Fire in the Blood, page 26
The air behind her popped. Havilar spun, dagger in hand, and there were the two imps, hanging in the air, watching her.
Glaive on the ground, she thought. She swiped at the nearer one with her dagger. Get it back before—
“No, no, no!” the little red devil said, flapping out of her reach. “None of that!”
“Broken planes, Lady,” the other said. “You’re going to clear the Hells out of imps if you keep this up.”
“I will!” Havilar snatched up her glaive. “Don’t think I can’t.”
The imps looked at each other. “You’re an odd one,” the second imp said. “Didn’t anyone tell you? Put the weapon down.” Havilar did not, but she didn’t swing as the imps landed on the forest floor, well out of her reach, their stinger-laden tails curled over them, as though they were curious cats.
“I’m Dembo,” the second imp said. “That’s Mot.”
“If you’re going to try and kill me like you killed Crake,” Havilar said, “you won’t find it easy.”
The imps traded glances again. Mot shrugged. “What’s a Crake?” he asked Havilar.
“The man who died when you came before,” Havilar said. “Did you put a spell on him or something?”
“We didn’t kill anyone,” Dembo said. “We weren’t even here until just now.”
“Those were other imps,” Mot said. “You sent them back. They won’t be coming around for a while.”
Havilar pulled her glaive nearer. “So what do you want?”
“No, no, no,” Dembo said. “The question is what do you want?”
“We’re here to do your bidding, Lady,” Mot said. It made a florid little bow. “By His Majesty’s grace.”
Havilar’s stomach twisted and her heart started to pound. “I don’t need anything you can help me with.”
Dembo folded his arms. “Contrary to what some people may have told you, we are excellent at helping.”
“And when we’re not,” Mot said, “we are excellent at finding someone who can.”
Dembo looked over at him. “Well, mostly. I mean, there’s limits.”
“But we know people,” Mot assured her. “We’re very important.”
Havilar looked from one to the other. “I’m not evil,” she almost shouted. “I don’t need help with devil things.”
Mot snorted. “Who said evil?”
“We don’t pick what you ask for,” Dembo said. “You order, we act. That’s the deal. You want us to pick mushrooms, we can pick mushrooms.”
“The sky’s the limit!” Mot declared.
“Well, no,” Dembo said. “You can’t have the sky. But what else do you need?”
Havilar hesitated, thoughts whirling. She wanted to tell them there was nothing desperate enough to require a devil’s help, nothing she couldn’t fix on her own. She knew whatever she asked for might be twisted into something evil if she asked all wrong.
But then she thought of Brin’s drawn expression, the repeated assertions that she didn’t understand.
“I need to find someone,” she said. “Someone magic can’t even find.”
“Well, that’s no surprise,” Dembo said. “This place’s magic is more churned up than the rulership of the Sixth Layer.” Mot tittered, and it set Havilar’s teeth on edge.
“That’s what I need,” she said. “Can you do that?” The imps considered each other, murmuring in soft Infernal, which made Havilar’s skin crawl.
“Hang on.” Dembo vanished with a pop. Mot sat down on his haunches and grinned up at her.
“Are we doing all right,” he asked, “would you say?”
Havilar frowned. “You haven’t done anything yet.”
The air split with a gust of brimstone and heat. A massive creature bounded through the rent in the plane, dragging Dembo behind by the chain he was holding. Havilar scrambled back, got her glaive up, searching for the weak spot.
“Sit!” Dembo shouted. “Sit!”
The creature stopped in front of Havilar and dropped onto its backside with a heavy whump. Its eyes glowed eerily red as it studied her, and the iron cage of a muzzle kept daggerlike teeth at bay. It yawned, and a pink tongue lolled between the bars.
“It’s a dog,” Havilar said, dumbfounded.
“Nessian warhound,” Mot corrected. “Purebred.”
“Here,” Dembo said, dropping the chain in her hands. “This is what you need. Give it something that smells like who you’re looking for, and it’ll hunt them to the ends of the plane. Don’t take the muzzle off.”
