You need to leave, a voice said, clear as a bell in her thoughts.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
At the corner of Market street and Clockmaker’s Way, since long before the ruin of Neverwinter, a stone building full of narrow, private rooms had hidden the Cult of Glasya behind the facade of a brothel. In some decades it was plush and fine, in others rude and dirty, but in all times-even, quietly and secretly, when the rest of Neverwinter was empty-the altar in the basement to the copper-skinned princess of the Hells was varnished with fresh blood at regular intervals.
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.
Sairche 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 Sairche? She should have agreed. She should have seen reason.
Sairche 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 Sairche 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-
Sairche 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.
Sairche 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, Sairche thought. A pity hellwasps did not deal in anything but Glasya’s pleasure.
“Identity,” the nearer one said in a hard, dispassionate voice.
“Sairche, 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,” Sairche 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.”
Sairche 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 Sairche 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. Sairche would have, had she been the archduchess. Hells, she would have if she were nothing but a talented mage.
But if Sairche 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.