Ghost in the Inferno (Ghost Exile #5)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Not necessarily,” said Nasser. “My goal is to defeat Callatas and stop his Apotheosis. If I could do that by working with the Padishah Nahas Tarshahzon and his magistrates, then I would gladly do so. But the Padishah and his heirs vanished years ago, and Grand Wazir Erghulan Amirasku governs Istarinmul for the benefit of Callatas and his designs. You have your secrets, Ghost, and I have mine.”

  “Civil wars are always the bloodiest,” said Kylon.

  “They are,” said Nasser. “But it will be bloodier by far if Callatas finds the Staff and the Seal and works the Apotheosis. Perhaps we may have a chance to avert all of it. Does your conscience trouble you, Lord Kylon? Do not let it, I urge you. Civil war might well have come to Istarinmul even if Ciaran had never set foot within the city…and Callatas would continue his bloody work unhindered.”

  Kylon shook his head. These games, these wheels within wheels and machinations within machinations, they were not his strength. Perhaps if they had been, perhaps if he had been better at it, maybe he would have seen Cassander’s and Rolukhan’s trap coming. Perhaps he could have saved Thalastre and their unborn child from the Red Huntress’s blade.

  But that was in the past. If he could avenge Thalastre and stop the deaths of countless thousands in her name, then he would follow Caina’s lead.

  “I will do what I must,” said Kylon.

  “Capital,” said Nasser. Kylon was not a good politician, but he suspected that Nasser had been. “This, then, is what I propose. We shall leave Istarinmul in two days…”

  ###

  Night fell by the time Caina left the sculpture works and made her way through the streets of the Old Quarter to her safe house.

  She had changed her disguise, removing the turban and the beard and throwing back the robe to make a cloak, revealing the leather armor and ragged boots and trousers she wore beneath it. It was a simple trick, but a useful one. Now instead of a merchant, she looked like a caravan guard who had stolen a fine cloak. A disguise was the thinnest of shields, but it had kept Callatas and the Teskilati and the Brotherhood of Slavers from finding Caina for nearly two years.

  Nevertheless, she felt much safer with Kylon walking next to her.

  “There might be another way,” Kylon said, his voice quiet.

  “Oh?” said Caina. “Another way to do what?”

  “You have the valikon,” Kylon said. “If we wait until Rolukhan returns to Istarinmul, we can ambush him. The valikon will both kill him and his nagataaru.”

  Caina said nothing as she looked up at him. In the nighttime gloom she could not see much of his face, but his expression was hard and set. She knew how he felt. Rolukhan had helped orchestrate the murder of his wife. Caina knew that kind of rage, that need for vengeance.

  She knew it very well.

  “I don’t think it would help,” said Caina.

  “Thalastre would be avenged,” said Kylon.

  “She would,” said Caina, “but we wouldn’t be any nearer to entering the Inferno.” She looked around, made sure that no one was within earshot. “And it is too risky.”

  “And sneaking into the Inferno is not?” said Kylon, a bit of humor in his tone.

  “Well,” said Caina. “There are degrees of risk.” She took a deep breath. “You could do it. If I gave you the valikon, you could kill him. But you might get killed in the process. After what happened at the Ring of Cyrica, Rolukhan doesn’t go anywhere without a guard of Immortals, to say nothing of his own spells and whatever powers his nagataaru gives him. Even if we kill him here…you will avenge Thalastre, yes, but that won’t accomplish anything. Annarah will still be in the Inferno. We’ll still have to find a way inside.”

  Kylon said nothing for a while. Caina wondered if she had pushed him too far, and then he sighed and shook his head.

  “You are right,” said Kylon. “I wish you were not, but you are.”

  “You’re a warrior,” said Caina. “You think like a warrior. I’m not. I’m a spy. I have to work in the shadows. I think the best way to handle Rolukhan is to defeat him before he even knows what has happened.”

  The safe house came into sight. It was an old boarding house, the plaster of its walls cracked and crumbling. Caina had safe houses scattered throughout Istarinmul, refuges stocked with weapons and supplies. For this one, she had disguised herself as a courier and paid several years’ worth of rent for a room on the top floor, claiming that she needed a place to stay while in Istarinmul.

