Brimstone Angels (36 page)

That day, the blood of its previous worshipers made the varnish.

Yvon surveyed the carnage. Twenty bodies—or rather the combined parts of twenty bodies—lay butchered on the floor. Sekata had stopped Lector from branding them all with the mark of Asmodeus.

“Eventually they will start to stink,” she said, “and you don’t want the Lord Pretender getting ideas. Let him think it was adventurers.”

Lector had reluctantly agreed. He wiped his dagger on his robes, subdued. The Glasyans had managed to kill Imarella. Yvon felt a stab of pity for his old friend. If a lover had to die, better it was by one’s own hand.

For the reaping, the cell had gathered another ten followers to them and crept up on the Glasyans. As an understanding of peace had been agreed to, the Glasyans had not expected the attack. Only three of the Ashmadai had fallen. They’d tortured the high priestess at length, searching for more information about the orc, but got little.
Still the Sixth Layer cultists would think twice before stepping out of line next time, Yvon thought. The Ashmadai ruled Neverwinter as their god ruled the Hells.

The Ashmadai stripped off their ceremonial robes so as not to arouse suspicion and stuffed them into several haversacks, before heading back up the stairs and out into the street in small groups. Above they would separate and take different paths back to their superior cell, where they could regale their betters with the tale of clearing out the Clockmaker’s Way whores and sending a message to the Glasyans that their actions had been noticed.

Yvon went up last, alone, and so it was only he who spotted the line of orcs.

Traveling down the street, like ducklings trailing their mother, four orcs dripping the magic of the spellplague followed a half-elf wearing austere blue robes and the insignia of the hospital and Temple of Oghma.

To Yvon’s trained eyes, the corruption of the Sixth Layer twisted over the man and the orcs like the curling threads of a mold beneath the molten light of the spellscars they all bore. The strange parade passed the temple-brothel by, oblivious to the abattoir their compatriots’ hideaway had become.

“Well, well,” Yvon murmured. “The plot thickens.”

He trailed the strange parade through the narrow, shady streets, the spellscars electric in the fading light. They passed into the main thoroughfare only to cross the Dolphin Bridge, and thereafter veered down the riverside road, and into the yard of a forbidding old mansion.

Yvon’s talent did not extend to structures, but even he could tell there was something peculiar about that odd and listing abode. He found a spot in a nearby doorway and watched.

Half an hour passed. Lamplighters made their way over the span of the bridge, turning back at the Blacklake side to leave the less secure district to the night. Yvon was ready to give up and hurry back to his shop—where no doubt, all his confederates had gathered—when the door of the strange house opened again, and the half-elf came out once more.

The orcs no longer followed him. Instead, the half-elf carried a wooden casket no wider than his shoulders. He stared down at it as
he walked, as if transfixed by the bleached and cracked container. He did not notice Yvon, who stood and peered closely at him.

The Sixth Layer’s signature was still there, faint and wispy and ready to dissolve. Overlaying it was something far stronger, far stranger. It was no mark of the Hells. The light of it was strange and made his eyes feel as if they were trying to boil. He looked away.

The mark wound around the half-elf’s very bones. Whatever the Glasyans were toying with, it had no interest in being coy.

Sairché returned to Osseia and all but ran from the treasure room. Lorcan would be back soon, and he’d be furious. There was nothing to do but give him as wide a berth as possible until he calmed down enough to listen to reason.

She cursed a steady stream under her breath. What line had he sold that girl that she couldn’t see the merit in coming with Sairché? She should have agreed. She should have seen
reason
.

Sairché slowed as she neared her mother’s chambers. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps it was time to bring Lorcan into her plans. After all, her brother was obviously good at convincing mortals to take the pact. He’d have to see Sairché had a good plan in place—transfer the pacts to high-bidding devils and build up enough treasure or favors to keep them well into the millennia. Lorcan was in the exact same position that she was: outside the hierarchy, barely clinging to their mother’s good graces, not enough influence to gain any real power. He’d have to acknowledge it was best to guard against—

Sairché froze.

