Circle of Skulls

FIFTEEN

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

Jinn sat quietly in the pale light filtering through the cracks of the hidden sewer entrance. The stone floor was cold but thankfully dry, one of the few spots free of the city's sludge, if not its stench. He stared at his hands as if he'd never seen them before, their pale, ivory skin and the deep black whorls that reached across his wrist from beneath the sleeves of his coat. His palms bore few of the creases he had witnessed in others, only a few prominent lines crossing from finger to thumb, the marks of a short life in a body forged by mystic forces he might never understand. The prints of his fingertips were like none he'd seen-save one-and seemed too false, a manufactured show-a god's estimate of flesh that had no understanding of mortality or suffering or the scars of a long life.

Night black hair, the match of his skin's designs, fell into his golden eyes as he pondered the hands that had worked so hard for so long to do what was right.

He blinked, not turning as a pained gasp echoed through the tunnel behind him. Tight, leather straps creaked in the shadows as muscles flexed, knotting as an old man applied the gentle pressure of the torturous art to the flesh of Lucian Dregg. Something wet slapped to the floor, near the edge of the thick sewage, cast aside as Briarbones worked. Dregg whimpered.

Jinn stared into the dark at the indiscernible lump of meat, the shape of it providing no clues as to its origins or purpose, though its future was certain. The deva could hear rats gathering to the south, drawn to the scent of blood. Tiny wisps of steam rose from the flesh, cooling as the work behind Jinn continued.

"Who am I?" he said under his breath, studying his hands and trying to see the immortal spirit beneath them, the celestial soul he had stained while working for the greater good.

"You are yourself, I assume," Briarbones replied absently, muttering as he worked. Dregg was eerily quiet. "I have heard of devas driven mad, unable to recollect the details of a current incarnation and lost in a veritable eternity of identities, all only half remembered. But such cases, I do believe, are rare. You appear to be quite lucid, so I doubt you are so afflicted."

"And are you aware of devas who have lost their way? Turned to evil?" Jinn asked, knowing the answer in his blood but needing to hear it said out loud, confirmed by someone other than the doubting voice in the back of his mind.

"Demons. Rakshasas. Foul spirits, trapped in infinite existences and cut off from whatever wellspring of power kept them in the world. Damned," Briar replied, and Jinn nodded, exhaling as the words were spoken and letting them echo in his thoughts, something to remember as he walked the fine line between light and dark, something to remind him of his lost Variel. "I believe he is ready to speak now. I must admit, he resisted far more than I had predicted."

"Hate and ignorance can make a man strong," Jinn said as he stood. "But only for a short time."

He approached the human, strapped to a wooden table, bleeding slowly, a testament to the precise skill of Briarbones. Each breath came as a desperate gulp. Dregg was a murderer and a conspirator to murders, the very antithesis of everything Allek Marson stood for, yet Jinn found he could not help but pity the man-and in that moment, he valued his pity. Leaning close, he kept the wide eyes of Dregg focused on him.

"Tell me about the archmage," he said, an edge in his voice suggesting he would not hesitate to punish the human for lying.

"Tallus… g-gives them power. The circle of skulls," Dregg stammered, his pained gaze fierce and unwavering. "He helps them to kill… only certain families. Like the Marsons."

"Why did you help him?" Jinn asked.

"He promised me power… and wealth," the human spat. "I was to assist Rorden Marson, keep the killings quiet, until Allek grew nervous, started looking for answers in the wrong places."

"So they removed him, making way for you," Jinn supplied, careful to keep his hands at his sides, lest he choke the human. "What else? Tell me what I want to hear, and your pain will end."

"My pain will end?" Dregg asked, incredulous, chuckling and coughing on his own blood, flecks of it spattering on his chin. "Say what you mean, deva. You will kill me."

Jinn stood back, narrowing his eyes. "All right," he said at length. "I will kill you, but before you die, tell me who you would like to join you? Who failed you such that you have fallen to this place?"

Dregg's breathing slowed as he was taken aback by the question.

"Tallus," he said quickly. "He used me, lied to me. And he uses her…"

"Who?" Jinn asked, leaning close again, though he suspected the answer.

