The group slipped mostly unnoticed up the narrow, winding staircase that lead to the headmistress's tower. The room within was unimpressive, considering the import of its occupant. There were scorch marks everywhere, from a fight or from normal magical mishaps Adahni didn't dare to guess. But the piles of junk in the corner looked fairly unharmed, and they were, indeed, junk. The garret was fairly reminiscent of the hovel Anya had languished in before she and Gann had arrived to set things right.
"This is… or rather, was my mother's private sanctum. I hate the notion of Araman staying here. I'd rather burn my mother's books than have Araman read a single page of them."
"If it's any comfort, it looks as though nobody has taken anything. There are enough books on the floor to fill the shelves. Someone was looking for something, and did not find it," Kaelyn observed,
"She's set the deadbolts," Safiya said, running her hand along a door at the opposite end of the one they had entered through, "Or someone has. This door leads to a portal, much like the ones in Shadow Mulsantir. Only my mother knew how to set the destination. I wonder…"
"Someone escaped," Adahni said, "Inarus was right. Could this be the door to the Founder's Sanctum that he spoke of?"
"I never had the magic to shape portals like this. It's not impossible," Safiya said.
"Could you undo the deadbolts? I'm assuming by 'deadbolts' you mean some sort of lock of a magic sort, for I see nothing of the sort attached to the door's mechanism," Gann said.
"That's the most intelligent observation you've made all day," Okku chuckled.
"My other observation was going to be about the shear brute magical force that has been exerted against this door, and recently!" Gann said, "Look at these marks, still glowing."
Kaelyn went up close to the door. Like the dove, her namesake, her eyesight was not terribly keen until she was right up close to something, and once she was, she could see with detail that would put Lord Nasher's finest hunting hawk to shame. She read out loud, her voice hollow,
Four wayward souls, four incomplete
Unique in flaw with fates foregone
Four hidden now, each place indiscreet
Assemble here, advance the pawn
Imitated and damned, imagined and splintered
Four reunited souls, their door thus reentered.
"It doesn't even rhyme," Adahni said.
"I hardly think that's the point," Safiya said, "It seems Inarus's lesson on souls may be more important than we imagined. But this really isn't about soul extraction per se, this is more about all the things one can do with a soul once it has been extracted. I know Mistress Zerzura teaches a class on it…"
"But it doesn't even rhyme," Adahni said again.
"Wait!" Gann said. He had been across the room the entire time, going through the books that had been skimmed then tossed here and there on the floor. He had found one he liked, a loosely bound collection of papers contained in a folder that looked like human skin - if one were to believe the tattoo that decorated the spine of it,, "This is different. This is handwritten. Safi, I think these are your mother's notes."
Safiya took the notebook from his hand and began to skim it, "This is madness," she said, "Sheer madness. This makes no sense. Here, it looks as though she is trying to replicate a soul, but none of these equations make any…"
"Imitated and damned," Kaelyn said, "She must have succeeded in replicating. Otherwise where could she have hidden the imitated soul?"
"We know what damned is," Gann said, "Say, Addie, I wonder if that friendly Falxugon we met in the hags' dreams might have some available for purchase!"
"Enzibur?" Adahni asked, "We got Farras out of the contract, if he's that bad at collecting souls I doubt he has few to spare."
"That is not a bad thought, though," Safiya said, "Not this Enzibur in particular, but in general asking a demon or devil. There are a couple of pit fiends that used to haunt the instructors' quarters. Insufferable creatures, always bickering and putting each other down. I have no idea why they still work together, they clearly cannot stand to be in each others company. But they do do a brisk trade in souls, what with all the leftover ones we have with all the botched extractions and all. Here, it's this way. They usually materialize in one of Mistress Zerzura's walk-in closets. Drove her absolutely mad, the smell of brimstone, the quarreling back and forth…"
Safiya led them down a different winding staircase, this one descending down past the level that the classrooms were on and down into the damp earth of the hill on which the academy stood. There, lit by gently glowing orbs, were the instructors' quarters. They were much finer than even the beautifully paneled instruction halls, the floors inlaid with semiprecious stones, the walls covered in mosaics of multihued wooden tiles. They followed her around a corner, into a fine bedroom.
