A touch of amusement entered his voice. Frail creations, as fragile as the moths that carried them. Taruuzh knew better. He never tried to turn his creation against me.
The Master of Silence stretched out an open hand. The binding stone dropped, and he closed his fingers around it.
Nothing happened. Dandra heard one of the Gatekeepers cry out in dismay.
Then one of the mind flayers beyond the lens staggered and dropped to its knees. As did another. And another. One of the hairless monkey creatures plunged to the ground, dead. The elf-like women dropped and doubled over, the tentacles on their backs drooping limp as huge dead slugs. Dolgaunts and dolgrims fled. The lone dolgrim who had fallen through the open seal wailed and fled for the darkest corner of the cavern. A look of discomfort crossed the Master of Silence’s face-discomfort that turned swiftly to pain. His other hand clenched the wrist of the one that grasped the binding stone. The black lightning that had played across the lens flickered and contracted to single dark speck as the daelkyr concentrated on fighting the power of the stone.
“Yes!” Singe hissed.
Dah’mir’s laughter turned to panic as he saw the source of his strength cut off. “Master? Master!” He sprang from the wall to the floor, landing in front of the lens. “Master!”
The Master of Silence flung back his head and let loose a howl that made Dandra stagger. The dark speck on the lens gaped wide for an instant, and black lightning leaped from the Khyber shard in Dah’mir’s chest in a short, brilliant arc. Dah’mir’s howl joined his master’s, shaking air as well as minds.
But even that reclaimed energy must not have been enough. The lens flashed and collapsed with a crack like thunder, the vision of the nightmare throne room vanishing along with the daelkyr’s howl. Dah’mir staggered back. When his eyes opened, they were dull, and he stared at the empty seal in disbelief.
Medala’s laugh rose, harsh as slate. “You called for your master? We are here!” She raised her arms and the killing song rose in a powerful chorus-
— that faltered as another song wove around it. From the same niche out of which Geth had emerged, Ekhaas appeared, walking slowly forward. She held her head high, her eyes were intense, and the muscles and tendons of her throat stood out. The song that rolled from her open mouth was … powerful. Primal. Whenever Dandra had heard Ekhaas sing her magic, she could feel the ancient energies that the hobgoblin drew on, but this was something even older. As if Ekhaas were singing the music of creation itself.
The killing song had always sounded somehow incomplete, strangely discordant and barely musical at all. Ekhaas’s song completed it. The notes that she sang slid between the mad syllables of the killing song and lifted them up into something that throbbed with a harsh beauty, like beautiful jewelry hammered out of steel. Dandra almost wished she dared touch one of the katalarash with kesh, just to listen as the magic of the music eased the storm that must fill their minds just as it had filled Erimelk’s. But she could see a softening in the singers’ faces, an easing of the madness behind their eyes.
And now it was Medala’s laughter that turned into a scream. “No!” She thrust a hand toward. Ekhaas, as if to blast her with frost or fire or vayhatana, but the stolen powers were gone, lifted away as the killing song had been lifted. Her gaunt face twisted and two voices wailed in unison from her mouth. “No!”
“Now!” shouted Singe. “Geth! Now!” His left hand pointed at Dah’mir. His right hand pointed at Medala. “Dandra, now!”
Dandra was moving before the words were out of his mouth, thrusting herself away from the ledge and skimming across the cavern floor for Medala. The mighty had fallen. Where both Medala and Dah’mir had been too powerful to even harm each other, with the sources of their power lost they were a match-and maybe, just maybe, they could be brought down. She heard Geth’s roar as he leaped for Dah’mir, caught a glimpse of the dragon’s bared teeth as he turned to meet the shifter, then all of her attention was on her part in the battle.
Medala and Virikhad might have been cut off from the uniting strength of the katalarash, but they still had their own powers. Medala’s eyes focused on Ekhaas, and her face tightened in concentration.
Dandra lashed out with vayhatana, coiling invisible threads around Medala’s legs, and pulled hard. The other woman’s feet came out from under her, and she slammed down, her concentration broken. She squirmed around, and her gaze found Dandra. A hiss of anger broke from her lips.
Dandra was on her before she could do more. She heard a gasp from Singe, the sound of an impact, and a howl from Dah’mir, but she ignored them. Her hands tightened on the shaft of her spear as she plunged the glittering point down.
Squirming like a lizard, Medala threw herself back, and the point grated on rock. Her foot kicked at the grounded spear. The sharp impact knocked it out of Dandra’s hands. Dandra caught it with a thought before it hit the ground, but the distraction gave Medala the moment she needed to fling herself back among the still singing, still motionless katalarash.
“Stop her!” she screamed at them over another roar from Dah’mir. A flash of orange light-magical flame cast by Singe, Dandra knew without looking-threw shadows across her. She twisted around for a moment, and Dandra saw fear as well madness in her eyes.
Medala grabbed the nearest katalarash. It was Shelsatori. She shook the older woman hard. “Stop singing and turn your powers on Dandra!” She clamped a hand over Shelsatori’s jaw, forcing it shut.
Shelsatori blinked and, for an instant, fixed Medala with a glare of such intense hatred that Medala stumbled back. Her hand left Shelsatori’s mouth.
The old woman took up the killing song without a pause. Calm returned to her eyes-and realization filled Dandra.
I will do whatever it takes to make that song stop! Moon had said on board the airship. In Sharn, when Dandra had touched Erimelk’s raving mind with kesh, she’d felt the chaos of it. And Virikhad had driven his victims to kill by offering them a target for the violence whipped up by the song.
By completing the song, Ekhaas had done more than weaken Medala. She’d given the katalarash another escape.
There was a howling like wind in the air. Dandra wanted to look and see what was happening behind her, but she kept her eyes on Medala as the gaunt woman, two minds crying out from her thin body, turned desperately among those she had tried to drag down into her madness. “It’s the song,” Dandra shouted at her over the howling. “You bound them too closely to the song!”
Medala whirled around and leaped at her with a scream. Dandra snapped her spear up.
The impact drove Dandra backward, but her hands clung tight to the spear shaft. She felt the wood tremble as Medala thrust herself along it, fingers arched like claws and still grabbing for her. Dandra went down on one knee, bracing herself and forcing the spear up. Two voices groaned, but Medala kept coming. Silver-white light flaming around it, one of her hands raked down at Dandra’s face-
— raked down, faltered, and fell short. Silver-white light spit and faded. Pin-prick eyes looked down at her. The howling that had been in the air faded just as her red-flecked lips moved.
“We,” Medala and Virikhad said together, “are the masters …”
Blood ran down the spear shaft and over Dandra’s hands in a crimson cascade. She released the weapon. Medala slid to the ground and lay still. Dandra stared at her for a moment, then looked up at the other katalarash, still lost in a song.