And in Geth’s mind, for what seemed like an instant, he was Rakari Kuun, plunging Wrath into the lord of Jhegesh Dol, forced to flee as all the blades of Jhegesh Dol fell like a steel rain.
Heart racing, Geth’s eyes opened wide, and he was back on the roof of Khaar Mbar’ost. Time had passed-the twin moons had risen higher and another moon was reaching over the horizon-but he was certain that he had not fallen asleep. The memories that had played in his head had simply belonged to someone else.
He lifted Wrath into the air and stared at the sword. Did it shine a little brighter? Was there a depth to the twilight metal that hadn’t been there before?
He groped for another story, the tale of Mazaan Kuun and the Hundred Elves. What had Ekhaas said of Mazaan Kuun? That he’d been a great strategist in the days when the Empire of Dhakaan had clashed with elves from the island-continent of Aerenal who had attempted to create a colony on the mainland. Mazaan had stood alone on the plains against a hundred elves, each wearing the spirit of an ancestor like a mask…
And he was Mazaan Kuun, luring the elves into a river-washed canyon where the stones split into a maze and where smoking fires turned friends into enemies. Wrath rose and fell only fifty times, but in the end, all of the hundred elves were dead. Half had been killed by their own kind in the frenzy of battle.
The moons had moved even more when he saw them again. Time had passed as he remembered the story. No, as he had lived the story. There had been details in the memories that Ekhaas had never conveyed in her story. The sound of horses, the sight of one hundred massed elf riders he might have imagined, but he couldn’t have imagined the unfamiliar smell of the smoke with which Mazaan had filled the canyon.
“You,” he said to Wrath. “Tiger and Wolf, you’re doing this.”
He tried to remember one of Ekhaas’s stories of Duulan Kuun and found that he all but plunged into it. Duulan fought a roaring giant, taller than a hill, by climbing up the monster’s back and thrusting Wrath-newly forged-into its ear. He leaped clear of the dying creature and swept up the woman, a princess of the beautiful city of Paluur Draal, who would become his wife.
Moons barely flickered before his eyes as the next story came over him. Duulan turning the tide of a battle against cackling gnoll tribes. And the next story, Duulan grieving over the grave of his wife, then riding into the Eternal Forest in pursuit of the dark fey creature that had killed her.
The stories came without interruption. Duulan’s twin sons, Nasaar and Vanon, who wielded Wrath in turn, and all the great deeds they did with it. Mekiis, the youngest of Duulan’s great-grandchildren, who took up the sword when she was a child and killed the assassin who would have killed her, who later became a duur’kala and the wife of an emperor. Biish, who was her nephew and became an outlaw as one dynasty of emperors fell and another began.
Geth was aware of the flow of time, of moons that seemed to rush and stutter across the sky. He was aware of the pain in his joints and the cold in his muscles. He had vague hints that he sometimes stood and staggered about the roof, trying to warm himself, but there was always the flow of stories. Some of them, like the ribald adventures of Jhezon “One-Eye” Kuun, he was certain Ekhaas had never told him, but they played out in his mind all the same.
He thought he laughed. He was certain he shouted in rage and in excitement. When Wrath once again plunged into the heart of the lavender-eyed lord of Jhegesh Dol and was abandoned by Rakari Kuun, when everything went dark as if there were no more stories and no more heroes, he cried.
But then the darkness lifted and a new story began. The story of a strange new creature not of the name of Kuun, not hobgoblin at all and almost as much beast as man, but still a hero who carried Wrath out of Jhegesh Dol and into a new age…
He heard music.
Geth opened his eyes to see Ekhaas, Senen, and Aaspar singing. This time, though, they stood with their backs to him, facing the rising sun as they sang the day into existence. Their song of dawn was as exquisitely beautiful as the song of dusk, ascending into something powerful but still ethereal.
Wrath was still in his hands, still raised before him. His arms ached and trembled with the effort of holding the sword, but they held firm. Beneath his fingers, Wrath seemed to pulse and surge in a way that it never had before. He felt a bond to the sword and to all those of the name of Kuun who had carried it in the distant past. With Wrath in his grasp, he felt like he could do anything.
His spirit might have been flying with the duur’kalas song, but his legs weren’t taking him anywhere. They were numb. When he looked down, he saw that he was kneeling exactly where he had started within the charcoal circle, once more shrunk back to only a line on the stones of the roof.
The song of the duur’kala peaked as the lower curve of the sun cleared the horizon and morning came to Rhukaan Draal. The three singers turned to face Geth. Ekhaas and Senen continued to sing, but Aaspar looked at him and spoke.
“Stand,” she said, the word like music. Even her speech was song-how had he not heard that before?
Geth stood, rising awkwardly. His legs felt like wood at first, then they felt like they were on fire as sensation returned to them in a rush of tingling agony. He twisted and almost fell, catching himself at the last moment-but not before his gaze had turned away, just for a moment, from the duur’kala.
Smoke rose to the north. Great black clouds of it, twisting high up into the air to be pushed into leaning pillars by the morning breeze. There were other people on the roof, too. Chetiin, Midian, Dagii, Ashi. Munta the Gray. Tariic. Vanii. Haruuc.
The lhesh wore armor, heavy and spiked, with a helmet to take the place of his crown. Tariic and Vanii wore armor as well. Munta wore a grave expression.
“Don’t speak!” Aaspar said sharply. “Look at me!”
Geth turned back to her, the motion bringing new pain into his legs. Aaspar lifted her hand and Geth, instinctively, raised Wrath to match her. The old woman drew breath and began to sing again, her voice blending back into Senen’s and Ekhaas’s.
The song had changed. It was deep and dark, like a cave that had never seen daylight. There was a longing in it, a reminder of… Home? Friends? Family? Geth found himself thinking of a village in the northern Eldeen Reaches that he hadn’t thought of in years and of a man and a woman who had died long before. But he caught only the edge of the song. Aaspar was singing to Wrath.
He felt the sword’s response, and new images passed through his vision. Taruuzh with miner’s pick in hand, breaking rocks to expose the dark ore vein of Khaar Vanon. Taruuzh with a hammer before a forge. The song altered slightly and the image shifted to focus on a rod of byeshk, as long as Geth’s forearm and as thick as his wrist, that shone in the forge light as Taruuzh polished its rune-carved surface. A tremor passed through Wrath.
“Now,” said Aaspar, “turn and point the way!”
The voices of the duur’kala rose once more, then fell away, but the surging pulse in Wrath remained. With the certainty of a compass needle, Geth turned and pointed the sword south-southwest.
“There.” His voice was cracked and raw. “The rod is there.”
Aaspar clicked her tongue in satisfaction, then broke the charcoal circle with a brush of her foot. For a moment, the roof remained silent as if everyone watching Geth were afraid to say anything, then a look of annoyance crossed Aaspar’s face. “It’s over,” she said, turning away. “It worked.”