Erin Evans - Lesser Evils

“You know,” Lorcan said as Farideh poured the mix of metal salts into a circle around both of them, “there is a simpler way out.” The sounds of Rhand’s people making their way through the library made a strange complement to his calmness. He shifted out of the way as she came under his wing. “Not nicer, but simpler.” She stepped around her open ritual book to finish the line. “If we break the protection, Sairche will be on us in a heartbeat. She’ll pull us both out, quick as can be. Your sister too, I suspect.”

“But not the others,” Farideh said, calm because the alternative would undo her. “And then Sairche has us.”

“And then we have at least a little longer to live,” he corrected. “And a little longer to find a way out of the fire.”

Farideh thought of Havilar, of the approaching voices of the Netherese scouts, and the inevitable presence of Adolican Rhand. “I think our chances are better this way,” she said, even though she wasn’t sure. “I know the others’ chances are better this way.”

“No doubt,” Lorcan said. The echoing booms of the Shadovar’s wizards blasting their way through Maspero’s maze of shelves was getting closer. “What is your sister doing wrapped around the little wayward Tormite?”

“What it looks like,” Farideh said mildly. She scrutinized the circle rather than meet Lorcan’s eyes. He’d already seen whatever stunned expression must have crossed her face when Havilar went to Brin, all worried eyes and lashing tail-and not to Farideh. How many times had Havilar made her promise to stay safe when she wasn’t going to be there to save Farideh? Enough that she couldn’t shake the sense that missing that promise meant Farideh wouldn’t come back at all.

“It sounds like that bothers you,” Lorcan drawled.

“We are about to be overrun by a Shadovar army,” she said. “I’m not gossiping with you.” She looked back down the aisle where Dahl and Tam were bent over the ritual books, trying to transfer Dahl’s spell to Tam’s quicker than they ought to have.

A crash and a chorus of screams rang out as the Netherese hit the first of the traps. She looked back again for Dahl’s signal. Tam still scribbled. Dahl still gestured wildly as he tried to explain how the spell went together.

“It does make a neat little pair, doesn’t it,” he said savagely. “She has her not-quite-paladin, and you have yours.”

Farideh laughed once. “If Dahl is what I get then you can send me to the Hells right now. It would be much more pleasant.”

“He cares an awful lot about what you think of him,” Lorcan said.

Because he’s a proud idiot, Farideh thought, but she smiled sweetly at Lorcan, “Does that bother you?”

He made a face. “Well done.” She made the cross of leaves through the center, and looked back to Dahl and Tam. Now at least they had started, the lines of powdered silver gleaming in the light of the orbs overhead.

“What will you do if we escape?” Lorcan asked.

“Do we have to talk about this now?”

“What else should we do?” he said irritably. “The priest, no doubt, would tell you to be rid of me.”

“I’m not sending you back,” she said. She looked up at him, unsure of what to say. She wouldn’t betray him, she couldn’t. She wanted him near, even if at the same time she didn’t. If nothing else-no threat of Sairche, no Brimstone Angel, no debt of gratitude-here was a chance to see where they landed, he and she. To sort out whether she loved him or feared him or resented him, or some unnameable combination she would never come by with a thousand unexpected visits.

“I owe you better than that,” she finally said, and she thanked the gods that Dahl waved for her attention. The rituals were set. Once hers was finished, they’d make for the vents below.

She dropped the vial between them, and the magic surged through her, sucking the words of the spell from her mouth. The wind and the roar that rushed up between them was cool and then cold, blowing through Farideh’s armor and raising gooseflesh along her skin. Light burned through the circle of salts, and Farideh felt the Weave’s broken strands winding around them both, tying into tighter and tighter bands, before collapsing into them. The light and wind faded but a faint steam rose off of both of them, their flesh already scalding. She tucked the ritual book back into her haversack.

“Are you afraid?” she asked quietly.

“Not very, no,” he said, unrolling the scroll. “Though I don’t like to consider what comes after.” He looked down at her with those black, black eyes. “I don’t know which would be worse: oblivion or to rise into the ranks of devilkin already knowing I cannot win at the hierarchy.”

She looked at him, surprised. A devil killed on Toril would reform in the Hells, but not a half-devil. He’d said so before. “If you’re half-devil,” she said slowly, “then you’re half-mortal too?”

“Human, most likely,” Lorcan said. “Just as fragile as a devil, when it comes to undead monstrosities.”

Half-human means half a soul, she thought. You’re not doomed, and maybe he isn’t either.

“It’s very brave,” she said. “What you’re doing. Even if you’re not afraid.”

“Let’s see if it convinces the priest,” he said. “Are you ready?”

There was not a syllable of the arcanist’s spell that Farideh recognized, but every word sounded like magic. It made the pulse of Malbolge’s energies strike a frenzied beat, fighting against her heartbeat. The flood of the Hells spilled into her, and she stepped back and back from the cambion, until the protection that linked them stopped her feet.

The flames of Phlegethos burst forth from the limestone floor, hotter than a hundred cookfires, even with the ritual’s protection. The roaring stream of fire was nearly enough to drown out the ear-splitting screechs of the arcanist’s mummy and the crashes of the Netherese approaching. The screams as the arcanist reached them.

Lorcan was thrown up into the air by the force of the spell, and for a moment he hung there, his wings buoyed by the shimmering air, his head thrown back in a cry of pain.

Then the fire caught. The edges of his wings started to burn.

Farideh rushed forward as he fell, the heat of the cracking ground forcing her back. She pressed on and caught him.

“Hurry,” she said, hauling him up. “The lava’s coming.” He could hardly breathe for the pain of his burns it seemed, his eyes wild with the shock of it. She hauled him bodily toward the camp and the trapdoor beyond.

Mira raced across her path, knives out. Farideh called out to her, but she didn’t stop. A moment later, the arcanist lumbered into view. He turned to face Farideh and Lorcan and opened his mouth. The green light began to swell between his jaws.

Lorcan held her tighter.

The arcanist looked up, past their heads to the fires crackling beyond and the lava that was flowing over the shelves and stone, making greater fires in its wake. The arcanist howled up at the ceiling, as the column behind them started to crack. He turned back the way he had come, back toward the door, and Farideh dragged Lorcan on, watching after the creature as they passed. He had thrown aside the fallen bookshelves and the Netherese mercenaries that swarmed at him. Magic crackled in his hands, a great storm of power that seemed to take all his focus-the Shadovar who attacked him drew no notice from the arcanist. The tattered remains of his three apprentices battered the score of blades at their master’s feet, taking form and dissolving again and again.

As she got Lorcan past the aisle, she saw the arcanist cast some terrible power out the doors. As they came into sight of the camp, she heard the rush of the water pouring in. By the time Dahl and Tam reached her, it had covered the soles of her boots.