Raiden nods, “Yeah, the books weren’t that clear on what exactly they were trying to summon hundreds of years ago. They weren’t limited to here either, they were all over the realms. From what I remember, every realm had a summoning circle.”
“They were used for rituals as well,” Baz adds. “And ceremonies, sending the dead to the Spirit Realms, the joining of souls, that kind of thing.”
Raiden’s eyes light up, “That’s fascinating. Do you know all of this stuff like all of the time, or only when it’s brought up do you remember it?”
Baz smiles slightly, “All of the time. As I explained before, the only thing I seem to have forgotten is anything that would tell me who I am. Selective amnesia, I think they call it.”
“That’s really interesting. We could . . .” Raiden starts.
“Raiden, dude, let’s find this thing that Winston wants us to find, and then get some sleep, and then you can pick Baz’s brains for all the information that he has. If Winston is right, and I doubt that he’s wrong, then Baz isn’t going anywhere any time soon,” River points out.
Raiden smirks and then looks at Baz, “Sorry, man. Sometimes my brain gets carried away with me, and I forget that people may not want to share. Just tell me to fuck off. I won’t take offense, I promise.”
Baz chuckles, “I will, but I didn’t take offense. If you can help me figure out how to get my memories back, or figure out who the fuck I am, then I’m all for it.”
“Someone must remember you,” Ransom says with a frown.
Baz’s expression clouds, and he shakes his head, “I got fed up with not knowing anything a few years ago, so I risked going into one of the towns. I went into the local tavern and asked the owner to put an announcement out across all of the realms, asking if anyone knew who I was. I asked him to run it for a month, but I had to stop checking it because the attacks from the Hunt got too severe and regular. No one ever came forward, and I didn’t try again. I had to avoid the towns completely after that because the Hunt put a bounty on my head.”
“Fuck,” Van mutters. “I’m really sorry, man.”
Baz shrugs, “There’s a chance that the right people just didn’t see it, I mean, it wasn’t up there for very long.”
“That’s a really good point,” Raiden replies.
“Or they didn’t have the means to be able to respond, or the announcement was taken down before they could, or even that the Hunt interfered and messed with it before it went live, or soon after it went live. You said you were checking it. Did you actually see the announcement when you checked it?” Griff says, listing some of the reasons that no one came forward.
Baz’s eyes widen slightly, “No, I was checking to see if there were any responses. I hadn’t considered that the Hunt could be involved, but of course they were. I wonder if the announcement even went out in the first place. They didn’t want me to escape, and people were terrified of them, the owner of the tavern would have done whatever they told him to do.”
I nod, “I bet it didn’t go live.”
Baz shakes his head and then changes the subject, “I’m sorry I pulled us away from what we’re supposed to be doing. We can go over it more later.”
“Nice,” Raiden grins. “And don’t worry about it. This clearly isn’t as urgent as Winston made it out to be, and it’s good that we managed to help you figure something out that you didn’t know before. Hopefully, we can keep helping you. Let's go and check out this summoning circle. It’s quite impressive.”
Baz nods, looking grateful, and we all head toward the stone circle.
Raiden isn’t wrong. The stone pillars are made out of roughly cut granite, with veins of quartz threading through them and glittering prettily despite the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any light, the moon isn’t even out.
They look ancient.
They tower above us, and they’re set out in a kind of circle with the pillars evenly spaced, and a granite plinth in the middle of it. They’re covered in moss and grass, and as we get closer, I realize that we’re actually perched atop a cliff, the sea crashing on the rocks angrily below.
“Wow, this is quite a place,” Reed says. “At least the rain has slowed down.”
“Winston said that there’s something here that we need to get, but it can’t be the stone circle, that’s too big, and although we seem to be pretty isolated up here, I’m reasonably certain that someone would notice if the stones suddenly went missing,” Doc points out.
Honestly, it hadn’t occurred to me that taking the whole thing with us was a possibility. Sometimes I forget just how strong they really are.
“There must be something around here that we’re supposed to get then,” Griff replies. “Let’s spread out and see if we can see anything. I would imagine that it’s near the pillars or in the circle because we wouldn’t have been brought here otherwise.”
“Good point,” Van agrees, he looks at Ransom, “is it dormant, or are we about to accidentally summon something when we step into the circle?”
Ransom smiles, “I already checked, it’s dormant, don’t worry. There’s no magic running through it, so we should be good.”
“Should?” Baz asks with his eyebrow raised in question.
Raiden smirks, “Well, magic is involved and most likely really old magic.” He looks at me, “And Neith, so there’s always a chance that those two things mixed together could trigger something.”