The air had shifted as she turned the corner, and the sensation of being pulled into something vast and dark gripped her. She took a few cautious steps. The unmistakable scent of rotting flowers. She peered down the corridor. There were hellwasps hovering on either side of the door to her mother’s audience chambers.

Glasya herself called on Invadiah.

Sairché paused, watching the hellwasps dart back and forth. The sudden smell of her was agitating them, no doubt. Worse than that, they had their many, shining black eyes fixed on her as she watched them. Glasya’s hellwasps could track down a body by its scent, but those gleaming eyes were how they pinpointed their prey, striking out with their bladed arms and poisoned stingers.

Mostly, though, the hellwasps hung in the air around Glasya, their adopted queen. The perfect position for gathering all manner of interesting secrets, Sairché thought. A pity hellwasps did not deal in anything but Glasya’s pleasure.

“Identity,” the nearer one said in a hard, dispassionate voice.

“Sairché, daughter of Exalted Invadiah,” she said. “Is my mother in?”

“Impermissible,” the hellwasp said. “You are a threat. Leave this area.”

“I am not a threat,” Sairché said, with a little laugh. “May I at least pass by? I need to—”

“All unknowns are threats. You will leave this area or you will be killed.”

Sairché sighed and backed off twenty steps down the hallway. The difference was enough to satisfy the hellwasps, and they returned to their patrol around the entrance to Invadiah’s chambers. What Sairché wouldn’t give to be able to listen to what was happening in that room.

She bit her lip. From the pockets of her robes, she pulled a small crystal sphere and a vial of mixed powders. She didn’t doubt Glasya had laid a powerful forbiddance upon the room, turning aside anyone who tried to spy on her. Sairché would have, had she been the archduchess. Hells, she would have if she were nothing but a talented mage.

But if Sairché didn’t try to peer inside the room, she would never be
certain
. She sprinkled the powder over the crystal and touched it to her eyelids and her ears. She closed her eyes and pictured in her mind’s eye the brazier that burned in the corner. The scrying might create a disturbance in the air, but so did the fire, and it might not be noticed. She took a deep breath, waiting for the forbiddance to shut her out.

Instead, she felt the connection tighten, and when she opened her eyes, her mother’s audience chamber was repeated in miniature within the crystal sphere.

“Twenty,” Glasya said. “Twenty cultists dead.” Her voice rang like the pealing of a bell. She sat upon an ornate litter, two more hellwasps hovering beside her.

Invadiah kneeled on the floor before the archduchess, her head bowed. “The Ashmadai are overbold, my lady. We would gladly alter our plans to see them punished.”

“They may be overbold,” Glasya said, “but something has spurred them to this. The imps watching over that cell tell me that the attackers claimed retaliation. And while I’m well aware my followers may have crossed paths with my lord father in the past, all has been quiet for months.” She smiled, and even to see the pale reproduction, Sairché shuddered. “Tense, of course, but quiet. The only change has been in your task.”

“I swear, my lady,” Invadiah said, “we have made no such overtures.”

Glasya ran one of the thongs of her scourge through the pinch of her fingernails. “I would suggest, Invadiah,” she said, and a shiver went through the erinyes as the archduchess spoke her name, “that you make certain dear Rohini hasn’t been keeping certain details from you. Otherwise”—she reached out with the butt of the scourge and forced Invadiah’s head up with it—“we will have to discuss your failure to follow orders.”

Instinctively, all four hellwasp guards surrounded her, took up the corners of the litter, and sped off through the doors of the balcony. The crystal turned cloudy again.

Sairché let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Better than she ever could have imagined! Asmodean cultists attacking Glasyan cultists, and her mother’s Neverwinter mission caught in the middle while—

Sairché stopped herself and narrowed her eyes at the crystal. Plenty of sensitive, secret information. Why
hadn’t
Glasya cast a forbiddance? Sairché might have a talent for ferreting out secrets, but she was a dabbler—there were plenty of more powerful mages among the devils of the Hells. Any of them could have been listening. Had Glasya wanted to be heard? Had she left the conversation open as a warning? But then why the hellwasps scaring everyone off? Sairché scowled at the crystal. Something didn’t fit.

