The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [122]
Ashi considered the question for a moment, then shook her head. “He always throws himself into a fight.”
“Yes, but generally only the ones he knows he can win.”
“Maybe it’s the strain of our quest,” said Dagii from behind them. “He has been our only guide and his task is nearly complete.”
“Maybe.” Ekhaas didn’t sound convinced.
“Coming?” Geth’s voice echoed out of the door.
Ekhaas’s ears stood even taller and her eyes looked into Ashi’s, then Dagii’s. “Watch him,” she said, “both of you.”
Ashi nodded, then stepped into the shrine. A rough-walled passage extended beyond the door, no taller or wider than the door itself. She could just barely squeeze through—looking back, she saw that Dagii had to turn sideways to get in. A few paces ahead, Geth and the others were already out of the passage, the light of their torches spreading to illuminate a larger space. She hurried after them and emerged into a small chamber that was partly worked stone and partly natural rock. When all six of them were standing in the chamber, it felt nearly as crowded as the narrow passage.
And there was a stillness to it, as well. Eerie like the valley and tense like the pit, but moreso. Ashi felt a foreboding, as if the stillness had a physical form and was standing somewhere just behind her. There was something else about it as well … something she couldn’t identify at first—or at least couldn’t describe.
“Do you feel that?” she asked.
The others nodded. Silently, Geth pointed with Wrath to the wall opposite the passage. It was the most natural of the chamber’s walls, split by a wide crack and untouched by tools except for a grate of iron bars that had been placed across it. Once the gate must have blocked the crack. Now it hung open.
Litter lay on the ground beyond in a jumble of strange objects: cups and knives and trinkets of all sorts, most similar in design and decoration to the carvings on the shrine and the stairs.
“Offerings,” said Ekhaas quietly. “When the grate was closed, they would have been shoved through into the darkness.”
“Offerings to what?” Dagii asked.
Ekhaas spread her hands. “I don’t know. Whatever power is in this place.”
Midian held out his torch. “They’ve been sorted.”
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