Circle of Skulls w-6

by James P. Davis

  He fell into the dark of a wide alley on the southern end of the manor wall, pulling himself around the comer as he attempted to still his spinning head and put his thoughts in order. He half sat, pressed against the wall, shivering as even the warmth of wine began to fade from his blood, and he recalled his private moments with Rilyana in a new light. His gut threatened to empty itself again as a soft green light flickered nearby and he straightened, expecting to find the glaring lanterns of a Watch patrol.

  To his right an ethereal glow spun in slow circles along the ground near the gates of the House of Wonder, flashes of ghostly fire sparking as the emerald mist grew faster.

  "What's this?" he muttered and slipped, falling to awkwardly sit and stare in awe at the eerie spectacle. Tales of the haunted alley swirled in his thoughts, childhood ghost stories to which he had lent neither belief nor fear, having nearly forgotten them.

  Voices, deep and hollow, chanted softly at first within the glow but grew louder as the light grew brighter, spinning faster until nine turning objects could be seen in the circle. Karras pushed himself up to his knees frantically, a sudden sobriety making him quicker and more sure footed than he'd expected to be.

  He didn't make it past his knees, a searing pain tearing through his head and spreading across his body in burning waves. He gasped, clutching the sides of his head and falling forward, unable to scream for the pain crawling through his skull. The voices shouted in his mind, a harsh language that filled him with fear. The ground, less than a hand's breadth from his nose, glowed as green flames erupted from his eyes.

  His vision narrowed, becoming two points of glowing emerald light before disappearing altogether. The voices seemed to drag him away from himself, stuffing his will into a limitless dark where he drifted, blind and senseless, his body no longer his own. He flailed phantom limbs in the dark of his mind, tumbling as nine ghostly skulls took up residence in his soul and commandeered his flesh.

  Jinn sat quietly, studying Briarbones as Quessahn explained what they had learned about the murders thus far. The old man nodded as she spoke, his movements forced as though he were mimicking something he'd seen but not understood. Jinn had met many of the things that hid behind smiling faces in Waterdeep, some of them pursuing honest goals-most of them not-but few chose to live in a sewer with undead guards. As Quessahn's tale reached mention of the circle of skulls and the older killings from centuries ago, Briarbones became animated, listening intently, his hands fidgeting.

  "I recall the time well," he said, stroking his chin. "I had just arrived in Waterdeep a decade before. There were nine families involved in the killings as I recall.

  Though their names escape me, this one you mentioned, Marson, I believe? This sounds familiar."

  "What about Saerfynn?" Jinn asked, leaning forward.

  "No, not at all," Briar answered distractedly. "Much more recent, the Saerfynn name, last century or so."

  Jinn nodded, still puzzling over Allek's apparent affair with Rilyana and wondering if she or her brother were somehow involved in the murders-or if they were possible targets.

  "Nine families," Quessahn said, glancing at Jinn. "Nine skulls."

  "Correct… but why?" Briar sketched swift notes on a foldout table by the wall.

  "I cannot concern myself with why, only how and what," Jinn said, standing and straightening his coat, feeling as if the whole of the night might slip away in fanciful speculation over details while Sathariel continued to put pieces in play, complicating the game so that no one would discover what he was working toward until it was too late. " How are the skulls connected to Sathariel? And what is it about the murders that interests him?"

  "And how can you use the deaths of these people to get to the angel?" Quessahn added, drawing a curious glance from Briarbones. "That's what you were thinking."

  "I'll make no secret of that," Jinn replied. "I believe a few dozen dead is better than a few hundred."

  "Perhaps," Briar said. "But more murders will get you no closer to the angel unless you know why these families are in danger. You must concede that Sathariel knew you would follow him and, therefore, has planned for your presence. It is very likely he is just using you and unless you look beyond the edge of that sword-that sword in particular, my friend-you won't realize how you're being used until it's too late."

  "I'm only being used if I do what he wants me to do," he replied, turning toward the tunnel, intent on getting back up to street level and finding Archmage Tallus.

  "Aren't you?" Quessahn asked, following him.

  "He expects me to care. He wants me trying to save people," he said, looking up at the small, dim shafts of light from above and not wanting to see the look in the eladrin's eyes, the one he'd seen in the mirror in private, more honest moments. "But you don't win a war by trying to save lives. Usually it's the other way around."

  "People are dying!" Quessahn said in disbelief. "More every day!"

  Jinn took a deep breath and faced her, searching her eyes for some understanding.

  "Death is merely a symptom of all this, a side effect," he said calmly but coldly, giving her the facts as he saw them, as he'd seen them for some time. "I know Sathariel. He doesn't just kill people for no reason. He is not a glorified assassin. He has a goal. These deaths and whatever spell they contribute to is just part of the show, a distraction to keep us chasing bodies in the dark."

  "And what if they're not?" she asked.

  "Keep working on it," he said. "I'm going to find

  Tallus. I'll be back later if I find anything out. Tell Mister Briar to keep an eye on this exit in case I need any help."

  "You will," she said, turning away angrily. "Just go."

  He glared at her back before taking the rungs of the ladder and climbing to the surface, his fury well fueled for an encounter with the wizard.

  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 cour
se," 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.