The Homunculus Knight

"I stared into the dancing light, I watched the image flow and move, it was so pretty. So pretty, I could just sit and watch forever, and ever. But the dance grew faster, and I wasn't just seeing anymore, I was feeling, I was knowing. There was a life in the light, someone's life, and I lived it. I lived it over and over, and over and over and over and over and-" - Testimony of a 'pleasure-slave' liberated from the seraglio of the Sidhe lord Lotus-Upon-The-Lights

Natalie stared at the broken barn door, watching its chipped and stained bulk swing in a constant pendulous motion. Rusted hinges squealed, fittingly, like swine, their clarion a dark invitation. Even without Cole's warning, the fact that something nasty awaited within the barn was obvious to Natalie. This entire village felt ripped from some grisly childhood tale, and should probably have her shaking with fear, but instead only elicited tense annoyance. Even the foulest of fables lose their fear-factor when you've lived a scarier story.

Still slightly leaning on his halberd, Cole headed for the entrance, only for Natalie to catch his shoulder. "Hold on, is that a good idea?"

"Probably not, but I can suffer the consequences easier than you can."

Rolling her eyes, she conjured two wolves who prowled forward into the barn's darkness. "Or I can just do that."

"Fair point."

A cacophony of smells assaulted the wolves as they padded over moldering straw and caked feces; this was a place of fresh decay and bizarrely, fresher life. Something had given birth here, the wolves knew the smells well, and it excited them, catching prey right after a whelping meant an easy feast. But that predatory eagerness faltered as the scent grew into an amniotic pungency that blotted out everything else. Snout low to the ground, the larger of the two wolves moved silently through the dark creaking structure, pausing only when it caught faint movement from a nearby pile of straw. Hackles raised, teeth bared, the wolf and its packmate approached the straw, ready to pounce.

Aggression turned to confusion as both wolves stared down at what Natalie first took to be a particularly ugly mass of afterbirth. That first impression faded when the mass spasmed and started to drag itself away on seven ill-proportioned hoofs. It was a piglet, more accurately an entire litter of piglets born fused together in a tortuous parody of natural life. As a little girl, Natalie had seen a two-headed lamb, a sickly, sad thing that lived barely a few weeks; what her wolves now sniffed at was a porcine magnification of that pecularity that defied everything she knew about biology.

"What the actual fuck."

Cole's halberd was pointed at the barn door, his amulet shining with a steady glow. "Dangerous?"

"So far, just weird and disgusting. I'll-" her report petered out as her wolves spun in the direction of new motion. There were more of the chimeras, at least a dozen, each sporting unique deformities, and all now moving towards something in the barn's farthest back corner, something very alive and very large. Creeping forward, spectral paws stepping onto slick, warped boards, the wolves approached, their noses drowning in the scents of birth.

It was a sow. Well, it was sow in the same way Natalie was pale with dietary issues. Measuring at least four meters from snout to tail and probably half that in height was a grotesquely swollen and disgustingly mutated female pig. Four stubby hoofs stuck out from its bloated abdomen, each dangling in the air and utterly unable to even consider supporting the creature's bulk. Its head was a mass of wrinkled and lesion-marked skin that flowed out around an open, toothless mouth like ballroom skirts. If the sow still had eyes, they were hidden by rolls of blubber, while its ears were floppy sails sporting numerous holes in the flushed skin.

But all this was merely a distraction from the sow's belly. Festering orifices and oversized teats fought for place upon infected skin. As the wolves watched, one of these orifices slucied open, letting another malformed litter slide out on a tide of amniotic fluid. Letting out tiny, barely audible squeaks, the chimera pulled itself towards one of the teats and started feeding, joining its siblings.

Back with her body, Natalie turned to Cole and calmly as she could, said. "We need to burn this entire place to the ground."

"That bad?" he asked, a frown carving itself onto his face. As Natalie explained, Cole's expression darkened. "This isn't a simple mutant pig anymore."

