The Binding Stone: The Dragon Below Book 1

by Don Bassingthwaite

Singe’s eyebrows climbed even higher. “Twelve moons, you’re mercenary!”

  “No,” said Vennet, “that would be the province of House Deneith.” He gave the wizard a biting smile. “And unlike Natrac, I wouldn’t dream of cutting into Deneith’s business.” There was a knock at the door. “Come in!” Vennet called.

  One of the big crewmen who had gone into the hold along with Geth and Vennet opened the door. “Beg you pardon, captain, but we may have found out why the fighting started. It sounds like the woman had valuables with her—the first men into the fight were trying to intimidate her into handing them over.”

  “Not a very successful attempt,” commented Vennet. “Have you looked for these valuables, Karth?”

  The crewman shook his head and flushed. “They’d be in the hold, captain, and none of us want to go down with …”

  His voice trailed off, but Dandra could guess what he meant. None of the crew wanted to be around Ashi. The hunter had done a lot of damage and even chained up she was intimidating.

  Vennet rolled his eyes. “Is there any word what kind of valuables we’re talking about?” he asked crossly.

  “Some kind of jewelry,” said the crewman. “Some of Natrac’s gang say it was like a headband set with diamonds.”

  “I find it hard to believe that a Marcher savage is going to be carrying a diamond bloody headband, Karth. Or that one of Natrac’s thugs would recognize diamonds if he saw them.”

  Tetkashtai stirred uneasily within Dandra’s mind. Dandra, a headpiece set with crystals … An image of the spidery, crystal-studded devices Dah’mir’s mind flayers had used on them flickered within her light.

  I know, said Dandra. “Vennet,” she said aloud, “I’d like to look for this headband.”

  Geth and Singe stared at her, but Vennet tilted his head, then nodded slowly. “If you want to,” he said. “You can’t go down alone, though—”

  “I’ll go with her,” Singe said. He shot a glance at Geth. The shifter growled agreement as well.

  “We’ll all go,” said Vennet. “Karth, fetch a couple of lanterns. We’ll need more light down there.”

  As they left the captain’s cabin and paced back along the ship’s length, Vennet leaned close to Dandra. “You think there’s something special about this headband?”

  Dandra clenched her teeth. “I think it might be connected to the cult of the Dragon Below.” The half-truth seemed to satisfy Vennet.

  Karth was waiting by the hatch down to the aft hold, two everbright lanterns in his hands. Vennet took them, passing one to Singe, then nodded at Karth to raise the hatch.

  The hold was silent. Geth crouched down and peered into the dimness, then nodded and went in all the way. Vennet followed. Singe gestured for Dandra to go ahead of him, but she swallowed and stepped aside. Ashi might have been shackled, but facing the hunter was still going to be difficult. “After you,” she said. Singe nodded and descended the steps. Dandra swallowed. Tetkashtai had already drawn herself into a tight, tense spark. Cautiously, Dandra stepped down into the hold.

  From where she sat chained to the floor, bound hand and foot, Ashi glared at her. The Bonetree hunter’s face was bruised and swelling from the brawl and her ferocious fight with Geth, and there was fierce hatred in her eyes.

  Vennet and Singe kept their distance from the bound hunter, but Geth strode right up to her. His lips peeled back from his teeth and he growled in Ashi’s face. The hunter’s gaze shifted slowly from Dandra to Geth. Her lips twitched as well, but they didn’t part. She kept her silence. Her arms, however, tensed against her shackles.

  “Get away from her,” said Vennet. He grabbed Geth and pulled him away, then faced Ashi himself. “Where’s this headband trinket that started the fight?” he demanded.

  Ashi didn’t answer. Her eyes didn’t waver from Geth. The shifter growled again. “Beat it out of her,” he said, his voice thick and almost irrational.

  Ashi’s jaw tightened, but her expression of angry resolve didn’t change.

  “Geth!” Dandra hissed. A part of Dandra understood what Geth wanted: a measure of revenge against their enemy. The temptation to hurt Ashi as she had been hurt herself was strong. Dandra pushed the urge away. She stepped up to Geth and grabbed his shoulders. The shifter’s chest was heaving. “We’re better than that,” she said. “Beat her while she’s bound or kill her in cold blood and we bring ourselves down to her level.”

