James P. Davis
Circle of Skulls
Tallus fumed, having watched the deva easily escape, assisted by the meddling Quessahn and another woman whom he had not recognized. That there would likely be a bounty on their heads did not comfort the archmage in the least. He needed Jinnaoth dead, needed anyone with a chance of uncovering his secrets removed as quickly as possible. Marson's Watch, ironically, might have been well suited to the task of tracking down the deva, while Dregg would be lucky to find a decent place to drink while his men did all the work.
A section of the tavern's roof collapsed, sending showers of sparks dancing over the heads of those left to witness the destruction as if it were the evening's entertainment. Tallus scowled. Rumors would spread more quickly, prompting some, those wealthy enough, to move on to secondary homes within the city. Still others would remain as they were, willing pawns to his devices, their hidden altars burning nightly with offered sacrifices. Even to the wealthy and powerful, perhaps especially, promises of yet more wealth and power had driven many to debase themselves before dark and hidden lords. Many of those even reveled in the bloodletting, an extravagance beyond common parties and social status.
Tallus grinned at the thought. Though fallen, his order's reach had not been completely lost.
'I warned you, wizard,' Sathariel's voice wrapped around him like a shroud, holding him in a sudden grip of terror, the trembling shadows of the angel's presence fluttering at the peripherals of his sight. His heart jumped wildly, and he coughed, fighting for breath as the fit overcame him. He found specks of blood on his hand when it had passed. 'The deva is a trifle, a minor inconvenience unless you antagonize him.'
'I… was trying to kill him!' Tallus replied, his throat sore between ragged, bone-chilling breaths.
'Then I expect he is sufficiently antagonized,' Sathariel growled close to the archmage's ear. 'Tell me, what have you gained for your efforts?'
'For one, another Marson is dead, the last of them,' Tallus answered, regaining his composure and taking pride in the one small victory of the evening. 'One step closer to the end of this business.'
'There is that, I suppose,' the angel said. 'But you have also introduced Jinnaoth to the circle of skulls.'
'Nonsense,' the wizard retorted, searching for Sathariel's dark eyes in disbelief. 'Impossible.'
'He has already spoken with them.' The words pressed upon Tallus's chest like a load of rocks. The familiar tickle itched in the back of his throat, but he breathed deeply, fighting the urge to cough. 'I'm beginning to suspect the deva may be a more suitable ally to my purposes than you. His agenda is pure, if a bit distasteful, and his betrayals are more direct and predictable.'
Tallus turned away from Sathariel's ebon visage, ignoring the angel's goading and already devising how to sever the deva's presence from his work. The Art was stable enough after the Spellplague, more so with the assistance of older magic, yet his task was not easy and, thanks to the mysterious skulls, not yet fully understood to him. Claiming his prize would be that much more difficult with the deva to contend with. As he pondered the problem, his gaze lingered over the dispersing crowd in front of the tavern, drawn easily to the sight of crimson lips and fair locks in a night blue dress as Rilyana Saerfynn followed some distance behind her drunkard brother. The soft, undulating curve between her breast and hip derailed his thoughts for a moment; the thought of her flirting with the deva derailed them further.
'Jinnaoth also knows how to place duty before lust.' The angel chuckled, a hellish sound that conveyed an insatiable hunger for mortal failings.
'Fear not,' Tallus replied, collecting himself though he could not help but keep a possessive eye upon Rilyana until she had strolled out of sight. 'I will not fail you.'
'As you wish, Archmage, but I truly do not have the capacity for fear or worry,' Sathariel said. 'Should you fail, your soul is forfeit, your order is dead, and my master shall have the prize I was sent for in the first place. You are merely a means to an end, but you are not the only means by any stretch of the imagination.'
'An end,' Tallus repeated wistfully. 'The First Flensing.'
'Do your work. Give to the skulls the power they need for all the bloodletting they require.' The angel's oppressive voice grew fainter as the shadows receded. 'And perhaps you and yours shall be forgiven.'