The warhound scratched an ear with its hind leg, then looked around the forest.
“Why?” Havilar asked, feeling numb.
“Because it’s just a puppy,” Dembo said. “It doesn’t know any better. It’ll gorge and get sick and we don’t want to clean it up.”
“Also, it will eat the person you’re looking for,” Mot added. “Unless you want that?”
“If she wants that, we should get something different,” Dembo said. “The puppy’s going to make itself sick, and then we’ll be in trouble.”
“I don’t want it to eat anyone!” Havilar shouted. She eyed the warhound. It made a little yelpy bark and thumped its tail on the ground. “Does it have to eat people?”
The imps exchanged glances. “Lady, it’s a devil-dog,” Dembo said. “It doesn’t have to eat anything.”
“It just wants to,” Mot added. He looked around. “That fellow you wanted to know if we killed, you might be able to get rid of him by feeding it to the puppy?”
“Not all of him though,” Dembo said severely.
Havilar’s gorge rose. “He’s not … I don’t want …” She laid her head in her hands. “You didn’t kill him?”
“Pretty sure,” Dembo said.
“We’d remember,” Mot said. “We’re good rememberers.”
“Anything else?” Dembo asked.
Havilar considered the enormous dog. “What’s its name?”
“Dunno,” Mot said. “Don’t speak hellhound.” He ducked low, peering under the dog. “But it’s a bitch.”
She ought to send it back right now. The puppy yawned and snorted and spat a little tongue of flame. Havilar’s eyes widened.
“Right,” Dembo said. “Don’t put it out in the hayloft or anything either.”
“It will work,” Mot assured her. “We’re very good at helping.” With that, both imps popped out of the plane.
Havilar scrambled back, wrapping the chain around a slender beech tree and shoving a thick stick through the links to lock it. The puppy followed her around the tree, ears perked. Havilar darted beyond the chain’s reach. The puppy pulled against the chain, once twice. Then it spotted the remainder of the mushrooms and gave them a great whuffling sniff. Its tail wagged.
Havilar folded her arms around her knees, trying to wrap her thoughts around what she’d done, what she was going to do next.
Wondering what she was going to say to Brin to explain all of this—she’d asked for the hellhound for a reason after all. It would be worse to forget it.
The hellhound flopped down and rolled around in the remains of the mushroom bed, and for a moment Havilar thought she might cry. She wished Farideh were there.
Havilar snatched at her haversack and took the remaining sending from the bottom of the pack. Emergencies, she thought, were emergencies. With shaking hands, she pulled out the vials of components and unrolled the ritual.
“Fari?” she said, as the rush of magic swelled around her. “It happened … Sairché’s here, watching. I have some imps and a hellhound thing that’s supposed to find Irvel. I don’t know what to do.”
The air crackled. “Oh gods, Havi,” her sister’s voice cried. “Oh …” She stopped, as if keeping herself from wasting precious words. “You have to tell Mehen. I’ll tell Lorcan. Don’t talk to Sairché, she’s trouble.”
“Lorcan sent Sairché,” Havilar started, but Farideh couldn’t hear her and kept talking.
“Don’t listen to devils. Stay safe, I—”
The magic’s limits cut off whatever she was going to say, but she’d said enough. Farideh was right—Sairché was an enemy, no matter what agreements she had, and the imps weren’t to be trusted. Unless she wanted to wind up damned. Havilar sat back, hugging her chest and staring at the hellhound. The only thing she knew of that would find Irvel, dead or alive.
If she was willing to listen to devils.
She sat in the dirt for a long time, thinking.
“Stay here,” Havilar told the hellhound and headed up the path.
As she entered the camp, Brin looked up from beside where he was trying to coax damp branches into a fire, and every last scrap of her uncertainty crumbled away.
Mehen and Kallan stood, butchering a brace of hares. “I think you can cut up a gnoll faster than a hare,” Kallan teased.