"Rilyana-Rilyana Saerfynn," the human answered, sighing in between heaving breaths. "He lusts after her, though he knows she is mine, and he forces her to choose. She chooses those to be taken by the skulls, marks them for possession. If she had refused, Tallus would have slain her brother. All I could do was make sure she was never investigated, but then Rorden Marson started to get too close…"

Jinn removed the bound letters from his coat, the discourse between Rilyana and Allek that stood in stark contrast to all he had witnessed. He wondered how close Dregg and Rilyana had been, wondered if the man's desire had crafted a relationship that didn't truly exist except within his own arrogance-but then, Jinn had seen them together. It seemed that if Rilyana had been too frightened to resist, she might have sought help from Allek, and if they had somehow fallen in love

…

"You requested Allek's death, didn't you?" Jinn asked.

"Marson had gone too far," Dregg growled, his eyes rolling back. "He spoke against my promotion countless times, said I was too angry to lead. I enjoyed watching him squirm, looking for killers that had never really existed, but then he wanted Rilyana. Never!"

Dregg's tirade devolved into a choking cough, his chest rising and falling violently, little streams of blood becoming rivers from his wounds as he thrashed against his bonds. Jinn waited for him to spend his strength, stood by as the convulsions slowed before continuing.

"Who else is helping Tallus?" he asked.

"I don't know. He never told me," the human answered weakly. "But Rilyana's brother, Callak, was never in any danger. He and the wizard had some kind of an agreement."

Dregg's voice trailed off, his head lolled from side to side, delirious and either dying from his wounds or driven to madness by the pain of them. Jinn grabbed his shoulders and shook him roughly.

"The angel, Dregg!" he shouted. "What about the angel!"

"Voices… wings… he kept asking for the souls…," the human slurred and muttered, falling deeper into a feverish dementia. "A circle of souls… Tallus betrays them all for loose fingers, hidden souls, and immortality. Kill me, deva. Go and let them use you too, so I can see you soon…"

"Gods have mercy," Quessahn whispered, standing in the doorway and staring at the rorden as he managed a weak laugh, rusty stains between his teeth as he began to bleed out, his life pouring onto the floor of Briarbones's chamber. The eladrin turned away, pushing past Mara as the hag entered the room and regarded the dying human.

"I was wondering when you would get your hands dirty," Mara remarked with a sly grin. She pulled forth a small, red gem from beneath her cloak. She approached the rorden with a hungry gleam in her eye. "No sense letting him to go to waste."

"No," Jinn said, grabbing her wrist and meeting the crimson glare that flashed beneath her illusory eyes. He ignored her anger, disgusted by her greed for souls and by himself for tolerating it for so long. "Let this one go."

"You overstep your bounds, deva. We have an agreement," she snarled, ivory teeth wavering, revealing the lioness fangs hidden behind her human lips. "What makes this soul special? Why protect it?"

"Because I haven't yet lost my own," he replied, forcing her hand away as gently as possible. His gold eyes gleamed in the candlelight. "I believe there will be dark souls aplenty for your gems in the days to come, do you not agree?"

"Very well," Mara answered curtly, putting the ruby away. "I suppose we all need something every now and then to help us sleep at night, eh?" She gestured at the rorden's broken body. "I trust your tender mercies did not keep you from questioning the poor dear?"

"Do you have the book?" he asked, ignoring her taunts.

"Of course," she answered, a suspicious glint in her eye as she stepped away from him, one hand hidden beneath her cloak. "It is quite fascinating so far, though parts are difficult to decipher-"

"Draconic?" Briar supplied, edging closer, his hands fidgeting. "Elvish? Infernal, Abyssal, Primordial, Deep Speech, or perhaps-?"

"Gibberish, in fact," Mara said, producing the tome, though she kept it far from Briarbones's reach. "The archmage's handwriting is atrocious, rambling, and excited, but all that the skulls had to tell him, he did indeed put to paper."

"Good," Jinn said abruptly. "Figure it out. Look for references to souls, special ones. Sathariel is after them, and I want them first."

"And in the meantime, you will be…?" Mara asked.

"The skulls have more allies," Jinn replied. "Tallus is dead, the Loethes are dead, so someone else is helping them, giving them the power to possess."

"Any leads?" Mara asked, gesturing at Dregg with a raised eyebrow and a vicious smile.

"Callak Saerfynn," he said. "He may know enough to finish the spell, if nothing else." He paused, a thought occurring to him mid-stride. "How do we know the ritual isn't already finished?"

"We are still alive," Mara answered absently, pages turning in her deft hands. "The completed spell will not be an event one would wish to witness, unless Tallus's descriptions of widespread destruction are wrong."

