anyone who knows the right formulas and words.”
“A long time ago, some of the ancient swamp witches—a few of the very first of their kind—made it into the Supernatural Dimension,” Herbert explained to Harper and me. “I do remember Kill mentioning he’d stuck around when one of them died while trying to cross over. At the time, the swamp witches had the knowledge and the strength to open their own portals, but that was tens of thousands of years ago. Anyway, long story short, Kill snagged her soul right after she died, while his crew distracted the Reaper in charge of taking her away. They held on to her for years, tormenting her for spells and information. I believe Revellis was one of the main takeaways from that experience.”
Harper relayed Herbert’s account to Fiona and Zane, prompting the daemon king to ask his follow-up question. “So, what does Revellis do, specifically? How did the swamp witch know about it, and what happened to her soul?”
Herbert sighed. “Revellis was something only that particular witch knew, from what Kill told me. She’d dealt with his kind before, prior to her death, and the Word had helped her. Revellis is a contact spell; it reveals ghouls in their subtle form. It’s quite precious and rare. Kill and his crew haven’t shared it with anyone else. As for her soul, I’m afraid it kept Kill and his gang quite sated for about five centuries.”
The thought gave me the chills, but I had to admit I was pretty grateful for the information. “So, all I need to do is whisper ‘Revellis’ and tap the ghoul in its subtle form for him to be unable to hide himself over the course of a few minutes, huh?”
Herbert nodded. “Pretty much, yes. Therein lies the challenge, of course. You have to be extremely careful and mind the subtlest changes in the air. A sentry’s True Sight might not help, because it only reveals the hidden physical things. Ghouls move between dimensions, hence their normally unbreakable invisibility. But, I must say, knowledge of this spell does come in handy in dire times. Now, I believe it’s time for me to move along.” The ghoul measured me from head to toe, grinning and flashing his sharp canines. “You ought to be careful, sir. Troubled times are ahead.”
Without waiting for a response, Herbert shimmered and disappeared. I shivered, overwhelmed by ice-cold chills, despite the heat coming from the pool. That had not been a simple farewell, but more like a warning. I had a feeling Herbert knew more than he’d said, but Ibrahim had freed him, and we didn’t have the time or the knowledge required to capture and force him into telling us more. Ghouls were exceptionally elusive, not to mention dangerous, and we had much bigger fish to fry.
Silence settled across the room, with only the sound of rushing hot spring water left. Harper exhaled, looking at me. “We need to tell Taeral and the others about the scythe and Revellis. Chances are the spell might work on Reapers, too. They tread between worlds, as well, just like ghouls.”
I only wondered how they’d be able to use that information about Thieron to get Death to cooperate. Could they, perhaps, offer to find it? Where would they even start the search? Obviously, Brendel didn’t just leave that thing lying around, since it was missing. Even so, it had to be done, I thought. Finding Thieron and returning it to Death seemed like the only viable option—if she accepted our offer to help, instead of sending Taeral and his team away or, worse, killing them.
Death was unpredictable and unknown to us. We had to consider all possible scenarios, and, I had to admit, that scared me the most.
A bright flash startled us all. The torches on the wall burst, suddenly, their flames swelling and taking on a bluish hue. I held my breath, watching the fires dim. The pool room succumbed to semi-darkness, as mere flickers were left to burn, the fires weakened and reduced.
Fiona sucked in a breath. “This is exactly like what Taeral described on Cerix when they killed Brann…”
“Oh, no…” Harper murmured, pain flowing through her like a river of pins and needles. I felt it all on top of my own, as the worst thing that could happen to Neraka… happened.
“Ramin may very well be dead now,” Zane said, his voice shaky.
We knew there was a replacement Hermessi for him—his son—but he was an ally of Brendel.