"Lovely! What is it?"

"I think it's a demonically possessed pig."

A full second passed in silence before Natalie started rifling through her bag, looking for a tinder-box. Halberd at the ready, Cole entered the barn, his amulet cutting through the darkness and casting strange shadows upon the damaged wooden slats. Finally finding her fire kit, Natalie stepped after him, conjuring more wolves to circle the barn as she did. "How can a pig become possessed?"

"You've read the Book of Miracles, they're actually something of a preferred host for weaker demons unable to secure something better."

"I understand that, but who summoned it? Demons can't enter reality without a magic ritual, and I can't comprehend why someone in this town would conjure a hellkyn while the plague was eating them alive."

Cole gestured around the barn's interior, pointing out seven mounds of filth and the patterns of muck tracked along the structure's dirty floor. "I don't think anyone summoned anything into a pig, I think the pigs summoned something themselves."

Blinking in genuine shock, Natalie started to shake her head. "No, no, that's not jagging possible. How could pigs know a demon summoning ritual?"

"Demons are attracted to pain appropriate to their nature. All it would take is enough pigs suffering the same way to catch the hellkyn's attention, and then it could start whispering all sorts of notions and ideas to them. A weak demon doesn't need much of a ritual to summon, especially when the local Aether is ripe with pain. So with a little prodding, even this sick herd could manage an approximation of a rite, giving the demon an invitation to our side of reality."

Prodding one of the 'ritual mounds, ' Cole continued. "To answer your next question, local spirits usually protect animals from this kind of thing. Similarly, people are kept safe by the Covenant and common sense. Something like this is rare and requires a whole gauntlet of problems compounding upon each other to happen."

Leaving Natalie to digest all this, he approached the sow, amulet glowing brighter and brighter. The spearpoint of Reqiuem started to shine then as well, and he held the weapon up, ready to drive it into the pig's skull. The sharp end of the halberd trembled slightly as more power flowed into it, spurring Natalie to ask, "Are you strong enough to kill it?"

"No, but I can banish it." Requiem came down like a silver bolt striking the pig's blubber-buried skull with a wet crack. A gurgling sound escaped its cavernous mouth, and the chimeric litters clustered about the horror's belly shrieked pitifully. Blue-silver light flared out from Cole's weapon and amulet as he muttered words in Saint-speech. The world shifted slightly, and the barn's interior became a modicum less horrific. Shadows thinned, the various odors dulled a fraction, and the piglet chimeras went still, their bodies unable to pretend at life without their hellish mother.

Pulling back from the demon's destroyed host, Cole stumbled slightly, Natalie barely catching him this time. Before her eyes, the bloated sow carcass started to deflate, nature finally able to exert its authority. Helping her partner towards the barn door, eager to get away from the body before rot really set in, Natalie heard something so unexpected she nearly let Cole fall: a voice.

"Vampire and a… priest?"

Eyes snapping up to the hayloft, Natalie found the speaker, her free hand drawing Barnabas's shortsword. Slumped against one of the barn's gables was a pile of scraps, some fabric, some metal, that quivered slightly with barely suppressed shudders. It was a person, a person covered in dirty, damaged armor. With the overpowering stink of the possessed sow starting to fade, Natalie's wolves finally sensed this stranger and how sick he was. Infection seethed beneath soiled bandages and rusting chainmail. Whoever this person was, they weren't long for the world.

Cole managed to stand under his own power, or at least lean on Requiem instead of Natalie. "Paladin, not priest."

A wet hacking laugh escaped the sick stranger. "Coincidence is their domain."

Crawling along creaking planks, the man reached a nearby ladder and tried to descend. He got about halfway down the rungs before his grip slipped, and he landed with an ugly crunch of metal. Cole rushed to the stranger's side and helped him as he tried to sit up. The man fumbled with his helmet, revealing long, greasy blond hair that came away in ragged clumps. Beneath the armor was a young man, barely more than a boy, beset by festering necrosis. Dangling from the youth's neck was an amulet, a bronze sword, and shield: the sigil of Misbegotten War.

