Ghost in the Ring (Ghost Night Book 1)

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Admirably put, my dear,” said Seb. “The Magisterium’s histories say nearly the same thing. The Warmaiden was a loremaster of Iramis, and she led a force of valikarion against Rasarion Yagar and the priests of Temnuzash. She interrupted him in the middle of a great spell, and both were slain. The Iron King’s castle of Sigilsoara was cast into the netherworld, and the Temnoti were mutated into the forms we saw in the fortress. And the backlash from the failed spell damaged the barriers between worlds in Ulkaar, which is why necromancy and summoning spells are easier here.”

  Caina blinked. “The Temple…they worship the Divine here? They follow Iramisian religion?”

  “They do,” said Seb. “If you have been to Iramis recently in truth, then no doubt you have seen a purer form of it. But the Temple keeps to Iramisian teachings and venerates the memory of the Warmaiden and the valikarion, and they even still have a vulgarized form of the Iramisian system of sorcery, the Words of…something, I forget what.”

  “Lore,” said Caina in a quiet voice. “The Words of Lore.”

  Kylon watched her. Caina did not often talk about her religious leanings, but after her experiences in Istarinmul, she had grown more sympathetic to the Iramisian teachings of the Divine. Kylon supposed he was as religious as most men – best to appease the gods, lest misdeeds draw their wrath, though he hated oracles and seers and prophets. When he had been younger, he had believed that the gods punished wrongdoers, but as Kylon had grown older, he had seen enough prosperous wrongdoers to question that.

  On the other hand, Caina had crossed the path of a lot of wrongdoers, and most of them were now dead. Maybe the Divine had sent her to deliver retribution to them, though she would scoff at that idea.

  “Yes, that was it,” said Seb. “The Words of Lore. Though I suppose if you brought Iramis back from the shadows, you’re quite familiar with the Words of Lore.”

  Caina smiled. “You still don’t believe that, do you?”

  “Well, it is quite an unlikely story,” said Seb. He shrugged. “Though no more unlikely that you should be transported to Sigilsoara on your wedding night, where you would meet your half-brother.”

  “It is unlikely,” said Caina, “but it doesn’t matter how unlikely it is because it happened. But I think we are wandering from the point at hand. If it is easier for spirits to enter the material world here…are the forests dangerous?”

  “Yes,” said Sophia in a small voice. “They are very dangerous.”

  “I’m afraid undead are quite common in Ulkaar,” said Seb, “and corpses buried without proper rites from the Brothers and Sisters of the Temple often rise as undead. Malevolent spirits can slip into the material world and take control of animals, trees, corpses, and twist them into dangerous creatures.” He shrugged. “Walking in the woods the way that we are is quite risky.”

  “Wolves, too,” said Sophia.

  A wave of dread rolled through her and pushed against Kylon’s arcane senses. He looked at the girl, but she stared at the ground, her face blank. After a moment, the dread subsided.

  But it did not leave her entirely.

  “There are many ways to die in Ulkaar,” said Seb, “but I think we should focus on a more immediate problem.”

  “Which one?” said Caina.

  “The lack of food,” said Seb.

  Caina shrugged. “One way or another, we’re getting food at Kostiv, even if I have to steal it. A little hunger for a day and a half won’t kill us.”

  “Actually,” said Kylon, “I might be able to help with that. Hold still for a moment.”

  The others went motionless. Kylon focused on the sorcery of water, extending his arcane senses. He sensed Seb’s emotions, a mixture of wariness, amusement, and mild bemusement, but it was layered over a deep and abiding grief. Sophia seemed to be on the edge of terror, holding herself together only by a raw effort of will. Had their situation not been so dire, Kylon would have suggested to Caina that they bypass Kostiv entirely. Sophia dreaded the thought of returning to Kostiv, and while there was some guilt in her sense, there wasn’t much of it. Kylon thought she had fled Kostiv out of sheer terror.

  Perhaps Caina’s plan was best. She would wait with Sophia while Kylon and Seb entered Kostiv.

