But she had done this kind of thing before, and step by step she drew near to the windows that would open into the bedroom of the suite that Decius had entered. Caina ducked beneath the shutters and braced her hands against the windowsill. The shutters were thick and solid, and they leaked no light. Caina thought she could open them from this side, but fortunately, that would not be necessary.
She pressed the side of her head to the hinge, and the voices in the room came to her ear, faint but clear.
“Then Septimus Aureon is dead, then?” said Decius.
“Yes, quite,” said a woman’s voice, cold and harsh with a Caerish accent. “He died the same as all the others. He didn’t even realize what was happening. Perhaps in the final second before his windpipe collapsed he understood, but by then it was too late.”
Caina grimaced. It seemed that Decius himself was responsible for the suicides, along with the woman. Why had he ordered Caina to find the cause? Maybe the First Magus had felt that he had no choice, not with the pressure that Ariadne and Valron had put on him. Come to think of it, that made sense. Decius had been forced into sending the only valikarion in Artifel to investigate the suicides…and then he had sent one of his bastard sons to kill her.
If he had known in advance that the woman was going to kill Aureon, then he had also known where Caina would be.
“I heard you sent someone to find me,” said the woman, an edge of anger entering the cold voice.
Decius laughed. “Fear not, my dear Riona. The matter will be resolved. The woman claims to be a valikarion, but I doubt it. She’s a Ghost nightfighter, and she has caused trouble for the Magisterium in the past. Her claim to be a ‘valikarion’ is no doubt backed up by some enspelled relic she carries, and she likely looted a valikon from an old Iramisian ruin somewhere. I have sent one of my sons to deal with her. She will be dead within another day at the most.”
Riona scoffed. “Do not play games with me, Decius. And don’t insult my intelligence. The valikarion are not to be underestimated. You magi living in your high towers have lost your view of the world on the ground. I saw the truth when I returned from the ruins of Maat in the south. Iramis has indeed returned to the world. I saw its towers and walls with my own eyes. Even the Great Necromancers of Maat feared the valikarion, for the valikarion knights and the loremasters of Iramis were the only force to defy the power of the Maatish pharaohs for generations. Do not underestimate…”
“Do not presume to lecture me, Riona Canwyll!” thundered Decius, and Caina saw the glow of arcane power through the wall. “I am the First Magus of the Magisterium! You are an exiled outcast, a failed initiate! I speak for the Magisterium! I lead the Magisterium! I…”
Riona’s derisive laugh silenced Decius’s rant.
“You are the First Magus,” said Riona. “For now. But not for very much longer without my help. Most of the high magi want you gone, Decius. And those who prefer you remain will not lift a finger to help when you are forced out of office, and they will make their peace with the new First Magus immediately. The only remaining question is whether the high magi will rouse themselves to throw you out, or if the Emperor and Lord Corbould will arrange for you to have an accident.”
Decius said nothing, and again Riona laughed. Caina could just imagine his expression.
“And do not lecture me about the power of the Magisterium,” said Riona. Her voice crackled with something like madness. “I pursued the secrets of true power, and your precious Magisterium threw me out. I went to the deserts of Maat instead, and I walked through the ruins of the Great Necromancers. I found the pyramids in the waterless deserts, and I entered the mazes beneath them and listened to the whispers of the Undying. And there, Decius, there in the ruins of the Kingdom of the Rising Sun, I found the secrets of true power.”
That didn’t sound good.
“I was the one who found the secret of the high chamber of the Tower of the Cataphract, Decius,” said Riona. “Not you. Not anyone else who studied the tower. I did.”
“And so you did, Riona,” said Decius. The bluster had vanished, and now his voice was smooth and charming. “You, and you alone, saw the truth. You forced the desert to yield its secrets up to you. That belongs to you and no one else. And while my position is tenuous at the moment, yes…I am still the First Magus. I have the authority to bring you back into the Magisterium, and I am the only one with the vision to do so. Without my support, you’re just a renegade sorceress with a relic. If you approach any other magus, they will have you arrested for practicing illegal sorcery, and they will execute you.”
