Don Bassingthwaite - The tyranny of ghosts

Kitaas hissed again and kicked out at the table. Geth wrapped both arms around her again and dragged her back. Ekhaas looked between the torn page and her sister. Tenquis ignored them, studying the paper with a fascinated intensity. “‘The Reward Stela of Giis Puulta,’” he read aloud. “‘Carved of white stone and commemorating the allies of Giis Puulta in his ascension as the sixth marhu of the Second Puulta dynasty. Collected by Baaen Dhakaan in ruins below the Hammerfist Mountains in the years 2310 since the fall and 1246 since the founding. Transported to Volaar Draal. Displayed before the Shrine of Glories until the years 3675 and 2619, then placed by the Gallery of Dogs in the Vault of the Eye.’” He looked up, his face fallen. “The stela is in the vaults.”

Frustration rose in Geth. “Grandfather Rat is laughing at us. We find a possible clue to stopping Tariic, and we can’t get to it.” He glanced at Ekhaas. “Diitesh isn’t going to let us enter the vaults.”

“Then we won’t ask her permission.” Ekhaas raised her head, expression grim but ears standing tall. “We don’t have a choice. We’ve already broken sanctuary. When Tuura Dhakaan finds out what’s happened here, she’ll be bound by honor and duty to throw us out of Volaar Draal. If we don’t act now, we’re never going to get a chance to examine the stela.”

“And how do we get into the vaults?”

Ekhaas turned to face Kitaas. Geth felt the archivist stiffen in his arms, her anger becoming alarm at the icy distance in Ekhaas’s eyes. “My dear sister will help us,” she said.

16 Aryth

The entrance to the vaults of Volaar Draal was a wide maw, cast into shadow by pale ghostlights hung beneath deep eaves. It was an unfriendly building, jealously guarding the secrets it had swallowed over the centuries.

No guards stood beneath the ghostlights, though. None lurked in the shadows. From the cover of the nearest building-a good fifteen paces across a dark-flagged plaza-Ekhaas stood with Geth and Tenquis and watched the massive doors.

“I can’t believe it isn’t guarded,” murmured Tenquis. His quiet words were at odds with his appearance. Disguised by illusion with her magic, he wore the face and body of a bugbear.

“There are always archivists inside,” Ekhaas told him, “but they don’t need guards outside. Intruders would need to pass the gates of Volaar Draal and then the entire city if they wanted to reach the vaults. And none of the Kech Volaar would dare to trespass without permission.”

“You’re going to.”

The words were a twisting knife. Ekhaas scowled at him.

“Quiet,” said Geth. Cloaked, like Tenquis in the illusion of a bugbear, he didn’t take his eyes off the doorway. “I think I saw Chetiin.” He pointed. “There was movement just below the light on the left.”

“There’s a bat lurking there. You saw it.” Chetiin’s voice emerged from the shadow just at Geth’s elbow. The shifter jumped, and even Ekhaas felt her heart leap. Chetiin gave a wry half-grin of amusement at his own stealth. “There are no traps, no warning magic,” he said. “Nothing to stop us entering.”

Ekhaas nodded. “Remember to walk like bugbears until we’re past the archivists inside,” she told Geth and Tenquis. Two shaggy heads bobbed. Chetiin simply faded back into the shadows once more. Ekhaas braced herself for what she was about to do and stepped out into the plaza.

The unfamiliar length of Kitaas’s black robe tangled around her legs almost immediately. She twitched it free and strode on with as much arrogance as she could muster. How her sister managed to walk in the garment every day was beyond her, but at least it was bulky enough to conceal her own clothes underneath.

Kitaas slept beneath the table in the room where they had confronted her and Tenquis. Her towering anger had been no match for Ekhaas’s song. Soothed by the magic, she would sleep through the night. She’d been frightened at the end of their confrontation. Ekhaas could only imagine what Kitaas had thought she might do, but all she’d really wanted was her robe. Kitaas would have enough to worry about when she woke in the morning. The thought of Kitaas trying to explaining her actions to Diitesh gave Ekhaas a warm, satisfied feeling.

It was almost enough to quiet the doubt that pulled at her.

When did I stop feeling what she feels? Ekhaas wondered. When did I stop defending the sanctity of the vaults and the honor of the Kech Volaar?

Not so long before she would have been beside Kitaas in challenging any suggestion of chaat’oor entering the vaults, the one thing they might have agreed on. Instead she stood with the defilers. What they did was bigger than honor or family, she told herself. It was a duty to the future of the goblin people. Her muut to the dar.

And yet a small part of her could only think one thing. Kapaa’taat. Lowest of the low. Traitor.

Ekhaas clenched her jaw and marched on across the plaza.

Beneath the eaves of the building, it was possible to better appreciate just how massive the doors of the vaults were. Three times as tall as a hobgoblin and solid stone-yet when Ekhaas laid a hand on one, it swung open as easily as the door of a cottage.

She passed into the hall beyond with her head up and her stride brisk, concentrating on projecting an air that she belonged there. It worked-or perhaps the archivists they passed were really as absorbed in their own thoughts and conversations as it seemed. In any case, they ignored her and her shambling “bugbear” escort. Ekhaas allowed herself a thin breath of relief as she reached the inner doors-wood this time-at the far end of the hall and glanced back at Geth and Tenquis.

“Whatever happens,” she said, “don’t say anything. Chetiin, are you ready?”

His answer seemed to come from out of nowhere. “I’ll be where you need me if anything goes wrong.”

The hinges on the inner doors were as perfectly balanced as those on the outer door. They made no noise as Ekhaas pushed the door open and stepped through into a round room with a towering ceiling and walls lined with books. Massive books, as tall as Ekhaas’s forearm was long, on shelves that rose up into the shadowed heights. The Register of the vaults. Ekhaas wondered which of the volumes was missing a page.

At the room’s center stood a round desk of age-darkened wood. Within its confines sat a withered archivist bent close over one of the volumes of the Register, checking it against loose pages of parchment. The old hobgoblin looked up at the entry of Ekhaas and her escort and her drooping ears twitched. She squinted at them, her eyes almost disappearing into the wrinkles of her face.

Blind at a distance. Perfect. Ekhaas made a ritual gesture of respect-fingers pressed to breast then to forehead-then forced her voice down into her sister’s rough register. “I am about the High Archivist’s business.”

She wasn’t as accomplished a mimic as Midian, but the imitation was close enough, especially when Diitesh’s authority was invoked. The elderly archivist returned the gesture of respect with some haste, though her squinty eyes remained on Geth and Tenquis.

“The High Archivist’s business,” Ekhaas added, “requires strong arms. They are fools. The wonders of the vaults will be meaningless to them.”

“All will one day know the glory of Dhakaan,” said the old archivist. “May you find what you seek, sister.” She bent back to the Register.

Aware of every breath that she took, Ekhaas marched past the desk to where a series of high arched doorways led out of the round chamber. Some opened onto stairs down into darkness, others to stairs up, a few onto level passages. Rods tipped with the dim glow of ghostlight stood in stone jars beside several of the doorways. Ekhaas gestured imperiously for Geth and Tenquis to retrieve a pair, using the delay while they did to locate the archway she wanted. When they returned to her side, she set off without hesitation down a flight of worn stairs.