  From Caina, of course, Kylon sensed nothing at all.

  But he did sense something else, a simple, instinctive mind, a mind concerned with food and cold and shelter and nothing else.

  Kylon turned his head and saw the deer creeping through the trees. It hadn’t scented them yet.

  “Don’t move,” said Kylon.

  “Is there danger?” said Seb, reaching for his sword hilt.

  “No,” said Kylon, drawing as much of the sorcery of water and air as he could.

  The deer froze as it caught their scent.

  Kylon sped forward, using the sorcery of air to lend himself speed. He hurtled towards the deer, his valikon’s hilt grasped in both hands. The deer started to turn, but it was too late. Kylon brought the sword sweeping down, and he took off the animal’s head in a single blow. There was no gore, since the freezing mist froze the blood, and the body collapsed to the ground while the head bounced away.

  Sophia let out a shriek.

  “I think,” said Caina, “that will make an admirable breakfast.”

  Seb snorted. “Valikons are weapons of legend, but I confess I never thought to see one used to bring down a deer.”

  “It doesn’t seem very sporting,” said Sophia. “Uncle Ivan always said a proper hunter uses a bow or a boar spear.”

  “If your Uncle Ivan comes out here with us,” said Kylon, “he’s welcome to do better.”

  Sophia blinked, and then let out a startled laugh. “What? No. Uncle Ivan doesn’t hunt any more, I’m afraid. His leg doesn’t allow it.”

  “Well,” said Caina, “if Uncle Ivan wouldn’t approve, then you can watch the rest of us eat.”

  Sophia smiled, for the first time since Kylon had met her. “Uncle Ivan would tell me not to be stupid.”

  ###

  It did not take them long to skin and cook the deer. Sophia and Seb had daggers, and all four of them had experience preparing animals. Caina expected Sophia to flinch at the blood, but the girl handled the work with aplomb. If her Uncle Ivan had been a hunter in his youth, perhaps she had helped him clean his kills.

  Caina tucked that observation away with the others she had noted about the girl

  There was something wrong with Sophia.

  Or, rather, there was something wrong in Kostiv, something frightening enough to drive Sophia into the dangers of Ulkaar’s forests. Caina could think of a thousand things that might frighten a girl into fleeing into the wilderness, and most of them were not even unique to Ulkaar. And to be blunt, none of it was Caina’s business. She wanted to return to Iramis.

  And yet…

  Perhaps she could find a way to help Sophia Zomanek. Certainly, the girl had been brave, and with her latent arcane talent, she would not stay in an isolated town like Kostiv forever. Either the Magisterium would find her and recruit her…or the Umbarians would.

  Or some cult like the Temnoti or the various petty necromancers and conjurers that Seb had mentioned would corrupt her.

  Thinking of Seb sent Caina’s thoughts down a dark path.

  It surprised her not at all that Laeria Amalas – in truth, Laeria Scorneus Amalas – had been willing to abandon her twin children to marry a young Count of the Empire. After all, Laeria had been willing to sell Caina to Maglarion in exchange for necromantic lore. Abandoning her children was easy by comparison.

  It was all the more reason Caina wanted to return to Iramis. She wanted nothing to do with House Scorneus and her mother’s family. She knew that not all the sons and daughters of House Scorneus would be like Laeria, that like any family, there would be good and bad men and women among them.

  Caina still didn’t want anything to do with them.

  But to her surprise, she found that she liked her half-brother.
Seb was a charming speaker, and like Caina, he had an eye for detail and a knack for making deductions from those details. Often, Caina found that she could guess what he was thinking, and Seb could do the same for her. That unsettled her a great deal, but for a battle magus of the Magisterium, he seemed a decent man. There was a sadness to him, and he did not seem inclined to indulge in the petty cruelties that some of the members of the Magisterium enjoyed.

  Fortunately, the work of cooking the deer gave Caina something to occupy her thoughts. Kylon gathered firewood by the simple expedient of using the sorcery of water to augment his strength enough to rip branches off the trees, and Sophia started the fire with a piece of flint and the edge of her dagger.

