Several of the nine skulls were amused by the sensation of pain, as with all they had nearly forgotten about the trappings of warm flesh. Pausing alongside the mansion, they grinned and tried to peer within the tall windows of the house, catching a familiar scent, one of family and connection.
"This one," Effram said as they slid along the wall and pressed their hands against the front doors. "All of them, I think."
"Gathered together? A gift or a ruse?" Graius asked.
The others, desperate and feeling time slip from their grasp, pressed Callak's hands against the hard wood, the oak feeling soft and pliable to their collected strength. They pushed. "Whatever it is, let us be quiet, swift, and watchful," he said as the door began to buckle. "Above all, be swift. If we hadn't written this last possession into the ritual, Tallus would have abandoned us completely. I doubt he will waste time waiting for us."
"Fortunately he is more buffoon than wizard," Graius added. "But be aware, the deva's witches are unaccounted for, and at least one of them has some real power."
"Duly noted," Effram said as the doors gave way, ripping away from their hinges and splitting like soft pine.
They prowled, well hidden in the dark by the shroud of shadow that clung to Callak's body, appearing as little more than a pair of emerald flames, floating through hallways and empty chambers. The scent grew stronger, smelling of fearful children and hushed breaths, puffing in time with fluttering hearts. An aura of heat drew them to a large drawing room.
A chorus of quiet whimpers greeted the skulls as they slunk forward, drawn by the stink of primal fear and… something else, something older. Bright eyes huddled together, their bodies dressed in nightclothes, as if they'd been stolen from their beds. They shivered and the skulls forgot their caution, but Effram remained troubled.
"Who brought them here?" he whispered as a shudder passed through Callak's body, a pang of curious weakness that gave the skulls pause. It grew to an odd ache, a pain they could not ignore. "What is this?"
"The witch!" Graius growled and pointed as a figure hobbled from the shadows. The skulls attempted to react, fighting inside Callak's head for consensus, centuries of magical knowledge cluttering their ability to cast even one spell at a moment's notice.
The figure drew closer and stood between them and the children, revealing itself to be an unfamiliar old man, a broad smile stretched unnaturally across his wrinkled face as he addressed them.
"Not who you were expecting, eh?"
Mara turned a wide circle in the alley, slow and deliberate, enjoying the drizzle and cold. She sprinkled fistfuls of salt on the cobbles of Pharra's Alley, sparing a disdainful glance at the House of Wonder, voices raised beyond the wall as the Watchful Order attempted to question the wizards within. She'd been compelled to wait until they had forced the gates open. An ancient scroll, drawn from her vast collection, had served well to mask the alley in illusion and hide her actions from those within the courtyard, but time was growing short, and she risked drawing the Watchful Order's attention, something she had managed to avoid for several years. Despite her hunger for the souls of the skulls, she had no wish to involve the authorities in her life any more than was necessary.
She focused on the circle of salt, whispering incantations and taking pleasure as the enchanted grains hissed on and between the cobbles.
"You can't be killed, can't be harmed, and you flaunt a long-avoided grave. You know and do far more than you should be able, considering your pathetic condition," she muttered, hoping that the nine skulls might hear her. "Yet this pitiful alley is your place. You return here time and again." The last grains of salt slipped through her fingers. "And I bid you return now!"
The salt sizzled and burned, white smoke gathering in streams that spun around the circle. It was an old and crude form of summoning, the enchanted salt a gift to her from an amorous and ambitious archfey whose name she could not recall, but for her purposes it was effective. More so as she knelt and pressed a stained strip of cloth to the cobbles, a torn shred of discarded dress soaked in the blood of the Loethe family.
The circle flared to a bright glow, tendrils of green rising into the spinning smoke as tiny arcs of energy lanced through the wide column. A distant murmur rose from the center of the circle, soft and muffled, growing louder by the breath until it became an angry cursing. Four spherical objects manifested, wreathed in green flame, swearing madly as they took shape, their empty sockets glaring at the hag.
"You face us alone, witch?" one said.
"Indeed I do," she replied with a grin, hearing the desperation in its voice and stretching her long fingers, a spell readied at the forefront of her mind. "And I intend to summon your brothers as well."
"You summon your own death!" it responded. "Leave us and we shall not hunt you down for this offense!"
"I was banished to this world and survived the wrath of Asmodeus himself," she said. "Pray pardon if I choose to decline your generous offer. Now come!"
Bolts of blue energy flew from her hands as she leaped, narrowly dodging four streams of green flame from the enraged skulls. She laughed at their efforts, inciting their fury to greater heights as she danced around their circle, hurtling spell after spell at the indestructible skulls. They spat more fire and chanted spells of their own, though with each they found their power weakening, the magic leeched bit by bit into the ensorcelled salt beneath them.
Within moments they grew more cautious, more conservative with their spells, and Mara pressed them further, forcing the circle of nine to divide their attentions between the alley they were bound to and the body they had possessed. Hungrily she accepted the minor pain of their fire or a well-aimed bolt of acid, still smelling the precious scent of their souls as she wore them down.
TWENTY
NIGHTAL 22, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)
Wild eyed and breathless, Quessahn descended the stairs slowly, her gaze fixed on the spinning energies of the ritual, unable to look away. She flinched as Jinn reached for her arm, shying away from his touch. The wooden chest at the center of the spell glowed with a brilliant blue light and she imagined she could hear voices calling from within, emanating through the dried flesh and bloodstained fingernails of the collected fingers.
The walls hummed with power and she shivered.
"It's gone too far…," she said, the terrible light dancing in her eyes as she drew away from the circle, visions of destruction still flashing through her mind as
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.