Erin Evans - Lesser Evils

“Nuh-thay-rell,” he repeated. Tam ran his hands through his hair and cursed. “Loross.”

“Netherese?” Dahl said. He looked back at the letters and cursed.

“Is that what it’s speaking?” she asked. “It doesn’t sound like Draconic spoken.”

“ Speaking ?” Dahl said. “What speaking?”

Farideh narrowed her eyes. “The mumbling noise. It sounds like speech. Like an old man muttering.”

“What’s it saying?” Tam asked, urgently. Farideh shrugged.

“Gibberish,” she said. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the fine, whispery syllables. “Ashenath … enjareen … nether pendarthis …” She shook her head and opened her eyes. “You can’t hear it?”

“Only a hum.” Tam pursed his lips, staring at the page. “Right,” he said after a moment. “Dahl, I’m assuming you can cast a language ritual?”

“Not here,” Dahl said. “I need-”

“Of course not here,” Tam said. “You have the components?”

Dahl bit off whatever he’d been saying. “Yes.”

“Good.” Tam steered Farideh toward the dais and pressed her through the crowd, close enough that she had to force people aside. “Study that stone,” he implored, low and in her ear, “and remember as much as you can. Every letter you can manage. I’m going to need you to redraw it for Dahl.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, “you’re right and he’s right: it’s older than the mountains, and it’s not Draconic. It’s from ancient Netheril.”

At least, Dahl thought, something useful came of all that antiquary hunting. Even if it wasn’t entirely clear what it was.

Dahl laid out the components for the ritual that would let him understand the ancient language on one side of a square table. On the opposite side, the tiefling woman drew the remembered runes onto the back of Dahl’s list of artifacts with ponderous care, a strand of purplish-black hair trailing in the ink.

Gods, he’d like to have died then and there when she’d shown him up. There were dozens of languages that used Draconic letters-he knew that. Why had he just gone along and assumed they spelled out true Draconic?

This is why Oghma has no need of you, he thought. Because you’re stupider than some tiefling girl out of the mountains.

Tam paced between his bed and the fireplace, his expression drawn and distant. When Dahl had asked what his plan was, Tam had merely shaken his head and said nothing. Dahl set down the last of the components, an ink imbued with salts of copper. No room for error, now-if he miscast the ritual, the Harpers would never have him doing anything more than scouring the markets for goods.

“That should do it,” he said. He hefted his ritual book onto the table, a thick volume bound in crimson leather and embossed with the golden harp of Oghma in the center of the cover. Once upon a time, ritual magic had been a specialty of his, a focus among many dazzling and precious forms of the Art and the magic of the divine. The tome was nearly filled now, most of its pages inscribed with magic obtained after Oghma had left Dahl and Dahl had left Procampur.

Farideh stared at the heavy tome as he flipped to the proper page. “That’s … quite a lot of spells. Did it take you long to learn them all?”

“Years,” he said tersely. He paused-calm down, he thought, she’s not picking at you. “It’s … an interest of mine.”

Thankfully, she was quiet after that, as was Tam, and Dahl could put the both of them, the Harpers and the Oghmanytes, Netheril and dragons and the wheat waving in the sea breeze, well out of mind as began the quiet chant of the ritual.

He poured a thin line of ground silver into a rectangle around the ink bottle, added the cross-line of powdered bluefoot mushrooms, and dipped the end of a bone-white feather into the prepared ink. He brushed the mixture over his eyes. The liquid turned icy and he flinched.

“Give me the paper,” he told Farideh.

Dahl felt the magic of the Weave settle over him, broken strands of magic knitting themselves around his eyes. He opened them and looked down at the sheet she slid across the table. The tapered strokes of the runes seemed to shiver and reset themselves, forming letters and then words and then phrases his eyes recognized, and his thoughts parsed out. His mind began to move more quickly, skimming along like a fleet skiff on a calm sea.

“ ‘… the final secrets of … Tarchamus,” he read. “Whose name is the Unyielding, whose strength is mighty. Who tears out the ssheratith ”-some organ, he thought, drawing a line to mark it-“of the volcano. The heart of the world faljar anaresh ”-misremembered, he thought, or some damned ancient turn of phrase? — “against the light of day …”

A gap there where she’d forgotten the letters. “Look upon halaris enjar despair of unminded fellows. Such comes peril to Netheril,” he finished. “And peril to the Weave. All contained within.’ That’s all of it.”

Dahl frowned at the transcription. “That’s enough to be interesting. Parts of it don’t really translate. But it’s angry and it’s definitely talking about a wizard.”

“Arcanist,” Tam said mildly, his eyes on the transcription. “So it’s Tarchamus the Unyielding, not Attarchammiux, the Terror of the Silver Marches.”

Dahl shook his head. “Draconic implies some vowels. Loross doesn’t.”

“So that’s the author of the page? Heard of him?”

“Never,” Dahl said. “But then Shade’s not exactly sharing all its historical documents.” He pointed at the last untranslatable bit, which was coming clearer by the moment. “This means something like ‘his works of power.’ Spells, maybe. Or enchanted items.”

“Or weapons?” Tam said. “Is that what the page shows?”

Dahl shook his head. “No way to know. Not without watching the changes.”

“Ashenath,” Farideh said, and Dahl startled. “ Enjareen nether pendarthis . That’s what it’s saying. What’s that mean?”

Dahl bit back a curse. He should have remembered that. “Say it again.” She repeated the string of Loross. “ ‘Brought through rock and flood …’ and something like ‘and this is what we get.’ Maybe ‘Brought through rock and flood to this ?’ Are you sure you’re remembering it properly?” Farideh shrugged, but didn’t answer.

“The runes were broken,” Tam said. “It’s a piece of something larger. Something that’s sealed away a peril to Netheril. And there’s a fair chance half the people in that square read it too.”

“They’d have to speak Loross,” Dahl pointed out.

“Many Netherese do,” Tam said dryly. “And the page is just a part, a piece of some larger text.” He cursed again and straightened.

“Stay here,” he told Dahl. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He scooped up his cloak and the chain that hung on the chair. Farideh looked up at him.

“Where are you going?”

“If I wanted you to know,” Tam said, pulling open the door, “I’d have told you. Stay here. Don’t follow. Either of you.”

The Fisher’s not the only one who doesn’t use his resources well, Dahl thought.

Whatever he’d hoped would be true of the Harper priest, they weren’t partners. Dahl might have found the fragment, might have done the hard work of translating, but he wasn’t even on Tam’s mind when it came to sorting out the looming threat associated with it.

After all, why else would the priest have taken the chain?

He glanced over at Farideh, still sitting in the opposite chair, staring at the door. At least Tam hadn’t taken her along instead.

It isn’t her fault she speaks Draconic, he reminded himself. But she could have been a little less rude about it. How was he supposed to know, anyway?