  “Can you not use sorcery to start the flames?” said Sophia.

  “I could, dear girl,” said Seb, “but pyromancy inevitably drives its wielders into homicidal madness, and then Lord Kylon’s fair valikarion bride would cut off my head with her valikon, which would quite spoil our breakfast.”

  Caina laughed. “Is that an attempt at flattery?”

  “Well,” said Seb, “I have found that flattering a woman is frequently less harmful than refraining from flattering her.”

  “That seems sensible,” said Sophia, perhaps hoping for a compliment. When none was forthcoming, she asked a question instead. “Does fire sorcery really drive its wielders insane?”

  “I fear so,” said Caina. “If you ever have the misfortune to meet an Umbarian magus, you will see that they often wear a black gauntlet on their right hands. That lets them use pyromancy without descending into madness.”

  “Lady Caina is quite correct,” said Seb. “Therefore, descending into madness to cook our breakfast seems excessive, especially when you are doing an admirable job with the kindling.” Even as he spoke, Sophia got the fire going. The winter seemed to have left the wood cold and dry, and it caught flame with gratifying speed. Caina held out her cold hands to the fire with relief. The long red coat she had taken from Sigilsoara was warm enough, but already she missed the searing, arid heat of Istarinmul and Iramis.

  They finished butchering the deer and cooked the cuts of venison over the fire. Caina had not eaten anything since breakfast yesterday, and the meat was delicious. They ate their fill, and there was a good deal left over.

  “There is no time to salt this properly,” said Sophia, wrapping up some of the meat in her pack, “and we don’t have salt anyway, but it is cold enough that it should last a few days. Maybe…maybe it will last long enough that we can travel past Kostiv without stopping there.”

  “Maybe,” said Caina, watching the girl.

  “It would be best to keep moving,” said Seb, looking at the discarded pile of offal from the deer. “That will draw scavengers sooner rather than later.”

  “Agreed,” said Kylon, and they walked southwest along the deer trail.

  About two hours later they came to the road.

  At least, it had once been a road. The wide track had been beaten through the forest, the brush cleared away, but the forest was reclaiming it. In another few years, Caina thought, there would be no sign that a road had ever been here. Still, it was smoother going than the deer trail, and their pace increased. Someone must have built this road, but it had been abandoned for a long time.

  So Caina was not entirely surprised when she saw the ruined tower jutting out of the trees.

  It looked old and crude, without the precision of Imperial stonework. The tower had been built of rough-mortared stone, and as they drew closer, Caina saw a crumbling wall encircling the tower’s base. It occupied the top of a low hill, and despite the rough stonework, it nonetheless would have been a strong fortification. From the tower’s crest, a man would have a view of the forest for miles in all directions.

  Caina’s first thought was that they ought to look around. The tower looked abandoned, and the previous occupants might have left useful supplies behind. Her next thought was that investigating the tower might be a bad idea. Such a place would almost certainly draw the eye of every bandit and renegade looking for a place to hide.

  Then she saw the faint necromantic aura from within the tower.

  “Caina,” said Kylon, calling his valikon to his hand.

  “Aye, I see it,” said Caina. He must have sensed the aura at the same time that she had seen it.

  “What is it?” said Seb, drawing his sword.

  “That tower is a bad place,” said Sophia. “We should not go there.”

  “Why not?” said Caina. “Are there bandits?”

  Sophia shook her head. “It is cursed. It was the castle of a rebel szlacht.”

  “Szlacht?” said Caina. It must have been an Ulkaari word.

  “Minor landed noble,” said Seb. “Usually sworn to a stronger one, such as a local boyar. In exchange for a grant of land, the szlacht must equip himself with a horse, armor, and some men-at-arms, and then ride to the assistance of his boyar in times of war.”

  “Seems an inefficient way to raise an army,” said Kylon.

