Circle of Skulls

TEN

NIGHTAL 21, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)

"Get what you wanted, did you?"

Briarbones looked sidelong at her before returning to his note taking, working things out on paper in his furiously quick shorthand. Quessahn didn't answer as she slumped to the dry floor of his meeting chamber, flinching as the surface exit's cover slid into place behind Jinnaoth. She squeezed her hands into tight fists, contemplating punching the floor before calming herself with deep breaths.

"Well, you couldn't have hoped for much better when you tracked him down in the first place," Briar said. "That was a feat in and of itself. How long had it been?"

"One hundred and fifty years," she answered, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the wall, "seven months, and five days." Though the eladrin were a long-lived race and the turning of several decades could mean little in their experience, it seemed as though the weight of every day sat heavily on her shoulders. "It doesn't matter anymore; we have more important things to see to."

"Indeed," he replied, shuddering slightly as the skin on his face warped and slid toward his quivering neck, revealing a puckered mass of shifting, visceral flesh that erupted and grew by the breath.

She watched as she always did, fascinated by the transformation. Briarbones was an avolakia, a shapechanging, unnatural creature prone to magical curiosity and-she glanced toward his zombie sentinels outside the chamber-bizarre appetites.

"Do you have any theories about what we're up against?" she asked.

Theories certainly, he replied, his voice changing easily from that of the old man to the inescapable words that appeared in her mind. His body became a tall, smooth trunk of rippling pale yellow flesh, six suckered tentacles sprouting from its base, each tipped with a multifaceted eye. His arms were replaced by eight insectlike limbs that sprouted from thick ridges halfway up his frame, each ending with nimble-fingered claws. Where his head had been was a series of three hooked mandibles around a circular, barbed mouth. But I believe I would be remiss if I shared any early suspicions just yet, lest I spoil our research with any false preconceptions.

"Of course," she said, setting aside lingering thoughts of Jinnaoth as Briar selected several tomes from a hidden shelf within the darkened chamber where he, she assumed, slept. She'd grown used to his natural state over the years, actually preferring it to the puppetlike image of the old man he favored when in human form. "I've been hasty enough the last few days; no need for early conclusions."

Quietly she cursed her own traitorous tongue as Briar returned with the books, laying them gently on the table. One of his eye stalks turned toward her, and she cursed under her breath again.

It is understandable, Briar said, his deft, little hands already turning pages in two books, his other eyes trained on the pages intently. There are few mated pairs among your kind that get the chance to reunite with dead lovers. Well, not without necromancy anyway.

Quessahn took a deep breath, hoping to squelch Briar's barrage of questions and advice before they truly began.

"I had unrealistic hopes. The man I knew-most of him-is dead. Jinnaoth, however similar, is a different person. Let's just leave it at that," she said matter-of-factly, though a pang of pain still coursed through her at the sound of her own words.

Of course, of course, I just-Ah, here is something, he said, interrupting himself excitedly, one hand tracing a line of text as another scribbled a note. Interesting, yes. But what I wonder is, will you be able to leave it at that? Are you willing to watch him, what's left of him, die again?

She considered the question quietly, her thoughts drifting dangerously close to memories that had seen too much revisiting since she'd seen Jinn at the House of Wonder. Absently she ran a finger down the spines of Briarbones's books, scanning the titles the avolakia had chosen for something to focus on besides the deva. One title caught her eye, and she stopped, pulling the tome free in confusion.

"This book," she said, turning the dusty tome over. "This isn't about history or spells." Her fingers slid over the raised image of a fiendish face in the old leather. "This is a treatise on prophecies of the Nine Hells."

Oh yes, the avolakia replied, his eyes and hands doing twice the research of several learned scholars as he spoke. I have reason to suspect that the Watch, while well intentioned, may be far out if its depth.

"Fools," Jinn muttered.

Curious eyes watched him from balconies overlooking Seawind Alley. He returned their furtive stares, seeing himself reflected in their scholarly spectacles as they fussed over strange instruments that spun and clicked, measuring the wind and tracking the stars. He wondered briefly if they knew of their counterpart, the old man-the thing-living beneath the alley itself, as close to its mystical phenomenon as they were.

They focused so intently on the cryptic whispers of what may be that they were blind to the world around them. He'd heard it said that devils resided in the details, as if tightly wound in the threads of a tapestry, and he agreed with the idea. The details so captivated the imagination that the overall design was often forgotten.

"A willful ignorance," he said under his breath, exiting the alley and heading east, angrily tossing aside the Winterfirst mask he had considered wearing to conceal himself in the streets. He cursed Quessahn's misplaced compassion as much as he respected her ability to maintain such conviction, and he cursed himself for being unable-or perhaps unwilling-to indulge in the same luxury himself.

