"Then the angel shall kill him if we do not," Graius replied.
"Better that Sathariel is kept busy elsewhere, no?" the other responded as the rest of the circle nodded. "We have managed to evade the angel for centuries; no doubt we can fool him a few days more."
"One day, in fact," Sathariel added from above, his large wings beating as he descended into the alley. Out of the range of their green flames, he hovered between the buildings, capturing their attention in his cold eyes. He enjoyed the fear he inspired in them and wished nothing more than to fulfill their every nightmare, but he was powerless over them as of yet and attempted a note of diplomacy. "In one day Tallus will attempt to betray you and steal all that you have worked for."
"He lies!" Graius shouted. "He only speaks in traps and snares, much like his master."
"Why, angel?" another asked, the circle turning to accommodate the speaker known as Effram. "What does your lord gain from telling us this?"
"No, my old friends," Sathariel answered. "It is you who may gain, should you desire to survive what is to come. It is my understanding that survival is quite important to you, yes?"
"Do not listen, brothers," Graius grumbled. "Honeyed words and half truths, his tongue is silvered with deception."
"Indeed it is, dear Graius," the angel replied as he edged closer to the circle. "But not this night, not here. Now I speak of old words and ancient oaths. Your words, in fact. Contracts that you nine have yet to fulfill." A low growl passed through the skulls at the mention of their neglected obligations, the sins that had made them what they are. "I only offer you your own lies, and I offer you a chance to make amends. Give to me the souls that Tallus would steal, and my lord shall be lenient."
"Nonsense," Graius scoffed, an amused chuckle passing through the circle that threatened to destroy Sathariel's attempt at civility, the skulls' paranoia evident in their denial of anything that wasn't their idea first. The angel could not blame them.
"Asmodeus has certain… interests in the ritual to be performed," he continued, his voice rising above their derisive laughter. "He would offer you absolution for your parts in expediting these interests, a formal contract offered in good faith despite the betrayal you visited upon him in the centuries before his wondrous ascension."
"Absolution?" Effram asked.
"And flesh, my friends," Sathariel answered, the ice blue pinpoints within his black eyes flaring brighter. "Blood, bone, and all the carnal pleasures that go with them."
Effram turned to his eight brothers, all wizards and worshipers of fallen Mystra. Graius shook his head vehemently, yet they gathered and conferred, their emerald flames swirling together brightly like a rotting star as they argued and whispered. Sathariel held back, eyeing them carefully, wondering if for once their paranoia might break, allowing them to slip easily into his clutches.
"And death, I presume," Effram spoke as the skulls separated, their inscrutable, black stares returning to the angel.
"Pardon?" Sathariel asked.
"Death," Effram repeated. "I assume your lord's offer, however magnanimous, does not include eternity."
"There is a limit to Asmodeus's generosity," the angel responded sternly, wings spread across the alley as he clenched and unclenched his fists, his patience wearing thin. "But I assure you, there is no such limit upon his wrath."
"Then wrath!" Graius cried out. "Wrath before we sacrifice our chance at immortality!"
"You deny the contract?" Sathariel growled, ignoring the stubborn Graius and focusing on only Effram. Flames of shadow like ephemeral feathers writhed through his wings as the flameskull turned away, seemingly unimpressed with his fury.
"We do," Effram answered, adding slyly, "but fear not, lapdog, there are other contracts to be signed. Older contracts than ours, written in steel, I believe."
"The deva seeks to sign in your blood, or whatever passes for blood among your kind," Graius said. "And we believe that Asmodeus would be greater pleased with your sacrifice than our miserable souls. Our ritual, after all, is merely a parlor trick compared to the devil's plans."
"You have chosen," Sathariel said, ignoring their jibes as he rose higher, trails of shadow wavering in sheets beneath him. "Damnation, then. Only suffering for the nine souls you hide from my lord, may his mercy be as absent as my own!"
He ascended quickly, raging and spinning into the clouds until his wings disappeared against the night sky beyond, blotting out the stars. Arms crossed, he considered the tiny city far below, his mind racing, plotting through his options and finding only one source upon which to vent his fury.
"Tallus," he hissed, cursing the duplicitous wizard's impatience, but they were too close to the ritual's completion for him to simply slay the human. Asmodeus would likely not tolerate another delay, and Sathariel, like the skulls, clung to what life he had, unwilling to risk disappointing the devil-god on the cusp of such momentous events.
Fortunately the circle of skulls had one last ally, unstable and unreliable, but ambitious.
"Fine, then, one more betrayal," he muttered, clouds rolling beneath him as he contemplated gambling on yet another weak-willed human, but despite all he knew, he could count on the baser instincts of most of their short-lived race. He dived into the clouds, gliding in wide circles, whispering, "Let the archmage reap what he sows."
SIXTEEN
NIGHTAL 22, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)
Quessahn sat in silence as Maranyuss and Briarbones muttered and whispered over books and scrolls, lost in her own thoughts as the world revolved around her. Jinn had been right; she should never have sought him out, should never have hoped that what she'd had with Kehran could be resurrected, as Kehran had been, in Jinnaoth. All of that she knew and somehow had always known, in the deepest parts of herself, and yet Jinn had also been terribly wrong about one thing.
She had been obligated to try.
Rubbing her dry, reddened eyes, she placed it all behind her, feeling useless and self-absorbed as the others worked to solve the secrets of the murders and delve into the mysteries of the nine skulls. Dregg's body had been removed, taken away by Briar with his reluctant word given not to raise the rorden's body to serve as one of his macabre guards. The table he had lain upon had been cleaned and was strewn with pages and notes, as though Tallus's mind had been dissected and placed on display.
At length the strange pair stepped back, both still cloaked in the illusions that had become so much a part of them in Waterdeep; they wore their second faces like old clothes. Mara stared thoughtfully at the book, tapping her long fingers on the table, as Briar snatched up a single page, perusing it once more before setting it back down.
"The circle of skulls," Mara began slowly, as if choosing her words carefully, crossing her arms and pacing as she spoke. "Seeking to attain immortality, they began a ritual. They slew their bloodlines and made a deal with Asmodeus."
"Which they promptly broke," Briar added.
"And in the end they failed, were cursed, and lived as flameskulls. And for three centuries, they hid their souls from the archdevil," Mara continued, waving her hand at each point, ticking off the steps of the skulls' tale with a deft finger.
"During which time, Asmodeus became a god," Briar said as he absently twisted a length of dried flesh from the arm of one of his oblivious undead sentinels and began chewing on it. "Making what eternity they had managed to cling to even harder to hide."
"And now they mean to complete their old spell," Mara finished, "and spend the power they stole from the devil-god."
Quessahn shuddered in the contemplative silence that followed, wondering at the indomitable will that would gamble upon the wrath of a god, simply for the opportunity of immortality. Three hundred years of hiding their miserable souls, living as little more than magical oddities, the spellhaunt of the House of Wonders. When she had been but a child, the skulls had hidden in shadow for more than a century, a trivial topic for curious wizards as they schemed and plotted to take what they had lost.