Nēs̆u watched until the Seraph had joined the others at the fire before he turned to Jasper, and spoke quietly. “What was the vision really about?”
“In the vision, I’ve been captured by the cult. Two women are lying on an altar, and a man asks me to choose.”
“Tsia and Annatta?”
Jasper nodded. “Yeah. What I don’t get, though, is why he wants me to choose. Aren’t these sacrifices being used to fuel Yas̆gah’s ascension? You’d think she’d just want to kill all of us.”
“So there’s something we’re missing,” Nēs̆u surmised.
“Got to be,” he agreed. “And there’s something else. Just now, when I saw the vision again, the Anzuzu forbid me from telling Abnu.”
“But why? Unless…do you think they’re part of the cult?” Surprise flickered in the Sicyan’s eyes.
“I don’t know,” Jasper admitted. “Maybe Abnu’s just a really good actor, but I don’t think he’s on the side of the cult, and I definitely don’t think he’d sacrifice his men just to get at us. But, he was the one who pushed to take a riskier route, and he was also the one who should have been watching over Tsia. Maybe it’s just bad luck or…” Jasper hesitated. “It could be something worse.”
Nēs̆u shook his head. “I don’t know the Seraph that all well, but he doesn’t seem devious enough to pull off such a trickery. If anything, he’s a hot-headed fool, but an honest one. But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be someone near to him that’s cooperating with the cult.”
“They could have a mole,” Jasper agreed.
“A what?”
“Someone in their organization who’s working for the other side,” Jasper explained. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “When I met with the Seraph elders, there was just something about them that made me feel a little uneasy. Maybe I was just a bit prejudiced against them after they let someone try to kill me, but I got the distinct feeling that there was something they were hiding. The only real evidence I had, though, was that they didn’t want help from the royal guard. But if they had a mole, it could explain how Tsia was kidnapped with no one noticing.”
“Mere incompetence could explain that,” Nēs̆u grunted, “but you could be right.”
“It raises another problem, too. If the Seraphs can’t be fully trusted, who’s to say the location we’re being taken to is even the right one?” A thought struck him, and he shot Nēs̆u a hopeful glance. “Any chance Vāya could confirm where Tsia and Annatta were taken?”
“I thought of that myself, but…” he hesitated, then shook his head. “I will try,” he affirmed. He plopped down in the mud and crossed his legs. “Will you keep watch while I meditate?”
Jasper agreed, and the Sicyan closed his eyes.
The minutes ticked by slowly as Jasper waited. It really didn’t take Nēs̆u that long to slip into meditation, but as the adrenaline worked its way out of Jasper’s system, sheer and utter exhaustion followed close in its path. It was all he could do to stay awake. Fortunately, Nēs̆u stirred before Jasper lost his battle with sleep, and the words he spoke were more than enough to jolt him wide awake.
“She’s not heading west.” The warrior got to his feet - or at least he tried to. Instead, his legs buckled beneath and he fell headlong into the muck. Snapping out of his fugue, Jasper rushed to help him. To his surprise, Nēs̆u didn’t try to brush his hand off but accepted his aid to stand.
“You alright?” Jasper asked with a touch of concern.
The man took a moment to respond. “I’m fine. It just…Vāya’s request took more out of me than I expected.”
“Vāya’s request?” Jasper wrinkled his brow. “What are you talking about?”
“Vāya is a fickle god. Sometimes she grants aid with no expectation of payment and sometimes he expects sacrifice. Today, she wanted something in return.”
Jasper knew he probably shouldn’t pry, but curiosity burned within him. “What did Vāya ask for?”
Nēs̆u chuckled wryly. “Nothing much. Just the sacrifice of one of my skills.”
He saw the shock in Jasper’s eyes and shrugged. “I’d sacrifice all my skills if it helps me save the lass. And the boon he granted was much greater than usual. I can sense her, Jasper, both her and the Djinn; I don't know where they're headed, but they are being taken north, not west.”
The North? Jasper thought back to their trip to Dūr-Yarha. He’d done his best to suppress his memories of his time in Naḫas̆s̆inu, of the nizurtū and the dead gods, but as it all came rushing back, he called himself an idiot for the second time that night. Of course. Idiot - how did I not see the connections? A dagger that kills gods would be the perfect gift for a demigod looking to ascend with the help of a little deicide.
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He didn’t know why the Seraphs believed the cult was headquartered in the village of Nib’u. Maybe there really was a settlement there; maybe they’d been fed false information by moles; maybe it was all a trap. But none of those possibilities really mattered.
The two men reached the conclusion at the same time. “We have to go north.”
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When the morning arrived, Jasper faced the difficult task of telling Abnu that they wouldn’t be accompanying the Seraphs to Nib’u. He’d expected an angry confrontation; the Seraph had a short fuse in the best of situations, and after the previous night, Jasper doubted any of them had a shred of patience left. What he didn’t expect was apathy.
