Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 09 - Ghost in the Surge

by Jonathan Moeller

  “She’s in the netherworld now,” said Caina. The Surge nodded. “Why? To open a gate to challenge the gods?”

  “You speak truly,” said the Surge. “Even I do not know what realm lies beyond the netherworld. Such sight has not been given to me. Yet the Moroaica has gone to the netherworld to rip open a portal to the realm beyond and destroy the gods. She wields the Staff of the Elements, and so long as she carries it, she can draw more and more power from the elementals awakening here.”

  “That’s why the rift is getting larger, isn’t it?” said Corvalis, and the Surge’s silver-glowing eyes shifted toward him. “She draws more and more power to open her portal to the realm of the gods, but to pull the power through, it has to make the gate here larger.”

  “You see truly, consort of the Balarigar,” said the Surge. He snorted at the title. “Even the twisted world unfolding below us will not come to pass if the Moroaica succeeds. The power needed to open a gate to the realm beyond the netherworld is immense. She will draw so much power that the gate over the Pyramid will expand until it shatters the material world into dust.”

  “If we kill her,” said Caina, “we can stop it? Or is it already too late?”

  “No,” said the Surge. “She is the axis of the spell. If she is killed while in the netherworld, the axis shatters. The spell will unravel, and her great work shall be left incomplete.”

  “Then we find her and kill her,” said Caina. “For the final time.”

  “It will not be so easy,” said the Surge.

  “Of course not,” said Caina. “She is a powerful sorceress. But Talekhris has power of his own,” she gestured at the Sage, “and we have ghostsilver weapons that can penetrate her wards.”

  “This is so,” said the Surge. “But I can see the shadows of the future, the path of the storm of the world. Heed me! You can defeat the Moroaica, but she must first defeat herself.”

  “Defeat herself?” said Caina. “What does that even mean?”

  “She must overcome herself,” said the Surge. “Her sorcery is mighty, her mind cunning and deep. Yet her will is frozen, her heart locked. She must first defeat herself.”

  “You speak in riddles,” said Caina. “What do you mean?”

  The Surge’s silver eyes met hers. “I am sorry for the price you shall pay, if you are victorious.”

  What did that mean? That Caina would lose her life if the Moroaica was defeated? That they all would lose their lives? She did not want to die. She most certainly did not want Corvalis to die. She did not want anyone to die.

  But if they had to die to stop Jadriga…then that was the price they would pay. They were still Ghosts of the Emperor, at least until Lord Corbould worked his will. Caina’s feet had been upon this path for eleven years, half her life, ever since Maglarion and her mother had murdered her father, and she had vowed never to let it happen again, to stop men like Maglarion.

  She would walk this path to the end.

  “Ghost,” said Talekhris. “We cannot linger.”

  “You’re right,” said Caina.

  “Go,” said the Surge, “and may your valor hold true to the end.”

  Caina walked past her without another word and came to the spire of ice.

  She put a boot upon the first step, expecting it to be slick. Yet the ice felt as firm and rough as rock, and Caina found that she could climb with ease. She braced one hand against the spire, and the ice felt pleasantly cool beneath her fingers, though it tingled with sorcery.

  “Come on,” said Caina, and she started up the winding stairs, moving as fast as she dared. Up and up they climbed, the golden vortex drawing nearer. Already from the top of the Pyramid she saw the whole of New Kyre, but as they climbed higher, she saw the sea stretching away to the west and the plains outside the walls.

  Everywhere she saw golden fire as the burning dead made their way across the plain and rose from the waters. A mass of golden flame blazed before the base of the Pyramid in the Agora, and Caina hoped that Ark and Kylon and Claudia and Martin were holding their own.

  But the only way Caina could help them was by killing the Moroaica.

  She kept climbing.

  Soon the vortex blazed a dozen feet above her head, wave after wave of terrible sorcery washing through her. The sense of arcane force was so powerful it made her bones hurt, and she took care to keep her balance. It would be a poor joke to have come all this way only to trip and fall to her death from such a height. New Kyre seemed like a toy city spread out beneath her, a child’s model.

