“Corvalis,” whispered Jadriga. “I…I…”
She slumped against the steps of the dais as her heart stopped, her robe wet with blood, her breath fading away.
Caina gazed down at the dead woman, numb. She wondered if Jadriga’s spirit would attempt to possess her, as she had in Caer Magia, but Caina felt nothing.
Talekhris had been right.
Smoke rose from Jadriga’s wounds, and the ghostsilver weapons melted, sizzling and sputtering, and Caina sensed chaotic, broken sorcery dancing around the Moroaica’s final corpse. Jadriga had accumulated so much power over the centuries. What would happen to that power once she perished?
The corpse burned with white flames as the ghostsilver weapons melted, and Caina took a stunned step back. The temple of Anubankh cracked and splintered, the chunks shooting to the sky and vanishing. Glowing white mist swirled around Jadriga’s corpse, pulsing with sorcerous power.
And in the mist, Caina saw images take form.
The hazy, translucent form of Jadriga herself appeared, wearing the body that lay dead upon the floor. The mist swirled, pooling over the dais, and then Mihaela appeared, or at least Mihaela after her mind had been wiped and her body possessed by Jadriga. An image of Caina herself materialized, clad in her black jacket and shadow-cloak, and then the Moroaica herself as she had appeared in Marsis, a young Szaldic woman with long black hair.
Jadriga’s past. The mist was displaying the Moroaica’s past before Caina’s eyes, even as the temple and the image of Khaset shattered around her.
Dozens and dozens of women formed out of the mist, all the different bodies the Moroaica had stolen over the centuries. The mist also formed into scenes and vistas, images of Marsis and Caer Magia, of Catekharon and Khaset, of strange and alien places Caina had never seen, all the cities and kingdoms Jadriga had visited in two thousand years.
Still the Moroaica’s final body burned, the ghostsilver weapons melting as her sorcery collapsed.
And as the roof of the temple ripped away, Khaset burning around them, the corpse crumbled into smoking ashes. In its place knelt a beautiful girl of about fifteen, wearing only a thin white shift, her long black hair hanging around her shoulders, her black eyes filled with tears. She wept and wept, sobbing with grief for her lost father.
Malifae.
The girl the Moroaica had been so long ago.
“Father,” moaned Malifae, rocking back and forth, “father, father, father, father…”
“My daughter, I am here.”
Caina blinked.
The mist dissolved away, and in its place stood a stout middle-aged man, sweat gleaming on his bald head. Ink stains marked his hands and forearms, and a deep, heavy sorrow filled his black eyes.
A sorrow that lifted as he looked at the weeping girl.
Malifae blinked and looked up. “Father? It…it cannot be…”
“Oh, my daughter, my poor daughter,” said Horemb. “I have watched you for so long.”
“Rhames…Rhames killed you,” said Malifae. “I saw…I saw it, I never forgot, it was all I could think of for so long…”
“I was with you,” said Horemb. “Rhames’s sorcery bound me to you, though neither you nor Rhames ever knew it. For all those years, my poor daughter, I watched as you were bound to your hate, I…”
“I did,” whispered Malifae, “I did such terrible things.”
“I know,” said Horemb. “You were Undying, chained in black sorcery, your mind frozen in hate…”
“Father!” said Malifae, and she surged to her feet, wrapped her arms around him, and buried her face in his shoulder.
And she wept and wept.
Caina stared at them, the remnants of the ghostsilver weapons and the Moroaica’s final body sizzling and crackling at her feet.
Horemb’s dark eyes met her own.
“Ghost. You have freed us,” said Horemb. “After so long, you have freed us.”
Caina said nothing, too many emotions warring through her. She wanted to crawl to Corvalis’s side and sob. She wanted to scream at Horemb and Malifae. Part of her noted that the gate upon the dais was shrinking, that the copy of Khaset was ripping itself apart, and that part of her mind wanted to run away very quickly.
