The Binding Stone

CHAPTER 13

‘Where did that come from?” Geth growled in disbelief.

Natrac shook his head. “I don’t know! One moment there was nothing and the next …” He swallowed and said thinly, “It happened when you turned around. When you took your eyes of the marsh. There are legends about what orc tribes and dragonshard prospectors have found deep in the Shadow Marches. Old ghosts from the dark times of the Daelkyr War.”

“There are legends about the deep forests in the Eldeen Reaches, too,” Geth told him, a chill on his skin. He craned his neck back, looking up at the fortress. It was a hideous thing. The black stones that it had been built from were rough and irregular yet shone slick in the moonlight, as if grease or fat had been rubbed into them. High up on the fortress walls were tall windows that were no wider than his palm. Higher still, narrow platforms and towers jutted out, like vile growths. The battlements at the very top of the walls were jagged with blades set into the stone.

The fortress sprawled out to either side of him and Natrac, but directly in front of them was a gate, tall and narrow like the windows, set with blades like the high battlements. “We can’t go around it,” said Geth. He jerked his head at the gates. “I think we’re supposed to go through.”

Natrac nodded in reluctant agreement.

The blades that covered the gates looked dull and weathered, but Geth didn’t feel like taking the chance of touching them. He and Natrac set the butts of their hundas against a flat space on one gate and leaned hard on the stout wood, pressing until the great gate swung open enough for them to slip through.

A rank stench of blood engulfed them. Natrac doubled over, retching at the smell. Geth clenched his teeth, biting down on his tongue, and fought the urge to do the same. Instead, he forced his head up and looked around them. The moonlight that bled through the open door made a tenuous silver path through a great, shadowy hall. Even away from the sliver of moonlight, though, there was enough light for him to see clearly. He almost wished that he couldn’t.

Every part of the walls was decorated with blades and spikes. Empty torch sconces were formed from jagged swords of strange design. Knives made fantastic pinwheels on the walls. Halberds and other pole arms were bound in ranks around columns, their heads jutting out like sharp-edged frills. Doorjambs and archways wore crowns of iron spikes. High above, the ceiling was shingled in the overlapping blades of battleaxes.

The brown and black of long dried blood stained every surface.

Geth turned around, staring. “Grandmother Wolf,” he murmured. The grating sound of Natrac’s retching filled the air, echoing off the cold, hard metal. His whisper and even the soft scuff of his feet rose to join the cacophony. There was something else as well, though. He froze and gestured for Natrac to do the same. The half-orc wiped his mouth and staggered upright. They stood still and listened.

The echoes of their intrusion died out. For a moment there was silence-then a faint heart-wrenching scream of pain burst out from some unseen distance. Geth spun again, trying to locate the origin of the ghostly sound, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. It rose and broke, falling away into a series of wordless, anguished sobs.

“Mercy of Dol Arrah, what was that?” gasped Natrac.

“It was the sound of someone with their tongue cut out,” said Geth grimly.

The great hall narrowed ahead, shrinking down slightly to become a tall corridor that seemed to lead in the direction they wanted to go. Geth pointed his hunda silently. They crossed the hall and entered the corridor, both of them moving with swift stealth. Doors that bristled with clusters of long, tooth-like arrowheads lined the corridor, but neither Geth nor Natrac glanced at them, instead driving forward in unspoken agreement to get out of the fortress as quickly as possible. Geth’s gut tightened with every step, though. It couldn’t be that easy, he thought.

It wasn’t. The corridor ended in another great chamber. At its far end stood a pair of metal-clad doors. To either side of them, stairs swept up, meeting at a broad landing and a dark archway. Natrac leaped forward to grab eagerly for the handle of one of the doors. Geth threw himself at the half-orc, holding him back. “Wait!” he ordered, and bent to examine the handles.