  Yet people were dying down there.

  One final step, and the vortex writhed a foot above Caina’s head, an enormous sheet of golden flame that spread in every direction. Strange that it was so silent, that it gave off no heat. Yet sorcerous power radiated from it in terrible waves.

  She took a deep breath, looked down at Corvalis.

  “I love you,” said Corvalis. “Whatever happens next. Remember that.”

  She managed to nod. “I love you, too.”

  “Go,” said Talekhris. “If we can defeat the Moroaica, you shall have all the time in the world to exchange endearments.”

  Caina nodded, took another deep breath, and climbed the final step.

  She walked into the blazing sheet of golden fire.

  ###

  The netherworld screamed around Jadriga, shuddering from the power she had summoned. Here reality was fluid and reshaped by the power of thought, and sorcery was a form of thought.

  And Jadriga had drawn a tremendous amount of sorcerous power into the netherworld.

  A blazing tear of white light shone before her, widening with the might of her spell. The arcane strength of the elemental princes tore into the netherworld, and the gash of white fire widened, opening into a gate to the realm beyond, the realm of the gods.

  And once it was open, Jadriga would fling the gathered power of the elemental princes through the gate.

  The gods would burn for what they had done. Even if there was a high god, he too would burn.

  Jadriga summoned more power…and paused.

  She sensed the presence of others within the netherworld.

  Caina Amalas.

  It had to be. There was no one else who could have done it…and had the Surge not predicted it?

  Idly she wondered how Sicarion had died, and decided that she did not care.

  Not now, not when she was so close to creating a world of immortals, a world free of death and suffering.

  Briefly she wondered if Corvalis had come with Caina, and a tide of emotion surged through Jadriga…

  She shoved it aside. Those memories did not belong to her.

  And she would not allow Caina to jeopardize the new and better the world, her vengeance upon the gods.

  She turned to face the gate back to the material world and began casting a new spell.

  Chapter 22 - The Netherworld

  A sheet of gray mist swallowed Caina.

  Utter silence covered her. The mist absorbed even the noise of her footsteps. She heard nothing but her heartbeat and the steady rasp of her breath. Caina looked around in alarm, but saw neither Corvalis nor Talekhris.

  Had the gate deposited them somewhere else? Or it had trapped them here, in this misty place between the worlds? Perhaps Jadriga had anticipated that someone would pursue her, and had left a defense upon the gate.

  Then why bother leaving the spire of ice standing?

  Caina took another step, and the mist billowed away into nothingness.

  And once more she found herself standing in the netherworld.

  It had changed little from her last visit. The gray, featureless plain stretched away in all directions, the colorless grasses waving in a wind she did not feel. Black clouds billowed and rippled over the sky, moving far faster than clouds ever did in the material world, green lightning leaping silently from thunderhead to thunderhead. Strange objects floated overhead, pieces of broken statues, stairs that went nowhere, towers and trees that
hung upside down.

  From time to time the terrain changed, the plains shifting to barren black trees, or a stagnant gray swamp, or a glittering desert of black glass. Caina knew that she could control the terrain with her thoughts, that if she stayed long enough the landscape would start mirroring her unconscious mind.

  She turned, seeking Corvalis and Talekhris, and realized that something was wrong.

  The first sign was the hum. She felt it just at the edge of her hearing, a low tearing that sounded like stressed metal, like a cuirass slowly being torn in half. A strange vibration went through the ground beneath her boots.

  She sought the source of the hum, and saw the white light.

  It was a tear in the sky, like the one over the Pyramid of Storm. Yet it was fashioned of brilliant white light, more light pouring out of it, so bright Caina had to squint. Looking at it made her head hurt, and the tear seemed to grow larger and larger.

  “The gate to the realm beyond.”

  Caina turned as Corvalis and Talekhris moved closer. Behind them she saw the spire of ice rising from the ground of the netherworld. The vortex of golden fire stretched beyond the spire, and she glimpsed New Kyre through the gate, far below.

