Don Bassinghtwaite - The Binding Stone

The whitefire had scoured the corridor, scorching the stone. Dandra's crystal lay shining against the black remains of a goblin foot. Geth slid the pouch from his belt and approached the crystal with caution. His head told him that Tetkashtai couldn't take hold of him again unless he actually touched the crystal, but his heart was still afraid; he could feel the presence's touch ripping at his essence, bending his body to her will. Taking up a fallen razor-still warm from the blast of flame-he flicked the crystal gingerly back into the pouch.

"You're going to keep it?" Natrac spat in amazement.

"Dandra can control Tetkashtai," said Geth stiffly, knotting the pouch's drawstrings again. "She'll need the crystal when we rescue her and Singe."

"If we can rescue them."

"When." Geth stood up and replaced the pouch on his belt. "We're going to get out of here. How's your arm?"

"It hurts," Natrac said, "but at least it's still attached to me." He looked down at the remains of the creeping limbs and grimaced. "Do you think there's more of them?"

The shifter glanced at the shadows that the few remaining hands had fled into-he thought he could still see them, hiding like bugs in the crevices. The final wails of the vanished phantoms continued to hang in the air, too. They changed slowly as he listened, becoming less frightened and more anguished, as if the defeated spirits were somehow reliving their ancient torture. The hair on Geth's arms rose. A darkness seemed to settle over the corridor.

"Geth…" said Natrac softly.

"Aye," Geth grunted. "We need to keep moving."

His hunda stick was burning bright, more than half its length afire from Tetkashtai's touch. The blades that the severed limbs had carried were scattered across the corridor, but Geth's skin crawled at the thought of wielding one of them. He needed a weapon of some kind, though. He snatched up the burning hunda carefully. Thrusting it ahead of him like a long torch, he set off along the corridor at a brisk trot. Natrac followed close, his eyes on the shadows behind them. Though both he and the half-orc could see well enough even without the added light, the fire gave Geth back a feeling of control and strength.

Especially when the phantoms' wails rose into wrenching screams. Especially as the smell of blood grew stronger. Especially as the corridor narrowed and passageways opened off of it, plunging away into the darkness of Jhegesh Dol.

Geth stopped short, pulling up so quickly that Natrac bumped into him and yelped before clamping his tusked jaw shut. "What is it?" the half-orc whispered.

"The corridor. Look." Geth held out the burning staff. The corridor they had been following split into three passageways, all identical.

"Just keep going," urged Natrac.

"I don't know which passage to take!" Flame hissed and popped as Geth switched his makeshift torch from one side to the other. "What if we're not supposed to keep going straight? What if we're supposed to turn?"

"What if we're not?" Natrac asked desperately. "How much time is there before sunrise? How long have we been in here?"

A terrible roar, as close as if something very large and very frightened was being tortured nearby, rolled over them-then was broken by the heavy, wet chop of a falling blade. The roar rose sharply, then subsided into deep, horrified weeping. Geth clenched his teeth and stepped into the corridor straight ahead.

The stones of Adolan's collar grew so cold that they burned his skin. Gasping in pain, Geth leaped back, almost trampling over Natrac. "Not that way!" he snarled, his teeth bared. He touched the stones with his free hand and scraped a fingernail against them. It came away with white specks of frost melting on it. He showed it to Natrac. The half-orc grimaced.

Geth turned to the passage on his right. Fingers held against the stones, he stepped forward carefully. The collar grew icy again-not quite so cold as before, but distinctly frigid. He swallowed. "I don't think this is the way either," he said. He moved back to the left-hand passage and walked into it.

The eerie chill fell away from the collar and Geth let out his breath. "Here," he said with relief. "This way-"

His relief melted like the frost on his fingertip at the thin noise that came hissing along the passage. It was the coarse, sliding whisper of metal on stone, the sound of a knife blade pressed against a grindstone.

"Host," choked Natrac. He looked back to the right-hand passage.

Geth tightened his hand on the end of his flaming hunda. "No," he said. "This is the way." He could hear the fear in his own voice, but he pushed forward. After a moment, Natrac cursed and followed him.

The sound of the grindstone grew louder, though there were other sounds around it. More falling blades. The grating of bone saws. Sobbing. Screams. Always screams. The fire of the staff began to falter. Wordlessly, Natrac held out his hunda, offering it to him. Geth pressed it back.

The passage ended ahead, opening into some wide, dark space. Burning hunda held low, Geth crept up to the mouth of the passage and peered out.

He stood at the edge of a small balcony like a private box in some fancy Sharn playhouse, except that this box overlooked a wide, shadowed stone chamber. On the far side of the chamber, atop a short series of shallow steps, a long block of black stone stood like an altar.

In the center of the chamber, a figure hunched over a grindstone. Orange sparks flashed from the long steel blade that it held to the spinning stone. The figure was nothing more than a silhouette against the fiery spray, but there was something about it that made Geth's skin crawl. He bared his teeth and the whisper of a growl rose in his throat.

The dark figure straightened. The rasp of metal on stone and the shower of sparks ended as it lifted the blade. The grindstone spun on in silence and the figure looked up at Geth and Natrac. The strange light of Jhegesh Dol fell on a man's face so pale and beautiful that it might have been the model for Dah'mir's own, except that where Dah'mir's eyes were at least human, the eyes of the man below were pale, solid lavender without any iris or pupil. He paused and then stepped forward so that the light slid across shoulders and arms that rippled with muscle and flashed on a chunky amulet that hung against a broad, hairless chest. Shadows seemed to cling to him, obscuring his torso and legs like insubstantial black robes. Another spirit, Geth thought, another phantom.

Then the lavender-eyed man stretched his arms and spread his hands with a clash of metal. His fingers were blades, long as swords, heavy as axes, and so sharp they seemed to cut the light itself. The blades weren't stiff though. They bent and flexed with life, merging with the man's flesh, a part of him. He hadn't been sharpening a sword. He had been sharpening his own hand.

Nine thousand years ago, Batul had said, Jhegesh Dol had been a daelkyr stronghold.

The man was no mere phantom. He might have been put to the sword seven millennia before, but the master of Jhegesh Dol stood below them-at least in spirit. A shadow of a nightmare from a realm of madness.

Geth's growl rumbled louder; his fingers clenched the burning hunda.

"That other passage," Natrac urged, his breathing harsh. "The second one. We can still go back." He started to turn.

The daelkyr's shadow brought its fingers together in a slow metallic scrape. The screams of the victims of the dark fortress echoed down the passage behind them. Natrac's face turned pale.

Around Geth's neck, though, Adolan's collar had gone cold again. Not painfully cold the way it had before, but sharp and bracing, like armor donned in winter. The sacred stones of the Gatekeepers' tradition were offering him protection, just as they had protected him from Dah'mir's influence in Zarash'ak and given him guidance at the intersection of passageways.