“Stop it, Braun! I don’t care. .”
The Proxi turned again to face Drakis. “Where are the children who squealed through the streets with joy, Drakis? Where are the women who breathed life into this place? Where are the gray-bearded elder dwarves with their frail bodies and their wisdom aged like fine wine?”
“I don’t. . I don’t know!” Drakis answered.
“No, you don’t,” Braun said, stepping toward him with a strange twisted smile on his face. “You don’t know. . I don’t know. . but at least I’m beginning to understand just how much I don’t know!”
Drakis reached behind him, feeling for the archway as he carefully backed away from the wild-eyed Proxi.
“It’s all unraveling, Drakis,” Braun said softly. His tongue flicked to the corner of his mouth, drawing in the spittle that had formed there. “Here in the darkness I can see. . here in these rooms that are so like you and me. Perhaps it is the distance from the Aether Well of House Timuran, perhaps it is the three days we have gone without renewing our Devotions. Maybe it has something to do with being so deep beneath the mountain of the dwarves. I don’t know, but whatever it is, the cords, soft and silken as they have been, are unraveling from my mind, and I am beginning to see the picture of truth at last.”
Drakis felt the edge of the archway with his left hand and carefully stepped back into it, His right hand slowly reached across his body almost without conscious thought, his palm resting on the hilt of his sword. “Braun, we’re warriors. . Impress Warriors of House Timuran. .”
“No, Drakis, you’re wrong,” Braun breathed through clenched teeth. He would not stop advancing. “Who are you, Drakis? Why do you fight so well? What makes you so determined to live?”
“I fight. .” Drakis swallowed, taking another step back through the archway. “I fight for the glory of Rhonas, for her Emperor, and for the glory of House Timuran!”
“Pretty speech, hollow words,” Braun spoke, his words dripping disdain. “You dance like a marionette and vomit out the words spoken by others behind the curtain. I’ve seen what’s back there. You take a peek at the truth and tell me. It’s just us here. . you and me buried in our crypt, and there should be no lies between the dead. You know the answer! Tell me!”
Drakis’ breath was coming hard.
Five notes. .
For the love of her. . For the loss of her. .
“Tell me!”
He suddenly thought of Mala-his beautiful Mala working in the foundations of the magnificent palace of Sha-Timuran. Her image floated before him in his mind; she reached up with her hand to wipe the sweat from her clean-shaven head before she returned to scrubbing the path stones beneath the graceful towers of their master’s citadel that floated above the garden. He could almost catch the glint of her emerald eyes, feel the curve of her cheek in his hand. He had to return to her-for her and with the honor that they both so desperately needed. She was unaware of the danger he was in-that his life could end at any moment-and the thought of her not knowing comforted him.
He could almost hear her humming to herself as she worked in the garden. .
Nine notes. . Seven notes. .
The dwarves have no doors. . The dwarves are no more. .
Braun was smiling at him. “So you do know something honest after all! Tell me!”
Drakis gripped his sword, pulling it from the scabbard.
Braun anticipated the move. The Proxi’s staff lashed out suddenly, gripped with both his hands. The shaft caught Drakis just behind the knees, cleanly sweeping both his feet out from under him. The warrior landed heavily on his back, the breath knocked from his chest. As he sucked in a painful gasp, the light from the headpiece carved a brilliant, blurred arc over him, and he felt the cold steel point of the staff against his throat. He fought for air, trying to speak, but the sound would not come.
Braun leaned down, his head and shoulders silhouetted against the light from the Aether crystal on his staff.
“We’re empty rooms, Drakis, all of us,” Braun said in short breaths. “Nothing but the form of what our masters have molded us to be. But I’ve seen the reality of who and what we are. The walls have cracks, and the light shines through. The cords that bind us unravel, and we see at last that our rooms are not empty but filled with ghosts, Drakis-ghosts and demons more terrible and wonderful than we know.”
Drakis reached up with both hands, gripping the staff at his throat. “Braun! Stop!”
“I can’t stop now,” Braun answered, shaking his head with an unnatural smile. “You’ve got to see the ghosts! They’re waiting for us both-calling to us-longing to take us to a better destiny.”
Braun looked up. The roof of the avenue was a great arched ceiling barely visible beyond the light from the staff.
“The ghosts come in the darkness,” Braun giggled. “Some things are seen better in the dark. . some things are easier in the dark. .”
The glow from the staff began to fade. The impenetrable darkness slowly closed in on them again as the light shrank.
“Soon your soul will be open at last,” Braun nodded, the features of his face vanishing into a vague shape as the light receded. “The ghosts will spill from you and you will see the vision.”
Darkness enveloped them.
“You will hear the song!”
Stars appeared.
Impossibly, above him in the pitch blackness two-thirds of a league below the mountain, the night sky filled his vision.
Nine notes. .
Come to us and bring our redemption. .
The stars shifted as he watched in slack-jawed wonder.
Seven notes. .
Weep for the pain and the loss. .
He felt as though he were falling up toward them.
Five notes. .
The past is our sorrow. . The past is our shame. .
Faces started forming among the stars. Faces he had forgotten. Faces he once knew.
Ghosts.
Drakis screamed.
“Drakis! Are you injured?”
Drakis opened his eyes to see the faces of his Octian, lit by a single globe-torch, staring down at him.
The human warrior sat up on the stones of the avenue and drew in a painful breath. “No, Captain ChuKang. I can fight.”
The manticore stood up, pulling Drakis to his feet as he did. “We thought we had lost you, hoo-mani. There was a reserve of dwarven warriors waiting here when we came through the fold. I think they were more surprised to see us than we were to see them.”
KriChan chuckled darkly. “They ran, but not fast enough.”
“It was a blessing from the gods,” ChuKang continued. “Chasing them down showed us the way to the causeway.”
“At least we thought it was a blessing,” Megri chimed in. The goblin was grinning as he picked at his fingernails with the point of his dagger, “until we realized the Proxi had gone missing.”
Drakis turned. Braun stood nearby, still smiling at him with the same strange grin.
“The Centurai is assembled up ahead,” KriChan said. “Are you ready to go?”
Drakis shuddered.