Erin Evans - Lesser Evils

She turned and eyed him for a moment, before she raised her face … and he realized she’d been staring at his ritual book with those odd, focusless eyes and not at him.

“Have you been casting rituals for long?” she asked.

“Some years,” he said. Seven to be exact-when Dahl had sworn himself to Oghma in Procampur, they’d started him on rituals almost immediately, seeing as he had a knack for magic. Had is the important word, he thought glumly.

“Where did you learn them?” she asked.

“In another life.”

“Have … have you ever taught anyone? How to do them?”

“No.” He wished she’d leave, stop asking these questions. Bad enough Tam had left him behind, he didn’t need to be reminded of Procampur. “I have to write a letter, if you don’t mind …”

“Sorry,” she said. “Yes. But … could you? Would it be too hard?”

Dahl scowled. She probably didn’t even know what it took to cast rituals. What was involved. It was serious magic, whatever she or others might think. “It’s not simple,” he said.

“I need someone to teach me,” she went on. She pulled the loosely wrapped package she’d carried out from under her chair, and took out an expensive-looking ritual book. “I’ve got this. Someone … That is, it came with some spells already in it. But I don’t know-”

“You should ask Master Zawad,” Dahl said.

“Master Zawad doesn’t have any more time for me than he does for you.” She fell quiet a moment. “Besides, it seems as if you’re better at this than he is.”

Dahl shut his ritual book and ran a thumb over the worn bottom edge of the cover. “You said you had a few already? What are they?”

She handed over the silk-bound tome. Gods’ books, it was a good quality-heavy pages, tight binding, crisp printing on the frontispiece. He frowned at the depiction of a moonless sky over bucolic hills. He leafed forward to the rituals, and skimmed what was written there. Oghma, Mystra, and lost Deneir, he swore.

“Where,” he asked after a moment, “did you get this?”

She didn’t answer right away, but pursed her lips, and try as he might, he couldn’t divine if she was annoyed or embarrassed or worried.

“Does it matter?” she finally said.

“A great deal.” He turned the book around. “This first spell is fairly minor. Puts all the lights out.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t seem like much use. Why not blow out the candles?”

“You can set it to finish at a later point. If you’re preoccupied,” he said dryly, and she flushed at the implication. “It’s used more often by people calling creatures that can pass through the shadows,” Dahl said. “It’s not difficult, but it takes some … uncommon components. Unpleasant components.

“The other two,” he said, “aren’t better. This one makes phantom restraints. The other …” Despite himself, he blushed as well. “I don’t know you well enough to tell you what it does,” he said stiffly.

“Oh.”

“And they are all rituals sourced from casters I don’t want to associate with.”

She wrapped her arms around her chest and made a noise under her breath that might have been a curse. “The book’s ruined then?”

“No. Of course not. That isn’t the point. Who gave it to you?”

“A man,” she said after a moment. “I met him in a shop and”-she rolled her shoulder as if trying to shake something loose-“he’s just … he decided to help me.”

Dahl shut the silk-covered tome. “Does he have a name?”

“Adolican Rhand.”

Dahl studied her face for some sign of what in the world she could possibly be thinking. “Adolican Rhand,” he repeated. “Are you mad ?”

“No,” she said sharply. “I told you, he’s the one sending me books. I haven’t had much choice in all this. Who is he?”

Dahl pushed the book back across the table, shaking his head. “You got it off a Netherese informer, and you ask for my help, not Master Zawad. Gods. What are you trying to hide from him?”

“Nothing.” Farideh leaned back away from the table. “Are you really going to tell me it’s better to be lectured by Tam?”

Dahl bit his tongue. What did she know, anyhow? “Maybe he needs to lecture you if you’re flirting with shady merchants and collecting their love tokens.”

She turned absolutely scarlet. “What would you have had me do?” she asked. “Take it back to his manor to say ‘no thank you,’ and be caught there? I might not know his business, but I’m not a rabbit tumbling into a snare.” She snatched the book off the table. “If you’re going to say no, just say it and stop dragging me through the mud behind you. I’ll manage fine on my own.”

Dahl scowled. “Of course. You don’t need a master or years of study or dedication or any of that.” He had, and what good had it done him? “You probably think you’ll just smile sweetly at the first person you see with a ritual book in hand, and he’ll be a bloody warlock ready to train you to be his heir. Is that how it happened with Master Rhand?”

Farideh whirled on him, still flushing like a maid, but with fire in her eyes and shadows-yes, shadows, he was sure-seething from her skin. “Karshoj ardahlominak,” she hissed, and suddenly the shadows surged around her as she stepped toward the door. There was a burst of light, a gust of air hot enough make Dahl turn aside, and a crack as a vent tore in the skin of the plane, and Farideh vanished.

Dahl sat, blinking back tears for a moment as the scorching air cooled. Ah, Hells and farther realms, he realized. He ought to have seen it. He ought to have known. She didn’t need a warlock to swoop in with ritual lessons. She was a warlock herself.

Her hair combed and her armor wiped clean, Havilar did sort of look like she might be Brin’s bodyguard. Particularly, he thought, since she’d insisted on bringing along her glaive.

“If you are robbed,” she’d said, “this will put a stop to it much quicker than if I have to fight hand to hand.”

“You do know I can defend myself?”

She regarded him as if he’d made a half-hearted joke. “Of course. But if you’re robbed, you’ll have to get the coin and run off somewhere safe. One of us has to.”

“ You could.”

Havilar had wrinkled her nose. “Well, yes. But I think you’d be better. You’re clever.”

As they made their way through the streets of Waterdeep, he still wasn’t sure what she’d said was a compliment. He felt fairly sure that girls preferred the kind of fellows that didn’t need rescuing.

And he was fairly sure that he’d prefer a girl who didn’t always have the upper hand.

It hadn’t ever mattered what he preferred. Helindra would choose a bride for him, and he was meant to be grateful for the opportunity to further the family’s influence. But if he didn’t go home …

He gave Havilar a sideways glance. When he’d first met her, he thought she might be a little simple, or maybe a little cruel. The sort of person who could tear into a battle and come out with a slew of kills to her credit, and only worry if she’d looked good doing so.

But it hadn’t taken long to realize Havilar wasn’t angry and she wasn’t cruel. Competitive, to be certain; vain, a little. But never cruel. And not as simple as she seemed on first flush, just … light .

A good person to be friends with, he thought. I’m making everything too complicated.

Tannannath and Frynch was exactly as stern and fussy an edifice as Brin had been expecting. It only took a moment for him and Havilar-and Havilar’s glaive-standing at the enormous doors and looking up at the elaborate stonework before a guard appeared.