“Octian Two!” ChuKang shouted.
Jerakh and his warriors leaped up, dashed between the members of Drakis’ Octian and, without hesitation, jumped through the fold.
The dwarves shouted their rage in terrible chorus.
“That’s it!” ChuKang roared. “Fold out!”
Drakis turned toward the fold. Ethis and Megri had already jumped through. TsuRag and GriChag were following the captain, and KriChan as he watched. That only left. .
“Braun!” Drakis shouted.
The Proxi stood up. The Standard still emitted the magical Aether, holding the fold open, but Braun now held it casually in his hand.
“Let’s go!” Drakis barked.
Braun’s form was silhouetted against the bright hall. Beyond him, Drakis could clearly see the dwarven warriors less than a hundred feet away and getting closer with every thundering step.
Braun made no move.
“Braun!” Drakis shouted.
“It’s all right,” Braun replied, standing perfectly still. “You don’t see it, do you? The walls have all crumbled, and here-here in the darkness-the light comes at last!”
The dwarves cheered. Fifty more feet and their enemy’s blood would flow.
Braun smiled but made no move. “Do you see the picture? Do you hear the music?”
Nine notes. . Seven notes. .
“What did you say?” Drakis asked, his eyes going wide.
Twenty feet. Eight more steps.
Drakis lunged forward, pushing his shoulder into Braun’s stomach. The Proxi doubled over the warrior’s shoulder in surprise.
Axes and sword blades alike were raised. Two steps more to strike.
Drakis wheeled with the Proxi over his shoulder and leaped headlong into the fold.
CHAPTER 3
Empty Rooms
Drakis fell shoulder first against the stone floor. The impact shook the Proxi from his grip. Drakis felt Braun tumble away from him just as the thunderclap of the closing fold shook the air next to him and plunged him into absolute darkness.
Something fell with a dull thud and a resounding clang next to him. Drakis started, rolling quickly away from the sound. Instinctively, he reached to his side, drawing his sword from its leather scabbard, but though his eyes shifted back and forth in anxious anticipation, sight was useless in the total absence of light.
Black is the sightless light smothering. .
Dead to the waking world sighs. .
Dead is the hero. . Dead to all lament. .
Buried past memory here below. .
He was alone with the song.
Drakis’ hand began to shake uncontrollably in the darkness.
“Octian!” Drakis called out, his words swallowed into the black void around him, echoing small and hollow. His fellow warriors had passed through this same fold just a few moments before him. They should have been arrayed all about him with their globe-torches shining.
Yet he crouched in the darkness, and there was no reply to his call.
The wheeling melody surged forward in his mind once more. Drakis quickly muttered a prayer to Rhon-god of war-and drew enough courage to shout again.
“Octian!”
The gentle, answering voice coming from so near in the darkness unnerved him with its quiet calm.
“I am here, Drakis.”
The warrior spun around in the dark. “Braun? Is that you?”
Dim blue light grew stronger as he watched, pushing back the smothering black as it brightened. Drakis fixed his eyes and his sanity on the glowing, expanding circle. Drakis’ world settled with each revelation of the brightening sphere. The headpiece, then the shaft of the Timuran Proxi staff that he had followed to victory in every battle of his life emerged from the darkness. Then the bald head now obscured with three days’ growth of gray-flecked hair, the hooked nose and the piercing eyes. .
. . The figures of Impress Warrior dead.
The bodies of an Imperial Octian lay about their feet. Drakis frantically started examining the mutilated corpses but then stopped.
“These aren’t ours,” Drakis said.
“No, they’ve been waiting for us here for a day or so now, as you might have guessed by the stench,” Braun nodded. He pointed over to the decapitated body of a human nearby with a broken Standard staff still gripped in his cold, discolored hand. “He’s how we got here. That fool managed to do his duty to the last; and carve the gate symbol before they got him. I guess we arrived a bit late to be of much use to him.”
Drakis looked down at his feet. The freshly severed arm of a dwarf with an ax in its hand lay bleeding onto the ground.
