“I don’t know what happened at that ceremony," the dorēsah continued. "At the time, I wasn’t considered important enough to be invited, but the change to our people was immediately noticeable. Our bodies were strengthened far beyond their former capabilities and everyone, from the eldest down to the youngest child, gained access to magic. Reinvigorated, we poured out of the mountains like a swarm of locusts, driving the Djinn back with as much ferocity as they had shown to us.”

Gūla's hand hesitated on the page, and she glanced up with a skeptical expression. “That’s not the story I’ve heard. Even with your new abilities, our warriors were far stronger.”

“The lies of the victors," the dorēsah snorted. "True, the Djinn might have been individually stronger, but we were deathless and they were not. Our victory seemed assured until Djinn had not made their own desperate deal. I do not know what price they paid, but they summoned the forty-four sons of S̆ams̆a to fight on their behalf. And only when the demigods took the field did we truly learn the extent of Ilmas̆ku's deception.”

“When we died, we came back - not once or twice by the grace of our gods, but over and over again. At first, it seemed a mighty boon - no matter the might of the Djinn, how could they turn back a deathless army? But slowly we recognized it for the curse it was as death upon death piled up, and each time we were forced to journey through a realm of dark and endless pain.” She shuddered at the memory, and the mania crept back into her eyes.

The four fell silent for several minutes until she finally started to speak again. “And as our suffering grew, there were those among us who realized that Ilmas̆ku alone seemed untouched by the torture we underwent. Instead, his power grew by leaps and bounds until he emerged as the strongest of us, a glorious champion who even S̆ams̆a’s sons feared to fight; he was too strong.”

“It was our ennigû who finally figured it out, guided by the new god, Pitḫalla, who had also offered us succor. The ritual Ilmas̆ku had conducted bound our souls to his, and with every death we died, he stole a fraction of our power for himself. Propelled by the carnage of war, he grew ever more godlike, while our very souls were stolen from us.”

“You put yourself to sleep here, didn’t you?” Jasper realized. “I assume you wanted to deprive him of his 'meal'?”

The dorēsah nodded her head. “Yes, but only a small fraction of our people ever reached this place. When the elders finally realized what Ilmas̆ku had done, they confronted him.”

“Save for him, they were the strongest of our kind.” Her face twisted with a mixture of pity and disgust. “He utterly destroyed them. It was not a battle, but a slaughter, and what he did to them afterward…” she shuddered. “Perhaps he was not unaffected by the mania of the ritual himself.”

“After that, our people’s will was broken. Those who followed the ennigû turned to Lady Pitḫalla, though she warned that she could not undo the full extent of Ilmas̆ku’s curse. What remained of the elders and their supporters still refused to bow the knee, proud to the bitter end.”

She fixed a knowing eye on the group. “You tried to hide their fate from me, but I saw the body. That featherless monstrosity was once one of my kin, wasn’t it?”

“That’s what I heard," Jasper admitted. “But why did you refuse Pitḫalla's offer?” he added quickly, hoping to distract her from his lie of omission.

“After Ilmas̆ku had deceived us, many of our people were understandably wary of Pitḫalla’s offer. We knew we could not continue the war, not without losing ourselves to the madness consuming our souls, but neither could we figure out a way to break the unseen chains the ritual had imposed on us.”

“But as I said before, Ilmas̆ku was no god; we decided if we could put ourselves to sleep long enough to outlive him, the ritual might be broken.”

“But you said he’s still alive?” he asked.

The bird woman nodded. “With each death we died, the bond between us was strengthened. Our pods were set to wake us when they could no longer detect him, but you awoke me too early. He is still alive, although his strength has withered on the vine. Perhaps another hundred years, and we’d be free, but it will be too late for me,” she ended with a sad smile.

A sliver of guilt settled in Jasper’s heart. Even though he knew they weren’t really to blame - there was no way they possibly could have known about the dorēsah desperate last hope - he still felt bad for the wounded warrior in front of him who, though clinging to the remnants of her mind, now faced the precipice of self-loss.

“Is there any way we can put you back to sleep,” Ihra asked.

“Only if we could find an undamaged pod,” the dorēsah replied, “but I doubt there are any of those left, and if we sought these depths to find one, how many others of my kind would we doom to my fate?” With a final ruffle of her feathers, she stiffly waddled over to Gūla, who had been feverishly writing her story down. Peering over her shoulder, the bird woman read it critically, providing corrections and clarifications for another hour before she was finally satisfied. Only then did she turn to the door.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Pausing in front of the door, the dorēsah turned back to face them. “Do you know why I insisted on telling my story first?” She asked them.

The four shook their heads, and she continued. “Scattered throughout this ḫurra are rooms like this where our shamans stayed behind to perform the ritual that put us to sleep. If you disturb the ritual, all the nearby rooms will likely be woken up.” She hesitated a moment. “Please, leave them alone,” she pleaded.

“We’re not here to kill your people,” Jasper repeated one more time. “We had no idea they were even here. We just want to save Gūla’s friend.”