Voice thick with phlegm, the war-priest asked. "A paladin and a vampire? Are… are you Sir Cole of the Tenth Temple?"

The couple exchanged worried looks, and Cole adjusted his grip on Requiem. "I am."

Blood dribbled from cracked lips as the stranger smiled. "Thank the Pantheon, not all is lost."

"Who are you, war-priest, how do you know of me?"

The stranger offered a pitiful salute. "I am squire-acolyte Lyander Damus of the Eleventh Temple. I'm from Vindabon and was part of Pankrator Marcus's cadre aboard the river expedition.

A racking cough escaped the acolyte, his body spasming with the effort. Natalie grimaced; no wonder Cole hadn't wanted anyone else close to the pigs if this was what they spread. Kneeling down beside the young soldier, she said. "We have a skilled healer nearby. Hold on a little longer and you'll be fine."

Lyander clutched at his amulet, and a few bronze sparks of magic drifted from it. "No, too late for that, but I can still complete my mission."

Cole met her eyes and gave the tiniest shake of his head before addressing the acolyte. "Your mission?"

"The river fleet, some of us escaped the battle at Crowbend, we're beached just north of Harmas. I vol-" a coughing fit interrupted him. "I volunteered to head west and try to get help, but ran into the corpse-tide."

Staring over at the exorcised sow, Lyander grimaced, showing pale gums. "Just when I escaped the ghouls, I met the pigs."

Pulling at bandages on his leg, he gestured towards a festering wound. "They ambushed me in the dark, but I fought my way through them, just to end up trapped in their nest. Thought I was going to die here, another forgotten carcass, just lucky enough not to get eaten. But seems my prayers are answered, and I won't die for nothing."

"We'll find the survivors and help them, I promise," whispered Cole, his voice gentle. "You've done your duty, you can rest."

Lyander let out a choking gasp, a tear falling from one inflamed eye as he nodded. "I know, I just… I just don't want to go yet."

Natalie looked from between the barn's entrance and the dying man. "I can send some of the pack to get Mina and Deborah. We could carry him out of the village, past the dead pigs."

A wet, gurgling laugh escaped Lyander. "Stories were true, she really is a nice vampire. But like I said, too late for that, I'm only a bit more alive than you are, miss."

Seeing her confusion, Cole explained. "It's a miracle of Misbegotten War, his followers can delay death for a time."

A painful silence filled the stinking barn, only interrupted by the faint clank of Lyander's armor as he shivered and coughed. Voice dry, Natalie whispered. "I'm sorry."

"It's part of our oaths, we suffer and struggle so others might live. But still, I hoped for a proper last stand, a battle worthy of song, something the bards would like." As that flicker of soldier humor faded, Lyander whispered, "Sir Cole, will you honor me when it's done?"

"Of course."

Nodding slightly, the acolyte managed one final smile. "Do you suppose that'll count as a letter of introduction to your god?"

"I don't think you'll need one; your deeds will speak for themselves."

Lyander let his eyes fall shut. "I hope so."

Bronze sparks flickered around the acolyte, and his shallow breaths ceased. Cole placed his amulet upon the body and began to pray. "Master Time, protect the living and protect the dead. Master Time, give us long lives and quick deaths. Master Time, keep our souls, and judge them truly."

The air around Cole grew colder, and reality twitched as Lyander was freed. Eyes glowing with silver sparks, the Paladin looked at Natalie and muttered. "My…apologies."

Then, before she could ask what he meant, Cole died, the last of his soul guttering out like a candle in the wind.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

For close to three hundred years, the Temple of the River's Horizon had stood in Harmas as a monument to mankind's pact with the pantheon. Consecrated in service to both Father Sky and Mother Earth, its grand nave could hold more than a thousand worshippers, and easily reached that capacity every Godsday. From the temple's high altar, generations of hierophants had given sermons and worked miracles in service to both their gods and city. It was on this very temple's steps that Saint Gerian warned of the second blood war and inspired the Holy League to stand against a new undead invasion. Even after the saint's death, knights of every banner would flock to his tomb beneath the temple, praying for guidance before any campaign against the Duchies.

