Brimstone Angels (16 page)

Should Lorcan ever be so stupid as to displease the Lady of Malbolge, here was his fate. There was nowhere in the hierarchy for a half-devil to fall.

Invadiah kept her treasury in one of the tall bone-spires that rose out of Malbolge’s poisoned ground. Venomous flowers twined their way over the pitted surface, fed by the streams of shimmering effluvia
that shifted and changed day to day, hour to hour. The ruddy ground, much like the halls of Osseia, lived. When they finished being an example to all, someone would throw the corpses on the fangs of Osseia to Malbolge, and slowly, the Sixth Layer would absorb them.

Lorcan picked his way across the suppurating ground and entered the tower that held his mother’s treasury. Two erinyes perched on either side of the inner door, batting a dead lemure back and forth between them like a ball with the flats of their swords, keeping it from resting too long on the hungry ground.

“Nemea,” Lorcan said tensely. “Aornos.”

His half-sisters spared him no more than a glance, but he had hardly blinked before red-haired Aornos had maneuvered herself behind him, planting him between the two fierce warriors. He looked up at Nemea, who was slimmer than Invadiah and bore a ragged scar across her chest.

“Come to borrow more of mother’s things?” she said, reversing her grip on the sword.

“At her offer,” he said smoothly. “Let me pass?”

“Sairché was looking for you,” Aornos said behind him. “Said we should tell her if you showed up.”

“Sounds like our baby sister found a secret of yours,” Nemea crooned.

Lorcan gave an exaggerated sigh. “All she found was that I don’t want to seduce a mortal with her in audience. Where did she say she’d be?”

“She didn’t,” Nemea said.

“You’ll have to hope she finds you,” Aornos added.

“Or that she doesn’t,” Nemea finished.

“Fine,” Lorcan said. “Open the doors then and let me finish my business.”

Nemea smirked at him, thinking—no doubt—that she could crush him with no trouble at all. Invadiah might not even care.

Might, Lorcan thought, is the important word.

Nemea stepped aside and pulled the door open for Lorcan. As he passed, she cracked the back of his legs with the flat of her sword, much to Aornos’s amusement. Lorcan flinched, but didn’t deign to cry out.

“Don’t forget, little brother,” Aornos called as he descended the winding stairway down to the treasury, “only what Invadiah agreed to. Wouldn’t want to have to turn your pockets.”

Godsdamned erinyes, he thought. Better Nemea and Aornos than the elite of the
pradixikai
. Invadiah’s favorites chased down oath-breakers and those who deceived the archduchess. Nemea and Aornos weren’t skilled enough or intelligent enough for the
pradixikai
.

Still, Lorcan was intelligent enough not to test them.

At the base of the stairs, there was a door made of bone, and crisscrossed with bindings of a sinew strong as steel. Lorcan laid his hand upon the seal in the center. It gave slightly and shivered at his touch before the sinews slithered out of their sockets and back toward the center, releasing the door.

Had Sairché known he was lying? he wondered. Bedding some tiefling was nothing, after all. An heir of Bryseis Kakistos was … well, nothing to most devils. But for collectors, Farideh would be priceless. If Sairché figured out who Farideh was, there were a fair number of devils in the Hells who would pay her dearly for the information.

They would still have to lure Farideh away, he thought as he passed rows of sharp and shining blades. And he’d been careful to make sure Farideh didn’t want to leave, even if someone explained how.

Assuming she was safe. Assuming he got rid of that inconvenient acolyte. Assuming he was right about what Farideh wanted anymore.

How old are you?

Lorcan grit his teeth. He shouldn’t be rattled by a warlock or by such a stupid question. He was the one who did the rattling—and as soon as the orc caught up to them, Farideh would be plenty rattled and in no mood to be pushing him and his pact away.

Perhaps he ought to have told the orc to leave Havilar be as well. After all, if anything should happen to Farideh, Havilar was his only possible replacement. Then again, he mused, if Havilar died, it made Farideh even more valuable.

He shook his head. It wasn’t his decision to make, anyway—Farideh would protect Havilar to her final breath. As long as Farideh had the tools to stop the orc from harming her, Havilar would be fine. And if Sairché turned out to be too much trouble after all, well, then she might as well have Havilar instead, and good luck to her.

“There,” he said, spotting the Rod of the Traitor’s Reprisal’s telltale quartz tip. “This one.”

T
HE BELLS OVER THE SHOP DOOR TINKLED AS A BLONDE ELF WOMAN
swept in. The shopkeeper, a man called Yvon Claven, nodded to her cheerfully. “A moment,” he called. Knowing Sekata, she wouldn’t care about the wait, but manners were manners.

“Now,” he said, turning back to his original customer, a young man with a scruffy beard, “I can have the straps mended in about four days, but I do think you’d be better served with a new brigandine. This one”—he gestured sadly at the rents in the heavy cloth where the metal plates were wearing through—“isn’t going to last much longer.”

The young man, one of many vying for a place among the city’s Mintarn defenders, sighed. “Much as I’d prefer it, I haven’t the coin. Just the straps, please.” He set down a small stack of silver coins, half the cost of the repair.

Poor lad, Yvon thought. Too many of them lately, lads and lasses come to Neverwinter to seek their fortunes, looking for adventure in the ancient city on the Sword Coast. Yvon—who had lived in Neverwinter all of his days and whose ancestors had lived there since well before the cataclysm that shook the City of Jewels to its very foundations—suspected they were largely overwhelmed with what they found in Neverwinter.

