“Not yet, but he was mad enough. I can’t imagine they’ll happily let us leave. She’s vomited. Twice. And I got some water into her.”
“Not going to do much good since it’s already running its course.” Tam dropped down to his knees and took her face in his hands. “Look at me, Fari.”
The blessing rushed over her like a cold breeze that swept right through her skin and whistled through the spaces in her skull to blow the almond-scented toxin from where it had settled in her mind. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and the sound of a woman singing, far away, filled her ears. As it faded, she sighed.
“Better?” Tam asked.
“Some,” she said. But the thrum of the Hells still beat in her veins, and each moment made the remnants of the poison surge up. “No. It comes back.”
“She’s seeing things,” Dahl reported. “She says there’s devils.”
“I have to save Havilar,” she said. “The Hells …” She held up her arms-could they even see what was happening? Did they even care if Sairche caught Havi?
Tam’s eyes widened, and he cursed again. “You’ve been drinking the tea, haven’t you? The tea’s complicating the poison,” he said to Dahl. “You have to get her out of here and back to a safe location. Thort’s. If he has anything to cure it, give it to her and quickly. I’ll be there quickly as I can.”
Dahl helped her to her feet, but at least now she could feel her legs and keep her knees straight. “What about your other plans?”
“Later,” Tam said, ushering them back into the ballroom.
Back toward a pair of lean guards, whose eyes were locked on Dahl and Farideh. Rhand’s or Sairche’s? she thought. Or Lorcan’s terrible lady’s?
Does it matter? part of her asked. They’re here to take you. And Havilar, too. She scanned the crowd-no Havilar, no Brin-but there, thirty feet from the foot of the stairs, halfway between her and the display of artifacts and square in the path to the exit, waited Adolican Rhand. She brought one hand up, curling her hand around the energy that built there.
“Fari, don’t!” Tam said quietly. “Not here. Back out into the garden, both of you, and-”
The crash of glass broke his order, and was itself rapidly drowned out by screams as a score of black-clad men and women forced their way into the ballroom, through nearly every entrance. Rhand jerked to attention, and with a quick gesture, four gouts of shimmering darkness streaked out to the four guardsmen near him, dancing down their frames. They drew weapons, ready to defend. Down from the balconies, half a dozen gray-skinned assassins dropped out of the shadows like spiders into the panicking mass of beautiful people.
“Havi!” Farideh shouted.
“Get her out,” Tam ordered Dahl. “However you can. Back to the muster point. I’ll-”
Farideh vaulted over the balustrade down to the ballroom floor, her joints shocked by the sudden drop. Behind her, she heard Tam shout her name and curse, but she ignored him. The crowd fleeing the strange assassins broke on her like a wave, carrying her away from where she’d left Havilar.
Be alive, she thought of Lorcan. She drew the powers of the Hells up into her form and with a gasp of Infernal, slit the plane wide enough to step through and reappear on the other side of the crush of bodies.
The strange pain in her arm was screaming again and her head was pounding, but gods, she could have laughed with joy. The pact remained.
But she’d appeared between the dais holding the horrible statue and the advancing attackers. She’d no more than regained her feet when a pair of men, their faces covered with faded scarves, pounced on her with bare blades.
Her hands came up, all instinct, as if the engines of Malbolge moved them for her. A quick, ugly word and a gust of caustic smoke brought them up short as the miasma burned away the scarves and bit into their faces.
Farideh’s fist lashed out and struck the nearer man in the center of his chest as he clawed at his face, one handed. He dropped his sword and stumbled back. Flames billowed out from her hands, lighting his hair and his compatriot’s linen shirt afire. Her arms and chest ached with the churning, slick power-another burst of energy built in her palms, ready to cast-
One of the assassins who’d dropped from the roof-a gray-skinned woman glittering with piercings and blades-appeared behind the men, and suddenly they were both falling to the ground, each clutching at a dagger and the gout of blood that had been his throat. The woman drew a sword and started toward Farideh.
Farideh scrambled back and out of her path. The woman’s jagged blade looked more like a butcher’s tool than a weapon, made for hacking apart bone and muscle.
… the erinyes are a thunderstorm, unstoppable and rolling toward them out of nothing. Their hooves crack the cobbles, shatter the rune. Their crowns of horns threaten to spear the moon. Their swords are fire. Their swords are hungry …
Run, her every muscle urged. Run, run, run.
She fought it. She had to find Havilar. She looked down at her hands, recognized the dancing, bruised-looking energy that she’d gathered to attack the men with. Hands shaking, she pointed them at the assassin.
“Adaestuo.” The woman rolled out of the burst’s path, but when she came up, Farideh had another ready and sent it screaming across the distance. The purplish magic seared her exposed skin. But when it burned away, there the assassin stood, more eager and wild-eyed than before.
… the erinyes are a thunderstorm, unstoppable and rolling toward them out of nothing …
She’s not an erinyes, Farideh thought, fighting the poison still distorting her judgment. Gods damn it, concentrate. The woman lunged, her heavy blade cleaving down and nearly taking off Farideh’s foot. She stumbled aside, so full of the Hells’ magic she thought she might catch fire herself. The blademistress heaved her weapon up.
… Lorcan’s burning hands mold her fingers-smaller two wrapped around the implement, longer two extended, thumb curled over …
“Laesurach,” she hissed, as she quickly made the sign of the infernal rune. The marble under the gray-skinned woman’s feet cracked and a surge of magma welled up beneath her as the Hells peeked through to the greater world.
The assassin dropped her cruel blade as she caught fire, screaming and laughing with the most terrible sound Farideh had ever heard. Gods, she thought, backing into the dais, gods-
The silvery slash of Tam’s magic struck the man creeping up on her left, and instinctively she ducked. The silverstar carried one of the black-clad attackers’ dropped blades. With his free hand, he pushed her away from the assassin. “Stop casting!” he said. “Follow Dahl.”
Farideh cast another burst of magic past him and into the encroaching assassin. Tam leaped aside and cursed. “Farideh, go!”
All over again, Dahl was grabbing her by the arm and pulling her through the crowd. She glimpsed Havilar through the riot of fighting, and then she was gone. Bodies blocked her sight. They came past the settee Farideh had been sick behind. There was Master Rhand, surrounded by the wild-eyed attackers, clinging to the page and stone and flinging streams of dark magic. Ashenath enjareen nether pendarthis-the page’s murmur had become manic, wild. Thrilled.
Suddenly one of the attackers, a man built like a bear, slammed into the Netherese wizard, knocking him off his feet and into the blade of another man. It speared him through the shoulder. Adolican Rhand gasped, and in his shock, threw wide the arm clutching the page and stone. The stone, he kept his grip on.
The page, he loosed. It flew between the attackers and slid across the tiled floor to rest under the settee.
His attacker didn’t have long to gloat-one of Rhand’s wild-eyed guards broke the circle of black-clad fighters. With a terrible cry, he lunged forward with two blades-one needle-sharp, which he buried in one of the fighter’s kidneys, one edged, which he sliced across his throat. Hardly stopping, he caught the bleeding Master Rhand up around the middle, and seizing the charm around his neck, broke it. Both vanished in a burst of black vapors, taking the precious stone with them.