Long, knife-edge blades lined the inside of them. Anyone grasping the handles to open the doors would likely lose several fingers. Natrac hissed and clenched his hand quickly. Geth reached out with the crooked end of his hunda, hooking it around the handle and giving an experimental pull.

Nothing happened. The doors were locked or barred from the other side. Geth released his hunda-the wood now deeply scored from the blades in the door handle-and glanced at the stairs. “Looks like we’re going up.”

The room at the top of the stairs was darker than the hall and corridor below and it lacked the bizarre bladed ornamentation of the fortress’s lower level. Geth wasn’t certain he found that comforting. The upper room was cold and stark. If it had been an alley, he wouldn’t have walked down it without a sword in his hand.

“Can you feel it?” Natrac whispered. “There’s been murder here.”

“More than murder, I think,” muttered Geth. There was another corridor. They moved down it cautiously.

Natrac heard the whispers first. Geth felt him stiffen and turned to glance at him. The half-orc touched his hunda stick to an ear. Geth cocked his head and listened. After a moment, he heard the whispers, too. They were like a gentle wind blowing through the forest, each rustling leaf creating its own quiet sound. Leaves didn’t sound so frightened or desperate, though.

Most of the whispers were the grunting, snuffling sounds of Orc. Mixed in among them were hints of another, harsher language-Goblin, Geth guessed. He looked Natrac. “Can you make out what they’re saying?”

“They’re begging for release,” the half-orc said, his voice shaking. “They’re in pain. They want to die.” He pressed his lips together. “I don’t hear any human voices.”

“There wouldn’t be,” Geth pointed out. “There were no humans around to witness the Daelkyr War.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something shift in the shadows. He held back the urge to leap toward it and grabbed Natrac’s arm. “Keep moving,” he said tightly. The half-orc obeyed without question, though Geth could see his eyes darting around as they hastened on.

The whispers stayed with them. So did the shapes in the shadows, except that soon they weren’t just in the shadows anymore. Geth staggered to a sudden stop as a pale orc, all color leached out of it, seemed to flow out of the very stones of the wall-he could see the corridor ahead through the filmy substance of its body. The orc’s mouth moved in a pleading whisper and it reached out to Geth. Or tried to. Its hazy arms ended in ragged stumps, hacked off at the elbow.

“Tiger’s blood!” choked Geth. He grabbed for Natrac, but the half-orc seemed frozen. Geth twisted around.

There were more phantoms emerging from the walls and shadows, rising from the floor and gliding down through the ceiling. There were bulky orcs and lean hobgoblins, scrawny goblins, and even hulking bugbears. Some looked almost as old as Batul. Others were little more than children. All of them were whispering. All of them had looks of horror and desperation on their faces.

All of them held out the stumps of arms and the stubs of legs. Some were missing fingers, some feet, others whole limbs. Many had been disfigured in other ways as well, their ears or noses or lips or eyes torn away, their bodies flayed and gouged. Natrac was staring at all of them in stunned numbness.

“Jegez,” he croaked, his eyes wide. He stretched out his right arm, holding up his own blunt wrist. The phantoms’ whispers rose and they pressed forward as if welcoming their kin.

Geth snarled at them, trying to push back. It was like grabbing a broken egg-he could feel the phantoms’ insubstantial flesh, but not hold it. He seized a sharp-toothed hobgoblin by the neck and thrust it away from him for an instant. Even as he thrust, though, his fingers sank into the phantom, then through it. The hobgoblin clutched at him with pleading in its eyes. Geth jerked backward, plunging through several other phantoms and slamming into the floor.

“Geth!” called Natrac from the middle of a growing mass of colorless, tormented figures. The half-orc was beginning to look frightened. “Geth! Help me!”

Baring his teeth, Geth rolled back to his feet and lunged into the crowd, sweeping his hands through ghostly flesh until he grabbed something solid. Natrac’s arm. He hauled the half-orc toward him, batting and growling at the phantoms as they tried to follow. Natrac was pale and stumbling, but Geth dragged him on down the corridor. “Move!” he urged. “We can’t hurt them, but they can’t hurt us either. We can get through this!”