He strode down the center of empty avenues, spotting only the occasional servant at back doors or swift-footed lamplighter returning home after the evening's work was done. Though he glared at any who crossed his path, yearning to draw his sword, he kept to back alleys and shadowed streets. He saw none of the order's soulless ahimazzi, and Watch patrols seemed more focused on main streets and wealthier blocks, where many of the murders had taken place. The ward was quiet, as if the streets themselves were holding their breath, waiting for something to happen.

Rounding a corner, barely two blocks away from where Tallus was said to reside, Jinn received his quiet wish.

"Hold there, deva!"

Jinn grinned at the sound of Dregg's voice and paused as four men in Watch uniforms stepped into the lamplight ahead. Five more approached him from behind, keeping their distance. Even so, Jinn could see the Watchmen's disheveled and dirty tabards. They wore scuffed swash-cuffed boots more suitable for dock work than Watch duty, and the weapons they had drawn were mismatched and nonstandard. There were nine of them, the increased patrol number set by Allek Marson before his death, but the men Jinn faced had never known the honorable rorden. He doubted they had any particular knowledge of the Watch at all save the dimensions of old prison cells.

"You couldn't hide for long, Jinnaoth," Dregg said, pacing behind the four men at the far end of the avenue, a depressing sight, seeing Allek's secrecy perverted and used to bring in hired thugs for Lucian Dregg.

"I'm not hiding at all, Dregg. Have you been looking for me?" Jinn replied, raising his arms and spreading his coat wide, sword clearly visible in its scabbard.

"You are a murderer, or haven't you heard? I imagine they'll make me a commander for bringing you in." Dregg smiled over the shoulders of his thugs.

"You're delusional, Lucian," Jinn said, though his thoughts drifted, old battles and duels flashing through his mind, the memories flooding through his flesh as they stitched his present to bits of his bloody past.

Rorden Dregg laughed, a deep, confident chuckle that lasted a breath too long, a note of uncertainty ringing in Jinn's ears as it faded.

"You'd be surprised at what a little coin and a good story can accomplish," Dregg replied.

"No, not that," Jinn said, lowering his arms and sweeping his coat over the hilt of his stolen blade. "I meant about you bringing me in."

Dregg ceased his pacing and glared at the deva. "Take him," he growled. "No need to be gentle."

Jinn drew his sword as the nine men approached, some forgotten instinct making him wave the blade's tip over the ground in a circular motion, an archaic duelist's ritual whose meaning had been lost centuries ago. Dregg's patrol of false officers swaggered as they neared, knowing smiles spread on their unshaven faces. They formed a crude circle around Jinn, their steps out of sync with one another as they revealed their inexperience in anything approaching a group strategy.

"No discipline," he muttered, keeping still and wondering which among them would break the circle first.

"Aye, there'll be discipline all right, bright-eyes," said their largest, a hulking man with a shorn scalp wielding a thick, jagged-edged blade. "First lesson, we teach you how to bleed."

The large man rushed in, sure on his feet and wielding the heavy blade with some skill as he anticipated Jinn's deft, quick slash and blocked it. Drawing the blade back to strike again as his grinning companions watched, the big man did not, however, anticipate the position of Jinn's feet. Jinn ducked low under the powerful stroke, his outstretched leg slipping between his opponent's and hooking one knee as he twisted toward the large man's back.

Unbalanced, the big man stumbled forward and caught a kick to the back of the head that sent him smashing facefirst into the cobbles. Using their surprise at the swift maneuver, Jinn spun into the others with deadly precision. Steel screamed as he struck forward, defended backward, and walked an invisible line where the thugs' circle should have been positioned, a careful offensive step that kept them on the move, stumbling over one another to reach him.

Three fell, clutching their stomachs, in Jinn's first pass. Two more fell as the other five attempted to join the fray, their swords tearing at only his cloak and glancing off of his leather armor, the luckiest strikes drawing thin, shallow cuts but little else. He attempted to return the wounds in kind, but ironically, as the number of his opponents diminished, their tactics grew stronger.

The remaining three thugs surrounded him more carefully, avoiding the groaning men on the ground and making use of the space they had available. Jinn glanced toward the rorden as the thugs studied him and each other. Dregg had slipped away, a disappointment that the deva hoped to rectify before morning.

His left arm and shoulder bled freely from the clumsy cuts that had reached through his defense. Wincing, he stretched his shoulder painfully as a wild-eyed, thin man snarled at him over the edge of a bloodied saber. Jinn nodded at the man in mocking approval and dashed forward, bending low as the sword on his left whistled over his head. The flat of the thrusting blade on his right he blocked barehanded, cold steel sliding across the numb flesh of his palm.

