The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III

by Don Bassingthwaite

  “That won’t protect you from psionic attack,” she said.

  He bared his teeth. “Maybe not, but it makes me feel better, and it’s a weapon I don’t have to draw if Medala tries something, and duur’kala magic turns out to be no better than Gatekeeper magic.”

  She gave him a baleful look.

  The sight of the black metal gauntlet attracted stares and calls of appreciation for a fine weapon as they crossed the camp. Ekhaas glowered at every call, but Geth felt a certain pride at the attention. It had been a long time since he’d thought of himself as a hero. It felt good.

  “You’re swaggering,” Ekhaas observed after a time.

  “What about it?”

  “I wonder if it could be a symptom of the manipulation. We need to be careful. We need to be aware of what we do.”

  Geth’s warm pride vanished in a bitter chill. Batul had something similar, hadn’t he? Geth struggled against the warning. “It’s not all manipulation, is it?” he asked. “You said what’s happening is based on what we already feel.”

  Ekhaas glanced at him, and her expression seemed to soften for a moment. “Based on, yes,” she said. “But the best lies have a kernel of truth, even the lies we tell ourselves.”

  Before he could begin to puzzle out what she meant by that, she began to sing.

  He’d experienced the touch of duur’kala magic before. Ekhaas’s songs had an ancient power in them, something that seemed to echo the music of creation. She’d used her magic to heal him, and it felt like his body had been dipped in sunlight. She’d used magic to speed their travel across the Shadow Marches, and he’d felt as though he could have kept pace with the eternal march of the moons.

  The song that she sang now was different again. Geth felt it dip down into him and draw up something sharp and clear, like water from a deep well. A dullness he hadn’t even been aware of seemed to slip away. Even when Ekhaas stopped singing, the echoes of her song lingered in his mind. Geth took a deep breath and felt more focused than he ever had before. “Grandmother Wolf! Is this like the power of Ashi’s dragonmark?”

  “Similar, but not so powerful,” Ekhaas told him. “It’s probably more akin to the magic in your collar, but without the vulnerability of Gatekeeper magic.”

  Geth looked around, marveling at the sense of clarity the song had brought with it, then stopped sharply. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “You had an audience.”

  Up ahead was Medala’s isolated tent, its flap folded open against its painted walls. Medala stood in the gap. By daylight, she looked even thinner and more wretched than before. When Dandra had first shared her story with him and Singe, she had drawn them into the mental link of kesh and shown them memories of the woman Medala had been before falling prey to Dah’mir. Medalashana had been a studious, slightly plump woman with a sharp and curious mind. There seemed little of her left in Medala, Geth thought.

  Her piercing eyes were fixed on them. As soon as Ekhaas looked up, the kalashtar smiled and vanished back into the tent.

  Ekhaas’s ears lay back. “Khaavolaar.”

  Geth shrugged. “We couldn’t exactly have surprised her anyway,” he said. He braced himself and marched forward.

  The warriors standing guard over Medala’s tent were not the same ones as had been there the night before, but they wore identical expressions of frustration with the duty. They watched Geth and Ekhaas approach, but made no move to stop them as they passed. Geth stopped at the flap of the tent. “Medala!” he called.

  There was no response.

  “Medala!” he said again. “We’re here to talk to you.”

  “Then come in and talk.” Medala’s response emerged from the tent like a dry breeze. “Unless you’re too frightened of me.”

  Geth glanced at Ekhaas. She jerked her head at the flap, and he ducked his head and entered the tent. Medala was once again seated on her sleeping platform, her eyes dead as she watched them. Geth watched her in return. Was it his imagination, or did her eyes flicker with annoyance as Ekhaas followed him inside? He didn’t have a chance to ask any further. Medala glared at both of them.

  “You shield yourselves,” she said. “You suspect me.”

  Ekhaas’s cedar smoke voice was calm. “You’re mistaken, kalashtar. The spell I sang was meant only to clear the fog of ale from Geth’s thick mind.”

