Circle of Skulls

THIRTEEN

NIGHTAL 22, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)

Bloodstained hands clawed at the air as Jinn leaped over the hissing congregation, his blade curving a wide arc toward the shadowy neck of the green-eyed skulls. They reacted swiftly, deflecting his steel with their own, spatters of blood splashing Jinn's face at the brief contact of the blades. They traded blows, a blur of shining metal flashing between them as the dark ritual of the Loethes fell into chaos. Naked bodies slid across the marble, grasping for Jinn's boots as he maneuvered away from them, furiously slashing at the glowing gaze of the nine skulls, hidden behind the eyes of a stranger.

Nine distinct voices shouted curses from one rnouth, each interrupting the last, spewing incomprehensible venom at the deva. Their vitriol washed over him comfortably, feeling right and whole as he opposed an ancient evil on his own terms. He winced as a quick cut slipped through his defense, the warm ache of the cut feeding his bloodlust.

"Idiot!" the skulls cried out. "You'll feed us all to the angel! Where will you find your vengeance then?"

Jinn did not respond, pressing his attack faster and faster, though he was intrigued by their fear of not him, but Sathariel. He turned in slow circles round the splashing thralls crawling out of the marble basin. Given time, he would slay them all, clean the ward's filthy slate, and track down the angel again. If Sathariel would not face him, he would destroy all that the angel worked for.

His sword pierced something solid within the skulls' wavering shadows, and his blade was wet when he drew back to strike again, but the skulls were ready. They spun, a swift kick catching Jinn in the chest and sending him tumbling to the back wall as they bounded through the shallow pool of blood, still cursing as they beat a hasty retreat.

"No!" he shouted.

A hand clasped onto his boot, holding him back. He barely recognized the crazed visage of the Lady Lhaerra, her body smeared with blood. Snarling at her in disgust, he kicked her away, presenting his sword to those gathered, the pitiful remains of what he presumed was the Loethe family, as he followed the skulls. Though he was loath to admit it, he knew he had likely saved their lives, protected their souls from the grasp of the circle of skulls, and the very idea of it propelled him ever faster after their possessed body.

The marble floor of the entrance hall was streaked with blood, boot prints tracked across its once-gleaming surface. A small crowd had gathered in the chamber, in servants' clothes with kitchen knives and fireplace pokers, led by a stern-faced woman of advancing years who looked from the floor to Jinn, madness in her eyes.

"What have you done?" she shrieked, raising a shining cleaver in her hand as she rushed him. "What have you-?"

With a quick swipe, Jinn knocked the blade from her hand, sending it spinning across the room as he reversed his blow and smashed her nose with the pommel of his sword. The crunch of bone echoed in the room as the woman slumped to the ground, clutching her face, dazed and bleeding. The other servants backed away from the deva, shying from his golden glare as he followed the bloody prints out of the room and back up the stairs. Wailing screams erupted behind him, and he paused on the stairs as if in the throes of a nightmare.

Movement caught his eye, shadows rushing by the windows and bobbing, green lights gathering out in the garden. The soulless ahimazzi were gone, shambling away from the house and quickly replaced by shouting officers of the Watch. He watched them gather in disbelief, wondering when the world had turned upside down, knowing the officers had come for him and not the depraved members and staff of the household.

"Chaos," he muttered as he ran up the stairs. "The world has gone mad."

In a rush of spinning black and blue energy, Quessahn felt solid ground beneath her feet as the weight of her body returned. She wavered a moment but maintained her balance despite the arcs of pain shooting up her left leg. Such instantaneous travel was not entirely uncommon for wizards, but Mara's use of the power over such a distance was extraordinary. As her eyes adjusted to the half light of a tall, marble-floored chamber, she reassessed her respect for the hag's magic-and renewed her concern over Mara's possible betrayal.

Shrieking voices echoed from a deep chamber to her right, and she eyed the dark doorway from which they emanated. The floor was covered in dark streaks of blood, most of it fresh and slick. Wet noises that reminded her of a butcher's shop came from the shadows of the doorway, each accompanied by a sharp intake of breath or a shuddering groan.

"Gods," she whispered and ran for the dark, descending the stained steps beyond and praying that she hadn't waited too long, hoping that Jinn was still alive.

She stopped at the bottom step. Her breath caught in her throat and she blinked in the flickering light of candles and torches. Only bits of the scene came to her at first, flashes of horrible detail that she struggled to understand. They fell upon one another, some with long, curved daggers, others with their bare hands. Bared teeth grinned and gnashed, dark with flesh. Hair slapped against bare backs, wet and sticky as they arched in pain and pleasure. Pale limbs, limp and lifeless, suggested more bodies beneath the press, likely forgotten or ignored for their lack of feeling.

