The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III

by Don Bassingthwaite

  She looked at him sharply. “Aside from the attack itself, the only unusual thing was the way you whisked him away afterward. What are you hiding? What do you know about Erimelk’s madness?”

  Nevchaned’s expression didn’t change—but Selkatari’s did. Her eyes narrowed. “That’s a strange thing to say. It almost sounds like you know something about it.”

  Dandra could have bitten her tongue, but she pushed her argument, attacking before she could be forced to defend. “And you sound even more like you have something to hide!”

  “Enough, Selkatari!” Nevchaned said

  But the wiry woman was already rising from her seat. “You don’t know what we face—”

  “And neither do we.” Hanamelk reached out and put a hand on Selkatari’s arm, drawing her back down into her seat. He calmed the elders with a hard glance then looked at Dandra. “So you know,” he said. “The council of elders does hide something. What about you, Tetkashtai? Do you know more than you say?”

  Dandra’s heart beat fast. She kept her mouth closed, trying to think what to do or say. She didn’t want to lie to the elders any more than she had to, but she didn’t want to give away too much either. “You have an advantage over me,” she said. “I’ve been away, and I’ve come back to fear in Fan Adar and a kalashtar mad in the street. Tell me what you know. Maybe I can add something to it.”

  Hanamelk considered her as Selkatari fumed, then looked to Nevchaned again. “Tell her,” he said.

  Nevchaned’s worn face drew tight, but he nodded and turned to meet Dandra’s gaze directly. “Erimelk,” he said, “isn’t the first kalashtar in Fan Adar to go mad. Over the last month, there have been seven others, all of them violent. We’ve had to restrain them to keep them harming themselves—or others.”

  Dandra’s heart felt cold. “There have been other attacks?”

  “Your Aundairian friend was lucky,” said Selkatari. “He’s still alive. Ten kalashtar and Adarans are dead. One of the mad kalashtar took her own life before we could stop her. Three others may have done the same.”

  “What?” Dandra asked. She looked from Selkatari, to Nevchaned, to Hanamelk. “How could this be happening? How could you hide that from the people of Fan Adar?” She blinked. “What about the authorities? Does the Sharn Watch know?”

  “No,” said Nevchaned. “Kalashtar deal with kalashtar problems.” He looked vaguely guilty. “But the people of Fan Adar know about the murders and the madness. We couldn’t have hidden that.”

  Dandra’s brows drew together. “What are you hiding then?” she asked.

  Nevchaned turned pale. “The song,” he said. “We’re trying to hide the song.”

  “The … song?” Dandra repeated. The strange tune that Erimelk had sung as he regained consciousness—the song that Nevchaned had moved quickly to silence—came back to her. She tried to recall the melody. “Aahyi-ksiksiksi—?”

  The elders drew back from her like a flock of birds parting before the attack of a hawk. “Don’t!” said Nevchaned.

  Dandra fell silent and stared at him and all around.

  The old kalashtar shook his head. “Two things connect all of those who have fallen mad. One of them is the song. What you heard Erimelk sing is only a pale reflection of what remained of his mind. The song consumed him.”

  “Madness that’s caused by a song?” Shock knotted Dandra’s gut. “Does the song spread the madness?”

  “We don’t know,” said Nevchaned. “We don’t think so. Many among the elders have heard the song, and we’re not mad yet. But the song and the madness are linked. That’s why we try to suppress it.”

  “You said two things connected the kalashtar who fell mad,” Dandra said. “What’s the other?”

  Hanamelk interrupted Nevchaned’s answer. “Maybe that’s something you should see for yourself,” he said.

  He gestured and, from the back of the room, an old woman rose and came forward. Dandra recognized her with a slight shiver of dread. Her name was Shelsatori. Tetkashtai hadn’t known her well, but Medala had—Shelsatori had taught her some of her most potent psionic powers. Dandra stood and bowed respectfully to the old woman. Shelsatori barely seemed to notice, but just looked at her wearily.

  There was no warning, no tentative touch of kesh. All at once, Shelsatori was inside Dandra’s head—not probing or tearing as Medala had once done to Dandra, but simply present much as Tetkashtai had been present. Shelsatori paused as someone who stands at the threshold of a door, then stepped aside.