  To her surprise, the statement provoked more of a reaction from Ashi than any of Geth’s threats—the hunter drew a sharp breath and spat out a harsh, deeply accented rebuke. “Blood in your mouth, outclanner! I’m not a torturer. Or a murderer either!”

  Geth turned on her. “One of your clan murdered Adolan!”

  Ashi’s eyes narrowed. “The Gatekeeper? He died fighting, like the hunters you killed, shifter. If that’s murder, then there’s more of my clan’s blood on your blade than yours on mine!”

  Dandra felt Geth’s body stiffen under her hands, his massive muscles flexing. She shoved him back several more steps from the bound hunter. Singe grabbed him from the other side, helping to restrain him, though Dandra was reasonably certain that he could have wrenched himself away from both of them easily. After a moment, he slowly relaxed. Dandra let him go, then looked at Ashi.

  “The headband,” she said. “Where is it?”

  The hunter lapsed back into sullen silence. Dandra looked around the hold. Searching the stacks of crates, barrels, and sacks—not to mention the blankets and packs Natrac’s clients had left behind—would take hours. There was another possibility though. If the “diamond headband” was, as both she and Tetkashtai suspected, some kind of psionic-empowered creation, it would more than just a physical presence. She cleared her thoughts and opened her mind’s eye.

  A swirling mist took shape in her vision, similar to Tetkashtai’s presence but shadowy instead of glowing with light. The feel of it filled her dread, but she focused her mind and pointed where the aura seemed strongest. A heavy sack rested in front of a pile of crates. “Behind there,” she said.

  The slight tightening of Ashi’s face told her she was right. Singe stepped forward and dragged the sack aside to reveal a gap between the crates. He held his lantern close, peering inside, then got down on the floor and stretched one arm deep into the gap. His hand emerged with a well-worn pouch of soft leather. He passed it to Geth. Dandra watched Ashi for any further reaction, but the hunter’s expression had taken on the harsh coldness of stone. Geth drew the string on the pouch open and spilled its contents into his palm.

  A band, perhaps three fingers wide, of loosely woven copper wire studded with large, roughly cut crystals slid out. The crystals caught the lantern light and flashed brightly, but Vennet said, “Those aren’t diamonds.”

  “No,” agreed Dandra, “they aren’t.”

  There was something strangely familiar about the aura of the band, like a face half-recognized. She reached out to touch the band.

  The aura that surrounded it flickered and reacted like a living thing, rearing back then snapping toward her hungrily. Dandra snatched her hand back with a gasp. The band sought a living host—it clearly had little power on its own—but there was still a mind behind it, a mind reaching out for a connection. And the mind behind the band …

  Tetkashtai recognized that mind only a moment before Dandra did. A name echoed in Dandra’s mind. A haze of horror settled on her as she turned and stared at Ashi.

  “Medalashana,” she said, her voice trembling. “Medalashana is alive. This band lets you communicate with her.”

  The hunter’s face went pale with a mix of anger and surprise. She looked away—enough of an answer to tell Dandra that she was right.

  “Who’s Medalashana?” asked Vennet.

  Dandra hesitated, then answered. “A friend. Dah’mir took her at the same time he took me. I thought she was dead.”

  “You don’t look happy to know she’s alive.”

  “I …” Dandra looked bac
k to the crystal band. Geth was still holding it, though he looked a little unsettled. He’d be even more unsettled if he could see what she saw: the aura of the device, coiled and writhing like a snake. “I don’t think I am. The band has a sense of her mind about it, but it’s dark. Mad. If Medalashana’s alive, if she has her powers …” She swallowed. “It’s only because she’s given herself to Dah’mir and become one of his followers.”

  Geth’s hands trembled. Dandra gestured for him to put the band away and he slid it back into the pouch, then quickly handed it to her. Dandra could still feel the device’s aura, seething inside the leather.

  “Twelve moons,” said Singe from the floor. “Natrac’s thugs saw Ashi with the headband, didn’t they? That means she used it while she’s been on the ship. Dah’mir knows we’re coming!”

  “If he doesn’t,” Dandra said grimly, “he at least knows we’re on our way to Zarash’ak.” She looked at Vennet. “We can go now.”