  “Do you think Nerina is right?” said Kylon.

  Caina blinked. “That her husband is alive? Yes. After the things she saw in Callatas’s wraithblood laboratories, she’ll never touch a drop of the stuff again, no matter how much she might want to.”

  “Not about that,” said Kylon. “That we can save Malcolm.”

  Caina said nothing for a moment. They walked into the alley, to the rickety wooden stairs that led up the side of the building to her room.

  “That’s what she wants you to do,” said Kylon. “To save her husband from the Inferno.”

  “Morgant wants me to save Annarah from the Inferno,” said Caina. “What’s one more?”

  “Do you think we can do it?” said Kylon.

  “Maybe,” said Caina. “Maybe not.” She stopped at the base of the stairs and looked at him. “Maybe we can’t do this at all.” There were only a very few people to whom Caina could admit her doubts, and Kylon was one of them. Too many other people in Istarinmul’s Ghost circle relied on her, and allies like Morgant would interpret doubt as a sign of weakness. “Perhaps Morgant is right, and I have been driving Istarinmul to ruin and destruction. I…”

  “No,” said Kylon. “Callatas was driving Istarinmul to ruin and destruction. You just got in his way.” He shook his head. “Morgant and Nasser might have opposed him, but you were the one to make them effective. Otherwise Nasser would have plotted in the shadows and Morgant would have waited for someone worthy of his secret until Callatas finished his Apotheosis. And I would have gotten myself killed going after Rolukhan. If Callatas is going to be stopped, it is because of you.”

  “There is no need to be kind,” said Caina.

  “I’m not,” said Kylon. “I wasn’t a very good politician and I don’t know how to lie like one.”

  “Then thank you,” said Caina. “And I will save Malcolm, if I can. It…you and I, we understand what that did to her. What it is to lose someone.”

  Kylon nodded, and as the silence stretched between them Caina felt her mouth go dry.

  They were alone. Part of her, a larger part of her than she expected, wanted to invite him up with her. They would be alone up there, too. Or maybe he would ask to come up…

  He smiled instead. “Good night.”

  Caina nodded, a wave of relief going through her. Inviting Kylon into her safe house would have been a terrible idea.

  Another part of her felt disappointment.

  “Good night,” she said. “Meet me the day after tomorrow in the Cyrican Bazaar.”

  He nodded, sketched a courtly little bow in imitation of the nobles of the Empire, and left.

  Caina watched him until he disappeared into the street, and then climbed the stairs to the door.

  Chapter 3: Warnings

  Sleep did not come for Caina.

  She lay on the cot, staring at the weathered rafters and crumbling adobe of the ceiling. The room was pleasant enough, and the windows even admitted a decent breeze if she opened the shutters, though she only had a view of the alley. Given the number of people who wanted to kill her, a view of the alley was probably for the best. She had a ladder that led to the roof, and Caina had stocked the room with rope, weapons, and other supplies. If her enemies came for her here, she could barricade the door and make a quick escape over the roof. She was not truly safe anywhere in Istarinmul, but this was as close to safe as she could manage.

  Still sleep did not come, and doubt gnawed at her.

  Had everything she had done since coming to Istarin
mul been a colossal mistake?

  Everything Morgant had said made a horrible amount of sense. Slaves were the foundation of Istarinmul’s economy. Tens of thousands of them toiled in the mines and the great plantations of Istarish Cyrica and Akasar. Even the small shopkeepers and the small farmers of southern Istarinmul often owned two or three or four slaves.

  Callatas’s secret mass murder of slaves had driven the price up, and then Caina’s campaign of terror against the cowled masters of the Brotherhood had driven the price far higher. The demand for slaves was greater than the Brotherhood could meet. Little wonder the Brotherhood’s Collectors were kidnapping people to sell upon the block. Little wonder the southern emirs were outraged. Caina had not traveled much of Istarinmul outside of the Padishah’s capital, but she knew that the northern Istarish emirs and the southern Istarish emirs hated each other. The northerners looked upon the southerners as rustic primitives, while the southern nobles considered the northerners to be decadent fools, weaklings supported by the labor of their slaves. If the southerners’ peasants were kidnapped as slaves for the northern nobles, the southern emirs would revolt.

