The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [133]
Ashi glanced over her shoulder. The passage behind her was only dark as far as the last twist. Beyond that, a pale green glow was growing.
“Khyberit gentis,” she breathed, then shouted, “Faster!”
Up and down the rises and drops of the passage. Around corners. It seemed as if the darkness ahead wouldn’t end, and every time she dared to look back, the green glow was brighter. Dabrak’s angry roaring was constant—then suddenly it swooped up into a shriek of triumph. Ashi looked back once more and saw the undying emperor racing up the passage. The signs of the Uura Odaarii shone bright on his skin and his eyes were green flames.
Then her feet were crunching and skidding among the offerings left at the grate in the shrine. She almost fell, but Dagii and Ekhaas reached back together and pulled her up. They burst into the little chamber of the shrine. Chetiin was trying to set fire to the pitch pots they had left there. “No time!” said Dagii and swept the goblin ahead of him into the narrow doorway of the shrine. Ekhaas plunged after them.
Ashi paused. Chetiin had managed to light some of the pitch pots. Snatching them up by their leather straps, she whirled them around once, then let them fly back into the passage and the approaching green glow. She spun as soon as the straps left her fingers and thrust herself through the shrine’s narrow exit. Clay shattered, and there was a sudden whoosh of flame. Ashi felt a searing heat on her back, but then she was out and standing on the black soil at the bottom of the pit where the others were waiting for her.
No, she realized. Not waiting. Clustered together, they faced the trolls that crouched like guard dogs on the ancient stone stairs. Dabrak’s voice rolled out of the shrine.
“Bring back the rod!”
Empty-handed, she turned to stare into the firelight that spilled from the shrine’s door—firelight that was swiftly blotted out by an intense green glow. Shining with power, untouched by the flames of the pits, a withered figure filled the doorway. Around it, the fine carvings of the ancient shrine became dull and dusty, as if the long delayed years of its preservation were being drawn away. Green light cast sharp shadows into the bottom of the pit. The low growling of the trolls rose into frightened mewling.
Burning from within like a coal from a fire, Dabrak Riis, marhu of Dhakaan and twenty-third lord of the Riis Dynasty, stretched out his hand. “Give me the rod!” Time shivered at his words.
But Ashi stared at his fingers.
They were shriveling, shrinking away even as he opened them. His arm grew thin. It was a stick, then a switch, then a long, dry twig. Ashi looked up at his face and watched wrinkled skin draw tight over bone that became green ash. Dark hair sifted away. Silk crumbled. Gold flared bright, burning up as if it were paper.
And like a coal from a fire, Dabrak’s power consumed its fuel. Without speaking again, the last living emperor of Dhakaan collapsed in a winking shower of green sparks that were dark before they hit the ground.
Darkness fell over the pit once more, and its silence was broken by the wailing of the trolls as they fled. Ashi and all of the others stared at the black dust that had been Dabrak as it slowly trickled from the featureless ruins that had been a perfectly preserved pre-Dhakaani shrine.
Then they turned to look at Geth. The shifter held out the Rod of Kings. “We have it,” he said.
Dawn came as they climbed back up the stairs from the pit. Like the shrine, the ancient stonework had crumbled, but the same weird stillness remained in the air. The Uura Odaarii still held its power, even if some of it seemed to have been drawn back. Midian even recovered enough to moan about the loss of the astounding artifacts.
Ashi and the others were less interested in the crumbled stairs than in the trees and the forest around them. How much time had passed while they were in the green cavern? Had a night turned into a year as in Geth’s story of fairy glades? It was hard to tell. The air felt different than it had in the night,