“You know, I’ve been thinking of hiring an assistant,” he said. “A guard for the door, and an extra body to stand at the counter when I have things to attend to in the back. Why don’t you come by in the
morning and we’ll see if it suits you … what did you say your name was?”

The young man looked at him, surprised. “Kalam. And I will. Thank you.”

The door bells jingled again as the young man left. When the lad came back, Yvon thought, he’d have to pour him a cup of tea and discuss the lad’s options. Desperate straits made one ripe for a different path.

“All right, Sekata?” Yvon asked, as the elf woman set her basket of potions on the counter and started unloading them. The magical traces of her alliance made the air bristle even without Yvon looking for them. “Are you staying cool enough?”

The elf snorted. “In this heat? I’m lucky my potions haven’t all taken to boiling and popped their seals.”

Yvon chuckled and lifted one of the greenish vials up to the light streaming in through the window. “Well, they look well enough.” He’d been selling Sekata’s potions for years now—he trusted no one else.

Sekata took the last of them from her handbasket. “Have you heard,” she drawled, “who was thrown out of the Moonstone Mask last night?”

“I didn’t know
anyone
got thrown out of the Moonstone Mask,” Yvon said. “Do tell.”

Sekata leaned in. “Creed.”

Yvon shook his head. “I ought to have guessed. What did the young idiot do?” He frowned. “It wasn’t—”

“No, no,” Sekata said. “Nothing like that. Only got a few cups past drunk and started a brawl.”

“That sounds average—”

“
With
the serving girls.”

“Oh dear.”

“Poor Creed,” Sekata agreed. “They look delicate, but Liset’s girls know what they’re doing. Got him begging for mercy before the bouncers hauled him out of there. He’s lucky they didn’t just throw him off the earthmote and let him land as he pleased on the rooftops.”

Yvon clucked his tongue. “Does Lector know, do you think?”

“By now? I can’t imagine he hasn’t figured it out and spent half the morning playing wise older brother.” Sekata paused. “Oh no, wait.
He’s been in chambers with Mordai Vell all morning. It’s possible Creed’s slipped him by entirely.”

Yvon winced. “Ah. Do you suppose Vell’s still angry about the Glasyan incident?”

“Well, the defenders
did
find all those bodies. I don’t know what you and Lector were thinking—messy, messy business all of it. If you’re going to stage a godsbedamned massacre, you should at least burn the bodies.”

“Methinks you’re just jealous you weren’t invited.”

“Yes,” Sekata said dryly, “I don’t get enough blood handling the sacrifices.”

Yvon smiled. “It’s not the same, and you know it.”

Sekata planted her hands on her hips. “The difference is a sacrifice very seldom has friends who are ready to start a street war over their deaths. At least Mordai Vell has the ounce of sense necessary to see antagonizing other cults is bound to come out badly.”

“Ah, not when you wipe them out completely. There’s something very pleasing about striking down Glasyans in particular. It’s the smugness they have that makes the difference. Goes right out of them with a sharp blade.” He patted his bald pate with a handkerchief. “Blasted heat. Anyhow, since when do you care about the Glasyans?”

“I don’t,” Sekata said. “I care about not being hauled out into the open by a bunch of overeager lads. I like my privacy, and I like not having to launder blood out of my everyday things. You two keep this up, and I’ll find another cell.”

Yvon chuckled. “I don’t think you need to worry. If Lector’s still in chambers, we’re definitely being told to quiet down.” He waved at the potions arrayed on the counter. “How much for the lot?”

“Thirty each for the healings, eight hundred for the two vitalities—if you want them—and for the cordials … let’s say fifty for the lot.”

“That’s a bit steeper than normal.”

Sekata shook her head. “The Lord Protector’s new tax collectors came to call. And unlike you, I don’t just kill people who irritate me.”

“I think most of Neverwinter would call
that
murder justified. Even Mordai Vell.” Yvon chuckled again and took the coin box out from under the counter. “I’ll take one potion of vitality, the healings
and the cordials. Some of them are elderberry, yes? The elderberries always go first. You could probably make a living just distilling cordials.”

“I could,” Sekata agreed as he counted out the coins. “But I’d be bored. Will you be at the congregation tonight? The sacrifice is one of those orcs from the ruined district, and I don’t want to worry about keeping him down.”

“Who got you an orc?”

Sekata swept the coins into her purse. “Creed. It’s how I found out about the whole Moonstone Mask debacle. Hail Asmodeus,” she said, as she pulled open the door and set the bells tinkling again, “and I’ll see you tonight. Bring the staples and some extra rope. He’s a big brute.”

“Only if you bring some cordial,” Yvon replied. “Hail Asmodeus.”

Farideh woke to the bright light of full morning, Havilar still dead to the world beside her, and Mehen snoring noisily on the floor. She clambered over her sister and went, unsteadily, to the window, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

The courtyard below was nearly empty of carts and horses. Most of the travelers must have gotten underway before the sun was up and baking. Farideh glanced back at Mehen, still sleeping hard. He would have wanted them up early too—before he had the whiskey. He might have been big, but Mehen didn’t hold his drink very well.

For her part Farideh only felt a little muzzy, but that had more to do with how she’d slept—or rather not slept. She opened the window to get a breeze going and leaned out a little ways. She needed to find Brin before Mehen was up—to make sure he would indeed travel with them and work out some story to keep Mehen from overreacting. Ask him some more about warlocks before the priest turned up. If Brin was passing as a refugee, she might need him once they got to Neverwinter so she could find those warlocks.