10. The Green Flame #2
Rough, stone walls rose on four sides. Muddy, greenish water spotted the high ceilings and dripped down from the corners of the room.
A rectangular opening stood directly in front of me, leading to a steep slope upward.
Something about that door and its tunnel reminded me of the Ancient Egyptian temple Forsooth created in the Aether for the Second Year’s Party.
Hieroglyphs adorned the tunnel walls in gold and and black, along with larger images of snakes and various depictions of Anubis, Ra, Thoth, Ma’at, and other gods.
Someone next to me moved.
Their robes rustled, and the feel of being surrounded by magic pulled me.
My attention shifted there.
The bare profile of a pale, wrinkled face, shrouded in a black hood, appeared to be a less than a foot away. Yellowing teeth were visible through tight lips as he bared them at whatever held his full attention. He didn’t feel my stare. He didn’t notice me in any way.
I glanced to my other side and saw another robed figure.
Then another.
I followed the circle around where we all stood and saw over a dozen on either side, standing around a cleared space in the center of the room, and below the highest part of the ceiling. I saw a familiar face that was younger, and stopped on it.
Strangemore? It was undoubtedly him.
The last I’d heard he was in a hospital somewhere, but that had been months ago. He’d proven to be a monster in his own way, but Dark Cathedral? I hadn’t expected that.
The longer I looked at him, though, the more puzzled I became. Something about his facial expression looked off. His eyes looked different, a gleaming silver where they used to be violet, hadn’t they? Even his posture struck me as not how I remembered.
Something about his magic looked wrong, too.
Resurrected. Blackstone’s presence was a bare whisper. He is dead.
I fought with the blank permanence of his appraisal.
I tried to decide if I cared.
In the end, my attention shifted from the odd image of Strangemore who wasn’t Strangemore, and returned to the other faces around the circle.
Eventually, I ran out of faces, and my attention followed all of theirs to the center space, where the green smoke swirled, distorting the outline of a tall form dressed all in black.
When I saw the masked figure standing there, a colder rage rippled through me, deeper than anything I felt seeing Strangemore again. I couldn’t see his face, his hair, or any of his skin, but I still knew him, even before my mind made sense of the rest of it.
It was Malefic.
I knew who it was, even before logic got me there by other means.
It had been Malefic who had spoken. I hadn’t recognized his voice. It had been distorted and deepened by the mask, which also vibrated his words, projecting them inside the high-ceilinged space, but I knew it was him.
“Kneel,” he repeated, colder.
Again, the lone word echoed.
For the barest instant, I thought he was talking to me.
I stared at the jackal’s head he wore, fighting to control my emotional reaction to seeing him.
That reaction wasn’t fear, although maybe it should have been.
It was blinding rage, a feeling of helpless fury that felt outside of my control.
I knew some of what he’d done already. I had a good idea what he’d continue to do, and allow to happen.
I wanted to kill him.
I wanted him dead.
I’d been conscious of having that feeling before.
When he attacked Bones in his tower at Malcroix, I’d been filled with a similar rage when I thought he’d killed Caelum.
I tried to murder Malefic that day, but I’d also hesitated, for reasons I could only speculate about now.
He’d been Bones’s father. I’d never killed anyone before. I hadn’t been sure what was right.
In the end, my cousin and the Praecuri broke into the room, making the decision for me, but if I were being honest, I still thought about that morning.
I ran through all the things I could have done differently, what my life would be like now if I’d tried harder, if I hadn’t hesitated, if I’d hit him with the cutting spell somewhere more fatal, or if I simply kept going once I had him cornered in Bones’s lavatory.
Some part of me felt responsible for all of this.
Maybe I was responsible for all of this.
Pay attention, Blackstone’s mind whispered in my ear.
With an effort, I focused back on the center of the ritual circle.
As I concentrated, white stone glowed from cut lines in the black marble, forming hieroglyphs and other symbols inside the pale rings. Some of those symbols I knew, but even more I didn’t recognize. Behind Malefic, and slightly to his right, a stone basin burned with tall green flames.
Under the jackal’s head, Malefic wore all black.
His clothing had been designed so that it looked like a uniform, a militarized version of priest’s robes.
Silver and gold detail stood out on his arms and boots, mirroring the symbols carved into the floor.
Gold inlays formed intricate details in the design of the jackal mask, which appeared as an enormous Anubis-head, sitting perfectly on his broad shoulders.
Like the rest of his clothing, the mask was obsidian black. His black-gloved hands clenched in fists by his thighs, and green smoke seethed from between his fingers.
Malefic didn’t see me, any more than his pathetic worshippers did.
He moved to one side of the circle carved into the rock floor as I watched, right before another figure emerged from the mist.
“Kneel, whelp, or I’ll ensure you won’t get back up anytime soon.”
My breath stopped.
My focus shifted more deliberately to my right.
Immediately, it felt like I’d been punched in the middle of my chest.
Pain rippled out from my sternum. I started to shake.
Bones stood there.
Some part of me must have known he was in the room, standing so close. Maybe I’d avoided him, even more strongly than I avoided Malefic.
Maybe Bones felt me there and did everything he could to keep me out.
He was shirtless, barefoot, wearing only black pants.
He’d lost weight, and his muscles stood out in his arms and chest. His body and face were bruised and cut, well beyond the scars he already wore from his youth.
His eyes looked hollowed out, deadened. He stared at the man in the Anubis mask as if he couldn’t see him.
“KNEEL.”
That time, the word vibrated through my head as well as the air.
It did something to my very blood.
Malefic had pushed it out to my mind, to Bones’s mind, to the minds of every person witnessing whatever this was. I saw robed figures flinch and recoil around the near-circle surrounding the ritual space.
Bones dropped to a kneel. His eyes and face didn’t change expression.
I let out an involuntary sound, something close to a groan.
Be. Silent.
I’d forgotten Blackstone again.
The Oracle’s mind felt closer now, as if he sensed me on the verge of losing control. Blackstone suddenly seemed to be everywhere, even as his thoughts seethed with fury.
I fought to do as he said, because I knew he was right.
We couldn’t stop this. We couldn’t intervene. But we could try to understand it. If I freaked out, if I broke the spell, or let Malefic know we were here, we would come away with nothing. I would have even less information than I had now to help Bones.
I focused back on Malefic, holding back my magic with an effort.
I struggled to view this logically.
We weren’t truly there, in what had to be a secret, underground temple on the Bones property, possibly the same crypt Alaric told me about, the one that lived in the family cemetery.
We were here via some telepathic thread Blackstone hijacked between me and Bones.
While I didn’t know the limits of that exactly, I couldn’t stop this. I couldn’t.
Blackstone’s presence continued to half-strangle mine.
Watch, he hissed softly. I can only see what you see.
I immediately focused my attention back on Bones.
He hadn’t moved from where he knelt before his father. His bare head was bent, his gold eyes even more unfocused. The stone pit with its green flames burned between them, rising nearly to the ceiling without leaving any burn marks on the stone.
Panic hit me.
Whatever was about to happen would be bad. It would be so, so bad.
We have to stop this! I thought at Blackstone. We have to fucking stop him! NOW!
Be. Silent… you ignorant little fool!
We can’t let them complete it! I thought back frantically. They’re going to use him to resurrect someone, or––
No, Blackstone cut in. That is not what this is.
His voice had shifted, like something in my words partly dissipated his anger. His tone grew maddeningly indifferent, which was somehow worse.