James Davis - Circle of Skulls

"Yes, the Watch," Mara replied, still tracing the frame with arcane symbols as she sealed the doors. The officers pounded on the door, demanding entry. "But the servants are of more immediate concern."

A side door had opened, revealing a glimmer of steel and several figures beyond, each with maddened eyes and raised weapons. Quessahn cursed, instinctively raising her hand as a swift incantation slid across her tongue like a sliver of ice. The magic swirled at her fingertips, dancing just beyond her will as she squeezed her fingers into a fist and forced the energy into Art.

A vortex of frigid flames leaped from her hand, engulfing the servants of the house and licking their skin with a burning cold. Screams erupted from the group, joining those from the basement as the family of the house slew each other.

"This will not hold long if they're determined," Mara said, the frame of the double doors glowing with indistinct runes all along its edge. They flickered as the officers struck the doors with something heavy, muffled curses accompanying the effort.

"I imagine they'll be more concerned with keeping us inside," Quessahn replied, drawing her ritual dagger as the shadows of robed figures appeared within the orange glow of the basement stairway, a droning chant preceding their inevitable arrival, their business downstairs finished.

Footsteps and crazed shouts announced the regrouping of the servants, their numbers split between the left and right exits from the hall. In the midst of the chanting, shouting, and powerful thuds against the sealed doors, Quessahn caught the faint ring of steel striking steel from somewhere upstairs.

Roping tentacles of indigo gushed from Mara's palms at the door atop the stairs, taking the first of the robed figures as he ascended into the room. The man's skin paled instantly as the tentacles wrapped around his body, dissipating as he slumped against the wall, weakly gasping for air.

Aching and finding her breath, Quessahn raised her dagger, found a wriggling spark of magic, and began to wring it into shape, chanting as the servants found their courage and entered the room.

A neat line of clean cuts sent the heads of a row of orchids tumbling from their stems as Jinn's blade swept toward the neck of the skulls' body. Winter-blooming flowers spilled from their pots, coating the floor of a domed greenhouse with dark soil and colorful petals. His sword scraped along the edge of a curved dagger, drawing sparks that died among damp flowerbeds. Jinn slid to one knee, ducking low as the dagger cut through the air, missing his ear by the breadth of a finger. With a powerful kick, he pulled their legs out from beneath them, his sword already rising as they tumbled through shattered clay pots and trampled rare specimens of seasonal blooms

The shadow-cloaked body rolled as it landed, leaving Jinn's blade to strike point down, a breath too slow, in the stone floor. The skulls righted themselves and jumped backward. Rafters shook as the dark-flamed body landed upon a suspended walkway beneath the steel grid of a glass dome atop the Loethe mansion. More pots crashed to the floor as Jinn rose, meeting the burning, hate-filled gaze of the skulls.

"You're pathetic, deva!" they shrieked in unison, the glass above them vibrating with each word. "You honor oaths made to dead gods! You fight a war that means nothing!"

"It means everything!" he shouted back, tired of their whining curses and spying a narrow, spiral stairway at the end of the walkway.

"What? Defeating evil?" they replied, leaning on the railing and chuckling, a sound like bones rattling in a coffin. "It is a joke, Jinnaoth, a maze to keep you busy while the real players direct the game," they said, voices calming somewhat to a more devious tone. "It is us or Sathariel. You cannot have us both." "So you say?" he replied, taking the first few steps on the rickety stairway.

"We do indeed," they replied. "You must choose, us or the angel, or lose everything."

Jinn climbed the stairs carefully, never taking his eyes away from the skulls and tapping the point of his sword along the wired banister as he went.

"I've made too many dark deals," he said.

"Which is precisely why we thought you had potential, the ability to rise above petty morality," they said, several of the voices hissing in disappointment. "Your kind falls prey too easily to the hopes of one battle, one conflict. We offer you the chance to fight a real war."

"No more compromises," he replied sternly, but he paused at the first step, listening.

"So says the doomed champion at the gates of the Hells," they said, sighing in resignation even as others among the nine growled impatiently, the shadowy shroud around their possessed body wavering.

"Sathariel smiles at your efforts. He uses you. Even now, with your righteousness and pomp, we see only him. And you will be left, raving at your dead gods amid smoking ruins and death."

"Smoking ruins?" Jinn asked, advancing, sword poised to strike. "What ruins?"

"Ah, he wants answers now, eh?" they responded, a rumbling, sardonic laughter infecting their voices. "No more sword first, ask questions later?"

Their emerald eyes blurred as they moved suddenly, a dark wave of shadow rushing across the walkway. Jinn narrowly deflected the first slash and parried the second, his hand aching from the strain as what strength they had left bore down upon him. The walkway swung precariously, a thunder of clay pots smashing on the floor below as their blades locked. An oppressive heat wafted over Jinn's face as the skulls pressed close, as if their body were burning from the inside out.

"You are being used, deva," they growled. "Ever since your first battle against the Vigilant Order, ever since you lost your dear Variel."

Jinn gasped at the mention of her name, pushing back on the curved blade, though he could feel the trembling walkway become less steady beneath him.

"Oh yes, we know of her and what you did. We know of your every step, your long road to Waterdeep, and of your arrival in this ward, with that sword to wield against one specific angel. Never doubt the schemes and vision of a god."

"You… lie!" he managed, straining against their strength. "To save yourselves!"

"We are in the endgame, deva," they replied, twisting backward and kicking him back into a tangle of loosened wires. "We have no reason to lie."

Jinn freed himself easily, but the shadowy figure leaped higher, landing on the narrow ledge around the dome of glass, dark hands pressed against the frosted pane.

"Nine silvered tongues. Nine families," Jinn provoked, hoping to anger them. "I've learned some. I will discover the rest."

"Perhaps." They chuckled again but weaker, more faint. "But for now you are mistaken. There are ten bloodlines to fall, not nine."

Their laughter rose, each voice taking an equal part, reaching a fevered, manic pitch as they smashed the glass barehanded. Blood rained down from the obscured flesh of their forearms, shards of glass jutting out at sharp angles through the clinging, smoky mist. Even as they jumped from the mansion's roof, the shadows dissipated, leaving the bloodied body of a young man with just time enough to scream, plummeting to the iron-spiked fence below.

Jinn flinched as the scream abruptly ended. He stood still in the quiet, eyes fixed on the clouds overhead, wondering what to believe and what to discount. With a measured step, he eventually descended the spiral stairway, boots crunching on clay shards and crushing dying flowers.

"Ten bloodlines," he muttered thoughtfully, listening as renewed shouts of the Watch echoed from outside. He did not sheathe his sword, a quiet fury still burning in his gut, shaking in his clenched fists, determined to have answers before sunrise.

"The Loethes are dead."