All this history, all this power, ran through the temple's stone arches and oaken beams like sap through a mighty tree, invigorating it to withstand storms and sorrows that might break a lesser institution. War had come to Harmas on many occasions, and each time the city was besieged, each time the hungry dead battered at its gates, the Temple of the River's Horizon and its inhabitants stood firm. It was easy to imagine such a structure as this to be utterly inviolable; that its defenders and advocates could never falter. So to those who knew the temple's story and witnessed its grandeur, the idea that it would finally fall to a set of bolt cutters in the hands of a starving man would have sounded impossible, and yet that was exactly what happened.

With a clunk and a clatter, the heavy iron chains locking the temple's main entrance fell away. Shaky hands with blackened fingernails gripped onto silver-inlaid handles and pulled, forcing neglected hinges to let out one final plaintive cry of defiance as the sanctuary beyond them was exposed. With the doors open a crack, a filth-caked man with a matted beard down to his belly slipped inside.

Looking back out from where he'd come, the man fought to push croaking words past split lips. "Did I do good, master?"

The Black Fly nodded slightly. "Invite me in."

"Yes, master! As a mortal man within this hallowed threshold, I bid ye welcome!"

A cold slit of a smile spasmed across Wolfgang's face as he entered the temple. Pale moonlight shone down through broken stained glass, illuminating the nave in eerie half-colors. This uncanny light shone down upon rows and rows of silent forms, hundreds of corpses, each covered in a stained shroud. These were the temple's final worshippers, the plague dead lucky enough to receive last rites here on hallowed ground before all semblance of order collapsed.

Stepping between the lines of bodies, following his new thrall, Wolfgang took a moment to admire the scene around him. Not the temple's artistry, mind you, or even the long-finished funeral procession on the marble floor, no, his focus was on the Aether. A temple such as this should have been unequivocally sacred, its resonance cultivated and curated by so many priests and prayers into something painfully holy. But, like everything else in Harmas, its grandest temple was dead and rotting. Wolfgang stood not upon hallowed ground, but a place of tragedy and desecration.

"Perfect," he whispered, as he stared up at the gallery. Carved stone, so expertly constructed to capture song and light, now held fetid whisps of thought and memory. A congealed morass of unanswered prayers and final terrible moments stretched above and beyond him, an intermingling of so much similar suffering waiting like a long-abandoned cobweb for a new occupant.

"You need something of me, master?"

The thrall, a pathetic wretch named Ichael, stared at Wolfgang with eager, beady eyes. Once, he'd been a bosun aboard a river ship and a willful traitor in service to Spymaster Arci. By merit of the sting's inoculation and his own canny survival instinct, Ichael had not just survived Harmas's fall but managed to thrive in the involved chaos for quite some time. But, eventually, even the most determined scavengers will run out of opportunities, and the former sailor had been well on his way to joining the corpse-tide; that is, until Wolfgang found him. Now, properly enthralled and madly devoted, he would serve the Black Fly well.

"No. Go search the rest of the temple for dangers and supplies."

As Ichael scuttled away into the shadows, Wolfgang reached the temple's altar. Clearing away a few moldering scrolls and a vase of withered ritual flowers, he pulled out a rite of his own. Staring down at the vellum holding the ritual to summon Romosus-Ur-Liaga, and then up at the surrounding structure, he muttered. "This will do."

For the next hour, Wolfgang began his most preliminary preparations, reanimating dozens of plague dead into shuffling laborers who cleared aside their fellows and other debris from the nave's central point. Ichael returned more than once, bringing a mix of garbage, useless trinkets, and the occasional valuable item to his master. The majority of this last category was religious paraphernalia freshly taken from the corpses of dead priests. They're desecration would play an important role in the upcoming rite.

