The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III (44 page)

The young kalashtar tried to rise, but Dandra held him down. Singe dropped to kneel beside him. He glanced at Dandra, his lips shaping a silent question—what did Moon want? She shrugged. Singe met Moon’s gaze. “You wanted to see me?” he asked.

“I wanted to say thank you. For not using the binding stone on me. You could have used it and trapped Virikhad, but you didn’t.” Moon swallowed. His face was pale and haunted. “I remember everything that happened. I remember what he did—” His voice caught.

“It’s not your fault, Moon,” said Dandra. “You’re safe now.”

“No!” Moon said sharply. Anger crossed his face. “I’m not safe. No one is safe. I still have a connection to him.” He struck a fist against his ear. “I can still hear the song!”

“What?” Dandra sat up straight.

Singe frowned. “Are you sure it’s not just something you remember?”

Moon nodded. “I don’t know how,” he said. “Maybe he was inside me for too long. Maybe he got too close to my mind. The song is still there. I can hear it. It connects us. I don’t think he knows about it—or if he does, he doesn’t care.” There was a tremble in his voice. “You know how he used his powers through me? I think I can still use them. When he and Medala
took the others away, I knew how to follow them with my mind. I felt them bend space.” He took a deep breath. “I know where they are.”

“Where?” Singe asked.

The young kalashtar rose to his knees and pointed through the rail of the ship directly at the Bonetree mound. “There,” he said. “Under there. Deep under.”

Singe looked at Dandra. “Dah’mir said the kalashtar would wake in the presence of the Master of Silence. Do you think Medala and Virikhad are trying the same thing?”

She nodded, then asked him, “Do you think we still have a chance of stopping them?”

“You have to,” said Moon. He turned away from the rail and stared at them. “I’ve felt Virikhad’s mind. I know I wouldn’t want to be like that.” His voice broke. “Light of il-Yannah, I will do whatever it takes to make that song stop!”

The anger in him made Singe jerk back but Dandra reached out and took the young kalashtar’s hand. “Easy, Moon,” she said soothingly. “I’ve felt Medala’s mind, and I touched the killing song in Erimelk. I know I what you’re feeling. But I’ve also been in the tunnels under the mound. I don’t know if we’d be able to find them in time—and Dah’mir’s down there now too.”

Moon’s jaw tightened. “I can take you right to them. I can use Virikhad’s power against him.”

Dandra’s breath hissed between her teeth. “Are you certain? The long step isn’t something to use lightly.”

“I’m certain,” said Moon. “And I have to try. I don’t want his song in my head!” He looked at her, then at Singe. “I can take both of you. Maybe someone else too.”

“Me,” said Ashi.

Singe turned around. The hunter, Natrac, and Mithas had gathered around them. Ashi’s dragonmarked face was determined.

Singe nodded, and Mithas let out a cry of protest.

Ashi glared at him. “I said I’d go with you when this was over and everyone was safe. The lords of Deneith can wait!”

“There’s no way to reverse what Dah’mir has already done to the kalashtar,” said Dandra. “The only way for the kalashtar mind to escape the psicrystal is through madness.” She looked
from Ashi to Moon. “Whether they’ve already awakened as servants of Xoriat or not, if we want to release them, we’re going to have to kill them.”

Both Ashi and Moon nodded. Dandra’s dark eyes turned to Singe. The wizard’s heart felt like ice. “I’ve already killed them once,” he said. “I owe it to them to do it again.”

  
T
orches made from burning reeds soaked in sweet oils cast a wavering light on the tunnel walls. The illumination wasn’t for the Gatekeepers’ benefit. The orcs and Ekhaas could have navigated the maze beneath the Bonetree mound without any light at all. Nor, Geth knew, was it for his, though he would have been as blind as a human without it. No, the torches, which burned with a greenish glow and gave off a thin smoke that smelled of cut grass, had only one purpose.

They held back the dolgrims.

