Circle of Skulls w-6

by James P. Davis

  The House of Thorne throbbed with energy as she neared, light pouring from dirty windows and exciting the once-dead gardens to life. Vines thrashed and writhed against brick and iron as thunder rumbled through the sky, orange flames erupting within the clouds as tiny motes of blue light drifted from the house and swirled around her. The motes whispered as they passed, their somber light guttering as they were drawn together to a single place. She saw the angel then, rising above the house, black wings outstretched, the tips of his clawlike hands close enough to touch. He was beautiful and horrifying all at once, bathed in a shaft of crimson light that crackled and hummed as he began to speak.

  "Let it be done," he said, cold eyes rising to the sky. "The invitation has been given."

  The roof below him exploded in a shower of wild energy, engulfing them as the ground quaked. Homes and businesses shifted on their foundations, and shards of glass rained down to the streets. Several spires shook from their places and crashed to the cobbles as Quessahn gaped in disbelief, unable to breathe.

  She flinched as the screams began.

  Those nobles and wealthy who had remained in the ward ran from their homes, filling the nearly empty avenues with renewed life; suddenly another day to live had become more valuable than the gold they left behind. Bodyguards and servants abandoned their frightened masters, shoving them aside in their haste to escape. The Watch marshaled their scattered forces, converging on the House of Thorne with strident horns and swinging lanterns. The House of

  Wonder erupted with flashes of magic as several wizards teleported away, leaving the rest to rush outside, gaping at the spectacle in the sky as the Watchful Order abandoned their interrogations.

  Quessahn felt other eyes across the city, powerful eyes, finally turn their attentions to Sea Ward.

  Sathariel's voice thundered around her in a language of pure pain that wracked her spirit, the words unknown save for a couple, which Briarbones had muttered during his study of hellish prophecies- first and flensing.

  The words echoed, over and over, in the angel's chant as cracks spread through the streets, each glowing with a pulsing, fiery light. The ahimazzi gathered below fell to their knees, hands upraised, bloody tears streaming down their cheeks. Their eyes flickered with reflected fire from the clouds, and they smiled mad grins, their souls returned, zealous witnesses to the breaking of the city.

  Quessahn fought against the vision, straining to escape, to find what had come before to cause the angel's victory, but the vision persisted, holding her tightly. Watchmen and the City Guard encircled the property, their crossbow bolts falling short of Sathariel as he ascended higher, chanting to the sky. The Watchful Order and other wizards arrived, stopping short in their tracks, dumbfounded, reflected flames flickering in the spectacles of several, though others raised glowing staffs and shouted words of power.

  More spires crumbled, crushing those too slow to escape. The ocean roared beyond the west wall, giant waves crashing and breaking through the gates, steaming as they poured into the glowing vents in the streets. The city turned beneath her as she was drawn inexorably to the sky, Sathariel reaching up as the clouds parted, revealing a fiery vortex dotted with a host of descending figures. Screams echoed throughout the ward, and crowds pressed away from the spectacle, smothering each other in their haste to escape.

  "Let the first bastion be sealed," Sathariel said.

  "Oh, gods no," Quessahn muttered as the vortex widened, revealing a fire-blasted landscape beyond, a world upside down, with massive cities of glowing iron and lakes of ash and smoke. Flaming spires dipped downward, as if reaching for the lofty heights of the greatest mansions and wizards' towers. She paled at the sight of it, shaken to her core and infected by the waves of fear that rose from the streets. Fire rained down from the sky as spells were hurled from the ground, powerful wizards fighting back, flinging magic at what, she realized, had become inevitable.

  Gritting her teeth and closing her eyes, Quessahn strained against the spell of seeing, banishing the vision and commanding it to carry her back, to show her the cause and the moment that the future she'd witnessed had been born.

  In a blink the terrible battle was gone, leaving her in a silent, oppressive darkness. She gasped, fearing she had ended the spell prematurely until a familiar brick wall materialized nearby. Turning, she found the gates of the House of Wonder, its windows still dark, the doors closed and barred for the evening. In a rush of shadowy feathers, Sathariel appeared again, drifting low to the ground and kneeling on the cobbles, his form and Pharra's Alley wavering as she felt her hold on the angel begin to slip.

