Ghost in the Blood (The Ghosts)

by Moeller, Jonathan

  Tomorrow night? She was going to perform the spell tomorrow night? Caina had to get out of here, had to warn Halfdan and Ducas. Yet she could not get to the doorway without Jadriga seeing her.

  “You cannot do this,” said Tanya. “The Opening of the Way will kill thousands.”

  Jadriga opened her eyes. “They are unimportant.”

  “But my son,” said Tanya, her voice breaking. “You will kill my son.”

  “You do not understand,” said Jadriga. She stepped closer, stroked Nicolai’s cheek with one hand. The boy cowered away from her touch. Tanya tensed with rage and fear and hate, but she did nothing to stop Jadriga. It would have done no good, after all. “This child…he is a chain, an anchor, something holding you back. Shatter that chain and you become stronger. Agria and Messana understand this, and now Vorena does as well. Why do you not?”

  “I thought,” said Tanya, her voice shaking, “that your students were chattering fools.”

  Again the faint smile flickered across Jadriga’s lips. “True. Yet they grasp this simple truth, and you do not. Why?”

  “Because you are evil,” said Tanya. “They are evil. They murdered their children, their husbands. I would give anything to see my husband again, anything to walk free with him under the sun. And your students murdered their families. Their hearts and souls are withered, dead things, black and rotten.” She shook with fury. “Like you.”

  “Sentiment, and nothing more,” said Jadriga. “Love is only an illusion, as is hope. There is only power, and its exercise. And those who recognize that truth.”

  “Don’t do this,” said Tanya, pleading. “You care about nothing but yourself, fine. Then fear for yourself. The fallen angel will destroy you when it is released. And even, even if by some miracle you overpower it, there are hundreds others imprisoned in the pit. You cannot control them all, and they will destroy you. The Solmonari knew the truth…”

  “The Solmonari?” said Jadriga. “The Solmonari were fools. Why else are they extinct? I faced Solmonari in battle, long before your grandfather’s grandfather was born. They died screaming and begging their impotent gods for succor. Yet I closed my fist, and crushed the life from them anyway. I am the stronger. I shall enslave the fallen angel to my will, and then I shall be the strongest.”

  “You fool,” said Tanya, “you blind, wicked fool.”

  “I shall miss you, after you are gone,” said Jadriga, pacing towards the wall. “So few have ever had the courage to defy me to my face. But you will die as I cast the Opening of the Way. You may take comfort in that. All your pain will soon be at an end…”

  Caina saw her chance. She slipped past the couch and crept along the wall, praying that Jadriga would not turn around. Jadriga, thankfully, had not bothered to close the door.

  She didn’t turn around.

  Caina slipped into the black corridor and fled as fast as she dared.

  Chapter 21 - Spirits

  Four mercenaries worked at the end of the corridor.

  The polished black stone ended in a wall of rough rock, lit by a pair of glowing glass spheres. A yawning black pit opened in the floor below the wall. The charnel smell was very strong here, though overlaid with the faint tang of brine. As Caina approached, she saw the mercenaries seize another corpse and fling it into the pit.

  Caina pressed against the wall, wrapped her cloak around her, and waited. The men worked in silence, eyes cold and uncaring. After a few moments, the last corpse vanished into the pit, and the men turned. Caina tensed, ready to fight. But her cloak merged with the shadows, and the men were too lazy to examine their surroundings.

  They paid her no notice, and vanished into the darkness.

  Caina counted to a hundred, but no one else appeared. She hurried forward, stopped at one of the iron stands, and gazed at the glowing blue sphere. Jadriga might have laid warning spells upon it. Still, Caina needed the light, and perhaps her cloak would baffle the spell.

  She lifted the sphere from its stand. The tingle of its light-giving sorcery brushed against her fingers, but nothing else. The sphere hadn’t been trapped.

  Caina crossed to the pit. It was about twelve feet wide, and even with the light, she could not see its bottom. The charnel smell was overpowering, but the faint hint of the sea lingered. Tanya was right. This cavern opened to the sea. Caina might have found a way out of this hellish place.

