The Ghosts Omnibus: The Kyracian War

by Jonathan Moeller

  “But,” said Caina, “no one would ever suspect a temperamental opera singer of being a spy for the Emperor.”

  “Precisely,” said Theodosia. “Get ready.”

  Caina nodded and got to work.

  She stripped off her gray dress and donned a man’s clothes – trousers, boots, a ragged shirt, and a leather jerkin reinforced with steel studs. A worn cloak went over her shoulders, and a belt with a sheathed sword and dagger around her waist. Caina helped herself to Theodosia’s makeup and applied it to her cheeks and jaw, giving her face the illusion of stubble. She tugged her black hair forward, letting it fall in greasy curtains over her face.

  When she finished, she looked like a ragged caravan guard. With luck, she could pass unnoticed on the streets of Cyrioch.

  “My dear,” said Theodosia, looking her over, “you are positively disreputable.”

  Caina grinned. “Thank you.”

  “Get ashore and find Barius,” said Theodosia. “Marzhod and the local Ghost circle should have plenty of information on Cyrioch’s Kindred family.” The planks shuddered beneath their feet. “Ah…the pilot’s come aboard. Get up on deck, and go ashore as soon as you can.”

  “I will,” said Caina.

  “Caina,” said Theodosia, and for once her voice was grave. “Be careful. Cyrioch's slums are not a safe place.”

  Caina opened the door a crack. The corridor outside was deserted, though she heard the steady beat of a drum below as the rowers maneuvered the massive galley towards the piers. Then she slipped through the door, hurried through the corridor, and climbed into the dazzling sunlight.

  Chaos reigned on the ship’s deck. The captain and first mate stood on the rear deck, bellowing orders, while sailors scrambled over the galley’s masts and rigging. Many of the singers and the stagehands of the Grand Imperial Opera had gathered on deck to watch the approach, and the sailors hastened past them with muttered curses.

  Caina looked over the rail and saw the city of Cyrioch for the first time.

  The poets called Cyrican Urbana the Shining City, and it was not hard to see why. Across the rippling waters of the harbor and the masts of maneuvering ships Caina saw a massive hill of peculiar white rock. The hill was called the Stone, and that strange white rock was found nowhere else in the world. An enormous palace of towering domes and delicate towers crowned the Stone - the Palace of Splendors, once the seat of the Anshani satraps of Cyrica, and now the stronghold of Cyrioch’s Lord Governor. Lesser palaces, the homes of Cyrica’s nobles, clung to the sides of the Stone and stood at its base.

  The rest of Cyrioch sprawled between the Stone and the harbor like spilled detritus.

  Caina saw basilicas and mansions built in the Nighmarian style and domes and slender towers in Anshani fashion. Endless squat warehouses of brick lined the harbor, holding the tea and grain and rice and cotton the Cyrican provinces shipped to the nations of the western seas. The ugly brick towers of tenements rose behind the warehouses. The great lords had dispossessed Cyrica’s small farmers generations ago, and now the remaining free citizens lived in those tenements, subsisting on the Lord Governor’s grain dole.

  And upon the backs of their slaves.

  The stench of the city filled Caina’s nostrils.

  She made her way to the rail as the ship maneuvered toward a pier, the oars lashing at the water. A few of the sailors and the stagehands glanced her away, but no one stopped her. Caina had disguised herself as a caravan guard every day and wandered through the ship, and the sailors had thought her Theodosia's bodyguard. She saw the other ships of Lord Corbould’s flotilla lined up at the quays, including Corbould’s massive flagship.

  The galley pulled up to the stone quay, and Caina saw dozens of men in rough gray tunics waiting for them. Slaves, no doubt owned by the city’s harbormaster, ready to assist with unloading the ships.

  Rage shivered through her at the thought. Caina’s mother had sold her to Maglarion in exchange for his necromantic teachings, and Maglarion had relied on Istarish slavers as his hirelings. She hated slavers, and as weary as she had grown of killing, the deaths of a few more slave traders would not trouble her at all…

  But for now, she had to remain calm.