  “Compared to the professional armies of the Empire and New Kyre, yes,” said Seb. “Which is likely why Malarae and New Kyre have never been conquered, but Ulkaar is a province of the Empire.”

  “That is not important,” said Sophia. “The tower is cursed. Long ago there was a szlacht who refused the call to war from the boyar of Kostiv. When he died, he was cursed and rose again as an evil spirit. Anyone who enters the tower does not return.”

  “A local legend,” said Seb, “but these things often have a kernel of truth to them, especially in Ulkaar.”

  “That kernel might have sprouted a strong crop,” said Kylon. “There is a necromantic aura in the place.”

  “I can see it,” said Caina, trying to make sense of the strange auras detected by the vision of the valikarion. “Undead creatures, I think, several of them. Inside the hill. A cellar below the tower, probably. But I think they’re…dormant. If we enter the tower, they’ll likely wake up. But if we stay away from the hill, I think they will leave us alone.”

  “Then for the love of the Divine,” said Sophia, “let us stay away from the tower.”

  “Agreed,” said Caina, and they pressed on.

  ###

  The road was in better repair the further southwest they went, and they made good time. Caina kept the heavy red coat wrapped around herself, grateful that she had found the garment inside Sigilsoara.

  After passing the ruined tower, they made about another five miles before the sun started to go down and the air grew colder. Kylon picked a small clearing off the road for the campsite, and Caina and Sophia gathered loose sticks for the fire while Seb and Kylon wrenched low-hanging branches from the trees with bursts of sorcery-enhanced strength. Soon they had a large fire going, and Caina settled close to it, enjoying the heat radiating from the flames.

  Come to think of it, she also enjoyed the light. The forest grew dark around them and coupled with the soft moaning of the icy wind it made for an ominous scene. She looked at Kylon and was grateful that he was with her. Granted, she would have preferred to have been in bed with him, partly for warmth, and partly for other reasons. Their first night as husband and wife had been interrupted by that shadow vortex.

  “I do not like this wind,” said Seb, eating the rest of his venison.

  “It isn’t pleasant,” said Caina.

  “And it might get worse,” said Seb.

  “A blizzard, maybe,” said Sophia, and she gazed at the darkness, the shadows from the fire dancing over her face. “The weather is right for it. If…if a blizzard hits, we’ll have to shelter in Kostiv, won’t we? If we’re caught out in the forest, we’ll freeze to death.”

  “Probably,” said Seb. “But I thought you would be at risk if you returned to Kostiv.”

  “Yes,” said Sophia, and she took a shuddering breath. “But compared to that or freezing to death from cold…” She lifted the sunstone and looked at it. “The boyar will kill me.”

 
; “Then we’ll disguise you,” said Caina.

  “Disguise?” Sophia blinked.

  “We’ll think of something,” said Caina. “I’ve pretended to be a man more times than I can remember.”

  Sophia laughed. “That’s impossible. You don’t look anything like a man.”

  Caina smiled. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I imagine Lord Kylon is as well,” said Seb. Sophia laughed again and turned red.

  “But I don’t plan to march up to the gates of Kostiv and announce who I really am,” said Caina. “Seb, you’ve never been to Kostiv?”

  “No, never,” said Seb.

  “Then we’ll say we’re your attendants,” said Caina. “Or your bodyguards. Or servants. If we do it right, no one will look at us twice, and we can leave Kostiv without anyone ever becoming the wiser. It’s always best to hide in plain sight.”

  “Do you really think that can work?” said Sophia.

  Caina shrugged. “I’ve done it before.” She looked at Seb. “If Sebastian is willing to play along, I think we can manage it.”

  Seb snorted. “Well, since it seems we all must cooperate until we reach Artifel at the earliest, I am game if you are. Though I am curious how you shall conjure a disguise out of thin air since we have nothing but the clothes upon our backs. Is that one of the powers of the valikarion?”

  “We’ll think of something,” said Caina. “Meanwhile, we should get some sleep. I will take the first watch. It will be harder for anything sorcerous to sneak up on me.”