Ashi looked again. The gnome was right. The jumble actually lay in several heaps, separating small objects from large, moderately valuable from worthless. There seemed to be nothing of great worth, though she had a feeling that perhaps there once had been.
A clear path led between the heaps. The back of the crack opened into another passage, a little wider than the first.
“Leave the pitch pots,” said Dagii. “They’ll just get in the way.”
They left the clay pots in a heap, carefully extinguishing the ones they had lit, then stepped, one by one, into the crack. Ashi scanned the heaps of offerings for a weapon she could use and selected a long knife that was only a handspan away from being a short sword. Ekhaas glanced at it as she picked it up, then looked again more sharply.
“That’s not pre-Dhakaani,” she said. Ashi passed her the dagger and she turned it over in her hands, cursed under her breath, and held it out for Midian to see. The gnome’s eyebrows rose.
“Riis Dynasty,” he said. “The time of the Shaking Emperor.”
No one said anything else. Ashi took the dagger back and tested the edge. Still sharp.
The new passage hadn’t been worked at all. It was wide enough that Ashi didn’t feel cramped, but she had to watch closely for projections from the walls and raised stones underfoot. It twisted from time to time, turning or dropping suddenly. She had the feeling that they were generally going deeper. At least there were no side passages. No way to go but forward and back.
The foreboding stillness grew with every pace. Sounds seemed muffled. Ashi fought the urge to reach back and take Ekhaas’s hand, just for the reassurance of knowing that it was the duur’kala behind her and not someone or something else.
She was the first to notice that the torches had stopped flickering, suddenly becoming as steady as everbright lanterns. Ashi looked up at her torch and saw that the flame was still. Not merely steady, like a candle protected by a lantern, but still, like a piece of bright orange-yellow glass. All of the torches they carried were still.
She found the description for the stillness that had eluded her earlier. It was “stopped.” It felt as if their little party moved through a world in which all other motion had ceased. She bit down on her alarm, instead lowering the stopped torch to show Ekhaas. The duur’kala’s ears pulled back flat.
At the head of the party, Chetiin and Geth went around another twist in the passage-then were back and pressed up against the wall. The hair on Geth’s arms and neck was standing up. His eyes were wide. “We’re here,” he said.
“What is it?” Ashi asked.
“I think you need to see for yourself.” Geth took a deep breath and slowly stepped around the corner. Chetiin followed. Midian, Ashi, Ekhaas, and Dagii looked at each other, then Ashi braced herself and went after Geth.
Beyond the twist, the passage went a couple of paces more, then opened up into a cavern. The floor was reasonably level and the cavern itself was quite broad, spreading twenty paces or so in any direction from the passage. The ceiling was low, though. Ashi could have reached up and scraped it with the tip of her newly acquired knife. It made the cavern feel much smaller than it really was, crushed by the weight of the mountains above.
More disturbing than the low ceiling, however, were the symbols that spread across the rock. They were on the ceiling, the walls, and the floor-dozens of them, each an armslength across and shining with a greenish light that gave a soft glow to the entire cavern. Seen from the corner of her eye, they almost seemed to move, but looked at directly they were steady and unchanging. In a way, they resembled dragonmarks. Her stomach churning, Ashi stretched out her hand and looked from the marks on the wall to the marks on her skin. The strange light made her blue-green mark look as black as darkness, yet also weirdly bright and reflective. She let her hand fall with a shudder.
“There are seven caves in the north of the Seawall Mountains,” Ekhaas said, standing beside her and staring in fascination, “that are said to look like this, save that the signs move and spell out the future for those who know how to read them.”
“Do those caves have occupants?” asked Chetiin quietly. “Look here.”
They turned. Partway across the chamber, a strange rock formation stuck up from the floor. Chetiin and Geth were on the other side of it, staring. Geth still held Wrath, but loosely, and the purple of the byeshk blade gleamed through the green glow. Ashi went to join them. As she drew closer, she realized the formation wasn’t rock at all, but wood and cloth-a heavy chair draped with fabric. And as she passed around the chair, she realized that it wasn’t empty.
A hobgoblin, or what was left of him, sat in it. The body was wizened, orange-tinged flesh wrinkled and dry like a withered pumpkin, but the hobgoblin’s face was calm and his eyes closed. The cave’s air-or perhaps its strange power-must have mummified him upon his death. The garments of a larger man were draped around his skeletal frame. Ashi had never seen anything quite like them in style, but the fabric was fine and dyed with rich colors of gold and red. His hair, longer than she’d ever seen a male hobgoblin wear it and held back by a wide band of gold, was still thick and dark. He hadn’t been old when he died. His feet were raised on a small stool that was as heavy as the chair. His hands, covered in gloves studded with gems, rested in his lap.
They were wrapped around a purple rod of byeshk, as long as her forearm and as thick as her wrist, its polished surface carved with strange symbols.
Ekhaas drew a deep, slow breath. “The story stops but never ends,” she said solemnly in Goblin. “Guulen, the Rod of Kings, is found again, and the fate of Dabrak Riis, the Shaking Emperor, is known at last.”
“Taat,” rasped the hobgoblin on the throne. Red-brown eyes opened to glare at Ekhaas and lips drew back from sharp, white teeth. “I am Dabrak Riis, but I shake no more! Bow before your emperor!”
Ekhaas jerked back.
Ashi heard Geth curse. She saw Chetiin and Dagii raise their weapons and step back as well. She didn’t step back. With reflexes honed in the practice yards of Sentinel Tower, she snatched the long knife from her belt and lunged forward, thrusting the blade straight into the seated hobgoblin’s heart. His eyes opened wide in shock-
— then he shoved her away with a strength that sent her flying into the cavern wall.
Ashi pushed herself up and stared as Dabrak Riis, Emperor of Dhakaan, tugged the knife out of his chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
For a terrifying moment, Ashi thought he would hurl the knife at her. She rolled to her feet, ready to dodge, but the withered hobgoblin’s arm didn’t move. Dabrak Riis held the knife up in front of his face and studied it. Ears rose, so dried and leathery they resembled the wings of bats.
“I know this knife,” he said. “It belonged to Rhazala Shaad. What have you done with her, assassin?”
Ashi hesitated, not certain how to answer. It was hard to understand the Goblin that Dabrak Riis spoke. The accent was odd and seemed strangely stilted. Was that how the goblins of the Dhakaani Empire had spoken? She threw a glance at Ekhaas, a silent appeal for instruction, but before the duur’kala could speak, Dabrak’s eyes had moved from the knife back to her. They narrowed sharply.
“By the Lawbringer, what manner of creature are you?” he asked. “You’re not dar, and you’re not elf.” He looked around at the others. “Ghaal’dar and golin’dar”-he paused to stare at Midian and his dry lips twisted in disgust-“and one of the jungle rats, dressed like a person.”
The gnome looked like anger might overcome his shock at being addressed by a corpse, but Dabrak’s gaze had already moved on to settle on Geth. His ears stood, and his eyes widened. “You… whatever you are… that’s Aram!” he sputtered. “You carry the lost sword!”
Geth bared his teeth and lifted the twilight blade. “I found it,” he said, his Goblin thick and simple compared to the emperor’s. “I carry it. It led us to you.”