The tyranny of ghosts tlod-3

by Don Bassingthwaite

  Ekhaas moved on to the next doorway. “We have older names for them, but yes. Each vault carries the name of a moon and each moon has a symbol.” She pointed to the carvings on the first door. “The dark spots on the face of Eyre reminded the dar of an axe. Zarantyr is the chief’s moon because it’s the most dominant. Dravago is the mushroom moon because it glows lavender like a certain kind of cave fungus.”

  “That’s not exactly basic knowledge,” Geth complained. “How is anyone but a goblin supposed to know that?”

  Ekhaas turned to look at him. “Nobody but goblins are supposed to be down here.”

  “I’ve found the Eye,” Tenquis called. They joined him beside a doorway that opened onto another flight of stairs. Once again there were three moon symbols beside the door, the slit eye of Lharvion carved at a medium size with a diameter as long as Ekhaas’s thumb.

  “What do the sizes of the symbols mean?” Chetiin asked.

  “The number of vaults we pass through if we take this passage.” She tapped a repetition of the hollowed out circle, the largest symbol beside the doorway. “First the Vault of the Night-Sun-Barrakas, the brightest moon-then the Vault of the Eye.”

  “What’s the symbol for returning to the surface then?” asked Geth.

  “There isn’t one. You have to remember the way you came. Don’t worry-I will.”

  Geth bared his teeth as they started down the stairs. “Grandfather Rat, it would be easy to get lost forever down here.”

  “I imagine,” said Chetiin, “that was part of the first keepers’ plan.”

  At the bottom of the stairs was another passage with more arched doorways, but only one interested Ekhaas: the one with the symbol of the moon Barrakas carved prominently over its peak. Her heart racing, she raised the ghostlight rod high and stepped through.

  The walls of a cavern, roughly polished but still natural rock, spread off to either side. She could feel the space that opened up around her, but even goblin vision wasn’t sufficient to see distant walls or ceiling through the darkness. The two ghostlights they carried were barely enough to illuminate a fraction of the cavern. That fraction was more than enough, though. The treasures of her clan surrounded them.

  The statue of a hobgoblin woman, half-sized but perfectly detailed, watched them from a plinth. Ekhaas recognized a tribute to Jhazaal Dhakaan, the legendary duur’kala who brought six kings together to forge an empire. Beside the small statue rested a colossal head, worn into anonymity by exposure to the elements. A rack of spears, their shafts preserved by some magic but still so old that the wood was warped and crumbling. A chest, propped open with the ends of scrolls peeking out from under the lid. Another chest, this one tightly sealed, the attempt at security making Ekhaas wonder what secrets it contained. A suit of armor large enough for a bugbear but of the wrong proportions and crafted from sheets of stone and cloudy crystal rather than metal.

  Tenquis stepped up to examine the armor-and froze, staring off into the darkness, before Ekhaas could speak. The stump of his tail stiffened. Hand on her sword, Ekhaas stepped quickly to his side.

  Where ghostlight faded into darkness stood a horrific figure the size and shape of a lean hobgoblin but with horrible pits where eyes should have been. Thick tendrils hung like hair from its head and two tentacles reached over its shoulders above outstretched arms. Tentacles, tendrils, and arms were motionless though. The thing was dead, skinned and mounted like a hunting trophy centuries ago.

  “A dolgaunt,” said Ekhaas. “At the height of Dhakaan’s power, Khorvaire was invaded by the forces of Xoriat, the Realm of Madness. The leaders of the invasion were the daelkyr. Some of their troops they brought with them from Xoriat. Others they crafted from the creatures of Eberron.” She leaned closer to the eyeless face, feeling a sickening thrill from being so near. “It’s said the first dolgaunts were made from hobgoblins.”

  “Why is it here?” Tenquis asked.

  “History holds many lessons. Dhakaan won the Daelkyr War, but the war broke the empire. Whole cities were destroyed or corrupted. And even with the daelkyr defeated, their creations were still a danger.”

  “Are still a danger,” Geth corrected her with a growl. He turned away from the dolgaunt. “Let’s keep going.”

