The Adversary

Chapter Four

17 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) Waterdeep

The last time Farideh had stood in the hall of the portal to Suzail, she had marveled at how peaceful it seemed, how much like a temple. But now the frescos were all covered with heavy cloth to protect the paint, the wooden columns gouged by too-wide goods. The fine marble floors were covered with crates and bales and supplies meant for a distant war, and there were cracks where something too heavy had been pushed wrong over the tile. Farideh stared at the zigzag of broken stone and imagined what could have found the weakness in the rock and shattered it just by passing through.

The last time she had stood in the hall of the Cormyrean portal had been seven and a half years ago, and it had been the last time she’d seen Mehen.

“Leave Havi and me here,” she’d said, when the portal had been too expensive to carry Mehen, the bounty and both girls to Suzail. He hadn’t wanted to, but she’d convinced him. “What can happen in a few days?” she’d asked.

Everything, she thought, running her gaze up and down the crack in the marble. Days became tendays, became months. Became years.

She couldn’t bear to watch the portal itself. Every flash and crackle that marked another successful traveler from the forest kingdom of Cormyr to Waterdeep made her heart jump. Seven and a half years ago, she’d already been nervous about finding Mehen again, about how angry he might have been that they’d taken too long to get to Cormyr. But seven and a half years later, she had no way to guess what his reaction would be when he stepped through the portal to see his daughters alive and well.

He’ll be furious with you, Farideh thought, eyes still fixed on the crack. He’ll be twice as angry as Havi. She felt as if a squall had blown through the core of her and left everything tumbled and nauseated. She folded her arms across her stomach to stop from shaking.

Tam squeezed her shoulder. “It will be all right.”

Farideh said nothing. Beside them, Havilar stood, eyes locked on the screen that hid the portal. She had not so much as looked at Farideh since the moment they found out how much they had lost.

The portal flashed again in the corner of her eye, and Farideh heard Havilar’s sharp intake of breath a moment later. Every drop of blood in her seemed to rush down to her feet, and she made herself look up.

Her father stood on the first of the three stairs that led down from the portal, unmoving. The scales of his face had grown paler around the edges, but Clanless Mehen still looked as if he could wrestle down a dire bear himself. His familiar well-worn armor was gone, replaced by violet-tinted scale armor with bright silvery tracings. There was a blazon on his arm as well, the mark of some foreign house. The sword at his back was the same, though, the one he had carried since even before he had found the twins left in swaddling at the gates of Arush Vayem.

For all her life, Farideh had known that reading her father’s face was a skill she’d been fortunate to learn. A human who couldn’t spot the shift of her eyes or Havilar’s would certainly see only the indifference of a dragon in Clanless Mehen’s face. But the shift of scales, the arch of a ridge, the set of his eyes, the gape of his teeth-her father’s face spoke volumes.

But every scale of it, this time, seemed completely still-the indifference of a dragon, even to Farideh.

Farideh’s breath stopped. In her mind’s eye she replayed the last time they stood in the hall: Mehen putting his arm around her, hugging her close, the edge of his chin ridge rubbing against her hair. The sound of his heart where she had laid her head against his chest.

“When we get the bounty settled,” Mehen had said, releasing her and mussing her dark hair with one massive hand, “first thing, we get you a new cloak.” He’d reached over and tugged on Havilar’s long braid, teasing. “And you need a haircut. Getting to be a damned axe man’s handle.”

Mehen’s jaws parted, showing yellowed teeth. She saw the flutter of his tongue tapping the roof of his mouth, tasting the air for trouble. As if he suspected a trick. Far more likely, wasn’t it, than his foster daughters returned from a grave seven and a half years cold?

She shook her head as if she could will it not to be so, maybe pass through the portal and come out again seven and a half years back, no matter what Sairché said. Her knees seemed miles away, and her lungs were useless, unable to draw air past the sob that exploded from her before she could clap a hand to her mouth.

