Helena bellowed again, and the city of Malarae exploded. Warehouses crumbled into dust, and the mansions of the nobles toppled and collapsed. The Imperial Citadel itself wavered atop its crag and slid down the side of the mountain in an avalanche of white rock. The ground heaved and bucked, great chasms opening in the earth to swallow the ruined city.
And in the midst of the chaos, Caina saw the silver door.
It stood at the end of a street, floating a few feet above the cobblestones. Deeper cracks rent the silver metal, and the fiery light leaking through the door had gotten brighter. Helena had been so desperate to lure Caina through that door. But what if…
Helena dropped from the sky and buried her axe in Caina’s chest.
Caina shrieked, agony flooding through her limbs. The fiery axe had torn through the steel plates lining her jacket like paper, and she felt blood flowing down her torso to spill against the ground. She tried to stand, tried to push out the axe, but could not move through the pain that flooded her body.
Helena snarled as a yawning chasm opened in the trembling ground next to Caina.
Dimly, Caina wondered how Helena had survived the dagger wounds.
“Die,” Helena spat. She ripped her axe free from Caina’s flesh, blood sizzling on the fiery blade, and Caina rolled over the edge and toppled into the chasm.
She tumbled into the darkness, smoke pouring from the gaping wound in her chest. The darkness reached for her.
One thought flickered through her mind.
How had Helena survived those wounds?
The answer came to her.
Because Caina had not actually stabbed Helena. In fact, she had done nothing to Helena’s body at all. Their bodies lay unconscious in Reorn’s storeroom. Caina had only dreamed that she had stabbed Helena, and one could not die from a wound inflicted in a dream.
Which meant that Caina’s axe wound, too, was not real.
It vanished from her chest.
She concentrated, and her fall stopped. She floated in midair, chunks of wreckage from Malarae falling around her. This was all a dream, and none of it was real. How, then, could she defeat Helena, if she had no real weapons?
That silver door.
Helena had tried to lure Caina through that door over and over.
And what would happen, Caina wondered, if she forced Helena through the door?
She rose upward, borne aloft by her will, and found Helena. The noblewoman circled above the crumbling wreckage of Malarae like a bird of prey, the fiery axe in her hand. Her eyes widened as Caina approached.
They hovered over the collapsing city, facing each other.
“How is it,” snarled Helena, “that you are still alive?”
“I had a dream that a fool hit me with an axe,” said Caina. “But it turns out that dreams can’t kill you.”
“I understand this place better than you, Ghost,” said Helena. “Thoughts are real here. Memories are real here.” She smiled. “Maybe I can’t kill you. But I can shatter your mind so you wake up as a drooling idiot.”
“Harder men than you,” said Caina, “have tried to break me. Yet I am still alive.”
Helena bellowed and flew at Caina, the fiery axe raised for a killing blow.
Caina moved just as fast. A shield of crystalline ice appeared over her forearm, called into existence by her thoughts. The axe slammed into the shield, and both vanished with a billow of hissing steam. Helena tumbled to the side, overbalanced, and Caina’s boot lashed out. Her foot slammed into the center of Helena’s cuirass with a clang, and the noblewoman went spinning out of control.
But mere kicks could not overcome Helena, not here.
Caina risked a quick look around. Most of Malarae had crumbled into the black abyss, and the silver door hovered over nothingness, shining with fiery light. Caina had to get Helena through that door. But how? Helena was just as quick as Caina – in this strange dream realm, Helena was as quick as she wanted.
But thoughts were real here.
And memories…
Helena whirled to face her, and Caina drew upon her memories.
She remembered lying chained in Maglarion’s lair, screaming as the necromancer’s knife cut into her flesh. A strange dagger appeared in Caina’s right hand, seemingly made of mirrored glass. In its mirrored surface she saw the painful images from her past, saw Maglarion’s lair, saw her younger self screaming in horror.
