that one of Natrac's thugs would recognize diamonds if he saw them.'
Tetkashtai stirred uneasily within Dandra's mind. Dandra, a headpiece set with crystals… An image of the spidery, crystal-studded devices Dah'mir's mind flayers had used on them flickered within her light.
I know, said Dandra. 'Vennet,' she said aloud, 'I'd like to look for this headband.'
Geth and Singe stared at her, but Vennet tilted his head, then nodded slowly. 'If you want to,' he said. 'You can't go down alone, though-'
'I'll go with her,' Singe said. He shot a glance at Geth. The shifter growled agreement as well.
'We'll all go,' said Vennet. 'Karth, fetch a couple of lanterns. We'll need more light down there.'
As they left the captain's cabin and paced back along the ship's length, Vennet leaned close to Dandra. 'You think there's something special about this headband?'
Dandra clenched her teeth. 'I think it might be connected to the cult of the Dragon Below.' The half-truth seemed to satisfy Vennet.
Karth was waiting by the hatch down to the aft hold, two everbright lanterns in his hands. Vennet took them, passing one to Singe, then nodded at Karth to raise the hatch.
The hold was silent. Geth crouched down and peered into the dimness, then nodded and went in all the way. Vennet followed. Singe gestured for Dandra to go ahead of him, but she swallowed and stepped aside. Ashi might have been shackled, but facing the hunter was still going to be difficult. 'After you,' she said. Singe nodded and descended the steps. Dandra swallowed. Tetkashtai had already drawn herself into a tight, tense spark. Cautiously, Dandra stepped down into the hold.
From where she sat chained to the floor, bound hand and foot, Ashi glared at her. The Bonetree hunter's face was bruised and swelling from the brawl and her ferocious fight with Geth, and there was fierce hatred in her eyes.
Vennet and Singe kept their distance from the bound hunter, but Geth strode right up to her. His lips peeled back from his teeth and he growled in Ashi's face. The hunter's gaze shifted slowly from Dandra to Geth. Her lips twitched as well, but they didn't part. She kept her silence. Her arms, however, tensed against her shackles.
'Get away from her,' said Vennet. He grabbed Geth and pulled him away, then faced Ashi himself. 'Where's this headband trinket that started the fight?' he demanded.
Ashi didn't answer. Her eyes didn't waver from Geth. The shifter growled again. 'Beat it out of her,' he said, his voice thick and almost irrational.
Ashi's jaw tightened, but her expression of angry resolve didn't change.
'Geth!' Dandra hissed. A part of Dandra understood what Geth wanted: a measure of revenge against their enemy. The temptation to hurt Ashi as she had been hurt herself was strong. Dandra pushed the urge away. She stepped up to Geth and grabbed his shoulders. The shifter's chest was heaving. 'We're better than that,' she said. 'Beat her while she's bound or kill her in cold blood and we bring ourselves down to her level.'
To her surprise, the statement provoked more of a reaction from Ashi than any of Geth's threats-the hunter drew a sharp breath and spat out a harsh, deeply accented rebuke. 'Blood in your mouth, outclanner! I'm not a torturer. Or a murderer either!'
Geth turned on her. 'One of your clan murdered Adolan!'
Ashi's eyes narrowed. 'The Gatekeeper? He died fighting, like the hunters you killed, shifter. If that's murder, then there's more of my clan's blood on your blade than yours on mine!'
Dandra felt Geth's body stiffen under her hands, his massive muscles flexing. She shoved him back several more steps from the bound hunter. Singe grabbed him from the other side, helping to restrain him, though Dandra was reasonably certain that he could have wrenched himself away from both of them easily. After a moment, he slowly relaxed. Dandra let him go, then looked at Ashi.
'The headband,' she said. 'Where is it?'
The hunter lapsed back into sullen silence. Dandra looked around the hold. Searching the stacks of crates, barrels, and sacks-not to mention the blankets and packs Natrac's clients had left behind-would take hours. There was another possibility though. If the 'diamond headband' was, as both she and Tetkashtai suspected, some kind of psionic-empowered creation, it would more than just a physical presence. She cleared her thoughts and opened her mind's eye.