“Alright,” Abnu replied laconically.
“That’s it?” Jasper blurted out in surprise.
The man shrugged. “After everything was over last night, I couldn’t get back to sleep. And as I lay there awake, with nothing to do but think, I realized you’d lied. You said that the vision had something to do with why your friends were taken and then, after you experienced the vision again, you said it was something to do with the Empire.”
Crap. “I can explain,” Jasper started to say, but the Seraph shook his head.
“You don’t need to. The answer’s obvious, isn’t it? You don’t trust us.” Jasper started to protest, and the man raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Come on. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Well…” Jasper’s rebuttal fell silent; they both knew the truth.
A slightly bitter smile creased the man’s lips, but it vanished quickly. “You know, I was pretty angry when I realized that. Damn near stormed over and demanded a duel right then and there. But as I cooled down a bit, I guess…I can’t really blame you. The trust was already damaged after Laylah, and it was made ten times worse after the elders let my uncle pull his little stunt. If you still trusted us after last night,” Abnu cracked a grin, “honestly, I’d probably think you’re an idiot.”
Jasper chuckled back. “The way the last few days have been going, I’m not so sure you’re wrong.”
A moment of silence passed between the two before Abnu spoke again. “Wherever you’re going, I hope you track down the cult. Make ‘em pay for what they’ve done to my people, won’t you?”
“Believe me,” Jasper vowed, “When I’m done with them, they’ll wish they’d never heard my name.”
The Seraphs departed soon after, though not before carefully tying the bodies of their dead comrades to their horses. Only then did they trot off in the quickly drying muck, leaving the three of them behind.
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With a sigh, Barbartu stepped away from the table she’d been leaning over. After hours of bending over, the slight ache in her back and pressure in her temples were enough to remind her that she wasn’t as young as she used to be. The word old would never leave her lips, though.
Her hand lingered on the large bronze basin, and the water in it tremored. In truth, she felt the urge to flip it over; her attempts at scrying had been trying. Though much of her magic worked reasonably in this god-forsaken land, scrying was a far less informative and far more mana-intensive process than back home. But refusing to indulge her own petulance, she lifted her hand cleanly off the bowl and walked away. I’d just have to clean the water up anyways.
As she exited into the hall, she pondered what she’d seen. Her plan had accomplished everything she’d hoped. Even now, Jasper should have split off from the Seraphs and begun to head in her direction. And unless she’d overestimated him, he’d probably already divined the true site of the ritual.
But that wasn’t to say the plan had gone perfectly. She’d expected more from the Seraphs; the mūtū she’d summoned were hardly fearsome foes, but if Jasper and his friends hadn’t intervened, the whole group might well have ended up perishing. If they have any hope of success in their assault on Nib’u, they better be tougher than that.
Her lip curled down as she thought of the trap the cult had prepared for Seraphs in the little village. The fools had failed to realize that some of their own belonged to the cult. It was obvious, in her opinion - how else had the brotherhood managed to prey for so long on Seraphs without being noticed? - but that was what happened when you picked leaders by how old they were rather than how capable.
The cult had transformed the little village into a veritable fortress and had led the Seraphs straight to it, like a lamb to the slaughter. Pathetic. Still, Barbartu probably would have tried to save them if it had been possible to do so without drawing attention to her own schemes. In the end, though, she decided the risk was too large to take. The Seraphs would simply have to save themselves and if they didn't, well...que sera, sera.
One of the brethren was waiting for her at the end of the hall and bowed low as she approached. “My lady, the Mistress has asked to see you.”
Her heart skipped a beat, but she was no amateur. Not a sign of trepidation appeared on her face as she lifted her hand imperiously and commanded the cultist to lead her there. He quickly led her out of the hall and then, as she had feared, toward the great staircase.
The brotherhood had taken up residence at the entrance to Naḫas̆s̆inu; though the outside still looked decrepit and abandoned, the inside had been scrubbed until it sparkled - and it did indeed sparkle, as the brotherhood had also replaced the hundreds of lamps whose essence stones had long since burned out. It was only natural, she supposed, an unconscious defense against the hideous darkness that lay below.
They’d ventured there too, albeit more reluctantly. Technically, the nizirtū were their allies, but there was little love lost between the two groups, and they avoided each other as much as possible. Still, they’d been forced to carry out repairs along the great winding staircase that descended into the pit and reinstalled lights which, though unable to wholly banish the unnatural shadows, had done something to soften the fear they invoked.
Barbartu was no coward, but she hated the pit as much as the rest of them. They all knew what lurked in the shadows and though the Mistress had promised to slay it upon her ascension, Barbartu was not wholly convinced that she was actually capable of the deed. Mēs̆ūta - or Yas̆gah as she styled herself now - was no doubt the most powerful mortal in the province. Even the Djinn king, mighty though he was, was not her equal. But was she really equal to a god - even a dead one? Barbartu was skeptical, but she knew expressing such doubts would not be good for her health.