The Killing Song

CHAPTER 23

Torches made from burning reeds soaked in sweet oils cast a wavering light on the tunnel walls. The illumination wasn’t for the Gatekeepers’ benefit. The orcs and Ekhaas could have navigated the maze beneath the Bonetree mound without any light at all. Nor, Geth knew, was it for his, though he would have been as blind as a human without it. No, the torches, which burned with a greenish glow and gave off a thin smoke that smelled of cut grass, had only one purpose.

They held back the dolgrims.

The vile creatures seemed to be everywhere. As the light that surrounded the procession of druids advanced, they retreated into the darkness ahead. Where the tunnel was wide enough, they clustered in the shadows to the procession’s sides. When the light had passed, they closed in behind. As the Gatekeepers entered a new passage where the ceiling soared high overheard, Geth caught movement above and looked up.

Dolgrims crouched on ledges like spectators in the balcony of an arena. They shifted back from the light, but held their ground. Tiny dark eyes watched the intruders. Four bandy arms fondled sharp knives and spiked maces, even simple stones. Two wide mouths-one in the squat head that rose like a hump on each creature’s shoulders, the other in what should have been its chest-drooled and twitched. The passage, like all of the others beneath the mound, echoed with constant muttering as the dolgrims spoke to one another-and to themselves, each mouth taking sides in an unending conversation.

When the gibbering had first emerged from the shadows, Geth had tried listening to it. He’d been holding Wrath and the ancient sword allowed him to understand the weird tongue spoken by the creatures of Khyber just as it let him understand Orc and Goblin. After only a few moments, however, he’d had to sheathe the weapon, sickened by what he’d heard. The dolgrims spoke only of violence, violation, and depravity.

Ekhaas continued to listen, though it was clear she didn’t understand what they were saying. Her ears twitched with curiosity. “Their language almost sounds like Goblin,” she said.

“They almost look like goblins,” Geth grunted.

“They may have been goblins,” said Batul. “The oldest legends of the Daelkyr War, from the time when the daelkyr first burst from Xoriat to invade Eberron, say that the daelkyr brought creatures like the mind flayers with them, but that they also crafted new creatures from the races they encountered here. Some of the legends hold that the dolgrims were created from goblins.”

“What about dolgaunts?” asked Geth.

The old druid’s mouth closed tight for a moment, and he glanced at Ekhaas, then murmured, “Hobgoblins.”

Ekhaas’s ears pressed back flat against her skull.

A rock clattered somewhere close. One of the other Gatekeepers grunted something in Orc. Batul grimaced. “The dolgrims above are growing bolder. We need to get out of this passage.” He put his hand on the amulet of Vvaraak-it hung around his neck once more-and pointed with his hunda stick. “This way.” he said.

When they’d first entered the mound-the nine most senior Gatekeepers from the horde, Geth, and Ekhaas-the guidance that the amulet provided had hardly been necessary. Closer to the surface, cross-tunnels and side-passages had been uncommon and the floors of the tunnels they had followed had been worn smooth from use. More tunnels appeared the deeper they went, however. The floor became slick-smooth, polished by the passage of countless dolgrim feet over many, many years. Batul had kept them to their path though, the amulet guiding him toward the great seal.

They left the high passage for a tunnel that was low but broad. Dolgrims flowed past them in the shadows to either side, lithe in spite of their deformities. Geth clenched his teeth. “How much farther?” he asked.

“The influence of Xoriat bleeds through into this place,” said Batul. “The great seal is like a torch in the fog: it’s close, but you can’t tell what’s between you and it.”

There was a sudden exclamation from the Gatekeeper who had taken the lead in their procession. Ekhaas’s ears rose. “She says there are no dolgrims ahead of her. They’ve fallen away.”

Geth peered into the shadows once more. The dolgrims had indeed stopped moving. They stood still now, watching the procession move past them. Even their muttering seemed muted. Geth dropped his hand to Wrath. Whispers sprang at him.

“… they enter the dark place.”

“They won’t come back.”

“We could follow.”