A swirling mist took shape in her vision, similar to Tetkashtai's presence but shadowy instead of glowing with light. The feel of it filled her dread, but she focused her mind and pointed where the aura seemed strongest. A heavy sack rested in front of a pile of crates. 'Behind there,' she said.
The slight tightening of Ashi's face told her she was right. Singe stepped forward and dragged the sack aside to reveal a gap between the crates. He held his lantern close, peering inside, then got down on the floor and stretched one arm deep into the gap. His hand emerged with a well-worn pouch of soft leather. He passed it to Geth. Dandra watched Ashi for any further reaction, but the hunter's expression had taken on the harsh coldness of stone. Geth drew the string on the pouch open and spilled its contents into his palm.
A band, perhaps three fingers wide, of loosely woven copper wire studded with large, roughly cut crystals slid out. The crystals caught the lantern light and flashed brightly, but Vennet said, 'Those aren't diamonds.'
'No,' agreed Dandra, 'they aren't.'
There was something strangely familiar about the aura of the band, like a face half-recognized. She reached out to touch the band.
The aura that surrounded it flickered and reacted like a living thing, rearing back then snapping toward her hungrily. Dandra snatched her hand back with a gasp. The band sought a living host-it clearly had little power on its own-but there was still a mind behind it, a mind reaching out for a connection. And the mind behind the band…
Tetkashtai recognized that mind only a moment before Dandra did. A name echoed in Dandra's mind. A haze of horror settled on her as she turned and stared at Ashi.
'Medalashana,' she said, her voice trembling. 'Medalashana is alive. This band lets you communicate with her.'
The hunter's face went pale with a mix of anger and surprise. She looked away-enough of an answer to tell Dandra that she was right.
'Who's Medalashana?' asked Vennet.
Dandra hesitated, then answered. 'A friend. Dah'mir took her at the same time he took me. I thought she was dead.'
'You don't look happy to know she's alive.'
'I…' Dandra looked back to the crystal band. Geth was still holding it, though he looked a little unsettled. He'd be even more unsettled if he could see what she saw: the aura of the device, coiled and writhing like a snake. 'I don't think I am. The band has a sense of her mind about it, but it's dark. Mad. If Medalashana's alive, if she has her powers…' She swallowed. 'It's only because she's given herself to Dah'mir and become one of his followers.'
Geth's hands trembled. Dandra gestured for him to put the band away and he slid it back into the pouch, then quickly handed it to her. Dandra could still feel the device's aura, seething inside the leather.
'Twelve moons,' said Singe from the floor. 'Natrac's thugs saw Ashi with the headband, didn't they? That means she used it while she's been on the ship. Dah'mir knows we're coming!'
'If he doesn't,' Dandra said grimly, 'he at least knows we're on our way to Zarash'ak.' She looked at Vennet. 'We can go now.'
'Wait, Dandra,' said Singe. He leaned back down to the gap between the crates and wriggled his arm inside again. 'I felt something else in-'
Ashi howled at his words and lunged forward as far as her shackles would allow. Dandra gasped, the disembodied chorus of whitefire snapping into her mind out of instinct. Geth growled and brought up his fists. Vennet's hand went to a cutlass he had strapped on in his cabin. Ashi paid no attention to any of them, however. Her eyes were fixed on Singe.
'Outclanner! Touch that and I promise I will hunt you down and kill you!'
The hunter's threat washed over Singe. He looked at her as he sat up. 'I thought you were trying to do that anyway, Ashi,' he said calmly. He held out the long bundle, wrapped in a length of torn blanket, that his fingers had found jammed into the gap. A flick of his wrist and the cloth fell away to reveal a sheathed sword.
Vennet spat at the sight of it as Ashi let loose another howl of outrage. 'Storm at dawn! I told Natrac to
