Brin led Havi over to the lowest corner of the floor where she finally admitted her ankle was hurting and the bloody patch growing on her sleeve was a deep cut on her arm.
Lorcan stood by the window, scanning the streets below. For all that had happened in the street, it gave her a kick of terror to see him standing there, where Havi and Brin could see him-these two parts of her life weren’t meant to interact.
“You knew them,” she said.
“My sisters,” he said. “My half-sisters. Nemea and Aornos.”
“Oh.” And she couldn’t help but imagine their positions exchanged-Havilar dead by his sword. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why?”
“… They’re dead. We killed them.”
He shrugged. “They would have killed us. Me, in particular, with a great deal of glee. Besides, they’re not dead like you’d hope-you kill a devil on Toril, they reform in the Hells.” He looked over at her. “It’s complicated. Don’t …” He trailed off though, and didn’t tell her not to worry about it. “They can’t come here. Not for now.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
“I have fifty-eight half-sisters,” he said.
“We took care of those other ones. Those erinyes,” Havilar said, testing the word, “pretty handily. We’ll do it again. Just stand aside next time.”
“Nemea and Aornos are easily the stupidest, laziest, and least dangerous of all my half-sisters. They still could have killed you in a heartbeat if you weren’t lucky and they weren’t cocky.” He turned back to the window and gripped the sill. “When the next wave comes, Invadiah will send better soldiers. And more of them. If she doesn’t come herself. You can think yourself whatever sort of hero you like, but Invadiah will cut you down all the same.”
Farideh swallowed, imagining an army of the fearsome devil-women, their swift and shining swords, their nigh-unbreakable armor. “Why are they here?”
He scowled. “Because someone has thrown me over to the wolves. They think I’ve betrayed my mother. Or worse, Glasya.” His dark eyes met Farideh’s. “They won’t stop-not until I’m dead or I convince Invadiah I’m no traitor. They knew you too.”
“I heard that. You were right about Rohini then. That was supposed to be me.”
“She’ll be looking for you.”
“But why? Who is she?”
He looked down at her, still puzzled, still angry. “Rohini is a devil,” he said after a breath. “A succubus. She is the main agent-maybe the only agent-of Glasya, Lord of the Sixth Layer, in Neverwinter.”
“What about you?” Brin asked.
Lorcan scowled at him. “I live at Glasya’s pleasure, but I don’t act on her orders.”
“What is Rohini doing here?” Farideh asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.” He sighed. “You won’t understand, but I have worked very hard not to have the faintest idea.”
“She’s spellscarring orcs,” Havilar said matter-of-factly. “Even I know that.”
Lorcan shrugged. “That could be her goal. That could be a step to something bigger. That could be an act so far ahead of her eventual goal that no one but Glasya could uncover what it is. I don’t know if Invadiah even knows, and she’s commanding Rohini. Devils don’t do things they way you do.”
“Think,” Farideh said. “You must have heard something, if you know that much.”
He shook his head resolutely, as if he didn’t want to remember. “Old ones,” he finally said. “She said she couldn’t risk the old ones.”
Old ones? Farideh thought. Gods, could they be any more vague? “Old whats? Risk them what?” But Lorcan only shook his head.
“They said arbalests,” Havilar said. “Or habolets. A sovereignty of habolets.”
“Havi, that’s not even a word,” Farideh said.
“I’m only saying what I-” Havilar started, but a horrified gasp cut her off.
“Aboleths?” Brin said, staring at her.
“Oh,” Havilar said. “Maybe. That makes more sense than giving orcs to an arbalest. Aren’t aboleths sea monsters though?”
When they’d crossed the Sea of Fallen Stars to take the northern passage, the sailors had scanned the skies constantly for any sign of the aboleths. Hulking monsters, they’d told her, large as whales. Swam through water and air alike. They might pass a ship by, might render another into nothing but blood and splinters floating on the water, might coat all aboard a third with a layer of slime that sank into your head and warped your mind, making you into a servant with hardly a will of your own. Mehen had snorted and called them ridiculous tales, but he made Farideh and Havilar stay below deck.
“They’re going to be disappointed those orcs can’t swim,” Havilar said.
Farideh bit her tongue and did not ask where Havilar had gotten the idea that orcs couldn’t swim. “What would Rohini want to treat with an aboleth for?” she asked Brin.
But Brin still sat, wide-eyed with horror. “Not an aboleth,” he said. “They’re dealing with the Abolethic Sovereignty.”
“Is that … like a herd of aboleths?” Farideh asked.
“It’s what controls them.” He shook his head. “Or something. Look, aboleths aren’t like regular creatures. They’re … they know things. And what one knows, they all know. Their memories are shared. The Sovereignty is like the mind that steers things. Maybe.” He sighed. “I’m not explaining it well, but I don’t know if anyone can explain it well. People aren’t supposed to know these things.”
“I quite agree,” Lorcan said.
“Why would Rohini be dealing with aboleths of any sort?” Farideh asked.
“Because,” Lorcan replied, “the archduchess of the Sixth Layer said to. That’s all you need to know.”
Farideh twisted the ends of her hair. “Then maybe she’s making a pact of some sort with the Abolethic Sovereignty?”
“No,” Brin said. “I mean, I don’t think so. They don’t make treaties. They don’t make pacts. I don’t even think they talk to other powers. They don’t think like anything else does. It would be like you making an agreement with a tree. Why would you? The tree doesn’t have anything you couldn’t just take, and the tree can’t use anything you could give it.”
“And,” Lorcan added, “making treaties is not Glasya’s style. She does things on her own, and your aboleths couldn’t take what they’d like from her.”
Farideh frowned. Why bother trying to please a monster if the creature wasn’t a threat to you, wasn’t an ally for you, and didn’t have something you wanted? After all, what would an archdevil do with a sea monster’s treasures?
“Would she want their memories?” she asked Brin. “That’s what you said, right? They share their memories? So if you were able to read the memories of one?”
“You’d have a million years of memories,” he said, “starting with the first aboleths. And … I don’t know what’s true about them, but I’ve heard they absorb the memories of those they eat as well. That might be a sailor’s tale, but … even devils can swallow sailor’s tales, right?”
“So if you chose the right aboleth,” Farideh said, “you could know anything.”
“But you’d have to get to their memories,” Brin said. “And they’re too powerful. They look like dumb beasts maybe, but you can’t match their minds.”
“You don’t have to match their minds,” Lorcan said. “You have to possess them.” He ran his hands through his hair. “And then you can also control them. You can make them consume anyone you like. Anyone they could best.”
“No,” Brin said. “They’re too powerful-”
“As powerful as a princess of the Hells?” Lorcan snapped. “There are those who worship Glasya as a god. Regardless of what your Sovereignty can or cannot do to her, she will make them reconsider their supremacy.”
It was plausible, Farideh thought. Though it seemed an awful lot of trouble … an awful lot of risk for something that might come to nothing at all. She shook her head. Maybe Lorcan was right. Maybe it was foolhardy to puzzle out the motives of archdevils. Maybe Glasya was the reckless one.