The red fabric was gone from the box now and the individual binding stones replaced with neatly stacked creations of twisted gold. Singe drew one out and held it up. Plates and wires of gold, interspersed with clear crystals, had been fashioned into a sort of bracer, a long cuff to fit around the forearm. In a way, it was beautiful-and also sinister. Mounted on the bracer, fastened within a cage of gold, was one of the binding stones. Just as she had when Vennet had first held up one of the ancient stones, Dandra felt a chill pass through her at the sight of it. She could feel the stone like a void on the edge of her awareness. She took a step back, but couldn’t take her eyes off the golden bracer.
The swirls of metal and crystal reminded her of something else, of the great device Dah’mir had used beneath the Bonetree mound to exchange the minds of Tetkashtai, Medalashana, and Virikhad with those of their psicrystals, the first step in recreating them as servants of the Master of Silence. The bracers were so much smaller than that device, though-but then the binding stone that Dah’mir had used in the device had been a larger, weaker imitation of Taruuzh’s stones. Dandra swallowed as an idea came to her.
“Singe, is there a place where a second stone could be set?” she asked.
The wizard inspected the bracer and nodded, then looked into the box and frowned. “There are no more binding stones, though,” he said. “They’re all set in bracers already.”
Her heart felt as hard and heavy as a rock in her chest. “The second setting isn’t for a binding stone. How many bracers are there?”
Singe’s lips moved as he counted quickly. “Only seventeen.”
Dandra glided past him toward the bodies of the kalashtar. Flies buzzed around her, settling on her skin and tangling in her hair. She brushed them away but they just came back. Holding her breath against the stench, she looked down at the three dead kalashtar. Unlike the human and the dwarf, they wore no chains. Dah’mir’s power would have held them captive.
Just as she had expected, all three wore one of Dah’mir’s bracers-and the second setting on each had been filled with a psicrystal. Each of the three bracers was different, however. The one fastened around the arm of the most decayed body was the crudest, the one worn by the slightly-less decayed corpse a little more refined. The bracer worn by the body that was only emaciated was identical to the bracer that Singe held. Hanamelk had said that three kalashtar were missing from Fan Adar, unaccounted for among the victims of the killing song but presumed dead under its influence.
These three deaths couldn’t be blamed on Virikhad, though. Just as he had when he’d lured Tetkashtai and the others to the Shadow Marches, Dah’mir had needed subjects for his experiments.
Dandra looked back to Singe. “The bracers must do what Dah’mir’s device did-they change the power of the binding stone so that instead of trapping the mind of a psionic creature, the stone exchanges its mind with the mind of its psicrystal.”
“So Dah’mir failed twice, succeeded on the third try, and had his captive goldsmiths create bracers for the remaining stones, then had them killed when they were done the job.” Singe’s face twisted and he thrust the bracer he held back into the metal box. “Dandra, this means he could start changing kalashtar any time!”
On some level, she heard his dire warning. On some level, it filled her with fear, though also with hope: the stones and the bracers were in their possession now. But at the same time, it didn’t echo within her the way his first words had. If Dah’mir had failed twice, then succeeded on the third try …
She spun back to stare at the third body, the emaciated man wearing a bracer identical to those in the box. Flies swarmed around him just as they swarmed around the decaying bodies, crawling across his eyes and into his nose and in and out of his mouth.
As she watched, his staring eyes slowly blinked. Flies flew up and settled back.
The bracer had worked. He was still alive, kalashtar mind going mad in a psicrystal prison, psicrystal mind helpless in an unfamiliar body. Except for the defiant nature that had enabled her to seize control of Tetkashtai’s body and save herself, that would have been Dandra’s fate beneath the Bonetree mound. The psicrystal in the man before her didn’t have that strength of will. The kalashtar would die, wasting away, mind still trapped-or else go mad and become a servant of the daelkyr.
Anger and loathing burst inside Dandra. She raised her spear to kill the man Dah’mir had left alive-
— and froze as a shout of alarm and running footsteps echoed from above. She whirled to see Ashi, bright sword in hand, scarf torn from her face, burst into the light of the torch Singe had left in the private box above-closely followed by Vennet and the big-toothed hobgoblin she had seen on the lift. As the hobgoblin pressed the hunter, Vennet sprang up onto the rail and screamed, “Master! I bring your enemies to you!”
“Actually, Vennet, I believe the ones that matter brought themselves.” Dah’mir’s oil-smooth voice drifted through the cavern of the arena. Dandra and Singe both spun again. Feathered wings rustled and a solitary heron came swooping out of one of the shadowed access tunnels. Acid green eyes flashed as it settled to perch on the edge of the wall around the ring. “You were right, Dandra. I wouldn’t just leave the binding stones out in the open.”
CHAPTER 16
Natrac squeezed his hand and wrist between the bars of the window on his cell door, and fished for the heavy bolt that held the door closed. The bars were too close together for him to get more than halfway to his elbow through-he’d had them designed that way, of course-but with the right tools, he thought that he might just be able to catch the bolt and maybe tug it open.
Except that he didn’t have the right tools. He had a strip of ripped cloth that had been his sleeve and a makeshift hook that had been part of the mechanism holding his hidden spy hole closed. Tearing the secret compartment apart had been painful, an act of desperation. Getting out of the cell was more important than keeping secrets though.
How long had he wasted trying to scheme a way out? How much time was left before night fell and Biish moved against the kalashtar in Fan Adar? He wasn’t sure. The hobgoblin’s headquarters-his old headquarters-had gotten very quiet after Biish and Vennet had left.
Holding one end of his rag strip tight between thumb and forefinger, Natrac opened his other fingers and released the hook. It dropped, bounced as the unfurling cloth reached its end, then hit metal. Natrac let out his breath. He’d remembered where the bolt was. He eased the hook up, and it caught on the handle of the bolt on the first try. Natrac pulled slowly. The handle turned with the rising hook until it stood upright, and the hook slipped free. A little more jiggling with the hook got it around the side of the handle. A careful tug rewarded him with the sound of sliding metal as the bolt eased out of its socket.
It moved only a painfully short distance before his hand hit a bar and could move no further. Natrac had known that would happen, though. “Olladra guide my fingers,” he whispered. He twisted his hand to bring the rag to the gap between the next pair of bars-then bent his head and groped for the cloth with tongue and teeth. Lords of the Host, he thought, this would be easier with two hands.
He was standing with the rag in his teeth and his hand pulled part way back into the cell when the door of the outer room opened. He jerked reflexively, wrenching his hand through the bars and leaping back to try and draw the rag and hook out of sight. The hook, however, caught on one of the bars. The rag snapped out of his mouth, his teeth clashed together, and a tusk jabbed up into his lip. Natrac stifled a grunt of agony and groped for the rag, but it was too late. On the other side of his cell door, Benti had the hook between her slim fingers. A thin smile curved her lips.