Those Who Would Not Be Gods

17. Depths: Raff

"We're not going anywhere," Sab declared.

Cecile rounded on him. "There's people down there killing your fellow guards, making ghouls, gods know what else! Don't you think we should chase them? Stop them?"

"I think someone should chase them. Someone who's better at this than I am, and more of them, at that." Sab shook his head. "I'm going to go get help. You two stay here, keep an eye on Milo, and guard the music room. We can't have anyone else going down there."

Cecile opened her mouth to argue. Raff's hand on her shoulder stopped her short. "We'll watch things out here," Raff promised. "You go get help."

"Don't go anywhere," Sab repeated, giving Raff a suspicious look.

Raff rolled his eyes. "We aren't stupid." He straightened his back and stood by the door, putting on his best officious face.

Sab started to jog away, slowly, looking back at Raff until he couldn't run blind any further. "And figure out where those illusions are coming from, alright?" Sab added.

"Yeah, yeah." Raff looked up at the illusions of the guards. It was discomfiting to look into the face of someone he knew was dead. Their dead eyes, but their faces warm, alive, the blush of their cheeks... all illusion.

He knelt and started patting through the grass at the illusions' feet, feeling for some kind of circle or enchantment. His fingertips brushed cold metal. Raff picked it up, and the illusion moved with it, blaring bright light directly into his eyes. "Holy shit!" he snapped.

Soft fingers stole it from him and turned the light away, facing the circle downward. Where the illusion hit the earth, the shape of the guard became an irregular oval of bright light. "Is that better?" Cecile asked, amused.

Raff took it back from her and looked it over. It was a flattened metal ring that looked as though it had been hammered into shape by an amateur, the shape irregular, but vaguely circular. About a quarter-inch wide at the widest, it was made of something soft; tin, maybe, or lead. He weighed it; probably tin. On this side, he could see inverted letters and shapes pushed out of the metal where someone had engraved a spell on the other side.

He slipped it into his pocket and looked up. Edith was pouting. Cecile stood nearby, nosing around in the grass where the other enchantment circle had to be. And most importantly, Sab was out of sight.

"Ready?" Raff asked.

Both Cecile and Edith looked up at him sharply. Cecile was the first to smile, bright and warm like the sun, while Edith's was slow, a mischievous dint to it.

"Knew it," Edith said.

"What about Milo?" Cecile asked, concern breaking through for a moment.

"He's been fine on his own until now," Raff said. He glanced back, then shook his head. "The people who did this to him are in the music room. He's as safe as he can be, and Sab will be back soon with help."

Less hesitant, Edith darted past them into the music room. Forcing a smile for Cecile, Raff followed her in. "Come on," he urged Cecile.

No one else was going to get the Godstone. No one else was going to avenge Milo. His eyes hardened. They'd left Milo for dead, whoever it was. He wasn't going to let them escape so easily. Even a filthy rat of a friend was still a friend.

The room was darker than before, not least for the darkness outside. Raff reached out at the doorframe for the panel to light the soulstone and pushed his magic into it. As with Cecile, a flame leaped out around the soulstone, big and bright. He pulled some of his magic back, and the flame reduced to a reasonable level.