Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 09 - Ghost in the Surge

by Jonathan Moeller

“Not again,” she muttered.

  Sicarion’s illusion had shown her dressed in finery, her hair and makeup elaborately arranged. The mirrorshade spirit had simply duplicated her appearance – a short, lean woman in men’s clothing and leather armor, a glowing dagger in her right hand, her blond hair going black at the roots and blue eyes like disks of ice.

  Did she really look wrathful, so exhausted?

  Not surprising, given what had happened in the last few weeks.

  The other two spirits changed, mimicking Corvalis and Talekhris perfectly.

  “Defend yourselves!” shouted Talekhris, casting a spell, and the spirits moved.

  Caina’s duplicate and Corvalis’s charged, while the false Talekhris began casting a spell, purple fire flaring around his rod. Caina pivoted, intending to aid Corvalis against his double, but it was too late. Her duplicate raised her arm, a throwing knife glinting in her fingers, and Caina had to dodge. The blade hurtled past her ear, bouncing off the flagstones as Khaset burned and rose.

  The mirrorshade might have been a spirit, but here its blades could kill.

  The duplicate lunged at her with a curved dagger, and Caina had to fight.

  Caina knew how to fight with knives, with her bare hands. She had practiced for years under an exiled Kyracian master of unarmed fighting who had trained stormdancers, had learned the use of blades from Halfdan and Riogan. She had used knives and daggers to kill more men than she could recall.

  But her duplicate pressed her hard, the mirrorshade’s dagger a white-gleaming blur. Caina backed away, breathing hard, her shadow-cloak billowing around her. She tried again and again to penetrate the duplicate’s defenses, but the mirrorshade anticipated her every attack.

  Given that it could read her mind, even with the shadow-cloak, that was not surprising.

  Caina jumped back, ghostsilver dagger in her right hand, throwing knife in her left. She saw Corvalis battling his duplicate in a blur of spears, each moving with deadly speed and grace. Talekhris and his mirrorshade flung blasts of arcane power at each other. She could expect no help from them, not while their duplicates battled them.

  But neither could she aid them.

  Her duplicate stalked after her, dagger held low, blue eyes tight and focused.

  “Lie down and die, mortal fleshling,” hissed the duplicate. “You cannot prevail against me. You know you cannot.”

  “Oh, I get it,” said Caina. “Now you’re going to spit out all my worst fears at me, is that it? That it was my fault Halfdan died?” She slashed, and the false Caina jumped back. “Or that I’ll never have children? Or you’ll show me the death of Corvalis? Or the world burning if your mistress prevails? Come on, let’s get it over with. I tire of these little horror shows.”

  “So confident,” said the mirrorshade. “Will you be so bold if I look like this?”

  Her form blurred, and the duplicate became someone else.

  Specifically, Maglarion.

  Caina’s skin crawled with revulsion. Maglarion looked just as he did the day he had killed her father, clad in the dusty black coat and trousers of a minor Nighmarian noble, the bloodcrystal that had replaced his left eye concealed behind an eye patch. The dagger that had cut the throat of Sebastian Amalas gleamed in his right hand.

  “Do you remember this?” said Maglarion.

  “All too well,” said Caina. “Though you picked a poor form to wear. Maglarion is dead. He fell five hundred feet to his death. I suggest you follow the example of the original.”

  Maglarion hissed and attacked with the dagger, wielding it with the same skill that the false Caina had shown. Caina retreated, dodging and ducking under the strikes, trying to land a blow of her own. But the mirrorshade anticipated every movement she made, and always avoided the blows in the last instant.

  “Or this?” said Maglarion, and the mirrorshade became a duplicate of Kalastus, his black robes flying around him, eyes glittering with madness. “Or would you prefer this?” Kalastus transformed into Ranarius as Caina had seen him in Cyrioch, tall and austere and sneering. “Or perhaps me?” Ranarius became Rhames, the withered, undead Great Necromancer clad in an ornamented robe of red and black. “How should you like to die, Caina Amalas who once was of the Ghosts?”

  “Stop talking and fight,” said Caina.

