James Davis - Circle of Skulls

To his right an ethereal glow spun in slow circles along the ground near the gates of the House of Wonder, flashes of ghostly fire sparking as the emerald mist grew faster.

"What's this?" he muttered and slipped, falling to awkwardly sit and stare in awe at the eerie spectacle. Tales of the haunted alley swirled in his thoughts, childhood ghost stories to which he had lent neither belief nor fear, having nearly forgotten them.

Voices, deep and hollow, chanted softly at first within the glow but grew louder as the light grew brighter, spinning faster until nine turning objects could be seen in the circle. Karras pushed himself up to his knees frantically, a sudden sobriety making him quicker and more sure footed than he'd expected to be.

He didn't make it past his knees, a searing pain tearing through his head and spreading across his body in burning waves. He gasped, clutching the sides of his head and falling forward, unable to scream for the pain crawling through his skull. The voices shouted in his mind, a harsh language that filled him with fear. The ground, less than a hand's breadth from his nose, glowed as green flames erupted from his eyes.

His vision narrowed, becoming two points of glowing emerald light before disappearing altogether. The voices seemed to drag him away from himself, stuffing his will into a limitless dark where he drifted, blind and senseless, his body no longer his own. He flailed phantom limbs in the dark of his mind, tumbling as nine ghostly skulls took up residence in his soul and commandeered his flesh.

Jinn sat quietly, studying Briarbones as Quessahn explained what they had learned about the murders thus far. The old man nodded as she spoke, his movements forced as though he were mimicking something he'd seen but not understood. Jinn had met many of the things that hid behind smiling faces in Waterdeep, some of them pursuing honest goals-most of them not-but few chose to live in a sewer with undead guards. As Quessahn's tale reached mention of the circle of skulls and the older killings from centuries ago, Briarbones became animated, listening intently, his hands fidgeting.

"I recall the time well," he said, stroking his chin. "I had just arrived in Waterdeep a decade before. There were nine families involved in the killings as I recall.

Though their names escape me, this one you mentioned, Marson, I believe? This sounds familiar."

"What about Saerfynn?" Jinn asked, leaning forward.

"No, not at all," Briar answered distractedly. "Much more recent, the Saerfynn name, last century or so."

Jinn nodded, still puzzling over Allek's apparent affair with Rilyana and wondering if she or her brother were somehow involved in the murders-or if they were possible targets.

"Nine families," Quessahn said, glancing at Jinn. "Nine skulls."

"Correct… but why?" Briar sketched swift notes on a foldout table by the wall.

"I cannot concern myself with why, only how and what," Jinn said, standing and straightening his coat, feeling as if the whole of the night might slip away in fanciful speculation over details while Sathariel continued to put pieces in play, complicating the game so that no one would discover what he was working toward until it was too late. " How are the skulls connected to Sathariel? And what is it about the murders that interests him?"

"And how can you use the deaths of these people to get to the angel?" Quessahn added, drawing a curious glance from Briarbones. "That's what you were thinking."

"I'll make no secret of that," Jinn replied. "I believe a few dozen dead is better than a few hundred."

"Perhaps," Briar said. "But more murders will get you no closer to the angel unless you know why these families are in danger. You must concede that Sathariel knew you would follow him and, therefore, has planned for your presence. It is very likely he is just using you and unless you look beyond the edge of that sword-that sword in particular, my friend-you won't realize how you're being used until it's too late."

"I'm only being used if I do what he wants me to do," he replied, turning toward the tunnel, intent on getting back up to street level and finding Archmage Tallus.

"Aren't you?" Quessahn asked, following him.

"He expects me to care. He wants me trying to save people," he said, looking up at the small, dim shafts of light from above and not wanting to see the look in the eladrin's eyes, the one he'd seen in the mirror in private, more honest moments. "But you don't win a war by trying to save lives. Usually it's the other way around."

"People are dying!" Quessahn said in disbelief. "More every day!"

Jinn took a deep breath and faced her, searching her eyes for some understanding.

"Death is merely a symptom of all this, a side effect," he said calmly but coldly, giving her the facts as he saw them, as he'd seen them for some time. "I know Sathariel. He doesn't just kill people for no reason. He is not a glorified assassin. He has a goal. These deaths and whatever spell they contribute to is just part of the show, a distraction to keep us chasing bodies in the dark."

"And what if they're not?" she asked.

"Keep working on it," he said. "I'm going to find

Tallus. I'll be back later if I find anything out. Tell Mister Briar to keep an eye on this exit in case I need any help."

"You will," she said, turning away angrily. "Just go."

He glared at her back before taking the rungs of the ladder and climbing to the surface, his fury well fueled for an encounter with the wizard.

NIGHTAL 21, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)

"Get what you wanted, did you?"

Briarbones looked sidelong at her before returning to his note taking, working things out on paper in his furiously quick shorthand. Quessahn didn't answer as she slumped to the dry floor of his meeting chamber, flinching as the surface exit's cover slid into place behind Jinnaoth. She squeezed her hands into tight fists, contemplating punching the floor before calming herself with deep breaths.

"Well, you couldn't have hoped for much better when you tracked him down in the first place," Briar said. "That was a feat in and of itself. How long had it been?"

"One hundred and fifty years," she answered, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the wall, "seven months, and five days." Though the eladrin were a long-lived race and the turning of several decades could mean little in their experience, it seemed as though the weight of every day sat heavily on her shoulders. "It doesn't matter anymore; we have more important things to see to."

"Indeed," he replied, shuddering slightly as the skin on his face warped and slid toward his quivering neck, revealing a puckered mass of shifting, visceral flesh that erupted and grew by the breath.

She watched as she always did, fascinated by the transformation. Briarbones was an avolakia, a shapechanging, unnatural creature prone to magical curiosity and-she glanced toward his zombie sentinels outside the chamber-bizarre appetites.

"Do you have any theories about what we're up against?" she asked.

Theories certainly, he replied, his voice changing easily from that of the old man to the inescapable words that appeared in her mind. His body became a tall, smooth trunk of rippling pale yellow flesh, six suckered tentacles sprouting from its base, each tipped with a multifaceted eye. His arms were replaced by eight insectlike limbs that sprouted from thick ridges halfway up his frame, each ending with nimble-fingered claws. Where his head had been was a series of three hooked mandibles around a circular, barbed mouth. But I believe I would be remiss if I shared any early suspicions just yet, lest I spoil our research with any false preconceptions.

"Of course," she said, setting aside lingering thoughts of Jinnaoth as Briar selected several tomes from a hidden shelf within the darkened chamber where he, she assumed, slept. She'd grown used to his natural state over the years, actually preferring it to the puppetlike image of the old man he favored when in human form. "I've been hasty enough the last few days; no need for early conclusions."