“I don’t know if we can,” gasped Natrac as a new noise, a scraping noise, began to rise against the desperate whispers. “Look!” He flung out an arm. Geth turned from the phantoms behind them to look ahead-and froze.

Creeping along the floor and across the walls of the corridor was a swarm of amputated limbs: feet and hands, legs and arms. They scuttled on fingers and writhed like snakes.

The scraping noise was the sound of the bloody razors and blades that many of the creeping limbs clutched between gnarled fingers and overlong toes, dragging the metal against the stone of the corridor as they crawled.

A growl rumbled in Geth’s throat. “Tiger, Wolf, and Rat!” His fingers closed tight around his hunda. The weapon was no use against the phantoms, but if the creeping limbs were solid enough to carry blades, he prayed that they were solid enough to take a blow.

Whether it would kill them, that was something else.

“Dol Dorn’s mighty fist,” spat Natrac. “What I wouldn’t give to have a wizard or one of those druids here right now!” He scrambled to his feet and put his back against Geth’s. “Singe’s or Dandra’s fire would be very good, but I’d even take Vennet’s wind if he could blow those things away!”

Desperation sparked an idea in Geth’s head. “Grandmother Wolf guide me,” he gasped-and dropped the hunda stick to tear at the pouch at his side. Natrac glanced down as he ripped frantically at the knotted drawstrings.

“Sovereign Host!” the half-orc choked, understanding flashing instantly in his eyes. “You’re not going to-”

Geth looked at him as the knots parted and the pouch gaped open. “You know what to do if you have to,” he said.

He glanced up and down the corridor as the phantoms and their severed limbs closed on them, then he squeezed his eyes shut, plunged his right hand into the pouch, and seized Dandra’s psicrystal.

Dandra’s scream brought Singe flailing out of sleep-and, all around them, the young hunters of the Bonetree clan leaping to their feet with their weapons drawn. Singe flung himself at Dandra. The kalashtar was once again stiff, her eyes open and staring to the west, but this time her body was trembling.

“Relax!” he gasped at her, “Relax!”

A shadow fell over him. He glanced up. It was Ashi, her sword drawn, but Medala was leaping forward as well, Dah’mir pacing after her.

“What is this?” Medala said. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Maybe she had a bad dream,” Ashi said tightly.

“Kalashtar don’t dream!” spat Medala. A chime rang in Singe’s head and pain lanced through him. Ashi was staggering as well, clutching at her head. The wizard clung to Dandra desperately.

Twelve moons, he thought through the dazing agony, what was Geth doing with that psicrystal?

Tetkashtai swept into Geth like a wildfire. She burned within him, her presence huge and powerful. When Dandra had first shown Tetkashtai to him and Singe, it had been like standing in a yellow-green mist. Having Tetkashtai actually within him was more akin to standing inside a raging, wailing inferno.

If this was what the orc in Fat Tusk had experienced, Geth realized, it was small wonder he had succumbed so quickly to Tetkashtai’s possession! At least he knew what he was dealing with. Straining to focus all of his concentration on the presence, he threw out a single, silent shout. Tetkashtai!

You! Tetkashtai screamed back. Her voice was like thunder. A deluge of images blasted through him, eerie memories of him as seen through someone else’s eyes. Geth staggered under the weight of Tetkashtai’s attention. How did Dandra cope with this?

Tetkashtai ripped the thought out of him. Even if she’s nothing more than a rogue psicrystal, the presence howled, Dandra’s mind is more advanced than yours and she occupies a kalashtar’s body-one that I will reclaim!

You can claim it later, Geth shouted at her, you have something else to worry about first! His words came out like a child’s whine, overwhelmed by Tetkashtai’s forceful presence. He abandoned words and flung a memory at her, his last glimpse of the phantoms and the creeping limbs that menaced him and Natrac.

