The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III

by Don Bassingthwaite

  Moon looked like he was on the edge of speaking, but Nevchaned’s displeasure reached his tongue first. “When did you come in? I thought you were still out.”

  “I got in late.” Moon’s voice was thick and slightly slurred. In spite of herself, Dandra glanced up. The softness had gone out of Moon’s eyes, replaced by a hardness as he looked back at his father. It was unusual for a kalashtar—even one so rebellious as Moon—to indulge in drink. Moon seemed so hostile that he reminded Dandra more of a young human, or even of Diad, Natrac’s half-orc son by Bava in Zarash’ak.

  Nevchaned’s face tightened. “Wash and take yourself out again. You shouldn’t be here now.”

  “Why?”

  Dandra decided to interrupt the argument before it grew. Erimelk was close, and she wanted to examine him before his coarse chant of the killing song got on her nerves. “Because we’re going to try something that could be dangerous,” she said. She smiled at Moon. If he had somehow developed feelings for her, she wouldn’t hesitate to use them. “Go. There’s nothing for you to see here. Maybe we can talk later?”

  Somewhat to her astonishment, the appeal worked. Moon looked at her, then dropped his eyes, folded his hands together and bent his head over them in a surprisingly traditional gesture. “Patan yannah.”

  He stepped back into his room. Nevchaned shook his head and continued down the stairs. “You’d think that he was the first kalashtar to wear the blue of Breland,” he said.

  “There aren’t many of you,” said Hanamelk. “And he’s both of the lineage of Chaned and your son. Ranhana thayava, Nevchaned.”

  As the two kalashtar spoke, Ashi nudged Dandra. “I think Moon likes you.”

  Dandra wrinkled her nose. “You noticed?”

  “She wasn’t the only one,” Singe said, glancing back from ahead of her. “I saw—and I think Moon saw that I saw. Did you see the look that he gave me?” Dandra shook her head and Singe chuckled. “Like he was trying to burn stone. He’s jealous.”

  Dandra muttered a curse under her breath. Ashi laughed.

  Thoughts of Moon vanished as they stepped into the lower passage, an undecorated corridor with a few doors leading off of it. One of them had been barred with an iron rod. Erimelk’s muffled song came from behind it. Nevchaned slid the bar aside, then looked to Hanamelk and to Dandra. Hanamelk nodded. Dandra’s gut felt tight but she said, “Let me see him.”

  Nevchaned opened the door. Dandra looked inside. The assortment of domestic goods that had once crowded the storeroom had been pushed to one side, making way for a thin sleeping pallet. Erimelk crouched on the pallet with his arms twisted behind his back and shackled to a ring driven into the wall. Bright metal still showed on the ring and Erimelk’s chains where Nevchaned’s hammer had scarred them.

  Although Erimelk had been washed and his clothes changed since she’d seen him the day before, he somehow looked even worse than he had then. He was trembling, more from exhaustion, Dandra guessed, than fear or manic energy. He’d soiled himself, and the stench in the room was thick. Eyes that had been wild were dull, focused on something only he could see. The gag of twisted cloth that circled his jaw pulled his lips back in a hideous smile. It was soaked with saliva and where it had rubbed the corners of his mouth raw with blood. He still sang, the nonsense words of the killing song falling from his tongue in a broken cascade. “Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi—”

  Nevchaned looked away from his friend with helpless anger written on his face.

  “Poor bastard,” muttered Singe. A memory—one of Tetkashtai’s memories—came to Dandra of a service the scribe had once done for her creator, an illuminated page decorated with beautiful jewel-toned inks. Rage at Dah’mir or whoever had inflicted the killing song on Nevchaned and the other kalashtar of Sharn filled her.

  “Is he still violent?” she asked.

  “When he notices us, he probably will be,” said Hanamelk. “The chains are short, though.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.” Dandra raised her chin and stepped into the room.

  There was no change in Erimelk’s expression or in the tone of his song. Dandra knelt cautiously at the foot of the pallet and spoke his name. “Erimelk?” He didn’t respond. She probably would have been more surprised if he had. Dandra drew a breath, reached into herself, and pushed her mind toward his in the link of kesh.

