“Records from the vaults?” Ekhaas strode up to the table and snatched up a scroll. “Kitaas, you took records from the vaults?”
Kitaas’s ears flicked. “Don’t question my muut. I am adjunct to the High Archivist. The secrets of the daashor are worth showing a few minor histories to a chaat’oor.”
“We can talk about this later,” said Tenquis. He turned golden eyes to Geth. “Please just go now!”
The hair on Geth’s arms and the back of his neck rose. There was more than just frustration and anger in Tenquis’s voice. There was anxiety too. Maybe even outright fear. He genuinely needed them out of there. “Ekhaas,” Geth said, “we should go. This isn’t the right time-”
The duur’kala wasn’t swayed. She looked at the scroll in her hands. “The life of Taruuzh?” Her glare moved from Kitaas to Tenquis. “I’ve been struggling on my own to learn about the Rod of Kings and you’ve been here learning about the rod’s maker with her.” Ekhaas flung down the scroll. “Is all of this about Taruuzh?”
Kitaas froze. Her eyes darted to Tenquis, and her ears went all the way back.
“No,” said Tenquis. His voice was soothing, but he took a step away from her and held out his hands. “No, Kitaas. This isn’t what you think.”
“Isn’t it?” asked Kitaas, baring her teeth-then she grabbed a curl of paper from the table and bolted for the door.
“No!” Tenquis spat. “Stop her!”
Geth leaped. Kitaas tried to duck past him, but he got his arms around her and wrestled her to the ground. She drew breath, ready to shout. Geth freed one hand and slapped it over her mouth, then yanked it away with a hiss as she sank sharp teeth into his fingers. He grabbed a fold of her black robe, forcing it into her mouth and holding it there as a makeshift gag. Kitaas’s eyes blazed at him.
Her hands writhed underneath them. Geth heard the tearing of paper.
“Get her up!” Tenquis came hurrying around the table. Geth twisted around, turning Kitaas over. Scraps of paper fluttered away. Tenquis cursed and scooped them up. His face flushed dark. “Mercy of the sorcerer-kings!” he cursed as he bent down to pry the last pieces from Kitaas’s fingers. “Well done, Ekhaas. You couldn’t have just left us alone?”
She looked at him in amazement. “What were you doing?” she asked.
The tiefling’s teeth showed stark white against his skin. “What you couldn’t. Getting an archivist’s help.” He got the last bit of paper away from Geth’s prisoner and stood. “I’m sorry, Kitaas, but she was right.”
Kitaas shrieked into her makeshift gag, thrashing with new energy. Geth tightened his hold on her as he stared up at Tenquis.
“I could tell after your first day with the Register that you weren’t going to get anywhere,” Tenquis said. “It was obvious that Diitesh was playing you. If you were going to find anything, it would be by pure chance, and how long would that take? I’ve done this sort of research before. You needed help. I decided to get it by pretending to search for additional daashor lore.”
The tiefling stood at the table, his back to them in anger as he picked through the scraps of paper Kitaas had shredded and struggled to piece them together. Geth exchanged glances with Ekhaas and Chetiin. They both looked like he felt-stunned at Tenquis’s initiative. “Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked.
Ekhaas spoke at the same moment. “Why Kitaas?” More properly restrained with rope drawn from one of Tenquis’s magical pockets, her sister squirmed and hissed.
Tenquis raised his head and finally looked around. His eyes went to Geth first, and he looked a little shamed. “Maybe I should have told you,” he said. “But you’ve been spending time with duur’kala digging into your mind. And if I’d told you, Ekhaas, what would you have done?” He dropped the paper scraps and turned fully to face them. “I could have traded some of what I knew about the daashor to any archivist, but that wouldn’t have been enough. Your people are too devoted to their sense of duty. You and Kitaas gave me what I needed. A chance to recover lost lore and steal glory from you was more than she could resist.”
Kitaas gave another muffled curse. Geth watched Ekhaas’s face flush, then go pale, then flush again. Her lips pressed tight together and her ears pulled back. “My sister despises me more deeply than she despises chaat’oor. I am flattered.” Kitaas hissed again. Ekhaas ignored her.
“If she even suspected it was some kind of trick, she would have had us thrown out of Volaar Draal,” said Tenquis.
“She still can. More so, now.” Ekhaas took a deep breath. “Let’s hope it wasn’t all for nothing. I’m sorry we interrupted you, Tenquis. What have you found?”
“Ah.” A smile spread across Tenquis’s face-one that reminded Geth too much of a schoolmaster from his childhood-as he gestured for them to join him around the table. “You’ve been searching the Register for mention of the Rod of Kings. I couldn’t be that direct. If I wanted Kitaas to believe that all I wanted was more information about the daashor, I couldn’t approach the rod directly. So I told her I wanted to start my search with the great Taruuzh. He may have created the Rod of Kings and the Sword of Heroes, but he created other wonders as well.”
“The first grieving trees,” said Ekhaas. “Fortresses. What about them?”
“We’ve been so focused on the rod and the sword that we’ve ignored something else. When you, Geth, and Dagii brought me the rod to study, you told me a story about the creation of it and the sword.”
Ekhaas’s ears flicked and her eyes narrowed. “The Rod of Kings or Guulen-‘Strength’ in the human language-was created by Taruuzh daashor from byeshk ore he mined himself out of a vein he named Khaar Vanon, the Blood of Night. He forged the Sword of Heroes, Aram or ‘Wrath,’ from the same ore. That’s how we were able to find the rod in the first place. Geth recovered the sword from the ghost fortress of Jhegesh Dol and duur’kala songs reawakened its connection to the rod.”
“But that’s not the story you told me that night,” said Tenquis. “You left something out. There was a third artifact, wasn’t there?”
Ekhaas blinked. “Muut, Duty, the Shield of Nobles, but legends say it was shattered as the Empire of Dhakaan slid toward the Desperate Times-”
Her ears rose sharply. Geth felt his belly twist as he saw the same thing she must have. Even Chetiin’s wrinkled face stretched tight with surprise. On the floor, Kitaas’s shrieks and curses faded into silence. Tenquis nodded at all of them and spoke what they were all thinking. “I said once that artifacts like the rod aren’t destroyed easily, but if the Shield of Nobles could be shattered-”
“So can the rod!” Geth growled. “How?”
Tenquis grimaced. “I don’t know.”
Hope bled out of Geth, but the tiefling shook his head. “I don’t know yet,” he said quickly, “but that’s what I was working with Kitaas to try and figure out. She thought I was just trying to track down the history of another of Taruuzh’s creations.”
Kitaas let out another screech, this one descending into deep choking noises. For a moment, Geth thought she had sucked the gag into her mouth in her struggles. When he checked on her, though, he found her weeping with helpless rage. He looked at Ekhaas but she turned her face away and said to Tenquis, “But Taruuzh has been studied for generations. What did Kitaas bring you? We heard something about a Stela of Rewards and the Rebellion of Lords during the Second Puulta dynasty.”
“Taruuzh has been studied by duur’kala and archivists,” Tenquis said, “not by artificers. You talk about things in metaphors of song and music. We talk about things in metaphors of crafting and alchemy. So did daashor.” He picked up a brittle scroll. “This is an account of Taruuzh’s creations written by a later daashor. ‘And the shield of Taruuzh was sundered by the golden ones of Dhakaan when they fell in the fifth great transformation of thunder returned. The second of the artifacts of the Blood of Night passed beyond this sphere, marking the beginning of the end of Dhakaan.’” Golden eyes looked up. “Does that make any sense to you, Ekhaas?”