"Closet's over there," Safiya said, pointing to a door. From underneath, Adahni could see a glow, and smell sulphur, "There's not much room in there, only one will fit."
"Why's it have to be me?"
"You've got that dragon blood thing going on, the heat doesn't hurt you," Kaelyn offered eagerly.
"And you're quite adept at out talking even the most savvy fiend," Gann flattered her.
"Gods damn it, why do I have to do everything?"
"It's your soul we're trying to save," Okku pointed out.
Adahni sighed and opened the door. She was hit full in the face by the heat and smell. She entered, closing the door behind her. There, among a pile of expensive shoes, were two enormous pit fiends. The closet was almost the size of the entire house she had grown up in in West Harbor, but these devils were huge, seven feet tall, with wingspans big enough to keep them aloft. In this cramped space they looked stooped and old.
"Look at this one, Thael-ka," one said. His voice suggested he was male, but one could never truly be sure with fiends, "Something familiar about her, wouldn't you agree?"
"As usual, Oronock, you are mistaken. We have never seen this mortal before," Thael-ka replied. Her voice definitely sounded female. Adahni wondered for a moment why in the hells she cared whether these pit fiends were male, female, neither, or both. She wasn't trying to sleep with one of them, but for some reason her brain just really wanted to be able to call them "he" or "she."
"Not the sight, my slow-witted associate," Oronock replied, "The smell."
"You said 'look,' my developmentally stunted colleague," Thael-ka pointed out, "But you make a point. Have we crossed paths before, mortal?"
"I'm often confused with others. Just one of those smells, I guess," Addie said.
"I see, so what can we do for you, familiar mortal?"
"I'm looking for four souls with unique flaws," Adahni said.
"Mm.. yes we thought you might be. You… have that look about you."
"Don't play coy, Thael-ka," Oronock said, It's too easily confused with your penchant for cretinism. We can offer you something of that description, mortal. A soul that has been marked for damnation."
"It is what we do to claim ownership of a soul, while its host still lives. This specimen is in a rare transitional period. It is dead, but it has not reached Avernus to begin its sentence."
"This is too easy," Adahni said, "What do you need in return?"
"Such a clever little animal. You've bargained with demons before, I see. We require a compatible soul in trade. The soul you want is rare. We'd like the same."
"For me, I'd like a soul from a person who lived in the filthiest, the most deplorable and wretched conditions, yet, who forsook all thoughts of himself for love of another. Agreed, Oronock?" asked Thael-ka.
"You've missed the mark completely, Thael-ka, and once again it falls to me to save our reputation. My ideal soul would be of one who was brought up in prosperity, yet sunk to the absolute depths of depravity. The sickest, most self centered, and delusional individual possible."
"So you want two souls?"
"No, of course not! That would hardly be fair," said Thael-ka. "We want one soul. One soul that has all these qualities."
"So you want a single soul that is rich, poor, selfless, and self-centered?" Adahni asked. Such a pity about fiends, she thought, They think they're being so clever, and yet they understand so little of human nature. Not something I ought to complain about, I suppose. Oronock's use of the word 'delusional' is going to be his undoing.
"Yes," said Oronock, "I believe you've hit upon it exactly. Good luck!"
Adahni's mind turned in every which way. She kept a mask of consternation on her face, as though they had assigned her an impossible task indeed. And perhaps they had. While she certainly knew a good number of people who would fit the bill, but she knew absolutely nothing about the extraction of souls. She wondered how far her favor to Master Inarus would get her. He did seem appreciative, but she knew better than to trust a Red Wizard further than she could throw him
She opened the closet door and found Safi and Gann leaning, their ears against it, and they fell into her.
"Did my bargaining meet with your approval?" she asked dryly.
"Next time you should challenge them to a fiddle contest," Gann said, just as dryly.
"So, you're saying that you spent your entire life at this academy, much of which appears to involve the extraction of souls, and you can't tell me anything about it?"
"My specialization was the integration of souls into other… hosts," said Safiya. She snapped her fingers, and a summoning circle appeared with a little… thing. He was vaguely man-shaped, but tiny, with horrific empty eyes and a shriveled face all made out of clay. He hovered on wings that were nothing but twigs and overlapping leaves stuck in the clay of his back, "This is Khaji. He's a homunculus."
"He's…."
