Erin Evans: Lesser Evils

“He’s hurt!” Farideh said. “Do something!”

Tam hesitated, and her heart threatened to crack under the strain like the stone of the column. Lorcan raised his head, his whole frame resting on Farideh now. It would be easy to say no, she could imagine Tam thinking. It would be easy to let the devil die.

The priest set his hands on either side of Lorcan’s face. “Grant me, Selune, our balm for this … unlikely ally.”

If Lorcan’s screams had been loud before, now they rivaled the roaring flames of Phlgethos. She held him tighter as the goddess’s blessing racked a frame never meant to feel it.

For a moment, she was sure Tam had decided to kill him. But the charred flesh of his wings flaked away to reveal new, whole skin, and Lorcan straightened with a pained gasp. The hiss and crackle of the cooling lava carried across the caverns. The stone snapped and split as it cooled. Still the lava kept flowing over the river’s efforts. The arcanist roared. She heard a sound like an explosion and more water poured in, the wall torn free to let in more of the watercourse beyond.

“Go,” Tam said firmly, and he pushed her toward the hole where Dahl helped her down the steep drop. She ran down the slope, icy water rushing around her ankles, pressing her on. She nearly slipped in it and caught herself as she burst out into the crypt. Those were Mira’s legs disappearing up the farthest shaft and she followed, not daring to hesitate long enough to look back and be sure of the other three.

Farideh braced herself against the sides of the shaft and inched her way up, panting and sore and pelted by the frequent rain of stone bits kicked loose by Mira, or whoever might be above her. For an eternity, she climbed, all too aware of the crumbling column, the swelling lava, the steam that was no doubt building up behind her as the river rushed into the gate to Phlegethos.

Suddenly, Mira was gone, and the light of the sun blinded her, and hands were helping her out of the air vent and onto the slope of a mountainside. Farideh helped her pull Dahl and then Lorcan from the shaft.

“Move,” Mira said, pointing down the slope where an ancient path led down a nearly sheer face. “Around the cliff, quickly, before it blows.” She reached down to catch her father’s hands, and Farideh followed Dahl and Lorcan down the winding path, as fast as she dared to go, to find Havilar and Brin and Maspero waiting at the foot of a sheer granite wall.

Havilar threw her arms around her sister. “Oh,” she said, overcome, and she buried her face in her sister’s hair. “Oh.” Farideh hugged her hard, glad she had been wrong, glad that nothing ill had come of not saying good-bye. She had no words either.

“Against the cliff!” Tam barked.

They broke apart and had just flattened themselves beside the others against the stone when the other side of the mountain erupted, blasting their ears and shaking the ground beneath their feet hard enough to send rocks bouncing over them and down the slope below.

They would hear later that it had ripped the peak of the mountain away, that it had rained down flaming stone and fat ashes on the High Forest for miles. The plume of smoke and steam would be seen as far away as Waterdeep, and Shade would quietly hide away any mention of the library, the mission, and the score and a half of Shadovar lost in the explosion. The books Mira had carried out would be passed from scholar to scholar, except for a precious few which would secure the strength of Maspero of Everlund for a few years more.

“Everyone’s all right?” Tam asked as the rattle of falling stone slowed, and for the moment, it was the only thing that mattered.

WATERDEEP

1 ELEASIAS, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)

Traveling back through the wilds of the silver marches had been simpler than their first trek in some ways and far rougher in others, Farideh thought. They knew right away where to camp and where to ford the streams. They had little trouble finding food to supplement their trail rations, knowing where the likely sources were. Brin and Havilar weren’t fighting with each other, nor were Dahl and Tam. The Zhentarim had separated from the Harpers’ group as soon as possible, and so there were no more arguments about that.

But even though they skirted Rhand’s Shadovar forces, they traveled with an eye on the road behind them, and another on the skies overhead. Plus it was plain that Mira’s flight, expected or not, devastated Tam. Brin and Havilar were busy acting as if their time together was borrowed and about to be reclaimed. And the addition of Lorcan meant that no one was very happy with Farideh, even if his help had meant they had escaped the library after all.

Only Dahl had decided to make good on his promises finally, to teach her the last seven rituals from their bargain. He was still surly about it, and Lorcan still sniped at him given the chance, but for an hour or so each day, Farideh was grateful to have someone to talk to about something that wasn’t how she was doing everything wrong or whether or not Brin’s eyes were his best feature. Or worse.

“Are you planning to tell Havilar about what we talked about?” Lorcan asked, as they waited outside the coinlender’s for Brin and Havilar to return. He’d hidden his true form, changing his skin for the appearance of a strikingly handsome young man, and passersby who weren’t staring at Farideh’s horns and tail were staring at him. “About the Brimstone Angel?”

Judging by his tone, Farideh thought the answer should have been “no.” “She deserves to know.”

“But does she deserve what comes of such a revelation? Knowing leads to more questions, leads to searching for answers.” He gave her a wicked smile. “Leads to devils.”

All worries Farideh had already had.

“Why didn’t you take Havilar?” she asked. “She could have been your warlock.”

“Easy, darling. Your sister wants things well within her reach.” He turned that wicked smile to an older woman who was not-so-subtly assessing him. “She never needed help. Though,” he added, as Brin and Havilar reappeared, “that can always change.”

“Bad news,” Brin said. “I don’t have as much as I thought.”

Farideh frowned. “I thought you said you had a kraken’s load.”

“He did,” Havilar said. “Someone cleared it out.”

“I think what I have might be exactly enough to buy back Squall and pay for an inn and stabling for a few days and then passage by portal for Squall and myself,” Brin said with a scowl. “I might be off a little. I wish I’d never taken any of it.”

At least he’d taken what was left. They were desparately low. When they’d parted ways from the Harpers earlier in the day, Brin had offered the funds in the safehold as a temporary solution while they sorted out what had happened to Mehen.

Farideh had managed to increase the limits of the protection spell, with painful, careful practice-she could be ten steps from Lorcan now without the spell snapping back. But as they walked through Waterdeep and Havilar and Brin fell into step, arms intertwined and heads together, she found it easier to keep pace beside Lorcan.

“Darling,” he said, apropos of nothing, “you mentioned you were having nightmares. What did you see in them?”

“You,” she said, not looking at him. “The way they might have been torturing you. Devils. Things that might be in the Hells. Why?”

He hesitated, studying Havilar and Brin’s backs. “Curiosity,” he said finally. “What sorts of things that might be in the Hells?”

“Well, here you are,” the innkeeper said when they returned to the Blind Falcon. “All that asking and once you leave, not an hour passes before your message from ‘Mehen’ arrives.” He retrieved a thick envelope from under the bar. “And knowing how persistent you girls were, I held onto it.”