  A path led through the vault, winding among the treasures of ages like a forest trail among ancient trees. Where the path branched, tall iron markers with the moon symbol of the Eye pointed them on their way. Ekhaas could have stopped a dozen times to marvel at the artifacts that the Kech Volaar had accumulated, items slowly crumbling even as the Word Bearers tried to preserve them. A sense of time kept her going, though. Kitaas would wake eventually, and they had to be out of Volaar Draal-or at least out of the vaults-before then. They’d stopped at their quarters long enough to gather their gear and ready their packs for a fast flight. Once they were finished in the vaults, they would not be lingering in the city.

  She felt a sudden pang of sorrow. What they were doing might save Darguun, but she would never be allowed to see these sights again. For the sake of the future, she was closing herself off from her past.

  Ekhaas pressed her lips together and drew down her ears, trying to suppress the thought. She kept her eyes open, though, drinking in everything around her-until the cavern simply ended in empty space, the edge of a great chasm cutting through the rock.

  “Khaavolaar.” Ekhaas slowed as they approached and studied the chasm’s edge. It seemed stable. In fact, an old gantry of heavy timbers stood right at the edge. Ekhaas looked up and saw that the void of the chasm extended above them, too, a vast natural shaft. She had no idea where the shaft opened above them, but she could guess at its use. “This must be how particularly large artifacts are brought down into the vaults.”

  “Something like a big stone stela couldn’t exactly be brought down all the stairs we took, could it?” said Tenquis. A final iron marker was planted at the edge of the chasm. He strode right up to it and leaned over, holding out his rod. “There are stairs going down the wall of the shaft,” he announced, then stretched a little farther. “I think I can see-”

  His words were cut off in a sudden choking breath as he started to topple forward. Arms wheeling, he fought for balance.

  Geth was behind him in an instant, grabbing the back of his vest and hauling him onto solid ground. The ghostlight rod wasn’t so fortunate. It slipped from the tiefling’s grip and plummeted into the chasm. Chetiin stuck his head over the edge and watched calmly as it fell. After a moment, he drew back. “About a hundred paces, maybe a hundred and twenty to the bottom.”

  Geth glared at Tenquis, who had the decency to look ashamed as well as frightened. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m still getting used to not having a tail to balance me. Thank you.”

  “Try not to do it again,” Geth said.

  The loss of one rod made the darkness around them seem that much thicker. Ekhaas didn’t relish the idea of climbing down the old stairs of the vault without better illumination. Fortunately, that was something she could take care of. Handing the last rod to Geth, she reached into herself and drew up a song. It was a simple magic, but useful; as her song rippled out, blossoms of light unfolded on the air in three floating globes.

  Geth stiffened. “There!” he said. “You hear that?”

  This time she did hear it-an echo to her song. Except that it was more than an echo. It was similar to her song, but darker and more of a counterpoint. The globes of light flickered like candles in a wind-but then the song was gone and the lights were steady.

  Geth, Chetiin, and Tenquis all looked to her. Her ears went back. “Stay alert.” With a flick of her fingers, she directed the globes to hover over her, Tenquis, and Geth, then cautiously led the way down into the shaft.

  Ekhaas didn’t normally have a problem with heights, but being suspended on the stairs as they switched back and forth along the wall of the gloomy void was unnerving. The dim glow of Tenquis’s dropped rod seemed slow to draw near, and she half-convinced
herself that she could still hear that eerie echo of her song over the sound of shuffling feet.

  Then Chetiin, leading the way as the most surefooted of them, called back, “The shaft ends.”

  They were still well above the fallen torch. Ekhaas sent a globe of light drifting forward to Chetiin. It shone briefly on the rock wall of the shaft… then nothing. The shaft wall arced away, leaving the stairs to hang suspended in the air.

  Just ahead of them, an arch curved above the stairs. On it was the symbol of a circle with a slit down the middle.

  “Welcome to the Vault of the Eye,” said Ekhaas.

  Tenquis, still shaken by his near fall above, squeezed the narrow rail of the stairs so hard his knuckles turned pale. “Your ancestors couldn’t have built the entrance at floor level?”

  Seemingly undaunted by the dark space around them, Geth moved ahead to where the stairs emerged beneath the ceiling of the vault and leaned out over the rail. “It would be easier to know where we were going if we could see from up here,” he said. He looked back at Ekhaas. “Can you make a brighter light?”