  “As you wish,” said Rhames, blurring to take Caina’s form once more.

  Through all the changes of form, the mirrorshade flung knives and slashed with the dagger, and Caina only just managed to dodge the blows. Around her the plaza blazed into ruin and rose and burned once more. Talekhris and his duplicate exchanged volleys of sorcerous light, while Corvalis and his mirrorshade danced around each other, their spears a blur.

  Yet only Talekhris’s duplicate used sorcery. All the mirrorshades had the ability to cast spells, surely. Caina’s had even taken the form of several different sorcerers. Yet her mirrorshade never attempted to cast spells, but only attacked with a dagger.

  Why?

  Because Caina herself could not cast spells. Because the spirit was mirroring her. It could take forms from her past. It could attack her using her skills with knife and dagger. But it could not use sorcery against her.

  It could only use what she possessed.

  Including, perhaps, her weapons?

  A wild, reckless idea took hold in Caina’s mind. She dropped her ghostsilver dagger, the weapon clattering against the white flagstones of the plaza. The mirrorshade hesitated, and Caina yanked off her belt and its sheathed throwing knives, dropped it to the ground, and pulled the daggers from her boots and discarded them.

  She tensed, preparing to dodge if her duplicate attacked.

  But the mirrorshade remained motionless.

  “Ah,” said the duplicate, and the dagger in her hand dissolved into mist. “Very clever. Very clever, indeed.”

  Then she flickered, wavered, and vanished from sight.

  Caina held her breath, but the mirrorshade did not return. She scooped up her weapons, but still it did not reappear.

  Her gambit had worked.

  “Throw down your weapons!” she shouted, running for Corvalis and Talekhris. Both men battled their duplicates, light flashing back and forth between Talekhris and his mirrorshade. “Throw down your weapons! Talekhris, release your spells.”

  “But…” said Talekhris, risking a glance in her direction.

  “Do it now!” said Caina.

  Corvalis dropped his spear, and Talekhris lowered his rod, the snarling light of his defensive spells fading away.

  Both their mirrorshades froze. The copy of the ghostsilver spear in the hands of Corvalis’s duplicate rippled into smoke and drifted away. Talekhris dropped his rod and pulled off his jade mask, and his mirrorshade did the same.

  For a moment they all stared at each other.

  Then the mirrorshades dissolved into smoke and vanished.

  “What did you do?” said Corvalis, blinking.

  Talekhris chuckled. “I should have thought of it myself. The mirrorshades…well, mirrored us. They took our strengths and reflected them back upon us. So if we wanted to defeat them…”

  “Then the only way was not to fight them at all,” said Corvalis. He picked up the ghostsilver spear. “A pity we won’t be able to deal with the Moroaica so easily.”

  “No,” said Caina. The last time she had actually fought the Moroaica had been in the darkness below Marsis, and Jadriga had overpowered her easily. And even when Caina had prevailed, Jadriga’s spirit had possessed her body, waiting to take a new host.

  But not this time.

  Either Caina would stop Jadriga, or Jadriga would kill her and destroy the world.

  She looked into the temple and saw the white glow deep within its depths.

  The gate to the realm beyond.

  She looked at the others and nodded, and they walked into the temple of Anubankh.

  Chapter 23 - They Shall Pay For What They Have Done

  Nothing moved in the temple.<
br />
  The strange repetition, the destruction of Khaset over and over again, stopped as soon as they set foot inside. Perhaps it was an aspect of Jadriga’s memory. Perhaps she had seen Khaset burn, but not the interior of the temple of Anubankh.

  Or perhaps, Caina thought, Jadriga did not want the illusionary fire to hinder her aim.

  They walked deep into the temple, past pylons carved with elaborate scenes of Maatish conquest, past rows of sphinxes watching them with frozen stone eyes. The white light grew brighter, and again Caina felt the presence of mighty sorcery.

  At last they came to a vast hypostyle hall, its lofty ceiling supported by pillars thick as ancient oaks. A dais rose at the far end of the hall, and Caina suspected that a stone image of Anubankh had once stood there, looking down upon his priests and worshippers. Stone tables dotted the hall here and there, and Caina realized this was where the Great Necromancers had converted their victims into Undying slaves.