  Assuming she survived the climb down. Assuming the cavern didn’t go underwater.

  Caina redid the leather straps that held the throwing knives against her right forearm, knotting the glass sphere into place. The tingling sensation from its sorcery was unpleasant, but she could not climb and hold the sphere at the same time. Caina took a deep breath, trying to ignore the stench, and descended into the pit.

  The walls had been worn smooth long ago, but with many bulges and ridges, and Caina found footholds and handholds. Inch by careful inch she descended, pausing every so often to shine the blue light on a questionable spot. She prayed that none of the mercenaries thought to look down the hole. It was more than likely that they used the pit as a privy, and if one of them happened to look down…

  But no one appeared above her, and she heard nothing.

  From time to time she saw bits of hair stuck to the stone, or a shred of clothing. Not much blood, though.

  Jadriga had used it all.

  On and on went the slow descent. Soon Caina saw neither the bottom nor the top of the pit. Her arms and legs trembled with fatigue. She had already done a great deal of fighting and running tonight, and the strain of the climb made her arms and back scream with agony. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, shaking. A dark voice in the back of her mind wondered what it would be like to simply let go…

  No. She had to keep going. At midnight Jadriga would butcher Ark’s son upon that black stone slab. And the resultant spell would kill thousands, maybe tens of thousands, and free hundreds of horrors to walk upon the earth. Caina could not let that happen, not while she still could fight.

  She took a few more deep breaths, and continued.

  Time passed. She couldn’t have said how much. Something glittered below her. A wet stone floor, Caina realized. Almost there. The sight gave her new strength, and she redoubled her efforts. At last she reached the bottom, and dropped the final five feet, her tired legs folding to absorb the impact.

  The charnel smell struck her like a physical blow.

  Caina rested for a moment, her eyes closed, her breath coming hard and fast. At last she opened her eyes and lifted the sphere.

  She almost wished she hadn’t.

  The tunnel was wide and broad, its sandy floor sloping downwards, its glistening walls caked with salt and barnacles. A short distance away rested a pile of Jadriga’s recent victims, battered by the long fall. Twenty feet away lay a bloated corpse, the skin chalky white, the face half-eaten away. A half-dozen more decomposing bodies lay scattered down the tunnel.

  The tide had scattered the bodies, she realized. Which meant that the tunnel must reach the harbor. When the tide came in, the tunnel flooded. When it went out, the water pulled the corpses along with it, driving them out to sea. Except those that happened to catch on something.

  Another realization came to Caina, more disturbing than the last. She didn’t know the time, but it was well past midnight. If she lingered too long in the tunnels, she might drown when the tide came roaring in.

  She had to hurry.

  Caina started down the tunnel, not bothering with stealth. She doubted the dead could hear her, after all. She passed more corpses, more and more of them, their faces bloated and waxy. The stench was horrible, and Caina began to feel light-headed. She tried to breathe through her mouth as she ran.

  More and more corpses littered the floor, in various stages of decay. No doubt it took several tides to pull them all the way out to sea.

  There were so many of them.

  The tunnel widened, and Caina heard the sound of splashing water ju
st ahead. The cave opened up into a large room, the walls rough and glistening. A pool of saltwater glimmered in the blue light of her sphere, a ring of wet sand clinging to the stone wall.

  On the far side of the room, the tunnel branched into five different passages.

  Caina’s heart sank. Five? Did all of them lead to the harbor? Or did some double back, or sink even deeper into the earth? She swung her light back and forth, frowning. All five passages went downward. Well, she would simply have to guess, that was all. She was running out of time.

  She wasn’t sure, but it seemed like the pool had gotten a little higher in the last few minutes.

  Caina made up her mind. The middle passageway. One seemed just as good as the other. She stepped forward…

  Something crunched beneath her boot.