Quessahn backed away. She had known dark rites, had performed her own in years long past. She had explored avenues of magic many wizards and even warlocks had no stomach for, all in a manic attempt to find her lost Kehran or, at the very least, find some explanation for the death that had ruined her life. No spell had been too dark, no ritual too dangerous, but the indulgent self-slaughter she witnessed in the Loethes' basement was beyond her, anathema to all she had studied.

A loud bang from upstairs shocked her into movement, and she returned to the entrance hall, attempting to calm the aching tremble in her left hand. Swinging, green lights flashed through the narrow windows on either side of the front doors. Shadows approached, accompanied by shouted orders as Mara pressed her hands against the portal's frame, whispering words of magic and digging her fingernails into the wood, tiny sigils on her claws flaring to life.

"The Watch," Quessahn said, shaking her head and already imagining Dregg's smug face as he ordered his men into the house. The bodies, the blood, all of it he would blame on the undesirables his men found inside.

"Yes, the Watch," Mara replied, still tracing the frame with arcane symbols as she sealed the doors. The officers pounded on the door, demanding entry. "But the servants are of more immediate concern."

A side door had opened, revealing a glimmer of steel and several figures beyond, each with maddened eyes and raised weapons. Quessahn cursed, instinctively raising her hand as a swift incantation slid across her tongue like a sliver of ice. The magic swirled at her fingertips, dancing just beyond her will as she squeezed her fingers into a fist and forced the energy into Art.

A vortex of frigid flames leaped from her hand, engulfing the servants of the house and licking their skin with a burning cold. Screams erupted from the group, joining those from the basement as the family of the house slew each other.

"This will not hold long if they're determined," Mara said, the frame of the double doors glowing with indistinct runes all along its edge. They flickered as the officers struck the doors with something heavy, muffled curses accompanying the effort.

"I imagine they'll be more concerned with keeping us inside," Quessahn replied, drawing her ritual dagger as the shadows of robed figures appeared within the orange glow of the basement stairway, a droning chant preceding their inevitable arrival, their business downstairs finished.

Footsteps and crazed shouts announced the regrouping of the servants, their numbers split between the left and right exits from the hall. In the midst of the chanting, shouting, and powerful thuds against the sealed doors, Quessahn caught the faint ring of steel striking steel from somewhere upstairs.

Roping tentacles of indigo gushed from Mara's palms at the door atop the stairs, taking the first of the robed figures as he ascended into the room. The man's skin paled instantly as the tentacles wrapped around his body, dissipating as he slumped against the wall, weakly gasping for air.

Aching and finding her breath, Quessahn raised her dagger, found a wriggling spark of magic, and began to wring it into shape, chanting as the servants found their courage and entered the room.

A neat line of clean cuts sent the heads of a row of orchids tumbling from their stems as Jinn's blade swept toward the neck of the skulls' body. Winter-blooming flowers spilled from their pots, coating the floor of a domed greenhouse with dark soil and colorful petals. His sword scraped along the edge of a curved dagger, drawing sparks that died among damp flowerbeds. Jinn slid to one knee, ducking low as the dagger cut through the air, missing his ear by the breadth of a finger. With a powerful kick, he pulled their legs out from beneath them, his sword already rising as they tumbled through shattered clay pots and trampled rare specimens of seasonal blooms

The shadow-cloaked body rolled as it landed, leaving Jinn's blade to strike point down, a breath too slow, in the stone floor. The skulls righted themselves and jumped backward. Rafters shook as the dark-flamed body landed upon a suspended walkway beneath the steel grid of a glass dome atop the Loethe mansion. More pots crashed to the floor as Jinn rose, meeting the burning, hate-filled gaze of the skulls.

"You're pathetic, deva!" they shrieked in unison, the glass above them vibrating with each word. "You honor oaths made to dead gods! You fight a war that means nothing!"

"It means everything!" he shouted back, tired of their whining curses and spying a narrow, spiral stairway at the end of the walkway.

"What? Defeating evil?" they replied, leaning on the railing and chuckling, a sound like bones rattling in a coffin. "It is a joke, Jinnaoth, a maze to keep you busy while the real players direct the game," they said, voices calming somewhat to a more devious tone. "It is us or Sathariel. You cannot have us both." "So you say?" he replied, taking the first few steps on the rickety stairway.

"We do indeed," they replied. "You must choose, us or the angel, or lose everything."

Jinn climbed the stairs carefully, never taking his eyes away from the skulls and tapping the point of his sword along the wired banister as he went.

