ghosts went all the way through her, making it harder to think. The voices of her friends were almost drowned out by it.
Almost but not quite. “You’re both wrong,” Chetiin said harshly. “Blood of the clans, I don’t know why I bother with you clumsy, stupid tallfolk.”
For a moment, his words wiped away the song of the ghosts. Ekhaas turned to stare at her friends. She’d never heard Chetiin speak that way. Even if she suspected that was sometimes the way that the shaarat’khesh felt, she knew that he was too tightly disciplined to permit those feelings to show. Something was wrong. Geth and Tenquis had never argued like this before. And when had she ever felt such crippling doubt?
The song of the ghosts had changed, she realized abruptly. The spirits weren’t just mindless apparitions bent on punishment. There was a cunning about them. Earlier the ghosts had hit them with waves of despair and shame. That had failed so their attack had become more insidious, planting doubt and mistrust, turning them against each other.
Ekhaas drew two slow breaths, calming herself and shutting out the argument among Geth, Tenquis, and Chetiin. She listened to the song, trying to grasp the harmonies of it, the rise and the fall. Then she drew a third breath and sang.
The effort brought a fire to her chest. Her throat burned, but she forced herself to sing anyway. She didn’t waste energy pouring strength and volume into the song-this wasn’t a battle that would be won quickly. The ghosts had changed their tactics. She needed to change hers as well. She made her song bright and cheerful, a reminder of unity and hope. They would escape. The ghosts would not stop them.
Doubt fell away almost immediately, like a heavy pack stripped from her shoulders. She straightened, turned to the others, and extended her magic over them. The release from the ghosts’ song was visible in their faces. Geth and Tenquis blinked and looked at each other in surprise, as if their fight had been something happening to other people. Chetiin’s face tightened, expression wiped away, and Ekhaas could guess the shame he felt for what he’d said. She reached out to all three, gesturing urgently for them to follow her. Without the influence of the ghosts misleading her, she was certain that she’d chosen the correct path-and she had an uncomfortable feeling that the ghosts knew it too. Their song rose, clawing at the defenses she’d raised.
She denied them. It took all of her concentration to sing as she walked. Geth moved up to walk beside her, Wrath gripped tight in his hand, his eyes alert. Ekhaas didn’t look back to see what Chetiin and Tenquis were doing, but she could feel them close behind. She could see the ghostly duur’kala all around them, though. They drifted among the artifacts of the vault, hollow eyes upon her. Some of them whispered between the notes of their song.
Defiler. Thief. Traitor.
She could block the magic of their song, but it was harder to ignore the simple malignance of their words. She poured herself into her own song, reminding herself of why she was doing this and for whom, but the fate of Darguun and vengeance against Tariic seemed like distant things. Even if Tariic was defeated and Darguun saved, the Kech Volaar would not take her back. She would be alone.
No. A face rose in her mind-a gray-haired, gray-eyed young warlord who called her “wolf woman” and who shared his honor with her. She wouldn’t be alone because she would have Dagii.
A ghost hissed with sudden rage and lunged at her. Geth intercepted it, lashing out with Wrath. The wisp of a shroud fell to the ground and faded away.
Ekhaas kept walking and singing. She could feel sweat cold on her forehead and through her hair. Where were the stairs?
Then she spotted the nightmare figure of the stuffed dolgaunt and felt a moment of hope. Beyond the creature’s unmoving tentacles stood the strange armor of stone and crystal. Beyond that, the monument to Jhazaal Dhakaan. And beyond that…
A line of ghostly duur’kala, spectral flesh even more decayed than that of the ghosts who harried them. The dark arch of the stairs leading up out of the vaults pierced the wall just behind the silent ghosts, but it might has well have been leagues away. There was an air of tremendous age about the spirits, and Ekhaas knew, somewhere deep in her gut, that in life these duur’kala had been among the first to store their secrets in the vaults, had been the first to dwell in Volaar Draal, had perhaps been the first to call themselves Kech Volaar.
And they hadn’t yet joined in the chorus of their sisters.
Geth saw them too. “Tiger’s blood,” he murmured. He turned and looked behind them. “They’re all around us, Ekhaas.”
One of the ancient duur’kala raised a withered hand.
The chorus of the ghosts ended. For a moment, Ekhaas sang alone in the dark, her song thin in the sudden silence. The ancient duur’kala stepped forward. Ekhaas braced herself for their song, her own trailing off into a whisper. Geth raised Wrath, ready to attack. In unison, the old ghosts opened their mouths — and instead of singing, they drew breath.
It was like being caught in a gale that pulled at her rather than pushed. Ekhaas felt the air sucked right out her lungs. She choked and struggled to catch her breath, but there was no air to breathe-it rushed past her into the gaping mouths and bottomless, undead lungs of the ghosts. Dark spots filled her vision almost instantly. Tenquis wheezed and stumbled against her. Geth lifted Wrath and charged but only managed a couple of steps before his legs buckled and gave out. Ekhaas struggled to stay on her feet, fighting panic as she tried to think of some defense.
Nothing came, and still the ghosts consumed the air of the vaults. Ekhaas’s eardrums popped, and sounds became muffled and distant. Her vision became more dark than bright. Even the glowing specters became shadowy silhouettes, outlined by what seemed a brighter glow from behind them.
A glow that came from the archway. A glow with figures-real, solid figures-in it.
“By the glory of Dhakaan, cease!” The throbbing in Ekhaas’s ears rendered the ringing words as hollow echoes. “I speak for the Kech Volaar. Great mothers of the dirge, cease!”
As her vision dimmed to darkness, Ekhaas saw Tuura Dhakaan and, at her side, the black-robed figure of Diitesh. The High Archivist had her arms raised, a curiously carved block of stone clutched in her hands. “I hold the Seal of the Eternal Bond!” she screamed, trying to match Tuura’s rolling tones-and failing. “Great mothers, cease. The vaults are safe.”
However weak Diitesh’s command might have been, it was effective. The terrible pull ended. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum. Ekhaas drew in a shuddering breath and blinked, trying to clear the spots from her eyesight so she could see what was happening. The ancient ghosts had turned to regard Tuura and Diitesh and the handful of others who stood behind them. Guards, Ekhaas saw, and archivists. They huddled back, leaving only Tuura and Diitesh to face the ghosts. Diitesh raised the thing in her hands again.
“Go!” she commanded. “Begone.”
Tuura’s voice became more soothing. “Great mothers, you do your duty. Return to your rest.” She bent her head before the ancient ghosts, and, after a moment, they returned the gesture.
Then they were gone, fading back into the shadows and all of the ghosts along with them. When Tuura looked up, her eyes were squarely on Ekhaas. They narrowed. Her ears flattened, and her lips pulled back in anger.
Ekhaas’s heart sank.
A figure moved out from among the soldiers and archivists and took up a position at Diitesh’s side. Scorn and triumph twisted Kitaas’s face. “As I told you,” she said to Tuura.
The leader of the Kech Volaar said nothing, just flicked one finger. Before Ekhaas and the others could even stand, they were surrounded. Again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
17 Aryth
Tariic wanted to break her spirit. Ashi knew it from the way he watched her. Whenever they were in the same room, his eyes were on her like the eyes of a dragon. There is no escape, said that gaze. Your resistance only makes the wait more interesting.