“I’m sorry!” she managed around the gasps. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry-I thought it would be all right.” Every eye in the hall was on her, and she pressed both hands to her mouth as if she could smother the thoughtless, stumbling words; the sobs that made her breath buck and hiccup. She couldn’t. This was her fault. Even Mehen couldn’t forgive-

Then he was there, his great arms around her and around Havilar, crushing her close enough to drive the uneven air right out of her. For a moment, Mehen, too, was wordless, and there was only the dragonborn’s soft, shuddering sobs as he held his daughters close again.

“My girls,” he whispered. Farideh buried her face in his shoulder. “My girls.” And for the first time since they’d returned to Toril, Farideh thought there might be some things that weren’t completely ruined. She wept and wept and wept.

Over Mehen’s shoulder, Farideh saw a young blond man with a reddish beard, standing at the foot of the platform watching them, his expression guarded. For a moment, his intrusiveness embarrassed Farideh-was there nowhere else to look?

And then that closed expression slipped, just a bit, as Havilar lifted her head, noticed him. And Farideh realized it wasn’t a stranger standing there. It was Brin.

His clothes fit much better-a suit made for a lord of Cormyr all in pale wools with a dark emerald cloak-and with the beard, he finally looked his age. But it was Brin all the same.

Havilar stood poised on the edge of motion. But Brin didn’t move, didn’t speak. Mehen held both his daughters tight, but he was watching the floor behind Havilar, tense with worry. As if, perhaps, he knew what was happening over his shoulder. As if he were doing his part to stand in the middle of it. To keep Havilar safe and apart.

For so long, none of them moved, none of them spoke, and the sick feeling in Farideh’s stomach rose up like a maelstrom, threatening to overtake her again. She held Mehen tighter, wanting back that fragile moment of peace, unable to look away from the sad expression fighting through Brin’s studied calm.

Sairché stood in front of the scrying mirror, watching Farideh hanging off the dragonborn, weeping her little heart out. Though rage boiled through Sairché at the mere sight of the tiefling, she smiled. Her revenge wasn’t complete, but already it was going so well.

It had been Farideh-and Lorcan too-who had gotten Sairché trapped in this unenviable mess. While Glasya, the Archduchess of the Sixth Layer, had seemed to favor Sairché by raising her up in the hierarchy and making her a powerful agent in executing Asmodeus’s sprawling plans, it was an illusion. Sairché’s life hung on a balance so finely weighted that the merest mistake would drop her into immeasurable torments.

If Lorcan had not flouted Sairché, if Farideh had not stolen him away from Sairché’s clutches, Glasya would not have decided to make an example of Sairché. She would not have handed her the king of the Hells’ orders and all but told her to fail at them, trapping Sairché between the two most dangerous powers she knew: the Risen God of Evil and his scheming daughter.

Eight years of careful planning, and still Sairché was not certain she could manage. To fail without seeming to fail. To undo the work while letting someone else shoulder the blame. The other devils in the hierarchy were just as determined, just as slippery. She couldn’t give in to inconvenient emotions and let them win.

Sairché let the mirror relapse into darkness, still seething. She liked to imagine it was a gift of her mother’s blood, the blessing and curse of being the cambion daughter of Glasya’s most infamous erinyes. It certainly felt so-a nearly uncontrollable tide on her otherwise calculating nature. She wondered if Lorcan-Invadiah’s other half-devil child-felt the same pull.

When the little bitch had struck her, it had taken all of Sairché’s wherewithal not to return the favor. Not to make her gape and gasp over a dagger like Temerity had. She drew a slow breath, focused on the faint moan of the skull-palace of Osseia that filled the air around her. The fleshy walls twitched, and a thin line of bloody mucus dripped down a panel. Sairché clung to the calm.

Not for the first time, Sairché wondered what would have happened if-seven and a half years earlier-Farideh had taken the pact Sairché had offered her in Neverwinter. Would Sairché have come so quickly under the archduchess’s wing? Would she have been able to broker the pact with the Brimstone Angel, selling her off to another devil quickly enough to make none of this her problem?

Would she have found out about the twin sooner?

