The Tyranny of Ghosts: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 3 (10 page)

Frustration rose in Geth. “Grandfather Rat is laughing at us. We find a possible clue to stopping Tariic, and we can’t get to it.” He glanced at Ekhaas. “Diitesh isn’t going to let us enter the vaults.”

“Then we won’t ask her permission.” Ekhaas raised her head, expression grim but ears standing tall. “We don’t have a choice. We’ve already broken sanctuary. When Tuura Dhakaan finds out what’s happened here, she’ll be bound by honor and duty to throw us out of Volaar Draal. If we don’t act now, we’re never going to get a chance to examine the stela.”

“And how do we get into the vaults?”

Ekhaas turned to face Kitaas. Geth felt the archivist stiffen in his arms, her anger becoming alarm at the icy distance in Ekhaas’s eyes. “My dear sister will help us,” she said.

T
he entrance to the vaults of Volaar Draal was a wide maw, cast into shadow by pale ghostlights hung beneath deep eaves. It was an unfriendly building, jealously guarding the secrets it had swallowed over the centuries.

No guards stood beneath the ghostlights, though. None lurked in the shadows. From the cover of the nearest building—a good fifteen paces across a dark-flagged plaza—Ekhaas stood with Geth and Tenquis and watched the massive doors.

“I can’t believe it isn’t guarded,” murmured Tenquis. His quiet words were at odds with his appearance. Disguised by illusion with her magic, he wore the face and body of a bugbear.

“There are always archivists inside,” Ekhaas told him, “but they don’t need guards outside. Intruders would need to pass the gates of Volaar Draal and then the entire city if they wanted to reach the vaults. And none of the Kech Volaar would dare to trespass without permission.”

“You’re going to.”

The words were a twisting knife. Ekhaas scowled at him.

“Quiet,” said Geth. Cloaked, like Tenquis in the illusion of a bugbear, he didn’t take his eyes off the doorway. “I think I saw Chetiin.” He pointed. “There was movement just below the light on the left.”

“There’s a bat lurking there. You saw it.” Chetiin’s voice emerged from the shadow just at Geth’s elbow. The shifter
jumped, and even Ekhaas felt her heart leap. Chetiin gave a wry half-grin of amusement at his own stealth. “There are no traps, no warning magic,” he said. “Nothing to stop us entering.”

Ekhaas nodded. “Remember to walk like bugbears until we’re past the archivists inside,” she told Geth and Tenquis. Two shaggy heads bobbed. Chetiin simply faded back into the shadows once more. Ekhaas braced herself for what she was about to do and stepped out into the plaza.

The unfamiliar length of Kitaas’s black robe tangled around her legs almost immediately. She twitched it free and strode on with as much arrogance as she could muster. How her sister managed to walk in the garment every day was beyond her, but at least it was bulky enough to conceal her own clothes underneath.

Kitaas slept beneath the table in the room where they had confronted her and Tenquis. Her towering anger had been no match for Ekhaas’s song. Soothed by the magic, she would sleep through the night. She’d been frightened at the end of their confrontation. Ekhaas could only imagine what Kitaas had thought she might do, but all she’d really wanted was her robe. Kitaas would have enough to worry about when she woke in the morning. The thought of Kitaas trying to explaining her actions to Diitesh gave Ekhaas a warm, satisfied feeling.

It was almost enough to quiet the doubt that pulled at her.

When did I stop feeling what she feels? Ekhaas wondered. When did I stop defending the sanctity of the vaults and the honor of the Kech Volaar?

Not so long before she would have been beside Kitaas in challenging any suggestion of
chaat’oor
entering the vaults, the one thing they might have agreed on. Instead she stood with the defilers. What they did was bigger than honor or family, she told herself. It was a duty to the future of the goblin people. Her
muut
to the
dar
.

And yet a small part of her could only think one thing.
Kapaa’taat
. Lowest of the low. Traitor.

Ekhaas clenched her jaw and marched on across the plaza.

Beneath the eaves of the building, it was possible to better appreciate just how massive the doors of the vaults were. Three times as tall as a hobgoblin and solid stone—yet when Ekhaas laid a hand on one, it swung open as easily as the door of a cottage.

She passed into the hall beyond with her head up and her stride brisk, concentrating on projecting an air that she belonged there. It worked—or perhaps the archivists they passed were really as absorbed in their own thoughts and conversations as it seemed. In any case, they ignored her and her shambling “bugbear” escort. Ekhaas allowed herself a thin breath of relief as she reached the inner doors—wood this time—at the far end of the hall and glanced back at Geth and Tenquis.