He came up between them, sword vertical as the thin man parried. At the ring of steel on steel, Jinn spun against the man's right shoulder, knocking the thin man off balance as the deva brought his stolen blade around. The swift, wide arc of his sword stopped only when it struck bone. The thin man's head lolled to the side, his neck gaping like a toothless mouth as he slumped forward, freeing Jinn's blade with a twitching jerk.

The other two men stared quietly at the third, their swords wavering as they stepped back a pace.

"Dregg's coin isn't enough for this," one said as he turned to run, his companion close behind.

Jinn breathed deeply, his lust for battle lessened but not sated. Frightened shadows hovered in the corners of several windows above the scene, but no one cried out for the Watch, too scared to call attention to themselves. Jinn sighed and resisted the urge to bow in a mocking salute to the voyeuristic eyes that took such a sickening enjoyment in the blood sport. At the sound of a pained groan, he turned. A large man rose from the ground to spit blood and teeth on the cobbles.

The big man surveyed the area, his eyes roaming from one body to the next as he wiped the thick crimson stain from his lips and met the deva's cold stare. He grinned and pointed.

"They cut your arm up pretty good," he said, resting the heavy sword against his shoulder.

"That they did," Jinn replied, narrowing his gold eyes and clasping the wound tightly. "It appears I already knew how to bleed. Is there to be a second lesson?"

The large man raised a thoughtful eyebrow and looked once again at the others. "Second lesson… is know when to quit," he answered and turned away, pulling the Watch tabard over his head and throwing it aside.

Jinn knelt to wipe the blood from his blade and paused, listening as screams echoed from the direction of the seaward wall. Annoyed, he stared down the avenue then glanced east, just a short run from the tower of Archmage Tallus.

The screams grew louder.

Cursing quietly, he followed the direction of his instincts, a slave to the celestial blood of his forced immortality. Despite himself and all argument to the contrary, he headed west, toward the screams.

The wailing screams had died down as Jinn arrived. He hid across the street from a modestly large mansion as servants and guests crowded outside an open iron gate. They huddled together for warmth, a few openly weeping as Watchmen entered and exited the home, speaking to one another in hushed voices and reporting each in turn to Lucian Dregg. The rorden seemed neither surprised nor concerned, pacing angrily outside the gates and glaring at those gathered before them. He crossed his arms as the first body was removed, covered by a stained sheet, and loaded onto an open cart. Eight more quickly joined the first, the crimson marks on each sheet suggesting a similar pattern of wounds suffered.

Jinn shook his head, troubled. There was no detailed observation of the scene, no interest in concealing the bodies or questioning anyone who might have witnessed the killings. He expected no better from

Dregg. He did, however, think there might have been a show of some kind, an act to keep at least an air of professionalism. The scene was surreal, unfolding within the wealthiest ward of the city without care or procedure.

"And parading it all in front of the servants," he whispered, "from whom word will spread house to house like wildfire."

"I thought I might find you here."

Jinn turned slowly at the sound of Mara's voice as he bound a tight strip of cloth over the cut on his arm.

"Did you?" he replied. "Because I was wondering where you were about six dead men ago."

Mara slinked through the shadows, looking over his injured shoulder and shrugging. He eyed her suspiciously, curious as to what had pulled her away from following Rorden Dregg; the night hag was not prone to whimsy.

"Dregg is the little man in all this. When do we visit the archmage?" she said, smirking, a barely imperceptible note of hunger in her voice that only increased Jinn's suspicion.

"You sound eager enough," he said flatly, catching her eye.

"I found a familiar scent earlier. I'm looking forward to tracking it down," she answered. "That's strange."

She nodded toward the mansion gate, and Jinn tore his gaze away from the hag, searching through the crowd until he caught sight of Dregg again. A woman stood at his side, her arm around his waist, her face buried in his shoulder as if in sorrow. When she lifted her eyes, turning to rest her head on the rorden's chest, Jinn's breath caught in his throat.

"Rilyana Saerfynn?" he muttered, absently placing a hand over the letters in his coat, written in her hand and full of her alleged dislike of Lucian Dregg. He leaned back against the wall, staring at the ground, puzzled once again.

"Are we going?" Mara asked, apparently having gotten her fill of the crime scene. Jinn stared at her a moment in a daze then blinked, seeing in the night hag the focus he was on the edge of losing. Too many mysteries, little details threatened to overcome his sense of duty to the bigger picture. He shook free of his bewilderment, glancing back only once as Dregg shouted orders to his men, who began ushering the crowd away from the mansion.

