Brimstone Angels

“I think most of Neverwinter would call that murder justified. Even Mordai Vell.” Yvon chuckled again and took the coin box out from under the counter. “I’ll take one potion of vitality, the healings and the cordials. Some of them are elderberry, yes? The elderberries always go first. You could probably make a living just distilling cordials.”

“I could,” Sekata agreed as he counted out the coins. “But I’d be bored. Will you be at the congregation tonight? The sacrifice is one of those orcs from the ruined district, and I don’t want to worry about keeping him down.”

“Who got you an orc?”

Sekata swept the coins into her purse. “Creed. It’s how I found out about the whole Moonstone Mask debacle. Hail Asmodeus,” she said, as she pulled open the door and set the bells tinkling again, “and I’ll see you tonight. Bring the staples and some extra rope. He’s a big brute.”

“Only if you bring some cordial,” Yvon replied. “Hail Asmodeus.”

Farideh woke to the bright light of full morning, Havilar still dead to the world beside her, and Mehen snoring noisily on the floor. She clambered over her sister and went, unsteadily, to the window, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

The courtyard below was nearly empty of carts and horses. Most of the travelers must have gotten underway before the sun was up and baking. Farideh glanced back at Mehen, still sleeping hard. He would have wanted them up early too-before he had the whiskey. He might have been big, but Mehen didn’t hold his drink very well.

For her part Farideh only felt a little muzzy, but that had more to do with how she’d slept-or rather not slept. She opened the window to get a breeze going and leaned out a little ways. She needed to find Brin before Mehen was up-to make sure he would indeed travel with them and work out some story to keep Mehen from overreacting. Ask him some more about warlocks before the priest turned up. If Brin was passing as a refugee, she might need him once they got to Neverwinter so she could find those warlocks.

She poured some water in the basin and rubbed herself a little cleaner with the rag provided, before pulling on her jacks and the hooded robe. Over the basin, a cheap bronze mirror hung, and Farideh stood before it a moment, considering her reflection, considering a face she had looked at in one form or another nearly every moment of her life. The nose was too proud, she thought, the chin too weak for the heavy ridge of horn across her forehead. Why didn’t it look that way on Havilar? With one hand she carefully covered her silver eye, and watched herself for a moment.

“What are you doing?” Havilar said. Farideh whipped around. Havilar was squinting at her from the bed.

“Nothing,” she said. “Washing up. It’s getting late. We should go.” She turned and shook Mehen awake, careful to avoid his belch of lightning breath and Havilar’s scrutinizing gaze. She didn’t want to talk to her sister just then, or be in the crowded little room.

One’s a curiosity, she thought, closing the door behind her and pulling up her hood. A little attention, but not a lot. She could go and find Brin and explain things and no one would get riled. She crept down the stairs.

Brin wasn’t in the taproom. She hurried through and out the door. The courtyard was far quieter than it had been the night before-only a man in a blue cloak sleeping on a broken wagon near the inn’s stables, a few dozen people milling around the well at the end of the street, and a handful of travelers sitting on the inn’s portico, enjoying the sun.

Farideh hesitated, peering at the people around the well and the remaining few wagons. Brin was not there either. If he’d left already … she’d just have to find a way into the city herself. Maybe they wouldn’t care. Maybe they wouldn’t stop her. Gods, it would be so much easier with someone who looked like they belonged.

Especially since she knew she might be going alone.

Mehen had agreed to take their new patron as far as Neverwinter, but not to go into the city. Knowing Mehen, he wouldn’t want to linger, particularly not for Farideh to stop and find other warlocks. She might have to part ways with him then, and Havi, too, if she didn’t decide to stay with Farideh. It made her stomach flip. Surely Mehen wouldn’t be so angry as to abandon her?

She thought of the way he’d dressed her down the night before, and the day before that. You’re not as lamb-brained as he thinks you are, Lorcan had said. He was right. Mehen treated her as if she couldn’t make a single decision without-

“Well met, my lovely,” a rough voice called.

Farideh started and turned just enough that she could see the man, a wiry fellow sitting among a group of similarly well-dressed men and women under the edge of her hood. Daggers and drinks on all of them.

“Coins bright, girl? Give us your name and you and your glim little figure come join us.”

She turned and started walking toward the stables. His friends sniggered.

“I’m speaking to you,” the man called. She heard him stand and start across the dry grass. The stables were still half the road away, when he caught up to her. “You might well give me a ‘well met’ or a fair glance.” He grabbed her arm.

Farideh jumped and twisted away from him. She pulled her arm up and brought her elbow down hard on his hand, breaking his grip. Hardly thinking of anything but Mehen’s training, she thrust her hand out against his chest and shoved him back with the base of her palm.

It clearly startled him. He slapped her hand aside more in instinct than anything else, there was so little intent behind the strike. But she stepped away from it … and into the rut of a wagon wheel. Her ankle turned and she tumbled to the ground, her hood flying back as she landed. His friends were roaring now.

If the fact that she’d rebuffed him had startled the man, the sight of her horns shocked him. He took a step back, then glanced back at his laughing friends. “Watching gods. You’re one of those Ashmadai,” the man said.

What that meant, Farideh had no notion. But the disgust in his voice was unmistakable. She didn’t have to worry about him harassing her into his company anymore. She wasn’t even a person anymore.

The fount of power that was the Hells swelled, and she felt the connection to her prime. She didn’t seize it. Not yet. But the threat of the man standing over her riled her nerves and the shadow miasma started to float off her. It took too much of her concentration to keep it from showing.

“No,” she said. “You have me mistaken.”

“Mistaken?” he snorted. “Much mistaken, just as you had Patrice Roaringhorn mistaken when your kind got him murdered.” His friends were closing on them now. “Wasn’t very wise to leave the mark of your dark god on everything.”

“Watching gods, Roglarr,” the bearded man hissed as he reached the young man. “You’re acting like an idiot. Tavern tales don’t make a murder. Patrice ran off with the wrong sort.”

“Her sort,” Roglarr growled.

“Well,” the dark-haired woman said, “you were perfectly willing to get up her skirts a minute ago. You can’t blame Patrice.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Roglarr pulled his dagger. Farideh started to speak the word that made the screaming blast of energy.

A hand caught Roglarr’s wrist, and a calm voice said, “Put the dagger down.”

Farideh stopped mid-curse. The power flowed back, waiting, swirling.

Roglarr looked up, puzzled, at the man who had been dozing in the broken cart only moments before. The sun caught the silver of the pin he wore on his blue cloak-an elaborate design of stars and eyes-and the metal of the chain he wore wrapped around his waist. Farideh’s attention lingered on the pin. As lovely as it was, it spelled trouble: in his shabby dress, a piece that fine could only be a holy symbol, the mark of a priest.

The man raised his eyebrows, like a tutor waiting for an errant pupil to answer. Roglarr sneered and fought the older man’s grip, but couldn’t free himself.

“Put the dagger down.”

“She’s a cultist,” he said. “A worshiper of devils.”

The priest looked down at her, his dark eyes amused. “Ah. Yes. I see what you mean now. Alone, unarmed, emblems of not a single god-good or evil-on her person-”

“They hide them, of course,” the younger man said. “Now take your hand off of me, and help me find someone to bring her to justice.”

“It sounded,” the priest said, “as if you’ve had some tragedy of late. That can make a man foolish. If I don’t miss my guess, your friend fell in with a bad crowd while you were having yourselves a little adventure in