  “That’s it, then?” said Corvalis, the ghostsilver spear in his right hand. The blade gleamed with a pale white glow as the ghostsilver reacted to the netherworld’s ambient power. “A gate to…the next life, or the home of the gods?”

  “It is,” said Talekhris. “Sorcerers often visit the netherworld in the flesh, particularly the Alchemists of Istarinmul. But no one has ever visited the realm beyond while wearing mortal flesh.”

  “Jadriga doesn’t plan to visit it,” said Caina. “She plans to burn it.”

  “When the gate is open wide enough,” said Talekhris. “She will draw the power of the awakening elemental princes, pull it through the gate to our world, and unleash it upon the realm beyond.”

  “Would that work?” said Corvalis. “Could she truly kill the gods themselves?”

  “I do not know,” said Talekhris. “Perhaps the philosophers are right, and there is only one high god who will act to stop her. But we cannot take the chance. The very attempt will shatter the material world.”

  “Then perhaps we should hurry,” said Corvalis.

  “We need not,” said Talekhris. “Time flows differently in the netherworld. We could spend weeks here, and if we survive and return to the material world, from their perspective it will seem like only a few hours have passed.”

  “That may be so,” said Caina, “but we should not leave Jadriga time for her work.”

  “Lead on,” said Talekhris.

  Caina nodded and head towards the white glow, the ghostsilver dagger shining in her right hand. Corvalis walked at her right, the spear ready, while Talekhris hobbled along on her left.

  “Be wary,” said Talekhris. “The netherworld is psychomorphic.”

  “Long word,” said Corvalis.

  “It mirrors your thoughts,” said Caina. “Not at first, but gradually, as it settles around you. You can control it, if you concentrate, but not always.”

  “Sometimes when two sorcerers cross paths here,” said Talekhris, “they will duel with thought, not sorcery, and try to kill one another by altering the environment around them, by turning the air to flame or stone.”

  “I suspect that will not work against the Moroaica,” said Corvalis, “if she has often journeyed here.”

  “No,” said Caina, remembering her last conversation with Jadriga in the netherworld. “It won’t.”

  “Our strategy is plain,” said Talekhris. “I will engage the Moroaica with my spells, and hold her attention. One of you must then strike her with your ghostsilver weapons. With your shadow-cloaks, you can keep her from sensing your presence until it is too late.”

  Caina nodded and drew up the hood of her shadow-cloak, as did Corvalis. The cloak billowed and rippled around them in the strange wind, reacting to the sorcerous power of the netherworld, but hopefully the cloaks would shield their thoughts from Jadriga’s arcane senses.

  “Can you hide yourself from Jadriga?” said Caina.

  “No,” said Talekhris. “I am simply too powerful. The minute I stepped through the gate, she knew I was here. She may likely have some defenses prepared.”

  “Then let’s find out what they are,” said Caina.

  Caina’s eyes swept the shifting terrain, fearing an attack from phobomorphic spirits or renegade elementals, but she saw no sign of any attackers. Perhaps Talekhris’s power had frightened off the prowling spirits of the netherworld.

  Then the humming, tearing sound grew louder, and the netherworld rippled and changed around Caina.

  The grassy gray plain vanished, white walls rising from the earth. The walls came together to form whitewashed houses with flat roofs. Thousands upon thousands of houses – a great city. In the distance she saw splendid temples and palaces built of white stone, their sides covered in hieroglyphs, their columns sheathed in gold. Under the sun, Caina knew, they would shine like brilliant jewels.

  Under the sky of the netherworld, they looked cold and dead.

  “What is this place?” said Corvalis. “Something from your memories? I have never seen it before.”

  “No,” said Caina. “Not ours, but the Moroaica’s. This was the capital of the Kingdom of the Rising Sun, long ago. It was where she was born. It was where Rhames killed her father and turned her into one of the Undying.”

  “Khaset,” said Talekhris, his jade mask turning back and forth. “The city’s name was Khaset.”