“And if we had been a little later, we wouldn’t have arrived at all. Braun,” Drakis struggled to make his voice calm as he spoke. “Where is the rest of our Octian?”
Braun looked up, considering the question, then smiled knowingly. “Not far, I should think. No doubt they have been called away by some glorious and pressing cause on behalf of our masters. Still, I should think that they will need us more than we will need them in the end, wherever they have gone.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Hurt?” The Proxi asked in amused surprise. “No, Octis Drakis. . I am remarkably at peace.”
Drakis stared at his companion for a moment. “Braun, stop that talk. You’re pushing KriChan’s fur the wrong way. I think he’s about ready to tear your limbs off as it is.”
“And how would the big cat get home then?” Braun answered simply. “How would he be able to lie on his master’s feet and be petted? Who would feed him his table scraps then? And who would remember him, buried here under the mountain? Not a one, Drakis, not a one.”
Braun peered into the darkness. “His memory would be buried with him here-and with it he would have ceased to exist at all.”
Drakis shook with a sudden chill. “Now those are exactly the kind of words that get you into such trouble with. .”
“Look!” Braun said, pointing with his free, right hand. The glow from the top of the staff was now shining with a brilliant white, revealing a great underground avenue running between facing sets of narrow structures. All featured an arched opening next to large, ornately framed windows fitted with thin plates of polished crystal through which Drakis could see with almost perfect clarity. Yet, in spite of their common features, each was uniquely appointed with different carvings and strange dwarven symbols.
“What are they? Drakis asked.
“Shops, I should think,” Braun replied.
“Shops?” Drakis asked. “What are shops?”
“You don’t know what a shop is?” Braun gave a sad little laugh.
“I am a warrior of House Timuran,” Drakis said, setting his jaw. “I have had no need to know of such things before, nor do I see any point in it now.”
“Let’s find out anyway,” Braun replied, stepping toward the open archway of one of the buildings. The light from his staff shifted the shadows across the buildings as he moved.
Drakis realized he was being left to the darkness. He quickly sheathed his sword and fell into step behind the Proxi. “Braun! We’ve got to find the Octian!”
But the Proxi was already inside the archway of the structure, his light shining out through the gentle ripples in the polished crystal window. Drakis ducked quickly through the low arch. He was stopped almost at once by a vertical wall beautifully carved with dwarf figures, some carrying baskets over their shoulders filled with vegetables and grains while others were enjoying eating loaves of bread and drinking from tall mugs. He easily stepped around the wall and into a large room. The fitted stones of the floor shone like a white marble mirror under the light from the Proxi’s staff.
Drakis shook his head. He knew they had to move, to rejoin the Octian and press the battle forward. ChuKang had told them time and again that to stand still on a field of battle was to invite death to find you. Drakis had to join the battle, had to find some honor in this debacle. More importantly to him, he secretly dre
aded the silence and the stillness around him; it gave the music in his mind space to grow.
“What do you think, Drakis?” Braun said as he stood in the center of the room.
“I think we need to find our Octian and. .”
“No,” Braun snapped, an angry edge to his voice. “Do you see the picture? There’s a large flat platform inside the window. There. . back there. . is a carved stone counter and behind it. . can you see it?. . there are three ovens.”
Awaken the ghosts long forgotten. .
Recall the loved dead. .
Drakis began to sweat in the chill room. “It’s a. . a kitchen. . a kind of dwarf mess hall. . a place to eat. .”
“You look, but you don’t see!” Braun urged, stepping closer to Drakis. “The spirits still breathe whispers of their passing in this place. Their voices shout to us from the silence, and you! You hear nothing!”
They eat here. They love here. They laugh here.
Better if left and forgotten. .
Nine notes. Seven notes.
“I hear enough.” Drakis swallowed hard. “Leave me alone, Braun!”