So far, the Black Fly was feeling confident in the actual summoning and binding of Romosus. An abandoned temple of this pedigree was the perfect place for such a ritual, and getting the demon to do his bidding wouldn't be too terribly hard, considering its mistress had marked Wolfgang. The main issue before him was the other component of this new pestilence, the actual disease that would spread. Already, he'd decided it couldn't be anything close to a bubonic strain; there was too much risk someone in the Holy League might leverage Isabelle's cure to undermine this new creation. No, this would need to be a novel work, as divorced from his previous efforts as was possible.

Just then, Ichael arrived, his hunched form carrying a large sack filled with his latest finds. Emptying it into a corner, he started sorting through the morass of items. As Wolfgang watched, the thrall picked up something brown, lumpy, and utterly unidentifiable even to a vampire's senses. After giving the object a sniff, Ichael took a bite, then ravenously consumed it in seconds. Disgusting as this was, it did spark inspiration in the Black Fly. Those still surviving here in Harmas would have to be of hardy stock. If he could identify what diseases were worst among them, then that would be a good short list of where to start.

The sound of shattering glass pulled Wolfgang from his thoughts. Daggers in hand, he turned to the noise's source, finding pieces of stained glass raining down on the nave. A newly familiar voice called out from the broken window. "Ah, he did say I'd find you here. May I come in?"

Fingers not leaving his weapons, Wolfgang called out. "You may."

A figure plummeted down from up high, landing between two corpses with nary a sound. Dusting off his dark jerkin, the newcomer glanced around the temple, moonlight catching on his strawberry blond hair, hawkish features, and long fangs. "I like what you've done with the place."

"Klaus, you could have used the door; it's unbarred now."

"Oh please, I'm not about to use the peasant's entrance when I could make my own," replied Klaus Arcfort, vampire of the Wyrmoi bloodline and member of the Black Feather Knights. Tall and lean, Klaus moved with a casual swagger that either impressed or infuriated all who saw it. Wolfgang most definitely fell into this latter category.

Strolling up towards the altar, his woodsman's boots somehow still silent, Klaus asked. "So, how are your efforts to improve the plague?"

As one of Spymaster Arci's agents trapped in Harmas, the Feather Knight was totally ignorant of Wolfgang's current loyalties and objectives. He, along with his fellow saboteurs, thought the Black Fly was here on official orders; a fact Scapino had taken utter advantage of over the past few nights.

"I've just started, but so far the prospects look good. Now, are you here for an update, or something else?"

Scratching at his goatee, Klaus looked up at the window he'd broken. "Your colleague says he's about to receive the 'new delivery' and thought you'd like to know."

That got Wolfgang's full attention. "Where is he?"

Smirking slightly, Klaus gestured back out the open temple doors. "Come with me and I'll show you."

Paranoia warred with desire, and the Black Fly hesitated, which Klaus noticed. "Oh, honestly, we're on a mission, and besides, this isn't Noct-Kalat; I'm not about to stab an ally in the back for some inane political reason."

To punctuate his remark, the Knight tapped the heavy quiver slung over one shoulder, calling attention ot the three dozen raven-fletched arrows inside. "Besides, if I actually meant you harm, I'd just put one of these between your eyes and you'd never see it coming."

Not particularly comforted by this remark, but unable to deny its validity, Wolfgang paused in his labors. "Ichael, guard this place until I return, do not open the doors for anyone but me."

Smiling, Klaus headed for the temple's entrance. "There we go, maybe I'll teach you some teamwork before this whole mess is done."

The two vampires passed through the temple's great oaken doors and found a small crowd awaiting them. Close to a hundred ghouls shuffled about aimlessly. Attracted by the commotion of Wolfgang's renovations, they'd approached the temple but were stymied by his spells. Still, even if they weren't a threat, the ghouls would bring unwanted attention; something he'd have to consider in the future.