  Caina looked down and saw bones beneath her foot. Small bones, falling to pieces. A child of nine or ten, maybe as young as eight. They were falling to pieces. Another few tides and they would vanish…

  Something glittered near the skull. Something silvery. Caina knelt and pulled it free from the sand. A small silver comb lay in her gloved hand. It looked familiar, so familiar. Where had she seen it before? It…

  And all at once Caina knew. She shivered and turned around.

  The girl in the gray dress stood a few feet away, watching her. For the first time Caina saw her clearly, without the befuddling haze of nightmares. The girl had fine blond hair and blue eyes, her expression sad and solemn, a silver comb glinting in her hair. Her gray dress was expensive and well made, her small boots perfectly fitted to her feet.

  She was also somewhat translucent.

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  “You’re dead, aren’t you?” managed Caina at last.

  The girl nodded.

  “Who are you?” said Caina.

  “You know.” The specter’s voice was a hollow whisper. “My mother. My uncle. You know them.”

  Caina stared at the girl some more. Then she saw the resemblance.

  “Lydia Palaegus,” said Caina. “Your name is…was Lydia Palaegus.”

  Again the child nodded.

  “Your mother murdered you and your father,” said Caina.

  Again Lydia nodded. “For power. For sorcery.” Her hollow voice carried a crushing grief.

  “You appeared in my dreams,” said Caina.

  Lydia nodded.

  “That night. When Icaraeus’s mercenaries tried to kill us,” said Caina. “You warned me.”

  Lydia nodded.

  “Why?” said Caina.

  Lydia considered this. “You must not die. You must not.”

  “Why not?” said Caina.

  “You are different.”

  “How?”

  “You are different!” said Lydia. “You can see me. No one else can. You can see me. Because you are different.” She pointed at Caina’s stomach. “You are scarred. Changed. And so you can see me.”

  Caina flinched. “You mean…what Maglarion did to me. When I was a child. I can see you because of what they did to me.”

  The specter nodded. “You knew the pain I knew. Your mother betrayed you. Her teacher used your blood. But I died. You survived.”

  “But why have you appeared to me?” said Caina.

  “She must be stopped.”

  “Who?” said Caina. “Agria, your mother? Jadriga?”

  “Both.”

  “You want revenge, then.”

  “No!” Lydia’s face flickered with pain. “No. Blood begets only more blood. You must stop them. You must stop them!”

  “Because of the Opening of the Way,” said Caina.

  “They will do a wicked thing,” said Lydia. “Many terrible things are chained in the prison. They will do great evil, if my mother and her teacher free them. You must stop it.”

  “How?” said Caina. “Jadriga is powerful, more powerful than anyone I’ve ever met. Do you know how to stop her?”

  The specter shook her head.

  “So it’s up to me, then,” muttered Caina. Water splashed against her boots. The level of the pool had indeed risen, and seawater was trickling from some of the tunnels. The tide was coming in. Very soon this entire cavern would lie underwater.

  And so would Caina, if she didn’t find a way out.

  “I must go,” said Caina. “You have my word that I will stop Jadriga and your mother, or die trying. But if I stay here any longer I will join you in death.”

  She stepped towards the middle passageway.

  “No!”

  Caina turned. Lydia walked, or perhaps floated, across the rippling pool, her arms raised in supplication.

  “You cannot go that way,” said Lydia. “That way lies your death.”

  “Then how can I get out of here?” said Caina.

  “I can show you,” said Lydia. “But I am bound to this place. Let me enter you, and I can show you the way out.”

  “You mean…possess me?” said Caina. She remembered what Jadriga had done to her memory at Agria’s mansion. “Absolutely not. I’ve had enough of people digging through my mind.”

  “No,” said Lydia. “I cannot harm you. I cannot control you. I can only aid you. Please. All other paths end in your death. I have seen it.”

  The water was splashing over the toes of Caina’s boots. She stared at the specter, thinking hard. It could be a trap. She had heard stories of the restless dead lingering upon the earth, but had never thought to see one.