"I've made too many dark deals," he said.

"Which is precisely why we thought you had potential, the ability to rise above petty morality," they said, several of the voices hissing in disappointment. "Your kind falls prey too easily to the hopes of one battle, one conflict. We offer you the chance to fight a real war."

"No more compromises," he replied sternly, but he paused at the first step, listening.

"So says the doomed champion at the gates of the Hells," they said, sighing in resignation even as others among the nine growled impatiently, the shadowy shroud around their possessed body wavering.

"Sathariel smiles at your efforts. He uses you. Even now, with your righteousness and pomp, we see only him. And you will be left, raving at your dead gods amid smoking ruins and death."

"Smoking ruins?" Jinn asked, advancing, sword poised to strike. "What ruins?"

"Ah, he wants answers now, eh?" they responded, a rumbling, sardonic laughter infecting their voices. "No more sword first, ask questions later?"

Their emerald eyes blurred as they moved suddenly, a dark wave of shadow rushing across the walkway. Jinn narrowly deflected the first slash and parried the second, his hand aching from the strain as what strength they had left bore down upon him. The walkway swung precariously, a thunder of clay pots smashing on the floor below as their blades locked. An oppressive heat wafted over Jinn's face as the skulls pressed close, as if their body were burning from the inside out.

"You are being used, deva," they growled. "Ever since your first battle against the Vigilant Order, ever since you lost your dear Variel."

Jinn gasped at the mention of her name, pushing back on the curved blade, though he could feel the trembling walkway become less steady beneath him.

"Oh yes, we know of her and what you did. We know of your every step, your long road to Waterdeep, and of your arrival in this ward, with that sword to wield against one specific angel. Never doubt the schemes and vision of a god."

"You… lie!" he managed, straining against their strength. "To save yourselves!"

"We are in the endgame, deva," they replied, twisting backward and kicking him back into a tangle of loosened wires. "We have no reason to lie."

Jinn freed himself easily, but the shadowy figure leaped higher, landing on the narrow ledge around the dome of glass, dark hands pressed against the frosted pane.

"Nine silvered tongues. Nine families," Jinn provoked, hoping to anger them. "I've learned some. I will discover the rest."

"Perhaps." They chuckled again but weaker, more faint. "But for now you are mistaken. There are ten bloodlines to fall, not nine."

Their laughter rose, each voice taking an equal part, reaching a fevered, manic pitch as they smashed the glass barehanded. Blood rained down from the obscured flesh of their forearms, shards of glass jutting out at sharp angles through the clinging, smoky mist. Even as they jumped from the mansion's roof, the shadows dissipated, leaving the bloodied body of a young man with just time enough to scream, plummeting to the iron-spiked fence below.

Jinn flinched as the scream abruptly ended. He stood still in the quiet, eyes fixed on the clouds overhead, wondering what to believe and what to discount. With a measured step, he eventually descended the spiral stairway, boots crunching on clay shards and crushing dying flowers.

"Ten bloodlines," he muttered thoughtfully, listening as renewed shouts of the Watch echoed from outside. He did not sheathe his sword, a quiet fury still burning in his gut, shaking in his clenched fists, determined to have answers before sunrise.

"The Loethes are dead."

Mara stood at the bottom of the steps in the ballroom, looking up as Jinn descended the stairs slowly, one at a time, eyeing the shadows outside. Blood covered Mara's hands, dripping on the once-pristine marble floor, though no stains marred the illusory perfection of her dress. Despite the illusion, it seemed as though her eyes glowed with a quiet hunger.

"Your work?" he asked suspiciously.

"No," she answered with a sly wink. "They finished themselves. However, Quessahn and I did take care of the servants."

"She is here," he stated, his step quickening. "Good. I assume the Watch is ready to claim the bodies?"

"It sounds as though Dregg certainly is," Mara said, falling into step with him. "His men are at the door, but I do not think their hearts are in it."

"Dregg…," he muttered, the name drifting into a low, guttural growl in the back of his throat, an anger within him demanding satisfaction as he peered out the narrow windows flanking the double doors. Watchmen had gathered in a group just outside, no longer attempting to beat down the doors as they conferred with the rorden near the gates. "Can you make a path?"

"I believe so," Mara replied, a quick wring of her hands removing the blood from them. "And it appears I shall have to. Do we want them dead or-?"

"Not dead," Quessahn interrupted weakly from the back of the room. She approached them steadily enough, but Jinn could see the exhaustion in her half-lidded gaze, the pain of her injuries taking their toll, though she seemed determined to put on a brave show. "There's been enough killing for one night, and the Watch isn't our enemy."

