Havilar was still staring at him, unmoving. Looking like he could break her heart with two words together.
Gods. She wasn’t trying to get something from him, he realized, and he didn’t want to hide from her. He’d said it without thinking, because he meant it and frankly, he didn’t care if she knew so. And if she wasn’t fond of him, if this was all a stupid game to her … well it didn’t change how he felt. He’d bided his time long enough.
“Yes,” he said, more terrified than he’d been in a long time and ignoring it. “I mean, at first … It snuck up on me. But you’re very pretty. And funny. And if someone’s going to save me from assassins or Zhentarim or hydras, I’d be glad it was you.” She was still watching him as if blinking might make him burst into flames, her face growing more and more flushed. “I am,” he said, because if he didn’t get it out, he’d hate himself for being a complete coward forever, “really fond of you, and if-”
She kissed him. She kissed him and every explanation went out of him. Every twistable word, every affectation, every notion of play and counter-this is what he wanted to say, he realized. Just this.
Havilar pulled back. “Is that right?” she asked. “It seemed right. But I’m mostly guessing.”
“It’s a … pretty good guess,” he managed. “Does that mean you’re fond of me?”
“Of course,” she said. “Wasn’t it obvious? It felt awfully obvious.”
Brin laughed. “No. I thought you might be fond of Dahl.”
Havilar wrinkled her nose. “Why? He’s bossy. And rude.”
“And ‘good-looking,’ ” Brin reminded her. “And smart.
And … tall.”
“Well, you can kiss him then.”
He took her hands. “I’d rather kiss you.”
She blushed all over again, as if she hadn’t already done both of those things herself. “You know,” she said, suddenly quiet, suddenly timid, suddenly nothing at all like Havilar, “I think those things about you.”
“That I’m bossy and rude?”
Havilar giggled. “No. That you’re smart. So smart. And I do think you’re nice looking, and you always laugh, but never at me.” She smiled. “And you’re terribly brave.”
He was brave then and kissed her, several times, all the while marveling that it was actually quite simple, once you stopped thinking so hard.
“You know,” he said, “I like this better than before. That was … I don’t know, did you read that in a chapbook or something?”
She pulled back, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“When you were going on about the Book. You were …” He waved his hand, not sure how to put it. “I mean, I don’t mind a little, but I like you the way-”
“Wait,” she said. “I was going on about that Book?” He nodded and her brow furrowed. “You’re not the first person to say that either.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
This will not be simple, the book warned Farideh. Tarchamus was a very powerful arcanist.
Farideh had spread the map of the Hells, her ritual book, and the three other texts the Book had sent her to search for-two scrolls on planar powers written in the same spidery hand as the notes on the map, and one thick tome about the theory behind ritual magic. The text was so complex and dense, Farideh despaired of ever understanding it before Lorcan suffered his sister’s wrath. Dahl, she suspected, would have called it a nursery story, if only because it would make her feel stupider.
“At least I have your help,” she said, searching for a passage outlining alternate power sources. In truth, the Book was the one doing most of the work of it. Farideh simply served as its eyes, a hand to do calculations, a pair of feet to crisscross the library in search of more texts.
“Do you think it was easier before?” she asked, copying a series of runes from the scroll-once the keys to Malbolge and, with some careful adjustments, perhaps a backdoor now. “The Weave sounds …” She paused and looked over the complex net in the ritual book’s illustrations. “Like having a hundred pacts, a hundred tethers to the next plane.”
The Book chuckled. So you’re not a wizard, it said. Your magic comes from somewhere else … a binder? A warlock?
“A warlock,” she admitted. “But I’m not … It’s not a wicked thing. I swear.” You are defending yourself to a talking book, she thought. She turned back to the parchment. “Only I draw magic from the Hells, I suppose.”
How very interesting, the Book said. A style of magic the Netherese never truly mastered. Much has changed …
Not a word of it sounded like chastisement-Farideh smiled. “Do you know much about the world since Netheril?”
Some, the Book admitted. Not nearly enough. Long gone are the days when like minds came to share their knowledge with me. It’s quiet now. But … there are events that shake the plane to its foundations, that seep even into the ground at this depth. The death of Mystryl and the fall of Netheril. The death of Mystra and the fall of the world. The phaerimms’ tricks and the return of Shade. The Ascension of Asmodeus … Not even Tarchamus’s fears could seal away the library from events that shook the worlds so.
How old and strange the world was, she thought. To imagine the way it must have looked when the library was buried: no Spellplague, no dragonborn, Netheril a sprawling empire. Did people fear it then the way they did now? She felt so lost, not recognizing any other of the events the book listed.
Except for one, she realized. Asmodeus. She heaved the book from its pedestal and held it a little closer. “Have you ever heard of the Toril Thirteen?” she asked quietly. “It would be … much more recent, but …”
Now let me think, the Book said. The script on its pages seemed to shiver and squirm. She shifted the tome onto her lap, trying to find a more comfortable position. When she’d settled it, she must have stirred up the dust from its pages. She flinched at the sudden itch in her eyes, her nose, her throat.
Ah, yes, the Book said, and the text flowed into red, spiky symbols she didn’t know, the followers of the Brimstone Angel.
Farideh’s heart sped up. “Was that … were they involved in one of those events? One of those things that shook the world?”
The voice was silent for a long moment. They are all that stood between Asmodeus and powers the likes of which none have seen.
“What do you mean? He’s a god, isn’t he? What could be worse?”
Oh my dear girl, the Book said. You cannot imagine how it was in the days before …
Asmodeus was not a god, but still the king of the Hells and craved every scrap and snippet of power he could gain. The tieflings in the world, well, their lives hung on his balance. He sought to make them all his slaves, because he could.
But a devil loves a deal, and Bryseis Kakistos offered him the chance to become greater than an archdevil, a very god if he took the chance-but only if he agreed to spare the tiefling race, to let them master their own souls. Those first thirteen warlocks took the pact with Asmodeus to appease the Lord of the Ninth’s vanity, and to spare their loved ones the yoke of the Raging Fiend. Doing so gave him the power of the gods, but gave them all the chance to escape his traps.
Ah! How he gloated to think he’d won! Without a doubt, every being on Toril and beyond, every being remotely sensitive to the music of the planes, heard the God of Evil’s crowing. But to look at the facts … those thirteen knew what they were doing. Sometimes the only choice we have is between two evils. Sometimes the only right choice is a sacrifice.
Farideh hardly knew what to say. All her life she’d been warned that she stood on the edge of utter damnation, that the wrong decision would awaken the fiendish blood that flowed through her and doom her as it doomed every other tiefling. Since taking the pact, the worry that she’d leaped over the edge was as inescapable as a literal fall. But if Bryseis Kakistos had led the Toril Thirteen for the good of the world, if she took the pact for good reasons-perhaps, perhaps Farideh wasn’t doomed. Perhaps none of them truly were.