The presence caught the image and swallowed it. The whirlwind of yellow-green light tensed slightly. Stupid shifter! Tetkashtai seethed. What have you done?

You’ll help us?

What choice do I have? Tetkashtai spat. Open yourself to me, Geth! You’re no kalashtar. I will need everything you can give just to access the simplest of my powers!

Geth hesitated, then gave up any attempt at holding Tetkashtai back.

She seized him, and he felt like a stranger in his own body. His eyes snapped open and his head turned. Natrac whirled past him as Tetkashtai glanced at the phantoms, then at the creeping limbs. The limbs are more dangerous, Geth tried to tell her. The phantoms can’t actually-

Be silent. Tetkashtai ordered him. She stretched out, reaching down into some place within him that was not quite his spirit and not quite his body. Whatever it was, pain ripped through him as Tetkashtai pulled something of him into herself. He sagged down. She heaved his body upright.

“A trickle,” she said with his voice. “Pathetic, but it will have to do.”

“Geth?” asked Natrac.

“No,” said Tetkashtai.

Geth felt her concentrate, felt the storm of her presence draw together into a shining, focused spark. A little bit of the energy she had stolen from him spun out from that spark. Something seemed to open up within him, a pulse, a beat. It rose from his chest. He could feel it in his throat, and then in his ears: the droning chorus that had always accompanied Dandra’s fiery powers. Whitefire. The word whispered itself into his mind through the connection with Tetkashtai.

“The spirits!” shouted Natrac.

In the corner of Geth’s vision, he saw the half-orc whirl as the colorless shapes of the phantoms surged around them once more. Natrac’s hunda stick lashed out, sweeping through the disfigured shapes again and again, trying to keep them back. It didn’t work. They swarmed over him-and over Geth. Tetkashtai paid no attention to either the spirits that tried to tug at her or Natrac’s calls for help All of her attention was fixed on the creeping limbs as they crawled closer. And closer.

Tetkashtai, what are you doing? Geth asked. His voice seemed weaker than ever, a pitiful mewling. Hurry!

Patience. The focused spark of her presence flashed. She curled his left hand into a fist and raised it, pointing at the approaching swarm. As the chorus of whitefire rose like a triumphant song, Tetkashtai opened Geth’s hand.

Pale flames poured out in a roaring cone that seemed to fill the corridor. Hands, feet, legs, and arms shriveled like spiders flung into a candle, reduced in an instant to nothing more than hunks of burning, charred flesh. The knives and razors that they had dragged with them fell to the floor with a clatter. Only a few skittering hands escaped the inferno, scattering back into the shadows. Whispers rising into wails, the phantoms fled as well, their ghostly forms vanishing through walls and back down the corridor. Shivering, Natrac forced himself upright.

“Dol Arrah’s mercy,” he panted, leaning heavily on his hunda.

The tight spark of Tetkashtai’s concentration unraveled, whirling back out into a yellow-green storm. Geth let out a silent gasp as the presence wrenched at him. Still there, Geth? she asked.

Speaking was an effort. Let go of the crystal, Tetkashtai. Give me back my body!

Tetkashtai laughed, both in his mind and out loud. Give it back? she said silently. Why would I do that? I know what you’re planning, Geth. A return to Dah’mir? No. A return to the crystal? Never. Tetkashtai’s voice rose into a shriek. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be trapped in that crystal? I’m not going back there!

Tetkashtai turned Geth’s body to face Natrac and the throbbing chorus of whitefire rose again. A look of new fear flickered across Natrac’s face. The half-orc’s hand tightened on his hunda and he lashed out, staff aiming for Geth’s wrist, trying to make Tetkashtai drop the crystal as Geth had in Fat Tusk.

But Tetkashtai was faster. She slid Geth’s toe under the shaft of his own hunda and flipped it up into the air. His left hand caught the staff in mid-air, twisting it and knocking Natrac’s clumsy blow away.

