Erin Evans: Lesser Evils

But Farideh smiled. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”

“It’s not that lovely,” he said reflexively. Then, “I mean, it’s rather common. It shouldn’t draw as much notice.”

“That’s …” She shook her head. “That’s really thoughtful of you, Lorcan. How did you find it?”

He shrugged. “You ask the right people the right questions and all manner of things come to you.” Lorcan studied her face, the easy delight in this smile. “Did you have any more nightmares, darling?”

MALBOLGE, THE HELLS

The throne room of the palace of Osseia was empty, but for Sairche kneeling on its patterned floor, her eyes downcast, and Glasya, Lord of the Sixth. The pit fiends and hellwasps who guarded the archduchess were gone. The devils who regularly filled the court, attending their mistress’s orders had fled. Even Sairche’s erinyes bodyguards had been repelled. What Glasya had to say was for Sairche’s ears alone.

It wasn’t lost on Sairche that she waited in precisely the same place her brother had, with precisely the same fate hanging over her.

The hierarchy was a dangerous place for a cambion, Sairche well knew. All the gains she’d made by turning traitor against her own mother threatened to collapse beneath her for want of a troublesome warlock. The mirror wouldn’t call the rod. The mirror wouldn’t show her anything close. It couldn’t find Lorcan and when she sent it back to the place she’d glimpsed before, there was only a smoking crater and a score of shadow-worshipers crawling over the cooling rock. No rod, no cambion, no warlock.

To fall from her elevated status meant not just a return to skirting the edges of the pradixikai’ s good graces, gathering secrets from greater devils like a child collecting scales in the wake of a dragon-the dragon had seen her. The devils wouldn’t let her slip back under their notice.

It is your own fault, she thought, but she would never admit it aloud. She had made deals without having goods in hand, without knowing the archduchess’s interest. She had overreached her station. And now, even Lorcan had slipped her grasp.

She stared at the floor and hoped beyond hope that this was not the end of her.

“You seem to be having trouble with your erinyes,” Glasya said, her voice like a razor drawn over Sairche’s eardrums. “Disobedience. Turmoil. Three dead.”

“That was Bibracte’s error,” Sairche began.

“Bibracte is your problem,” Glasya said. “And thereby your error. You are not a child, Sairche. It is not endearing to hear you blame your toys.”

Sairche shivered. “Yes, Your Highness.”

The silence that reigned in the court of Osseia seemed as if it were preparing to pounce on Sairche, to pin her down and smother her. She drew a noisy breath to keep it at bay.

“You are very lucky, little cambion,” Glasya said. “I have uses for you still. We can forget this … novice’s mistake. For now. Come here.”

Sairche unfolded herself on shaking legs. She did not want to come any nearer to Glasya. She did not want to have a use to the archduchess. But more than either she did not want to die. The Lord of the Sixth looked down on her vassal, as beautiful and terrible as a crashing star. The smell of rotting flowers was thick enough to choke on. Glasya held out a scroll marked in shining red inks and ornamented with black and silver tassels.

“The king of the Hells begs a boon,” Glasya said. “Something powerful is coming. Something the gods themselves may not be prepared for. He has passed down orders to every archduke-we are called to aid him.”

The scroll seemed a leaden weight in Sairche’s hands. “These are Asmodeus’s orders?”

“A part of them. I would suggest,” Glasya said very carefully, “that you read them and absorb them most thoroughly. My father’s plans are ever delicate things, relying on a hundred thousand points to craft the whole. It would be … a shame, if one of those more critical points were to fail.” Glasya’s regard held Sairche in place as surely as nails through her feet would. “It might even cost him the godhood he prizes so highly, and then … well, then the whole of the Hells might rebel. We might find ourselves with a new king. Or queen,” she added with a small smile.

Sairche swallowed hard. She would not die, but she’d been played into a terrible gambit. Glasya did not need to say she wanted Sairche to fail, but if she did, Asmodeus would surely punish her. But if she followed through on Asmodeus’s plans, then Glasya would swiftly do away with Sairche.

Sairche nodded and clutched the scroll to her chest. This is only the hierarchy, she told herself. This is nothing but the hierarchy made larger. You can defeat it. You can find a way around it.

“How long do I have?” she asked. “Some years. So I expect your very best work. You may go, Sairche. I suggest you choose a new commander for the pradixikai .

Zela seems appropriate. You will be very busy in the years to come.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Thank you.” She turned to go.

“And do cheer up,” Glasya called. “You’ll be pleased to see our part involves your brother’s warlock. And her twin,” she added, as Sairche reached the doors.

Sairche froze and looked back at the archduchess. “Twin?”

“The one they say killed Rohini,” Glasya said with a terrible smile. “Bear that in mind before you go bargaining with souls I have a right to: what the collectors think they know, what any of the devilkin think they know, is only ever part of the truth.”

Sairche hurried back to her apartments within Osseia, sealed the door, and unrolled the scroll. The uncrossing of worlds. The uprooting of gods. A battle for powers that would come, and grow fevered as the final prophecies came to pass. If she didn’t know better, she might think Asmodeus was completely mad.

But mad or not, Sairche had no choice but to play her part. She scowled-as much time as she had, there were a thousand ways to fulfill Glasya’s responsibilities. She needed pieces, she decided. Better to start securing those now than scramble seven years down the line.

Farideh would be one. The elusive twin the other. She would have to figure out a way to find them. And then … as many fools with more ambition than sense, more ego than caution, and more power than reason as she could manage. She thought for a moment, then left, back to the little antechamber to which she’d had the scrying mirror returned.

The shadow-worshipers were still prowling through the mountain’s remains when Sairche arrived through a borrowed portal, digging out the remains of books and stonework and grumbling to themselves. Not too busy to react to her appearance with drawn swords and thrown blades. The weapons glanced off the protective bubble Sairche cast around herself, and she gave the men a withering look.

“I want to talk to your leader,” she said. “The wizard. Now.”

The wizard who’d been all simmering temper and soulless eyes when she’d watched before, searching for the rod or the tiefling or her brother. The one who’d dashed off furious letters to Shade and to Waterdeep. The one who’d clearly failed someone, somehow. He did not come quickly, perhaps thinking he would bring Sairche down from her perch on the crater’s edge. When he finally did come, it was with a sneer and a retinue of half a dozen other wizards. The eyes were colder in person, utterly without pity. He’ll do nicely, she thought.

“I have a deal for you,” Sairche began, and she made the opening play in the downfall of Asmodeus.