Riona scoffed. “And you are the only one desperate enough to accept my aid.”
Decius laughed. “Then perhaps we should accept that we are desperate enough to help one another, and waste no further time on that discussion. Now. To business.”
“Very well,” said Riona, the feverish intensity in her voice calming, if only somewhat. “You’re certain that the valikarion will not be able to track us?”
“Entirely,” said Decius. Caina permitted herself a brief smile. “Caina Kardamnos is all bluster and fraud and bluff. She has Ariadne Scorneus helping her, but Ariadne is too soft-hearted and emotional to be dangerous.” Quartius Hegemonar and his business partners would likely disagree. “They won’t live much longer.”
“Ariadne Scorneus,” said Riona. “I remember her. She was the cleverest of the initiates in my year. Perhaps I should have killed her first.”
“No, we needed the deaths to look random,” said Decius, “and if you killed her, it would have been too obvious. Even that lumbering oaf Valron Icaraeus would have been able to work that out. And I told you, neither Ariadne nor that so-called valikarion will be a threat for much longer. I’ve sent my son Calaver after them. He hates me, of course, but he follows orders, and he’s a good killer. He’ll deal with them.”
Calaver? That must have been the green-eyed magus Caina had seen at Aureon’s tower.
“Now,” said Decius. “The mask. Let us examine it.”
“Very well,” said Riona. “I think we’ll need one more death. Better summon one of that lecher Tyros’s maids to see the mask.”
Mask? What mask? That didn’t make any sense. Caina focused on the vision of the valikarion, trying to make sense of the arcane auras she saw in the room. Both Decius Aberon and Riona had powerful wards wrapped around them. The First Magus’s were stronger, but Riona’s glowed with a familiar corruption. Caina had seen similar auras before in the Tomb of Kharnaces. Riona was indeed wielding the high necromancy of ancient Maat.
And there was another aura, one that seemed somehow familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
She needed a better look. But Caina didn’t dare open this window. Decius and Riona would have to be blind not to notice it. But Caina suspected the suite had another bedroom, one that would be unoccupied. If she could slip into that room, perhaps she could get a look at both Riona and the mask that she and Decius were discussing.
Caina weighed the risks and made up her mind. She eased further down the ledge and came to the next shuttered window. Her fingers curled around the handle of a throwing knife, and she slid the blade between the shutters. The knife caught on the latch, and she eased it open. She heard the latch release, and she grasped the shutters and pulled them open a few inches. Beyond she saw a gloomy bedroom, lit only by a crimson globe on the ceiling. Caina rolled over the sill and closed the shutters behind her with a faint click.
She listened but heard no sounds of alarm.
But she did hear a woman sobbing, and the smell of fresh-spilled blood came to her nostrils.
Blood? Had Decius turned on Riona?
Caina crept towards the door and eased it open a crack.
And as Caina did, she heard the familiar sound of someone choking to death.
She looked through the door, and a ghastly scene came to her eye.
Decius stood facing a short, wiry woman. She was dressed like a mercenary soldier, with
trousers, heavy boots, and a leather jerkin over a chain mail hauberk. A short sword and a dagger rested in leather scabbards at her belt. All that was unremarkable. Caina had disguised herself as a man countless times, and she doubted she was the only woman to have ever done so.
What was strange was the woman’s mask.
She wore a mask of shining gold, shaped into the serene features of a lordly-looking man. The mask’s eyes had been fashioned of pearl and onyx, and it made the eyes look startlingly realistic. A peculiar stylized beard jutted from the chin of the mask, and a diadem fronted with a rearing cobra adorned its brow. To the vision of the valikarion, the mask radiated sorcerous power, spells of illusion and mind-twisting.
Caina had seen a mask like that before.
