“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, Sairche 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.
Sairche 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-
Sairche stopped herself and narrowed her eyes at the crystal. Plenty of sensitive, secret information. Why hadn’t Glasya cast a forbiddance? Sairche 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? Sairche 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. Sairche 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.”
Sairche 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, Sairche 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.” Sairche 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 Sairche 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?”
Invadiah eyed her stonily and did not answer, but neither did she slap the teeth from Sairche’s mouth.
“I may have seen Lorcan-in fact, a great many may have seen him-the other day, borrowing the Axe of Exigency for an orc he had dragged to Malbolge as punishment for harming that warlock.”
“My Axe of Exigency?” Invadiah said.
“I couldn’t say. Though it does seem likely. It was meant to kill some priest or another for him.” Sairche tipped her head. “So you see, though Rohini speculates, she isn’t lying.”
Invadiah scowled and turned back to Rohini and the shimmering portal. “Where is Lorcan now?” she asked, and it wasn’t until her scowling eyes rolled back to Sairche that her daughter realized the question had been meant for her.
“On Toril,” she said quickly. “Last I saw. In Neverwinter.”
“And the warlock?”
“With him. Though,” Sairche added, “she didn’t seem happy to see him. They might have separated.”
Invadiah nodded, and Sairche could see they were all very lucky indeed that Invadiah didn’t slap the teeth from all of their mouths, and luckier still that they were none of them Lorcan.
“Aornos, Nemea,” Invadiah growled. “Fetch your brother.”
“Your wish, Mother,” Nemea said. “Whole or in parts?”
Invadiah’s scowl deepened. “Whatever you see fit.”
Nemea and Aornos grinned at one another, and Sairche schooled her expression to one of indifference. On some level, she certainly pitied Lorcan, but if he was as clever as he seemed to think he was, he would figure out a way to escape Invadiah’s wrath, and if he wasn’t.…
At least I am not so foolish, Sairche thought with a suppressed giggle.
“You can use the Needle to get in,” Invadiah said. “The rings are in the treasury.”