“I am so, so sorry,” said Horemb, “for everything you have lost.” Malifae sobbed into his shoulder, shaking, and would have fallen if not for his arm.
“I…” said Caina.
The bones of the Moroaica’s last body smoldered before her, the ghostsilver weapons twisted and unrecognizable. She wanted to kill the Moroaica for Corvalis’s death. But she had killed the Moroaica. The Moroaica had died long before Caina had even been born. She had died again and again.
All that remained was the spirit of a brutalized girl, sobbing into her father’s shoulder.
“She,” said Caina, “she is beyond all vengeance now.”
“You could come with us,” said Horemb as Malifae wept.
“Where?” said Caina.
“To the realm beyond,” said Horemb. “I have seen your memories, Caina Amalas. Those you have lost await you there. You can join them. If you are ready.”
Caina said nothing, unable to think through the storm of rage and exhaustion and grief that clouded her mind. It sounded so easy. To simply let go, to rest at last. Perhaps her father and Halfdan and Corvalis awaited her beyond the gate.
But part of her heart recoiled at the idea. She had been prepared to die fighting alongside Corvalis. She had been prepared to die stopping the Moroaica. But she was not prepared to die in the netherworld as Jadriga’s gate collapsed around her.
“I see,” said Horemb at last. “Then go, quickly. The gate to the realm of the living will not last much longer. I wish I could reward you for all you have done. You have saved us. You have saved the world from my daughter’s slavery. I have nothing I can give you, save these words. The star is the key to the crystal.”
“What?” said Caina. “I don’t understand.”
“You will,” said Horemb. “When the time is right.” Both he and Malifae began to turn translucent, sinking into the gate behind them.
“What is happening?” said Caina.
“We are dead, my daughter and I,” said Horemb. “We died a long time ago, and Rhames’s sorcery kept us from moving to the next realm. Great harm was the result. But now you have freed us. Farewell, Balarigar, demon-slayer, breaker of chains. Know that if you choose to follow us, we shall greet you with open arms, and one day all the lives you have saved this day will rejoice at the sound of your name.”
They faded away, shrinking into the white gate as it closed around them, and Malifae looked up with her dark eyes.
“Caina,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
They disappeared into the white light, and the gate closed after them.
The ground jolted, throwing Caina to the floor of the temple. Or, at least, what had used to be the floor of the temple. It transformed back to the colorless gray grass of the netherworld as the Moroaica’s memory of Khaset unraveled around her. The walls of the temple faded like mist, and the flames of the inferno that had consumed the city vanished.
But the shaking got worse.
Power, all that power. The Moroaica had wielded unmatched sorcerous might, and had bound the power of the elemental lords within her. Now that she had died the final death, what would happen to all that power?
Caina suspected she was about to find out.
The shaking got worse, nets of green lightning snarling across the black sky. Pieces of Khaset and the temple ripped up from the dissolving memory and shot into the sky, floating alongside the upside-down towers and uprooted trees. Caina stood and broke into a stumbling run.
She saw Corvalis’s body lying in the grass and fell to her knees alongside him, a wave of fresh agony stabbing into her heart. She could not leave him, not like this.
Green lightning fell from the sky, tearing smoking chunks from the grassy plain.
Parts of the ground began to melt, turning into bubbling lava.
Was she ready to die here?
She thought that she was.
But would Corvalis want her to die here, when the gate still waited to the material world?
“I love you,” whispered Caina, kissing his cooling lips one last time.
Then she got to her feet and sprinted, dodging around the disintegrating walls of Khaset and the spreading pools of lava. The ground jumped and heaved beneath her boots, and she almost lost her balance and fell. A searing wind howled around her, threatening to knock her over. Perhaps the powers Jadriga had unleashed would kill her before she even reached the gate.
Then she saw the gate’s golden glow.
It had shrunk considerably, but Caina still saw the hazy shape of New Kyre through the golden flames, the icy spire jutting from its heart. The gate shrank, the golden fires dimming as the spell unraveled.