Helena flew at her, a sword of shadows flickering in her right fist.
Caina slipped under the blow and hammered the dagger of her memories into Helena’s chest.
Helena’s eyes bulged and she screamed in horrified agony. She ripped away from the dagger, hands clutching her temples, still screaming.
“Gods!” she wailed. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”
Caina poured another memory into the dagger, the memory of that terrible night she had entered her father’s library and found him slumped in his chair, his mind destroyed by her mother’s inept sorcery. The images of the library, her mother’s gloating, and Caina’s desperate weeping flashed across the dagger’s blade. Helena fled from her, still wailing, and Caina pursued her.
She flew into Helena and buried the dagger in her side.
Helena’s agonized wail filled Caina’s ears.
“Father!” Helena shouted. “No, gods, no!”
Caina grabbed Helena’s shoulders, whirled her around.
“You want to look through my memories?” Caina shouted, pouring more of her pain into the dagger. Her father’s death, Maglarion’s torture, Alastair’s deformed corpse, Ark’s sorrow over his wife, she plunged all of it and more into the dagger. “Then have them! Have them all!”
She drove the flickering dagger home.
Helena screamed and began to thrash like a dying animal. She plummeted, the dagger of memories still buried in her, and Caina pursued. She seized the other woman as she flew, dragged her across the crumbling void, and rammed into the silver door with all the speed she would muster.
The door swung open, and beyond was nothing but an endless inferno of raging flames.
###
Caina blinked awake, Helena’s screams ringing in her ears.
She sat up, her wrists and ankles still bound. Helena stood a short distance away, the silvery dagger clutched in her hands. The blade’s runes now shone with flames, and the horrible keening sound of overstressed metal came from the dagger.
“No!” shrieked Helena. “No! Father! Alastair! No…no! None of that happened! None of this is real! Get out of my head. Get out of my head! Oh, Father!”
She trembled as if the grip of a seizure.
Caina rocked back, scraping her boots against the shelf. If she got her boots off, the rope would probably go with them. Helena, still screaming, stumbled into the hallway. The dagger glowed in her hands, the sound of overstressed metal growing louder.
Caina kicked off her boots and got to her feet, and the dagger melted in Helena’s hands, molten metal pouring over her sleeves.
For a moment, just an instant, Helena’s horrified eyes met Caina’s.
And then Helena erupted into howling yellow-orange flames, her scream drowned out by the roar of the inferno.
Caina raced past Helena, arms still bound behind her back. The fire spread in a pool across the floor, eating into the beams of the ceiling, even into the stone of the floors and walls. The waves of sorcerous power rolling off the ruined dagger doubled, and then doubled again, and Caina realized what was going to happen.
The dagger was going to explode.
She sprinted as fast as she could manage.
Halfdan and Reorn were in the hall, swords in hand, eyes wide.
“Daughter!” shouted Halfdan as she ran towards. “What in the name…”
Flames billowed out of the corridor behind her.
“Shut up and run!” said Caina.
Reorn and Halfdan took her advice and sprinted after her.
Caina raced through the double doors a
nd down the stairs to the town. She heard Halfdan and Reorn panting behind her, and risked a glance over her shoulder. Flames shot from the roof of Reorn’s hall, devouring the timbers and stone of the walls.
Then the hall exploded.
A white flash filled Caina’s vision and a wall of hot air slammed into her. She lost her balance and rolled down the rest of the steps, coming to a stop on one of Riata’s higher streets. She saw a plume of flame shooting into the sky, saw burning debris raining into the river and the waterfall.
For an awful moment she wondered if the fire would keep spreading, if the Master of Dreams had fashioned a weapon so powerful that it would consume the entire world.
Then the fire faded, and nothing remained of Reorn’s hall, and the Ashbringers’ crypts, but a smoking crater atop the crag.
Chapter 10 – The Refiner’s Fire
“It was Helena all along,” said Caina, voice quiet.
