36. Morwormer Hall #3
He talked about how the rituals Morlock conducted weren’t really meant to accomplish a specific goal, but were mass-like proceedings promising fealty to the gods, with a particular focus on the major Egyptian gods, like Amun-Ra, Ma’at, Osiris, Isis, Thoth, Bastet…
and, of course, Anubis. The strong connection the Bones family claimed to that lineage explained why statues of the Egyptian gods were still five times larger than the rest of the gods depicted in Worm Hall, even now.
Bones family lore made all kinds of fantastical claims about the Bloodmark Academy years, including the summoning of massive dark beings, and even changes to the timeline that never got discovered or recorded outside family archives.
“…The worlds have been separated for too long,” Malefic intoned. “From the very beginning, we were told only a ascended Magical, a sorcerer unlike any ordinary Magical, commanding power beyond any seen since the early years of our race, could bring those worlds back together.”
The reddish eyes of the jackal shone.
“We have the means to bring that extraordinary magic forth now,” he thundered next. “Therefore, we must wait no longer. We must not grant the humans even one more day to destroy the half of our world entrusted to them after the Great Separation…”
I watched, silent with the rest of them.
Like before, he gripped a bejeweled dagger in one hand, the scythe-looking implement in the other, with its curved silver blade.
He set the curved scythe on the table, and raised the dagger higher.
“Bring her!” he thundered.
I hadn’t even noticed them standing on either side of me. I’d been so lost in my thoughts, trying to get the gold snake bracelet to work, then seeing the black cobra behind my eyes, then fighting to follow everything Malefic said, that I shrieked when they grabbed my arms.
There were faint gasps as they dragged me over to where Malefic stood, and held me up in front of him.
He displayed the dagger a second time, then motioned closer one of the robed figures nearby, a witch holding an iron bowl inlaid with ornate mother-of-pearl.
When they dragged me closer, he motioned towards the wizard holding me on the right.
“Her arm,” he intoned.
My arm got stretched out, and I writhed, kicking, fighting to get them off me. Malefic seemed bored my all-out effort to get free. He caught hold of my wrist with steel fingers and slashed me across the arm with the dagger.
The blade was so sharp, and he did it so quickly, I barely felt it at first.
Then he was holding my arm over the bowl, and blood was dripping down from the open cut, filling the bottom of it.
When he seemed satisfied by the amount, he flung my arm back towards me, and the nearby crowd murmured again.
I was still standing there, now feeling woozy, although still kicking and writhing whenever the hands holding me seemed to loosen, even a little.
I struggled between them as another robed witch walked up on Malefic’s other side.
She held a tall carafe, and poured its contents into the bowl containing my blood.
It looked like red wine.
When she retreated, Malefic stepped back, and reached up with both hands.
He lifted off the jackal-headed mask while I watched, and set it carefully on the satin cloth covering the table where he’d left his scythe.
I watched, numb, as he walked back to the witch holding the iron bowl with its mother-of-pearl designs.
He took it from he with both hands, lifted it to his mouth, and began to drink.
His black hair was tied back at his temples.
His neck and upper chest looked almost bare without the mask.
He drank and drank, lifting the bowl as he consumed more of it.
He wasn’t particularly careful, and drops ran over the sides and stained his fingers.
They splattered on the marble floor and his black hair dipped into it.
I watched him drink, fighting nausea as he tilted his head all the way back, his throat moving with each thick swallow. At the end, he sucked out the last of it, and something about the sounds struck me as utterly obscene.
The entire spectacle made me want to retch. To my magic, it felt like he was consuming me. I wanted to scrub my skin with iron wool.
When it felt like he’d never be finished, never stop making those vile, sucking, swallowing noises, suddenly he had finished.
He placed the bowl back in the witch’s hands.
The two mages, apparently by some signal I didn’t see, began dragging me into the center of the drawn circle on the floor. They passed me through the ring of the outer layer of hieroglyphics, and dragged me all the way to the center.
Malefic followed without a word, his head still bare.
As soon as he crossed the same two rings I crossed, the runes around him immediately began to glow like burning, dark coals.
Before I could tear my eyes off that, the two mages holding me and dragging me backwards dropped me in the center of the inner ring. I stumbled and fell, my body and magic still not working right, and landed painfully on my knees.
I gasped, staring up at Malefic as he approached. I couldn’t stop the terror growing in my chest. It didn’t help to see the blood still running down his chin and neck, darkening the black uniform at the top of his chest.
This definitely hadn’t been part of the plan.
But it was too late to stop any of it.