“What was it Vennet said to Dandra in Zarash’ak?” Tetkashtai asked with Geth’s voice. “Not a spear as such, but on short notice, I think a staff will do?”

A thought set the hunda stick ablaze in her grasp, though Geth felt nothing of the flames. Tetkashtai flicked the hunda again and the burning wood cracked across Natrac’s good arm. The half-orc yelped and dropped his staff. Geth felt Tetkashtai’s surprise at the ferocity of her strike. “Harder than I intended,” she said. She flexed his muscles. “Strong. Fast. You might not be a kalashtar, shifter, but I think I like your body.”

If you like that, growled Geth, you’re going to love this. Gathering all of his remaining strength, he struck deep into himself, into a place the presence hadn’t even tried to approach-and shifted.

Tetkashtai gasped at the wild power that surged through his veins, swooning as his lycanthrope heritage rushed over her. The yellow-green storm of her being flared and guttered like a torch in the wind. In that moment, Geth pushed out against her control, spinning his body around fast and slamming the back of his right hand against the cold stones of the wall. Pain shot up his entire arm and his clenched fist twitched in pure reflex to the impact.

Before Tetkashtai could do more than wail in frustration, the psicrystal slipped between his fingers and bounced across the floor with a soft ringing sound. The pain in the shifter’s right hand was matched by a searing burn in his left. Geth hurled the flaming hunda away from him and collapsed back against the wall, his chest heaving.

As suddenly as she had stiffened, Dandra relaxed, her eyes gliding closed. Singe held onto her, clutching her tight until the chime of Medala’s power faded and the kalashtar wrenched him away. She examined Dandra, then spun to the wizard. “What happened?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” Singe choked. His head spun and throbbed. It was a good thing that his ignorance was the truth, because whatever Medala had done to him had left him without the will or energy to spin out a lie.

Maybe she knew that too, because she didn’t press him any further. She turned to Dah’mir as the green-eyed man stood watching. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “Tetkashtai is fighting your power.”

“Amazing,” murmured Dah’mir. “She’s doing what you failed to, Medala.”

A chill ran through Singe’s body. Someone else might have been intimidated by the possibility but Dah’mir seemed intrigued. Maybe even proud.

Medala’s face twisted with jealousy but Dah’mir took no notice. He glanced at the young Bonetree hunters as he turned to sweep away. “Keep a watch on her and the wizard both,” he told them.

In spite of her rage, Medala trotted after him like an obedient dog. Singe shrank back as the hunters turned to him with the smiles of foxes set to watch a chicken coop-smiles that faded as Ashi stepped over Singe and took up a position facing her own clan. Her eyes were dark from whatever attack Medala had inflicted on her, but her jaw was set and her sword was drawn. Muttering in frustration, the hunters slid back into the shadows.

Ashi didn’t speak. Neither did Singe. His head pounding, he crawled back to Dandra and lay down close beside her.

“Lords of the Host,” hissed Natrac. The crook end of his hunda poked Geth’s chest. The shifter slapped it away and looked up at him.

“She’s gone,” he growled. He leaned his head back against the stone wall for a moment more, and released his shifting. It faded away, taking the worst of the pain in his hands with it. Some of whatever energy Tetkashtai had drawn from him trickled back as well. He heaved himself to his feet. There was a stink of burning flesh that he hadn’t been aware of while Tetkashtai controlled his body. He clenched his teeth and tried to breathe shallowly.

The whitefire had scoured the corridor, scorching the stone. Dandra’s crystal lay shining against the black remains of a goblin foot. Geth slid the pouch from his belt and approached the crystal with caution. His head told him that Tetkashtai couldn’t take hold of him again unless he actually touched the crystal, but his heart was still afraid; he could feel the presence’s touch ripping at his essence, bending his body to her will. Taking up a fallen razor-still warm from the blast of flame-he flicked the crystal gingerly back into the pouch.