  The ship bumped against the quay, and the porters hurried forward with a gangplank. The sailors and the porters wrestled the opera company’s cargo onto the deck. Caina grabbed the railing, vaulted over it, and landed on the quay, her legs collapsing beneath her. A few of the slaves gave her curious looks as she straightened up and walked off, but none made any move to stop her.

  Caina left the docks, passed the warehouses, and made her way into Cyrioch.

  She recalled the map of Cyrioch she had memorized during the voyage. The district south of the docks was called Seatown, filled with warehouses, tenements, and sailors’ taverns and brothels. Barius, the Ghost nightkeeper Theodosia had sent her to meet, owned a pawnshop on the southern edge of Seatown.

  She left the warehouses behind, making her way through the narrow streets. The sun blazed overhead like a torch, and the humidity made sweat trickle down her face and back. The massive brick tenements towered over her, but even their shadows brought little respite from the heat.

  Traffic crowded the streets – the freeborn Cyricans preferred light clothes of bright colors, red and orange and yellow. Some of the men wore turbans in the Anshani style. The women covered their heads with scarves, and usually moved in the company of a husband or a brother or a son. The Cyricans considered that any woman who went in public with her head uncovered was a prostitute, free for any man that could take her.

  Just as well that Caina had disguised herself as a man.

  Slaves in their gray tunics were everywhere.

  From time to time small gangs of men followed her. Caina suspected that unwary foreigners traveling through Seatown might find themselves snatched off the streets and sold to the Istarish slavers’ brotherhood. She rested her hand on her sword hilt and scowled, and none of the gangs closed. Perhaps they wanted easier prey.

  The hulking tenements thinned, and Caina found herself in a small market square. Vendors sold pots and jars and food of questionable quality, while taverns and small shops lined the square. Women in bright clothing moved from stall to stall.

  Barius’s pawnshop awaited on the far side of the square.

  Caina stopped, moved in the shadows beside an empty stall, and stared at the pawnshop.

  Something was amiss.

  The pawnshop’s windows were shuttered, but its door stood ajar by a few inches. Caina suspected the merchants of Seatown kept their doors locked and opened them only when a paying customer arrived.

  So why had Barius been so foolish to keep the door open? Had he let in a customer and forgotten to close the door?

  Or had someone forced the door and not bothered to close it?

  Caina watched the pawnshop, but no one approached, and she saw not a hint of activity from within.

  She crossed the square, keeping her walk casual, but her eyes swept her surroundings for any hint of danger. If someone had attacked Barius, they might now lie in wait for any other Ghosts.

  But no one looked in her direction.

  Caina stopped at the pawnshop door and listened.

  Utter silence.

  She took a deep breath, slipped a dagger into her hand, and pushed open the door.

  Barius’s pawnshop was a dank, narrow vault of a room, its walls lined with wooden shelves. Pots, pans, clothes, shoes, and the occasional sword rested on the shelves. A wooden counter stood near the far wall, a pair of scales and a set of weights resting on its surface.

  There was no trace of Barius or of anyone else.

  Though the door to the shop’s back room stood open.

  Caina stepped around the counter, dagger raised, and into the back room.

  Shelves lined all four walls of the back room, holding valuable goods – metal plate, jewelry, rolls of silk, and all the other things Caina supposed Barius did
n't want kept in the public eye. Another door on the far wall opened into the alley behind in the pawnshop.

  And in the middle of the back room stood single strangest statue that Caina had ever seen.

  Carved from white stone, it showed a fat man in Cyrican robes, his arms spread in surprise, his face twisted with fear and horror. Caina gazed at the statue with fascination. The lords of the Empire loved statues, and Caina seen thousands of them during her life. Yet she had never seen a statue like this one. She could see every wrinkle on the man’s face and hands, every fold and crease of his clothing. The level of detail was uncanny.

  Almost eerie.

  And the statue looked exactly the way Theodosia had described Barius.

  Why the devil would Barius have an peculiarly detailed statue of himself in the back room of his pawnshop? For that matter, if he knew a sculptor of such sublime skill, why commission a statue of himself looking horrified?

  It made no sense…

  Unless.

  Caina stared at the statue, a terrible idea trickling into her mind.

