'Gods, Jinn,' Allek whispered and turned away from the wall, shaking his head. 'I need those eyes on my payroll.'
Jinn looked away from the stain. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Old blood tends to tell stories of how and sometimes when, but very rarely who. You have my deepest sympathies for your loss. I didn't realize-'
'No, forgive me,' the rorden said. 'It has been difficult separating duty from family. I honor them more by working to find out what curse has befallen us.'
'Why this place?' Jinn asked, putting the moment behind them.
'Right,' Allek said, an officer of the Watch once more. 'Here we received the first and only evidence we've gotten from this whole mess.' The rorden led Jinn to the House of Wonder's gates. 'Are you familiar with the circle of skulls?'
'No.'
'An old wives' tale, according to some. Others call them ghosts, bogeymen, or spellhaunts, believing them to be magical remnants of the Spellplague. But tales of the skulls go back much farther than the Spellplague.' Allek's gaze drifted to the stones of the alley with a haunted, faraway look. 'I saw them once, when I was a child. Glowing with green flames, spitting fire at anyone that came near. Then they just faded away. Always in this spot.'
Jinn circled the area, studying what appeared to be a normal patch of ground, nothing out of the ordinary that he could see.
'How does this connect with…?' Jinn asked.
'The killer, a young man named Dason Hallsahf, before he lost his ability to reason, spoke of skulls, of green fire. Rambled on and on about them.' Allek's voice grew tight, angry, barely held in check.
'What else did he say? Anything?'
'There was something about being trapped and 'dirty men,'' Allek answered, then added, 'He said he saw an angel.'
Hands curled into fists, Jinn attempted to calmly nod, still pretending to study the ground where ghostly skulls were said to rise, though his heart pounded and his breath quickened. Reflexively, he glanced at the sky, expecting dark wings to descend at any moment and fiercely willing them to do so.
The corridors of the Westwall were of cold stone as Jinn followed Rorden Allek down quiet hallways, through empty rooms, and into chambers well guarded from the public eye. Beyond the guards and heavy doors was a series of small rooms pervaded by a strange, sterile smell. Jinn's skin tingled with energy, sensing magic. Allek nodded to an officer with a gray goatee and a well-worn saber at his side. The old man, introduced as Officer Yarrow, produced a ring of keys and led them down to the last door on the left.
'Don't use the quiet rooms much anymore,' Yarrow said as he fumbled for the right key. 'Had 'em down here more than a century or so now, just collectin' dust mostly.'
'These chambers cease the body's process of decay,' Allek explained. 'Useful in somewhat rare cases like this.'
'Eastwall used to have somethin' similar, until the Spellplague came through and ruined it,' Yarrow mumbled. Then he smiled as he found the right key. 'Rooms on that side started workin' too well, bringin' folk back to life… well, not life mind ye, but-'
'I think I understand,' Jinn said as the door opened, lanternlight spilling across the stained white dress of a young woman, lying atop a rune-inscribed slab of stone. Allek turned away but did not leave. He dismissed Officer Yarrow as Jinn examined the body of Allek's niece, Alma Marson.
Her wounds, as Jinn had surmised from the alley, were mostly small and superficial, painful but not deadly, save for a small puncture in the left side of her chest. The cut was just wide enough to allow a thin blade to pass between the ribs and find the heart-one precise, fatal stab, amid a flurry of wild blows. Jinn took the wounds in, committing them to memory, though his eyes were fixed upon the line of injuries running from the base of her neck to her navel. Each was thin and deliberately shaped: an alphabet of some sort that he had never chanced upon before, possibly arcane and utterly mysterious.
'Alma was the most recent,' Allek said as Jinn quickly sketched the characters carved into the girl's skin. Her dress had been cut down the center of her chest, exposing a scarred ribbon of pale flesh. Little blood seemed to have flowed from the precise wounds, possibly a sign of magic or that the cutting had been done with little struggle. 'We did not keep the other bodies, cremating the remains until such time as we can safely inform the families.'
'Their wounds were the same?' Jinn asked, examining the girl's left hand where the ring finger had been neatly removed.
'Yes,' the rorden answered. 'On all save Dessa Marson, my brother's wife. Her… throat had been cut, a single wound.'
'She got in the way,' Jinn muttered, replacing the small chapbook of sketches in his coat.
'That was my suspicion,' Allek said.
'Which suggests the victims were specific targets.'
Jinn stepped back from the body and nodded to Allek, who waved Yarrow back to reseal the quiet chamber. The rorden's face seemed older, expressionless as they walked back to the end of the corridor.
'Have you had a priest or wizard examine any of the bodies?' Jinn asked. 'Perhaps one could attempt to speak with the spirit.'
'We made one attempt with a priest,' Allek answered, 'and he has yet to recover. Some kind of… backlash is the best I can describe it. It threw the man across the room, left him burned and senseless. For their safety we've kept those few among the Watchful Order that know of the murders away from the bodies themselves. As I said before, magic is serving us very little as of yet.'
With the suspicion of wizardry in Waterdeep of late, Jinn could understand why Allek was hesitant to involve spellhurlers, but he couldn't abide not exploiting whatever resources might prove useful. As they ascended to the more common hallways of the Westwall, Jinn stopped Allek before they were in earshot of the other officers.
'We will need a wizard,' Jinn said, knowing that Allek, despite his distrust, had to agree with the next most logical avenue of finding answers.
The rorden merely nodded, crossing his arms, clearly troubled by the prospect of involving anyone else in the mystery.
'I have some contacts,' Jinn added. 'I'll be discreet.'
'Do what you need to,' Allek said. 'I'll meet you back in the alley at gateclose tomorrow.'
'Get some sleep,' Jinn said before taking his leave of the rorden, though Allek did not answer. Jinn did not envy the man the long night he faced, trying to rest, keep his composure, and see to his duty as a Watchman amid the loss of his only family.
Outside the wall, Jinn raised his collar against the cold and set out toward the House of Wonder, one last thing to do before succumbing to his own exhaustion. The Watchful Order, while capable wizards, could not be trusted with the discretion he required, and though Mara was quite skilled with spells and rituals, her resources and contacts within Sea Ward were limited. Jinn suspected one person in particular could prove invaluable, both due to the nature of the crimes and in knowledge of the ward in general. He sighed, however, dreading the task and having his own reasons for avoiding certain magic-users.
THREE
NIGHTAL 19, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)
Steam swirled above the greenish sludge in the labyrinth of Waterdeep's sewers. Rats huddled along the bordering catwalks, gathering for warmth, fighting and cannibalizing the weak when hunger demanded a sacrifice. Moonlight glimmered ghostlike down through a hidden entrance in Torch Lane above, twinkling in Essirel's eyes as he drew his dirty cloak tighter against the cold. His breath came slow and even, almost mechanical, his heartbeat much the same.
Thought and even the memory of emotion was rare and fleeting, serving more to confuse him than to offer hope, though he struggled to hang on to those moments. He could not help but fail, so lost was the soul that had