“We wouldn’t come back …”

They passed the last of the dolgrims. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel vanished. The green-tinted light of the reed torches was a pool of light moving through darkness. The cavern they had entered was vast. Even at the edges of his vision, Geth could see nothing but the smooth floor stretching into the gloom. He glanced at Ekhaas. “You see anything?” he asked softly.

She shook her head.

“The seal lies ahead,” said Batul. Even his confident voice was dwarfed by the space around them. No one else spoke. They moved in silence.

The deep quiet was even more eerie than the muttering of the dolgrims had been. Around Geth’s neck, the collar of black stones grew icy cold. Geth drew Wrath. The feel of the byeshk sword in his left hand and the weight of his great gauntlet on his right arm were reassuring, solid anchors in a place that felt increasingly as if it were no longer a part of the world.

Then something loomed ahead. It took several more paces before Geth saw what it was: a wall of rock that stretched up and to either side, vanishing into darkness just as the floor of the cavern did. Directly ahead of the procession, a narrow passage pierced the rock.

They all stopped and stared at it. After a long moment, Batul spoke in hushed tones. “Surely we are the first of our kind to walk this path since before the dawn of this age.” He slipped the amulet from around his neck and pressed it to his lips with hands that trembled. “Vvaraak lend us the strength and wisdom to do what must be done,” he prayed. “Shield us from the madness that has waited for nine thousand years.”

In the midst of the dark and silent cavern, the breath of a warm breeze stirred. Geth’s hair drifted back from his face, and his heart seemed to lift. The Gatekeepers murmured a collective invocation to the ancient founder of their sect, and even Ekhaas looked awed by the gentle but powerful force that touched them. Batul lowered the amulet. The procession started forward to the passage into the rock-

— just as silver-white light flashed somewhere on its other side. The glare that burst through the passage and fell upon them was dimmed by distance, but after so long in the tunnels it was still blinding. Geth saw only a bright, jagged line in the darkness, like lightning through a storm. He bit back a cry and twitched his head away, but the light had already printed itself on his eyes in hazy afterimages. He blinked furiously, trying to clear it away.

“Medala’s light!” Ekhaas hissed. “She’s back!”

“Extinguish the torches!” Batul commanded in a whisper.

Reeds ground against rock. Geth might have been afraid that Medala would hear the quiet noise, but there were noises coming from the other side of the passage now too. Groans. Whimpers. The sound of a body falling to writhe against stone. Medala wasn’t alone. Ekhaas’s ears twitched. “Other kalashtar! Khaavolaar, when she vanished she must have gone to the airship.” She bared her teeth. “This is her revenge against Dah’mir!”

“By bringing any captives he had into the mound?” Geth growled under his breath as understanding woke in him. “By bringing servants to the Master of Silence first!”

The last of the green light vanished, and for a moment Geth stood in utter darkness made even deeper by the false glow of the afterimages in his visions. He could see light, but it illuminated nothing. He was completely blind.

Before his fear could turn into panic, Medala’s harsh voice-or rather her voice and another in a strange unison-called out a word. Geth’s sight returned as a dim blue radiance blossomed beyond the passage. He saw one of the Gatekeepers turn to Batul, and Wrath translated her words. “We can’t block her power! What do we do now?”

“What we must,” said Batul. “The Master of Silence has caused the creation of one servant who resists our magic. Soon he may have more. We can’t stop now-but we don’t stand alone.” His good eye fixed on Ekhaas. “On the Sharvat Vvaraak, you showed that duur’kala magic can still block Medala’s power.”

Ekhaas’s eyes darted around the procession and she bared her teeth. “I wouldn’t be able to shield all of us.”

“Shield yourself and Geth, then.” Batul looked at the shifter too. “Stop Medala, and we will be free to act.”

Geth’s gauntlet creaked as he curled his hand into a fist and nodded. Batul tightened his grip on his hunda stick. “Sing, Ekhaas. We’ll hold Medala’s attention.” He raised the stick. “Gatekeepers, follow!”