  Geth’s back stiffened at the comment. If Ekhaas had hoped that insulting him would earn approval from Medala, though, her plan failed completely. Medala gave her a withering look. “Don’t try to trick me, hobgoblin. I know more of the mind than you could ever learn.” This time, Ekhaas stiffened. Medala’s dark eyes glittered in the gloom of the tent. “Why should my enemies come before me with their thoughts armored like knights of Thrane? Why should they fear someone who has lost her powers?” She sat forward. “Answer me those questions, Ekhaas duur’kala.”

  Geth flinched and bared his teeth. Batul hadn’t introduced the hobgoblin when he’d shown Medala to them the night before. He was certain of it. Ekhaas just drew herself up and met Medala’s eyes. “You know my name. How?”

  “You already know or you wouldn’t have shielded yourself.” Medala settled back like a queen on a throne. “The minds of the Gatekeepers aren’t so well-protected or disciplined as they believe.”

  “Grandmother Wolf!” Even with Ekhaas’s magic echoing in him, cold dread filled Geth. He ripped Wrath from his scabbard and held the sword tight. “You admit it? You still have your powers?”

  She looked at him and his twilight-purple blade without even blinking. “Why should I hide the truth from those who see it?” she asked. Her lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “No one fears the weak—or those they believe to be weak. But who would have trusted Medala if they knew she was strong? This prison the druids have created couldn’t hold me if I chose to leave. The only chains on me are the ones I forge from my own need. I cannot take my revenge on Dah’mir and the Master of Silence alone. I must have allies!”

  Foamy spittle flecked her lips. Her fingers clenched the orc clothing she wore and gouged at the flesh beneath. Muscles stood out beneath the fine skin of her neck and face. The memory of what she had once done to him—pierced him through with pain and stopped his breath with her will alone—forced Geth back a step and brought Wrath a little higher, ready to fall.

  Ekhaas stood firm, though her ears were pressed back and Geth could see that her hands weren’t far from her own sword. “So you pull on the emotions of the orcs,” she said. “You push at the Gatekeepers. You send the horde dreams of glorious battle.”

  Medala’s neck almost creaked as she turned her head to look at the hobgoblin. “Dreams are forbidden to kalashtar—we are the exiles of Dal Quor—but that doesn’t mean we don’t understand the power of dreams. I may not be able to see into the dreams of others, but I can whisper in their ears.” The tension seemed to drain out of her as she talked until she seemed almost calm again. “I make the horde stronger. My powers bring the orcs a unity greater than they have known since the time of the Daelkyr War. The Gatekeepers have fallen far in ten thousand years. I don’t know that they could bring together a force capable of dealing with a daelkyr, even one still bound by the magics of the ancestors, on their own.”

  She drew a deep breath and met Geth’s eyes over his sword. “Will you strike down an ally who can turn the coming battle in your favor?”

  Geth ground his teeth together. His sword trembled. “You? Yes,” he growled. “We brought the same warning you did. The Gatekeepers know about the danger from the Master of Silence. If you die, the horde will still march!”

  Medala lifted her head. “But will it march in time?”

  Her fearless, arrogant face brought out all of Geth’s fury at being forced to stand and talk with a woman who deserved to be dead. Wrath snapped back and flashed forward.

  Ekhaas’s sword flashed as well. In less than a heartbeat, she drew the weapon and thrust it forward—across Wrath. Though the two swords had been forge
d thousands of years apart, they were both of Dhakaani design, with one edge smooth and the other jagged. The jagged edges locked, and Ekhaas forced Geth’s killing blow aside.

  “Kravait!” she barked in Goblin. With Wrath in his hand, Geth understood the command. “Stand down now!”

  It was hard thing not to pull his sword free and strike again, but he managed it. Ekhaas thought more quickly than he did. The words that might have been Medala’s last rolled in the pit of his stomach. He stared at Medala. “What are you talking about? Why does it matter when the horde marches?”

  The mad kalashtar hadn’t moved. Her expression hadn’t even changed. “Batul claims to see the future, but his gift is weak. I’ve seen the future too, but I looked on it with both eyes. When I said that Virikhad’s struggles to take control of me flung us into a place that was elsewhere, I kept some secrets to myself. Time moved differently in the place that he took us. We saw things there while we struggled. Events. Possibilities. Certainties.”

