The Killing Song

CHAPTER 13

I don’t understand,” murmured Ashi, “I thought that whatever or whoever was causing the killing song wanted us dead.”

Dandra pressed her lips together and replied in a whisper. “That’s what Shelsatori showed me. It’s the impression I got from Erimelk too.”

“But if Moon has fallen to the killing song, why is he helping us?”

“I don’t know,” she told Ashi.

The lift they rode, the one to which Moon had guided them, slowed to a stop on a level of the middle city. The people getting off pushed and jostled Dandra and Ashi, and they had to shift to allow them past. Fortunately, very few new passengers got on. That had been the way at all of the stops the lift had made. People, festively dressed, were waiting in crowds only for the upward bound lifts. Singe had guessed that they were all heading for the upper city in anticipation of the Thronehold celebrations.

Standing just ahead of Dandra and Ashi, Moon stood firm. His unmoving stance had made it easier for Dandra to slip back away from him, allowing other passengers to come between them, so that she, Ashi, and Singe could speak. She wondered if that had even been necessary. Moon seemed oblivious to his surroundings, ignoring the passengers who bumped into him-but as Dandra’s eyes lingered on him, he turned as if he could feel the weight of her gaze. He looked back at her with an adoring intensity. “Soon,” he said.

She forced herself to nod casually. The lift glided downward again. Moon looked away once more and began to hum the eerie shifting tune of the killing song. Dandra squirmed the moment his back was turned.

“Maybe he’s helping us because he’s fallen in love with you,” suggested Ashi, keeping her voice low. “Maybe that’s holding back the violence of the killing song.”

“He’s only known me since last night! Before that, he would have known Tetkashtai.”

“We need to work this through rationally,” Singe said from behind them. The wizard had been silent since before they’d stepped onto the lift, but Dandra had known from his posture and the tightening around his mouth and eyes that he’d been thinking hard the whole time. “Hanamelk said that early victims went mad slowly while recent victims went mad more quickly but retained a cunning. I said then that it was as if whoever or whatever was behind the song was trying to find the right pitch. What if the song has found its pitch in Moon?”

“But he’s not mad,” Dandra said. “He’s not singing like Erimelk.”

“Hanamelk said Erimelk hid himself for several days before he attacked us. He couldn’t have been singing so loud then, or the kalashtar elders would have found him. If we believe that Moon is only just falling to the killing song, we’re fooling ourselves.”

Dandra risked another glance at Moon. The young man’s head was nodding in time to his humming. She felt a twinge of sorrow and pity for him. “Il-Yannah. That doesn’t change the question of why he’s still helping us, though.”

Singe bent a little closer. “He’s not helping us,” he said. “This is a trap. If he’s lying about knowing where Dah’mir is, then he’s leading us into one of the most dangerous districts of the city. If he’s not-”

“-then he’s leading us to Dah’mir,” Ashi growled. Her hands clenched. “Rond betch! Why are we following him?”

“Because we need to find Dah’mir. And because I don’t think he’s lying.” Singe patted the hunter on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll be on our guard in case he tries something, and if he does lead us to Dah’mir, we’ll look, and then we’ll run like dwarves for gold. Just be ready to use your dragonmark on Dandra.”

The lift stopped again and more people got off. What had been late afternoon proceeding into evening in the upper city rapidly became twilight as they dropped toward Malleon’s Gate. When the lift moved again, the only people left on it besides them looked like they’d be right at home in darkness: ragged and unsavory humans, a handful of strangely silent goblins, a tough-looking hobgoblin who flicked his ears and showed a smile full of very large teeth when Dandra glanced at him. She looked away again.

“I know Dah’mir isn’t behind the killing song, or I would have felt his touch on Erimelk,” she whispered to Singe, “but it’s hard to believe that there isn’t an intelligent mind behind the song. If you’re right and Moon does know where Dah’mir is, it’s too much of a coincidence that he’d be the next person to fall to the killing song.”

“I agree,” Singe said. “Except I don’t think the killing song came to Moon because he knew where Dah’mir was. I think it came to him because he was someone we’d trust. I think the only reason Moon knows where to find Dah’mir is because whatever intelligence is behind the killing song put that knowledge in his mind, the same way it showed its other victims we’d be coming to Sharn.”

Dandra turned and looked at him. “But who would know that? Who besides Dah’mir would want to kill us? Who could do this?”

