Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

From all of the lower ledges, those orcs who were able climbed higher, their faces pale with terror. Three didn’t move from where they lay, nor did Geth get the chance to climb. Dandra saw him press himself into a crevice between two ledges. Batul and Ekhaas hauled themselves up from the ledge below to join Dandra and the others.

“Khaavolaar,” Ekhaas said. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving the kalashtar Dah’mir kidnapped from Sharn,” said Singe, grabbing Batul’s arm and pulling him up.

The old Gatekeeper struck at him with his other arm as soon as he was over the edge. “Be quiet!” he hissed. “Word of Vvaraak, be quiet!”

But neither Dah’mir nor Medala paid any attention to them or the climbing orcs. Dandra stared as the kalashtar and the dragon who had once been like king and consort glared at each other.

Dah’mir struck first, his massive head darting forward swift as a snake, but his great teeth snapped together on nothingness. Medala vanished in a flash of light only to reappear on the next ledge over. Her eyes narrowed in concentration and more light played across Dah’mir’s shoulder. The dragon roared as blood oozed between the black-copper scales, but his wing swept out and slammed Medala back before she could evade it.

He whirled on her with a roar. “It would have been better for you to stay dead than steal from me!”

“We stole nothing!” Medala shouted back in her strange double voice. “What you had wasn’t yours!” A crystalline chime seemed to ring on the air. Dah’mir roared in sudden pain and lashed out again.

As they fought, Batul grasped Dandra’s arm. “You have to go, Dandra! Take Singe and Ashi and get out of this place while you can. It isn’t safe. I can’t protect you!”

Dandra pulled her arm away. “Protect us?” She reached across her back and drew her spear, pointing with it across the cavern to where the kalashtar stood held prisoner by the binding stones. “We came for them. If we don’t leave with them, we need to make certain they die here.”

On the ledge below, the surviving orcs were rallying. There were only five of them, all older than she would have expected, and Dandra realized abruptly that they weren’t warriors, but Gatekeepers like Batul. A desperate idea sprang into her mind. “You’re going to attack Medala and Dah’mir. We can use the distraction to reach the kalashtar-”

He shook his head. “Medala and Dah’mir aren’t the danger! Dandra, get out!”

“What about Geth?” Dandra demanded. “What about Ekhaas?” Geth was still somewhere down on the cavern floor. The hobgoblin was at Singe’s side, speaking urgently to him, Ashi, and Moon. Dandra saw the wizard stiffen in surprise, then look down toward the cavern floor and a tunnel that was ringed with stone and dragonshards.

Batul seized her arm once more. “The power of Vvaraak protects them, but I can’t invoke it again. Dandra, if you stay, you’ll fall-you can’t stand against him.”

She blinked. “Him?” She looked at the ringed tunnel again and realized what it was. “Light of il-Yannah-”

Her realization came too late. Across the cavern, the captive kalashtar raised their heads in unison, as if all of them had heard the same distant sound. Dah’mir’s head snapped around as well. Medala stiffened.

So did Moon. “He comes!” the young kalashtar moaned. He huddled back but Singe, Ashi, and Ekhaas stepped to Dandra’s side. Singe’s hand sought out Dandra’s.

The collar around Geth’s neck was so cold it hurt. The shifter saw Medala and Dah’mir break off the seemingly mismatched combat that had raged above his hiding place, and he saw the kalashtar who had stood behind Medala raise their heads, but it was really the cold of the collar that made him turn his head toward the great seal.

Something was happening within it. Not within the tunnel, but within the ring formed by the seal. The air stretched and shimmered, then seemed to contract. Something rushed to fill the space, as if unseen hands were focusing a vast and powerful spyglass and the ring of the seal was its lens.

A lens that snapped into focus, leaving Geth staring into a throne room where mind flayers took the place of lords and ministers, their dead white eyes inscrutable, their writhing tentacles hiding unspeakable secrets. Dolgaunts took the place of guards, and dolgrims of the court mastiffs. Tiny creatures resembling eyeless monkeys perched where tame birds or lapdogs might have, and elf-like women with thick tendrils growing among their hair and down their backs stood as if they were concubines.

At the center of the terrible assembly was a glittering black throne and on it, looking out through the lens, sat a pale and beautiful man in rich robes.

In the ghostly fortress of Jhegesh Dol, Geth had fought the phantom of the daelkyr who had ruled the fortress in ancient times. The figure on the throne had exactly the same face as that phantom lord, except that his eyes were acid-green instead of lavender-and he had no mouth. Between nose and chin, the man on the throne had nothing but smooth skin.

He was no man, Geth knew. He was a daelkyr. He was the Master of Silence.

And he spoke.

A vast voice filled Geth’s head, like Dandra’s power of kesh but with none of sense of unity that kesh carried with it. The voice of the Master of Silence forced itself onto him, violating every corner of his mind, the words it spoke so vast that they threatened to wipe him away from himself.

But there was something between him and it, gentle but powerful like a warm breeze. The power of the amulet of Vvaraak muffled the enormous voice. The Master of Silence’s words were still deafening. They still made Geth feel like blood was trickling from his ears, but he could understand them.

My servants stand before me. My ancient enemies know fear . There was pleasure in the daelkyr’s tone.

Somewhere on the ledges above, people were screaming, overwhelmed by the voice. It wasn’t the kalashtar-Geth could see them and they stood still as statues. It couldn’t have been the Gatekeepers or Ekhaas-Batul had invoked the power of the amulet over them as well. His gut knotted. Singe and Dandra, Ashi and the young kalashtar. What protected them from the terrible voice?

Do something, Batul, he prayed silently. Wolf and Tiger, do something!

The screams went on and on.

Dah’mir didn’t seem to notice. His great body folded, his forelegs lowering and his neck dipping down to brush the ground. “Master!” he said. His voice was thick with adoration-and with anger. “Master, you have new servants because of me! I brought them here, not her.” His head twisted toward Medala. “Not … that.”

Medala hadn’t moved. She stood straight, facing the Master of Silence without obeisance or fear. The daelkyr’s eyes moved to her. You are not what you were the last time you stood in this place .

“No,” said Medala, two voices speaking the word.

The creatures gathered in the throne room beyond the lens hissed and shifted at this disrespect. Dah’mir reared upright with a roar. The Master of Silence stilled them all with a thought, a single command so powerful that even Geth felt the urge to obey it. Hush . The throne room fell silent. So did Dah’mir. So did the screams from above. The cavern was utterly quiet. The Master of Silence’s gaze on Medala didn’t waver. I was told you were dead .

“We were gone from this world.”

Interest stirred in the daelkyr’s voice. There is a familiar touch upon you .

Medala smiled. “We have been where you can no longer go, imprisoned lord,” she acknowledged. “We have been to Xoriat. We saw many things there-learned many things. We saw Dah’mir’s plans in Sharn.”