The druids dashed for the passage in the rock face, their shadows stretching out behind them to cover Geth and Ekhaas. Before the last of the Gatekeepers was within, Geth heard Medala’s shout of surprise and hatred. A cry of challenge broke out from among the orcs, wordless and angry. Geth whirled to face Ekhaas. “Sing!”

Song rippled from her lips, and her face stilled as the magic settled over her first. As she sang, Geth closed his eyes, reached into himself, and shifted. The familiar sense of invulnerability poured into his veins at the same time as Ekhaas’s spell turned to him, and the exhilaration of shifting mingled with the sharpness and clarity of her song. Geth drew a breath so deep it felt like his chest would crack. When he opened his eyes, everything seemed hard-edged and distinct.

Two sounds pierced that moment. One came from the passage, a wavering groan escaping an orc’s throat as a Gatekeeper fell to Medala’s power. The othercame across the dark cavern like echoes across a lake at night.

The dolgrims were shouting, their voices rising in terrible joy. Waves of sound grew into a tide that swept closer with each moment. Geth couldn’t have picked words out of the tumult, but Wrath did-two simple words, repeated over and over again as soldiers might chant the nickname of a conquering general.

Green Eyes.

Dah’mir was coming.

Geth spun around and threw himself into the narrow passage. The floor was rough, the walls sharp-edged, the far opening of the passage little more than a crack in the rock. Geth scarcely noticed. He thought he heard Ekhaas gasp in amazement as they emerged through the crack, but he couldn’t have been sure. His world had shrunk to the battlefield.

The cavern beyond the passage was a bowl broken out of the rock, the blue light that lit it shining from within veins of crystal embedded in the walls. He and Ekhaas stood on a broad ledge halfway up the cavern’s height; more ledges all around the cavern made gigantic steps down to a wide, uneven floor. Across the floor, a broad tunnel opened in the far wall and descended into darkness. The tunnel mouth was surrounded by a ring of blue-black Khyber dragonshards and smooth stones etched with Gatekeeper symbols, all set in a dark and glittering mortar.

The seal on the prison of the Master of Silence.

On ledges to one side of the cavern, closer to the seal than to him and Ekhaas, were the kalashtar captives. There were more than a dozen of them, some moaning, some twisting, all looking as if they struggled against some unseen tormentor. Maybe they did. Gold bracers shone on their arms and Geth saw the flash of both bright crystals and Khyber shards trapped within the gold wire. Psicrystals and the ancient binding stones. He remembered what Dah’mir had done to Dandra-Tetkashtai’s psicrystal interacting with the binding stone to switch the minds of kalashtar and crystal.

Loathing rose in his chest. The switch had already been made and in this place where madness was strong, the minds of the kalashtar would find all the strength they needed to kill a part of themselves and escape their crystal prisons.

But before the writhing kalashtar stood Medala, her body rigid and her eyes wide, and on the ledges below Geth were Batul and the other Gatekeepers. Some of the druids were down. One looked dead, his face contorted by his final efforts to draw breath. Others were still alive, but rolling on the ledges and clutching at their heads as they screamed. Those who had not fallen wore grim determination on their faces. Geth saw two of them gesture, heard them call on the power of nature to strike at their enemy. Medala’s expression twitched, and the cavern seemed to ring with the sound of crystalline chimes. One of the druid’s eyes bulged, and his words were cut off as he dropped to his knees, clutching his throat. The other druid’s spell ended with the thump of a hunda stick into her belly as her neighbor, anger darkening his face, turned on her.

Geth’s voice tore at his throat. “Medala!”

He threw himself toward her, bounding from ledge to ledge. The kalashtar’s eyes flicked toward him. The chimes rang again, and a pressure slammed into his mind. He staggered under the assault-staggered and recovered as Medala’s attack slid off the shield of Ekhaas’s spell. Medala’s face twisted.

“Stop him!” she howled, and Geth nearly staggered again. There were definitely two voices speaking from her mouth! He clenched his jaw and leaped for the next ledge.