  Sound filled Dandra’s head, a kind of crystalline ringing that rose and fell in a song without words. The notes were inhumanly clear and pure, like glass and gems and drops of silver tumbling together in an unending cascade. No physical voice or instrument could have produced those tones. If she’d tried to sing them, they probably would have come out from her throat just as they had from Erimelk’s. Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi—

  The longer she listened, though, the more it seemed that her mind became lost in the intricacies of the song. It turned her back on herself, dragging her down and lifting her up, and it became wilder, darker. Emotions stirred in her. Violent emotions. A need to hurt. A need to kill. And just when she thought she would die herself if she couldn’t kill, the song seemed to condense, offering her a target for her violence—or rather, targets. Three familiar faces swam in the song.

  Her, Singe, and Geth.

  She almost fell over as the song vanished from her mind along with Shelsatori’s presence. She had to grab for her chair to keep her balance, and it took a moment before she remembered where and who she was. Sweat was cool on her face and arms, and she was trembling. The song lingered like a bad memory, and it was all Dandra could do to offer thanks to il-Yannah that it was someone else’s memory.

  “She has seen,” said Shelsatori calmly and turned to return to her seat. Dandra looked up at Nevchaned.

  “We don’t know where it comes from, and no one has been able to break its hold. The seers among us—” He nodded at Hanamelk. “—have meditated on the source of the song and found nothing. We thought that it might be the work of our enemies in Riedra, but not even Havakhad was able to sense any hint of new plots among the Inspired. Your face was our only clue until today when you appeared with the Aundairian. Who is the shifter?”

  “A friend, but a long way from here.” Dandra sank down into her chair. She could feel the eyes of every elder in the room on her. “Light of il-Yannah. The song was meant to drive its victims to kill us, but without us here, they could only turn on others.”

  “We’d assumed as much as well,” said Hanamelk. He hesitated, then added. “The danger hasn’t ended with Erimelk’s capture. The victims appear in sequence. One is subdued and restrained, but a few days later the song comes to someone new.”

  “Tell us what you know, Tetkashtai,” Nevchaned said. “If you know what the song is, or why it’s happening, tell us! What about Medalashana and Virikhad? Are they involved?”

  Dandra took a slow breath and tried to put her thoughts in order. The song had been claiming victims over the last month—and it had been just over a month since Dah’mir had eluded them. The song urged its victims to kill her, Singe, and Geth—and of course, Dah’mir wouldn’t have known that Geth hadn’t come with them to Sharn. The dragon couldn’t have known that they’d pursue him to Sharn at all, but leaving a trap for them anyway seemed cautious. It couldn’t have been hard to figure out that if they did come to Sharn, they’d seek out the kalashtar in Overlook.

  Had he found a new way to direct the power of his presence over kalashtar? Had he found an unexpected way to tap into the ancient binding stones? Had he already mastered them?

  Or perhaps the time for questions was past. She sat up straight, raised her chin, and met Nevchaned’s gaze, then looked around at all of the gathered elders.

  “Join me in kesh,” she said. “There’s something I need to show you.” She opened herself and reached out. One by one, the minds of the
elders touched hers. Dandra clasped them and held them tight, stretching her power to encompass them all.

  First, she said as she spread her memories before them, you should know that I am not Tetkashtai—

  When she finished the tale and released the elders from kesh, the room was silent except for the muffled sounds of the Gathering Light beyond the door and down the narrow stairs. The elders stared at her and one another. Dandra studied their faces. Most seemed shocked. Some seemed even more frightened than they had when she’d first entered the room. Some looked back at her with loathing—and strangely, Dandra found that it didn’t bother her as much as she’d been afraid it would. All of them had seen what she’d been through. All of them had seen what had happened to Tetkashtai, Medalashana, and Virikhad. All of them had, through her, felt the terrible fascination of Dah’mir’s presence—and she’d felt, through the kesh, the fascination that even her memories of the dragon’s acid-green eyes had exerted upon them.