Singe shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said in frustration, “but I feel like I should. We’re missing something.”

There was a slight lurch and the lift passed into darkness as the open-sided channel that it followed became a closed shaft through the flaring wall of one of Sharn’s great towers. Added to her tension and fear for Moon, the sudden darkness was a shock and Dandra grabbed for Singe’s hand. Cold fire flared into brilliance in less than an instant, though, and she felt like a child. None of the other passengers on the lift had even moved.

Except for Moon. The young kalashtar was glaring at her and Singe with a frightening, tight-lipped jealousy, and Dandra didn’t know whether to feel shame at holding Singe’s hand, anger at Moon’s obsession-or sorrow for the madness that had taken hold of him. His obsession couldn’t be natural. She let go of Singe’s hand, and something of the jealousy faded from Moon’s face. His lips relaxed and immediately began to shape silent words once more. Dandra’s belly tightened.

We’ll stop the song, Moon, she promised him silently. Whatever it takes, we’ll stop it.

The shaft opened up again, becoming a channel once more, and Malleon’s Gate spread out below them. The district sprawled among and within the roots of Sharn’s great towers, but Dandra had the eerie feeling that she looked out over a town built inside a tomb. Malleon’s Gate was dark, lit only by sporadic fires and sparse everbright lanterns. Some light, thin with dusk but brilliant in comparison to the surrounding gloom, fell in shining streaks through a few gaps among the great towers. By their spare radiance, she could make out stunted lesser towers and sprawling complexes that might once have been mansions or temples in centuries past. Everything was shrouded in a thin, mist-like smoke that caught what little light there was and spread it into a glowing haze.

A tomb, however, would have been silent. Malleon’s Gate echoed with sound. Shouts, cries, wails, calls, screeches, banging-the hard walls turned it all back onto the streets. A howl rose up to meet them, and Dandra couldn’t have said where it came from, let alone what sort of throat had produced it. One of the ragged humans riding the lift nudged another, though, and exchanged muttered words that produced a rude laugh. Dandra tightened her grip on her spear as the lift glided down into the shadows and finally came to rest at the end of its long run.

“Where do we go from here, Moon?” asked Singe.

Moon’s face creased in a smile that made Dandra’s grip tighten even more. “Just follow me,” he said. He strode off along a refuse-strewn street with a swagger.

Dandra glanced at Singe, then at Ashi. Both of them had their hands on their weapons.

Vennet didn’t wait for the gates on the lift he rode to open. He leaped over the rail as soon as it settled. Biish was waiting, leaning against the wall of a building so ancient and decrepit Vennet was surprised it could support him. They’d had to separate. There was no way Vennet could have ridden the same lift as their quarry without being recognized. Every moment of the long ride down from Overlook had grated at him. He’d passed the time imagining the ways he’d deal with Singe and Dandra. Ashi he’d decided on long ago: he wanted to take a long, close look at her dragonmarked skin, preferably while it was mounted to a wall. She couldn’t have a Siberys mark. It had to be false, a fake, some lesser mark at the very most.

“Well?” he asked the hobgoblin.

“They went that way,” Biish said.

He pointed. Vennet’s eyebrows rose. Around him, the cacophony of Malleon’s Gate blended into the whispering voices of the wind. They know where they’re going.

“I see that,” he said. “Did you carry my warning?”

The wind gave him no answer, but Biish looked at him strangely. Vennet glowered back at him. “I wasn’t talking to you!”

Biish’s ears lay back flat, but Vennet met his eyes and held them until the hobgoblin looked away. “Ban. There’s something else, Storm. I was watching the kalashtar boy. I think he’s one of the ones on your list.”

“So much the better. We’ll take him, and you can cross one off the list. Are they being followed?”

Biish nodded. “A gang of goblin pups would follow the Keeper to Dolurrh for a crown. They’ll leave members behind to show us the way.”

“Good.” Vennet had to fight back the broad grin that threatened to take over his entire face. His back itched with a fierce anticipation. “Let’s go. We don’t want to miss this.”

Biish hesitated. “Storm, it’s almost sunset. I need to get my people together if the plans for tonight are going to come together.”

“That’s what lieutenants and first officers are for, Biish.” Vennet shoved the hobgoblin onward. “Besides, this little adventure is going make someone important very happy.”

