Jinn took her by the shoulders.
"Quess," he said quietly, holding her tight. "There isn't much time."
"Don't," she said. "Don't ask it. It's not safe-"
"Did the spell work? Do you know?" he asked, glancing at Rilyana as the human slumped forward on her hands, slowly recovering from the eladrin's attack.
Quessahn lowered her eyes and turned away.
"I saw it all," she answered quietly. "Like the beginning of the end."
"Where are they?" he pressed. "Where are the souls of the skulls?"
"No…," Rilyana muttered. "Say nothing. He doesn't care about you or anyone…"
Quess glared at the human for several breaths, unsurprised to find Rilyana Saerfynn alive with Archmage Tallus dead at her feet. She drew her runic dagger as Rilyana stood, grinning slyly, her hands smeared with blood. Quessahn felt trapped between the skulls' ritual and the angel's prophecy, either condemning hundreds, possibly thousands, to horrible deaths. Jinn placed a hand on her shoulder, and for a moment she gripped the handle of the dagger tightly, but the ritual had begun and the prophecy would stand as long as Sathariel lived.
"Pharra's Alley-," she began, the words catching in her throat as the floor buckled and the walls shook. Dust rained down around them, accompanied by a hideous, droning chant from within the ritual circle.
"Silence!" Rilyana shouted, her hands clasped on either side of the wooden chest as a howling chant growled from within her. Vines curled through the walls, slithering like thorn-covered snakes and thrashing as they surrounded Quessahn and the deva.
They took on beastly shapes as they neared, forcing Quess away from Jinn and blocking the remote escape of the basement stairway. Thorns hissed against one another, dry leaves on the vines shuddering like ghastly whispers. Jinn took up his sword, slashing madly as they closed in upon him, though for each vine he cut, several more curled into being. They whipped at his face and arms, drawing tiny lines of blood on his pale skin.
Quessahn felt a tug on her ankle as arcane phrases spilled from her lips. Thorns pierced her boots as the vines tightened. The spell rushed through her arms and burned across her skin, gripping the thorns in a tight embrace. Dark patches of living metal spread over her flesh, encasing her and repelling the vines as she raised her dagger. Kissing the blade, she whispered a forgotten star's name across the steel. Flames leaped from the dagger, white hot and roaring, as she directed them to the vines.
She strode through the thorns as they blackened and withered, crumbling embers surrounding her in a sparkling cloud. Spreading fires at her whim, she freed Jinn in a shower of orange light and smoke before facing the ritual circle, its light reflecting off her black steel skin, tendrils of smoke rising from her shoulders as she regarded the furious Rilyana.
"You doom us all, eladrin!" the human shouted.
"Is she right, Jinn?" Quessahn asked. "You'll be giving Sathariel what he wants."
"No, I will have what he wants," Jinn replied. "There is a difference. I have a choice."
"You choose death, deva! Death, over and over again… but this time, you take thousands with you!" Rilyana shouted and chuckled low in her throat, though she appeared tired and drained, leaning on the pedestal as the house shook around them.
Quessahn turned to Jinn, looking deep into his golden eyes.
"Whom shall you trust?" he asked. "That is your choice."
She stared at him a moment longer, glancing once at the blood-covered Rilyana. She knew that either way, if Jinn or the angel failed, that thousands could die, souls fed to angels and gods that cared little for mortal choice. With a final burst of flame, she seared the wall of thorns blocking the stairway, reducing them to little more than ash and tumbling char.
"Pharra's Alley, buried deep beneath where the skulls gather," she said, the words cold and haunting as she said them, one burden lifted though it was quickly replaced by another. Rilyana's face twisted in fury, haloed by the eldritch light of the ritual. Quess took a defensive stance, raising her dagger as spells welled within her mind. "Go now. Kill the angel… I shall take care of his whore."
She wondered briefly if Jinn would hesitate, spare her a glance or a word before disappearing up the stairs and into the dark beyond, but his step was whisper quiet, and wordlessly, he was gone before even the ash had settled upon the stairs.
"He is a fool," Rilyana growled, mirroring Quess's stance, hands poised and standing in front of the wooden chest defensively.