"And this is why I come in through the second-story, lets us escape the riff-raff's attention." said Klaus as he parted the swarm. Cowed by a superior undead's magic, the ghouls let the vampires pass, staring at them with blank glassy eyes. Following the Feather Knight's lead Wolfgang clambered up a nearby building, reaching the relative seclusion of its roof tiles.

Glancing around at the surrounding rooftops, Wolfgang fought to keep a frown off his face, he'd be spending more blood than he'd like on this errand. "Which direction?"

In response, Klaus crouched down, gesturing for Wolfgang to follow. Kneeling on the slanted roof, the Feather Knight slit one palm with a claw and forced a long tendril of black fluid to flow free. Snaking through the air, the tendril split into two, one going up, the other down, both thickening as they grew. Soon, the blood took the shape of a longbow, a wire-thin strand of ichor acting as its string.

Pulling an arrow from his quiver, Klaus shrugged. "Can't ever be too careful."

They headed north-east towards the edge of Jobbzary Island, jumping between rooftops and down silent side-streets. Upon landing on one particularly squat building, Wolfgang heard a loud pop followed by a series of clattering cracks. Before he could pause and wonder at the distant sound, Klaus had pulled him to the rooftiles, a wary expression on his face.

Understanding dawned for the Black Fly, and he whispered. "Is that your nemesis?"

Lip pulling up in something between a smile and a snarl, the Feather Knight muttered. "Most likely one of his tricks. I thought I'd cleared them all off the eastern island, but I guess some are still around. So, remember to be careful where you walk."

As the last echoes faded, Klaus got up and kept moving, his course slightly altered. "I want to see the aftermath, besides, you'll need to know what to look out for."

A few minutes later, the duo found themselves staring at a morass of broken metal and shredded flesh. Someone or something had turned multiple armored ghouls into an ugly smear covering an alley's walls and ground. Shocked by the sheer destructive force on display and the lack of an obvious source, Wolfgang adjusted his glasses, hoping to find an answer. The Aether rippled with a metaphysical shockwave, the aftermath of a potent but simple spell. At the center of these ripples were six souls, all rapidly leaving their former bodies.

The last traces of a potent necromantic bond connecting the six dissipated before Wolfgang's eyes, and he understood what these ghouls had been. "Lost legionaries?"

Klaus grunted. "Aye, we've had a few bands of them loose in the city. I know Lenora, our necromancer, tried to bind some, but they proved annoyingly resistant."

Lost legionary, was a very old term for a very rare type of ghoul. Created when a small group of closely bonded soldiers died together in a place with the right amount of miasma. These ghouls were connected by a potent arcane link and shared everything, from their senses and strengths to their very souls. If one didn't kill and release every member of these undead fraternities in very short order, the survivors could rebuild their fallen comrades quickly. A fact Klaus's 'nemesis' clearly knew about and planned for.

As the legionaries finally passed into the Beyond, Wolfgang tried to examine the metaphysical scraps of whatever spell was responsible. Even with his glasses and astute mind, the Black Fly struggled to piece together more than a few basic facts. This had been a runic spell of two parts, one necromantic, the other telekinetic. Driven by curiosity, he started to approach the scene of destruction, but Klaus stopped him, pointing to a discarded amphora lying on the nearby cobblestones. A line of chalk stretched from the vase's side, along the ground, and to a nearby wall. Upon closer inspection, Wolfgang saw the tiny trace of magic woven into the chalk.

"A tripwire?" he asked.

"Something close to it, let's get back up on the roof and watch what happens next." replied Klaus as he pointed at a group of nearby ghouls shuffling towards them.

Curiosity over this new complication won out over Wolfgang's desire to reach Scapino quickly, and he joined the vampire archer's position. Drawn by the recent loud sounds, the ghouls moved into the alleyway. As the first passed over the chalkline, Wolfgang braced himself, but nothing happened. Frowning, he started to say something, but by the time the sixth ghoul passed, a wicked bang split the night air. A plume of acrid smoke and powdered stone filled the alley, forcing the Black Fly to flinch away.