  She remembered tales she had read in her father’s library as a child, stories about unearthly women with serpents’ hair whose glance turned men to stone.

  She stared at the statue of Barius.

  At the impossibly detailed statue.

  “No,” said Caina, voice soft.

  But why not? She had seen sorcery burn a man to ashes, rip lightning down from the skies, and store the lives of murdered innocents in a black crystal. Why couldn’t sorcery turn a man to stone?

  She brushed the statue’s stone sleeve with a fingertip.

  And she felt the faint, crawling tingle of sorcerous force.

  She jerked backed in alarm, and for a terrified instant she wondered if the spell would spread, if it would turn her to stone. But the tingling sensation faded, and her hand remained flesh and blood. Caina took a deep breath and looked at the statue.

  At Barius himself.

  Who had done this to him? And why? Caina knew more about sorcery than she had ever wished to know, but she had never heard of a spell that did anything like this.

  She took a deep breath…and noticed the shadow at the back door.

  Someone was standing in the alley outside the shop.

  Caina tensed, her fingers tightening around the dagger's handle. Whoever stood outside the door might be listening to her, waiting for her to make a mistake. Yet who was outside the door?

  The sorcerer who had done this to Barius, perhaps?

  Perhaps this was a trap to catch any Ghosts coming to visit Barius.

  But traps could be sprung.

  She spotted a mirror sitting upon the shelf. Taking care to remain silent, Caina angled the mirror so it faced the door. Keeping the dagger in her right hand, she began to rummage through the items on the shelves, making sure to make lots of noise.

  "There's no one else here," she shouted in Cyrican, making sure to keep her voice deep and rough. "No one but that damn creepy statue. Well, if Barius can't be bothered to mind his shop, we may as well help ourselves. You watch the front door, and I'll take the jewels."

  She kept rummaging through the items on the shelves, keeping her eyes fixed on the mirror.

  And slowly, silently, the back door swung open. She saw a man wearing a yellow Cyrican robe standing in the alley, a dagger in his hand. He glided through the door, his feet making no noise against the floor.

  Caina recognized the way he held that dagger.

  A Kindred assassin had been lying in wait for the Ghosts.

  "Hey!" shouted Caina, and the assassin froze. She picked up a bronze candelabra, as if examining it. "Does that silversmith still buy bronze? We could turn a pretty coin."

  The assassin moved forward, his dagger raised to stab.

  Caina whirled and slammed the candelabra across his face.

  The assassin staggered back with a cry, blood flying from his nose and mouth. Caina lunged at him, hoping to knock the dagger from his hand. But the brutal training regimen of the Kindred produced capable fighters, and the assassin deflected her thrust with a sweep of his own blade. Caina seized the opening and swung with the candelabra, catching the assassin across his free wrist. The man reeled back, lips peeled back in a snarl.

  For a moment he glared at her, and then he whirled and fled through the door.

  Caina blinked in astonishment. The Kindred assassins fled only when outmatched. Then she remembered her ruse. The assassin must have assumed that she had armed allies in the front room. For a moment she considered pursuing him, but rejected the idea. She did not know Cyrioch very well, and the twisted maze of streets and alleys offered hundreds of hiding places. Or, worse, the assassin could return with allies. Better to escape now while she still could.

  Caina turned to go, and the stove caught her eye.

  A small iron stove squatted in the corner of the back room. Given Cyrioch's torrid heat, Caina wondered why Barius needed it, but perhaps he used it to cook meals. A few coals flickered within the stove, and Caina saw flecks of white lying among the ashes.

  Scraps of paper.

  She knelt and poked through the ashes, sifting for any legible remnants.

  The ashes had once been a book, she thought, or perhaps a ledger. Whoever had burned it had done a thorough job. Caina recovered a single small scrap of paper. It had once been covered in scrawled handwriting, but now Caina could only make out four words.

  "The Defender," she muttered. "The Well."

  Was that a code of some kind? Odds were that it didn't mean anything. But did that mean Barius had burned his ledger? Or had someone else burned it?

