Sairche spun on him. “Oh, I’ve got plans to fix that. Irons in other fires. Once you’re out of the way, it will take just moments. Don’t worry,” she added. “I won’t take her right away. I want to make sure you suffer.”
“If you really wanted my help,” he said. “I would have considered it. Hells, it’s not as if we couldn’t convince some other heir to switch their pact, the two of us.” He let the pearl drop to the floor behind him, where his heel could crush it quickly. “We still could.”
Sairche regarded him, her expression puzzled and her grin slowly growing. “Really?” she said after a moment. “If I didn’t know better, Lorcan, I would guess you didn’t know.”
That stopped him. “Didn’t know what?”
“There are a fair number of devils interested in a Kakistos heir,” she said, “and they’ll pay well enough. But there are a much smaller number interested in this Kakistos heir. And what they’ll pay … To be perfectly honest, even I wasn’t expecting it.”
Lorcan frowned. “Why?”
“Oh that’s funny. You don’t know.”
“You intend to kill me anyway,” he said. “Why not tell me?”
Sairche patted his cheek. “It’s been awhile since you’ve had the upper hand, but trust me when I say it’s far more satisfying to send you to your grave wondering. I do hope you’ve been a dearer brother to Bibracte than you have to me.” The erinyes loomed over Lorcan, flexing her hands in the vicious wrappings, her fangs bared in a horrible grimace.
“Do be sure,” she said to Bibracte as she headed out the door, “to leave something for the others to do.” She glanced back at him. “We have to convince those watching that I’m a worthy successor to mother, after all.”
Bibracte’s spiked fist crashed into his face, hard enough to split his lip and bloody his nose. He reeled and felt his foot come down on the pearl. He caught himself before he crushed it and cut a glance to the mirror, to Farideh fallen prone across a field of bones. The paladin coming to her side, his sword drawn. The blast of silver, divine light, so cold he could almost feel it through the mirror. Now or never, he thought.
“Tell Sairche she’ll have to try harder to succeed someone as cunning as Mother,” he said, and he stepped back onto the pearl, smashing it to dust.
By the fifth time Farideh stepped through a rent in the world, she realized she’d gotten into more than she knew how to get out of. So many leaps through the strange passages were making her dizzy. As slow as the creature was, it didn’t falter as it tracked her around the tomb. And as much as the fire seemed to pain it, none of her spells had brought it down-and it was getting angrier. The ghosts streaked back and forth across the crypt, diving near her, but always shying away as she drew on her powers.
Make for the exit, Farideh thought as the world parted for her, then cast the lava vent. If anything could stop it, it was that.
But as she stepped free of the cloud of smoke and brimstone, her foot came down on some unfortunate’s skull. Her ankle turned, and she fell forward, smacking her face against a second skull.
That’s what you get for being clever-the thought went through her head as quickly as the pain shooting from her cheekbone. Blood filled her mouth where her teeth had sliced her cheek. The creature’s heavy footfalls, crunching through the field of bones toward her, shook her from her daze. She scrambled to her feet, collecting the fallen rod as she did, but her ankle threatened to buckle under her weight.
Her eyes on the creature and her rod in hand, the bones were equal parts obstacle and motivation as she limped toward the exit. The light between the creature’s jaws started to build again. Farideh pointed the rod at it, drawing hard on the Hells.
Dahl all but tackled her, pulling her out of the blast’s reach. At the same time a beam of silvery light streaked across the tomb, Selune’s magic slamming into the creature and throwing it across the chamber. The mummy screamed.
“Gods damn it!” she heard Mira shout. “Pull him up!”
“Come on!” Dahl hooked an arm under hers and started toward Mira and the exit and the rope dangling there.
The mummy screamed. The pain in her ankle surged to match it, but Farideh gritted her teeth and clung to Dahl and the rod. She glanced back over her shoulder. The mummy kept its pace toward the exit to the pit, its empty eye sockets seeming to focus past Farideh on the dancing end of the rope.
A sharp crack, a yelp of pain from Mira, and the remains of one of the heavy bookshelves rained down on the field of broken bones. Dahl cursed and jumped back, yanking her with him. She could hear Tam yelling and Havilar yelling and Maspero yelling. The crash of more shelves, another rain of spellbooks. The rope slapping the wall.
But the only sound that mattered was the howl of the approaching mummy. It was close, close enough to see where the pale jade bones of its wrists peeked through its flaking muscles, the fine, broken hairs that had been its beard, the garnet pendant hanging around its neck.
Tarchamus, Farideh realized.
The ghosts took shape at their master’s side-no longer familiar faces, but apprentices in long mage’s robes. A man with steel-gray hair and pale skin. A red-haired girl. A dark-skinned woman with her hair in braids. The cold light of the dead behind their eyes.
Dahl had left her and knotted loops into the hanging rope. He stepped into one, pulling it tight. He looked back and spotted the arcanist, now no farther than the reach of one of Farideh’s blasts. “Let’s go,” he said, coming to her side again.
And then the portal opened.
Dahl gasped as he crushed her close, either to protect her or to claim some protection himself from the flash of hellfire and the fearsome figure that appeared in its heart: Lorcan.
For a moment, Farideh was sure he was nothing more than the aftereffects of Adolican Rhand’s poisons, except Dahl could clearly see this devil too. She sat there, stunned: he’d found a way out. His wings were still bound, and his nose and lip streamed black blood. Lorcan’s gaze fell on her and his wings flexed against the pin, but at the same moment the arcanist looked back and marked his presence.
He turned to consider this new threat-no, she thought, none of us are threats. We are nuisances. Prey. He knows he will have all of us eventually.
“Farideh, come on,” Dahl said, finding his voice again.
He cannot fly, she thought, watching Lorcan. He cannot fight him. Even erinyes burn, but not Tarchamus. His eyes on the arcanist, Lorcan untangled the sword from Pernika’s remains. The ghosts crept toward him. All Farideh’s nightmares, all her hideous visions were about to come true.
“Run!” she shouted at Lorcan. He ignored her and cast a ball of energy at the mummy. The arcanist didn’t so much as flinch. The boiling promises of Malbolge started whispering in her ears, burning in her veins.
“Go,” she said to Dahl. She looked back at him. “Many thanks. For coming back for me.”
“No-are you mad? That thing-”
“I can’t leave him,” Farideh said. She didn’t wait for Dahl to argue. She stepped into another split-the last she could likely handle, she realized as vertigo snarled around her like a cast-off net-and landed off-balance near the northern wall, near one of the narrow alcoves that lined it.
Off-balance, because Dahl had grabbed hold of her arm and traveled with her.
“You are not,” he said, drawing his sword once more, “making me explain to Master Zawad how I left you to die.” He knew this was madness-she could see it in the grim set of his mouth, the verge of panic in his eyes.
“Stay back,” she said. “Keep the ghosts off us.”
The bursts of energy were enough to get the ghosts’ attention, to turn them away from Lorcan. A rain of burning brimstone drew the arcanist’s eye as Dahl’s sword warded off the swooping ghosts. Lorcan cast again, and the arcanist’s attention switched, still trying to decide which of them to take first.