Master Of The Bones

Looking forward, I saw we had entered a new area of Sigil, not as run down as the Hive, although it had its own, acrid, stench. I was distracted by a street vendor, and did not notice Morte wandering off. Not, that is, until I heard his cries. Two wererats had grabbed him, and were running off with the skull.

We gave chase, but they knew the area, and lost us. I returned to where we had started.

I walked up to a man in armor, evidently one of the Harmonium guards Ebb Creakknees had talked about. He introduced himself as Measure Three Vorten, but claimed to be on duty and refused to help. Perhaps kidnapping wasn’t part of his duty?

I looked around, and saw a middle-aged basher wearing dusty clothes. He proved more helpful, telling me that if it was a skull I was missing, I should seek out Lothar, the Master of the Bones. He didn’t know exactly where this Lothar was located, but told me to seek out a gutted building in the ward.

I wandered around a while, until I came across a dilapidated building, the only one I had seen in such poor repair in the ward. I entered, and saw a well-like opening in the floor, and a ladder of bone leading down into it. This must be the place.

Below were half a dozen racks of skulls. I recognized the racks from my dream-like memories before awakening in the Mortuary. A familiar voiced addressed me from one rack; Morte was one of the skulls.

“Thank the Powers you’re here, chief. Get me outta here.”

“What are you doing up there? ” I asked.

“Those wererat vermin nicked me and brought me here! Come on, boss… we got to get out of here! This place is bad news!”

“Why don’t you just float down?”

“I can’t! I've tried! Come on, get me down before…”

A flash of light and smoke blinded me for a moment, and a withered old man stood before me.

“Have we visitors, skull?” the man who must be Lothar asked.

“Oh… no.” Morte whispered furiously to me. “Do not offend this blood, boss… he'll dead-book you faster than you can spit.” The old man ignored Morte.

“Greetings, traveler. Who might you be to enter Lothar’s humble salon without invitation?” No harm in being polite.

“My pardon, sir, but you seem to have something that belongs to me.”

“Ah yes? What might that be?”

“My friend Morte wound up on your shelf.”

“You want the chattering skull with half the grace and manners of any ordinary creature? Give me a greater skull in return if you wish it back,” Lothar replied. “I do not need to bargain for something that is already mine.”

“He was never yours… or anyone's… to begin with.”

“Your ignorance is astonishing. You truly know very little about very little. Now: Fetch me another skull to replace him or say goodbye to your friend.”

When I asked where to find another skull, he told me to search the catacombs beneath this area. He told me in particular of one that lay interred in a crypt beyond the Drowned Nations. I realized the necromancer wasn’t as all-knowing as he thought. He was referring to the trapped tomb one of my previous incarnations had left for my ‘enemy.’ I told him the tomb was empty.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said, his voice rising in anger. “The tomb was so well trapped, so well defended from scrying magicks, that it was a challenge even for me! There must be some explanation for this, and,” he drew out his words angrily and slowly, “ you will provide it to me. Go through the portal in the chambers below and seek the answer.”

I, too, was becoming angry. It was time he knew he was dealing with no ordinary individual. I told him I knew the answer because it was my own tomb.

“Your tomb? your tomb?” He eyed me carefully. “We shall investigate this more carefully. Fetch me another skull, then, as you seem attached to yours, and we shall see what answers I can provide. Our agreement shall be as before. Do not try to deceive me with just any bone, either — I am something of a connoisseur. Return when you have something of value to me.”

I remembered something I was carrying with me. Something, unless a person had undergone the experiences I had in the last few days, an observer would have found hard to credit I could have forgotten. I drew forth a mummified head from among my belongings.

“I have the skull of Soego, the wererat Dustman missionary.” Lothar took the head of Soego from me and examined it carefully, checking the teeth.

“A Dustman missionary and spy, eh? This will be satisfactory.” His fingers twisted through an arcane gesture. “Your friend will be waiting for you above ground, where you came in. Have your answers from me.”

Lothar unbent slightly, and agreed to answer a few questions. I asked him first why I was immortal.

“Your mortality — your soul, if you will, that which allows you to live and die — is gone from you. It was stripped from you by magical means, by the night hag Ravel Puzzlewell. Your mortality is the key to your existence — when you find it, you will find your answers.”

Obviously he had known much more about me than he had let on earlier. I asked him to tell me about this Ravel.

“Ravel Puzzlewell is an enigma, even among the night hags. Some would call her barmy; others say she plays a deeper game than any can see through. She is evil, through and through, making the fiends you'll see in the area seem positively divine when compared to her. She is out of the reach of men now, thank the powers, for she was mazed by the Lady of Pain.”

Mazed! I remembered the description I had received, of how those who displeased the Lady might find themselves trapped in a separate reality, although there was rumored to always be an exit, even if almost impossible to find. I asked how I might reach her.

“Mazes are like pocket dimensions… small places between places. To reach one, you need to find a portal and a key. I do not know where the door or the key are. Perhaps you should seek some of your old acquaintances — you have certainly left a trail of them behind. They will find you, no doubt — pray they mean you well. Perhaps you should visit the Civic Festhall — they have many answers there.”