  It was like sinking into thick cream. There was no resistance, and the world vanished around her—leaving her utterly surrounded by the killing song. The cascading sounds were all that she could hear and somehow, all that she could see. It was so sudden, she almost screamed.

  She bit back her fear. She could escape this if she needed to. These weren’t her thoughts. The killing song wasn’t in her, it was in Erimelk. She pushed deeper. Just as it had been in the memories Shelsatori had shared with her, the song was inhumanly pure and maddeningly intricate, building toward dark urges of violence. Dandra tried calling Erimelk’s name again, this time within the confines of his mind. Erimelk?

  She might has well have shouted in the middle of a thunder storm. There was no response—at least not from Erimelk.

  Like lightning splitting a storm, images burst out of the song along with a wave of violent hatred. Visions of her and of Singe, the targets toward which Erimelk had been directed. To Dandra’s surprise, though, there were also fragments of recent memories, something she hadn’t seen in what Shelsatori had shown her. Erimelk’s joy at spotting his targets. Blissful release as he attacked. A terrible anger at his failure—

  Buffeted by the song, Dandra snatched at the last fragment and examined it more closely. There was something odd about it. Anger—but not the disappointment or anguish she would have expected from Erimelk’s tormented mind.

  The shattered memory was his and yet not his, much as the memories she had inherited from Tetkashtai were hers and yet not hers. If Dandra hadn’t known that Erimelk had not possessed a psicrystal, she would have guessed that to be the source of the memory.

  But he hadn’t possessed a psicrystal. Someone or something else had ridden with him.

  Was it Dah’mir? Dandra braced herself and reached out into the roaring, cascade of the song. She let it wash over her and listened—listened hard—for a voice that had become too horribly familiar to her. There was a particular sensation that accompanied Dah’mir’s dominating presence, a lingering cold that suffocated thought. She’d felt it each time she’d confronted the dragon. She’d felt in Tzaryan Keep, moments before Tzaryan Rrac had led them into Dah’mir’s ambush. She’d felt it in the minds of the sailors on Lighting on Water, when Dah’mir’s power—weaker in humans, but still strong enough to command immediate obedience—had kept them trapped aboard the ship in Zarash’ak’s harbor.

  She didn’t feel it in the killing song. There was something there, something elusively familiar, but it wasn’t Dah’mir.

  The realization pierced her with a numbing fear. She pulled herself back from the song and slid along the link of kesh to her own body like someone following a rope in darkness. As if it had finally realized an intruder had entered its domain, the song rose and ripped at her, crystal tones tearing into her mental self. Something turned sluggishly within the storm, and Dandra felt a fleeting moment of terrible exaltation brush her mind. You!

  She burst out of the kesh and fell back into herself, but the scream followed her. Something snapped across her jaw, and she tumbled backward, stunned. She caught a quick glimpse of Erimelk stretched out on his sleeping pallet, chains and arms stretched tight as he kicked at her and screamed around his gag, then hands seized her and pulled her clear. Voices came back to her, cutting through Erimelk’s shrieks in her ears and the echoes of the killing song in her mind. “I thought you said the chains were short!”

  “They are short!”

  “Dandra? Dandra!”

  Ashi, Nevchaned, and Singe. She blinked and glanced up at them. Ashi had her sword out and looked ready to kill. Nevchaned and Hanamelk looked startled
. Singe just looked concerned, though relief passed over his face when he saw her eyes focus on him. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine.” She sat up. Her jaw ached where Erimelk had kicked her. The mad kalashtar was still screaming and spitting, though at least he was howling curses instead of the killing song. One of his arms bent at a strange angle. He’d dislocated his shoulder in his struggles. There was no sign of the lassitude that had held him before. She was glad he was still chained. “How long was I in kesh?”

  “Long enough that we were starting to worry,” Singe said. “What happened? One moment Erimelk was quiet, the next he was doing everything he could to reach you.”

  “I was inside him too long, or maybe I pushed too deep.” She looked to Hanamelk and Nevchaned. “It’s not Dah’mir. I know his touch and this isn’t it. Your guess was right—something else is causing the song.”