  Most of the far wall had been ripped away. In its place blazed a rift of white light, a tear in the air, growing as Caina watched. It should have been blinding, yet Caina could look into it without pain. Beyond the sorcerous gate, she saw nothing but whiteness.

  The humming, tearing noise was very loud in here.

  A woman stood before the dais, silhouetted in the white glow from the rift. She held a metal staff in her left hand, and turned as Caina and the others approached. She looked Caerish and no more than twenty, with brown eyes and hair the color of wheat.

  But Caina would know those ancient, heavy eyes anywhere.

  “So,” said the Moroaica. “You have arrived.”

  “You noticed,” said Caina.

  “Indeed,” said Jadriga. “Perhaps I should have anticipated it.”

  “I’m surprised the Surge didn’t warn you,” said Caina.

  “She did,” said Jadriga. “She said the Balarigar would come for me.”

  “And here I am,” said Caina.

  “Here you are,” said Jadriga. “A ridiculous myth of the Szalds. You are no more truly the Balarigar than I am the Moroaica. The legend of the Moroaica only exists because I crushed the solmonari sorcerer-priests of the Szalds long ago, and to slake their shattered pride they invented the tale of a Balarigar who would slay the demon.”

  “Perhaps,” said Talekhris, “you should have heeded the warning.”

  “And you,” said the Moroaica, her eyes shifting to him. “The Sage. Still pursuing me after all these centuries? All because of a few lessons? You should have given up and died in your sleep centuries ago.”

  “No,” said Talekhris. “It is my responsibility. All the horror you have unleashed, all the death you have wrought…you have done it with knowledge I gave you. Everything you have destroyed, I bear some of the blame.”

  “How foolishly proud,” said Jadriga. “I acquired knowledge from you, but I would have gained it elsewhere. And now you have chosen to follow Caina to destruction? So be it. I…”

  Her eyes fell across Corvalis, and she fell silent.

  He met the Moroaica’s gaze without blinking, his face a hard mask.

  A brief tremor went over Jadriga’s face, followed by an expression that looked almost like longing. It vanished quickly, but Caina saw it nonetheless. The Moroaica’s spirit had spent a year inside Caina’s head, and when she found a new body she had carried a copy of Caina’s memories with her.

  Including, apparently, Caina’s feelings for Corvalis.

  The prospect had filled Caina with panic at first. What if Jadriga decided to claim Corvalis for her own? Caina had no way to stop her. With her sorcery, she could kill Caina and take her place. Or she could reach into Corvalis’s mind and twist his thoughts.

  Yet Jadriga had done none of those things, pursuing instead the completion of the great work, and Caina had realized she never would. She had been only fifteen years old when Rhames killed her, and she had never been in love with a man the way Caina was in love with Corvalis.

  The Moroaica, the ancient sorceress of dread, did not know how to act upon the emotion.

  And even if she had known, Caina realized, it would not have mattered. Perhaps Horemb’s spirit had been right, and Jadriga no longer had free will, was locked into her course of torment until she destroyed the world and herself.

  And despite everything Caina had seen, despite the horrors Jadriga and her disciples had wreaked, she felt a stab of pity. To have those feelings, but to be unable to act on them, had to be its own form of torment. And Caina had seen her father die, and while the pain of that would never leave her, she had grown used to it over time. It had simply become part of her. But to be locked as she was when she was eleven, when she had just seen her father die, to remain that way for thousands of years…little wonder Jadriga wanted to destroy and rebuild the world.

  Caina felt sorry for her.

  But she would still stop the Moroaica.

  Jadriga’s face settled into its usual cool, remote mask. It was odd that Caina had seen the Moroaica wear three different bodies, yet still recognized that expression.

  “Then I assume Sicarion is dead?” said Jadriga.

  Caina nodded.

  “Little loss,” said the Moroaica. “He cared nothing for the purpose of my great work, only for the killing. Still, he was an effective tool.”

  “Such,” said Corvalis, “a gracious epitaph.”

  For an instant Jadriga look stung, but she shook her head.