"No, he is a single-minded bastard with little thought for anyone or anything that gets in his way," Quessahn replied, a cruel grin crawling across her steel-skinned lips as she kissed her blade again, invoking the names of ancient and powerful beings, terrible stars that streaked through her mind's eye like burning titans hurled from the heavens. "But he means well."
Quessahn stumbled back as the ritual circle flared with scarlet light, blinding her as the howling energy spun ever faster. More tremors shook the house, and she shielded her eyes, searching for Rilyana in the brilliant glare. She heard laughter within the circle, saw a pale silhouette with arms upraised, and Quess began to chant, tiny stars gathering along the length of her dagger.
The stars streaked toward the human, spinning around her and stabbing her with shafts of burning light. Rilyana screamed and writhed, batting at the stars even as she shouted her own spell. Force coalesced in the air between them and rushed from Rilyana's outstretched hand, slamming hard into Quessahn's chest. The eladrin crashed into the basement wall, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth. She snarled, biting her tongue for more blood as she worked her next spell, speaking the words as the magic's red component stained her lips.
She traded burning shadows for numbing ice, foul curses for searing acid as they fought, neither gaining ground. The ritual pulsed onward, possessed of its own life. The steel skin she had summoned smoked from the human's last spell, hissing as the last remnants of a blast of acid ate through her enchanted flesh and drew blood through the arcane steel. Her legs ached with exhaustion, and her mind burned with each spell she cast, but she still stood.
"This is futile, elf," Rilyana cried. "You cannot stop this. All you do is earn yourself an early death."
Quessahn's heart pounded and her legs felt heavy, every step seeming prelude to a fall that never came. Arcane patterns and constellations wheeled through her thoughts ponderously, pulsing with power in tune to the blood in her veins.
"Keep your condemnations," she said. "Unless I'm mistaken, your ritual is not yet complete, and death still hangs over your head as well."
"Momentarily, I assure you," the human replied. "Once Sathariel takes the souls of the Nine, you shall see more clearly, and your deva will die… again."
"You're scared. You tried to kill Jinnaoth despite Sathariel's warning. If he is to deliver the circle of skulls to the angel, why would you try to stop him?" Quessahn said as she stepped closer to the crimson light of the circle, seeing the fear hiding in Rilyana's eyes.
"Be quiet," Rilyana growled, her hands steaming with magic.
"Afraid the angel might forget about you, eh?" Quessahn asked.
"Be quiet!" the human shouted, spheres of burning ice erupting from her palms.
Quessahn threw herself to the side, dodging the worst of the spell but caught by stinging shards of frost as the spheres exploded behind her. Ice rattled against her metal skin, testing the remaining strength of the protective spell and cutting her where it had become weak. She rolled forward into the crimson light, chanting as she turned and uttered a fiendish name to complete her spell. Sparks leaped from her runic dagger, fluttering on the air and growing. Batlike wings sprung from small, burning bodies, and the fiery imps screeched, instantly turning on Rilyana and surrounding her.
They scorched her with tiny claws and bit at her flesh as she swatted at them and fell back, stumbling over the body of Archmage Tallus as she fought to escape them. Quessahn scrambled to her feet and approached the chest. Pale, desiccated fing
ers filled the container, each surrounded by a soft blue glow. A single bloody digit on top still bore fresh blood, the finger of the archmage, she surmised. Ancient runes covered the chest, mysterious yet familiar, in patterns more akin to the old magic of more than a century gone.
"This can't be," she said in disbelief. "Mystra's Weave is gone, the ritual would never work! The magic must be here, in this house. It's been waiting for this!"
"Clever." Rilyana muttered an incantation.
Quessahn felt her body grow lighter. The black steel on her hands melted away, revealing bruised skin and bloodied knuckles beneath. A wave of nausea left her dazed as the magic steel was dispelled, and she shivered as cold air hit her naked skin. She leaned on the pedestal and the chest, sickened further by the feel of cold flesh beneath her hands. Rilyana rushed forward and punched Quessahn, sending her sprawling to the floor. The spinning energies of the ritual streamed around her body as she gasped for air, shaking her head and rubbing her jaw.
