Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

They left the high passage for a tunnel that was low but broad. Dolgrims flowed past them in the shadows to either side, lithe in spite of their deformities. Geth clenched his teeth. “How much farther?” he asked.

“The influence of Xoriat bleeds through into this place,” said Batul. “The great seal is like a torch in the fog: it’s close, but you can’t tell what’s between you and it.”

There was a sudden exclamation from the Gatekeeper who had taken the lead in their procession. Ekhaas’s ears rose. “She says there are no dolgrims ahead of her. They’ve fallen away.”

Geth peered into the shadows once more. The dolgrims had indeed stopped moving. They stood still now, watching the procession move past them. Even their muttering seemed muted. Geth dropped his hand to Wrath. Whispers sprang at him.

“… they enter the dark place.”

“They won’t come back.”

“We could follow.”

“We wouldn’t come back …”

They passed the last of the dolgrims. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel vanished. The green-tinted light of the reed torches was a pool of light moving through darkness. The cavern they had entered was vast. Even at the edges of his vision, Geth could see nothing but the smooth floor stretching into the gloom. He glanced at Ekhaas. “You see anything?” he asked softly.

She shook her head.

“The seal lies ahead,” said Batul. Even his confident voice was dwarfed by the space around them. No one else spoke. They moved in silence.

The deep quiet was even more eerie than the muttering of the dolgrims had been. Around Geth’s neck, the collar of black stones grew icy cold. Geth drew Wrath. The feel of the byeshk sword in his left hand and the weight of his great gauntlet on his right arm were reassuring, solid anchors in a place that felt increasingly as if it were no longer a part of the world.

Then something loomed ahead. It took several more paces before Geth saw what it was: a wall of rock that stretched up and to either side, vanishing into darkness just as the floor of the cavern did. Directly ahead of the procession, a narrow passage pierced the rock.

They all stopped and stared at it. After a long moment, Batul spoke in hushed tones. “Surely we are the first of our kind to walk this path since before the dawn of this age.” He slipped the amulet from around his neck and pressed it to his lips with hands that trembled. “Vvaraak lend us the strength and wisdom to do what must be done,” he prayed. “Shield us from the madness that has waited for nine thousand years.”

In the midst of the dark and silent cavern, the breath of a warm breeze stirred. Geth’s hair drifted back from his face, and his heart seemed to lift. The Gatekeepers murmured a collective invocation to the ancient founder of their sect, and even Ekhaas looked awed by the gentle but powerful force that touched them. Batul lowered the amulet. The procession started forward to the passage into the rock-

— just as silver-white light flashed somewhere on its other side. The glare that burst through the passage and fell upon them was dimmed by distance, but after so long in the tunnels it was still blinding. Geth saw only a bright, jagged line in the darkness, like lightning through a storm. He bit back a cry and twitched his head away, but the light had already printed itself on his eyes in hazy afterimages. He blinked furiously, trying to clear it away.

“Medala’s light!” Ekhaas hissed. “She’s back!”

“Extinguish the torches!” Batul commanded in a whisper.

Reeds ground against rock. Geth might have been afraid that Medala would hear the quiet noise, but there were noises coming from the other side of the passage now too. Groans. Whimpers. The sound of a body falling to writhe against stone. Medala wasn’t alone. Ekhaas’s ears twitched. “Other kalashtar! Khaavolaar , when she vanished she must have gone to the airship.” She bared her teeth. “This is her revenge against Dah’mir!”

“By bringing any captives he had into the mound?” Geth growled under his breath as understanding woke in him. “By bringing servants to the Master of Silence first!”

The last of the green light vanished, and for a moment Geth stood in utter darkness made even deeper by the false glow of the afterimages in his visions. He could see light, but it illuminated nothing. He was completely blind.

Before his fear could turn into panic, Medala’s harsh voice-or rather her voice and another in a strange unison-called out a word. Geth’s sight returned as a dim blue radiance blossomed beyond the passage. He saw one of the Gatekeepers turn to Batul, and Wrath translated her words. “We can’t block her power! What do we do now?”

“What we must,” said Batul. “The Master of Silence has caused the creation of one servant who resists our magic. Soon he may have more. We can’t stop now-but we don’t stand alone.” His good eye fixed on Ekhaas. “On the Sharvat Vvaraak, you showed that duur’kala magic can still block Medala’s power.”

Ekhaas’s eyes darted around the procession and she bared her teeth. “I wouldn’t be able to shield all of us.”

“Shield yourself and Geth, then.” Batul looked at the shifter too. “Stop Medala, and we will be free to act.”

Geth’s gauntlet creaked as he curled his hand into a fist and nodded. Batul tightened his grip on his hunda stick. “Sing, Ekhaas. We’ll hold Medala’s attention.” He raised the stick. “Gatekeepers, follow!”

The druids dashed for the passage in the rock face, their shadows stretching out behind them to cover Geth and Ekhaas. Before the last of the Gatekeepers was within, Geth heard Medala’s shout of surprise and hatred. A cry of challenge broke out from among the orcs, wordless and angry. Geth whirled to face Ekhaas. “Sing!”

Song rippled from her lips, and her face stilled as the magic settled over her first. As she sang, Geth closed his eyes, reached into himself, and shifted. The familiar sense of invulnerability poured into his veins at the same time as Ekhaas’s spell turned to him, and the exhilaration of shifting mingled with the sharpness and clarity of her song. Geth drew a breath so deep it felt like his chest would crack. When he opened his eyes, everything seemed hard-edged and distinct.

Two sounds pierced that moment. One came from the passage, a wavering groan escaping an orc’s throat as a Gatekeeper fell to Medala’s power. The othercame across the dark cavern like echoes across a lake at night.

The dolgrims were shouting, their voices rising in terrible joy. Waves of sound grew into a tide that swept closer with each moment. Geth couldn’t have picked words out of the tumult, but Wrath did-two simple words, repeated over and over again as soldiers might chant the nickname of a conquering general.

Green Eyes.

Dah’mir was coming.

Geth spun around and threw himself into the narrow passage. The floor was rough, the walls sharp-edged, the far opening of the passage little more than a crack in the rock. Geth scarcely noticed. He thought he heard Ekhaas gasp in amazement as they emerged through the crack, but he couldn’t have been sure. His world had shrunk to the battlefield.

The cavern beyond the passage was a bowl broken out of the rock, the blue light that lit it shining from within veins of crystal embedded in the walls. He and Ekhaas stood on a broad ledge halfway up the cavern’s height; more ledges all around the cavern made gigantic steps down to a wide, uneven floor. Across the floor, a broad tunnel opened in the far wall and descended into darkness. The tunnel mouth was surrounded by a ring of blue-black Khyber dragonshards and smooth stones etched with Gatekeeper symbols, all set in a dark and glittering mortar.