“Whatever happens,” she said, “don’t say anything. Chetiin, are you ready?”

His answer seemed to come from out of nowhere. “I’ll be where you need me if anything goes wrong.”

The hinges on the inner doors were as perfectly balanced as those on the outer door. They made no noise as Ekhaas pushed the door open and stepped through into a round room with a towering ceiling and walls lined with books. Massive books, as tall as Ekhaas’s forearm was long, on shelves that rose up into the shadowed heights. The Register of the vaults. Ekhaas wondered which of the volumes was missing a page.

At the room’s center stood a round desk of age-darkened wood. Within its confines sat a withered archivist bent close over one of the volumes of the Register, checking it against loose pages of parchment. The old hobgoblin looked up at the entry of Ekhaas and her escort and her drooping ears twitched. She squinted at them, her eyes almost disappearing into the wrinkles of her face.

Blind at a distance. Perfect. Ekhaas made a ritual gesture of respect—fingers pressed to breast then to forehead—then forced her voice down into her sister’s rough register. “I am about the High Archivist’s business.”

She wasn’t as accomplished a mimic as Midian, but the imitation was close enough, especially when Diitesh’s authority was invoked. The elderly archivist returned the gesture of respect with some haste, though her squinty eyes remained on Geth and Tenquis.

“The High Archivist’s business,” Ekhaas added, “requires strong arms. They are fools. The wonders of the vaults will be meaningless to them.”

“All will one day know the glory of Dhakaan,” said the old archivist. “May you find what you seek, sister.” She bent back to the Register.

Aware of every breath that she took, Ekhaas marched past the desk to where a series of high arched doorways led out of the round chamber. Some opened onto stairs down into darkness, others to stairs up, a few onto level passages. Rods tipped with the dim glow of ghostlight stood in stone jars beside several of the doorways. Ekhaas gestured imperiously for Geth and Tenquis to retrieve a pair, using the delay while they did to locate the archway she wanted. When they returned to her side, she set off without hesitation down a flight of worn stairs.

Just before she passed out of sight of the chamber above, she glanced back. The old archivist hadn’t raised her head again. Ekhaas let out a slow sigh of relief.

“Well done,” said Chetiin softly. Ekhaas looked down to find him walking beside her as if he’d been there the whole time.

The stairs continued to descend, switching back and forth at regular intervals until they emerged into a short hallway with more arched doorways. Satisfied that they were deep enough that sound wouldn’t carry back to the chamber above, Ekhaas stopped and pulled off Kitaas’s entangling robe. Able to stride freely once more, she turned to Geth and Tenquis and sang a few rippling notes. The illusion that had disguised them faded away like ink washed with water. Tenquis in turn spoke a word and touched hands to his long vest, drawing Ekhaas’s sword out of one of its magically expanded pockets.

Geth, however, cocked his head to the side. “Shhh,” he hissed.

They all froze instantly, Tenquis with the sword half out of his pocket, Ekhaas reaching for it, Chetiin with a hand ready to draw his dagger. Ekhaas strained her ears—and heard nothing.

“What was it?” she asked Geth.

“I thought I heard a song in answer to yours.”

“An echo.” Ekhaas hung her sword around her waist, then took one of the glowing rods. “Tenquis, help me.” She raised the rod so that its light shone on the symbols carved beside one of the doorways—three circles of varying sizes, the largest containing a stylized axe, the next a fist, and the smallest a spindly-stalked mushroom. “We need to find a circle with a vertical line down the middle of it, like a cat’s eye. That marks the way to the Vault of the Eye.”

Ekhaas moved on to the next doorway. There was only one symbol here, a circle with its inside hollowed out to present an open surface. She tapped it with the end of the rod. “The first keepers knew from the experience of the Desperate Times how easily knowledge could be lost, so they created a system of guiding people through the vaults that needed only basic knowledge and logic.”

Geth stared at the circular symbol and frowned. “How basic?”

“Something anyone would be familiar with, something that wouldn’t change over time—”

“The moons of Eberron,” said Tenquis from the other end of the hall. His voice held the excitement of discovery. He leaned close to the symbols on the nearest doorway. “This one with a double ring is Olarune, the Shield, isn’t it? And this one with the pockmarks looks like Vult. And one that looks like an eye would represent Lharvion.”

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.