It was one of the masks worn by the Great Necromancers of Maat, and the mask’s illusion spells allowed the undead Great Necromancers to appear as living men. Yet the mask didn’t seem to be working properly. It wasn’t projecting an illusion around the wiry woman but was radiating power outward. For that matter, Decius was holding a powerful ward around himself, directed against the power shining from the woman’s mask.
Yet that was not even close to the most disturbing sight in the room.
A dying woman hung suspended between Decius and the masked woman.
It was one of the serving women from the common room. She couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Sophia. Caina saw that the serving woman had hanged herself from the ceiling using one of the sheets from the bed. Her slender body jerked and twitched within her translucent garment, and her face had gone a hideous shade of purplish-black, her tongue bulging over her teeth. Blood dripped from her right hand, and Caina knew that somewhere in the bedroom the word CLEAN would have been written in blood upon the walls.
Her first impulse was to cut the poor woman down, but before she could move, before she could react, the serving woman’s twitching stopped, and the wheezing croak of her final attempt at a breath faded away.
“Splendid,” said Decius. “How utterly splendid. I hadn’t seen it used before.”
Riona reached up and removed the golden mask, and its aura of power faded.
The face beneath the mask was tanned and lined to the point of looking leathery, as if its owner had spent years under a harsh desert sun. Her eyes were a cold gray, and she had a shock of hair the color of iron.
“Now you have, Decius Aberon,” said Riona Canwyll. “Are you sufficiently impressed?”
“Yes,” said Decius. “That mask will be a useful tool once it comes time to consolidate power after the destruction of both the Emperor and the Umbarian Order. Perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to use it on the Emperor himself, or maybe that bitch Rania Scorneus.” He scowled. “Can you believe she had the temerity to laugh in my face when I offered to assume the burden of leadership for the Order?”
“Shocking,” murmured Riona.
“She’ll learn better soon enough,” said Decius. “As will the Emperor and everyone else who has stood in my way. Is the mask ready?”
Riona turned the golden mask over in her hands. “Yes. It absorbed sufficient power from that final death. It will let us safely enter the high chamber in the Tower of the Cataphract.”
Caina blinked. The Tower of the Cataphract? She remembered the dark mass of spell-worked stone that had loomed across the street from the Southern Sail. Why the devil would Decius want to go there?
Decius himself answered the question a heartbeat later.
“We will be able to claim the great weapon,” said Decius. “And then we shall have our vengeance.”
“Of course,” said Riona, smiling at him.
Decius smiled back. They both wore the expressions, Caina thought, of people who intended to betray each other at the soonest possible opportunity.
For a moment, she thought about summoning her valikon and attacking
Decius and Riona had powerful warding spells around them, but that didn’t matter to her valikon. The sword would tear through the wards without slowing. Caina was certain she could kill either Decius or Riona before they reacted.
But they were standing too far apart. Caina could kill one, but she could not kill the other fast enough. Decius had the kind of power that could kill Caina with a single spell. She was likewise sure that Riona had a similar level of arcane strength. Caina would take one, and then the survivor would strike her down.
“We should leave for the Tower of the Cataphract immediately,” said Riona. She picked up a heavy wool coat, donned it, and tucked the mask into an interior pocket. Then she lifted a satchel and slung it over her shoulder.
Decius frowned. “Now?”
“Is there any compelling reason to wait?” said Riona. “The mask is charged, and ready for our purposes. By dawn, we shall have possession of the great weapon, and we can start killing our foes. You’ve already crept out of the Motherhouse. The next time the high magi summon you to council, imagine the surprise you’ll have for them.”
Did Decius realize how he was being manipulated? He had claimed that both he and Riona were desperate…but Decius had more to lose and was likely far more desperate.
“No. Your counsel is sound,” said Decius. “Very well. We shall proceed to the Tower of the Cataphract and claim the weapon.” He glanced at the corpse hanging from the ceiling.
“Leave it,” said Riona. “By this time tomorrow, no one will care about a dead whore and a few dead high magi. First Magus, by all means, please lead the way.”