Her words, cold and humorless, took hold in Jinn's thoughts, evoking images of burning homes, bodies in the streets, and a city's mourning, all over the ambitions of a greedy few. The idea of continued murders sounded almost appealing compared to the alternative.

"Are you ever going to rest?" Quessahn asked, sitting in the dark just beyond the pale light from above. Jinn did not move, fearful of seeing her face again, fearful of the memories she might arouse within him.

"I've grown accustomed to long nights over the years," he answered. "It makes things easier. I find that people tend to be more honest in the dark."

"I'm curious, then. What would you have done, had you slain Sathariel two nights ago?" she asked. "Would you still be here?"

"I don't know," he said. "It never crossed my mind."

"What did he do? What did he take from you?"

Jinn sighed under his breath, attempting to cool the sudden anger that raced in his heart, but he could not deny it its due course, just as he could no longer accept Quessahn's deliberate avoidance of what they both knew.

"Another of my kind. A deva," he replied. He turned to her, narrowing his gold eyes to fine points as he found hers in shadow. "A woman I loved."

She remained still as he studied her, watching for some reaction, seeking some quiet admission of guilt from the eladrin.

"He-he killed her?" she asked at length, a barely perceptible catch in her voice.

"No," he answered. "He corrupted her, confused her, and made her soul as black as his own. In the end, she took her own life."

Though he said the words, he found that he no longer felt them, unmoved by the gruesome truth of Variel's death, despite the hate that had taken root within him. Of all his time with her, the peace he'd once known, he had spent far longer tracking down the angel. He realized that the place in his heart where he'd once kept her memory had been filled by his hunt for Sathariel… and the attention of Asmodeus.

"Now he corrupts you," Quessahn muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

Jinn looked up to the surface, tiny shafts of light beckoning him to leave the eladrin in the dark with her righteousness. He smiled, a forced grin.

"What about you?" he asked. "Was my death not closure enough? Did my grave, assuming I had one, not suffice your mourning so much that you felt inspired to bring your grief to this city? To find me?" He turned, voice rising as he confronted her. "Is it comforting to find me somehow less than what you knew? To judge me with your every breath?"

"Oh, gods," she whispered, breathless and shaking, a single choking sob escaping her as she covered her ears and shook her head in her hands. "No…"

Jinn stopped, her tears stabbing into his chest as he turned away, unwilling to witness what he had done.

Quessahn's hope for a lost love sat bitterly in the pit of his stomach, crushed by his words and devoured by a petty rage that melted away as swiftly as it had come. He took hold of the ladder, his arm heavy and the climb to the surface seeming more difficult than before.

"I–I cannot be the man you once knew. My kind, no… I do not work that way," he managed, his voice softer as he climbed. "You should not have found me."

He slid the sewer covering away and rolled into the street, covering the entrance and staring blankly up at the gray sky, the damp cobbles soaking through his clothes. He listened for her voice, wondering if she might stop him to scream and curse his name. He imagined her again as he had in Tallus's tower, smiling and surrounded by an ocean of waving green, the faint memory of a bygone life reaching out to torment him.

Only silence kept him company on the cobbles of Seawind Alley, even the ghostly whisperers did not break the stillness that held him.

At length he stood and dashed into the streets, losing himself in the cold and racing against the harsh light of sunrise, bending his focus back to the hunt, to Sathariel, and to all the things that his immortal blood demanded of him, a fool of long-lost gods.

A swift wind swept through Pharra's Alley, its soft moan fading into a chorus of groaning voices that swirled together, a whirlwind of wails and roaring, green flames far below the wings of Sathariel. Empty eyes spun in slowly dying circles as the Nine gathered in their places, bobbing and regarding one another in silence. With as much emotion as fixed bone and lipless teeth could convey, they glowered at one another for several breaths, slowly turning round and round the place where they'd been bound, appearing as a tiny, green ring from the angel's place in the sky.

"We should have killed the deva," said one abruptly. "He is too close, too unpredictable. His witches are-"

"Be silent, Graius," another said. "The deva, while misguided, shall be our failsafe in the end. He has no choice."

"Then the angel shall kill him if we do not," Graius replied.

"Better that Sathariel is kept busy elsewhere, no?" the other responded as the rest of the circle nodded. "We have managed to evade the angel for centuries; no doubt we can fool him a few days more."