“It isn’t what is here, Drakis; it’s what isn’t here that you need to see!” Braun swept past Drakis to the window. “Here on this shelf were the wares of this shop: baked goods, breads, meats-can you smell them still in the air? There. . there in the archway that we came through, there is no door. There have been no doors in any of the openings or halls through which we have come in the three days we have been wandering down here in our graves. By all accounts, the dwarves love their gems and their precious metals and their stonework-we are told they are all even more covetous of such things than our righteous elven masters. Why, then, are there no doors between the dwarves?”
We kill without cause. We kill without thought.
Five notes. . Five notes. .
“What difference does it. .”
“And this room,” the Proxi continued. “The floor is cleaner than any plate I’ve ever eaten from in the Centurai barracks of our great Lord Timuran. No dust. No dirt. But where are the chairs? Where are the tables? There are images of them carved into the wall facing the archway, but there’s not a stick of either to be found inside. Look, Drakis! See! There are hooks in the ceiling above the counter, but where are the pots, the pans, the kettles, or the spoons? Where are the tools? Where are the kegs and the stores of grain or tubers or roots or whatever the dwarves fed upon?”
“Stop it, Braun! I don’t care. .”
The Proxi turned again to face Drakis. “Where are the children who squealed through the streets with joy, Drakis? Where are the women who breathed life into this place? Where are the gray-bearded elder dwarves with their frail bodies and their wisdom aged like fine wine?”
“I don’t. . I don’t know!” Drakis answered.
“No, you don’t,” Braun said, stepping toward him with a strange twisted smile on his face. “You don’t know. . I don’t know. . but at least I’m beginning to understand just how much I don’t know!”
Drakis reached behind him, feeling for the archway as he carefully backed away from the wild-eyed Proxi.
“It’s all unraveling, Drakis,” Braun said softly. His tongue flicked to the corner of his mouth, drawing in the spittle that had formed there. “Here in the darkness I can see. . here in these rooms that are so like you and me. Perhaps it is the distance from the Aether Well of House Timuran, perhaps it is the three days we have gone without renewing our Devotions. Maybe it has something to do with being so deep beneath the mountain of the dwarves. I don’t know, but whatever it is, the cords, soft and silken as they have been, are unraveling from my mind, and I am beginning to see the picture of truth at last.”
Drakis felt the edge of the archway with his left hand and carefully stepped back into it, His right hand slowly reached across his body almost without conscious thought, his palm resting on the hilt of his sword. “Braun, we’re warriors. . Impress Warriors of House Timuran. .”
“No, Drakis, you’re wrong,” Braun breathed through clenched teeth. He would not stop advancing. “Who are you, Drakis? Why do you fight so well? What makes you so determined to live?”
“I fight. .” Drakis swallowed, taking another step back through the archway. “I fight for the glory of Rhonas, for her Emperor, and for the glory of House Timuran!”
“Pretty speech, hollow words,” Braun spoke, his words dripping disdain. “You dance like a marionette and vomit out the words spoken by others behind the curtain. I’ve seen what’s back there. You take a peek at the truth and tell me. It’s just us here. . you and me buried in our crypt, and there should be no lies between the dead. You know the answer! Tell me!”
Drakis’ breath was coming hard.
Five notes. .
For the love of her. . For the loss of her. .
“Tell me!”
He suddenly thought of Mala-his beautiful Mala working in the foundations of the magnificent palace of Sha-Timuran. Her image floated before him in his mind; she reached up with her hand to wipe the sweat from her clean-shaven head before she returned to scrubbing the path stones beneath the graceful towers of their master’s citadel that floated above the garden. He could almost catch the glint of her emerald eyes, feel the curve of her cheek in his hand. He had to return to her-for her and with the honor that they both so desperately needed. She was unaware of the danger he was in-that his life could end at any moment-and the thought of her not knowing comforted him.
He could almost hear her humming to herself as she worked in the garden. .
Nine notes. . Seven notes. .
The dwarves have no doors. . The dwarves are no more. .
Braun was smiling at him. “So you do know something honest after all! Tell me!”
Drakis gripped his sword, pulling it from the scabbard.
