top were worn and cracked with age and exposure. Water stains crept down the sides like the tracks of tears down an old man's face collected at the bottom by dried-out vines of ivy clinging to the stone.
Had Quessahn's directions been any less accurate,
Jinn would have thought the tower abandoned for years.
'No guards, no lights,' he whispered. 'Perhaps he's not in.'
Maranyuss stepped closer to the park's edge, leaning on the bark of a winter-shorn tree as she lifted her nose to the air and closed her eyes.
'I smell blood,' she said. 'He's in there… and we are not alone.'
She turned as a figure approached them, cloak and hood pulled tight against the cold. Jinn relaxed as the hood fell away, revealing the troubled stare of Quessahn. She met his gaze only briefly as she neared, averting her eyes to look upon the archmage's unkempt tower.
'Tallus is not in there,' she said. 'Technically Tallus does not exist.'
'What did you and Briarbones discover?' Jinn asked, more eager to confront the wizard than argue with Quessahn over whether or not he should.
'Before he came to the House of Wonder, Tallus was known as Ashmidai,' she said. 'An aspiring, ambitious, and secretive wizard for the Vigilant Order of Asmodeus. This alone would not have barred him from becoming a master at the House of Wonder, but he kept it hidden anyway.'
'Well,' Jinn replied, 'that's one puzzle piece that fits.'
Shadows shifted near the encircling buildings, hunched figures drawing nearer. They were not close enough for Jinn to accurately identify them as ahimazzi, but instinct told him what his eyes could not. They were only a few, but their numbers could quickly swell. Mara hissed quietly at the sight of them. Her senses being far greater than Jinn's, she could smell their hollowed presence, their empty husks bearing no value to one dealing in souls.
'Let's get inside,' she said, exiting the sparse tree line of the park. 'I grow tired of pretending stealth will hide us from the wizard.'
'Wait!' Quessahn said, glancing at Jinn in disbelief as she chased after the hag. 'You can't just walk in through the front-'
'The door is open,' Mara said sharply, staring down the eladrin and pointing at the tower, its wide double doors a dark hole beyond the iron gate. 'If we're not going in now, we might as well abandon this little hunt altogether.'
'Agreed,' Jinn replied, already on his feet and following Mara through the gate. He paused briefly to glance at Quessahn, feeling as though some unknown confession were hanging between them, but he could not find the words to express the strange idea. She said nothing, appearing indecisive at the gate, her blue eyes glittering as they finally turned to him, something in their depths causing him a momentary pang of inexplicable sorrow. 'We could use your help,' he said at last. 'Perhaps we'll find more about how to stop the killings.'
'That's not what you're looking for,' she said.
'I can think of few instances in the past tenday when I've ever found what I was looking for,' he replied with a grin. 'Perhaps this time we'll be lucky.'
'I don't believe in luck,' she said and passed through the gate to stand on the tower's doorstep a moment before entering the dark beyond.
'Me neither,' he muttered, eyeing her suspiciously, certain that she knew far more than she'd been letting on.
The tower's interior stood in stark contrast to its humble exterior. A tall, circular chamber dominated the entrance, the ceiling lost in the shadows above. The floor was of a highly polished, dark marble and a wide set of fine, wood stairs spiraled up toward a second-level loft, the bases of several shelves just visible through the chamber's gloom. The whole of the room bore little decoration, all of it centered dramatically upon a massive statue set before the circle of windows.
Light filtering in through the windows seemed magnified, illuminating the tower and gleaming on the smooth contours of the statue's perfectly sculpted musculature. Carved from black stone, it stood three times as tall as Jinn surrounded by a circular pool of clear water. Jinn approached slowly, glaring into the blank eyes of the statue, its visage shaped into the likeness of a handsome young man, smiling with its head lowered, small horns curving gracefully from its brow. It held one hand, its left, palm up in a frozen gesture of dubious welcome.
'Asmodeus,' he whispered.
'I'm guessing Tallus doesn't entertain much,' Mara said as she explored the perimeter of the room, gently feeling her way along the walls. She added quietly as she neared the stairs, 'The scent of blood is strongest here.'
'We should search his books before he finds us,' Quessahn said and took the first step, but Mara swiftly caught her arm.
'Not those,' the hag said, crimson eyes smoldering through her illusory disguise as she scanned the stairway. 'Anything in plain view is, at best, very plain. There is power here. Step back.'
Quessahn backed away from the stairs as Jinn tore his gaze away from the statue of Asmodeus, half expecting the devil-god's likeness to awaken somehow. He left it feeling almost disappointed it had not moved to address or attack him. Unlike most, Jinn wanted the god's attention. Vague memories of having walked and battled alongside gods stirred strongly within him, but among all of his emotions he bore no fear of divinity. He had seen gods bleed, cry out in pain, and die on the field of battle, their dissipating essences wafting through the dissolving order of armies left in chaos. His pulse quickened at the thought of it, holding the memory of the act itself as an affront to the seeming power of Asmodeus.
Mara waved her hands slowly over the bottom steps of the stairway, her form wavering as she abandoned the illusions that disguised her true appearance. Bruise-colored skin spread across her arms and face as small, gnarled horns curved back from her brow. She spit harsh words through her lionlike fangs, wisps of gathering energy trailing from her black claws. Eventually her chanting ceased and the stairway rippled, several steps disappearing to reveal a second stairway leading down.
Led by flickering lights, they descended into the shadows beneath the tower, Mara hungrily taking the lead. Jinn drew his sword, nerves on edge, wondering if they might find Tallus and hoping they would encounter Sathariel. Sight of the statue above had excited his bloodlust, and he prayed that his hunt would soon be over.
A second circular chamber greeted them below, ringed on all sides by arcane torches that gave off no heat or smoke. Indeed, there were several old books lining shelves along the walls, some sat open upon pedestals, but it was the rune-covered circle in the center of the chamber that drew their full attention. Stinking of blood and fear, wide splatters of crimson radiated outward from the mangled corpse on the floor, its form only vaguely resembling something once human. Shredded bits of dark robes still clung to the severed and broken limbs, the body's torso barely clothed and still attached to a crushed lump that Jinn suspected had once been the wizard's head. Nearby a gnarled, wooden staff had been shattered into splintered stumps.
'I think Tallus has already had visitors,' Quessahn said, keeping her boots at the edge of the mutilation but seeming unable to look away from the grim scene. Jinn stared as well, his eyes narrowed, seeing less the body than the questions it raised.
'But his books,' Mara said. 'By all the souls in suffering…'
Her deep voice was full of awe as she approached the first pedestal, heedless of the ruined flesh and blood beneath her, swearing quietly as she gently caressed the old tome's yellowed pages.
'What is it?' Jinn asked.
'Notes,' Mara muttered, perusing the handwritten text. 'Bits of an ancient spell, old magic, and here… the nine families… nine bloodlines…'
'Nine,' Jinn whispered as Quessahn tore her eyes away from the body and strode through the blood to see what Maranyuss had found. They conferred in hushed whispers over the book, pointing at and debating the archmage's notes. Jinn didn't listen, his attention taken by a strange vibration in the floor. The walls shook, sending dust raining down from the ceiling. Cracks spread quietly out from the corners of the room, as if the tower itself were awakening and stirring into life. He backed toward the stairs, watching the ceiling closely as the cracks grew larger. 'Let's be swift, ladies…'
'The Loethes!' Quessahn proclaimed, turning wide eyed as Mara took the book from the pedestal. 'Their family is next!'
'The spell must not be completed, Jinn,' Mara said, eyeing the walls as more dust drifted down in clouds. 'Or