I asked what Ravel had done. “She was a maker of toys and puzzles, a solver of problems that didn’t need solving. She decided that Sigil, the Cage, was the largest puzzlebox of all, and set herself to undo it — to let in the armies of fiends at her disposal, no doubt, to upset the balance of the city and turn the entire burg into a charnel house. Pray to any power you hold dear with thanks she did not succeed.”

Lothar left the room with his new possession, leaving us. I knew better than to try and take anything while he was gone, but I decided to examine the racks. I walked along, looking at skull after skull, until one spoke to me. This skull’s voice was low and raspy, the sound of flint and steel.

“I… I think I've seen you before, stranger.”

“Where have you seen me?”

“Curst. Gate town to Carceri.” At my bewildered look, it continued. “What are you, clueless? It’s a gate town, on the rim of the Outlands, the doorway to the prison plane of Carceri. It’s a place of backstabbers and traitors, and it’s full of schemes as a baatezu’s undergarments. Being right next door to Carceri’s apt to change a burg’s nature; I wouldn’t be surprised if the town were about to slide over.”

I knew from Cambion’s lecture in the Smoldering Corpse that a gate town was always in danger of sliding over to its adjacent plane, in this case Carceri. I asked the skull what I was doing there.

“What were you doing there? You were babbling something about some berk trying to kill you and wandering into all the wrong places. Well, you were obviously barmy and all, so me and some of my friends rolled you. Stuck a shiv in you and divvied up your stuff. It was right after that that I was betrayed, but not before I hid some of that stuff.” When I asked where the ‘stuff’ was, it quickly replied with disdain.

“I ain’t telling. Maybe someday I'll get a body back and go for it myself, and maybe I won’t, but right now it gives me great joy to see you wondering. Good luck finding it.” The skull fell silent, and no amount of cajoling could convince it to speak again.

Another skull, which told me it was once known as Ocean-before-the-Storm, had been a Sensate, that is a member of the society of Sensation, which was headquartered at the Civic Festhall. It told me it had ended up here due to Ravel Puzzlewell. I asked it to explain.

“Very well. I was working in the Civic Festhall — the headquarters of the Sensates — in the sensoriums. Ravel Puzzlewell, may the powers curse her black soul, had been coming there to find answers to riddles she had encountered. She was a masterful solver of puzzles — those that left our best minds baffled were but gauze to the force of her reason — yet she had found difficulties that required outside answers. I heard that she was there to unlock the secrets of Sigil itself.”

“Horribly ugly, she was, taking no pains to use her magic to disguise her form — as I've heard she does, or rather did, from time to time — and that fiendish exterior frightened off many a potential factioneer. Still, I had to ask her what she was about, and whether she could teach me what she knew.”

I interjected, “That sounds like it could have been a mistake.”

“It was. She offered me a bargain, for she dwelt and dealt in riddles. If she were to answer my question, I must agree to answer one of hers. If I missed the answer, my life was hers. I agreed. She told me she intended to unlock the puzzle of the Cage, to open it to all who wished to enter — powers, fiends, celestials, modrons, and slaadi, not to mention any inner-planar beings who chose to come along. The most important part to her was that all should know that the mystery that had baffled them for so long was unraveled by Ravel.”

“She asked her question. I could not answer it, though she assured me the answer was plain as the nose on her face. My fellow Sensates found me screaming in the sensorium when they arrived the next morning. I begged them to kill me, and they complied. None even suggested that I relish the new experience, so horrible was it. And… here I am. Now I must rest.” I wasn’t ready to let it go quite yet.

“What was the question?”

“It was: How does one change the nature of a man? I thought hard on her answer, and said, ‘With love.’ She said all people love themselves too much to be changed by something as simple as love. And then she… she… I must rest now.”

In the back of my mind, I seemed to see a hook-nosed figure with ebon skin asking me a similar question… but I could not remember my answer.

Most of the skulls were too old to respond to my abilities, and it was time to rejoin Morte anyway. We exited Lothar’s lair, finding Morte impatiently awaiting us when we exited into the Lower Ward.

Once we were all together, I asked my companion’s if they knew anything of Ravel Puzzlewell. At the mention of the name, Annah spat three times and made a semi-circle over her heart.

“Hssst! Are yeh daft?! Don’t be mentioning her name, if yeh value yer life! She’s the evilest o’ the Gray Ladies, she is.” Annah’s voice dropped to almost a whisper, as if afraid of being overheard. “Filthy mean, an’ with more power tae toss around than some Powers. It’s said she’s all a-brambles through and through — even her heart. It’s said yeh can never kill her, ‘cause her body’s like a tree — yeh lop off one limb, an’ there’s always another still growing somewhere else across the Planes.”

“You speak as if she is still alive.”

“A-course she is. She has t'be.” Annah’s voice dropped again. “How would yeh kill a thing such as her? That’s why the Lady had to maze her, so it’s said.” I asked Morte if had anything to add about Ravel.

“Well, she’s a night hag — and she was definitely barmy enough to make you immortal, of all people. I mean, she could have chosen me.” Morte rolled his eyes. “Still, anyone addled enough to lock blades with the Lady of Pain isn’t someone we really want to find.”