James Davis: Circle of Skulls

Somewhere, somehow, a life would soon end, the chill and night's shadows told him as much. The chill wanted a better cloak or coat, warmer boots, and a warm meal. Shadow gave that want a place to hide a knife.

"Need a guide, saer?"

Jinn turned, startled from his thoughts by a child's voice.

"Find your way through the city, I can!"

A glance at the boy, out at night and alone, told him much that the boy's thin clothes and thinner health had not already declared, though the child's bright eyes held a wisdom beyond his young years.

"You know these streets well?" Jinn asked.

"Well as any man o' the Watch, saer!" the boy answered excitedly.

"What is your name, young master?" Jinn asked, kneeling down and receiving the usual shocked stare as the boy looked into his eyes in wonder.

"Tombil," he said, taking half a step backward nervously.

"Well, young Master Tombil, I am Jinnaoth, and I have no need of a guide this night." He stood but swiftly produced a large, platinum coin, called a sun, and let it shine before Tombil's eyes before adding, "But should we cross paths again, I may have need of your mastery of the streets." He pressed the coin into Tombil's hand and grinned, letting the boy get a good look at him. "Remember me well."

"Aye, saer. I will, saer!"

Tombil ran off, clutching the coin tightly. Jinn watched after him a moment, always fascinated with children of all races, as he had never been a child and could not fathom the games and rituals of childhood and growing up. Several of the shadows in Tombil's wake, along the walls of closed shops and noble mansions, shifted slightly, huddled figures sidling away from his sight.

It wasn't long before he arrived at the outer walls of the Saerfynn Manor. As he entered Pharra's Alley, he studied what details could be made out along the walls, on the cobbles, already assuming the place to have been the scene of one of Allek's mysterious murders. The alley was wide and clean, as was most of Sea Ward, the wealthiest in Waterdeep. It was decently lit save for the middle and the end, the latter of which bore the gates of the House of Wonder. A Watch patrol made its way by at the far end, one man separating from the group and offering Jinn a wave.

Jinn paused close to the wall across from the Saerfynn grounds, finding a spot that had been missed when the scene was cleared. A thin splash of rust lay in a short, straight line on the stone at shoulder height. He studied the angle and direction of the stain as Allek approached, reading a piece of the tale of what had occurred there.

"Jinn, well met," the rorden said.

"This was recent?" Jinn asked, pointing to the stain and noting the look of surprise on Allek's face.

"Yes," he answered. "Last evening, roughly four bells before sunrise."

"It was a long blade," Jinn said, tracing the arc of the splatter with a gloved finger. "A shallow cut, imprecise and unpracticed. Possibly a defensive injury, not a killing wound by any measure."

"Gods, Jinn," Allek whispered and turned away from the wall, shaking his head. "I need those eyes on my payroll."

Jinn looked away from the stain. "I'm sorry," he said. "Old blood tends to tell stories of how and sometimes when, but very rarely who. You have my deepest sympathies for your loss. I didn't realize-"

"No, forgive me," the rorden said. "It has been difficult separating duty from family. I honor them more by working to find out what curse has befallen us."

"Why this place?" Jinn asked, putting the moment behind them.

"Right," Allek said, an officer of the Watch once more. "Here we received the first and only evidence we've gotten from this whole mess." The rorden led Jinn to the House of Wonder's gates. "Are you familiar with the circle of skulls?"

"No."

"An old wives' tale, according to some. Others call them ghosts, bogeymen, or spellhaunts, believing them to be magical remnants of the Spellplague. But tales of the skulls go back much farther than the Spellplague." Allek's gaze drifted to the stones of the alley with a haunted, faraway look. "I saw them once, when I was a child. Glowing with green flames, spitting fire at anyone that came near. Then they just faded away. Always in this spot."

Jinn circled the area, studying what appeared to be a normal patch of ground, nothing out of the ordinary that he could see.

"How does this connect with…?" Jinn asked.

"The killer, a young man named Dason Hallsahf, before he lost his ability to reason, spoke of skulls, of green fire. Rambled on and on about them." Allek's voice grew tight, angry, barely held in check.

"What else did he say? Anything?"

"There was something about being trapped and 'dirty men,"' Allek answered, then added, "He said he saw an angel."

Hands curled into fists, Jinn attempted to calmly nod, still pretending to study the ground where ghostly skulls were said to rise, though his heart pounded and his breath quickened. Reflexively, he glanced at the sky, expecting dark wings to descend at any moment and fiercely willing them to do so.

The corridors of the Westwall were of cold stone as Jinn followed Rorden Allek down quiet hallways, through empty rooms, and into chambers well guarded from the public eye. Beyond the guards and heavy doors was a series of small rooms pervaded by a strange, sterile smell. Jinn's skin tingled with energy, sensing magic. Allek nodded to an officer with a gray goatee and a well-worn saber at his side. The old man, introduced as Officer Yarrow, produced a ring of keys and led them down to the last door on the left.

"Don't use the quiet rooms much anymore," Yarrow said as he fumbled for the right key. "Had 'em down here more than a century or so now, just collectin' dust mostly."

"These chambers cease the body's process of decay," Allek explained. "Useful in somewhat rare cases like this."

"Eastwall used to have somethin' similar, until the Spellplague came through and ruined it," Yarrow mumbled. Then he smiled as he found the right key. "Rooms on that side started workin' too well, bringin' folk back to life… well, not life mind ye, but-"

"I think I understand," Jinn said as the door opened, lanternlight spilling across the stained white dress of a young woman, lying atop a rune-inscribed slab of stone. Allek turned away but did not leave. He dismissed Officer Yarrow as Jinn examined the body of Allek's niece, Alma Marson.

Her wounds, as Jinn had surmised from the alley, were mostly small and superficial, painful but not deadly, save for a small puncture in the left side of her chest. The cut was just wide enough to allow a thin blade to pass between the ribs and find the heart-one precise, fatal stab, amid a flurry of wild blows. Jinn took the wounds in, committing them to memory, though his eyes were fixed upon the line of injuries running from the base of her neck to her navel. Each was thin and deliberately shaped: an alphabet of some sort that he had never chanced upon before, possibly arcane and utterly mysterious.

"Alma was the most recent," Allek said as Jinn quickly sketched the characters carved into the girl's skin. Her dress had been cut down the center of her chest, exposing a scarred ribbon of pale flesh. Little blood seemed to have flowed from the precise wounds, possibly a sign of magic or that the cutting had been done with little struggle. "We did not keep the other bodies, cremating the remains until such time as we can safely inform the families."

"Their wounds were the same?" Jinn asked, examining the girl's left hand where the ring finger had been neatly removed.

"Yes," the rorden answered. "On all save Dessa Marson, my brother's wife. Her… throat had been cut, a single wound."

"She got in the way," Jinn muttered, replacing the small chapbook of sketches in his coat.

"That was my suspicion," Allek said.