Khochen came running up from the direction of the lake, tailed by a man with a bow carrying Samayan pickaback, another fellow, and Daranna. Brin searched the road behind them, and Dahl’s stomach dropped.
“Where’s Havi?” Brin demanded. “Where’s Mehen?”
Khochen gave Dahl a grim look. “Your friend the wizard took Farideh hostage. The other two went with the cambion to rescue her.”
Dahl cursed and cursed and cursed, as if his breath couldn’t come any other way. “We have to go after them.”
“There is no time,” Cereon said.
“There’s all the godsbedamned time we have, if we can’t all fit down there!” Dahl shouted. Which meant it wouldn’t matter. They were all doomed-on the ground, in the tower, at the bottom of the lake.
A deep boom shook the ground beneath their feet, and for a terrifying moment, Dahl was sure Torden’s warnings about the stability of the mountainside had caught up with them. Shouts came from the shelters, and a moment later the prisoners began to flow down through the main entrance, down into the room that the ancient scroll had crafted.
A weight came off Dahl’s shoulders, but he found he couldn’t follow them, not yet.
Dahl turned back to the tower and saw smoke pouring out of the highest windows. His pulse beat harder, and if he could have done anything in that moment, he would have run for the fortress again, just to try and do something.
But Dahl knew he could not save her this time. If Mehen and Havilar and Lorcan couldn’t manage it, none of them would have been able to. He looked over at Brin-the Cormyrean watched the tower too, looking faintly gray. “I’m sure she didn’t want to leave you behind,” Dahl started.
“It doesn’t matter,” Brin said quietly. “She’ll always choose her sister. I know that.” He gave Dahl a wan smile. “She comes back, and then she’s gone again. I thought it was bad before. If I lose her and Mehen-”
“She’s not gone,” Dahl said firmly. “None of them are. Not yet.”
“Not yet,” Brin agreed.
High up on the tower’s farthest edge, something exploded, scattering shards of black stone.
Rhand’s teleportation felt nothing like Farideh’s own spell, the one that seemed to make a slit in the planes and move her through something like the edge of the Hells, hot and close and whispering. This was bloodless and cold-just a gray, airless place, and then she was standing in the study, once more beside the Fountains of Memory.
Rhand smiled at her, and Farideh thought, there was no devil in the Hells she feared like she feared that smile. Cast, Farideh thought-a burst of energy, a vent of lava, a rain of brimstone. Call the grasping souls back and let them tear him apart-
She closed her eyes and fought back a shudder. That is where you’ll end up, she thought. Begging for a little life from the living. .
Not yet. For now, Rhand was enough to focus on. And she couldn’t count on him not having the same sort of shield Sairché had borne, something to stop her spells if she tried the wrong way to remind him she wasn’t a lamb brought to slaughter.
But without her spells, without the gifts of the Nine Hells-without her friends, her family-she was little better.
“You should know,” he said conspiratorially, “your mistress has already fallen. Her deal with me, as it were, is not an issue.” He crossed to the sideboard, poured two goblets of a dark red wine, and brought one over to Farideh. “The devils planned to unseat me, didn’t they?”
Farideh nearly laughed. “You shouldn’t assume they care about you at all.”
His eyes darkened. “Well they certainly don’t care about you, do they?” He handed her the glass.
“I’d rather not.”
Rhand laughed. “Oh please, it’s not drugged.” He shoved the glass into her numb hands and leaned in. “I don’t have any need to drug you this time.”
It wouldn’t matter how conscious she was in a short time. Magros’s spell would complete and they would be dead without a layer of earth shielding them. She wondered if the blast would kill them, or if they’d be crushed when the black rock shattered.
Still, if Rhand tried anything between now and then. . she could still feel the powers of Asmodeus, like something deep inside her had snapped and bled awful ichor into her. It dripped, it drizzled, but she knew it could rush forth again.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” she murmured.
“Nor do I care,” Rhand returned. He toasted her and took a stiff swallow of the wine. “I believe I told you once, you are not unique.” He strode to the open windows, setting the glass down beside him on the sill and looking out at the growing ball of magical energy. “Neither are your devils’ allies. Whoever it is, they will have a surprise shortly.”
“It’s going to explode.”
“No, it’s not,” Rhand replied. “My two best apprentices are preparing to dispel that nonsense. Just as it reaches its full strength. With luck,” he added, reaching for the goblet once more, “it will reverse the spell and blow the bones of whatever pretender is casting it back to his master.” He took a sip. “But I will settle for ensuring his failure.”
Farideh’s stomach dropped. If the spell were stopped, then their plan was pointless. The prisoners and Harpers and Havi and Mehen would just stay here until they died of hunger or thirst. Or risked destroying the tower themselves. Her sacrifice had meant nothing.
Rhand gave her another unpleasant smile. “Drink up.”
Farideh stared back at him, wishing she was foolish enough to. Even the suggestion made her stomach protest, after the wizard’s finest-
Farideh’s breath caught.
Dahl’s flask of the shadar-kai liquor was still in her pocket, Farideh realized. And Tharra’s strange herbs were tucked into her sleeve. A shield wouldn’t stop the wizard’s finest. Rhand’s expression hardened, and she took a careful sip of the wine, her eyes on the swirling basin of water beside her.
“How long before the spell completes?” she asked.
Rhand turned back to the window, as if gauging his apprentices’ progress. “As I said: it won’t. The dispelling is already underway.”
As he spoke, Farideh drained the wine from her own goblet, swallowing a cough and praying he hadn’t lied about the drugs. She dipped the empty goblet into the basin beside her, filling it halfway with the cold waters of the Fountains of Memory. She pulled Dahl’s flask from her pocket, still sloshing with the shadar-kai’s brutal brew.
“What if it doesn’t work?” she asked, her eyes locked on his back as she tugged the little pouch from her sleeve. Her stomach churned as the fetid smell of the splintered roots hit her nose.
“Whatever you think you know from slinging lumps of forsaken souls at weak enemies, it is a trifle compared to what we do. This is magic of a higher order. It won’t fail.” Rhand set the goblet down again, off to his left, still watching the dancing light that could be seen off to the right.
Farideh made herself keep breathing as she crossed the room on feet so swift and silent, even Mehen would have praised her stealth. Her hands were steady as she reached for his goblet and replaced it with her own.
Rhand turned at the sound of the metal against the stone, but there was Farideh, leaning out over the sill. He picked up the tainted goblet, and Farideh’s heart threatened to beat its way out of her throat. There only remained the question-the best question to keep him laid low.
“I think you’re wrong,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “A wager, then?”
She held the goblet with the untainted wine in it close. “When it explodes,” she said “we’ll be dead.”
“And when it doesn’t, what will you forfeit?” he asked. He brought the goblet toward his lips again. “I know-do you still have your ritual book? You never did let me show you how those first few work. Perhaps we’ll start there.” He tipped the goblet back.
All the anger, all the horror, all the hate in Farideh’s heart poured into her next words: “What have you done?”