The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [92]
“They fell in the war that destroyed the goblin empire, thousands of years ago.” Sheshka still watched the stairs, waiting for any signs of motion. “They faced one of the lords of madness, the daelkyr Orlassk, who some say was the creator of the cockatrice and the gorgon. It was Orlassk who destroyed Cazhaak Draal so long ago; then he came south to the Crag. He rose from Khyber, from tunnels that lie deep below this very fortress, and as he drew near, his sheer presence turned the guardians to stone. He petrified thousands across the city, and his troops killed ten times as many. And then, somehow, he was defeated and driven back into the depths.”
“Petrified thousands across the city? I didn’t see many statues …”
Sheshka turned away from the stairs, apparently satisfied that the rats had abandoned the chase. She began walking down the wide hallway, ignoring the frozen sentinels. “You would have, had you been here twenty years ago. It is why the Great Crag stood empty for so many millennia. The city and the lower levels of the Crag were filled with the effigies of the fallen. People said it was cursed—that the spirits of the fallen remained trapped in the stone, crying out for vengeance.” She paused and brushed a finger across the cheek of a hobgoblin sergeant. “Surprisingly perceptive.”
“You’re saying it’s true?”
“Of course it’s true. You want me to restore your virtuous knight, don’t you? Where do you suppose his soul has been all of these years? When you die, your soul flees your body and goes to Dolurrh, where it can rest and find peace. But our power traps the soul in stone. A few centuries may leave no mark, but these soldiers have been bound for thousands of years … and they fell in battle against one of the daelkyr, the destroyers of reason. There is no rest for their spirits. The only thing worse would be if the statues were broken.”
Thorn’s foot struck an object and it skidded across the floor … the frozen face of a bugbear, fallen from its statue. Sheshka smiled.
“The storytellers spoke truly when they said the spirits were trapped and tormented. Where they erred was their assumption that these unfortunates had any power. According to the tales, their ghosts would reach out from the stone to kill those who moved among them … or they would turn the offenders to stone, drawing them into their eternal nightmare.”
“But that part’s not true,” Thorn said. The image of the faceless bugbear was lingering in her mind.
“People surely died, disappeared, turned up as statues in the ruins of the Crag. But this is Droaam. Savage trolls and wild cockatrices are a far more likely explanation. Still, the tale kept people from the Crag … until the Daughters of Sora Kell chose to make it the capital of their new nation.”
“So what happened to all of the statues?”
“See for yourself.”
They’d been making their way along curving tunnels, moving deeper and deeper below the surface. As Sheshka spoke, they stepped into a cavernous chamber—a hall that stretched far beyond the scope of Thorn’s mystic sight. Pillars were spread throughout the hall like trunks of enormous trees. And there, in the darkness, were the petrified guardians of the Great Crag. Hobgoblins in armor, turned to stone in the midst of battle. Goblin peasants, their faces transfixed in fear. Mighty bugbears. Savage trolls. Beasts of war and burden—dire wolves, tribex, even a small wyvern with its wings broken off. Walking forward, Thorn could see no end to the chamber or to the legions of stone. Some of the statues had been positioned with great care, arranged in military formations. Others had been stacked in heaps that rose up to touch the ceiling. Many were missing limbs, or had been disfigured in other ways by the passage of time or malicious intent.
“Here are the thousands that fell at the hand of Orlassk,” Sheshka said. “Along with some petrified in later days. The Daughters have called on the powers of my kin in the past, and in the early days of their rule, more than a few were turned to stone to serve