A festival mood pervaded the streets of Malleon’s Gate just as it had the streets of Overlook, although it seemed to Dandra that in the lower city Thronehold was less a celebration of the end of the Last War than an excuse for wild abandon. Not, she suspected, that most of the denizens of the district needed an excuse for abandon.

Still, there were ragged banners scattered around, and there had been a small mob waiting to take the lift to the upper city-Dandra even spotted a couple of worn skycoaches cruising overhead when she wouldn’t have expected skycoaches of any kind to come within spitting distance of Malleon’s Gate under normal circumstances. She pitied the citizens of Sharn’s upper reaches who found themselves invaded by drunken goblins intent on getting a good view of the Thronehold spectacles.

“We’re being followed,” Ashi said abruptly.

“You mean that swarm of goblin children?” A smile flickered on Singe’s lips. “I saw them.”

Ashi glared at him. “Even children can be dangerous, especially in numbers.”

“Easy.” Singe held up a hand in surrender. “Watch them if it makes you feel safe. I’d be surprised if anyone could make it through Malleon’s Gate without being followed-”

“Hush!” Moon’s warning came so suddenly that Singe stumbled. Ashi’s sword was half out of its scabbard in a heartbeat and Dandra had pushed herself up from the ground to glide on the air, ready for a fight. Moon, however, just stepped back into the shadows and pointed ahead. “There,” he said. “Dah’mir is in there.”

All of them moved swiftly to join him in the shadows. Dandra remained on the air, moving with the grace of thought. She drifted forward slightly in complete silence to get a better view of the structure Moon had pointed out. It squatted at the end of the street they had been following, a derelict oval structure that would have been impressive for its size if for nothing else. The wall that faced them was a good five stories tall and curved away into the gloom on either side. Portions of the wall near the top looked ready to collapse, and it seemed as part of the roofline had already given way. There was a rank of windows high up on the wall, but they were boarded over.

The wide doors of the building lay dead on to the end of the street, four pairs of them, lined up in a row as if to welcome crowds. Three pairs, however, were boarded up as tight as the windows. The fourth pair, though they stood closed, had recently been opened up again to judge by the splintered planks that hung from their frames. Two thin hobgoblins squatted in front of the fourth door, intent on some kind of card game. To one side of them, a small fire burned on the stones of the street. Skewered rats roasted above the fire, but Dandra stared in surprise at what else the firelight revealed.

A mural had been painted above the doors. Parts of it had been defaced, but what remained revealed the building’s nature: on painted sand, gladiators of many races struggled in eternal combat while crowds of spectators cheered them on. Protected from sunlight and weather in Malleon’s Gate, only time and a layer of dirt had dimmed strong colors and bold strokes. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar to Dandra.

“Why do I feel like I recognize that mural?” she asked softly.

“Because it’s a Bahron,” Singe said. “Bava painted that mural. She must have done it while she was in Sharn, the same time she met Natrac. Twelve moons, I’ve known art collectors who would sell their teeth to see this!”

Ashi was looking at the mural too. “Look there on the left,” she said. “There’s a laughing man standing on the side of the ring with gold in his hands. Is that Natrac?”

Dandra stared in surprise. It was Natrac. A younger Natrac, looking much the same as he had been portrayed on the warrant-notice Ashi had found. She frowned. “Do you think Natrac’s secret errand brought him down to Malleon’s Gate?”

“If it did, why didn’t he come back?” Singe asked in return.

“Maybe he came here.”

Moon turned around to face them. “I said hush! This is the place. This is where I saw Dah’mir’s herons-the roof is open inside and they can fly in and out.”

Singe glanced at Moon and Dandra saw his eyes narrow in barely suppressed suspicion. “Unless we can fly too, we’re not likely to get past those guards without making a lot of noise,” he said. “But you probably know another way in, don’t you?”

Moon nodded. He moved further into the shadows and stepped down an alley. Singe’s eyes narrowed even more. Dandra knew exactly what he was thinking: an alternate entrance to the arena was a little too convenient. She touched his shoulder. “Let me stay close to Moon,” she whispered. “If there’s trouble, I’ll stop him.”

Singe nodded and stepped aside, but Ashi caught Dandra. “Wait,” she said and put her hand against Dandra’s brow. A warmth grew under her fingers and seemed to pass into Dandra-the shielding power of the Siberys mark. If Dah’mir was inside the arena, she’d be protected from his dominating presence. Ashi released her, and Dandra nodded in silent thanks, then turned to move down the alley after Moon.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled, slowing down so she could catch up to him. “You’re beautiful,” he said to her softly as they edged along. “The way you ride the air takes my breath away.”