"One day, in fact," Sathariel added from above, his large wings beating as he descended into the alley. Out of the range of their green flames, he hovered between the buildings, capturing their attention in his cold eyes. He enjoyed the fear he inspired in them and wished nothing more than to fulfill their every nightmare, but he was powerless over them as of yet and attempted a note of diplomacy. "In one day Tallus will attempt to betray you and steal all that you have worked for."

"He lies!" Graius shouted. "He only speaks in traps and snares, much like his master."

"Why, angel?" another asked, the circle turning to accommodate the speaker known as Effram. "What does your lord gain from telling us this?"

"No, my old friends," Sathariel answered. "It is you who may gain, should you desire to survive what is to come. It is my understanding that survival is quite important to you, yes?"

"Do not listen, brothers," Graius grumbled. "Honeyed words and half truths, his tongue is silvered with deception."

"Indeed it is, dear Graius," the angel replied as he edged closer to the circle. "But not this night, not here. Now I speak of old words and ancient oaths. Your words, in fact. Contracts that you nine have yet to fulfill." A low growl passed through the skulls at the mention of their neglected obligations, the sins that had made them what they are. "I only offer you your own lies, and I offer you a chance to make amends. Give to me the souls that Tallus would steal, and my lord shall be lenient."

"Nonsense," Graius scoffed, an amused chuckle passing through the circle that threatened to destroy Sathariel's attempt at civility, the skulls' paranoia evident in their denial of anything that wasn't their idea first. The angel could not blame them.

"Asmodeus has certain… interests in the ritual to be performed," he continued, his voice rising above their derisive laughter. "He would offer you absolution for your parts in expediting these interests, a formal contract offered in good faith despite the betrayal you visited upon him in the centuries before his wondrous ascension."

"Absolution?" Effram asked.

"And flesh, my friends," Sathariel answered, the ice blue pinpoints within his black eyes flaring brighter. "Blood, bone, and all the carnal pleasures that go with them."

Effram turned to his eight brothers, all wizards and worshipers of fallen Mystra. Graius shook his head vehemently, yet they gathered and conferred, their emerald flames swirling together brightly like a rotting star as they argued and whispered. Sathariel held back, eyeing them carefully, wondering if for once their paranoia might break, allowing them to slip easily into his clutches.

"And death, I presume," Effram spoke as the skulls separated, their inscrutable, black stares returning to the angel.

"Pardon?" Sathariel asked.

"Death," Effram repeated. "I assume your lord's offer, however magnanimous, does not include eternity."

"There is a limit to Asmodeus's generosity," the angel responded sternly, wings spread across the alley as he clenched and unclenched his fists, his patience wearing thin. "But I assure you, there is no such limit upon his wrath."

"Then wrath!" Graius cried out. "Wrath before we sacrifice our chance at immortality!"

"You deny the contract?" Sathariel growled, ignoring the stubborn Graius and focusing on only Effram. Flames of shadow like ephemeral feathers writhed through his wings as the flameskull turned away, seemingly unimpressed with his fury.

"We do," Effram answered, adding slyly, "but fear not, lapdog, there are other contracts to be signed. Older contracts than ours, written in steel, I believe."

"The deva seeks to sign in your blood, or whatever passes for blood among your kind," Graius said. "And we believe that Asmodeus would be greater pleased with your sacrifice than our miserable souls. Our ritual, after all, is merely a parlor trick compared to the devil's plans."

"You have chosen," Sathariel said, ignoring their jibes as he rose higher, trails of shadow wavering in sheets beneath him. "Damnation, then. Only suffering for the nine souls you hide from my lord, may his mercy be as absent as my own!"

He ascended quickly, raging and spinning into the clouds until his wings disappeared against the night sky beyond, blotting out the stars. Arms crossed, he considered the tiny city far below, his mind racing, plotting through his options and finding only one source upon which to vent his fury.

"Tallus," he hissed, cursing the duplicitous wizard's impatience, but they were too close to the ritual's completion for him to simply slay the human. Asmodeus would likely not tolerate another delay, and Sathariel, like the skulls, clung to what life he had, unwilling to risk disappointing the devil-god on the cusp of such momentous events.

Fortunately the circle of skulls had one last ally, unstable and unreliable, but ambitious.

"Fine, then, one more betrayal," he muttered, clouds rolling beneath him as he contemplated gambling on yet another weak-willed human, but despite all he knew, he could count on the baser instincts of most of their short-lived race. He dived into the clouds, gliding in wide circles, whispering, "Let the archmage reap what he sows."