  Civil war would come to Istarinmul.

  And it would be Caina’s work.

  She stared at the ceiling for a moment longer and sat up.

  Caina was a Ghost, a spy of the Emperor. She was supposed to work in the shadows, not start wars. She knew what war was like. She had been at Marsis when Rezir Shahan and Andromache launched their attack upon the city. Caina remembered the screams and the blood, remembered the desperate fear that had gripped her as she searched for Ark’s and Tanya’s young son amongst the chaos.

  Sometimes she still had nightmares about it.

  Had she prepared such a nightmare for the people of Istarinmul?

  Claudia had accused her of recklessness, of charging forward in her pain over the death of Corvalis, heedless of the damage she might cause. Much of that accusation had been Claudia’s own bitterness over Corvalis’s death, bitterness Claudia had set aside after they survived the Red Huntress at Silent Ash Temple. Yet there had been truth in that accusation, more than Claudia herself had known. In her sorrow over Corvalis’s death, at least part of Caina had wanted to die with him, even if she herself had not fully realized it at the time.

  So then she had thrown herself against the Brotherhood of Slavers and Callatas’s plans, had allied with Nasser to stop the Apotheosis…and she had indeed almost gotten herself killed. Kalgri the Red Huntress had almost slain her. Cassander Nilas had conjured an ifrit and sent it after her.

  Caina had survived, but only barely. Her recklessness had almost brought death upon her head…but would it bring civil war to Istarinmul?

  Would her decisions bring ruin on others?

  She lay back down, staring at the shadows upon the ceiling.

  Perhaps she had brought war upon Istarinmul, or perhaps not. Maybe Nasser and Kylon were right. Perhaps Istarinmul would have exploded without her. Callatas had murdered tens of thousands of slaves to make his wraithblood, and would work his way through tens of thousands more if given the chance. Sooner or later he would push too far and war would break out…or he would complete his Apotheosis and destroy Istarinmul just as he had destroyed Iramis a century and a half past. Callatas had wrought appalling crimes, and unless he was stopped, he would do far worse.

  Caina rubbed a hand through her hair. She had started growing it back, and it had just reached her ears. The web of lies that sustained her life was a thin one, and Kalgri and Cassander had penetrated it, but other than that it had worked so far. Most of Istarinmul thought that the Balarigar was a man. Nasser and his circle of associates thought that Caina was a man. Nerina knew that Caina was a woman, but she didn’t know Caina’s real name. Damla and Agabyzus both knew Caina’s real name, but they were Ghosts of her circle. Martin Dorius and Claudia knew who Caina really was, but Martin was the Emperor’s Lord Ambassador to the Padishah. Morgant knew who she was, but he was dangerously clever, and…

  Caina blinked.

  Kylon knew who she was, too.

  She let out a long breath.

  What was she going to do about Kylon?

  She had been glad to see him, glad to see someone she had known from before her exile, and horrified by Thalastre’s murder. Then they had faced the Sifter and survived, and Caina had found herself drawn to him. She had always been drawn to strong men, to fighters and killers, and Kylon was one of the best fighters she had ever met. He was also a good man, dutiful and determined, still grieving for his murdered wife…

  A wave of guilt went through Caina. Thalastre had been murdered. Corvalis had died saving the world from the Moroaica. How could Caina even begin to think that way about Kylon? It was a betrayal of Corvalis, a betrayal of Thalastre.

  But they were dead, and Caina and Kylon were not.

  She rubbed a hand over her face, trying to clear her mind and failing once again.

  Why hadn’t she invited him into the safe house with her? If she was honest with herself, she missed having a man in her bed. She was drawn to Kylon, admired his strength and courage. It was not as if she could bear him a child. They could enjoy each other’s company while they could.

  Caina closed her eyes and ticked off the reasons it was a bad idea.

  She could not do such a thing casually. Perhaps some women could, but Caina knew she could not. If she took Kylon into her bed, she would give him her heart. She had done so with Corvalis, and losing him had almost destroyed her.