  “How do you know that?” said Caina.

  “Because I know the history of the Sages,” said Talekhris. “You recall that the Sages were once the artificers of the Great Necromancers of Maat, just as the Alchemists were their apothecaries? The history of Khaset is preserved in the history of my order.” He pointed at one of the massive temples. “The precursors of the Sages were housed there, near the temple of Anubankh. And that is where we shall find the Moroaica.”

  “Why is that?” said Caina.

  “Because the temple of Anubankh,” said Talekhris, “is where she stood when she set Khaset to burn.”

  The sky flickered overhead.

  And fire began to rain from the heavens. Caina threw up her arm to shield her face, but she felt no heat from the flames. She lowered her arm as globes of burning stone fell from the skies, slamming into the temples and palaces of the pharaoh and the gods of Maat. The center of Khaset burned in an inferno of liquid stone and ashes, and the firestorm spread through the rest of the city, devouring the houses of the rich and the poor alike. The flames roared past Caina without touching her or the others, and she realized it was only an illusion, the netherworld shaping itself around the memory of Jadriga’s past.

  The flames vanished, leaving the city a crater of rubble and smoke…and then Khaset rose again from the ashes, rebuilt anew. Caina blinked in surprise, and the balls of fire began to fall from the sky once more.

  It was the same memory, replayed over and over again.

  “If she is reshaping the netherworld to her defense,” said Corvalis, grunting as he tapped a whitewashed wall with the end of his spear, “then this is a poor way to go about it.”

  “She isn’t,” said Caina. “She’s thinking about it, though. This is when she destroyed Maat, when she threw down the pharaohs and the Great Necromancers. When she repaid them for the death of her father. That’s what she thinks she is doing now by trying to destroy the gods.” She looked at Talekhris. “You said she’ll be at the temple of Anubankh?”

  “Yes,” said Talekhris. “Our history records that is where she cast the spell that destroyed Khaset and shattered the Kingdom of the Rising Sun. Though why she cast it there, we know not…”

  “I do,” said Caina. “Anubankh was the Maatish god of necromancy. You said the Great Necromancers were housed in the temple. That was where Rhames would have turned Jadriga into one of the Undying.
Do you know the way?”

  The Sage nodded, and Talekhris led the way through the narrow streets of Khaset’s poorer districts. Again the city burned around them, only to rise over and over again. Caina looked at the whitewashed houses of the Maatish commoners and wondered if Jadriga had killed them all.

  They came to the vast plaza before the temple of Anubankh.

  The temple was a huge structure of stone, all pylons and columns and soaring obelisks. Its sides had been sheathed in gold, and Caina saw countless reliefs showing the glory of Maat and its pharaohs, displaying their victories over lesser peoples. A pair of massive obelisks sheathed in electrum rose from the center of the plaza, their sides carved with thousands of Maatish hieroglyphs.

  Between the obelisks stood three tall figures draped in ragged black robes, their faces concealed beneath cowls.

  Talekhris stopped and leveled his rod at the cloaked figures.

  Caina suspected they were not part of Jadriga’s memory.

  “What are they?” said Caina. “Jadriga’s defenses?”

  “Aye,” said Talekhris, sweeping his rod before him as the great temple fell and burned and rose again in the space of a few heartbeats.

  “Phobomorphic spirits?” said Caina. They resembled the phobomorphic spirits she had seen after Sinan had sent her into the netherworld. Yet why hadn’t they changed form? These spirits had an air of menace, of power, that Caina did not recall from the phobomorphic spirits she had fought.

  “No, much worse,” said Talekhris. “Mirrorshades. High mirrorshades, to be precise. They can duplicate you precisely, use all your strengths against your weaknesses.”

  “One for each of us, too,” said Corvalis. “How thoughtful.”

  “How do we defeat them?” said Caina. She assumed the mirrorshade spirits would not simply let them walk past.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” said Talekhris.

  The spirits stepped forward, their robes rippling, and they changed.

  And Caina stared at an exact duplicate of herself.