"The skulls were once priests of Mystra, but they betrayed her, called upon Asmodeus, and promised their souls to him. He gave them a part of his power, an exchange that they betrayed in the end, though ultimately they failed. The immortality they sought became undeath, a curse. But they still had the archdevil's power, and their spell, their grand ritual, was left here, carved into a forgotten basement floor, waiting for their return," Rilyana said, studying the wooden chest, as if making sure the eladrin had not somehow fouled the magic.
"In exchange for what? What did the skulls offer Asmodeus?" Quess asked, crawling onto her side and spitting blood. She knew the answer, having made her own dark pacts in recent years, but she wanted to keep the human talking and confident.
"Their souls, obviously, but also an invitation, one that they had no intention of fulfilling, but an invitation nonetheless. One that Asmodeus now wishes to answer," Rilyana answered, kneeling before the injured eladrin.
"The prophecy…," Quess whispered, one fist clenched around something cold and soft.
"Clever again," Rilyana replied, returning to the pedestal. "The skulls receive the damnation they deserve, Sathariel completes the prophecy, and I finish the ritual, joining him in immortality."
Quessahn crawled out of the ritual circle and rose on her hands, panting from the effort. She clutched one fist to her stomach as if in pain. Rilyana did not follow, hurled no more spells, and seemed to pay her no mind as she attended to the ritual's progress.
"Why are you telling me this?" Quessahn asked nervously, drawing the human's attention away from the chest.
"Isn't that how this all works?" Rilyana asked, smiling. "First I break your body; then I break your spirit. Besides, what fun is all this work without an audience?"
"I can still fight you," Quessahn replied angrily.
"Indeed you could," the human said, "but to what end?"
Quessahn stared at the woman for a breath before lowering her gaze. Pain wracked her limbs, and she felt brittle, like the bed of a dried river, wasted by floods of magic without rest. Stealthily she turned her hand up in her lap and opened her fist slowly to see the severed finger she'd stolen from the chest. Its blue glow gone, congealed blood stained her palm as she looked up, noting sluggish movement near Rilyana's foot.
"A bloody end," she replied at length and steeled herself to open the dam again, willing the first trickles of magic to well agonizingly in her mind.
Pain flowed through the skulls as they struggled to stand, Callak's legs failing as his suppressed mind grew stronger with every breath. They cursed in unison as the avolakia slithered out of the illusory skin of the old man, its alien form half hidden in shadow, tentacles writhing with a hideous grace. Green light glowed from its circular maw of hooks and tiny teeth, belching forth a wave of hissing liquid that flooded toward the skulls, spattering and popping across Callak's body.
Arguing among themselves, the five skulls remaining in the man's body managed to roll Callak's body beyond the widening pool of acid, one arm flailing madly as their legs twitched. The scent of burning flesh stung their sensitive nostrils, and bile rose in Callak's throat, an unfamiliar sense of nausea twisting in the body's gut.
Effram fumed as the others succumbed to mortal pain, howling as acid chewed through muscle and soft tissue, tendrils of foul smoke rising from the wounds. He could see the huddled children, pressed into a far comer of the room, staring at him with wide eyes beneath a painting of Callak Saerfynn as a young man. Taking control, Effram issued a swift chant and raised Callak's arm as silvery bolts of force ripped into the avolakia's body, leaving gaping wounds that wept with sickly yellow fluid.
But the beast merely twisted, undulating its quivering, boneless body until the bleeding stopped, its tentacled maw already screeching an arcane counterspell. Effram responded quickly, but the other skulls panicked, attempting to wrest away his control of Callak's body even as waves of mortal fear rose from the recesses of the man's mind. Effram's efforts faltered, his spell ruined in a stream of spewing gibberish, Callak's tongue useless as their cooperation fell apart. He could only watch as sheets of black flame rushed toward them.
They screamed together, the dark energy searing flesh and spirit alike as they were hurled against the wall, paralyzed and fighting to keep Callak's emotions at bay. His body twitched and thrashed against the wall, a broken puppet. The avolakia slithered nearer, multifaceted eyes turning among his many tentacles as he addressed them. His voice thundered through the space they occupied in Callak's mind, his tone soft and sinuous.