  Caina could not go through that, not again. And given the enemies she faced, men of deadly power and purpose like Grand Master Callatas and Cassander Nilas and Malik Rolukhan, such a distraction could be fatal.

  Perhaps she was simply fooling herself. Kylon was drawn to her, she was certain of that. But perhaps he still mourned for Thalastre and could not contemplate another woman. Perhaps he thought of her the way Morgant did, as a dangerous madwoman who made a useful ally.

  Or perhaps…

  She shivered a little.

  Perhaps Kylon knew that he could find someone better. He was still a Kyracian nobleman, even in exile. Maybe he wanted to marry again, to a woman who could bear him children as Caina never could. Perhaps he wanted a woman who was not scarred by the battles she had fought, a woman who was not haunted by the horrors she had seen…

  “Gods,” muttered Caina in disgust, sitting up again. She laughed at herself. The fate of Istarinmul and perhaps the entire world hung in the balance, and she lay in her bed fussing like a petulant child. She had to get some sleep. The next two days would be busy, and then they were leaving to pursue Kuldan Cimak.

  Caina rose, stretched, and started working through the unarmed forms. She had learned them half a lifetime ago at the Vineyard, and the motions came without thought now. High kick, middle block, palm strike, wrist throw, side kick. Again and again Caina worked through the forms, the unarmed moves that had saved her life many times. She practiced until her limbs trembled with fatigue, until sweat made her shift stick to her back and chest.

  Usually exercise calmed her, but still her mind roiled.

  She sighed, reached under the room’s table, and drew out a small wooden cask. Caina opened it and poured an inch of amber liquid into a clay cup. Caerish whiskey was useful for cleaning cuts and wounds, so Caina usually stored some in her safe houses. She avoided drinking it, not because she found it unpleasant, but because she enjoyed it too much. It clouded her mind, dulled the sharp edges of her dark memories. She had almost drank herself to death her first night in Istarinmul, and she could easily see herself drinking herself into a stupor once a week, then every other night, and then every night.

  So she avoided it, but she wanted to sleep.

  Caina swallowed the whiskey in one gulp, winced as it burned against her tongue and throat, and pushed the cup and the cask under the table. The drink went right to her head, and she felt dizzy and flushed. She sat down, the cot creaking beneath her, and laughed. Just as
well she had not invited Kylon up. The cot wasn’t nearly strong enough to support their combined weight.

  The floor looked sturdy enough, though. Or the table. Or perhaps propped up against the wall…

  Caina scowled, rebuked her overactive imagination, and lay back down.

  And this time, sleep found her.

  ###

  So did the dreams.

  Once again, Caina dreamed of a place that she had dreamed before.

  She stood in the bleak gray plain of the Desert of Candles, the wind moaning and whistling past her, grit blowing past her boots and making her skirt ripple around her legs. Around her stood thousands of the strange crystalline pillars that gave the Desert its name, jagged shafts eight or nine feet tall that shone with a pale blue glow. In the gloom the light seemed eerie and unnatural, like the glow of dead spirits come to walk the earth.

  Before Caina rose the fountain.

  Its broad basin of white marble was thirty yards across, dry and empty, the dust of the Desert blowing across it. Despite the endless wind, the white stone was as smooth and crisp as if it had been carved yesterday. A wide stone plinth rose within the fountain, and upon it stood eight statues wrought of the same blue crystal as the jagged pillars. Seven of the statues were children, and the eighth was a woman of stunning beauty, clad in an ornamented gown. Her expression was tight and hard, her hair thrown back from her head as if caught in a wind. Her arms were thrust before her, as if to ward something away.

  Or as if she was reaching for someone.

  Caina had seen this place and this fountain before. Once, Caina had learned, the fountain had stood within the heart of Iramis, and had been enspelled to provide water for the city. Then Callatas had burned Iramis, killing its people and transforming its fertile farmlands into the desolate Desert of Candles. Iramis had burned, yet the fountain somehow remained, including the crystalline figures atop the plinth in the fountain’s center.

  The crystalline figures were important, though Caina was not sure how.