Sairché thought of Havilar, of the familiar rage that flowed off the woman, the grief and sadness that seemed to choke her. Promising, Sairché thought, and mine. No collector devil would snatch up either Brimstone Angel, not while Asmodeus’s edicts were in play. She would have time to wrap the other twin up in pacts and promises, to shape her into something useful.

And Farideh, as much as she needed her now, would make an excellent tool to do the shaping. Sairché smiled to herself as she left the scrying mirror’s room and crossed her apartments. By the end of the tenday, Farideh wouldn’t have a single ally left. By the end of this mission, there would be more than enough people determined to kill the warlock and end her treachery. And Sairché’s hands would be clean enough for the archdevils.

The portal Glasya gave Sairché use of took the form of a gaping wound in the wall of Sairché’s apartments. Seven and a half years of it and Sairché still loathed the gift.

“Albaenoch,” she said, and the wound widened, the wall emitting a slow, pained screech.

Sairché wrinkled her nose-all of Malbolge was formed of Glasya’s predecessor’s body, the palace her unfortunate skull. Day in and out the very presence of the devils of Malbolge tortured the lost leader, and Glasya made special efforts to ensure it kept going. The archduchess might have claimed the layer well over a century ago, but what was time to an immortal? What was mercy to an archdevil?

Where is her pity for the rest of us who have to listen to it? Sairché thought, stepping into the portal. The wound and world seemed to close in on her, collapsing Sairché into the space of a fist, and then scattering her in pieces on a burning wind.

When she opened her eyes, she stood in a hallway made of glossy black stone, and Sairché cursed. The fortress had several powerful spells sheltering it, hiding it away. She had told the owner a thousand times to make specific allowances for her so that she went where she intended, but if he had, they didn’t work. Not for the first time she wondered if the wizard was intractable or merely not as clever as he presented himself to be. Likely both. She took another deep breath-now wasn’t the time to punish him.

Like Osseia, the fortress seemed less built than grown. The wizard had done that-acquiring potent scrolls, coaxing the rock out of the ground and shaping it to his liking. A waste of magic, Sairché thought, not the least because it had thrown her timeline into disarray-the time it had taken to raise the tower meant delays in mastering the spells she’d gathered for him, meant delays in finding the best methods to collect specimens, meant that she now had to pull out a piece she’d hoped to save. At least it would be unpleasant for Farideh.

She threw open the door to his study, still simmering. The wizard, a darkhaired man with pale skin and piercing blue eyes looked up, unruffled. If anything, it made Sairché madder.

“Well met, Lady Sairché,” he said. He did not stand. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’ve got your tool,” Sairché said. “I will need a few days to secure her transport. Make the most of them.” He sat, considering her, waiting-no doubt-for an apology. Sairché narrowed her eyes. Seven and a half years of this, and Sairché would be damned if she uttered anything like an apology to the man.

“Better late than never,” the man finally replied. “Though better never late.”

Sairché’s mother would have torn a hand right off the human’s arm, plucked it free like a spring onion from the mud, for that insolence. Sairché ran her tongue deliberately over the sharp edges of her teeth to keep that erinyes blood from replying.

“Charming maxim,” she said a moment later. “In the Hells, we prefer, ‘Don’t forget where you stand.’ Don’t forget, goodsir, that you’re the one who advanced our timeline. You’re the one who went ahead with the experiments I schooled you in. And without my assistance, you’re the one whose superiors will overlook his good works for their lack of progress. So I suggest you reconsider your tone.”

The Netherese wizard looked back at her. Seven and a half years of these visits and still the mortal’s gaze made Sairché’s temper flare-if he thought to cow her with that leer, that skin-piercing stare, she would gladly show him otherwise.

At least, she thought, Lorcan’s blasted warlock will have to suffer it too.

“Your pardon,” Adolican Rhand said. “I will be most happy to receive her.” There were words in Tymantheran Draconic that didn’t exist in the common tongue. Omin’ iejirsjighen meant the things you owed your clan because you were taught their importance, while omin’ iejirkkessh meant the things you owed your clan that you shouldn’t need to be taught. There was nothing in Common like throtominarr, the honor you showed your ancestors by improving on what they created, and Common had no use for the many words that described the nuanced markers of a dragonborn’s mood-asaurifyth, yuthom-turil, othrirenthish.