The dorēsah didn’t look convinced, but she turned to the door anyway and began touching the symbols that adorned its face.

Jasper had suspected that the combination would be too complicated for them to guess by trial and error, and he’d been more right than he’d known. The dorēsah’s hands danced across the glowing glyphs like she was playing a song, a song that took nearly two full minutes to complete. She stepped away as a rumble echoed through the room, and the door slid backward.

It burrowed ten paces into the rock, before rolling to the side and finally opening the passage. Jasper hurried to catch up as the dorē̄sah headed inside without waiting for them.

He came to an abrupt halt when he finally entered the room. Unlike everything else they had seen in the underground facility thus far, the chamber was carved in a perfect circle, though two doors on either flank seemed to lead to other chambers. Starting from the edges, the floor sloped gently down, reaching its deepest point at the center, where the remains of the ritual could be seen.

A tree carved of pure white rock rose from the lowest depths of the room until its branches brushed against the roof. Like a tree trapped in the first days of spring, always on the verge of a bloom that would never come, the stone tree’s limbs were covered in small tips of the orangey kêthum and another gem he didn’t recognize, which glowed dimly with a light of its own.

Five skeletons surrounded it, their bony hands clasped in an eternal bond and their wings draped over each other’s shoulders like cloaks. Their flesh had long since withered into dust, but the basin around the tree was filled with something that should not have lasted the edges - a pool of blood that fed the stone tree’s roots.

Gūla and the others spread out in the massive room, searching for any sign of Sels̆arrat, and Jasper left it in their capable hands. Instead, he trailed after the dorēsah, who had headed straight for the tree, curious about her motivations. Wouldn't want her to activate some sort of security system that kills us, or something like that.

When he reached its base, he realized the tree was far more complex than he had realized; thin white filaments stretched from its trunk to the shamans gathered around it, and root-like tendrils had woven themselves through every inch of the ancient skeletons, holding them together despite the absence of any remaining tissue. Curious, he bent down to get a closer look but leapt back in horror when he saw the white filaments immediately extend a tendril in his direction. “Uh, is this thing going to eat us?”

The dorēsah ignored his question. Approaching the ring of shamans around the tree, she bent down beside them. Placing her hands on the shoulders of the two of the skeletons, she spread what remained of her damaged wings above their heads and began to murmur in a harsh, shrill language that must have been her natural tongue.

When Jasper realized what she was doing, he debated whether or not to intervene. He understood not wanting to face the risk of impending madness, but as the white tendrils of the tree began to wind themselves around her fingers, he felt like he had to at least try to save her.

“You don’t have to do this. If you come back with us, maybe one of our mages could free you from Ilmas̆ku’s curse,” he offered.

The bird woman’s muttering ceased, and she craned her neck back 180 degrees to look at him, just like an owl. “Do not think of interfering,” she said with an angry hiss. “I do not wish to live without my people, and I dare not wake them yet - not as long as Ilmas̆ku still breathes.

“I can tell he is near death, but there are thousands of us here. If we are awakened, I fear he may draw sustenance from our lives and be renewed.”

He hesitated only a moment before giving a curt nod. “If you change your mind, we’d be willing to help you, but I understand your decision. It can’t be easy to be the last of your kind.”

The dorēsah’s features softened. “Thank you for understanding. Can I…can I ask one last thing of you?” He nodded.

“Don’t tell your kin about this place. I believe you didn’t come here to kill us, but we filled this place with all that remained of our possessions so that when we finally awoke, we would have the means to rebuild our civilization. If your kin knew of this place, they would be willing to leave us alone?”

“Probably not. Hell, the mage we’re looking for came here to find treasure,” he admitted. “But the entrance to this place has been discovered now, and with no guards…” he shrugged expressively, “I’m afraid this place won’t say safe for long.”

“It’s too late to hide its discovery. The best we can do is reveal it to the right people. I think I can persuade my uncle to set guards over this place.”

“Is your uncle powerful enough to protect us?”

He shrugged, “If he isn’t, I am sure S̆ars̆adūr can; the king seems like an honorable dude.”

“The king?” Her eyes widened and for the first time focused on his bloodied armor. “Those colors…those are the colors Kimil-S̆amas̆ bore. You are of the Royal House then?”

“I am.”

An expression he couldn’t identify rippled across her face, and finally settled into something like amusement. “How fitting that the House that brought us low would be the one to watch over us. Very well, little fledging, tell them if you must, but if they turn against us,” her eyes grew hard, “then may our deaths be upon your head, a burden to drag you down into the depths of the netherworld.”

With that curse, she turned to face the bodies of her brethren and laid her head down between them. As she nestled against its neck, the white tendrils of the tree slowly spread across her body. Her eyes glazed, and her body stiffened as the roots held her in place, glowing dimly as they sucked the life out of her.

Feeling the need to honor her sacrifice, Jasper watched until she had stilled. Only when she had passed did he realize he had gained an audience.