  She struggled a breath longer, her distant pulse racing, to watch as the angel plunged his fist into the ground, his arm shoulder deep beneath the cobbles. The image flickered as he dragged his fist from the ground, nine tendrils of green flame licking through his fingers, each wailing in pain as he held them aloft with an unholy roar of triumph.

  "The circle of skulls… the nine souls," she whispered.

  The words felt suddenly closer, more intimate, as she felt the last of the spell fade from her control. She slumped into her body, wincing at the aches and pains that greeted her upon return. Her eyes felt heavy and ponderous, blinking with lids that seemed alien to her. She flexed her fingers, the final remnants of an emerald flame dissipating from her fingertips, and the inner circle of her ritual fell quiet, little more than a smoking stain on the cold, stone floor. Sathariel hung on the air like a puppet, green energy racing through his wings and evaporating slowly, his black-pit eyes still dark.

  "The circle of skulls," she said, eyes widening as the vision hit her all at once. "How did he find them? Who could have known-?"

  The question caught in her throat, and she stared at her hands, the stench of charred stone stinging her nostrils. A shiver ran down her spine.

  "I know," she said breathlessly, trembling and trying to stand. Sathariel's wings twitched and his body shook as she nudged a toe close to the edge of the protective outer circle, cursing herself. "I know where the skulls hid their souls and he could… No!"

  She bolted for the door, her body's pain forgotten as unimaginable fear flooded through her, twisting in her gut like a serpent-the potential doom of hundreds weighing heavily on her shoulders. The angel stirred as she passed, his voice growling in her head, unintelligible as he awoke, unharmed by her magic. She opened the door, and the cold lights in Sathariel's eyes glimmered to life.

  "Eladrin…" he rumbled hungrily, the word spurring her to greater speed.

  She crossed the garden in a few breaths, her heart pounding in her ears as she entered the street. The ground shook as she ran, and a bellowing roar followed her, shattering windows as the angel found his strength. Wood and stone cracked loudly, exploding outward in a shower of debris that skittered along the cobbles at her heels. Quessahn struggled to work a spell, her thoughts slippery and jumbled.

  Ahead of her the ahimazzi turned, moaning softly with raised knives as she rushed toward them and choked back the doubt that threatened to paralyze her. She chanted and ran, each action speeding the other, words tumbling across her tongue, shoved out by quick breaths and heart-stopping fear. The dry branches of bare trees clacked and snapped as the angel stormed through the mansion garden, charging after her.

  A brief spark of magic tingled around her as she ran headlong toward the curved daggers of the ahimazzi, having no recourse if her spell failed but to be slain by the soulless men and women, taking knowledge of the circle of skulls' souls with her to a bloody end. As the stink of their bodies struck her nose, she forced out the last of the spell, a wave of nausea caused her to stumble forward into a widening pit of swirling shadow.

  Plunging into the limitless dark of the spell, a hideous howling followed her as she fell and fell, tumbling into a vast and silent void.

  "Sathariel will devour you," Jinn said, pacing the edge of the ritual circle, his blade hissing as he traced it over and over, watching Rilyana and waiting for jus
t one slip, one misspoken rune to foul the protective barrier and allow him entrance.

  "He already has devoured me. He won me over, heart and soul. I was only ten years old when he found me. He was ancient… and beautiful," Rilyana replied absently, paying him no attention as she focused on her work, preparing the wooden chest and the pedestal it sat upon for the spell's last enchantment.

  "He groomed you for this moment. I assume he arranged your adoption? Gave you a good life? And education? All just to get you to this place, to get what he wants and then leave you to die," Jinn said, trying not to imagine the angel's hands upon an innocent child.

  "Perhaps," she answered. "But would you not also die for someone you loved?"

  "Not like this," he answered, stopping short as she turned to face him, hands raised. Her bright hazel eyes narrowed as she approached the edge of the circle, and he stepped back, sword drawn back to strike. "But unless I am mistaken, you do not intend to die at all. Ever, in fact."