With the hellwasps gone, it was a simple matter to slip in through the door, tuck herself away in a corner, and become invisible. Invadiah stood facing the open balcony doors, her shoulders looking high and tense even through her armor.

In the corner, the fabric of the plane suddenly wrinkled and split, emitting a red-haired human woman with a sneer on her face. Sairché raised her eyebrows. She had wondered why Invadiah had been ignoring the Needle of the Crossroads, letting Lorcan come and go with it in the last few years—Glasya must have given her a proper portal for this Neverwinter business.

As the woman stepped out of the portal and toward Invadiah, the glamour melted off of her like wax: bat wings sprouted from her back, her frizzy red curls wafted around her head like a cloud of steam, and the drab robes she wore became a suit of tight-fitting black leather armor.

Rohini did not look happy.

“I can’t leap back here every time you get tetchy!” she snarled. “I’m in the middle of things that cannot—”

“What do you know about dead Glasyan cultists?” Invadiah interrupted. Rohini caught her tongue and frowned.

“Nothing at all. Why? Should I?”

Invadiah’s lip curled. “I thought you were the best? You haven’t noticed the Ashmadai have decided to slaughter an entire cell of the archduchess’s cultists in Neverwinter—an act they claim as retaliation?”

“Of course they claim so,” Rohini said. “The Ashmadai have such fragile, petulant little egos. They’d kill a man for getting mud on their doorstep.”

“The imps reported the lead priestess was tortured at length for information about an orc who was serving them, and hunting warlocks.”

Sairché raised her eyebrows at that. She had a very bad feeling.

Rohini rolled her eyes. “Well, what benefits Asmodeus—”

“This benefits us none at all!” Invadiah shouted. “Glasya is watching. Glasya knows we have slipped. How close are you? And I don’t want to hear your nonsense about caution—we are too late for caution.”

Rohini scowled at Invadiah. “He is with the ones who serve the Sovereignty as we speak. They should be impressed with the potential servitors, and they should give him further information regarding the aboleths which live in the Chasm. And then I will convince him to make the offer. And,” she added with a snarl, “I would be a good deal further if I didn’t have to keep your bastard son and his warlock out of my business.”

Invadiah straightened. “What has Lorcan been doing?”

“Getting his fingers in Neverwinter,” Rohini said, folding her arms over her chest. “Getting in my way. His warlock is a nuisance, but I deferred to your superiority, Lady Invadiah, and merely set her aside for the moment.”

“I see.” Invadiah stormed out the open doors and onto the balcony. “Nemea!” she bellowed. “Aornos! To me now!”

“What are you going to do?” Rohini said. “Have them rend me and rip me and make me say I’m lying? It won’t change facts. In fact, I’d wager if anyone’s responsible for the Ashmadai getting reckless, it’s Lorcan.”

Invadiah backhanded her, knocking Rohini off her feet, just as Nemea and Aornos, fully armored, galloped into the room.

Oh, this is going to solve everything, Sairché thought. She let the invisibility fall.

“Good afternoon, Mother,” she said. Invadiah bared her teeth at her youngest daughter.

“How long have you been skulking in the corner, girl?”

“Long enough to hear that you might like some information about what Lorcan’s been up to.” Sairché fluttered her silvery lashes. “Just a few things you might like to know before you go ahead and kill the succubus.”

Invadiah didn’t reply, but she didn’t reach out to strangle her daughter either, so Sairché assumed she had the floor.

“To begin,” she said, “Lorcan does have a warlock in Neverwinter. I just saw her there. Though I highly doubt she has been much trouble for Rohini. She isn’t a particularly skilled caster.” Rohini glowered at her, still crumpled on the floor. “And then, did I hear you correctly? An orc is tangled up in this?”