Don Bassingthwaite - The tyranny of ghosts

The second voice was familiar. It belonged to a woman, probably a hobgoblin, and Geth had a feeling that with just a few more words, he would recognize her. Ekhaas, apparently, needed no time at all. Her ears went back flat. Her skin flushed dark. In three swift steps, she spun around Geth and kicked the door. It slammed open.

From over a table covered in books and scrolls and loose pieces of age-darkened paper, two faces stared back at them in surprise. One was Tenquis. The other was “Kitaas!” snarled Ekhaas. “What are you doing here?”

For an instant, both the artificer and the archivist simply looked startled. Then Kitaas rose imperiously. “I, my sister, am recovering the heritage of Dhakaan while you seem intent on denying it!”

Ekhaas bared her teeth. “What are you talking about?”

Geth felt a whirl of confusion. After Kitaas’s greeting when they had arrived in Volaar Draal, he wouldn’t have expected that she and Tenquis would exchange polite words, let alone meet in secret. The only thing he could really understand was why Chetiin had insisted they see this for themselves. He wouldn’t have believed it.

A scowl flitted across Tenquis’s face, and he stood as well. “Get out!” he said. “Just get out and leave us alone.”

Ekhaas and Kitaas had locked eyes, however. “You travel with a store of knowledge you don’t even recognize,” said Kitaas. “This one understands the lore of the daashor better than our own smiths”-she pointed at Tenquis-“and archivists will record Kitaas as the one who bargained to bring it back.”

“You called him chaat’oor,” Ekhaas said. “Which is he, then? A defiler of Dhakaan or a guardian of its lore?”

Geth looked to Tenquis in surprise. The tiefling’s face was taut with frustration. “I traded some of my knowledge for access to records from the vault,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Records from the vaults?” Ekhaas strode up to the table and snatched up a scroll. “Kitaas, you took records from the vaults?”

Kitaas’s ears flicked. “Don’t question my muut. I am adjunct to the High Archivist. The secrets of the daashor are worth showing a few minor histories to a chaat’oor.”

“We can talk about this later,” said Tenquis. He turned golden eyes to Geth. “Please just go now!”

The hair on Geth’s arms and the back of his neck rose. There was more than just frustration and anger in Tenquis’s voice. There was anxiety too. Maybe even outright fear. He genuinely needed them out of there. “Ekhaas,” Geth said, “we should go. This isn’t the right time-”

The duur’kala wasn’t swayed. She looked at the scroll in her hands. “The life of Taruuzh?” Her glare moved from Kitaas to Tenquis. “I’ve been struggling on my own to learn about the Rod of Kings and you’ve been here learning about the rod’s maker with her.” Ekhaas flung down the scroll. “Is all of this about Taruuzh?”

Kitaas froze. Her eyes darted to Tenquis, and her ears went all the way back.

“No,” said Tenquis. His voice was soothing, but he took a step away from her and held out his hands. “No, Kitaas. This isn’t what you think.”

“Isn’t it?” asked Kitaas, baring her teeth-then she grabbed a curl of paper from the table and bolted for the door.

“No!” Tenquis spat. “Stop her!”

Geth leaped. Kitaas tried to duck past him, but he got his arms around her and wrestled her to the ground. She drew breath, ready to shout. Geth freed one hand and slapped it over her mouth, then yanked it away with a hiss as she sank sharp teeth into his fingers. He grabbed a fold of her black robe, forcing it into her mouth and holding it there as a makeshift gag. Kitaas’s eyes blazed at him.

Her hands writhed underneath them. Geth heard the tearing of paper.

“Get her up!” Tenquis came hurrying around the table. Geth twisted around, turning Kitaas over. Scraps of paper fluttered away. Tenquis cursed and scooped them up. His face flushed dark. “Mercy of the sorcerer-kings!” he cursed as he bent down to pry the last pieces from Kitaas’s fingers. “Well done, Ekhaas. You couldn’t have just left us alone?”

She looked at him in amazement. “What were you doing?” she asked.

The tiefling’s teeth showed stark white against his skin. “What you couldn’t. Getting an archivist’s help.” He got the last bit of paper away from Geth’s prisoner and stood. “I’m sorry, Kitaas, but she was right.”

Kitaas shrieked into her makeshift gag, thrashing with new energy. Geth tightened his hold on her as he stared up at Tenquis.

“I could tell after your first day with the Register that you weren’t going to get anywhere,” Tenquis said. “It was obvious that Diitesh was playing you. If you were going to find anything, it would be by pure chance, and how long would that take? I’ve done this sort of research before. You needed help. I decided to get it by pretending to search for additional daashor lore.”

The tiefling stood at the table, his back to them in anger as he picked through the scraps of paper Kitaas had shredded and struggled to piece them together. Geth exchanged glances with Ekhaas and Chetiin. They both looked like he felt-stunned at Tenquis’s initiative. “Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked.

Ekhaas spoke at the same moment. “Why Kitaas?” More properly restrained with rope drawn from one of Tenquis’s magical pockets, her sister squirmed and hissed.

Tenquis raised his head and finally looked around. His eyes went to Geth first, and he looked a little shamed. “Maybe I should have told you,” he said. “But you’ve been spending time with duur’kala digging into your mind. And if I’d told you, Ekhaas, what would you have done?” He dropped the paper scraps and turned fully to face them. “I could have traded some of what I knew about the daashor to any archivist, but that wouldn’t have been enough. Your people are too devoted to their sense of duty. You and Kitaas gave me what I needed. A chance to recover lost lore and steal glory from you was more than she could resist.”

Kitaas gave another muffled curse. Geth watched Ekhaas’s face flush, then go pale, then flush again. Her lips pressed tight together and her ears pulled back. “My sister despises me more deeply than she despises chaat’oor. I am flattered.” Kitaas hissed again. Ekhaas ignored her.

“If she even suspected it was some kind of trick, she would have had us thrown out of Volaar Draal,” said Tenquis.

“She still can. More so, now.” Ekhaas took a deep breath. “Let’s hope it wasn’t all for nothing. I’m sorry we interrupted you, Tenquis. What have you found?”

“Ah.” A smile spread across Tenquis’s face-one that reminded Geth too much of a schoolmaster from his childhood-as he gestured for them to join him around the table. “You’ve been searching the Register for mention of the Rod of Kings. I couldn’t be that direct. If I wanted Kitaas to believe that all I wanted was more information about the daashor, I couldn’t approach the rod directly. So I told her I wanted to start my search with the great Taruuzh. He may have created the Rod of Kings and the Sword of Heroes, but he created other wonders as well.”

“The first grieving trees,” said Ekhaas. “Fortresses. What about them?”

“We’ve been so focused on the rod and the sword that we’ve ignored something else. When you, Geth, and Dagii brought me the rod to study, you told me a story about the creation of it and the sword.”

Ekhaas’s ears flicked and her eyes narrowed. “The Rod of Kings or Guulen-‘Strength’ in the human language-was created by Taruuzh daashor from byeshk ore he mined himself out of a vein he named Khaar Vanon, the Blood of Night. He forged the Sword of Heroes, Aram or ‘Wrath,’ from the same ore. That’s how we were able to find the rod in the first place. Geth recovered the sword from the ghost fortress of Jhegesh Dol and duur’kala songs reawakened its connection to the rod.”