  "Enough, deva," she said coldly. "Did you know that Sathariel told me to let you live? Back at the Storm's Front, I could have easily made you the puppet of the nine skulls, but Sathariel stopped me. And do you know why?"

  Jinn shook his head slowly, watching her every move as she drew closer. The curved blade she killed Tallus with lay discarded next to the wizard's body, but he could feel the magic she might wield against him. He quietly cursed the barrier between them, preparing himself for the worst.

  "Choice," she said, spitting the word with a brief sneer. "He told me that that there were rules among his kind, ancient laws that even the gods were bound by, and that they required a choice, a balance between this world and theirs."

  "What choice?" Jinn asked. "Who chooses?"

  "It doesn't matter now," she said with a grin, "because, unlike him, I am not bound by laws or balance." Bright energy crackled across her fingertips, arcing down her wrist as she whispered an arcane phrase. "And I will not give you the chance to hurt him!"

  "What-?" Jinn began, mystified, and he leaped to the side as white bolts of electricity flew from her palms. He rolled to the floor, blinded as the stone wall behind him erupted in a shower of sparks. She chanted again and his sword was ripped from his hand and flung to the far comer. Her eyes and fists blazed with red fire.

  "Sathariel said I couldn't kill you," she growled. "He said it was impossible!"

  Jinn swore and covered his head. Unable to strike back or escape, he hoped merely to survive. Heat filled the room and Rilyana screamed. Jinn braced himself for the fire, but it never came. He heard a loud crash followed by a silence broken only by a heavy breathing and the constant hum of the ritual circle. Raising his head cautiously, he saw Rilyana slumped against the wall, groaning and swearing as she tried to stand.

  On the stairs, leaning on one elbow, her hand still steaming from a well-placed spell, Quessahn sat, glaring at the human. Teeth clenched and grunting in pain, the eladrin stood and brushed her hands off on her robes, muttering angrily.

  "Sathariel was right."

  Cold wind whistled through the borrowed ears of the nine skulls. Branches snagged at their clothes, snapped, and fell around them as they landed in a low crouch on damp grass and hard soil. They tore through the garden, boots crunching on deadfall, their nose lifted high, sniffing like an animal. Callak's body was weak, softened by a life of luxury, but their power made it strong, despite its physical limitations. Broken bones shifted in their right leg, and they could feel a torn hamstring worming its way up their right calf, loosed from its moorings.

  Several of the nine skulls were amused by the sensation of pain, as with all they had nearly forgotten about the trappings of warm flesh. Pausing alongside the mansion, they grinned and tried to peer within the tall windows of the house, catching a familiar scent, one of family and connection.

  "This one," Effram said as they slid along the wall and pressed their hands against the front doors. "All of them, I think."

  "Gathered together? A gift or a ruse?" Graius asked.

  The others, desperate and feeling time slip from their grasp, pressed Callak's hands against the hard wood, the oak feeling soft and pliable to their collected strength. They pushed. "Whatever it is, let us be quiet, swift, and watchful," he said as the door began to buckle. "Above all, be swift. If we hadn't written this last possession into the ritual, Tallus would have abandoned us completely. I doubt he will waste time waiting for us."

  "Fortunately he is more buffoon than wizard," Graius added. "But be aware, the deva's witches are unaccounted for, and at least one of them has some real power."

  "Duly noted," Effram said as the doors gave way, ripping away from their hinges and splitting like soft pine.

  They prowled, well hidden in the dark by the shroud of shadow that clung to Callak's body, appearing as little more than a pair of emerald flames, floating through hallways and empty chambers. The scent grew stronger, smelling of fearful children and hushed breaths, puffing in time with fluttering hearts. An aura of heat drew them to a large drawing room.

  A chorus of quiet whimpers greeted the skulls as they slunk forward, drawn by the stink of primal fear and… something else, something older. Bright eyes huddled together, their bodies dressed in nightclothes, as if they'd been stolen from their beds. They shivered and the skulls forgot their caution, but Effram remained troubled.