“You’re going to keep it?” Natrac spat in amazement.

“Dandra can control Tetkashtai,” said Geth stiffly, knotting the pouch’s drawstrings again. “She’ll need the crystal when we rescue her and Singe.”

“If we can rescue them.”

“When.” Geth stood up and replaced the pouch on his belt. “We’re going to get out of here. How’s your arm?”

“It hurts,” Natrac said, “but at least it’s still attached to me.” He looked down at the remains of the creeping limbs and grimaced. “Do you think there’s more of them?”

The shifter glanced at the shadows that the few remaining hands had fled into-he thought he could still see them, hiding like bugs in the crevices. The final wails of the vanished phantoms continued to hang in the air, too. They changed slowly as he listened, becoming less frightened and more anguished, as if the defeated spirits were somehow reliving their ancient torture. The hair on Geth’s arms rose. A darkness seemed to settle over the corridor.

“Geth …” said Natrac softly.

“Aye,” Geth grunted. “We need to keep moving.”

His hunda stick was burning bright, more than half its length afire from Tetkashtai’s touch. The blades that the severed limbs had carried were scattered across the corridor, but Geth’s skin crawled at the thought of wielding one of them. He needed a weapon of some kind, though. He snatched up the burning hunda carefully. Thrusting it ahead of him like a long torch, he set off along the corridor at a brisk trot. Natrac followed close, his eyes on the shadows behind them. Though both he and the half-orc could see well enough even without the added light, the fire gave Geth back a feeling of control and strength.

Especially when the phantoms’ wails rose into wrenching screams. Especially as the smell of blood grew stronger. Especially as the corridor narrowed and passageways opened off of it, plunging away into the darkness of Jhegesh Dol.

Geth stopped short, pulling up so quickly that Natrac bumped into him and yelped before clamping his tusked jaw shut. “What is it?” the half-orc whispered.

“The corridor. Look.” Geth held out the burning staff. The corridor they had been following split into three passageways, all identical.

“Just keep going,” urged Natrac.

“I don’t know which passage to take!” Flame hissed and popped as Geth switched his makeshift torch from one side to the other. “What if we’re not supposed to keep going straight? What if we’re supposed to turn?”

“What if we’re not?” Natrac asked desperately. “How much time is there before sunrise? How long have we been in here?”

A terrible roar, as close as if something very large and very frightened was being tortured nearby, rolled over them-then was broken by the heavy, wet chop of a falling blade. The roar rose sharply, then subsided into deep, horrified weeping. Geth clenched his teeth and stepped into the corridor straight ahead.

The stones of Adolan’s collar grew so cold that they burned his skin. Gasping in pain, Geth leaped back, almost trampling over Natrac. “Not that way!” he snarled, his teeth bared. He touched the stones with his free hand and scraped a fingernail against them. It came away with white specks of frost melting on it. He showed it to Natrac. The half-orc grimaced.

Geth turned to the passage on his right. Fingers held against the stones, he stepped forward carefully. The collar grew icy again-not quite so cold as before, but distinctly frigid. He swallowed. “I don’t think this is the way either,” he said. He moved back to the left-hand passage and walked into it.

The eerie chill fell away from the collar and Geth let out his breath. “Here,” he said with relief. “This way-”

His relief melted like the frost on his fingertip at the thin noise that came hissing along the passage. It was the coarse, sliding whisper of metal on stone, the sound of a knife blade pressed against a grindstone.

“Host,” choked Natrac. He looked back to the right-hand passage.

Geth tightened his hand on the end of his flaming hunda. “No,” he said. “This is the way.” He could hear the fear in his own voice, but he pushed forward. After a moment, Natrac cursed and followed him.

The sound of the grindstone grew louder, though there were other sounds around it. More falling blades. The grating of bone saws. Sobbing. Screams. Always screams. The fire of the staff began to falter. Wordlessly, Natrac held out his hunda, offering it to him. Geth pressed it back.

