James Davis - Circle of Skulls

A quiet gasp escaped her as she fought to contain the power around her, the magic thrashing to be set free, loosed to her desired effect. At length the angel's name quieted in her mind, a cool calm settling among her thoughts, and she knew her spell had been answered.

The dark house grew darker, bereft of light save for the soft glow of the circles around her, a faerie fire to draw the angel in like a moth from the depths of the Nine Hells. Massive wings spoke in tones of thunder as he appeared, his very presence like a weakening of the heart. He drifted down from the tall ceiling, his body crafted of black flame, clothed in silvered armor shaped to resemble screaming faces. A long blade hung at his side, and a halo of flickering shadow curled around his featureless face, tiny, ice blue pinpoints glaring at her from within the twin pits of his eyes.

Is this your part to play, eladrin? his voice growled in her thoughts and shook the tenuous tethers of her spell. To summon me here and somehow foil the dark ritual of the nine skulls? Or is it to save the courageous deva from my wrath? Her mind filled with his laughter, a derisive storm that crashed against her resolve. Your sacrifice is indeed noble but terribly misguided. I can almost taste your ignorance, a veritable feast of empty gestures that only delay the inevitable.

"Y-you mock me. I court with beings far beyond the angelic lackeys of youngling gods," she said as the spell took on its final shape, binding itself to her as she bound herself to its purpose.

Indeed, a passing acquaintance, I am sure, with powers that defeated themselves in an age long before the rise of mortals, Sathariel replied. Ah, but could they smell your weakness now, I daresay they might awaken again.

"Until then… let us speak," she said, and she loosed the spell, sighing as it ran its course, flooding her body with tingling power.

A wave of green energy leaped from her palms at Sathariel as he drew and swung his heavy blade. The sword sparked at the edge of the circle, rebounding from the protective spell even as jade energy gripped his shadowlike body and mingled in its deep black like spilled ink.

What is this, witch? he shouted in her mind as his body shuddered and trembled, unable to escape the cloying power that coursed through him.

"A simple ward, a circle to keep you at arm's length, and this"-she held up her hands, flickering with a nimbus of green energy-"this will tell me a bit of your future, what those slumbering beings among the stars see in their dreams of things that are and things that could be."

Look well, then, elf, the angel replied, roaring in her thoughts as he crashed his blade against the outer circle, sparks showering around them both. For you are a doomed voyeur, a witness to your own death… and the deva's!

"Undoubtedly," she said, a familiar cairn settling her racing heart, her mind's eye drifting to maps of the constellations. Her back arched painfully as power rushed between their bodies. Blinded by a flash of white light, she felt as though she were suddenly flying, the fate of an angel flooding her senses.

A swirl of colors swam on the insides of Jinn's eyelids. Breath, heavy and laborious, poured into his lungs like warm syrup, tasting of fire and things long dead. A grating noise, like boulders roughly dragged down a paved avenue, rumbled in his throat as sparks of consciousness hissed in his mind. He recalled a brief moment of savage fury, light on his heels, a sword in his hand as he leaped for the throat of Archmage Tallus.

All else was pain and rough stone floor on his back.

His skin felt burned as he turned on his side, leaning on one elbow and blinking the haze from his eyes. The edges of the wizard's ritual circle rippled lazily, waves flowing around and around the pair within the concentric rings of magic. Tallus glanced at him once, appearing amused but engrossed in his work as he carried out the instructions of the nine skulls. Rilyana's gaze did not falter, however, her face set in an excited, manic expression as Jinn sat up, grimacing as he took up his stolen blade.

"Do you feel better now?" the archmage asked, inscribing a deft sigil in the lid of the wooden chest on the pedestal. "I suspect your angel will make that attempt as well and gain much the same result."

"Your angel, I believe. I do not ally myself with lapdogs of Asmodeus," Jinn replied, sliding the edge of his blade along the perimeter of the ritual circle, air burning at the contact between magic and steel.

"Well, partnerships of convenience come and go so swiftly, do they not? And I believe you are the last one to be judging the dubious contacts of others, or have you and the night hag had a falling out?" Tallus sat back from the chest, grinning at his work.

Jinn ignored the human and shifted his weight, testing his legs before rising to a low crouch. He studied the chamber as he did so, looking for some crack, some weakness he might exploit to slow the progress of the skulls' ritual.

"Your kind are not welcome within this circle," Rilyana said, kneeling to catch Jinn's eye. "It has lain buried here for three centuries, waiting for this night to happen."

Jinn leaned close to the invisible barrier, a palpable charge around it tingling on his skin. He regarded the young woman who had seduced Allek Marson, Lucian Dregg, Archmage Tallus, and, if the rumors were to be believed, her own brother, who lay unconscious and bloodied barely a stride away.

"No, Mistress Saerfynn, it has been here far longer than that. This circle was a dream long before Waterdeep even had a name. The runes you hide behind owe more to prophecy than the villainy of greedy wizards," he said with a cruel smile, knowing the ambition that brought her to the brink of immortality would be the same that consigned her to the grim delights of a devil-god's court.

Rilyana leaned closer to him, her smile never faltering, her eyes bright and knowing. He could smell the heady scent of her perfume as she licked her lips and lowered her eyes demurely, smirking as she spoke.

"You and Sathariel are much alike, more than I'd expected," she said, adding mysteriously, "I can see why he likes you."

She withdrew swiftly to the archmage's side as Jinn leaned back, speechless as the wizard's voice rose to a shout, a profane chant that sent shivers through the deva's blood. The circle flared to brilliant life, energy spinning low over the carved symbols, raising sparks like the gears of a clockwork machine gone mad. The house shook, groaning again, and Jinn doubled over, sickened by a wave of unholy power as somehow, in the pit of his being, he felt a change in the air and knew what had happened.

The true ritual had just begun.

Hollow voices filled the chamber as Tallus fell silent and turned to the body of Callak, which stirred, writhing and convulsing on the floor.

"Tallus!" Callak cried, the name split among nine screeching tones, all of them furious.

Green flames burst from Callak's eyes, roaring high as shadows flooded from his wide mouth like thick smoke, curling and wrapping around his arms and legs, the misty strings of nine sorcerous puppeteers. He spasmed and lurched, rising on his hands as the darkness obscured his flesh, leaving only the flaming green eyes, which turned and glared at the archmage.

"Idiot! Fool! You have betrayed us!" they cried, voices cracking like a whip.

"Nonsense," Tallus replied calmly. "I have merely quickened the pace of our arrangement, though I suspected you would not be terribly pleased."

"We shall rip you limb from limb, knit you back together, make you a plaything for demons and a temple for maggots!" the Nine shouted.

"No, you won't," the archmage responded as Rilyana leaned upon his shoulder, "for there are a dozen souls left for you to prepare. Time is fleeting, but it has not yet left you behind. That is, provided you contribute your own souls to the ritual before the work is ruined…"