Don Bassingthwaite - The Killing Song

The hair on the back of Geth’s neck and on his arms rose. She’d told him and Ekhaas the truth-or at least part of it. He thought he could guess at the second voice that rolled behind Medala’s now. Had she ever told them what had become of Virikhad? No. They’d guessed. They’d assumed. They’d been wrong.

Was Batul hearing this? What were the Gatekeepers doing? Fear struck Geth. Would they have fled? Could they have abandoned him?

Dah’mir let out another bellow. “Master, she confirms it herself! She knew my plans! She stole the kalashtar from me! I brought your servants to-”

“You succeeded in Sharn only because we made certain you succeeded!” Medala said. “What will be born here today belongs to us. You don’t understand what you have created!”

As if the gaunt woman’s shriek had brought him down, one of the kalashtar slumped suddenly, then straightened again. He lifted his head and Geth saw the fever of madness in his dark eyes.

“They awaken!” said Dah’mir.

“They are reborn!” said Medala. “You still don’t understand.”

I feel him . The Master of Silence’s eyes were shining. I feel the touch of Xoriat upon him. And upon her! Another kalashtar, an old woman, shook her head and looked around herself as if seeing the world for the first time. And upon him!

A third kalashtar blinked, then a fourth stirred and a fifth. Then it seemed as if all of the kalashtar were shifting and waking. A murmur of amazement swept through the throne room beyond the lens of the seal. Geth’s gut tightened in horror. The very thing that they had tried so hard to prevent had come to pass.

The Master of Silence had his new servants.

Dah’mir just stared and shook his head. “This isn’t right!” he said. He spoke to himself, as if stunned by what was happening before him. “They awaken too quickly. Something is wrong.”

“How do you know that something’s wrong?” asked Medala. “How often have you seen this happen? Once? With us?”

The dragon’s head snapped around and he glared at her. “For decades, I studied! I researched! For centuries-”

“What have you studied, Dah’mir?” Medala shouted at him. “The forces of Xoriat. Legends of the true binding stones used in the Battle of Moths. The single pitiful imitation stone created by an apprentice. But did you study kalashtar? Did you understand the potential you unleashed when you turned your device upon us?”

Enough! The Master of Silence sat forward. I understand. I see servants able to walk abroad with no fear of the Gatekeepers. I see dreams and madness united. I see kalashtar who will serve the masters of Xoriat-

Medala turned on him. “You see wrong, daelkyr!”

The cavern was instantly quiet. Geth felt like he’d been slapped. The Master of Silence sat back. You go too far , he said softly.

There was no warning, no second chance as a human lord might have given. The lens between throne room and cavern bulged like the sail of a ship running before a storm as a sickly darkness reached through to strike at the woman who had defied a daelkyr.

It never reached her.

Geth couldn’t have said which of the kalashtar began the song or even if they all really joined in perfect unison as he imagined. The song was simply there, rising in a weird, dissonant chorus like tumbling crystals, louder and more pure than he had ever heard it before, pouring not so much from the kalashtar’s mouths as directly from their minds.

AAHYI-KSIKSIKSI-KLADAKLA-YAHAAHYI-KSIKSIKSI-KLA-

The force of it rocked him backward, bursting through the magic that had protected him from the daelkyr’s voice. Dah’mir staggered back like a startled child. Before the song, the sickly darkness that had pierced the seal writhed like something alive-and unraveled. The bulging lens shimmered and shrank, snapping back into place.

Beyond it, the Master of Silence’s eyes opened wide. His court was silent. The song dropped to a whisper and the kalashtar shifted to gather around Medala, all of them staring defiance. Medala’s lips drew back from her teeth.

“Did we say that we learned much in Xoriat?” she said in a seething voice. “What happens when you shatter a dream? Does it become a nightmare? No. A nightmare is still a dream. But madness … madness is a dream brought into the waking world.” She raised her arms to encompass all those who stood around her. “Understand what you have created. We are no longer kalashtar , the wandering dreams. We are katalarash , the wandering shadows, freed by madness. And we are not servants of the lords of the Dragon Below. We are not servants of Xoriat.” Her arms dropped. “We are its masters!”

The voice of the Master of Silence was like an iron hook scraping through Singe’s brain. He tried to shut it out-there were techniques of concentration he had learned, ways to focus on spellcasting in the middle of a battlefield-but no discipline that he could dredge up from within himself helped. Words that were larger than he was burst through his mind. A few of them he caught. My servants … My enemies … The rest tumbled past him.

There were other voices closer at hand, real voices that weren’t just in his head. Most of them seemed to be screaming. Dandra’s voice was one of the few that wasn’t. She was calling his name. He forced his eye open and met hers-briefly. He couldn’t stop shaking. His body just wanted to curl into a ball. Hands held him back. Dandra’s voice returned through the screams. “Batul, what’s wrong with them?”

Batul flashed in and out of his field of vision. The old orc’s face was amazed. “Dandra, you resist his power!”

“It must be the effects of Ashi’s dragonmark!”

“Word of Vvaraak! Can she use it again?”

Their words vanished as the daelkyr spoke again. You’re not what you were … New agony burst through Singe’s head. He jerked and spun away from the hands that held him, hitting another rolling body. His eye snapped open at the impact. He lay face to patterned face with Ashi. She looked as if she were the same agony as him. Her eyes were wild. Her mouth was stretched wide in a scream. Her hands were clenched over her ears, though that could have done no good at all. Nothing could have shut out that voice.

A word rolled into Singe’s ringing ears. “No.”

Who’d spoken it? He thought it was Medala, but it could have been Dandra, answering Batul. Whoever had spoken, he saw Ashi’s face twist in response, and a word broke into her scream.

“Yes!” Her eyes focused, and her head slammed up into his. Hard.

The impact brought bright sparks of pain, but it also slapped aside the agony of the Master of Silence’s voice and left Singe’s mind clear as cool water. Hands dragged him off Ashi’s body, but not before he’d felt the heat that radiated from her skin. From her dragonmark.

“Twelve moons!” he gasped through the shock. There was roaring in his ears-Dah’mir-and screaming-Ashi and Moon. His throat was sore and he realized that he had been screaming too.

“Singe?” The hands that held him flipped him over and he saw Dandra’s face. “Light of il-Yannah! What happened?”

“Ashi used her mark on me.”

Dandra’s eyebrows rose. “Twice in a day? She can’t!”

“She did.” He gripped her arm. “Bloody moons, Dandra, you don’t know what it’s like-”

He flinched as the Master of Silence spoke again, but this time it brought no pain, only a single word. Hush .

It couldn’t have been directed at Ashi and Moon, but somehow it must have pierced through their tortured minds. They fell silent and grew still, though agony continued to wrack their faces. Singe twisted away from Dandra. “We have to help them!”