  "Who brought them here?" he whispered as a shudder passed through Callak's body, a pang of curious weakness that gave the skulls pause. It grew to an odd ache, a pain they could not ignore. "What is this?"

  "The witch!" Graius growled and pointed as a figure hobbled from the shadows. The skulls attempted to react, fighting inside Callak's head for consensus, centuries of magical knowledge cluttering their ability to cast even one spell at a moment's notice.

  The figure drew closer and stood between them and the children, revealing itself to be an unfamiliar old man, a broad smile stretched unnaturally across his wrinkled face as he addressed them.

  "Not who you were expecting, eh?"

  Mara turned a wide circle in the alley, slow and deliberate, enjoying the drizzle and cold. She sprinkled fistfuls of salt on the cobbles of Pharra's Alley, sparing a disdainful glance at the House of Wonder, voices raised beyond the wall as the Watchful Order attempted to question the wizards within. She'd been compelled to wait until they had forced the gates open. An ancient scroll, drawn from her vast collection, had served well to mask the alley in illusion and hide her actions from those within the courtyard, but time was growing short, and she risked drawing the Watchful Order's attention, something she had managed to avoid for several years. Despite her hunger for the souls of the skulls, she had no wish to involve the authorities in her life any more than was necessary.

  She focused on the circle of salt, whispering incantations and taking pleasure as the enchanted grains hissed on and between the cobbles.

  "You can't be killed, can't be harmed, and you flaunt a long-avoided grave. You know and do far more than you should be able, considering your pathetic condition," she muttered, hoping that the nine skulls might hear her. "Yet this pitiful alley is your place. You return here time and again." The last grains of salt slipped through her fingers. "And I bid you return now!"

  The salt sizzled and burned, white smoke gathering in streams that spun around the circle. It was an old and crude form of summoning, the enchanted salt a gift to her from an amorous and ambitious archfey whose name she could not recall, but for her purposes it was effective. More so as she knelt and pressed a stained strip of cloth to the cobbles, a torn shred of discarded dress soaked in the blood of the Loethe family.

  The circle flared to a bright glow, tendrils of green rising into the spinning smoke as tiny arcs of energy lanced through the wide column. A distant murmur rose from the center of the circle, soft and muffled, growing louder by the breath until it became an angry cursing. Four spherical objects manifested, wreathed in green flame, swearing madly as they took shape, their empty s
ockets glaring at the hag.

  "You face us alone, witch?" one said.

  "Indeed I do," she replied with a grin, hearing the desperation in its voice and stretching her long fingers, a spell readied at the forefront of her mind. "And I intend to summon your brothers as well."

  "You summon your own death!" it responded. "Leave us and we shall not hunt you down for this offense!"

  "I was banished to this world and survived the wrath of Asmodeus himself," she said. "Pray pardon if I choose to decline your generous offer. Now come!"

  Bolts of blue energy flew from her hands as she leaped, narrowly dodging four streams of green flame from the enraged skulls. She laughed at their efforts, inciting their fury to greater heights as she danced around their circle, hurtling spell after spell at the indestructible skulls. They spat more fire and chanted spells of their own, though with each they found their power weakening, the magic leeched bit by bit into the ensorcelled salt beneath them.

  Within moments they grew more cautious, more conservative with their spells, and Mara pressed them further, forcing the circle of nine to divide their attentions between the alley they were bound to and the body they had possessed. Hungrily she accepted the minor pain of their fire or a well-aimed bolt of acid, still smelling the precious scent of their souls as she wore them down.

  TWENTY

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

  Wild eyed and breathless, Quessahn descended the stairs slowly, her gaze fixed on the spinning energies of the ritual, unable to look away. She flinched as Jinn reached for her arm, shying away from his touch. The wooden chest at the center of the spell glowed with a brilliant blue light and she imagined she could hear voices calling from within, emanating through the dried flesh and bloodstained fingernails of the collected fingers.

  The walls hummed with power and she shivered.

  "It's gone too far…," she said, the terrible light dancing in her eyes as she drew away from the circle, visions of destruction still flashing through her mind as