  The pupils of Medala’s eyes had shrunk as if she stared into a bright light, and they seemed fixed on something very far in the distance. Her voice was soft. Geth felt the pressure from Ekhaas’s sword ease as she let her weapon fall away, but he didn’t try to raise Wrath again. He just listened.

  “We saw,” she said, “Dah’mir’s wounding at your hand. We saw his weakness and his escape, your fear and your escape. Not everything was clear to us—only the entwined paths of those we hated. We saw when you and Dah’mir came together in Zarash’ak, but not what happened when you parted. We saw what happened in Taruuzh Kraat after a fashion. We saw Dah’mir’s seizing of the ancient binding stones. We saw the power of the dragonmark break Dah’mir’s hold on Dandra. We saw him flee, and we knew that he fled to Sharn—but that was when our struggled ended, and I was returned to the Bonetree mound.”

  Pin-prick eyes shifted to focus on him. “All those things were possibilities that became certainties, but there were more possibilities that remained and three that I saw most clear. First, that my enemies would meet Dah’mir in Sharn. Second, that my enemies would meet me in this place, the Sharvat Vvaraak. Third—” She blinked and stopped.

  “What?” asked Geth. “What was third?”

  Medala looked at him. Her pupils had resumed a normal size and when she spoke, her voice was once again as harsh as sand. “Third, that Dah’mir might return to the Master of Silence.”

  “Might?”

  “It is a possibility. All of these things are possibilities—or were. You met me here and that possibility became a certainty. I know from your story that Singe and Dandra went to Sharn, so that possibility has become a certainty as well.”

  Geth felt like someone had grabbed hold of his spine and was stretching it. “What about the third possibility?”

  “It hasn’t happened yet, but of all the things I saw, I know when it will happen.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “In the possibility I see, the blue moon is full and bright on the horizon at dusk.”

  The blue moon—the moon of Rhaan, so small it might almost have been a pale azure star. Geth struggled trying to guess when it would be full again, but Ekhaas came up with the answer first. “Eight days from now,” she said.

  Medala opened her eyes and nodded. “It will be Rhaan’s first fullness since I returned. The horde must be at the Bonetree mound when it rises.”

  “Do the Gatekeepers know this?” Geth demanded.

  Medala looked at him coldly. “They don’t need to know,” she said. “It would distract them. The horde will be there. I created it. It is mine.” A hand jerked up to touch her face. “These are the angry eyes!”

  “What about Sharn?” Ekhaas asked. “What if Singe and Dandra stop Dah’mir there?”

  Medala cocked her head. “Dah’mir would not return to the Master of Silence if he failed. He will find what he seeks in Sharn. He will not be stopped. Anyone who stands against him will die.”

  “You can’t know that.” The hand on Geth’s spine curled into a fist. “You said that Dah’mir’s return was still only a possibility.”

  Medala’s lips twisted again—but this time they curved into a horrible smile. “He will not be stopped. The vengeance upon him will be mine.” Her eyes bored into Geth’s. “You should consider that yourself. We travel the same path for a time. You would be wise to stay on it.”

  Her head rose sharply, as if at some distant noise, and after a moment, she rose to her feet. “Come with me,” she said. “You’ll want to see this.”

  Wrath had come up the instant that she moved, but Medala walked right past Geth without even looking at the sword. He stared at her exposed back, then glanced at Ekhaas. Her amber eyes were narrow—and watching Medala’s thin back, as well.

  We can end this, Geth thought. We know the danger now. One blow from either of us …

  Medala paused in midstride. “It takes no power to know what an enemy with a sword and an easy target is thinking,” she said without turning, “Before you act, you would do well to ask yourselves if I have told you everything that I know. What might I have left out of my story? What will happen if I die now?” She took another calm step and passed out of the tent. Geth’s hand tightened on Wrath’s hilt, until his fingers ached.

  “She’s right,” growled Ekhaas.

  “Tiger’s blood! I know!” Geth let Wrath fall again and leaped after the kalashtar. She had stopped just outside the tent. Geth pulled up short at her side and stared around in amazement.