  Her ears flicked. “I can,” she said. “I’m not sure I should. Those echoes came when I sang magic.”

  “Maybe you can sing the spell softly?”

  Ekhaas pursed her lips for a moment, then walked carefully forward to what she hoped was a good position. She drew a slow breath, let it out just as slowly, then drew another and sang a soft note. In her mind, she focused on building the song gradually, bringing it forth like dawn creeping across a mountain valley. Gray half-light first, then a pearly pink glow. Ekhaas held the song there for a moment, listening for the strange echo, but there was nothing. She let the magic flow again and pearly glow became red blush-then finally golden light flowed into the Vault of the Eye as if the sun itself had risen beneath Volaar Draal. The song faded into silence.

  And there was still no hint of an echo. Ekhaas breathed easily and looked down.

  Twenty paces below them, the artifacts of the Vault of the Eye spread out in a chaotic jumble. Her guess that the shaft had been used to lower large artifacts into the vaults seemed correct-massive statues, incredibly preserved war chariots, and huge chunks of masonry that must have been dragged away from Dhakaani ruins spread out around a clear space at the bottom of the shaft. The main vault was actually smaller than she’d expected, certainly smaller than the Vault of the Night-Sun, but the number of paths that led through the stored artifacts looked like the web of a very large spider. Passages and crevices opened in every wall of the vault.

  “Grandfather Rat,” muttered Geth. “It’s going to take a long time to search through that.”

  “Maybe not,” said Ekhaas. The Register entry had said that the stela was carved from white stone. Most of the collected artifacts below were the gray of weathered stone, or black or red, the colors typically favored by the dar for monuments. But across the vault, her conjured light reflected from a sliver of white nearly hidden behind a black obelisk.

  “There,” she said.

  Once they were on the floor of the vault, the sense of vast space Ekhaas had felt above was replaced almost instantly by a feeling of being crowded by the large artifacts that towered over her. She pushed the sensation away, though, and hurried along the path that looked to lead most directly to the sliver of white. It turned and branched, but she used the black obelisk as a guide. Soon it loomed ahead of them, dominating the view ahead, until the path twisted around it. White stone flashed as they rounded the obelisk, then grew-and grew.

  The Reward Stela of Giis Puulta was taller than the obelisk that had hidden it. It rested in a deep hollow in the floor of the vault, and while nearly a quarter of its full height was below the level of Ekhaas’s feet, the rest of it towered the height of three tall hobgoblins over her head. The stone was a dazzling white that would have shone like a beacon under true sunlight. Ancient masons had cut it into a slab as wide as her outstretched arms but not even as deep as the blade of a shortsword. It was no wonder the effort had been made to transport it to the vaults-most such stela would have cracked into pieces over the centuries. At the top of both sides of the stela was an inscription in Goblin:

  GIIS PUULTA

  Emperor of Dhakaan Sixth lord of the Second Puulta dynasty rewards those who served him against the Rebellion of Lords.

  Below the inscriptions, text carved in letters a finger’s-length high marched down the two faces of the stela. Ekhaas’s ears twitched back. There were dozens of names on the stela, each with a description of deeds performed and rewards granted, some with carved pictures and symbols as well. There was no telling where the historian Shaardat had found the passage regarding the breaking of muut.

  “What now?” asked Geth.

  “We read,” said Ekhaas. “The bright light will last a little longer. The globes will last as long as we need them.” Stepping into the hollow, she slid carefully down to the wide plinth that was the base of the stela and read the lowest-and smallest-line of text. “Banuu who cared for the mount of the emperor is rewarded with the slave who was the daughter of the lord of Em Draal.” She grimaced and tilted her head back to stare up at the height of the stela. “We start at the top. I’ll take this side. Tenquis, you take the other.”

  “Is there anything in particular we should look for?” the tiefling asked, circling the monument.

  “A longer passage of text, I imagine.” Ekhaas grabbed Geth’s hand as he reached down to help her up the side of the hollow. “Maybe something that puts the events of this rebellion into context-”

  “I’ve found it.”

  Ekhaas twisted around so sharply, she almost fell back into the hollow. Geth’s grip tightened, though, and she regained her feet. “What?” she called over her shoulder.