His words almost made Dandra sink back to the ground. She remained above it, hands squeezed tight on her spear. “Moon,” she said, “not now. You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“You make me uncomfortable,” said the young kalashtar. “It hurts me to see you standing with him-” He jerked his head at Singe “-when I know you should be with me. Your face has haunted my thoughts.”

Her teeth clenched, and she thought again of what Shelsatori had shown her in the killing song: her face, Singe’s face, Geth’s face. If she’d had any doubts that Moon’s obsession was tied to the killing song, his words erased them. But maybe that obsession could give her the edge she needed to break through the madness. Maybe this was their chance to defeat the song before it was too late. “You have to put me out of your head, Moon.” she told him. “What you’re feeling for me … it isn’t real.”

He only looked at her and shook his head. “You understand so little. It’s real. It’s more real than you know.”

The walls that surrounded the alley had begun to fall away as they walked. At the far end of the alley, they were little more than stacks of stone loosely held by crumbling mortar. Open space loomed ahead and a moment later they stepped clear of the alley. Malleon’s Gate lay at their back. Before them was a deep canyon and the edge of the plateau on which the oldest parts of Sharn had been built. In the far distance, across the canyon, she could just make out the bulky roots of the great towers that rose on Sharn’s other plateaus. Ancient stonework hid the natural ground at her feet, but the drop was still as sheer and dangerous as any cliff Dandra had ever seen.

Moon grasped her hand suddenly and, for a moment, fear gripped her as well-if Moon meant to turn against them, this was as good a spot as any-but he just drew her along a narrow path that followed the lonely edge. Dandra heard Ashi gasp and Singe curse as they emerged from the alley in turn and caught sight of the strange vista, but she didn’t dare to turn on the narrow path to look back. She could float, but she couldn’t fly, and while slipping off the edge wouldn’t be fatal, it would be inconvenient.

The path Moon followed led them back toward the arena. The ruins didn’t quite reach the tall walls-it looked like they had been cleared to make way for the arena-but the fire of the guards was well distant along the street. Moon’s hold on Dandra’s hand tightened, and he raced with her across the open space. A broken wall jutted from the end of the arena, running right up to the edge of the canyon. Moon tugged Dandra through a gap, and they were on a sort of terrace, perhaps built as a private retreat for the more important patrons of the arena.

They were also, briefly, alone. The instant they were beyond the wall, Moon swung Dandra around, pulling her close and wrapping his free hand around her waist to tug her down so that their faces were level. The pupils of his eyes had shrunk down to small dots like black holes in his face. He pointed at an open doorway leading from the terrace into the shadows of the arena’s interior. When he spoke, his voice was an urgent rasp. “Don’t scream or Dah’mir will hear you,” he said. “I’m taking a chance for you. Listen to me: when the time comes, don’t resist.”

Dandra shoved at him, trying to pry herself free, but his hold on her was strong. “Let me go, Moon!”

He gave her a shake. “Tell me you won’t resist, Tetkashtai! Tell me you won’t resist!”

She glared at him. “I’m not Tetkashtai!”

“You are. Inside you are. Dandra is a part of Tetkashtai and Tetkashtai is a part of Dandra. I should kill you the way I’m supposed to, but I can’t do it. I want you to join us, the way it was supposed to be.” His arms opened, and he held her only with his tiny, mad eyes. “Dah’mir will succeed in Sharn. I’m going to make sure he does. Your friends have to die, but you can survive if you-”

Deep inside Dandra, something stirred, and she knew with an abrupt certainty that the young kalashtar before her was no longer Moon, that the rebellious youth was gone. Someone else looked out at her from behind his eyes. Someone else spoke through his mouth.

“-just-”

And maybe, she realized, that someone was right that Tetkashtai remained a part of her. Feelings that were less memory than instinct rose out of her. The arm that had been around her waist, the way it had tugged her down to look into a familiar face, the way a phrase was turned, the tones beneath Moon’s voice …

“-don’t-”

And the thing that she and Singe had missed fell into place. Moon hadn’t loved her-or Tetkashtai-any more than he had known where to find Dah’mir. But someone else had loved Tetkashtai. Someone who had mastered the power of the long step, who knew how to use it as a weapon as Erimelk and Moon had.

