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,