Hold still. This will only hurt for a moment.
"What do you want?" Effram shouted desperately as the others cursed, screaming in fury, everything they had worked for within sight, within reach, just a simple blood-letting away from their grasp, but still so far away, like a nightmare. "Tell us and it is yours! Anything!"
"Anything?"
Maranyuss grinned as she circled around the four skulls, limping and exhausted as thick smoke drifted through the scorched alley. Her hands flinched reflexively as the skulls withdrew from the edges of their circle, gathering together. She narrowed her crimson eyes and held her breath, suspecting a trick, but heard nothing but the wind whistling through the long alley, fluttering the tattered ends of her dark robes. She cast a furtive glance toward the House of Wonder, eyeing the courtyard through the gates and expecting her illusion to fall at any moment, exposing the battle and summoning the Watchful Order.
"Anything," they repeated in unison, their hollow voices small and desperate, dripping with a sickening weakness that Mara could almost taste. Her stomach growled and she bared her lionlike teeth, whipping stringy, black hair from her dark-skinned brow.
"Let me think," she replied slyly as a strange, distant wailing echoed from the ground.
The green flames of the circle flared brightly, roaring into an emerald pyre and turning the night into a pale, glowing day. Curses and shouts filled the circle as the remaining five manifested, spitting and burning with unparalleled fury. Mara backed away, smiling as they spun on one another, three hundred years of ruined work seeming to drive them entirely mad. She bowed mockingly as she retreated into the shadows but paused as an ominous tremor rumbled through the streets.
Her smile faded as thunder growled overhead in clouds that spun in slow, unnatural circles. Flashes of muted, orange flame hid behind the strange storm, and despite all, Mara sighed in brief contentment, recalling the tempests that would roar over the landscapes she'd once walked centuries ago. Strident horns echoed through the deserted avenues of Sea Ward as the Watch responded, booted feet on the march and drawing near as the circle of skulls fell eerily silent.
Their empty eyes fell on her, green fires flickering, mirroring the swinging lanterns of the Watch patrols.
"Enjoy this moment while you can, hag," they grumbled. "You have written the beginning of the end. The angel's prophecy will come. Our wrath is nothing next to what awaits you now."
Mara regarded them curiously the
n turned south, shivering despite herself as she imagined Jinnaoth facing down Sathariel. A thin column of pale crimson light, barely more than a staining mist, rose into the sky above the city. Another tremor rumbled beneath her feet, and shadowy figures turned a corner nearby, heading in her direction with lanterns blazing. Shouts echoed from within the House of Wonder as her illusion faded away. Robed figures streamed into the House's courtyard, drawn to the green flames of the skulls.
She twisted the silver ring on her hand, hiding herself in perfect illusion, and grinned at the circle of skulls, her arms crossed as they faded from sight, their green flames swirling into the cobbles. Fingering a large, ruby pendant around her neck, she eyed the last of the Nine's jade fire hungrily, eager to claim their souls.
"No, my friends. The angel has not claimed his prize. Not just yet," she whispered as she quickly melted into the alley's shadows.
Watchmen raced down Flint Street, pointing to the sky and blowing their horns as wizards gathered in the courtyard of the House of Wonder, their eyes fixed on the clouds, mouths agape in mystified awe.
Jinn's heart pounded in time with the thunder, impatience trembling in his blood. Raindrops slid down the length of his stolen sword as pale red light emanated from the edges of the roof, rising toward the sky. He stood upon the House of Thome as though he'd been there for millennia, waiting for Sathariel to scent the knowledge he carried, to answer a call to battle issued years ago, shouted over the corpse of the woman Jinn loved.
Four steepled spires rose from the corners of the wide, flat roof, the remnants of a long-forgotten garden staining the wood and stone beneath his boots. Fragments of centuries-old pottery littered the edges of an iron railing that was loosely strung with wispy, abandoned webs. He eyed the dried, silk-wrapped husks of flies and mosquitoes, his thoughts drifting to ancient fields of war as the streets below shook with tremors.
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