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.
She put one foot into it and pushed off from the ground with the other. For a perilous moment her feet joined Tenquis’s on Geth’s shoulders. Then she grasped the tiefling’s shoulders, wrapped one leg around his waist, and climbed up over his back. He groaned and breathed even harder than Geth had.
“Easy,” Ekhaas whispered. “You can do it.” She got one knee on his shoulder, then the other. His horns made the maneuver difficult.
“Just hurry,” he wheezed.
She put her palms against the cool stone of the stela, digging her fingertips into the shallow grooves of the carved letters-Muurazh who led the defense of the dungeons is rewarded with two swords from the emperor’s hand and land before the walls of Zaal Piik-before drawing up one foot…
At the bottom of their pile, Geth lurched suddenly. Ekhaas grabbed onto the stela, as did Tenquis below her. Geth gasped as he tried to recover, and without thinking, Ekhaas sang.
It was a reflexive action, with less magic about it than inspiration. She sang strength and steadiness, focus and will. Geth sucked in a great breath and managed to stand straight once more. So did Tenquis-she could feel him grow steadier under her, and she seized the opportunity to climb all the way up onto his shoulders.
But with the song came the echo, and this time it was distinctly louder and more insistent. And when she stopped singing, it persisted as if it had taken on a life of its own.
“Ekhaas!” said Geth through his teeth.
“I know.” She ducked her head and peered under one arm at Chetiin. “Up!”
The goblin swarmed over Geth, then Tenquis as easily as if he were climbing a tree. When he passed over Ekhaas, she barely felt it. Then he was on her shoulders-and cursing.
“This is worse than from below,” he said. “The angle is wrong.”
The haunting song had drawn closer in just a few moments. It had changed, too, Ekhaas realized. It wasn’t