  She felt like a hollow shell of herself, her story drained out her, but she also felt good. The truth had been told and whatever else the elders might think, they knew about Dah’mir now.

  Hanamelk broke the silence. “Dah’mir will use the binding stones to imprison the minds of kalashtar in their psicrystals until they go mad and find the strength to reclaim their bodies, becoming servants of Xoriat in their madness. Il-Yannah, no wonder the seers haven’t seen the danger. We watch for attack from Dal Quor and Riedra, not Xoriat and the Cults of the Dragon Below.”

  “I’ve seen the black herons you describe,” said Selkatari. “I didn’t think much of them—there are always birds in Sharn, sometimes exotic ones—but now that I think of it, they’ve been here for weeks. Just perching and watching.”

  A chorus of agreement rose. Other elders had seen and dismissed the birds as well. “We should start with them,” said Selkatari. “Kill them. Blind Dah’mir.”

  “Leave them,” suggested Dandra. “If you kill them, Dah’mir will know something’s wrong. As it is, the only ones who have anything to fear from them are Singe, Ashi, Natrac, and me.”

  Selkatari frowned. “What do we do then? Wait for the killing song to take us or Dah’mir to trap us with his binding stones?”

  “Or for our psicrystals,” said Shelsatori’s dry, old voice, “to take control of our bodies?”

  Dandra’s face burned hot.

  Hanamelk rose to his feet. “We do what we’ve always done,” he said. “We stand firm and fight back, offering haven to those who need it. The seers will search out Dah’mir. The telepaths will devise a means to protect us from his power—a dragonmark can’t be the only way to foil him. All others will use our eyes and ears to watch for trouble. We know the danger now. We are on guard. We have as much time as Dah’mir does.” He bent his head to Dandra. “We thank you and we thank your friends. Your warning gives us a chance. Patan yannah, Dandra.”

  With a start, Dandra realized she was being dismissed. The heat in her face burned its way into her heart. “Wait—” she began in protest, but then Nevchaned was at her side at she felt his mind touch hers briefly, weakly, as though the long mental debate had taxed him.

  Come with me, he said. We need to talk away from here. Hanamelk will keep them busy.

  The moment of kesh faded, leaving a sense of urgency in its wake. Dandra swallowed her anger and tried to stand tall and dignified. “Patan yannah, Hanamelk,” she said, then bowed her head to included all of the elders. “Patan yannah.”

  Most returned her nod, though stiffly. She allowed Nevchaned to lead her out of the meeting room. Out in the hall, Moon jerked when the door opened, as if he had been asleep at his post. Nevchaned frowned at his son and beckoned for Dandra to follow him partway down the stairs. With the sounds of the Gathering Light—quieter now as the night grew later—surrounding them, he put his head close to hers.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Hanamelk is sorry too. The elders need time to talk among themselves and absorb everything you’ve just told them. You’ve frightened them—”

  Dandra clenched her teeth. She’d been afraid that the kalashtar wouldn’t accept her? Now she just felt angry. Nevchaned must have read the emotion in her face because he added quickly, “I mean that you’ve frightened them into unity. Our inability to do anything or even to understand what was happening was beginning to divide us. You’ve explained the song. The elders have a focus for their fear.” He grimaced. “Even if that focus is you as much as it is Dah’mir.”

  Dandra glared at him. “Forgive me if I don’t seem entirely pleased. Dah’mir is the threat. Not me.”

  “I know. So does Hanamelk,” Nevchaned said. “He asked me through kesh to get you out of the room so the elders would have a chance to see things in the proper perspective. Hanamelk saw something more in your story too. Come to my house tomorrow. You may not be as skilled in kesh as Shelsatori, but Hanamelk thinks that since you’ve dealt with Dah’mir’s power before, you should examine Erimelk directly.”

  “Why?” Dandra wanted to stay angry with the elders, but something in Nevchaned’s voice changed her rage into worry. “What did Hanamelk see in my story?”