Half the townsfolk had turned out to gape at the debris. At first Caina had feared a panicked riot, but once it became clear that the end of the world was not at hand and the donnarch had not been slain, the gathering had taken on the atmosphere of a festival. Some enterprising fellows had even set up stands, selling Disali wine and grilled sausage.
But Halfdan looked grim, and Reorn was heartbroken.
Caina suspected he would remain that way for a long time.
“She found a weapon of sorcery, a dagger made by a Saddai Ashbringer who called himself the Master of Dreams,” said Caina. “The dagger was supposed to control the dreams of its victims, binding them to the will of the man wielding the dagger. But the dagger was flawed, and Helena never figured out how to use it properly. She tried to control both Tormalus and Maelana, and killed them in the process. Then she tried to use it on me, and failed so badly she killed herself and destroyed the dagger.”
Reorn managed a weary smile. “I suspect she underestimated the strength of your mind, Ghost. Just as I did. Why did the dagger explode?”
“The Master of Dreams may have overestimated his skill,” said Caina.
Halfdan barked out a humorless laugh. “You have a knack for understatement.” He shook his head. “At least no one else was slain.”
“Save for Helena,” said Reorn, his voice heavy with grief. “All this death, all this destruction, it is my fault.”
Caina frowned. “Helena killed Tormalus and Maelana, not you.”
“And I drove her to it,” said Reorn, rubbing his face. “I loved her once. I tried…I tried so hard to make her happy. But I grew so weary of her venom, and so I turned to other women. To Maelana. If only I had tried harder. If only I had not taken Maelana to my bed.” Tears started in his eyes. “Then they would all be alive.”
“My lord donnarch,” said Caina, “may I speak plainly?”
“You saved my life,” said Reorn. “You may ask anything you wish of me.”
“I…saw something of Helena’s mind when she tried to control me,” said Caina. “She never loved you. You might have loved her, but she never felt anything for you. She saw you as a means to wealth and power, and since you were content with a simple life, she grew to hate you.”
Helena sounded, Caina realized, a great deal like her own mother.
Reorn sighed. “I was ever a fool for a pretty face.”
He was probably right.
“But you need not fear further interference from the Magisterium or the Lord Governor,” said Halfdan. “Simply blame everything on Tormalus. Tormalus investigated the crypts below your hall, and triggered an ancient spell he could not control. The backlash slew him, Maelana, and Helena, who were the only ones in the hall at the time. The Magisterium might even pay you restitution, if you don’t bring them up on charges before the Lord Governor, and your wife’s name will remain clean.”
Reorn snorted. “Restitution! Little good it will do. It will not bring Maelana back.”
“You could use the money to rebuild your hall,” said Caina.
“No,” said Reorn. "No, I will not rebuild my hall. My clansfolk will consider the site cursed. For all I know, they are correct. I shall live in town instead." He shook his head. "It is grievous to lose my ancestral hall. But perhaps, after so much grief, it is better to make a new beginning. I will live out my days as a widower."
"Unlikely," said Halfdan. "You were always a fool for a pretty face, Reorn. I suspect you'll wed again."
"This time, though," said Caina, "when you fall for a pretty face, make sure there's a kindly heart behind it."
###
A day later Caina and Halfdan journeyed south on the Imperial Highway, returning to the Vineyard. The guards attended them, keeping watch over the mule train. Caina walked in silence, making sure to keep well away from the mules and their snapping teeth.
"You seem quiet, daughter," said Halfdan.
Caina lifted an eyebrow. "Do I usually chatter away?"
"No," said Halfdan, "but I suspect something is on your mind."
"I have many things on my mind," said Caina. "And the things on my mind killed Helena."
"What do you mean?" said Halfdan.
"When...I fought Helena, in that strange dream realm," said Caina. "I couldn't overcome her. Then I forced her to view some of my memories. The darker ones. You probably know the ones."