But in neither tongue were the words Clanless Mehen needed: A feeling of relief so strong it overwhelmed any other feeling, including the anger Farideh seemed to fear. The sense of disorder, of upheaval in knowing that the horror that had defined his life for so long was only a nightmare, something that he had woken up from but found he couldn’t quite shake. The knowledge of what could be lost and the hole it could leave in you.

If he could have bundled his daughters close and held them, like he had when he’d carried the foundling babies out of the snow and into the village of Arush Vayem, by every god he would have, and never let go. But the girls were not babes in swaddling. Not even girls anymore, Mehen thought.

For all he felt like drawing his blade against time itself, beating the years into submission like a vicious beast, Clanless Mehen had learned a little better. He would master this. He would savor what he had. He would give his daughters what they needed first.

“Up!” he barked, as if they’d never left. “Keep the line straight!”

The sun dropped low, setting the sky between Waterdeep’s crowded buildings afire and casting long shadows over the Harper inn’s open yard. He had certainly not wanted to set them practicing in the yard-not now-but while he could keep them near and quiet the first day, this afternoon Havilar had taken up her returned glaive with a single-mindedness that brooked no compromise. Mehen was so grateful Farideh had followed when he beckoned so they could all be together.

Even though Havilar clearly didn’t want her there. Maybe didn’t even want him there.

Seven and a half broken-hearted years had passed for Mehen, but his girls had lost only days. The relief that buoyed him up smothered any sort of anger he might have been able to muster at them-at Farideh-wasn’t there for Havilar. Farideh kept herself tucked in the shadows of unneeded equipment, knowing better than to offer to spar with Havi.

Havilar’s blade came up hard, the point striking the dummy and tearing through the batting, lodging in the grain of the wood beneath. She yanked at it. It wouldn’t budge.

“Here,” Mehen said gently, laying a hand on Havilar’s back. This, too, he thought: there was no word for the pure, wordless joy of feeling her solid and live beside him. He jerked the weapon free of the dummy and handed it back to her. “Maybe we should-”

Havilar didn’t wait for him. She sprang back and threw herself at the dummy again, striking out with the butt of the glaive, the shaft, the blade.

“Havi, you’re going to hurt your-”

She screeched and the glaive struck the side of the dummy. The weapon jolted right out of her hands, the strike too hard for her weakened grip. She glowered at it, panting.

“You need to go slow,” Mehen said.

“I don’t need help!” she shouted. She glowered at Farideh. “And I don’t need an audience.” Her sister seemed to collapse further into herself.

“Enough!” Mehen roared. He held up a hand, but Havilar turned from him and his heart ached. “All right. How about you take some time for yourself? We’ll go in, you vent some old breath. Just promise me,” he said, setting a hand on her back once more, “you’ll be careful. You’ll get your skills back, I promise. But not today. No matter how hard you hit that dummy.”

Havilar nodded, not looking up at him, and he fought the urge to hug her tight. She would be inflexible as steel and rage against every moment of it, and neither of them would be soothed. “Come in, in an hour or so,” he said instead.

Mehen left then, though every part of him fought it. But he knew Havilar-and while seven and a half years ago her problems might have been minor enough for him to insist she listen, to roar at her until she obeyed, to send her to bed straightaway, now. .

Havilar needed to be alone. He was sure of that, even if he was sure it would kill him to walk away from her.

Farideh stood as he approached and fell into step beside him, staring at her boots as she walked. His stubborn, challenging, resourceful Farideh, and all the steel had gone out of her as if someone had drawn it like a sword from a sheath.

Mehen wrapped an arm around her and held her close. “It will be all right. She’s grieving.”

Farideh leaned against him, but said nothing. Mehen walked with her, leading them to the little library the Harpers kept here. They sat together on a bench.

“Will you tell me what happened?” he asked quietly.