  The camp was absolutely silent. Orcs drifted past them—alone, in pairs, or in bands—but none of them said anything or made any sound as they walked to the center of the camp and the Gatekeeper’s sweat lodge. Mugs of ale and gaeth’ad were left abandoned beside campfires. Food was left to burn on the flames. Geth followed the orcs’ eyes and stifled a curse. The pillar of smoke that had risen beside the sweat lodge had stopped. The fire had been extinguished.

  The surface of the Sharvat Vvaraak was nearly perfectly level. He could see nothing beyond the nearest ranks of tents except the humped peak of the lodge. One of the tall standing stones that he had spied when they arrived in the camp was nearby though. He sheathed Wrath and sprinted to it. The surface was worn nearly smooth with time, but there were crevices and nooks enough for a shifter to scale. The metal of his gauntlet scraping on rock, he swarmed up the stone until he hugged its narrow top and could peer down over tents and orcs.

  Hundreds of warriors gathered around the sweat lodge in silent expectation. The largest and most important among them jostled quietly for position close to the single enormous hide that covered the doorway of the lodge. Geth felt a flash of angry jealousy—he should have been there with them, a hero taking his rightful place among the mighty—but he shook his head sharply. The feeling was only some lingering echo of Medala’s power. He had a place fighting with the horde, but not blindly. For once in his life, he had to think, not just act.

  The hide covering the lodge doorway twitched. The crowd grew still. A hand threw the hide aside. Steam billowed out of the lodge in a great cloud and out of the steam stepped Batul, flanked by two other elderly orcs. Geth risked falling to get a hand on Wrath as Batul raised his arms, a crook-headed hunda stick in one hand, and called out in Orc.

  “The council has made a decision. Make ready to leave the Mirror of Vvaraak. The horde of Angry Eyes marches on the Bonetree mound!”

  The roar that erupted from the throats of the gathered orcs seemed to shake the air itself. Cold settled over Geth. He let himself slip back down from the standing stone. Medala and Ekhaas were waiting at the bottom. They must have heard Batul’s announcement. There could have been no missing it. Ekhaas’s face was tight.

  Medala’s, however, was as joyful as those of the orc warriors who now streamed back out through the camp. “Aren’t you pleased, Geth?” she shouted over the chaotic din. “You’ll fight the Master of Silence! You’ll fight Dah’mir!”

  Geth’s gut clenched. Words failed him. They didn’
t, however, fail Ekhaas. She looked at Medala with wary fear. “This place that Virikhad’s power took you,” she said. “Where was it? What was it?”

  Medala’s lips drew back, and her teeth flashed. “You’ve guessed, haven’t you, Ekhaas duur’kala? It was everywhere. It was nowhere. It was the place where madmen go when they have the power to tear holes in the fabric of space. I have been where Dah’mir would give his tongue to go—oh, if he knew what his twisted experiments had wrought!” She looked at them both, and her pupils were once again tiny black dots in her eyes. “I’ve seen the brine pools where the elder brains of the illithids dream. I’ve seen empty palaces that wait for their daelkyr masters to return. I’ve been to Xoriat!”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Natrac knew it was late morning or early afternoon only by the complaint of his empty stomach, though even that wasn’t strictly reliable—he had woken with a sour taste in his mouth and a vague memory of having vomited in the night. There was no other way to judge the passage of time.

  There was no hint of daylight in the small room where he’d been dumped or in the larger chamber visible through the barred window set in the room’s door. Many centuries before, the chamber had likely been some fine lady’s bedroom and the smaller room, a large closet. Or maybe a nursery or a maid’s room. Many, many centuries before, when Malleon’s Gate had been the wealthy heart of Sharn and the great towers had been mere saplings. Since then, the rooms—the entire grand house—had seen a hundred different uses, a hundred refashionings, probably a dozen blockings and unblockings of the window that had once let light into the chamber.

  For the last twenty years or so, the smaller room had been a cell, the larger chamber an … interview room. Natrac remembered the day when the conversion had been made very clearly. He’d had the window blocked up again specifically so prisoners would have no clue to the passage of day or night.

  And for the fifteenth time since he’d woken, he muttered, “My own damn cell. The Keeper take you, Biish!”