Gabriel's Hope

"Tamer," he said to the small man behind the counter.

He pointed to a set of narrow stairs. Gabe climbed them, forced to go sideways to make it up to the top.

"If Rhyn sent you…" Tamer, Rhyn's half-brother and one of the four surviving members of the Council That Was Seven, growled from across the room.

"He didn't."

"You here for me?"

"No."

The largest of the brothers in size, Tamer's temper most closely resembled Rhyn's. The two were always at each other's throats, and Gabe had witnessed their decision making skills on the Council. Rhyn always won, but Tamer got his punches in. Lounging in a pillowed corner of the room, Tamer resembled a cross between a lion at rest and a desert Bedouin with his muscular form and loose garb. His skin was dark, his eyes turquoise, as their father's had been. He drank hot tea from a glass.

"You're my last resort," Gabe started.

"Great way to start a discussion. I feel motivated to help you."

Ignoring the acid tone, Gabriel sat in the chair a few feet from him. He pulled off the compass and held it out. Tamer studied it. After giving him a moment to examine it, Gabe spoke.

"Two questions. One, can you read the symbols?"

"They're archaic. They predate anything I've ever seen before. I might have a later text with similar symbols I can use to trace the roots of the writing," Tamer answered. "What's the second?"

"Can you duplicate whatever this is?"

Tamer's eyes took it in expertly before he rose. "Come on."

He strode through a curtained doorway in the corner and down a long hallway almost too narrow for either of them to fit.

Each of the brothers on the Council was gifted in some way. They'd never trusted one another enough to share, and their father made things worse by compartmentalizing the Council's business and pitting the sons against one another long before he was killed. Gabriel knew the secrets of all seven from interacting with them over the years. There were things Immortals told Death - or Death's messengers - they dared not tell anyone else. Who better to keep a secret?

Tamer's gift: He was the keeper of the Immortal histories, records not even Rhyn knew about, that only Tamer could read with his magic.

"Shouldn't you know this shit? Since you're Death?" Tamer asked over his shoulder.

"Shouldn't you be in the Alps with Rhyn?" Gabe returned.

"I was granted leave. I need goddamn permission to take a piss."

As much as the brothers hated one another, Rhyn and Tamer were too similar for Gabe to feel anything but amused by the open hostility. They emerged through a back door into a massive foyer made of white marble and limestone with ancient carvings on the walls and statues positioned throughout. Tamer continued to a locked door on the other side of the foyer. It led down another hallway lined with wooden doors, each marked with an Immortal symbol.