“-resist!”

And her voice cracked as she said in amazement, “Virikhad?”

Moon’s eyes lit up at the name of Tetkashtai’s lover. “Suri! You remember me!” He reached for her again.

Dandra jerked on her spear, snapping the butt of it up between Moon’s legs, and his words ended in a horrible gurgle. She thrust herself away from him, and her spear spun again. The shaft cracked against the side of Moon’s head, and he went down, eyes rolling back to show white before falling closed.

Beyond his unconscious body, Singe and Ashi froze on the broken wall, their faces wide in surprise. “Dandra!” hissed Singe. “What-?”

Dandra let her spear fall and pushed her mind out to the wizard and the hunter before either of them could speak again. Be quiet! she said through kesh. She pointed at the passage leading from the terrace into the arena. He said Dah’mir is inside.

Singe’s face darkened as he came forward, trading silently. He tried to warn him?

No, said Dandra. She settled onto the ground and knelt to touch Moon’s head. He’d have a nasty bruise, but he wasn’t seriously injured. He tried to warn me-or at least, he tried to warn Tetkashtai.

She passed the events of the last few moments through the mental link, then let the connection of kesh fade. Singe’s eyebrows rose. Ashi’s body tensed.

“Virikhad survived Medala’s destruction at the Bonetree mound?” she asked in a whisper. “How is that possible?”

Dandra kept her voice low too. “I don’t know. Maybe he was stronger than I thought he was.” She bit her lip. “I wonder if he wasn’t the only one to survive. He said ‘I want you to join us, the way it was supposed to be.’”

“Medala,” Singe said. “Tetkashtai, Virikhad, and Medala were supposed to be the first servants Dah’mir created for the Master of Silence. But if she survived too, where is she? Wouldn’t two kalashtar at a time fall to the killing song then?”

“One answer, more questions. I wouldn’t even be certain Virikhad is still inside Moon. He might have left him when I knocked him out. There could be another victim of the killing song waiting for us in Overlook.” An unpleasant thought struck Dandra. “Unless he’s gone to tell Dah’mir.”

Singe shook his head. “If he had, we wouldn’t still be standing here. But why wouldn’t he?” His eyes opened wide abruptly. “Twelve bloody moons. I don’t think Dah’mir knows Virikhad survived either! Remember how he acted at Tzaryan Keep? Until he found Taruuzh’s binding stones, he thought you were the last link to his experiments, Dandra. He wouldn’t have thought that if he knew Virikhad or Medala was still alive.”

“But why would Virikhad secretly be helping Dah’mir then?” Ashi asked. “He said he was going to make sure Dah’mir succeeded in Sharn-we don’t even know what Dah’mir is supposed to succeed at.”

Dandra drew a deep breath. “We can find out though,” she said. “If Dah’mir hasn’t come for us yet, chances are he still doesn’t know we’re on his doorstep.” She turned to the passage into the arena. “We came to spy on him. Let’s do it.”

Ashi stayed with Moon. Dandra was certain her blow would keep him unconscious long enough for them to get into and out of the arena, but they couldn’t take the chance that he might wake. If Virikhad was still in control of the young man, he’d certainly try to betray them-and if he wasn’t, there was a strong chance that Moon would wake to the same screaming violence as Erimelk. Dandra almost thought that she saw his lips twitch, as if some part of him was still singing the killing song, even as she and Singe stepped into the passage.

The idea of the insidious song’s hold on him only stiffened her resolve. Maybe Virikhad and Dah’mir weren’t working together, but if Tetkashtai’s lover was secretly helping the dragon, perhaps there was some connection between his plots and the dragon’s. Maybe they could even find a way to aid the victims of the killing song.

Or maybe not, she reminded herself. All of the kalashtar elders hadn’t been able to trace the source of the killing song, let alone aid its victims. Maybe she knew what-or who-was causing the song, but there were still too many pieces missing. Like how Virikhad had come to be in Sharn, waiting for them, or how he’d survived at all.

Or why he wasn’t still the screaming, shattered mind she’d unleashed against Medala.

A hand touched her shoulder. She looked up at Singe. The wizard’s face was somber. “Are you all right?” he murmured. “Ashi could come with me if you want to stay with Moon.”

Dandra lifted her chin and stepped into the air. “Not a chance.”