Farideh shut her eyes and pressed her mouth shut. “I told you to go to Cormyr,” she said after a moment. “And then everything went wrong.”

“Fari,” he said, almost a sigh. “Please. There aren’t words for how glad I am that you are alive.” He pulled her close again, rubbed his chin ridge over the top of her head, before he choked up too. “There isn’t room for anything else. Whatever came before doesn’t matter,” he said firmly.

She shook her head, buried against his neck. “It should.”

“No,” he said. “You matter. Your sister matters.”

She made a broken little sound, half a sob, half a bitter laugh. “I almost wish you were angry,” she said. “I was ready for angry.”

Mehen shut his eyes and cursed to himself, held his daughter tighter.

“I made a deal with a devil,” she said after a moment. “It was supposed to protect us. It didn’t work.”

“Oh, Fari.” Would it have happened if Mehen had killed Lorcan in the first place? If he’d marched Farideh to the nearest priest and made her renounce the pact? He’d had reasons at the time-but they were so far away, he didn’t trust them, not when his daughters were so broken. “I should have helped you get rid of him.”

“Not him.” Farideh pulled out of Mehen’s embrace. “Not Lorcan.” She swallowed and scrunched her eyes shut once more, as if flinching away from a swell of emotion. “Lorcan’s gone. I think he’s gone forever.”

Well there’s the dragon’s hoard, Mehen thought, pulling her near again. If they had to tangle with such a terrible tragedy, at least that good came of it.

But at the same time, he felt his daughter’s grief acutely, and he had to admit, the cambion deserved a little mourning. After all, he’d saved Mehen once too.

“It’s all right,” he said.

“No,” she said, “it isn’t. I made that stupid deal, and then she hid us for all that time, and I didn’t even have time to find a way to keep Havi safe. I thought I had plenty of time to figure it out.”

“Safe from what?”

Farideh laughed. “I found out who our birth parents were,” she said, as if she were mocking her own efforts. “Or what they were. They were warlocks too-horrible, wicked ones. And their ancestor is one of the worst warlocks, one so bad that devils seek her descendants. They’re going to come looking for Havilar, I know it.” She buried her face against his shoulder again. “And all I’ve done is made it worse. I gave those devils a hundred things to offer her, and now they can find her just fine.”

“And you told me,” Mehen said, “and do you think I will let your sister do something so foolish?”

“Right,” Farideh said dully. “I’m the foolish one when you get down to it.”

Mehen hushed her, and stroked her hair. When he had found the girls by the gates of Arush Vayem, plenty of people had warned Clanless Mehen that he knew nothing of raising children, nothing of girls, and nothing at all about tieflings. But he’d been stubborn, even then, and sure that these were a gift, a reparation for what life had snatched away from him when he stood firm against his clan and was exiled. Day by day, month by month, year by year, he had struggled against the fact that they were right, every one of them-he had to learn every single thing about raising his girls.

It was, oddly, the village midwife who set him right. He clashed with Criella over the girls more often than not, and she’d been quiet while others told him to leave those babies in the snow before he let Beshaba herself walk in the gates. But when the girls were three and Mehen was certain he had made the wrongest choice he ever could have, Criella was the one who said, “You’re not the first to think you have fallen into the mire. This has nothing at all to do with what they are, or what you are. Girls, boys, tieflings, dragonborn-no one knows what they’re doing, raising children. You guess, you mimic, you listen to your gut, and you learn as you go. And you fix what you do wrong.”

At the moment, there was no one to learn from, no one to ape. There was nothing Clanless Mehen had learned in all the years he’d raised his twins, or all the years he’d thought them lost, that would relieve the grief in either daughter’s heart or close the gulf between them. There was nothing he could do to unmake the thousand choices that had led up to this, nor break the threads that tied his precious girls to a fate handed down by some ancient villain. There was no part of him that knew, it seemed, what to do. Listening to his gut would bring all the wrong results-and he couldn’t bear to do anything that might drive the twins away or apart.

So there was only guessing left, only learning as he went. Only holding tight to his daughter as she wept.