  But Lydia had helped her once already, hadn’t she?

  “All right,” said Caina. “Do it.”

  Lydia nodded, stepped forward, and touched Caina’s chest.

  The world changed around her. Caina shivered and grabbed at the wall for support. The dizziness passed, and Lydia vanished. Yet Caina still felt her presence, like a breeze upon her face. It was not onerous, but not something she could ignore, either. Caina straightened up, and stepped away from the wall.

  The first thing she noticed was how much sharper her vision had become. She saw the cavern in far greater detail than before, could practically count the individual grains of sand upon the floor. The blue light strapped to her arm did a far better job of illuminating the cave.

  The second thing she saw was the spirits.

  Dozens of them drifted through the cavern, faces twisted in silent grief. A specter who looked much like Hiram Palaegus stood a short distance away, staring at Caina in anguish. The spirit of Martin Palaegus, she realized, Lydia’s father. All the spirits looked as if their throats had been cut, and wandered in silence.

  Jadriga’s victims.

  “So many,” whispered Caina.

  You see why she must be stopped.

  Lydia’s faint voice echoed inside Caina’s head.

  “Which way?” said Caina.

  The rightmost passage.

  Caina nodded and started walking. The rightmost passage was narrow and twisting, but sloped downward only gently. The water got deeper, soon splashing around her ankles, then her knees. The tunnel opened into another small room, more bones heaped against the wall, more anguished spirits watching her with pleading eyes.

  There were three more tunnels in the far wall.

  “Well?” said Caina.

  The leftmost. Hurry. Soon the tunnels will flood.

  Caina broke into a jog. The water was up to her hips by now, surging against her, and Caina fought to keep her balance. A glimmer of yellow light shone ahead. Caina raced forward, struggling against the water, and reached the cavern’s entrance.

  She emerged from a salt-stained pile of rocks into a swirling tidal pool. The morning sun peered from the east, just rising over the horizon, and Caina turned to face it, letting the warmth soak into her.

  She had never been so glad to see the sun.

  I never thought I would see the sun again.

  It may have been Lydia’s thought, but it matched Caina’s.

  She struggled to a rocky beach and looked around. The walls of Mars
is loomed over her, the distant shape of the Citadel and Black Angel Tower rising even higher. The harbor lay perhaps three-quarters of a mile to the north, a maze of masts and piers entangled together. Beyond the harbor stretched the city, rows upon rows of houses and warehouses and mansions and temples, home to thousands of people.

  Thousands of people that would die, if she did not find a way to stop Jadriga.

  Caina pulled off her cloak and mask. Her black clothing would stand out during the day, but between the salt stains on her boots and trousers, and the sweat and dirt on her face, hopefully she could pass as a drunken man wobbling his way home after a long night of drinking.

  She moved as fast as she dared.

  ###

  Caina pounded the correct sequence of knocks on the warehouse door, waited, pounded it again. She gritted her teeth, thinking. She had no idea where Halfdan or Ark might be by now, but…

  The door swung open, and Jiri stood just inside, one of Radast’s complex crossbows held at the ready.

  “You’re alive!” said Jiri. “Come in, come in quickly. All the news has been bad. Basil sent a message, saying that Icaraeus escaped and you disappeared…”

  Caina gripped Jiri’s arm. “Did Basil leave a way to send him a message?”

  “He did,” said Jiri. “He and Arlann were searching the mansion and the docks for any sign of Icaraeus or…”

  “Send the message now,” said Caina. “Tell him to get back here and hurry.” She looked at the light leaking underneath the warehouse door and frowned. “We’ve only got until midnight.”

  Chapter 22 - Battle Plans

  Caina worked at one of the tables, cleaning her weapons. She sharpened the blades and laid a fresh coat of oil over them. From time to time she took a bite from the plate of bread and sausage Jiri had given her, washing it down with a mouthful of wine.

  Caina was surprised to find that she was ravenous. After the horrors she had witness, she thought her appetite would have fled. But it had been a busy night, after all.