Caina summoned once last burst of speed, jumped, and slammed into the frozen spire. Her boots found purchase on the steps, and she scrambled down them as the gate closed above her.
Again gray mist swallowed her, and when it cleared she found herself two thousand feet above New Kyre, a thousand feet above the apex of the Pyramid of Storm, the vast gray sheet of the sea spreading away to the west.
Caina stumbled down three steps.
The spire shuddered, cracks spreading down its length.
“Oh,” said Caina, the final realization coming to her.
Jadriga’s spells had maintained the spire, and Jadriga was dead.
It seemed that Corvalis and Halfdan and her father would not have to wait for her in the realm beyond for very long after all.
The thought was a relief.
The spire shuddered, its massive length splintering, and Caina lost her balance and fell, the Agora of Archons rushing to meet her.
Chapter 25 - Storm
“Hold!” roared Ark, lashing out with his frost-wreathed sword. “Hold, damn you all! Hold!”
But he doubted the Legionaries and the ashtairoi could obey for much longer.
Thousands of the golden dead filled the Agora of Archons, charging the base of the Pyramid in waves of mutated flesh. They seemed drawn to the golden fire of the rift overhead, like moths drawn to flame.
Or sharks to blood in the water.
Perhaps that was for the best. It kept the golden dead from swarming through the rest of the city, from attacking the commoners in their homes.
On the other hand, once the golden dead killed the Guards and the ashtairoi, they could turn their attention to the rest of New Kyre’s population at leisure.
The surviving Legionaries and ashtairoi had been driven back to the base of the Pyramid, some even forced up to the second tier. The sorcerous cold of the stormsingers was not as effective as Talekhris’s spell, but it did help.
Without it, Ark was sure they would have been overrun long ago.
But they could not hold forever.
Ark thrust his sword, the icy steel jamming into the shoulder of a creature with two heads and five arms. The creature shrieked, reaching for him, but the ice of the blade quenched the golden flames dancing in its eyes, and it fell, joining the others that lay strewn about the base of the Pyramid.
Three more surged forward to take its place. The stormsingers and the battle magi blurred through the mass of golden dead. Ark had used them to break up charges, but now they fought constantly. There was no good reason to hold them back. The golden dead came on in endless waves. Ark saw Kylon strike down three of the golden dead, jump over their heads, and kill two more.
It did not make a dent in the sea of mutated flesh.
A huge creature, a thing that looked like three corpses mashed together, slammed into the lines of the Imperial Guard. It killed four Guards in the space of a heartbeat, ripping them to shreds, and at once golden fire glimmered around the dead Guards.
The line wavered, and Ark knew the battle was lost. The Guards and the ashtairoi would fight to the last man as the golden dead swarmed over them, but the battle was over. A dozen different possibilities blurred through Ark’s mind as he struck down another deformed corpse. Perhaps he could cut his way to the Emperor, try to get him and Lord Corbould out.
But what was the use? Perhaps it was better to simply fight until his aching arms and burning lungs finally gave out.
Ark raised his sword to strike down another golden dead, and the creature went motionless.
He stabbed, and golden dead made no move to block. The blade sank into the mutated flesh, the frost quenching the golden fire, and the creature collapsed. Ark ripped his blade free, looking for another target.
But the golden dead had gone motionless.
All of them stood frozen. Ark looked back and forth, wondering if it was a trick of some kind, but the creatures had not shown any level of cunning. Then the golden fire winked out in the eyes of the golden dead, every single one of them at once.
A few heartbeats later they collapsed motionless.
Ark looked around, stunned. The golden dead carpeted the flagstones of the Plaza. He prodded one with his sword, but the creature did not react. For that matter, he saw no sign of the golden flames anywhere. The fires had not reappeared.
The silence went on and on.
“She did it,” muttered Ark, looking at the burning rift in the sky.
“Lord Champion?” said one of the Guards. “What…what do we do now?”
“Get one of the magi,” said Ark.
###
Claudia cast another sensing spell, sweeping her hands over the waiting corpses.