  Hanamelk’s lips pressed together. “I’d rather I’d been wrong.”

  “Well, you’re not.” With Singe’s help, Dandra climbed to her feet. “What do we do now?”

  Somewhere above, the chime of Nevchaned’s shop door rang. Nevchaned ignored it. “We’re going to have to go back to the council of elders,” he said. “This is going to frighten some of them—they hoped we’d found all of our answers.”

  “I hoped we’d found all our answers,” Dandra said. “Which do you think the elders will feel more threatened by, the killing song or Dah’mir?”

  Nevchaned and Hanamelk glanced at each other. “The killing song,” Hanamelk answered. “They know it’s a threat. They see it in front of them. It may be infecting another kalashtar right now. But Dah’mir …” He shook his head. “You’ve put a compelling case before us, Dandra, but we don’t know anything yet. Maybe Havakhad and the seers will find something. For now, there’s no immediate danger. Dah’mir hasn’t moved against us yet. He may not move against us for weeks or months.”

  “You can’t wait until he strikes!” said Singe. The wizard’s angry words were partly drowned out by Erimelk’s screams and by a new series of rapid, insistent chimes from above. Nevchaned’s face flushed dark. He reached out and jerked the door of the storeroom shut, dampening one source of noise.

  “We know!” he said. “But if we have to choose between something that threatens our community now and something that may threaten us weeks from now, we have to deal with the urgent threat.”

  “You’ve warned us. We’ll be ready,” Hanamelk added. “But what is there we can do until we know more? We may seem like a large community, but we’re not. We don’t have the resources to fight two dangers we only barely understand.”

  “You have us,” Ashi said. “Help us to find Dah’mir and—”

  She didn’t finish. The chimes from the shop ended and replaced by a loud impact and the sound of splintering. Nevchaned’s eyes went wide. “My shop!”

  Hanamelk’s face slackened for a moment, colors danced in the depths of his eyes, and he appeared to look into the distance. “There are humans at your door,” he said. “Five men. They’re trying to break in—” There was another crash. Hanamelk blinked and corrected himself. “They’re in.”

  “What?” Nevchaned sprinted for the stairs.

  “Wait!” Hanamelk called after him, but the old man didn’t stop. Hanamelk turned to Singe. “He’s not going to be able to stop them.”

  Singe glanced at Dandra. She nodded to him. He and Hanamelk raced after Nevchaned. Ashi’s eyes followed them longingly. She still had her sword drawn. “Should we go?” she asked.

  Dandra leaned against a wall. Her head still spun slightly from Erimelk’s kick. “Just a moment—”

  “No, don’t go!” Shadows moved on the stairs. Moon stepped down into the corridor. It seemed he hadn’t followed either her request or his father’s orders—he hadn’t washed and he was still in the house. He looked unsteady or nervous, and when he met Dandra’s eyes, she once again saw that same soft love in them.

  This time, however, it was mixed with a strange determination. She frowned in concern. “Why not?”

  “There’s something I need to tell you—” The young man seemed to brace himself, then added “—Dandra.” He flinched as she stood up straight and Ashi tensed, and continued in a rush. “Last night at the Gathering Light, I eavesdropped on what you told the elders. I know what you told them—”

  She looked at him. “I spoke to them through kesh.”

  He blushed. “When there are so many people participating in kesh, it’s easy for one more to join. I’m sorry. But I heard what you told them. About Dah’mir. About his herons. I heard what you were just talking about now too. I can help—”

  There was a shout from above as Nevchaned raised his voice in challenge to whoever had invaded his home. Ashi’s head snapped up like a dog scenting prey.

  “Moon, we have to help your father!” Dandra said. “Tell us later!”

  “No!” the young kalashtar blurted. “You have to listen now! I’ve seen the herons in another part of the city. I know where you can find Dah’mir!”

  For an old man, Nevchaned could move fast. Singe supposed that he would move quickly too, if someone were breaking into his home and shop.