“Nobody needs to eat gnolls when I’m done,” Mehen answered. He looked up as Havilar stopped beside him, her head feeling as if it were going to float right off her shoulders. “Did you get the mushrooms?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I think I need some help.”
The ridges over Mehen’s eyes shifted. “With mushrooms.”
“Yes. Please. Can you help me?”
Mehen glanced back at Kallan, looking puzzled, but as soon as Havilar turned back toward the hellhound, he was following close behind. Havilar shot a look at Sairché and jerked her head toward the path. That was all the invitation the cambion was getting.
When they were out of earshot, Mehen said, “This isn’t about mushrooms is it?”
“No,” Havilar said. What would he do when he found out? Would this be as bad as Farideh’s pact, or worse or different? A hellhound wasn’t Lorcan, but she’d have a lot easier time saying no to a hellhound since it couldn’t talk back.
“Is it about Brin?” Mehen asked, a moment later.
“No. It’s … sort of.”
“I’m not prying,” Mehen said. “You’re old enough to have a relationship with a man, you’re old enough to solve your own problems there.”
“I know,” Havilar said. “I can.”
“Good. Though if you need to talk to me, I’ll listen.”
“It’s fine. Except …” She stopped beside the boulder just before the little clearing and turned back to Mehen. “I don’t want to bother you if you don’t want to help, and you don’t want me to bother you, but I think that Chosen of Asmodeus stuff started up.”
“What?” Mehen roared.
“There were imps and then they brought me a hellhound and it’s up there.” She pointed to the clearing, and her arm was shaking. “And”—she looked over Mehen’s shoulder, to Sairché standing stock-still six feet behind him—“Lorcan sent someone to watch me, and it’s Desima, and I think you both ought to come see what we’re dealing with. Now.”
Mehen looked over his shoulder at the wizard, reaching for his falchion. Sairché’s hand was on her wand. “I don’t want any trouble,” Sairché said.
“Now,” Havilar said again. She continued on to the clearing, to where the hellhound lay panting on the remains of the mushroom patch. When it spotted Havilar, the dog sat up and barked once, sending out a puff of flames.
“Karshoj,” Mehen swore.
“I think it can find the crown prince,” Havilar went on, “only I don’t know how to say so to Brin; he’s going to be so upset.” She shook her head. “All right, but maybe—maybe—it won’t be so bad if it’s disguised, right? We can tell him it’s just a dog that can track. So that’s why you’re here,” she said to Sairché. “You can disguise yourself, then you can disguise it.”
“Perhaps,” Sairché said, sounding cautious. “What are you willing to trade?”
“You can keep breathing,” Havilar offered. She turned to Mehen. “That’s Sairché. She’s the one who tricked Farideh and trapped us.”
Now the falchion was out and Sairché scurried back, against the trees, wand sparking. Havilar stepped between them. “Stop,” she said. “We need her.” She looked back at Sairché. “Can you do it?”
The cambion’s eyes flicked over Havilar, disgusted. “Yes. But it won’t last. They grow quick. It’s a dog’s size today. In a month it will be the size of a pony, and by winter it will rival a draft horse.”
“Havi,” Mehen said. “No.”
“It’s the only way,” she said. “Otherwise … Otherwise I don’t know what to do.”
“You can’t lie to Brin about this,” he said. “About any of this. He deserves to know. He deserves a say in what we do.”
Havilar shook her head. “He’s going to be so upset,” she said. “And maybe he was always going to be upset, and maybe that’s for the best, because I hate all of this so much and I just want to go back to how things were.”
“Hush,” Mehen said, and caught her up in his arms. Havilar buried her head in the crook of his neck, and fought tears. He’d think she was such a little girl. Mehen hugged her tight, cursing a soft stream of Draconic. He pushed her back, and took her face in both his hands.
“I don’t care if I’m not supposed to be giving you advice, you take this advice,” he said. “Don’t do foolish things because Brin might be upset. You’re a grown woman, but so is he a grown man. He can handle his own feelings when you come down to it. All right? It might last, it might not, but don’t think you can drag things out by keeping secrets from him.