The passage ended ahead, opening into some wide, dark space. Burning hunda held low, Geth crept up to the mouth of the passage and peered out.

He stood at the edge of a small balcony like a private box in some fancy Sharn playhouse, except that this box overlooked a wide, shadowed stone chamber. On the far side of the chamber, atop a short series of shallow steps, a long block of black stone stood like an altar.

In the center of the chamber, a figure hunched over a grindstone. Orange sparks flashed from the long steel blade that it held to the spinning stone. The figure was nothing more than a silhouette against the fiery spray, but there was something about it that made Geth’s skin crawl. He bared his teeth and the whisper of a growl rose in his throat.

The dark figure straightened. The rasp of metal on stone and the shower of sparks ended as it lifted the blade. The grindstone spun on in silence and the figure looked up at Geth and Natrac. The strange light of Jhegesh Dol fell on a man’s face so pale and beautiful that it might have been the model for Dah’mir’s own, except that where Dah’mir’s eyes were at least human, the eyes of the man below were pale, solid lavender without any iris or pupil. He paused and then stepped forward so that the light slid across shoulders and arms that rippled with muscle and flashed on a chunky amulet that hung against a broad, hairless chest. Shadows seemed to cling to him, obscuring his torso and legs like insubstantial black robes. Another spirit, Geth thought, another phantom.

Then the lavender-eyed man stretched his arms and spread his hands with a clash of metal. His fingers were blades, long as swords, heavy as axes, and so sharp they seemed to cut the light itself. The blades weren’t stiff though. They bent and flexed with life, merging with the man’s flesh, a part of him. He hadn’t been sharpening a sword. He had been sharpening his own hand.

Nine thousand years ago, Batul had said, Jhegesh Dol had been a daelkyr stronghold.

The man was no mere phantom. He might have been put to the sword seven millennia before, but the master of Jhegesh Dol stood below them-at least in spirit. A shadow of a nightmare from a realm of madness.

Geth’s growl rumbled louder; his fingers clenched the burning hunda.

“That other passage,” Natrac urged, his breathing harsh. “The second one. We can still go back.” He started to turn.

The daelkyr’s shadow brought its fingers together in a slow metallic scrape. The screams of the victims of the dark fortress echoed down the passage behind them. Natrac’s face turned pale.

Around Geth’s neck, though, Adolan’s collar had gone cold again. Not painfully cold the way it had before, but sharp and bracing, like armor donned in winter. The sacred stones of the Gatekeepers’ tradition were offering him protection, just as they had protected him from Dah’mir’s influence in Zarash’ak and given him guidance at the intersection of passageways.

Guidance that had led him and Natrac to the daelkyr’s shadow, not away from it. Geth’s belly tensed and he knew that they weren’t meant to run from this fight.

His growl rose into a roar. He jumped up onto the rail of the balcony, caught his balance-and leaped to the floor of stone floor below. To the sound of Natrac’s frightened astonishment, he darted forward and thrust his flaming hunda at the daelkyr’s muscular chest.

The spirit slid aside with an eerie grace and its hand came up to swipe at the hunda. The wood bucked in Geth’s grip, then fell into burning chunks where the daelkyr’s bladed fingers had cut it. Geth stared at the truncated section of staff still in his grasp.

Ten flailing swords stabbed at him. Geth yelped and threw himself back. The daelkyr’s hands swept the air in front of his chest, so close he could hear the metal sing. He tumbled to the side, trying to stay out of the way of the shadow’s lethal reach. His shifting-granted toughness wouldn’t protect him from those steel claws; Geth wasn’t sure that even his gauntlet would have stopped them!

And he wasn’t at all certain he wanted to put the protection of the Gatekeeper’s stones to the test.

Geth spun again. He ducked and blades hissed above him. The daelkyr’s shadow moved in absolute silence except for the clash of its long fingers. Geth lunged in under its reach, extending himself to jab what was left of his hunda stick right into the shadow’s belly.