Nothing.
“The sorcery is gone, just…gone,” she said, not quite able to believe it. “The spell is broken.”
Lord Corbould scowled at the golden dead. “Then why is that thing still there?”
He pointed at the gate in the sky.
“It won’t be for much longer,” said Ark. “It’s shrinking.”
The rift was closing itself, shrinking faster and faster. Another few moments and it would vanish entirely. The golden light vanished from the icy spire, and it began to tremble.
Her hands curled into tight fists.
Corvalis was up there. If he didn’t get out soon, the rift would close, trapping him in the netherworld. She wanted to run up the spire and help him, but she knew it was futile. The gate would collapse long before she could get even a third of the way up.
The vortex shrank, spinning around the spire, and Claudia bit her lip.
A dark figure half-stumbled, half fell out of the vortex.
But just one.
Claudia could not see if it was Caina or Corvalis or the Sage who had exited the gate.
The gate snapped closed, and the crystalline spire shattered.
The dark figure tumbled into space, a shadow-cloak billowing behind.
Claudia’s hands flew to her mouth.
“Kylon!” Thalastre shouted.
###
Kylon looked at the tumbling figure, and then back at his wife.
“Go!” Thalastre said. Her hair was in disarray, her gown and face smudged from the wrath of her sorcery, but she was unharmed. “You know what to do. I’ll catch you. Go!”
He nodded, rammed his sword into its scabbard, and drew upon the sorcery of air, as much as he could hold.
Then he sprinted up the stairs of the Pyramid in a hurricane blur, shooting past the startled nobles. He veered right, running along the terrace of the pyramid, dodging past statues and shrines, summoning the power of water sorcery to augment his strength.
He felt Thalastre’s power close around him, the winds rising at her command.
The edge of the terrace came, and he jumped, his sorcery augmenting his leap, the winds rising to lift him as Thalastre summoned them.
And he shot from the Pyramid like a stone hurtled from a catapult.
Any other time, the sensation would have been exhilarating. Or terrifying. Now he was focused on the da
rk figure tumbling head over heels. He caught a glimpse of Caina’s face, her eyes closed.
He slammed into her at the apex of his leap, and her eyes opened wide with surprise.
He wrapped his arms around her, and they plummeted toward the Agora, moving with speed enough to splatter them across the ground.
But Thalastre’s sorcery of wind howled around them, slowing their descent…
But not enough.
They hit the ground hard, and Caina bounced out of Kylon’s arms. He rolled, summoning the sorcery of water to strengthen him, and came to a stop thirty yards away. Every muscle ached, and every inch of his body throbbed, but he was still alive.
He heaved himself to his feet and staggered across the Agora.
Thalastre reached him first, her skirts in her hands as she ran.
She caught him a hug. “You made it.”
“You caught me,” said Kylon.
They hurried to where Caina lay motionless. Her eyes were closed, blood streaming down her temple. But she was still alive.
Others joined them. Ark and Lord Martin, and Claudia Aberon. Lord Corbould and Lord Titus. Tiraedes and the other lords of the Assembly.
The Emperor himself.
“It appears the woman was correct, my lord Emperor,” said Tiraedes.
“Indeed,” said the Emperor.
###
Claudia Aberon gazed at the motionless form of Caina Amalas.
“She was victorious,” said Lord Titus, but Claudia barely heard him.
Talekhris, Corvalis, and Caina had gone into the rift together, and only Caina had come out.
Corvalis was dead.
“I demand that you arrest this woman at once,” said Corbould.
“Why?” said Titus. “Clearly her warnings were correct.”
“And without her efforts,” said Kylon, “we would all be dead.”
“She murdered my son,” said Corbould.
“And she killed dozens of Ghosts in Malarae,” said Lord Aeolus.
“Kill her,” said Corbould. “Now.”
“Perhaps that would be safest,” said Aeolus.
“No,” said Ark. “Are you blind? I…”
Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 09 - Ghost in the Surge Page 28