  “Wait, Dandra,” said Singe. He leaned back down to the gap between the crates and wriggled his arm inside again. “I felt something else in—”

  Ashi howled at his words and lunged forward as far as her shackles would allow. Dandra gasped, the disembodied chorus of whitefire snapping into her mind out of instinct. Geth growled and brought up his fists. Vennet’s hand went to a cutlass he had strapped on in his cabin. Ashi paid no attention to any of them, however. Her eyes were fixed on Singe.

  “Outclanner! Touch that and I promise I will hunt you down and kill you!”

  The hunter’s threat washed over Singe. He looked at her as he sat up. “I thought you were trying to do that anyway, Ashi,” he said calmly. He held out the long bundle, wrapped in a length of torn blanket, that his fingers had found jammed into the gap. A flick of his wrist and the cloth fell away to reveal a sheathed sword.

  Vennet spat at the sight of it as Ashi let loose another howl of outrage. “Storm at dawn! I told Natrac to make his thugs didn’t bring any weapons onboard!”

  “If Natrac was as eager to get Ashi onboard as he says, I don’t imagine she had any trouble slipping it past him.”

  Singe stood up to examine the sword in lantern light. The scabbard that it rested in was crude, but the sword was much more sophisticated work, fifty years old or more to judge by its shape and the design of its hilt. The pommel had been worn almost smooth, but hints of gilt clung to the metal and there was still a trace of some kind of symbol on it. He turned it to the light.

  The faded remains of a lion, a ram, and a dragon stared back at him—the heads of a chimera. Singe gasped in surprise and whipped the sword free of the scabbard. Light flashed on a fine magewrought blade, patiently honed to razor sharpness. The years had not, however, obscured the inscription on the bright metal: Words teach and spirit guides.

  “Grandmother Wolf!” said Geth. “That’s the sword Ner used when I fought him.”

  “It’s the sword of the huntmaster of the Bonetree!” Ashi raged. “Sheathe it, outclanner, or I’ll tear out your innards with my bare hands!”

  “What it is,” said Singe, “is an honor blade of the Sentinel Marshals of House Deneith. These aren’t given out to just anyone.” He looked at Ashi. “Where did a Marcher clan get this?”

  The hunter closed her mouth and snarled at him.

  Singe shrugged. “It should be returned to House Deneith. They’ll know who it was presented to.” He slid the sword back into its scabbard and looked at Ashi again. “If it was Ner’s weapon, why isn’t he carrying it now?”

  “Ner is dead,” Ashi said. She glared at Dandra. “Medala killed him when we failed to capture you.”

  Dandra’s hands tightened on the pouch containing the crystal band. Vennet glanced at Ashi, then leaned in close to Singe and the kalashtar. “I’d keep those safe if I were you,” he murmured. “I have a strongbox in my cabin …”

  Singe glanced at Dandra, then shook his head as he sheathed the honor blade. “I think we’ll keep both of these close.”

  “What about her?” asked Geth, jerking his head toward Ashi. The hunter glared back at them, hunched over in her bonds.

  “Two days to Zarash’ak,” Vennet promised. “I’ll put a watch on her and check in myself. You don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

  The next two days passed with a strange tension onboard the ship. Vennet’s crew trod warily around Natrac’s clients, who themselves seemed intimidated by the powers and strength that Geth, Dandra, and Vennet had displayed in taking down Ashi. Natrac remained locked away in his cabin, his absence causing great confusion among the other passengers. All of them knew about the brawl and somehow word got around that Vennet had confined Natrac to his cabin as punishment for bringing Ashi onboard. There were no more meals at the captain’s table—the passengers took their meals with the crew or in their own cabins. Singe didn’t see Natrac emerge from his frightened seclusion even for food.

  True to his word, Vennet made sure two big sailors kept watch on the aft hold at all times. Ashi herself remained disturbingly silent. For his own part, Singe spent time with his spellshard, studying magic that he could use against the hunter—should she escape—without risk of setting Lightning on Water on fire. As she had on previous occasions when he had studied the arcane text captured in the fist-sized dragonshard, Dandra watched him with quiet fascination.

  “Why fire?” she asked as he finished his studies in the ship’s bow late in the morning of the second day.