It was like attacking mist. The flames that still clung to the stick flickered and dimmed. The daelkyr barely seemed to notice. Geth rolled quickly as its fingers darted at him again. “Tiger’s blood!” he spat. The spirit could hurt him, but he couldn’t hurt it?

“Catch!” Natrac called. He had his hunda stretched out, offering it to him. Geth cursed and shook his head.

“It’s not going to do me any good!” The shifter dodged back again as the daelkyr’s shadow pressed forward. “I need something else!”

He tried to duck around the thing, to get to its back at least, but it wouldn’t let him pass. It surged ahead in a storm of bright metal, forcing Geth back by three fast paces. Abruptly, his heels hit the low stone steps of the dais he had glimpsed across the room and he stumbled. The daelkyr’s claws flashed. Geth wrenched his body around, one palm planted on the steps, and tumbled out of the way as the blades met the stone in a skittering impact that sent sparks flashing in the shadows. He scrambled to his feet and leaped to the top of the steps, seeking the frail advantage of higher ground.

The black stone altar atop the dais was like a block taken from the walls of Jhegesh Dol, rough but greasy slick. Blood had gushed over in the stone in centuries past, drying thick in its pitted crevices. The altar’s top was scarred, gashed and slashed by ancient blades like a butcher’s wooden board.

In the middle of the altar lay a sword, its blade wide and heavy, flaring into a spreading fork like a serpent’s tongue at its end, deeply notched along one edge. The metal had a weird sheen to it, dark and purple as twilight-but the sword was clean, as if none of the horror and corruption of the place had clung to it.

Geth vaulted onto the top of the stone and snatched up the sword. As the shadow of the daelkyr came charging up the steps, he whirled and swept the sword up to block its outstretched hands.

The twilight blade clashed against the spirit’s steel claws-and cut through them. Falling metal clattered against the altar. The shadow staggered, mouth open in a soundless scream that revealed a dagger tongue. Its severed fingers trembled and black blood pumped out of the living steel.

Geth slammed the sword up in a chopping blow that cut under the daelkyr’s arm and deep into its chest. The notched edge of the weapon bit deep in shadowy flesh. The spirit shuddered. For a moment it seemed that it might pulled itself backward off the blade. Geth grabbed the amulet around its neck, holding the foul ghost close as he jerked the sword higher.

The shadow of the daelkyr made no noise, but suddenly it seemed as if all of the tortured spirits of Jhegesh Dol gave one last wail.

The black fortress and the daelkyr faded into pearl-gray mist on an empty marsh. Geth froze. Natrac, standing on a low hillock of grass gasped and pointed with his hunda stick. The shifter spun around.

Less than ten paces away, Batul, Krepis, and Orshok stood under the branches of the tree that marked the edge of Jhegesh Dol. Behind them, the eastern sky showed the pale pink of dawn. Geth leaped down from the broken chunk of rock that he stood on and sloshed across the wet ground to face them.

“We’re here,” he spat, still breathing hard from his phantom battle. “Satisfied?”

But all three druids were simply staring at him. Even Batul’s eyes were wide. Geth looked down at his hands. In his left he held the notched sword. In his right, the big amulet that had hung from the daelkyr’s neck. There was something inside the amulet he saw now, a coarse, dull black object nearly as large as his palm.

“Gatekeeper legends,” said Batul in an awestruck voice, “tell that when the daelkyr lord of Jhegesh Dol was brought down, two treasures vanished from Eberron. One was the sword, forged by Dhakaani smiths, of the hobgoblin hero who struck the killing blow. The other was a sacred relic, a scale from Vvaraak, the dragon who taught the first druids.” He swallowed, his eyes fixed on the amulet.

Geth held it out to him. “Keep your word and stand with us against Dah’mir,” he growled, “and you can have one of those treasures back.”