On the edge of his vision, he saw struggle turn into blankness on an orc’s face. The druid’s hand twisted into a claw and jerked upward. Stone splintered and cracked as jagged spikes burst from the surface of the ledge ahead of Geth. It was too late for him to stop his leap. Sharp points and razor edges bit into his feet as he landed. A red lance of pain drove through his body and he stumbled forward, falling with his full weight toward more of the bristling shards.

He twisted hard, arcing his body up and pulling his right arm under him. The thick metal of the forearm of his gauntlet crashed into the spikes. Chips of stone spit into the air and agony seared his elbow, but nothing else pierced his body-with his fall broken, the spikes only dimpled his shifting toughened hide. He thrust himself back up with a snarl and stalked on defiantly across the shattered face of the ledge, ignoring the pain that came with each step. Looking Medala full in the face, he snapped his arms straight. His sword and his gauntlet hissed in the air. “Try again!” he spat.

The growl that grew of out Medala’s chest began thin and cold. Something about it made Geth’s skin crawl, and he bounded forward, running again. Somewhere behind him, he heard a lone orc chanting and thought that he recognized Batul’s voice. He didn’t dare look back though. He pushed himself into a sprint in spite of the agony in his feet. His arms pumped at his sides. His gaze was fixed on Medala’s-just as hers was fixed on him.

The distance between them closed. Medala’s growl built into a scream that echoed with two voices and a hint of brittle crystal. The air around her began to shine with light. The other kalashtar grew still and silent. Batul’s chanting became deep and sonorous, and the cavern seemed to reverberate with the sound. Geth jumped down to the next ledge. There was only one more rocky shelf between him and Medala. He could see her eyes, the pupils shrunk to black pinpricks once more.

Medala’s scream broke. The shimmer that had surrounded her burst outward in shining waves, sweeping over Geth and across the cavern.

Something of her power blasted at his mind. Geth tried to cling to the clarity Ekhaas had sung into him, but this time Medala’s attack scoured it away and left him unguarded. The power tore at his body-no, not just at his body. At him and everything around him. It went all the way through him. He felt it on his skin and deep in his guts. He felt it on the air and in the stone under his feet.

Batul’s chant ended in a cry from the old orc. The other Gatekeepers cried out too. Everything shook before the waves of power, as if the very substance of the world were under attack. Helpless before the waves, Geth stumbled and was flung back off the ledge.

For an instant, he seemed to drift on the air. Then the hard stone of the cavern floor slammed into him. The waves continued to hammer at him. From where he lay, he could see them pounding at the Gatekeepers and Ekhaas as well, rolling on and on like a storm on some vast sea.

Until another burst of silver-white light flashed from a ledge just above the one on which Batul and Ekhaas clung to each other. Four dark forms appeared against the glare.

Singe, Dandra, Ashi, and a young kalashtar man. Geth knew he should have wondered how they’d reached the cavern or what they were doing in the Shadow Marches at all, but all he could think was, Grandmother Wolf, they’re alive.

Alive, but not for long. The waves caught them too. The young man, Ashi, and Singe staggered back against the rock behind them. But Dandra … Dandra leaned forward as if trying to walk into a strong wind. Her hand thrust out-

Dandra thought she’d prepared herself for anything, but the sight of the strange cavern-of the scattered orcs, of Batul and Ekhaas on the ledge just below her, of Geth lying on the cavern floor, of Medala and the kalashtar-made her freeze, even as the waves of power that radiated from Medala tore the others away.

Anger rose up in her.

The power that Medala had manifested was astounding and unlike anything Dandra had ever seen-Medala’s telepathy fused with Virikhad’s mastery of the far step into a single display of psionic strength. At the same time, the power sickened her. It arose out of madness. Medala would use it-did use it-to bring more kalashtar to madness.

Ashi had used her dragonmark the moment they’d spotted Dah’mir’s airship, and the protection granted by the mark still lingered. The mental attack in the waves faltered against the power of the mark, no match for it. The physical attack of the waves ripped at Dandra but didn’t frighten her-Virikhad’s power unravelled the fabric of space, but she did something much the same every time she used the far step herself. Dandra fought back the pain the surged through her, thrust herself against the waves, and flung out her hand.

