A Dance With Death

|| Chapter 41 - Imperfection ||

             

Everyone's hurrying around, getting things in place according to the ritual. The reapers are still shaky and scared, but they're determined to get this done. Griffith and Raiden stand in the middle, directing them. The stones have been placed in a particular arrangement and the binds have been placed in the centre, perhaps used to trap Death, which I find quite strange. Can cuffs possibly hold him? Most importantly, he wouldn't exactly be pleased to find himself bounded, would he?

I stand with Althea, eyeing everyone. I feel nervous. I don't know anything about what they're doing. My head is filled with questions but I don't dare to ask them. They seem pretty tensed. Attending to me questions would be the least of their concerns.

Griffith, while directing everyone, is tossing a stick in his hand, which looks like a piece of chalk, making my inner curiosity tingle even more.

"What is that?" I whisper to Althea. Out of all the things I could ask Althea about the ritual, I ask her that. Great.

Griffith seems to have heard me, considering I'm not standing at much distance from him. "A magic wand," he says, grinning. "It's used to call magical creatures like fairies and pixies –– it's a chalk you dimwit."

I frown. "What's a chalk got to do with everything?"

"I don't know. What's a skull got to do with everything?" He points to the deformed and cracked skull on the floor beside the cuffs and the copper bowl with, presumably, blood in it. It's not a human skull, that I can make out. I cringe at the sight. "Basically, just watch and let us do our job––Dawn! That's not where it's supposed to be!" He then proceeds towards her to correct whatever she'd done wrong with the piece of rock.

It takes them an hour to get everything done. It seems to be a very complicated procedure. For some reason, no human enters this waiting room. Perhaps it has something to do with some sort of spell. Griffith and Raiden read through the old book again and again, walking around the room, making sure everything is in place. Finally, Ellery draws a circle at the centre of the floor using Griffith's chalk, with the binds, blood and bones inside its boundary. That is supposedly the last thing left to do.

"He won't get out of these, right?" she asks Raiden standing up and pointing at the iron cuffs. Her sharp tone contrasts her old and bent posture.

"According to the text, he shouldn't," Raiden replies. "The engravings will render him powerless. He won't be able to use his powers."

"Are you sure that those instructions can be trusted?" she asks again.

Raiden doesn't say anything. His troubled face doesn't give us enough reason not to be worried. He simply has his eyes on the text.

"Well?"

He nods slightly. Clearing his throat he says, "Yes. This is one of the oldest texts in reaper lore. It has to be right."

Even though he's unsure of himself, he snaps the book close and puts it on the bench beside him. He sighs and looks at Griffith, motioning for him to continue. Griffith stands up straight, aware that the time has come. He looks around at everyone anxiously. "So who shall do the honour of summoning Death?"

His question is followed by dead silence. Nobody dares to look at him. Nobody even dares to let out a breath. Even I stay frozen in my spot. The air is filled with tension; I can feel its intensity. I can see how scared they are. They all agreed to this. But no one agreed to come up and perform the ritual.

Nobody wants to volunteer.

"No one," Griffith concludes after a long moment of unease. "Well then––"