The vile creatures seemed to be everywhere. As the light that surrounded the procession of druids advanced, they retreated into the darkness ahead. Where the tunnel was wide enough, they clustered in the shadows to the procession’s sides. When the light had passed, they closed in behind. As the Gatekeepers entered a new passage where the ceiling soared high overheard, Geth caught movement above and looked up.

Dolgrims crouched on ledges like spectators in the balcony of an arena. They shifted back from the light, but held their ground. Tiny dark eyes watched the intruders. Four bandy arms fondled sharp knives and spiked maces, even simple stones. Two wide mouths—one in the squat head that rose like a hump on each creature’s shoulders, the other in what should have been its chest—drooled and twitched. The passage, like all of the others beneath the mound, echoed with constant muttering as the dolgrims spoke to one another—and to themselves, each
mouth taking sides in an unending conversation.

When the gibbering had first emerged from the shadows, Geth had tried listening to it. He’d been holding Wrath and the ancient sword allowed him to understand the weird tongue spoken by the creatures of Khyber just as it let him understand Orc and Goblin. After only a few moments, however, he’d had to sheathe the weapon, sickened by what he’d heard. The dolgrims spoke only of violence, violation, and depravity.

Ekhaas continued to listen, though it was clear she didn’t understand what they were saying. Her ears twitched with curiosity. “Their language almost sounds like Goblin,” she said.

“They almost look like goblins,” Geth grunted.

“They may have been goblins,” said Batul. “The oldest legends of the Daelkyr War, from the time when the daelkyr first burst from Xoriat to invade Eberron, say that the daelkyr brought creatures like the mind flayers with them, but that they also crafted new creatures from the races they encountered here. Some of the legends hold that the dolgrims were created from goblins.”

“What about dolgaunts?” asked Geth.

The old druid’s mouth closed tight for a moment, and he glanced at Ekhaas, then murmured, “Hobgoblins.”

Ekhaas’s ears pressed back flat against her skull.

A rock clattered somewhere close. One of the other Gatekeepers grunted something in Orc. Batul grimaced. “The dolgrims above are growing bolder. We need to get out of this passage.” He put his hand on the amulet of Vvaraak—it hung around his neck once more—and pointed with his hunda stick. “This way.” he said.

When they’d first entered the mound—the nine most senior Gatekeepers from the horde, Geth, and Ekhaas—the guidance that the amulet provided had hardly been necessary. Closer to the surface, cross-tunnels and side-passages had been uncommon and the floors of the tunnels they had followed had been worn smooth from use. More tunnels appeared the deeper they went, however. The floor became slick-smooth, polished by the passage of countless dolgrim feet over many, many years. Batul had kept them to their path though, the amulet guiding him toward the great seal.

They left the high passage for a tunnel that was low but broad. Dolgrims flowed past them in the shadows to either side, lithe in spite of their deformities. Geth clenched his teeth. “How much farther?” he asked.

“The influence of Xoriat bleeds through into this place,” said Batul. “The great seal is like a torch in the fog: it’s close, but you can’t tell what’s between you and it.”

There was a sudden exclamation from the Gatekeeper who had taken the lead in their procession. Ekhaas’s ears rose. “She says there are no dolgrims ahead of her. They’ve fallen away.”

Geth peered into the shadows once more. The dolgrims had indeed stopped moving. They stood still now, watching the procession move past them. Even their muttering seemed muted. Geth dropped his hand to Wrath. Whispers sprang at him.

“… they enter the dark place.”

“They won’t come back.”

“We could follow.”

“We
wouldn’t come back …”

They passed the last of the dolgrims. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel vanished. The green-tinted light of the reed torches was a pool of light moving through darkness. The cavern they had entered was vast. Even at the edges of his vision, Geth could see nothing but the smooth floor stretching into the gloom. He glanced at Ekhaas. “You see anything?” he asked softly.

She shook her head.

“The seal lies ahead,” said Batul. Even his confident voice was dwarfed by the space around them. No one else spoke. They moved in silence.

The deep quiet was even more eerie than the muttering of the dolgrims had been. Around Geth’s neck, the collar of black stones grew icy cold. Geth drew Wrath. The feel of the byeshk sword in his left hand and the weight of his great gauntlet on his right arm were reassuring, solid anchors in a place that felt increasingly as if it were no longer a part of the world.