A light snow began to fall as the angel departed, leaving Tallus both momentarily relieved and full of dread as he turned back toward the House of Wonder under a cloud of dark thoughts. Some distance away he could make out faint shouts and at least two signal horns echoing through the ward. He cursed Dregg and shook his head, already lamenting the regrettable loss of Rorden Marson's subtle yet effective leadership of the Watch.
'Dregg will wake all Waterdeep with his floundering,' he muttered, turning in to a darkened block of narrow streets and widely spaced lanterns. Here and there among the shadows and short alleys, he could see them, blank eyes staring back, too dull to even carry a glitter of hope at his passing. Their stench stung his nose, and he covered it with a perfumed sleeve, trying not to imagine himself wandering among their pitiful numbers.
He sighed in frustration, contemplating more direct means of eliminating the deva without disturbing the delicate details of his work. He no longer required the stealth of the past month, but secrecy was paramount lest he fail as famously as those who had gone before him-or worse. Mere thought of the circle of skulls sickened him, their desperate hunger and practical impotence a fate worse than death, though he suspected his own fate, should he falter, would be legendary, delivered not by a prince among devils, but by a god.
'Mere days,' he whispered hoarsely, banishing the imagined terrors. 'Then I shall breathe easier, should I require breath at all.'
Quessahn sat in the dark, keeping silent as Mara made her way from one arched window of Pages Curious to the next, tracing the edge of each drawn curtain with whispered incantations. Gold needlework in the cloth flared at the woman's touch then faded as she passed, warding the interior of the shop against intruders or eavesdroppers. From the front of the shop to the back, Quessahn marveled at the collection of old magic, pre-Spellplague items of effortless function, the nearness of their energy feeling like the presence of an old friend.
Her circuit completed, Mara settled over a wide table of books and scrolls in the back corner and blew to life an enchanted candle. Quessahn edged close to the table, her eyes drawn to the candlelight and in particular the ornate candleholder it sat in. She narrowed her eyes at the worked silver, noting the alarmingly familiar design of a sword within an archway, encircled by a stylized shield.
'You are a thief as well?' she asked, gesturing to the candleholder and crossing her arms, recognizing the mark of one of the House of Wonder's masters. 'Where did you get that?'
Mara looked up from the scrolls, her eyes flashing with anger as she slid the candle closer to herself and out of the eladrin's reach.
'It was a gift,' Mara answered sharply. 'One of very few that-' She stopped, sighed angrily, and turned back to her work upon the table. 'I am no thief. Well, no common thief at least.'
Even in the candle's light, it seemed that shadows deepened in Mara's presence, the effect lingering in places where she had been for long moments. The strange woman appeared and acted human, but there was a timeless spark in Mara's gaze that gave Quessahn pause. She kept her guard up, ritual dagger at hand and spells on the tip of her tongue, as they waited in silence for Jinn's arrival.
A click at the back door sent a cold chill down Quessahn's spine. She spun around, a spell on her lips, before finding the deva's gold eyes in the dark. She relaxed as he closed and locked the door, sliding a kissed finger over the bolt that caused it to snap tight with a flash of light.
'Any trouble?' Mara asked.
'No more than usual,' he replied, throwing his greatcoat over a cushioned chair. 'Any news?'
'A little more than usual,' Mara answered. She pulled a large tome close to the candle's glow. 'It seems these murders have happened before.'
Quessahn's frustration at being ignored by the pair faded as interest in the book took over. She edged closer to the table, trying to read as Jinn perused the page, a look of confusion crossing his smooth features. He glanced at her once, as if noticing her for the first time, then returned to the book.
'How is this possible?' he asked. 'The broadsheets would have been selling out toes to heels at news like this.'
'And they might well have been,' Mara said and flipped the book closed, pointing to the cover. 'Around three hundred years ago.'
'Toes to heels?' Quessahn muttered as she leaned close, the book's leather cover showing the date The Year of Sinking Sails, 1180 Dale Reckoning.