“And I’d say don’t deal with devils, but I suppose this is one of those times no one could help.” He tapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth, all nerves. “Karshoj.”
“Will you go get him?” Havilar asked. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on them.”
“What is it you think I’m going to do?” Sairché demanded. “If I leave, I had best have a very excellent reason, and a dragonborn with a sword is not that.”
Mehen’s hold on Havilar tightened. “I’ll get him,” he said. “But don’t take your hands off the glaive.”
Havilar gave him a weak smile. “You don’t have to tell me that.” He headed down the path, glancing back twice, before picking up his pace. Havilar turned to Sairché.
“Can you do it now?” she asked. “And get out of here?”
Sairché eyed her suspiciously. “Aren’t you supposed to be guarding me?”
“Look,” Havilar said. “I can reason with Mehen on this. For now. But Brin? Brin’s not going to care what you can do or cannot do. If he doesn’t try to kill you himself, he’ll sic Constancia on you. And if you hurt a hair on Brin’s head, I’ll kill you.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Sairché said. “It might be pleasant in the short-term, but you ought to think of me as a very thin defense against a much greater army. Do you want a much greater army at your door?”
Havilar shook her head. People might think she was stupid, but gods, they could be dense themselves. “Are you going to make that army vanish? You can’t. So I’d rather have them at my door, than go to theirs. Who wouldn’t?” She hefted her glaive and watched the hellhound rub at the muzzle. “Besides, right now? I think they like me better.”
“SAY SOMETHING?” HAVILAR asked, but Brin found he couldn’t oblige. The enormous dog lying on the other side of the clearing wagged its tail twice, thumping the ground. It might look like nothing more than a mastiff, but the tree behind it was charred in places from the hellhound’s burning breath.
Brin shook his head mutely.
Havilar bit her lip. “You have his dagger—do you think it smells like Irvel still? I mean, we could try it, and see if …” She looked over at Mehen and trailed off. “Oh. It’s the other thing, isn’t it?”
The other thing. Brin nearly laughed at that, vague and sanitized. The other thing sounded like a coy way to talk about a relation’s mild deviance. Not the fact that the love of his life was the Chosen of the archdevil god of sin. The rain drummed against the leaves above him, and for the first time in days, Brin felt as if he couldn’t hear anything else.
“You have to get rid of it,” he said finally. “Kill it.”
“It’s a solution,” Havilar protested. “And it’s a puppy.”
“Then it should be easier.” Brin dragged a hand through his hair. What would come of Lord Crownsilver hunting down the crown prince with a hellhound of all things? What would happen to Havilar if that got out, or worse, if she was right, and people discovered she was the Chosen of Asmodeus. “How did this happen? Did Farideh do it? Did she mark you somehow? Corrupt you?”
Havilar’s brows rose. “Excuse me?”
“Come on—do you want to pretend that the Hells don’t follow your sister?”
“Look, you might be mad at her—be mad at her, she’s done enough to earn that—but don’t make up ridiculous stories. Do you really think for a second Farideh would force something like this on me? No—that she’d let it happen if she could stop it?”
“I don’t know what Farideh would do anymore, and frankly, neither do you!” Brin turned to the dragonborn. “Are you just letting this happen?” he demanded.
“Point me to the part I can change,” Mehen said. “We watch, we wait, we move carefully. That’s the only way to deal with gods.”
“We take her to a temple of Torm,” Brin said. “And then—”
“And when they can’t get rid of it?” Mehen said. “Because who says Torm can decide to undo another god’s decisions? Are they going to hand her back all apologetic?”
Brin faltered. “They might. She’s not evil. You’re not evil,” he said to Havilar.
Havilar regarded him soberly. “Neither is this. We leave the muzzle on. We give her something that smells like Irvel, and the imps said she’d find him no matter where he is. We just have to keep hold of the chain.”