Halfdan nodded.
"She couldn't handle it," said Caina. "The sheer pain of them overwhelmed her" She shook her head. "And I carry those memories around with me. I lived them. What kind of woman am I?"
"A stronger one," said Halfdan. "You lived through terrible things. They might have destroyed you. But they didn't. They made you stronger, like fire tempering steel. I wish you hadn't lived through the things you have endured. But you did...and because of that, you were able to save Malarae from Maglarion. You kept Kalastus from burning Rasadda to the ground." He gripped her shoulder. "And you saved Reorn and gods know how many other people from Helena's dagger."
Caina nodded. She wished she had not lost her father and so many others. But if she had been able to save the fathers and mothers and sons and daughters of so many others because of what had happened to her...well, she supposed she could live with it.
"And," said Halfdan, "you may have the chance to save more lives."
"How?" said Caina.
"Naelon Icaraeus," said Halfdan. "Do you know the name?"
Caina frowned. "One of Lord Haeron's sons, isn't he? He fled the Empire after Haeron fell."
"He is running a slaving operation out of Marsis," said Halfdan. "The Emperor wants him found. I could use your help."
Caina nodded. "You have it."
They kept walking. Someday, she knew, she would have the chance to rest.
But until then, there were women like Helena and men like Naelon Icaraeus preying upon the weak.
Until Caina stopped them.
THE END
Thank you for reading GHOST DAGGER. If you enjoyed Caina's adventure, turn the page for a sample chapter of CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, the free first novel in THE GHOSTS series.
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Bonus Chapter - Child of the Ghosts
Here is a bonus chapter from CHILD OF THE GHOSTS, from THE GHOSTS series of sword-and-sorcery novels.
Caina loved her father’s library.
It had high windows, with a fine view of the town and rippling Bay of Empire beyond. Her father’s desk stood by those windows, covered with papers and books and curiosities he had picked up over the years. Count Sebastian Amalas worked there in the evenings, writing and sealing letters with his heavy gold signet ring. Caina liked to sit on the nearby couch, reading as he wrote.
He had taught her to read when she was three or four years old. First in the High Nighmarian tongue, as befit the daughter of an Imperial Count. Then in Caerish, the commoners' language, and then in the tongues of the eastern Empire; Saddaic, Disali, Kagarish, Cyrican and Anshani. His library held books in all those languages and more,
and Caina devoured them, working her way through his oak shelves over and over again, reading new books as her father bought them from printers in the Imperial capital. Sometimes she spent all day in the library, and old Azaia the cook brought her meals, and Caina read as she ate.
“You read too much, daughter,” her father said, with a slight smile.
“No, I don’t,” she answered. “If you’re meeting with the town's decimvirs, you should just tell me to use another room.”
Count Sebastian lifted an eyebrow. “And just how do you know that I’m meeting with the decimvirs?”
“Because,” said Caina. “You always meet with petitioners at your desk. You don’t care if I overhear those. But if you’re meeting with the decimvirs, that means you’re discussing criminal cases, which don’t want to discuss in front of me.” She stood from the couch. “I’ll go read in the solar.”
Sebastian laughed, leaned down, kissed her forehead. “Why do I even try to keep secrets from you, my clever child?”
Caina smiled, picked up her book, and left the library, her skirts whispering against the polished marble floors of the villa's corridors. Busts of long-dead Emperors stood in niches, gazing down with stern marble eyes. Sebastian was a Loyalist, and so he had busts of Emperors like Soterius, who had ended slavery in the Empire, or Helioran, who had forced the magi to abide by Imperial law. Caina had read about them in her father’s books of history.
She opened the solar door and stopped.
Her mother stood at the windows, gazing down at the sea with a scowl.
Caina slipped away before her mother could notice her.
She loved her father’s library. It gave her a place to hide from her mother.
###
Caina was eleven years old, and she could not remember ever hearing a kind word from her mother.
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