Vayhatana passed through the battering waves with ease. Dandra seized Medala with her will and slammed her backward.

The gaunt woman’s screaming stopped. The shining waves vanished. She sat dazed, but only for a moment. Then her eyes fixed on Dandra-and a voice that was as much Virikhad as it was Medala spat, “You will die for that!”

“But you’ll die first!”

Medala’s head jerked up at the roar. Dandra twisted around, saw Ashi and Moon look up as well, heard Singe curse-and just barely caught the blur of movement as a black heron darted through a narrow passage in the rocky wall above her.

Dah’mir dropped to the cavern floor. His feathered wings beat on the air, then suddenly were feathered no longer. His small form swelled. Feathers became scales and heron became dragon. Dandra saw Geth’s eyes open very wide. The shifter seemed to convulse as he rolled over, thrust himself to his feet, and dashed for safety all in one movement. Dah’mir’s clawed feet slammed down where he had been.

From all of the lower ledges, those orcs who were able climbed higher, their faces pale with terror. Three didn’t move from where they lay, nor did Geth get the chance to climb. Dandra saw him press himself into a crevice between two ledges. Batul and Ekhaas hauled themselves up from the ledge below to join Dandra and the others.

“Khaavolaar,” Ekhaas said. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving the kalashtar Dah’mir kidnapped from Sharn,” said Singe, grabbing Batul’s arm and pulling him up.

The old Gatekeeper struck at him with his other arm as soon as he was over the edge. “Be quiet!” he hissed. “Word of Vvaraak, be quiet!”

But neither Dah’mir nor Medala paid any attention to them or the climbing orcs. Dandra stared as the kalashtar and the dragon who had once been like king and consort glared at each other.

Dah’mir struck first, his massive head darting forward swift as a snake, but his great teeth snapped together on nothingness. Medala vanished in a flash of light only to reappear on the next ledge over. Her eyes narrowed in concentration and more light played across Dah’mir’s shoulder. The dragon roared as blood oozed between the black-copper scales, but his wing swept out and slammed Medala back before she could evade it.

He whirled on her with a roar. “It would have been better for you to stay dead than steal from me!”

“We stole nothing!” Medala shouted back in her strange double voice. “What you had wasn’t yours!” A crystalline chime seemed to ring on the air. Dah’mir roared in sudden pain and lashed out again.

As they fought, Batul grasped Dandra’s arm. “You have to go, Dandra! Take Singe and Ashi and get out of this place while you can. It isn’t safe. I can’t protect you!”

Dandra pulled her arm away. “Protect us?” She reached across her back and drew her spear, pointing with it across the cavern to where the kalashtar stood held prisoner by the binding stones. “We came for them. If we don’t leave with them, we need to make certain they die here.”

On the ledge below, the surviving orcs were rallying. There were only five of them, all older than she would have expected, and Dandra realized abruptly that they weren’t warriors, but Gatekeepers like Batul. A desperate idea sprang into her mind. “You’re going to attack Medala and Dah’mir. We can use the distraction to reach the kalashtar-”

He shook his head. “Medala and Dah’mir aren’t the danger! Dandra, get out!”

“What about Geth?” Dandra demanded. “What about Ekhaas?” Geth was still somewhere down on the cavern floor. The hobgoblin was at Singe’s side, speaking urgently to him, Ashi, and Moon. Dandra saw the wizard stiffen in surprise, then look down toward the cavern floor and a tunnel that was ringed with stone and dragonshards.

Batul seized her arm once more. “The power of Vvaraak protects them, but I can’t invoke it again. Dandra, if you stay, you’ll fall-you can’t stand against him.”

She blinked. “Him?” She looked at the ringed tunnel again and realized what it was. “Light of il-Yannah-”

Her realization came too late. Across the cavern, the captive kalashtar raised their heads in unison, as if all of them had heard the same distant sound. Dah’mir’s head snapped around as well. Medala stiffened.

