James Davis - Circle of Skulls

…

"You requested Allek's death, didn't you?" Jinn asked.

"Marson had gone too far," Dregg growled, his eyes rolling back. "He spoke against my promotion countless times, said I was too angry to lead. I enjoyed watching him squirm, looking for killers that had never really existed, but then he wanted Rilyana. Never!"

Dregg's tirade devolved into a choking cough, his chest rising and falling violently, little streams of blood becoming rivers from his wounds as he thrashed against his bonds. Jinn waited for him to spend his strength, stood by as the convulsions slowed before continuing.

"Who else is helping Tallus?" he asked.

"I don't know. He never told me," the human answered weakly. "But Rilyana's brother, Callak, was never in any danger. He and the wizard had some kind of an agreement."

Dregg's voice trailed off, his head lolled from side to side, delirious and either dying from his wounds or driven to madness by the pain of them. Jinn grabbed his shoulders and shook him roughly.

"The angel, Dregg!" he shouted. "What about the angel!"

"Voices… wings… he kept asking for the souls…," the human slurred and muttered, falling deeper into a feverish dementia. "A circle of souls… Tallus betrays them all for loose fingers, hidden souls, and immortality. Kill me, deva. Go and let them use you too, so I can see you soon…"

"Gods have mercy," Quessahn whispered, standing in the doorway and staring at the rorden as he managed a weak laugh, rusty stains between his teeth as he began to bleed out, his life pouring onto the floor of Briarbones's chamber. The eladrin turned away, pushing past Mara as the hag entered the room and regarded the dying human.

"I was wondering when you would get your hands dirty," Mara remarked with a sly grin. She pulled forth a small, red gem from beneath her cloak. She approached the rorden with a hungry gleam in her eye. "No sense letting him to go to waste."

"No," Jinn said, grabbing her wrist and meeting the crimson glare that flashed beneath her illusory eyes. He ignored her anger, disgusted by her greed for souls and by himself for tolerating it for so long. "Let this one go."

"You overstep your bounds, deva. We have an agreement," she snarled, ivory teeth wavering, revealing the lioness fangs hidden behind her human lips. "What makes this soul special? Why protect it?"

"Because I haven't yet lost my own," he replied, forcing her hand away as gently as possible. His gold eyes gleamed in the candlelight. "I believe there will be dark souls aplenty for your gems in the days to come, do you not agree?"

"Very well," Mara answered curtly, putting the ruby away. "I suppose we all need something every now and then to help us sleep at night, eh?" She gestured at the rorden's broken body. "I trust your tender mercies did not keep you from questioning the poor dear?"

"Do you have the book?" he asked, ignoring her taunts.

"Of course," she answered, a suspicious glint in her eye as she stepped away from him, one hand hidden beneath her cloak. "It is quite fascinating so far, though parts are difficult to decipher-"

"Draconic?" Briar supplied, edging closer, his hands fidgeting. "Elvish? Infernal, Abyssal, Primordial, Deep Speech, or perhaps-?"

"Gibberish, in fact," Mara said, producing the tome, though she kept it far from Briarbones's reach. "The archmage's handwriting is atrocious, rambling, and excited, but all that the skulls had to tell him, he did indeed put to paper."

"Good," Jinn said abruptly. "Figure it out. Look for references to souls, special ones. Sathariel is after them, and I want them first."

"And in the meantime, you will be…?" Mara asked.

"The skulls have more allies," Jinn replied. "Tallus is dead, the Loethes are dead, so someone else is helping them, giving them the power to possess."

"Any leads?" Mara asked, gesturing at Dregg with a raised eyebrow and a vicious smile.

"Callak Saerfynn," he said. "He may know enough to finish the spell, if nothing else." He paused, a thought occurring to him mid-stride. "How do we know the ritual isn't already finished?"

"We are still alive," Mara answered absently, pages turning in her deft hands. "The completed spell will not be an event one would wish to witness, unless Tallus's descriptions of widespread destruction are wrong."

Her words, cold and humorless, took hold in Jinn's thoughts, evoking images of burning homes, bodies in the streets, and a city's mourning, all over the ambitions of a greedy few. The idea of continued murders sounded almost appealing compared to the alternative.

"Are you ever going to rest?" Quessahn asked, sitting in the dark just beyond the pale light from above. Jinn did not move, fearful of seeing her face again, fearful of the memories she might arouse within him.

"I've grown accustomed to long nights over the years," he answered. "It makes things easier. I find that people tend to be more honest in the dark."

"I'm curious, then. What would you have done, had you slain Sathariel two nights ago?" she asked. "Would you still be here?"

"I don't know," he said. "It never crossed my mind."

"What did he do? What did he take from you?"

Jinn sighed under his breath, attempting to cool the sudden anger that raced in his heart, but he could not deny it its due course, just as he could no longer accept Quessahn's deliberate avoidance of what they both knew.

"Another of my kind. A deva," he replied. He turned to her, narrowing his gold eyes to fine points as he found hers in shadow. "A woman I loved."

She remained still as he studied her, watching for some reaction, seeking some quiet admission of guilt from the eladrin.

"He-he killed her?" she asked at length, a barely perceptible catch in her voice.

"No," he answered. "He corrupted her, confused her, and made her soul as black as his own. In the end, she took her own life."

Though he said the words, he found that he no longer felt them, unmoved by the gruesome truth of Variel's death, despite the hate that had taken root within him. Of all his time with her, the peace he'd once known, he had spent far longer tracking down the angel. He realized that the place in his heart where he'd once kept her memory had been filled by his hunt for Sathariel… and the attention of Asmodeus.

"Now he corrupts you," Quessahn muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

Jinn looked up to the surface, tiny shafts of light beckoning him to leave the eladrin in the dark with her righteousness. He smiled, a forced grin.

"What about you?" he asked. "Was my death not closure enough? Did my grave, assuming I had one, not suffice your mourning so much that you felt inspired to bring your grief to this city? To find me?" He turned, voice rising as he confronted her. "Is it comforting to find me somehow less than what you knew? To judge me with your every breath?"

"Oh, gods," she whispered, breathless and shaking, a single choking sob escaping her as she covered her ears and shook her head in her hands. "No…"

Jinn stopped, her tears stabbing into his chest as he turned away, unwilling to witness what he had done.

Quessahn's hope for a lost love sat bitterly in the pit of his stomach, crushed by his words and devoured by a petty rage that melted away as swiftly as it had come. He took hold of the ladder, his arm heavy and the climb to the surface seeming more difficult than before.

"I–I cannot be the man you once knew. My kind, no… I do not work that way," he managed, his voice softer as he climbed. "You should not have found me."

He slid the sewer covering away and rolled into the street, covering the entrance and staring blankly up at the gray sky, the damp cobbles soaking through his clothes. He listened for her voice, wondering if she might stop him to scream and curse his name. He imagined her again as he had in Tallus's tower, smiling and surrounded by an ocean of waving green, the faint memory of a bygone life reaching out to torment him.