  Caina didn't know, and she didn't have time to figure it out. That assassin would return with friends. She got to her feet and cast a quick look over the shelves. The assassin would recognize her disguise, but there was enough clothing here to improvise a new one. Caina cast aside her ragged cloak and snatched a garish red one. The cloak was a ridiculous color, but it looked Cyrican, and should conceal her long enough to rejoin Theodosia at the Plaza of Majesty.

  She took one last look at Barius, and then slipped out the back door. The alley behind the pawnshop stank of garbage and urine, but was deserted. She took a quick look around and hurried towards the end of the alley. From here she would circle east, through Seatown until she reached the district of Westshadow and then the Plaza of Majesty at the foot of the Stone...

  Caina froze.

  A shape in a cloak stood at the end of the alley, staring at her. She could not see the figure's face beneath the cowl, but the front of the cloak opened, and she caught a glimpse of chain mail and a sheathed sword.

  Another Kindred assassin?

  She raised her dagger and braced herself.

  The cloaked figure turned and disappeared to the left.

  Caina cursed and ran to the end of the alley. It terminated in a street leading east from the plaza, lined on either side with shabby houses. She saw no trace of the cloaked figure, or of the Kindred assassin in the yellow robe.

  Caina hastened for the Plaza of Majesty.

  She wondered what Theodosia would make of Barius's fate.

  Chapter 3 - The Lords of Cyrica

  Caina slipped unnoticed through the crowds, merely another figure in a red Cyrican cloak.

  She had to admit that the Plaza of Majesty lived up to its name.

  It sat at the base of the Stone, broad and wide, paved with white marble chosen to match the peculiar white rock of the Stone. On the northern side of the Plaza stood the massive temples of the gods of the Empire. On the western side stood the basilica of the Magisterium's chapterhouse, stern and grim. Across the Plaza from the chapterhouse rose the black, pyramidal shape of a temple to the Living Flame, the chief god of Cyrica and Anshan. And at the base of the Stone itself a broad ramp climbed the face of the hill to the Palace of Splendors itself.

  Lord Governor Armizid Asurius and his chief magistrates awaited Lord Corbould at the end of the ramp. Aroun
d them stood a company of the city’s militia, wealthy merchants, minor nobles, and a host of other hangers-on. Citizens of Cyrioch lined the Plaza, watching the spectacle, held back by a line of militia spears.

  Lord Corbould Maraeus entered the Plaza from the other end, flanked by a troop of black-armored Imperial Guards.

  Caina slipped through the crowds, which proved easy of enough, since most of the commoners had their attention focused on the nobles. She passed Lord Corbould and his guards and came to the rear of the column. The chariot drivers Corbould had brought walked there, followed by the singers and stagehands of the Grand Imperial Opera. Caina spotted Theodosia, clad in a brilliant red gown with black trim, her hair covered by a scarf of similar color.

  Caina approached, and Theodosia smiled.

  “Ah,” she said. “There you are. Did you get the things I asked for?”

  “No,” said Caina, keeping her voice disguised. “Things…did not go well.”

  Theodosia’s smile faded. “This is an outrage! An outrage! Why, I shall speak to Lord Corbould himself! I have his ear, you know. I’ll have you shipped back to Malarae as a kitchen drudge! I’ll…”

  Theodosia went on in that vein for some time, much to the amusement of the other members of the company. Bit by bit their attention wavered, and turned to Lord Corbould’s ceremonial entrance into the Plaza of Majesty. Theodosia looked at them and nodded.

  “There,” she murmured. “They ought to be distracted now. What happened? What did Barius tell you?”

  “Nothing,” said Caina.

  Theodosia frowned. “Is he dead?”

  “Yes. Maybe,” said Caina. “I don’t know.”

  “Hearken!” boomed the voice of Lord Corbould’s herald. “Corbould, Lord of House Maraeus, once Lord Governor of the Imperial Pale, twice Lord Governor of Marsis, and four times Lord Marshall of the Legions, has come! He sends greetings to his brother Armizid, Lord Governor of Cyrica, and requests permission to enter the city!”

  “Come with me,” said Theodosia. “I want to watch this, since whoever hired the Kindred to kill Corbould is probably in the Plaza right now. You can tell me what you found once I have a better view.”