  “I’ve found it. It’s the first inscription on this side, right at the top. Whoever Tasaam Draet was, he was definitely more important than Banuu the stablehand.”

  She stumbled a second time. Geth and Chetiin both glanced at her, but she ignored them. Suddenly her stomach was twisting in knots. “The name on the inscription is Tasaam Draet?”

  “Yes.” She heard Tenquis mumble as he skimmed the text on the stela, then he read aloud in Goblin, “Tasaam Draet, who found atcha in this time when muut has been shattered is embraced as a brother to the emperor. The name of Draet will be inherited by his line. He is further rewarded with the fortress of Suud Anshaar and given the care of the symbols of muut forfeited by those lords whose treachery he has ended.”

  “Khaavolaar,” Ekhaas said, half to herself. Geth raised his eyebrows in curiosity.

  “Who was Tasaam Draet?” he asked.

  “A butcher,” said Ekhaas. “An avenging spirit. Children of the Dhakaani clans are told to obey their muut, or Tasaam Draet will come in the night and drag them down to the depths of Khyber. As we age, we learn to see him as something of a folk hero. According to more reliable stories, he was a real person, a commoner raised to the rank of a lord by the emperor and empowered to bring down any noble who dared rise against the imperial throne in the last days of the empire. He’s reputed to have exterminated at least three noble lines-maybe more. The stories say that the wails of those dying in his fortress of Suud Anshaar could be heard a night’s journey away.”

  Geth wrinkled his nose. “And you call him a folk hero?”

  “You invoke a trickster rat as a folk hero. The dar invoke a devoted warrior.” Ekhaas shrugged and continued. “Tasaam Draet was so powerful, so full of atcha in his service to Dhakaan, that the last forces of the daelkyr made a target of him. One day travelers to Suud Anshaar found it utterly empty of life, with only a lingering taint of madness to hint at what had happened. Suud Anshaar was abandoned as cursed, and Tasaam Draet became a legend. It’s said that the ruins of Suud Anshaar still stand deep in what’s now the Khraal Jungle, the cries of those who died by Tasaam Draet’s hand still echoing in the night. Raat shan gath’kal dor-the story stops but never ends.”

  “That
doesn’t shed any new light on the shattering of the Shield of Nobles, though,” said Chetiin somberly. “Or on whether the inscription refers to muut as the shield or as the duty of nobles.”

  “Or maybe it does,” said Tenquis, still on the other side of the stela, “Ekhaas, come look at this.”

  She went around the hollow, Geth and Chetiin following her. Tenquis looked up at the stela. He pointed and said, “There’s the inscription.” His hand moved lower. “What’s that below it?”

  Symbols carved into the stone ended the text in praise of Tasaam Draet-three rings with stretched slashes along the outside, like a sword blade bent into a circle with the notched edge out. Ekhaas knew them. In fact, she had recreated them on a battle standard for Dagii’s army before the Battle of Zarrthec. “They’re shaari’mal,” she said. “The tearing wheels. They’re an ancient symbol of Dhakaan.”

  “There’s something written under them,” said Tenquis.

  Ekhaas squinted. There was something written there, the letters smaller than the surrounding text, almost too small to read from a distance. She thought she could make out one word though. Shield.

  “We need to get closer,” she said. “Chetiin, can you climb it?”

  He looked at the stela and shook his head. Geth growled. “Then we stand on each others’ shoulders,” the shifter said. He rolled his shoulders, then climbed down into the hollow and put his back to the stela. “Tenquis first.”

  “Wait.” Tenquis dug into one of the pockets of his vest and produced a piece of fine folded paper and a stick of charcoal. He gave them to Chetiin. “Lay the paper over the inscription, then rub the charcoal over it. It will make an impression of the inscription that we can take with us.”

  “I know how to make a rubbing,” the old goblin said. “Try not to fall out from under me.”

  Geth crouched down. Tenquis stepped onto the shifter’s bent knee, then carefully up onto his shoulders, facing the pillar so that he could brace himself against it with his hands. Geth gripped Tenquis’s ankles and stood up slowly, breath hissing out between his teeth. When he stood straight, he paused for a moment to let Tenquis adjust his balance, then let go of him and reached down to make a stirrup of his hands for Ekhaas.