"No doubt," Jinn replied, turning back to the window. "But I did not have killing in mind… not exactly."

"We can't go back to the shop," Mara said, taking a place at the other window as she absently tapped the glass, counting the number of officers outside. "They'll come looking for us there, or rather, he will come looking for us there."

"We'll just have to make it safe, then," he replied. "Make ready your magic; leave Dregg untouched." He placed a hand on Quessahn's shoulder carefully, wincing at the brief flash of pain in her eyes and hating himself for what he must ask of her but having little recourse. "Can you send a message for me?"

"Why aren't we inside?" Dregg shouted at the officers, impatiently pacing.

Lamenting the loss of his hired swords and disgusted by the Watchmen he had inherited from Allek Marson, he glared at his men. His gaze fell on the new swordcaptain in particular, an obstinate young man called Lutz.

"Their witch has sealed the doors-," Lutz began, his tone maddeningly calm.

"Then break the windows!" Dregg spit, putting himself nose to nose with the swordcaptain. "Get in there and drag that deva and his witch out into the street, or I will have you mucking the sewers for pickpockets!"

"We have them trapped, sir. We should just wait until more patrols can-"

"Break the damn windows!" Dregg shouted, exasperated.

After a breath, Lutz turned and waved his men after, pointing to either side of the house in as tight a formation as the two patrols could manage. The rorden shook his head, cursing quietly as they put his orders into action.

Despite the night's cold, he'd broken out in a sweat, desperate to get inside and make sure the deed had been done. He continued pacing as Lutz shouted orders, muttering to himself and keeping a fearful eye out for the archmage. He'd met with Tallus one too many times in the past tenday and wanted nothing more than for his business with the wizard to be done. He had his new title and would soon have the riches to be done with the Watch altogether. Smirking at the thought, he looked forward to being alone again with Rilyana-and even more, he looked forward to being alone with all her gold.

A cracking sound caught his attention, but as he turned to witness the shattering of the windows, already gloating over the deva's capture, his smile faded. Stone fractured around the double doors of the mansion, splitting and crumbling as his men drew their weapons and shined their lanterns on the front of the house. The doors buckled, in and out as though the mansion had come alive, breathing out clouds of dust like steam in the winter air.

"What in all of the Hells-?" Dregg muttered, drawing his own sword and backing up a step as a muffled chant rumbled from within the house.

With a final groan of pressure, the doors exploded outward in a shower of splinters. A dust cloud hung for several breaths as his men edged closer to the destruction, closing their ranks. Dregg held back, unwilling to sacrifice himself.

In the haze of dispersing dust, a figure appeared in the house's gaping wound, striding forward smoothly, almost gliding onto the front steps. Tall and gaunt, it wore long and tattered, black and brown robes that fluttered like wings in the wind. Like a splash of shadow, it spread its arms wide, coal red eyes burning in a deep hood, lionlike teeth gleaming in the light of the Watch lanterns as a foul chant escaped its lips.

"Halt!"

The shout rose from among the gathered officers, a weak, impotent command compared to the shrieking scratch of the figure's voice. Long-fingered hands tipped with black claws waved over their heads, silencing the others, turning their attempted shouts into slurred murmurs. Swords thumped into the grass as men stumbled to their knees, overcome by an invisible wave that shuddered through their circle. Hands lifted as though they might lean on one another for support, but one by one they fell, bodies sprawling in the garden until none were left to struggle against the magic.

The rorden cursed as the chanting stopped, leaving him alone as the robed figure slumped over, drawing its dark hands close together and stepping aside. Standing in the dark beyond, gold eyes glittering in the lantern light, the deva stood with sword drawn, his gaze fixed on the human. Dregg hesitated a moment, his instinct telling him to escape, though he wanted nothing more than to see the deva bleeding at the end of his sword. He considered gathering Jinn's finger, a present for the archmage, perhaps enough to see himself and Rilyana well away from Waterdeep long before the next evening. The thought of losing all he'd worked for to the heroics of a nonhuman mutt made him sick, and he spit, curling his lip in fury as Jinn descended the front steps and entered the garden with long strides.

Dregg backed away from the gates with his arms spread in a challenge, turning his sword in slow circles as if impatient for the fight to come. He stood in the light of a street lamp, snowflakes tumbling within its glow as he casually baited the deva to the center of the intersection. He glanced down each empty street, swearing quietly, though he suspected he would not have long to wait for reinforcements; Rorden Marson had seen to that.

Raising his blade with a practiced flourish, a cruel smile stretched across his lips, Dregg reached back and pulled the signal horn from his belt.