“They are not mortal in the sense that you are,” Arunika explained to Brother Anthus.
“They play the long game,” the monk agreed.
“They can afford to.”
“As can you,” the monk retorted rather harshly, and Arunika found herself surprised by his declaration. “What does it matter to you?” he asked rather flippantly, and the succubus feared then that the monk had figured it out and knew of her true identity. Had the aboleths informed him?
“Or to them?” he quickly added, seeing the devil’s dangerous scowl. “What is a score of years to beings who measure their lifetime in centuries, or even millennia? What is a century?”
“Aboleths are not eternal.”
“But their thoughts are. Their collective understanding, their meld, will continue through generations yet unborn.”
“And you will be dead,” Arunika said, somewhat callously.
Brother Anthus looked at her plaintively. “I gave them everything,” he whined. “I let them into my every thought. I stood naked before them as never before, even to myself.”
“Could you have stopped them from so stripping you, had you tried?” Arunika tossed out, but Anthus, wound up in his tirade, seemed to not hear.
“I believed in them!” the monk roared on. “I forsook my own order, my kin and kind. I made few inroads among the citizens of Neverwinter, gave not a thought to Sylora Salm, and have not even spoken directly with the new Netherese Lord of Neverwinter. And now they have abandoned me! And I am left with… what?”
“And myself?” Arunika asked, trying to get a full admission from the man.
“What do you care?” he shot back. “You did not throw in with the Sovereignty as I did. Arunika will thrive, whichever lord claims stewardship of Neverwinter.”
Arunika quietly breathed a sigh of relief, now thinking that Anthus’s comments referred to the little she had to lose, and not the millennia she had to live.
“Szass Tam will not come,” she assured him. “I have visited his Dread Ring, and there is little left of it worth his troubles. With the Netherese strong in the region, the cost would prove too great. He’ll keep his Ashmadai fools here, likely, and there remains Valindra-though believe me when I tell you that she is missing the Sovereignty more than you ever could. But Szass Tam will make no further concerted move against the region.”
“There remain the Shadovar.”
“With the fall of the Thayans, Alegni will get no further help from Netheril.”
“He will not need it.”
Arunika smiled at him slyly. “That remains to be seen.”
“What do you know?” the monk asked hopefully.
“If Herzgo Alegni is to be Lord of Neverwinter, then who will come to join the settlers? What man or elf or dwarf or halfling or any other race will come in to join the glorious rebuilding of Neverwinter when it is under the domination of the likes of a Netherese tiefling barbarian like Lord Alegni?”
“What Shadovar, then?” the suddenly-cynical Brother Anthus said. “Or orcs. He will attract orcs, no doubt!”
“And invite the Lords of Waterdeep to turn their eyes and arms to the north?” Arunika replied with a laugh. “Alegni thinks he achieved a great victory with the death of Sylora Salm, but in truth, his power came from the fear of an enemy. As that enemy diminishes, so will he, do not doubt. Soon enough, he will grow bored and fly away. Or his Netherese masters will send him back into the forest in search of the artifacts, as was his original mission. Or he will overstep and invite war with Waterdeep, and he will lose.”
She nodded solemnly at Brother Anthus, even rubbed the forlorn monk on the shoulder. “The Sovereignty will return in a decade or two, fear not. Few understand them, but their pattern is not to abandon a place once they have laid the base of a new home. Use these years wisely, my young friend,” she advised. “Make of Brother Anthus a great name in Neverwinter, so that when the aboleths return, they will see in you a powerful ally.”
The monk looked up at her and tried to nod, albeit unsuccessfully.
“I will help you,” Arunika promised.
“You are staying?”
“To watch the downfall of Alegni? Surely!” She laughed, uncomfortably perhaps, but she was indeed feeling quite jovial at that moment, for in trying to bolster Anthus, Arunika had herself found a new way to view the recent dramatic developments. She wasn’t sure that everything, or anything, of what she had predicted would come to pass-perhaps Alegni would remain as Lord of Neverwinter for fifty years.
But her hopes of his demise were quite plausible, even probable, she had come to realize.
And there remained an even more immediate solution, a powerful group allayed against Alegni, the same trio who had defeated Sylora, who seemed every bit the Netherese lord’s equal. Perhaps they would rid Arunika of the troublesome shade.
Perhaps Arunika would find a way to help facilitate that.
As she considered the delicious possibilities, the succubus found herself feeling even more jubilant. She would survive this, as Anthus had predicted. She would survive and she would thrive, whoever proved victorious in the struggles for Neverwinter. She looked Brother Anthus in the eye, her grin from ear to ear.
“What?” he managed to ask in the heartbeat before Arunika fell over him passionately.
Not long after, Arunika walked the quiet and dark streets of Neverwinter, her edginess hardly smoothed, her passion hardly sated.
Arunika hailed from the Nine Hells, not the Abyss, and though a place no less evil, the distinction between demon and devil rested mostly in the contrast between chaos and order. Arunika liked an orderly society. Lawful by heritage, by nurture, by the very essence that gave her form and substance, uncertainty unsettled her.
It made her edgy. It made her itchy.
Poor Brother Anthus. For all of his youthful enthusiasm, he could not match or sate the passionate succubus.
She had thought the Sovereignty would give her the pleasure of order here in Neverwinter. Perfect order, demanded internally and externally. But now they were gone and so many roads had opened. Too many roads for Arunika’s comfort, but she knew that it would pass as she came to better command the ultimate destination.
The agitated devil shook her head repeatedly as she followed every potential turn to its logical conclusion. What of Valindra? What of Szass Tam? What of the trio now hunting Alegni?
And most of all, what of Alegni and the Netheril Empire? Even with the potential pitfalls opening all around him, it seemed to Arunika that Alegni held the upper hand. Despite her assurances to Brother Anthus, Arunika understood that if Alegni survived the near future, he would become Lord of Neverwinter, perhaps for many years. Her meeting with Valindra had shown her the truth of the Thayans, and they would not threaten the power of Alegni and his Shadovar.
This likely outcome was not to Arunika’s taste, of course, but she was of the Nine Hells. The strong imposed the rule, and the rule was more important than the ruler.
Her preference, thus, seemed irrelevant.
She glanced back to the south, where Anthus lay on her floor, exhausted beyond consciousness, then shifted her gaze just a bit to the west, to an inn on a small hill, and a room looking back toward the river and the Herzgo Alegni Bridge.
Arunika did not like the uncertainty, but she knew what she must do if she wished to remain in the region, and more importantly, if she wished to help shape those rules that would govern this tumultuous area.
Now she walked with purpose, along the boulevards running south and west.
She could battle uncertainty by situating herself properly for all potential outcomes.