As the cloud cleared, the ruined forms of the ghouls came into sight. They'd been shredded much like the last batch. Leaping down into the alley, Klaus prodded the shattered amphora with an arrow. "What a clever little trap."

Deciding that was the sign it was safe, Wolfgang came down as well and checked the few remaining smears of chalk. "It needed to be properly scuffed, not something a single set of feet would do easily."

"Yep, now you understand why I'm so leery about this bastard. This sort of alchemy is nasty, even discounting the fact he's somehow freeing the ghouls from a distance."

Stepping over a pulped ghoul, Wolfgang checked the alley's far wall, finding a series of cracks and holes. Prodding one, he managed to dislodge a misshapen lump of metal. Hissing in annoyance as the hot hunk slipped through his fingers, the Black Fly leaned down to better examine it with both sets of senses. It appeared to be an old coin, or at least part of one, and the tiniest hint of sanctity clung to its metal.

"He's got a priest with him, and a strong one at that. They're blessing silver coinage, turning them into holy sling bullets."

Pulling out a few pulped pieces of scrap from the shattered amphora, Klaus growled. "That sort of imbuement shouldn't last long. This isn't a trap I missed, this is a new one. He's gotten back over from Balzary somehow."

Sighing and dropping the scrap, the vampire archer cursed and started climbing back up the wall. "Well enough of this diversion. Hopefully, this has been educational enough to keep you from getting blown to bits."

Continuing their journey, the vampires headed north-east until what had to be their destination came into sight. Pausing, Wolfgang tried and failed to bite down on his annoyance. "A theatre? Really?"

Klaus shrugged and let his blood bow slither back into his body. "I'm not one to question an Ashen Agent's orders."

Face set in a heavy frown, Wolfgang entered the building expecting some melodramatic display and wasn't disappointed. Scapino knelt center-stage, surrounded by a carpet of constellations. Dozens of mirrors had been shattered and their pieces set in complex patterns across the hardwood expanse, creating a facsimile of the night sky, or at least something close to it. Many of the stellar formations had been slightly altered, rendering the sight uncanny. The light of a dozen suspended glowstones reflected in the mirror shards, twinkling and shifting as the glowstones swayed.

Freezing in place, Wolfgang's guts filled with cold lead, he recognized this ritual, or at least enough of it to be afraid. He wasn't alone in this either, as Klaus sucked in a rattling breath and reached for his quiver. "Is that…? Is he doing what I think he's doing?"

Squinting down through the dancing reflections, using his glasses, Wolfgang saw an object lying before Scapino, at the exact center of the constellations. In the Aether, currents of impossible color swirled about the item. "He's already done it."

Thread-cutter knife in hand, Wolfgang padded towards his ally. "What did you summon?"

Looking up at Wolfgang, Scapino smiled. "See for yourself."

Casually, he picked up the object and tossed it to the Black Fly. Scrambling madly, Wolfgang managed to catch what turned out to be a revolving lantern. The lantern's heart was an intricately cut gemstone that glowed slightly. Suspended in a harness of shaped bone, the gemstone was surrounded by thirteen panels, each crafted from a strange gossamer material that made Wolfgang think of insect wings. The panels were set on a gimbal of etched wood and sinew string that easily spun about the central gemstone. All of this apparatus sat atop a three-legged stand, with each leg sporting a different base; one hoofed, one clawed, one fingered. When combined with the small bronze statue of a dancing winged figure standing on the lantern's apex, the entire thing stood maybe seventy centimeters tall and maybe two-thirds that wide.

Voice very quiet, Wolfgang said. "This is Sidhe made."

Gingerly stepping over the mirror fragments, Scapino nodded. "That, my friend, is a Deja Lanterna, and it is how you're going to access the prisoner's memories."