Decius nodded and cast his illusion spell again, wrapping himself in the guise of the cloaked and hooded man. He crossed the room, and Riona followed him. A moment later Caina heard the door close.
She was alone with the dead serving maid.
Caina hurried into the bedroom and looked around but found nothing that provided any light on Riona’s motives or what the great weapon in the Tower might be. The word CLEAN had been written on the wall next to the door to the corridor, and a bloody dagger lay on the floor nearby. Caina could work out what had happened without difficulty. The mask of a Great Necromancer created an illusionary disguise, allowing the undead sorcerer to pass as human. But the mask that Riona had found was flawed, damaged. Whoever looked at her while she was wearing the mask went insane and committed suicide. Decius had been holding his warding spell against the mask’s malefic power.
It hadn’t worked on Caina, but she was a valikarion.
The deaths of Septimus Aureon and the other four high magi were easy enough to understand. Riona had offered to meet them, likely promising to sell some secret bit of lore or arcane discovery she had unearthed. Then she had donned her flawed mask, and the high magi killed themselves. The spells on the mask drew power from death, empowered it to do something in the high chamber of the Tower of the Cataphract…
A high chamber that held a great weapon. Whatever that was.
But whatever that weapon was, Caina could not let it fall into the hands of a man like Decius Aberon, or a woman as ruthless as Riona Canwyll.
She looked at the hanging corpse of the serving maid.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” whispered Caina.
Then she took a deep breath and eased the corridor door open a few inches.
Decius and Riona disappeared down the stairs.
Caina started after them, moving in silence.
Chapter 14: Swordplay
“You aren’t really a painter, are you?” said Ariadne.
“Of course I’m a painter,” said Markaine, his pale eyes roving around the balcony. The balcony was still deserted, though a crowd was forming on the lower level of the common room, mostly young initiates and new-made brothers of the Magisterium. Young initiates and magi were notoriously rowdy, and the Black Mirror was a favorite destination for carousing. “I’m the best painter in the Empire. And Istarinmul.”
“He’s actually really good, my lady,” said Sophia. “I’ve seen some of the sketches in his notebook.”
; “There we go,” said Markaine. “A minor noble from rural Ulkaar has called my work ‘actually really good.’ Truly, what other accolade will I ever need?”
“You’re not a dirty old man, sir,” said Sophia. “You’re a snide one.”
Markaine smirked at her. “But that’s better than a dirty one, isn’t it?”
Sophia blinked and then laughed. “I…find I have no counter-argument, sir.”
“Fine,” said Ariadne. “You’re not just a painter, are you? You’re something else.”
“Mmm,” said Markaine. “Caina’s your niece.”
“Yes,” said Ariadne. “What does that have to do with you?”
“As you have likely noticed,” said Markaine, “Caina is quite fond of observing people and making deductions from what she observes. Useful, at times, I admit, though occasionally annoying. So.” He gestured at himself. “What do you observe and deduce from me?”
“Oh, dear,” said Sophia. “My lady, if you, Lady Caina, and Lord Sebastian are ever all in the same room for an extended period of time…that will be an interesting conversation.”
“Probably,” said Ariadne, and she leaned forward and stared at Markaine.
He stared right back.
“Your eyes have never stopped moving since we arrived here,” said Ariadne. “That could be explained by your profession as a painter, but you’re paying particular attention to the entrances and exits, and the instant anyone stands up or moves below us, you notice at once. Hardly the actions one would expect from an absent-minded artist. Additionally, you have noticeable calluses on both of your hands from the use of your scimitar and dagger. After observing you in combat, I note that you are one of the better swordsmen I’ve seen. Also, both of your weapons are enspelled, but your dagger is particularly dangerous. I’ve not seen many weapons that could slice through an earth elemental without slowing.”
“It doesn’t just slice through earth elementals,” said Markaine.
“No doubt,” said Ariadne.
“So, all your observations are accurate,” said Markaine. “What deductions do you draw from them?”
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