Don Bassingthwaite - The Binding Stone

Dandra turned her head and looked up. Acid-green eyes looked down at her. She glanced away sharply before she could lose herself in them. “What is it about you that we can’t resist?” she snarled angrily. “I’ve never felt anything like it. Neither had Tetkashtai. It’s not psionic. It’s not magic. What is it?”

“Why should I give away my secrets?” asked Dah’mir jovially. “Would you give away yours?”

“I don’t have any left!” Dandra hissed at him.

Dah’mir’s pale face stretched out as his eyebrows rose. “True enough.” He squatted down. Dandra felt as if he was staring right through her, as though there was something that his eerie eyes alone could see. “I didn’t expect something like you,” he said after a long moment.

“Really? What did you expect?” Dandra asked. “Something like Medala, sacrificing a part of herself in her desperation to survive? Or something like Virikhad, clinging to his principles until he died?”

“Oh, Virikhad’s not dead. Only his body has died so far-well, and the spirit of his psicrystal, of course.” Dah’mir nodded at the violet ember of Virikhad’s crystal. “He’s still there. I think he’ll let go soon. They-” He gestured toward the mind flayers, hovering on the fringes of the conversation like vultures around carrion. “-say it’s not possible for him to let go, that he really is trapped in the crystal forever. None of us have touched the crystal, so we don’t know if he’s still capable of forming a new connection as you’ve shown us that Tetkashtai can.”

His attention came back to her. “What I didn’t anticipate was that a psicrystal might actually take control and attempt to rescue the psion.” Dah’mir reached out and rested his fingers on her forehead. His touch was cool. “I should thank you.”

Dandra twitched her head away angrily. “Is the only reason you lured Tetkashtai, Virikhad, and Medalashana to Zarash’ak because they were psions with psicrystals?” she snapped. She could feel a formless rage building inside her, an anger at whatever chance fate had attracted Dah’mir’s attention to them-and her.

The green-eyed man smiled. “Only partly. They were convenient. Believe it or not, what I told them in my letter was partly true. I shared their interest in the interactions between magic, dragonshards, and psionics. I lured them to Zarash’ak because I hate having rivals.” He stood and walked toward his towering device, staring up at the big blue-black stone at its heart. “In magical practice, Khyber shards have binding properties. I found a way to apply that to psionic practice as well. You’ve seen the results of my work for yourself. It needs refining, of course …”

Dandra stared at his grinning, handsome face, then choked out the only word she could manage. “Why?”

“Why?” Dah’mir turned and darted back to her, leaning in so close Dandra could feel the cool on her ear as he drew breath to whisper his answer-

— then stepped back, winking at her and waving his finger. “Not yet, Dandra. Maybe when Tetkashtai is here with you.”

Dandra drew a sharp breath in spite of herself. “What are you talking about?”

Dah’mir laughed. Behind him, Medala gave a sharp grin. “Ah, Dandra,” Dah’mir said, “you’ve found yourself some very loyal friends. Maybe too loyal.” He stood up. “I made a mistake in Zarash’ak when I killed Geth.”

A sharp pain thrust through Dandra at the news and she gasped. Dah’mir waved her alarm away. “Hush. He survived, didn’t he? Apparently, I didn’t do as good a job as I thought. Given that he has Tetkashtai, that’s a good thing.” His lips tightened. “But his survival and the glimpses you’ve given Medala of his presence in an orc village go a long way toward explaining why there’s a large raiding party of orcs trying to sneak through Bonetree territory right now.”

Dandra stared at him. “The Dragon Below has many eyes,” said Dah’mir with a shrug. He looked over his shoulder at the illithids. “Restrain her,” he said. “I don’t want them to have any warning.”

He stepped back as one of the mind flayers moved forward. In its spindly fingers it bore a strange device with long, delicately jointed arms of bone and copper. Dandra tensed and started to rise but two more mind flayers narrowed their white eyes and the air seemed to ripple. A force like vayhatana seized her, holding her immobile. The first illithid reached out and slid the device onto her head.

A numbness seemed to fall over her. She saw and she heard, but it was if she couldn’t actually think at all. Horror built within her but it had nowhere to go.

The mind flayers turned to the table that had held her captive once before and began preparing straps of thick leather. Dandra watched as Dah’mir took Medala’s arm and paced out of the laboratory.

“It’s a shame that Vennet isn’t here,” Dandra heard him tell the gray-haired kalashtar. “I think he’d have liked to see how a real trap is laid.”

Geth stared up at the black heron that soared overhead-the fourth that afternoon, the second since the sun had begun to settle below the clouds that choked the horizon and were spreading across the sky. He glanced at Orshok. “You’re certain they can’t see us?” he asked.

“Batul’s prayers hide us from the senses of all animals,” the young druid said confidently. “You could walk up to a rabbit right now and it would just sit there. The Bonetree’s herons can’t see us.”

“Adolan examined one of the herons in Bull Hollow. He said it was tainted by the Dragon Below. Are you sure they’re still just animals?”

“Dagga,” growled Krepis from his other side. “Many things tainted here. Trust Gatekeepers and walk.”

He prodded Geth with the butt of the spear that he carried. The shifter bared his teeth at him but trotted on. Krepis still grated on his nerves, but the big orc’s attitude toward him-and toward Natrac-had improved significantly since they’d emerged from Jhegesh Dol. The three druids weren’t the only ones who’d been astounded by their retrieval of the dragon scale amulet from the ghostly fortress.

He looked ahead across the dry grassy folds of the Bonetree clan’s territory. A dozen orcs prowled through the twilight. Twice that number strode behind him. Not all of them were Fat Tusk orcs, either. Word of the raid on the Bonetree had spread. Orcs had emerged from the marshes to join them as they traveled, all of them eager to strike against the clan.

In the center of the raiding party, Batul-the dragon scale amulet around his neck-moved with the speed and grace of an orc half or maybe even a third his age. Krepis and Orshok had both tried to persuade him to stay at Fat Tusk, but Batul had insisted. “The return of the amulet is a sign,” he’d told them. “Great things will happen on this raid. You’ll need me with you.”

Geth had already been glad of the old druid’s presence. His prayers had done more than hide them all from the Bonetree’s herons: speaking with crocodiles from the riverbanks and birds from the air, he’d located Dah’mir’s party with an ease that left even the other orcs amazed. The animals remembered Dah’mir. His passage disturbed them like something unnatural. Small animals remembered him with fear. Larger animals-crocodiles and marsh eagles-remembered him as a threat, like a stronger predator intruding on their territory.

None of the animals had good news for them, though. No matter how swiftly they traveled toward Bonetree territory, it seemed that Dah’mir was always just ahead of them. Geth had hoped they would catch the green-eyed man before he was able to return Dandra and Singe to the Bonetree mound.