  “It matters not,” she said. “He has served his purpose. The great work is underway. Soon every living man, woman, and child shall have been reborn through the phoenix ashes, and countless generations of the dead will rise. I shall draw upon the power of the great elemental lords, and with their strength I shall enter the realm of the gods, throw them down, and make them pay for all the cruelties they have inflicted upon us.”

  “Reborn?” said Caina. “Is that what you call it?”

  Jadriga shrugged. “There is always pain and blood in birth, is there not? But this shall be a final birth. Mortal man shall die and rise again, reborn in the power of the phoenix flames, immortal and perfect and free from…”

  “They are none of those things,” said Caina. “All you’ve done is create a world of monsters. Have you seen them? Did you go back through your damned gate to look? The dead you’ve raised aren’t perfect. They’re empty shells, with no souls and no minds, just rage and thoughtless fury. They’ll kill until there are none of the living left, and then they’ll kill each other over and over again, and every time they die and rise again they become a little more corrupted. And then when you finally awaken the elemental lords, they will raze every city, shatter every mountain, burn every forest, and boil every ocean to steam. Is that what you want? A ruined world filled with monsters? That’s what your great work has created.”

  “No,” said Jadriga. “No. You do not see. You do not understand. I am making a better world, a world free of death and pain…”

  “You are not!” said Caina, rage burning through her. All of it, Halfdan’s death, the carnage in New Kyre, all of it had been created by the vision of a madwoman, a sorceress too twisted to see the harm she would unleash. “All you’ve done is create a world of death and pain.”

  “It was already filled with death and pain!” said Jadriga, some of her calm slipping away. “The gods made it that way. Do you not see, Ghost? I have your memories. I know how you have suffered, how you watched your father die, as I did. You have seen the cruelty and the pain, the slavers, the tyrants, the corrupt lords! The gods did this to us. They made this world into a torture chamber and left us to scream. I…”

  “It was our doing, not theirs,” said Caina.

  “You defend them?” hissed Jadriga.

  “A man murdered my father, not a god,” said Caina. “A man you taught as your disciple. A man murdered your father and turned you into one of the Undying, not any god. We do it to ourselves, Jadriga. Over and over again, we torment ourselves. The pain of the world
is the work of men and women, not of gods.”

  “Then aid me,” said Jadriga.

  Caina let out a harsh laugh. “You cannot possibly be serious. After everything I have seen?”

  “Yes,” said Jadriga. “I asked for your help in the great work when we first met, and that has not changed. You think the new world is flawed? Help me to improve it. And come with me.” She tapped the butt of the Staff of the Elements against the gleaming floor, flames blazing around its length. “The gate is almost open. Soon I will enter into the realm of the gods. Then we can demand an accounting for the torments of mankind. Perhaps there is even a high god, a lord over all creation, and we can force answers from him. Do you not wish that?”

  Part of Caina, a large part of her, did wish that. Often she had lain awake at night, gazing at the ceiling, wondering why her father had died. Why Corvalis’s father had been so cruel. Why so many terrible things had happened.

  “No,” said Caina.

  “Do you not want to know why?” said Jadriga.

  “I know why,” said Caina. “I’ve always known why. There is good and evil in every heart, and our failure to stand against that evil is what works grief in the world.”

  “Profound,” said Talekhris. “You have gained wisdom, Ghost.”

  “Trite,” said Jadriga. “The world can be remade. It can be cleansed of evil. And I shall do it. Already it…”

  “By filling the world with monsters?” said Caina. “By setting it to burn and leaving it in ashes?”

  “Come with me and you will understand,” said Jadriga. She held out her free hand to Caina. “Follow me through the gate to the realm of the gods.”

  “If you open that gate,” said Talekhris, “you will rip apart the material world.”

  Jadriga ignored him. “Come with me, Ghost. Demand that the gods account for their crimes. And after we have thrown them from their thrones and made them suffer, we can return and put the new world in order.”

  “No,” said Caina. “You don’t understand. The evil in the world was made by men…and you are creating more of it. I will not join you…and I will stop you and kill you, if I can.”