So did Moon. “He comes!” the young kalashtar moaned. He huddled back but Singe, Ashi, and Ekhaas stepped to Dandra’s side. Singe’s hand sought out Dandra’s.

The collar around Geth’s neck was so cold it hurt. The shifter saw Medala and Dah’mir break off the seemingly mismatched combat that had raged above his hiding place, and he saw the kalashtar who had stood behind Medala raise their heads, but it was really the cold of the collar that made him turn his head toward the great seal.

Something was happening within it. Not within the tunnel, but within the ring formed by the seal. The air stretched and shimmered, then seemed to contract. Something rushed to fill the space, as if unseen hands were focusing a vast and powerful spyglass and the ring of the seal was its lens.

A lens that snapped into focus, leaving Geth staring into a throne room where mind flayers took the place of lords and ministers, their dead white eyes inscrutable, their writhing tentacles hiding unspeakable secrets. Dolgaunts took the place of guards, and dolgrims of the court mastiffs. Tiny creatures resembling eyeless monkeys perched where tame birds or lapdogs might have, and elf-like women with thick tendrils growing among their hair and down their backs stood as if they were concubines.

At the center of the terrible assembly was a glittering black throne and on it, looking out through the lens, sat a pale and beautiful man in rich robes.

In the ghostly fortress of Jhegesh Dol, Geth had fought the phantom of the daelkyr who had ruled the fortress in ancient times. The figure on the throne had exactly the same face as that phantom lord, except that his eyes were acid-green instead of lavender-and he had no mouth. Between nose and chin, the man on the throne had nothing but smooth skin.

He was no man, Geth knew. He was a daelkyr. He was the Master of Silence.

And he spoke.

A vast voice filled Geth’s head, like Dandra’s power of kesh but with none of sense of unity that kesh carried with it. The voice of the Master of Silence forced itself onto him, violating every corner of his mind, the words it spoke so vast that they threatened to wipe him away from himself.

But there was something between him and it, gentle but powerful like a warm breeze. The power of the amulet of Vvaraak muffled the enormous voice. The Master of Silence’s words were still deafening. They still made Geth feel like blood was trickling from his ears, but he could understand them.

My servants stand before me. My ancient enemies know fear. There was pleasure in the daelkyr’s tone.

Somewhere on the ledges above, people were screaming, overwhelmed by the voice. It wasn’t the kalashtar-Geth could see them and they stood still as statues. It couldn’t have been the Gatekeepers or Ekhaas-Batul had invoked the power of the amulet over them as well. His gut knotted. Singe and Dandra, Ashi and the young kalashtar. What protected them from the terrible voice?

Do something, Batul, he prayed silently. Wolf and Tiger, do something!

The screams went on and on.

Dah’mir didn’t seem to notice. His great body folded, his forelegs lowering and his neck dipping down to brush the ground. “Master!” he said. His voice was thick with adoration-and with anger. “Master, you have new servants because of me! I brought them here, not her.” His head twisted toward Medala. “Not … that.”

Medala hadn’t moved. She stood straight, facing the Master of Silence without obeisance or fear. The daelkyr’s eyes moved to her. You are not what you were the last time you stood in this place.

“No,” said Medala, two voices speaking the word.

The creatures gathered in the throne room beyond the lens hissed and shifted at this disrespect. Dah’mir reared upright with a roar. The Master of Silence stilled them all with a thought, a single command so powerful that even Geth felt the urge to obey it. Hush. The throne room fell silent. So did Dah’mir. So did the screams from above. The cavern was utterly quiet. The Master of Silence’s gaze on Medala didn’t waver. I was told you were dead.

“We were gone from this world.”

Interest stirred in the daelkyr’s voice. There is a familiar touch upon you.

Medala smiled. “We have been where you can no longer go, imprisoned lord,” she acknowledged. “We have been to Xoriat. We saw many things there-learned many things. We saw Dah’mir’s plans in Sharn.”

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!”