  Singe smiled at her, then looked out beyond the rail. Some time during the night they had entered Zarash Bay, the gateway to the Shadow Marches. The low marshy southern coast of the Marches lay across the horizon like a haze, drawing closer as the day passed. “Fire challenges me,” he said. “You have to be careful with it. Spells of fire only have one purpose: to destroy. And if you’re not careful, you can destroy a lot more than you intend to.” His grin twitched to one side as he looked back to her. “Most people, even a lot of other wizards, are afraid of fire for that reason.”

  “But you’re not?”

  “Probably less than I should be.” He tucked his spellshard away in the belt pouch that kept it close to him at all times—the only reason it had stayed with him at Bull Hollow and through all kinds of battles over the years—and held out his left hand to show Dandra the ring he wore. “This was an inheritance from my great-grandfather. I was given it on my sixteenth birthday. It protects me from fire. Probably not the best gift to give a rebellious adolescent, but I don’t think my parents knew what it really was.”

  Dandra examined the ring. “I know a power that does the same thing,” she said. She reached out and took his hand, her fingers parting his to look at the ring from all sides. Her touch tickled.

  “What about your powers?” he asked and immediately regretted it as Dandra stiffened. He felt blood rush to his face. “I mean, what about Tetkashtai’s …” he began again awkwardly but Dandra shook her head.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I know what you mean.” She released his hand and sat back. “A psion’s powers are a reflection of her psyche. Tetkashtai is … forceful. She’s a fighter and she chose to follow a path suited to swift victory: the powers that she honed, her combat skills—” Dandra pressed fingers to her chest “—even her creation of me to augment her own resolve. Fire suits Tetkashtai.”

  Singe hesitated for a moment, then asked a question that had lingered in his mind since Dandra had opened her memories to him and Geth. “Is that why Virikhad loved her?”

  “Loved? I—” Dandra winced, then shook her head. “Tetkashtai would prefer we didn’t talk about that.”

  “Oh.” Singe glanced at the yellow-green crystal around Dandra’s neck and shifted uncomfortably. “Sorry, Tetkashtai.” He looked back at Dandra. “She can hear me, right?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Is it very different being …” He gestured to the crystal.

  Dandra nodded. “To Tetkashtai, it’s torture, able to see and hear but unable to d
o anything more,” she said. “The only influence she has on the world is through me and even that’s limited. We share our powers—we both have the knowledge, but I have most of the raw energy and she has most of the skill. Do you remember after the Bull Hole, when I was so drained? It was because Tetkashtai was trying to punish me by drawing away. Without her, I exhausted myself moving the stone that capped the Hole. But without me to work through, Tetkashtai can’t use her powers at all.”

  Singe cocked his head. “How is Medalashana able to use her powers to communicate through the crystal band?”

  Dandra’s lips pressed together and she hesitated before answering. “Singe, when I told you that Medalashana could only be alive if she yielded to Dah’mir, there was … something else. I couldn’t say it because Vennet was with us and later, I wasn’t sure how to tell you.” She looked him in the eyes. “If Medalashana has her powers back, it’s because she has been returned to her body, either by Dah’mir or by her own twisted will. Either way, it means it’s possible to reverse what Dah’mir did.”

  “That’s good!” Singe said—then the underlying meaning of what Dandra was saying hit him. He struggled to keep a smile on his face. “So you and Tetkashtai would switch back if you could?”

  “It’s her body.”

  “I guess it is.” He stood up. “What about Virikhad?”

  “What about him?” Dandra asked, rising as well. Singe felt blood rush to his face again.

  “I mean, do you think he’s alive?” he said quickly. “Like Medalashana?”

  Dandra paused, then said. “Tetkashtai hopes he is.”

  “And you?”

  She shook her head.

  A shout interrupted them. “Shallows ahead!” called a lookout. “Approaching land.”

  Up ahead, the long bay narrowed to the mouth of a meandering river, by no means large enough to allow Lightning on Water to progress at her full speed. As they came up on the river, the elemental gale that had howled in Singe’s ears for five days faded away. The misty ring that bound the elemental to the ship shimmered and solidified once more and their speed dropped. Without the elemental’s speed, the hull of the ship slid back down into the water, hiding the great running-fins once more. It seemed like they were crawling through the water, though Singe knew they were still making as good time as any conventional ship could hope for.