  Nevchaned pressed his lips together for a moment before he spoke. “You describe Dah’mir’s use of the binding stones against kalashtar with psicrystals. His plan, as you say, depends on it. But Erimelk had no psicrystal. Neither did some of the others who have fallen to the killing song.” The old man looked at her gravely. “Either Dah’mir is now a danger to us all and could strike at any of us—or the killing song is not his creation.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  Deathsgate district was on the opposite side of Sharn from Overlook, and in the City of Towers—and of stairs, ramps, bridges, blind streets, and precipices—making the journey on foot would have taken a few hours under the best of circumstances. Singe briefly considered it anyway. A long walk in Sharn could be very pleasant.

  When Ashi paused twice before they even made it out of Overlook to marvel at some view or gape at one of Sharn’s more exotic citizens, he decided that a walk would be better left for another time. He drew Ashi to a wide marked balcony that protruded out into space high above a large courtyard and hired a skycoach. The look of amazement in the hunter’s eyes as the coach, resembling nothing so much as a large rowboat decorated with the figurehead of a swan and with wings carved into the wood of its hull, rose into the air brought a laugh up from deep in Singe’s belly.

  “Her first time in Sharn,” he said to the coach driver, a woman with short, silvery hair, large eyes, and the kind of eternally youthful face that hinted at elf blood. He would have been hard-pressed to put an age to her.

  The driver smiled. “I’ll give her the tour.”

  And so the City of Towers skimmed past below, around, and above them. The passing of the rain had left the air cool and the sky clear. High up, the smells of the city streets mingled with the night breeze off the sea. Every shift in the wind that beat at Singe’s hair brought hints—and sometimes bursts—of odor. Smoke. Saltwater. Rotting vegetables. Baking bread. It all blended into a unique perfume. Singe could have closed his eyes and still known he was flying above Sharn.

  None of the visible moons were full, but their crescents, fat and thin, made a pleasing sight, a scattered counterpoint to the thick gossamer band of the Ring of Siberys in the southern sky. Sharn was itself a reflection of the sky above as the lights of homes and streets shone against the darkness of the towers. All around their skycoach, other coaches flew, lit fore and aft by shimmering white lights. Here and there, tiny soarsleds crackled with energy as their lone riders piloted them through the night. Higher up, the open air was the domain of airships, some only a little larger than their skycoach, others massive, each supported and propelled by a wind or fire elemental bound into a ring around the ship’s belly. Those ships powered by a fire elemental shone like shooting stars; those powered by an air elemental had a paler glow, like errant moonbeams.

 
Far, far below the skycoach, night fell into the deep chasms that separated the plateaus on which the wards of the city had been built. The way was most clear over those dark voids and their driver could easily have followed that route. She didn’t. Instead, she plunged in among the towers themselves, dipping under bridges and darting around other traffic, all the while shouting out the sights. “The Korranath, the great temple of Kol Korran,” she called above the rush of the wind, and Ashi stared at an enormous dome of gold that flashed with the light as if a thousand gems were embedded in its surface. “Kundarak Tower!” and the peak of a tower topped with four life-size statues of dragons flicked past. “Skysedge Park!” and Ashi leaned out over the edge of the coach to stare in amazement at the meadows and ponds that rolled across the tops of three great towers.

  The hunter sat back with her eyes wide above her scarf. “Ha’azit teith,” she said in awe. “How is all this possible, Singe? Even magic has limits, doesn’t it?”

  Singe smiled. “You know about other planes of existence like Xoriat and Dal Quor,” he said, trying to keep concepts simple for her. “Xoriat is the Realm of Madness and Dal Quor is the Region of Dreams. There are other planes as well, worlds that are the pure expression of an element or concept. Sometimes they’re far away from Eberron, other times they’re closer. Sometimes the reality of one of those other planes bleeds through into Eberron, making a permanent connection. Wizards call those places manifest zones, and things are possible in them that wouldn’t be possible anywhere else. The Shadow Marches has many small manifest zones of Xoriat. It’s one reason the daelkyr and the cults of the Dragon Below are so powerful there.” He gestured around them. “Sharn is built within a manifest zone of Syrania, the Azure Sky. Magic related to flight works better here, sometimes with hardly any effort at all. That’s how towers can be built so tall and why lifts and skycoaches—” He rapped his knuckles against the hull of the coach. “—work at all.”