"Mommy says I'm pretty!" Khaji insisted shrilly, and all four of them jumped back. Safiya's eyes went wide with mortification and banished him again.
"Good Gods, Safiya," Kaelyn said, disgust creeping into her eyes.
"He was my first project. I have a sentimental attachment to him," Safiya said, "He's like a child. You wouldn't know what that's like." She avoided Addie's eyes with the last statement.
"But where did you get your souls?" asked Gann, "They came from somewhere."
"There's a repository of them upstairs. Thousands and thousands. Whenever a student dies, someone - Inarus usually, but sometimes Zerzura or Oyebe - swoops in a scoops up their soul," Safiya said.
"And whose was Khaji's?" asked Okku, "You know what? Nevermind. I don't want to know. Some things are too weird even for me. And I'm an immortal minor god that happens to be shaped like a bear."
"So there's a whole entire vault full of souls," said Addie, "What's to keep us from just going through there and getting whatever souls we need? If there are thousands, surely finding four that fit the description of the deadbolts shouldn't be that difficult."
"You'd think so," Safiya said, "But the problem with that is that the requirements for the deadbolts are requirements for the situation of the soul - things that happened to it after it departed the body. Those souls are all in the same place, all taken cleanly from their bodies. The soul your demons would give to you is damned not because he was evil, or sold himself, but because he was sold afterwards."
"What about the souls that the demons want?" asked Addie, "They want a soul that embodies a person who was both evil and good, both privileged and destitute. Couldn't we just find one in this great hoard?"
"Again," Safi said, "Maybe we could, but the art of looking into a soul trapped in a housing is limited. We would have no idea the full personality or story of a person just by gazing into the orb that contains their soul."
"So you're saying is we find such a person, that we know. Take their soul, and give it to the pit fiends," said Adahni, "Sound simple enough."
"Are you saying we would kill a person and then…." Kaelyn asked.
"Does taking a soul kill them?" asked Adahni, "I don't have mine right now. I've got someone else's and it doesn't seem to be affecting me, or my memories, personality... Frankly if it weren't for the whole insatiable hunger for spirits and creeping closer to death and damnation I think I could go on forever."
"Yes," said Safiya, "Eventually, having no soul will kill you, if nobody is there to care for you."
"What if… what if we took their soul and replaced it with one from the repository? They could just go on, and some poor soul whose body's already gone could have a second shot?"
"Putting a soul into a body is different than animating a golem or homunculus," said Safiya, "It's beyond my skill. If we could find whoever did this to you, they could probably do it, but unfortunately the answer to that riddle lies behind the door we seek to open."
"So… what?" asked Adahni.
"We meet Master Inarus in the ward for the soulless, and we see if he knows where we might find what we seek."
"That is about the most ominous name for a place I've heard to date," said Gann, "And I'm from the Sunken City."
"Fugue Plane," countered Kaelyn, "City of Judgment to be exact."
"Fine, you win," Gann conceded.
"Show us the way to this place," Kaelyn said, "I hope that spirit eating demonstration you gave him was worth what we need to know."
The Soulless Ward was not far, a few yards down the hallway outside the pit fiends' closet. The light was dim, but after her eyes adjusted, Adahni saw that Inarus had not yet joined them for the private lecture he had promised. She did, however, see a face she could not believe was here. Some things were too convenient. She went to his bedside. Hesitantly, she ran her hand over his bald pate, his tattoos which did not glow, but looked like normal, average ink than any idiot with a shark's tooth and a bowl of pigment could have given him.
"Is he your father?" asked Gann, "You're treating him with a tenderness I don't often see in you."
"No," said Adahni, jerking her hand back from the patient's face. She was too familiar, but seeing the old man, who still appeared much more robust than his hundred-odd years, so vulnerable brought forth a sympathy in her breast, "But he's just the person I would have hoped to meet here. If we can find his soul that is. He will be most useful to this little endeavor."
"Is he a Red Wizard?"
"No," said Safiya, striding up and taking Adahni's arm, "He did study here for a time, but he was cast forth for being unbecomingly familiar with the devils we sought to bind. He escaped. And now he has come for his punishment." She looked at Adahni with suspicion in her eyes, "I'm not sure if I want to know how you came to be so familiar with Ammon Jerro."