The Tyranny of Ghosts: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 3 Read online

  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.

  “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 sai
d 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, 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 sto
ne 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.”