"Let's be quick and unseen," he said, heading east again. "Dregg is enforcing a curfew, and I expect there will be chaos tomorrow morning."

Pushing away from a desk overladen with reports, inventories, and old broadsheets, Commander Tavian yawned, stretching his lean frame in a plain, wooden chair made less for comfort than function. Less than a year ago, he'd not needed a chair of any kind save those offered to him occasionally by his superiors. Offices in the East Wall of Waterdeep's North Ward were places he had dreaded visiting, and he'd had his boots repaired or replaced more often than many of his own officers. Tavian glared at the little room, at the nearly bare shelves, the cobwebs swaying gently in a corner, and rued the days when he'd worked so hard for promotion.

He stood away from the parchment-crowded desk and took his heavy cloak, needing no window to time the end of shift, feeling in his gut the late evening slip toward very early morning. A long sword jangled at his hip, its blade clean and unblemished by wear or rust as he rounded the desk, satisfied with a good day's work, but less so than if he'd walked a patrol.

Reaching for the door, he paused at the sound of booted feet approaching down the hallway-four men, he reckoned, two of them restrained judging by the whispered curses echoing off the smooth, stone walls. A knock at his door swiftly followed, and he shook his head, whispering his own curse as he took the handle and faced what appeared to be four officers, two of them familiar and two of them in restraints.

"Commander," the officer on the left, known as Aeril, spoke first and gestured to the men in restraints. "A pair of unusual officers here to see you, sir."

"So you say?" Tavian replied, eyeing their dirty, ill-fitting tabards, worn dock boots, and matching black eyes, courtesy, no doubt, of the officers flanking them. "I don't believe I've had the dishonor of meeting these recruits on any of the regular patrols."

"Sir, we caught these two putting some quick heels to the cobbles just outside of Sea Ward on Shield Street," the officer on the right, called Naaris, explained. "We tried to question them, but they seemed more interested in resisting."

"No surprises there," Tavian replied, smiling and crossing his arms. "I imagine Rorden Allek didn't take kindly to impersonators of the Watch on his shift, eh?"

"They say they were hired on by Rorden Dregg last night," Aeril said, a strange seriousness in his gaze that caused Tavian's smile to falter, sensing something far graver than mere stolen uniforms.

"Rorden Dregg? Lucian Dregg?" he asked, incredulous.

"Aye, sir," Naaris answered.

"Dregg couldn't find his arse with both hands, and I doubt he'd have the work ethic to carry out the task in the first place," Tavian said and stepped back toward his desk, motioning for the officers and their charges to enter. "I'll never understand how he became swordcaptain, much less rorden. Who in their right mind would promote him?"

"Someone discreet, I'd wager, and quick," Aeril said, lowering his gaze and adding. "It seems Rorden Allek was killed in the line of duty last evening, during a fire at the Storm's Front."

"What?" Tavian said. It had to be a mistake. Allek Marson had sponsored his training, had put him in charge of his first patrol. "How do we know this?"

"A friend of mine patrols in Sea Ward, sir," Aeril answered. "He said things have been strange for some time now, but he was loyal to Rorden Allek, keeping things quiet to avoid a panic. When Dregg stepped into Marson's position…"

"He spoke up," Tavian finished, nodding absently as he stared at the floor and leaned against the desk, trying to absorb what he'd been told and formulate a suitable course of action. "A good man knows a bad officer."

"Aye, sir."

Tavian drummed his fingers thoughtfully, his eyes glancing over the scattered, mundane reports cluttering his office. He glared at the two men in stolen tabards.

"So Dregg steps up, a swift promotion under unusual circumstances, no doubt somehow funded by favors or coin. It'll ride for a day or so," he said at length. "If Allek wanted secrecy, we'll respect that until we know why. Keep in touch with your friend, Aeril. Put together a small patrol, and meet me here at midmorn tomorrow. Throw these two in a cell until further notice. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," both men replied and saluted before turning to go.

"And practice not doing that," Tavian said, stopping the men in midstride. "No salutes and no tabards tomorrow, this will be a quiet patrol. Eyes and ears only."

The men nodded and dragged the impersonators out, closing the door behind them and leaving Tavian alone. He sat still for a long time, trying to convince himself that Allek would turn up alive and well. As several broadsheets slipped to the floor, bearing stories of murder, conspiracy, and danger across the city, he had a fair idea of what he could truly expect to find.

"More of the same," he muttered, though he was eager to get his boots on real streets and deal with the situation on terms that felt more natural than sitting behind a desk.