Then something loomed ahead. It took several more paces before Geth saw what it was: a wall of rock that stretched up and to either side, vanishing into darkness just as the floor of the cavern did. Directly ahead of the procession, a narrow passage pierced the rock.

They all stopped and stared at it. After a long moment, Batul spoke in hushed tones. “Surely we are the first of our kind to walk this path since before the dawn of this age.” He slipped the amulet from around his neck and pressed it to his lips with hands that trembled. “Vvaraak lend us the strength and wisdom to do what must be done,” he prayed. “Shield us from the madness that has waited for nine thousand years.”

In the midst of the dark and silent cavern, the breath of a warm breeze stirred. Geth’s hair drifted back from his face, and his heart seemed to lift. The Gatekeepers murmured a collective invocation to the ancient founder of their sect, and even Ekhaas looked awed by the gentle but powerful force that touched them. Batul lowered the amulet. The procession started forward to the passage into the rock—

—just as silver-white light flashed somewhere on its other side. The glare that burst through the passage and fell upon them was dimmed by distance, but after so long in the tunnels it was still blinding. Geth saw only a bright, jagged line in the darkness, like lightning through a storm. He bit back a cry and twitched his head away, but the light had already printed itself on his eyes in hazy afterimages. He blinked furiously, trying to clear it away.

“Medala’s light!” Ekhaas hissed. “She’s back!”

“Extinguish the torches!” Batul commanded in a whisper.

Reeds ground against rock. Geth might have been afraid that Medala would hear the quiet noise, but there were noises coming from the other side of the passage now too. Groans. Whimpers. The sound of a body falling to writhe against stone. Medala wasn’t alone. Ekhaas’s ears twitched. “Other kalashtar!
Khaavolaar
, when she vanished she must have gone to the airship.” She bared her teeth. “This is her revenge against Dah’mir!”

“By bringing any captives he had into the mound?” Geth growled under his breath as understanding woke in him. “By bringing servants to the Master of Silence first!”

The last of the green light vanished, and for a moment Geth stood in utter darkness made even deeper by the false glow of the afterimages in his visions. He could see light, but it illuminated nothing. He was completely blind.

Before his fear could turn into panic, Medala’s harsh voice—or
rather her voice and another in a strange unison—called out a word. Geth’s sight returned as a dim blue radiance blossomed beyond the passage. He saw one of the Gatekeepers turn to Batul, and Wrath translated her words. “We can’t block her power! What do we do now?”

“What we must,” said Batul. “The Master of Silence has caused the creation of one servant who resists our magic. Soon he may have more. We can’t stop now—but we don’t stand alone.” His good eye fixed on Ekhaas. “On the Sharvat Vvaraak, you showed that
duur’kala
magic can still block Medala’s power.”

Ekhaas’s eyes darted around the procession and she bared her teeth. “I wouldn’t be able to shield all of us.”

“Shield yourself and Geth, then.” Batul looked at the shifter too. “Stop Medala, and we will be free to act.”

Geth’s gauntlet creaked as he curled his hand into a fist and nodded. Batul tightened his grip on his hunda stick. “Sing, Ekhaas. We’ll hold Medala’s attention.” He raised the stick. “Gatekeepers, follow!”

The druids dashed for the passage in the rock face, their shadows stretching out behind them to cover Geth and Ekhaas. Before the last of the Gatekeepers was within, Geth heard Medala’s shout of surprise and hatred. A cry of challenge broke out from among the orcs, wordless and angry. Geth whirled to face Ekhaas. “Sing!”

Song rippled from her lips, and her face stilled as the magic settled over her first. As she sang, Geth closed his eyes, reached into himself, and shifted. The familiar sense of invulnerability poured into his veins at the same time as Ekhaas’s spell turned to him, and the exhilaration of shifting mingled with the sharpness and clarity of her song. Geth drew a breath so deep it felt like his chest would crack. When he opened his eyes, everything seemed hard-edged and distinct.