“There are runes on the walls and the columns,” she offered. “They lock some of the doors. Maybe there’s one for this.” She thought back to her earlier conversation with Havilar. “I think there’s one on the wall near here.”
Dahl gave her a puzzled expression. “Who told you there were rune-based locks?”
“The Book,” she said. “Look, we’ll just go, break the rune, and see if it does any good. It’s worth trying.”
He turned back to the door. “How far is it?”
“I don’t know. Not far, I imagine.”
“Why don’t you take care of it?” he said. “I’ll stay here.”
She nearly laughed again-who could have guessed her example for Tam was so prophetic. “And if the ghosts find us? The illusion triggers?”
“The ghosts don’t look like you or me,” Dahl said dismissively. “And we’ve tramped through here enough that I’m certain there’s no trap to trigger. Go test your theory. I’ll be here.”
Farideh started to protest again, but she caught herself. The scrolls in her haversack were still calling. She could go, destroy the rune, and try the ritual-if it didn’t work, she needed every possible moment to find a way to fix it before Tam made them leave and she was back to not knowing where to start. She had the components-borrowed, begged, and gathered from the library and her comrades. She just needed space, time, and to be as far from anyone else as possible for a few moments.
“All right,” she said. “But be careful.”
She followed the wall to the west, where Havilar had said she’d seen the large rune. The library was darker here along the edges, but her eyes were sensitive enough to make the path clear. Not so sensitive to make the space less eerie. She listened for a moment, but not even the echoes of her comrades reached her.
The rune had been etched into a space between shelves, a letter nearly as tall as she was drawn in strokes as thick as her leg. It glowed faintly, as if reflecting the light of the orbs overhead. The floor around it was open, as if the shelves had been arranged to better display the rune, and a statue of a man in wizard’s robes stood opposite it.
First the ritual, she thought. Better to break the rune right before she went back to Dahl, in case he decided to come find her once the doors opened.
If she listened hard enough, could she hear the motions of the ghosts of the library? At least now if anyone came toward her alone she’d know better. Anyone but Dahl, she amended. She looked back the way she came-a gloomy path through the shadows and the sickly cast of the arcanist’s greenish magic tracing the walls. Which would be worse-Dahl or a ghost playing at being Dahl coming across her now?
Farideh kneeled near the statue and opened the ritual book-Dahl could take care of himself, and if he came upon her, it didn’t matter, she’d already be well underway. She started drawing the runes one by one in a careful circle, slowly so the shaking of her hand wouldn’t muss things. Her thoughts raced. What if Lorcan wouldn’t come? What if he couldn’t? What if someone else had already rescued him and he was somewhere else entirely?
Worse, she thought, chalking the rune carefully over a seam in the tiles, what if he never needed rescuing at all? What if he’s only grown tired of me?
You should be so lucky, a little part of her thought. A very little part.
She didn’t want Lorcan back the way he was, the way Havilar seemed to remember him-chasing her down and trying to drag her through portals, sending assassins to kill her friends because he didn’t like them-but when the forces of the Hells had appeared to take him back … He’d changed, she thought. By then he was different. By then he’d been kinder, maybe gentler. His nobler side, she thought, coming through. He wasn’t all wicked. Neverwinter proved that. Surely.
Farideh finished the circle and thought of the night in the winter woods, after she’d taken the pact, after she’d fled the village. The heat of him and his burning hands grasping her wrists … Perhaps a little wicked wasn’t so bad.
Gods, now she was making herself blush. She rubbed her hands over her face, as if to scrub away the memory. She wasn’t fond of Lorcan. She was rescuing a … comrade. Returning a favor.
You are a terrible liar, the same little part of her seemed to say.
She trailed a line of the silver dust over the runes. As the line closed into a circle, the runes took on a soft, white glow.
Farideh’s heart was in her throat as she kneeled again, a little ways off, the ritual book open in front of her. What if he didn’t come? What if he couldn’t? He might be dead, after all, she thought. He might have died at his mistress’s hands so I wouldn’t.
Or Glasya might have killed him anyway, with or without Farideh …
Or his terrible, monstrous sisters might come instead … Or the ritual might fail …
She started speaking the words of the spell, her mouth moving as if on its own, as if it had decided to go ahead and try even though her thoughts still raced, screaming that the magic wouldn’t work, that she was wasting time and components, that she was going to break her own heart. The cadence of the ritual was powerful and rhythmic-it pulled itself out of her, drawing strands of the frayed Weave together, and she couldn’t stop any of it even if she’d wanted to. The air in the antechamber thickened and her hands began to ache as the powers of the Hells rose in concert with the powers of the Weave, straining to be set free.
Just when Farideh’s words began to run out, just when she was sure she could not handle another strand, another syllable, the magic split the air, neatly as a razor.
“Son of a barghest,” Dahl muttered, considering the spent remains of yet another ritual arrayed around the base of the door. The green light of the magic sealing the portal and the yellowish light of his sunrod made it all look like a sickly mess. He could not pass through it, unlock it, break it down, melt it with heat, crack it with cold, or ask it nicely to open up.
That marked the last of his ideas. He blew out a breath.
“Would you let me try and shrink you down?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder. “It probably won’t work, but …”
Farideh was still not there.
He walked a little ways down the tunnel, to where he could see the library beyond. Nothing. Damn it.
Dahl walked to the opening of the tunnel and scanned the shelves. If he went looking, she might come back to the door while he was out. If she came back and couldn’t find him, gods knew what she’d decide to do next. He made his way back down the tunnel to the sealed door and pulled out the diary he’d taken. She’d be back. Surely.
He’d read several years’ worth of memories-and with each successive entry, he found himself wondering more and more what he was meant to gain from it. For though that late entry remarked on the intercession done to prevent the arcanist’s access to the Weave, as he paged through earlier comments, there was little to remark on but Tarchamus’s biting wit and disdainful nature.
He turned to a later page, one dated to the spring of 1374, by Netheril’s calendar.
Tarchamus has made fools of us all. We should have known better. Censuring him has only driven him to find more dangerous sources of power. Last night I called on him to make some amends-more the fool am I. I thought I owed him that-and over wine he asked after my eruption spell. I told him, quite honestly, that it progressed well, but I have reconsidered its need. Such a feat of magic would wreak more destruction than anything we’ve attempted thus far. He scoffed-what is the world for, if not so that we can remake it to our imaginations? Better to devise such feats as might destroy what came before than to sit in our halls making lights and plumbing for the unfortunate worms unwilling to seek the knowledge of the spheres.