  He caught up to the smith and grabbed his arm before he could race up the stairs to his shop. A hand over Nevchaned’s mouth and a hard look silenced him before he could say anything. Singe pulled him back from the door to the stairs, pushing him into Hanamelk’s hands, then stepped up to the doorway himself and listened. He could hear the men moving around, but it didn’t sound like they were trying to steal anything. The sounds of the square outside the shop were muffled. They must have closed the broken door behind themselves. The wizard frowned. Broad daylight—who would be so bold and why?

  Floorboards creaked at the head of the stairs and someone finally spoke. “Stairs,” growled a soft voice. “Dol Dorn’s mighty fist, what’s that screaming?”

  The response that drifted down the stairs answered Singe’s question and left him cold at the same time. “Forget the screaming and go down,” said Mithas d’Deneith. “I can feel the mark. She’s close!”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Singe’s heart seemed to stop. He stepped back, his hand darting to his sword. He felt a touch on his shoulder—Nevchaned—at the same moment that he felt a touch against his mind. He opened his thoughts to the elder and felt Hanamelk through the kesh as well.

  Nevchaned’s mental voice was stronger than his speaking voice, and Singe could imagine that he must have commanded impressive respect in his younger days. What’s going on? he asked.

  House Deneith, Singe said. They’re looking for Ashi.

  Even communicated at the speed of thought, the whole story would have taken time they didn’t have. How, he wondered, had Mithas managed to find them? He didn’t doubt that the sorcerer was using some kind of divination magic, but he shouldn’t have been able to locate them all the way across the city. Singe still couldn’t believe that he would try to draw on the resources of Deneith—he’d want to keep Ashi’s secret to himself.

  Ashi’s secret … With a sinking heart, Singe remembered Ashi’s cry of glee during their escape: “I like Deathsgate much better than Overlook!” Someone had probably sold the memory of that shout to Mithas. As much as Singe disliked the man, he had to admit that he wasn’t stupid.

  Nevchaned didn’t ask any further questions though. There’s a back door, he said. Take it and run. An image flickered into Singe’s head of the buttress-towers, one of them with Nevchaned’s shop at its peak, that hugged the side of the greater tower. More images followed in a rush: a door on the lower level of the apartment, a long and twisting flight of stairs past other apartments, an exit onto a lower street well away from Mithas and danger. Singe blinked at Nevchaned.

  The elder scowled. Go! We’re not helpless!

  Their leader is a sorcerer.

  We have powers of our own, said Hanamelk. A seer can confuse as well as clarify. Go the Gathering
Light. You’ll find refuge there if you need it.

  Booted feet were already treading softly down the stairs. Be careful, Singe told the elders and dashed away. He had barely left them behind when he heard Nevchaned raise his voice in a loud demand. “What are you doing in my home?”

  He almost wanted to stay and watch the two elders stand up to Mithas—he could imagine the frustrated look on Mithas’s face—but escape was a better alternative to fighting. Hanamelk had said five men, and Singe guessed that Mithas had brought four Blademarks mercenaries with him. He, Dandra, and Ashi could have taken the mercenaries, but he wouldn’t have put it past Mithas to prepare some special magic to use against them. And they couldn’t afford to fall to Mithas.

  He ran down the stairs to the lower level as softly as he could, blessing Erimelk’s screaming for the cover that it gave him. “Ashi! Dandra!” he hissed. “We need to—”

  He slid to a stop at the sight of Moon standing before the two women. Both Ashi and Dandra looked startled by something—and Singe knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t him. “What’s going on?”

  Moon turned and looked at him with such hatred that Singe wondered what he’d interrupted. “Moon says he knows where Dah’mir is,” Dandra said.

  “Twelve bloody moons.” The door that Nevchaned had shown him lay at the end of the corridor. Could they spare an instant? Nevchaned and Hanamelk both had their voices raised. Singe clenched his teeth. “Where?”

  A nasty cunning entered the young kalashtar’s expression. “Take me with you,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

  Dandra’s eyebrows rose, and she glanced at Singe. Their spare instant was over—on the floor above, Mithas shouted down Nevchaned. “Get these old fools out of my way and find me that woman!”