Braun anticipated the move. The Proxi’s staff lashed out suddenly, gripped with both his hands. The shaft caught Drakis just behind the knees, cleanly sweeping both his feet out from under him. The warrior landed heavily on his back, the breath knocked from his chest. As he sucked in a painful gasp, the light from the headpiece carved a brilliant, blurred arc over him, and he felt the cold steel point of the staff against his throat. He fought for air, trying to speak, but the sound would not come.
Braun leaned down, his head and shoulders silhouetted against the light from the Aether crystal on his staff.
“We’re empty rooms, Drakis, all of us,” Braun said in short breaths. “Nothing but the form of what our masters have molded us to be. But I’ve seen the reality of who and what we are. The walls have cracks, and the light shines through. The cords that bind us unravel, and we see at last that our rooms are not empty but filled with ghosts, Drakis-ghosts and demons more terrible and wonderful than we know.”
Drakis reached up with both hands, gripping the staff at his throat. “Braun! Stop!”
“I can’t stop now,” Braun answered, shaking his head with an unnatural smile. “You’ve got to see the ghosts! They’re waiting for us both-calling to us-longing to take us to a better destiny.”
Braun looked up. The roof of the avenue was a great arched ceiling barely visible beyond the light from the staff.
“The ghosts come in the darkness,” Braun giggled. “Some things are seen better in the dark. . some things are easier in the dark. .”
The glow from the staff began to fade. The impenetrable darkness slowly closed in on them again as the light shrank.
“Soon your soul will be open at last,” Braun nodded, the features of his face vanishing into a vague shape as the light receded. “The ghosts will spill from you and you will see the vision.”
Darkness enveloped them.
“You will hear the song!”
Stars appeared.
Impossibly, above him in the pitch blackness two-thirds of a league below the mountain, the night sky filled his vision.
Nine notes. .
Come to us and bring our redemption. .
<
br /> The stars shifted as he watched in slack-jawed wonder.
Seven notes. .
Weep for the pain and the loss. .
He felt as though he were falling up toward them.
Five notes. .
The past is our sorrow. . The past is our shame. .
Faces started forming among the stars. Faces he had forgotten. Faces he once knew.
Ghosts.
Drakis screamed.
“Drakis! Are you injured?”
Drakis opened his eyes to see the faces of his Octian, lit by a single globe-torch, staring down at him.
The human warrior sat up on the stones of the avenue and drew in a painful breath. “No, Captain ChuKang. I can fight.”
The manticore stood up, pulling Drakis to his feet as he did. “We thought we had lost you, hoo-mani. There was a reserve of dwarven warriors waiting here when we came through the fold. I think they were more surprised to see us than we were to see them.”
KriChan chuckled darkly. “They ran, but not fast enough.”
“It was a blessing from the gods,” ChuKang continued. “Chasing them down showed us the way to the causeway.”
“At least we thought it was a blessing,” Megri chimed in. The goblin was grinning as he picked at his fingernails with the point of his dagger, “until we realized the Proxi had gone missing.”
Drakis turned. Braun stood nearby, still smiling at him with the same strange grin.
“The Centurai is assembled up ahead,” KriChan said. “Are you ready to go?”
Drakis shuddered.
“More than ready.”
CHAPTER 4
Firefall
The Timuran centurai had lost nearly a third of their number by the time they emerged from the dwarven avenue. Regrouped and organized, their well-ordered phalanx emerged shoulder to shoulder onto a courtyard that was completely engulfed in hot, steaming mists.
Their carefully ordered and classic formation suited the plans of the Ninth Throne Death-dealer Dwarves well-who waited for the Centurai to emerge from the avenue and then set upon them from both sides simultaneously. Hot, wet mists swirled in utter blackness around them, illuminated by the frequent, diffused flashes of blue and red in the distance, each flash painting silhouettes of slaughter in the mists. In the confusion of the vapor, the carefully ordered Centurai collapsus again into frantic and desperate fights with an enemy who kept appearing out of nowhere and vanishing just as quickly as they came.
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