“Soon your soul will be open at last,” Braun nodded, the features of his face vanishing into a vague shape as the light receded. “The ghosts will spill from you and you will see the vision.”
Darkness enveloped them.
“You will hear the song!”
Stars appeared.
Impossibly, above him in the pitch blackness two-thirds of a league below the mountain, the night sky filled his vision.
Nine notes. .
Come to us and bring our redemption. .
The stars shifted as he watched in slack-jawed wonder.
Seven notes. .
Weep for the pain and the loss. .
He felt as though he were falling up toward them.
Five notes. .
The past is our sorrow. . The past is our shame. .
Faces started forming among the stars. Faces he had forgotten. Faces he once knew.
Ghosts.
Drakis screamed.
“Drakis! Are you injured?”
Drakis opened his eyes to see the faces of his Octian, lit by a single globe-torch, staring down at him.
The human warrior sat up on the stones of the avenue and drew in a painful breath. “No, Captain ChuKang. I can fight.”
The manticore stood up, pulling Drakis to his feet as he did. “We thought we had lost you, hoo-mani. There was a reserve of dwarven warriors waiting here when we came through the fold. I think they were more surprised to see us than we were to see them.”
KriChan chuckled darkly. “They ran, but not fast enough.”
“It was a blessing from the gods,” ChuKang continued. “Chasing them down showed us the way to the causeway.”