’t draw her magic, couldn’t keep Samayan above the water. The lake would kill her.

No. .

She tightened her arms around Samayan as they sank into the freezing water.

No. .

Air bubbled out of her mouth, water flooded in.

No. .

. . there are thirteen tieflings arrayed around the grove-hooved and horned and winged and tailed and some who might as well be human for all their blood shows-but they are tieflings all the same. Six men, six woman, and the Brimstone Angel herself who stands facing the symbol of the king of the Hells, painted in blood on the spire of stone that they have dragged out of the bedrock with will and the frayed scraps of the Weave, the engines of the Nine Hells and the tortured howls of souls long-lost. This is how it starts, where it begins. Where Farideh and Havilar and every tiefling walking the plane begin. This is how they damn us all. .

Farideh opened her eyes in the freezing water, the water that once filled the Fountains of Memory- and sees the vision as real as it was in her head, as real as it would have been if she stood there; the blue-black fall of her ancestress’s hair where the surface of the lake should be- before her sight began fading. She blinked once, and suddenly she saw the ghost woman’s face, inches from her own, her teeth bared in a grin that was more animal than human. .

Relax, Farideh heard her say. Let go. . Let me help you. . NO- Farideh’s wordless scream made the ghost woman recoil. The last of her air spilled out.

And fire rolled from the core of her out.

She clung tightly to Samayan as everything around them was suddenly bright as a sun and hissing with the furious sound of boiling water. Her thoughts reeled, wordless and scrambling, but her lungs were screaming for air and her legs knew well enough to answer the need. She broke the surface, flames still filling her sight, and pulled Samayan up with her. A spill of water poured out of his nose and mouth. She could hear people shouting and weapons clashing on the shore. A burst of Hells magic pulled her nearer, near enough to regain all her weight as air replaced the water around her. Through the flames she could see the shadar-kai watching her warily. She could see Havilar and Khochen frozen where they’d stood holding off shadar-kai. Samayan coughed, gagged, and she set him shivering on the shore. Khochen sprinted forward and dragged the boy back, away from the fire. Away from Farideh.

Away from the Chosen of Asmodeus.

Farideh turned to the shadar-kai, and she felt her fury, her certainty that she would not let them take another soul, burst out of her like a wave. The flames burned hotter still. She would do anything, in that moment, to keep them from torturing the boy.

“Leave them to me,” Farideh said to the others. She drew the rod from her sleeve and held it out in front of her, parallel to the ground. “ Chaanaris .”

26 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) The Lost Peaks

Lord of Knowledge, Binder of what is Known , Dahl chanted to himself, Make my eye clear, my mind open, my heart true. Give me the wisdom to separate the lie from the truth. .

Dahl had not been a paladin for ten years now, but still he remembered the feeling of the god of knowledge’s presence-the sure, tranquil truth of Oghma that lit his mind afire. It bore little resemblance to the oddly strangled calm that seemed to surround and hold tight to his nerves, foreign as some Chosen’s power on his thoughts.

You can do this, he reminded himself. You have done it plenty of times before. He turned his sword in his hand, adjusting the grip. And if you can’t, he added, then all these people are going to die for your stupid plan, and Vescaras will be there to see you-