Don Bassingthwaite - The tyranny of ghosts

Ekhaas bent her head in a deep nod before meeting Tuura’s gaze. “Mother of the dirge, I claim sanctuary-” she began.

“Do not speak, Ekhaas.” Tuura looked down at her with eyes that were suddenly filled with anger. Shock shivered through Ekhaas, and she closed her mouth sharply. Tuura ignored her discomfort. “You heard my conversation with the emissaries of the Kech Shaarat. I do not like being placed in a position to defend attempts by members of this clan to assassinate potential allies. Do you understand that?”

Ekhaas nodded again. Tuura sat forward, and her voice dropped into a whisper more terrible than any shout. “Then why did you do it? And why by the blood of the Six Kings did you bring your fellow assassins to Volaar Draal?”

Diitesh made a noise like a boiling kettle. “Sanctuary!” she spat. “For chaat’oor!”

“Diitesh!” said Tuura. The High Archivist fell silent. Tuura looked back to Ekhaas and the others. “Just by coming here you put the Kech Volaar in danger.”

Anger at the accusation rose inside Ekhaas, pushing aside shock and dismay. She raised her head to look Tuura in the eye. “Tariic thinks we’ve run for Breland. Kech Volaar would be in greater danger if we hadn’t come. Mother of the dirge, we carry a warning for you.” Ekhaas stood straight. “Tariic cannot be trusted. Make an alliance with him and the Kech Volaar will be dragged down along with Darguun under Tariic’s rulership.”

This time Diitesh snorted and leaned forward to hiss in Tuura’s ear. “Tuura, this is nonsense! They’re trying to turn us against an ally who could restore the empire!”

But Tuura’s eyes were on Ekhaas. Her ears, which had been folded back flat against her scalp, rose slowly. “Where does this warning come from?”

“From our own experience-and from Senen Dhakaan. She aided our escape.”

“You dragged her into this?” Diitesh said harshly. “Where is your honor, daughter of the dirge?”

“It was Senen’s suggestion that we come here,” Ekhaas snapped.

“Then why didn’t she send the warning in one of her reports?” Kitaas leaped into the argument like Diitesh’s echo. “She has used her magic to sing reports to us of your disgrace. Why didn’t she warn us directly?”

“Maybe because she believed that a warning from our mouths would carry more weight than one sent by magic.”

Diitesh bared her teeth. “And she said nothing in her reports because she believed the word of traitors would be respected above the word of a trusted emissary?”

“She said nothing,” Tuura said with unexpected calm, “because she knew that she was being watched.”

Ekhaas’s gaze darted back to her, a retort to Diitesh’s argument fading on her lips. Tuura sat back in her chair. “Senen’s reports of late have been unusually circumspect,” she said, “but she is adept at hiding brief messages within them. One message said that she was being watched and could not report all that she wanted to.” Tuura rested her chin on her hand and looked again at Ekhaas. “Another said that I would receive advice and would be wise to accept it.”

Ekhaas felt a burst of elation, but she bent her head humbly. “I urge you to heed her words.”

“And perhaps,” Tuura added, “you can shed light on another of Senen’s hidden messages. Is there a reason she would feel it was important to tell me that Tariic holds the younger daughter of Deneith?”

Ekhaas stiffened. The younger daughter of Deneith? Ashi. Ashi was Tariic’s prisoner. But if she was his prisoner, that meant At her side, Geth drew a sharp breath. “Grandmother Wolf, Ashi’s alive!”

The elation she’d felt before turned into radiant joy. Ekhaas fought to stay calm as she raised her head. “I think that message was meant more for us than you, Tuura Dhakaan. Thank you for it.”

She watched Tuura consider each of them, even Tenquis. Then the leader of the Kech Volaar turned back to her.

“If Tariic doesn’t suspect that you are here,” she said, “I see no harm in granting sanctuary to you and your allies, so long as they respect the customs of the Kech Volaar.”

“Tuura!” Diitesh’s voice rose sharply. “They are chaat’oor. They have no place in-”

“Remember your place, Diitesh!” Tuura stood up and turned to face the High Archivist. She was nearly a handspan taller than the other woman and in her anger looked even taller. “Your muut is to the archives. My muut is to the clan. If there is a danger to Volaar Draal, it must be examined. I know Senen. She would not do this lightly. You may return to the archives, Diitesh.” Tuura looked to Ekhaas. “We will find a place we cannot easily be overheard, and I will hear your whole story, Ekhaas duur’kala.”

But Ekhaas’s joy was already turning to a sickening knot in her belly as Diitesh and Kitaas glared at her over Tuura’s shoulder. Geth had suggested that they try to stay on Kitaas’s good side-but it was too late for that with both the High Archivist and her adjunct angry with them, and that wasn’t going to make her next request any easier.

She swallowed her pride. “Actually, Tuura Dhakaan,” she said, “there is something else…”

As she made her request, the knot in her stomach grew tighter, Tuura’s expression grew harder-and the smile that grew across Diitesh’s pale face became gloating.

16 Aryth

Song, half-heard, surrounded Geth as he returned to himself. Visions, half-remembered, of a distant time and place were already fading in his head. He had a lingering memory of a hobgoblin woman, a duur’kala and an empress. A name came to him: Mekiis Kuun, fourth in the line of heroes who had wielded Wrath in the time of the Dhakaani Empire. At the back of his mind, the sword’s presence tickled him with something that felt like pride in the ancient heroine.

His throat was dry. “Iinanen,” he croaked in Goblin. Thirsty. There was no response, only a rising chatter of voices that replaced the song. Geth opened his eyes. “Iinanen!”

One of the crowd of archivists and duur’kala that packed the room glanced over at him, then picked up a metal cup and thrust it at him without taking her attention off the expanding argument. Shifting Wrath from its position at his side, Geth pushed himself up from the couch where he lay. Cold mushroom tea. He drank it anyway, then scanned the crowd for the yellow face of the High Archivist.

“Diitesh,” he called, “are we done?”

Diitesh broke away from a conversation to look at him as if he were a piece of furniture that had inconveniently learned to talk. “There are questions,” she said. “Where was the palace where Emperor Okaat Baaz courted Mekiis Kuun? When did she lay the Sword of Heroes aside-”

“I’ve told you before. I don’t know. Wrath doesn’t remember things like that.”

The insolent growl silenced that babbling crowd. Geth glared at them, though mostly at Diitesh, and stood up. His legs felt loose and weak after lying on the couch all day. “We’re done,” he said. He gathered Wrath and walked for the door.

Behind him, the archivists and duur’kala started talking again, his presence-or lack of it-irrelevant.

Ekhaas was waiting for him outside. “Who were you today?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He looked at her. Ekhaas’s eyes were red and squinting. “Did you find anything?”

“What do you think?”

Geth just grunted and sheathed Wrath.

Diitesh’s permission for access to the vaults and the records of the archivists had come with a price. Only Ekhaas would be permitted to search the massive Register for references to the Rod of Kings and only if Geth agreed to share the memories of Dhakaan contained within Wrath. An exchange of knowledge for knowledge. Diitesh had presented the proposition as if it were the fairest deal in the world-but then for her, it was. Not even Tuura Dhakaan could have granted them access to the vaults over the High Archivist’s objections.