GHOST IN THE MAZE
Jonathan Moeller
Description
Caina Amalas is a Ghost circlemaster, leader of the Emperor's spies in Istarinmul. Yet the people of Istarinmul know her as the Balarigar, the daring master thief who challenged the corrupt lords and cruel princes of the city.
And now Grand Master Callatas, the most powerful sorcerer of Istarinmul, wants her dead, and without allies Caina will not survive.
So when a legendary thief offers Caina a chance to rob Callatas himself, she has no choice but to join the venture.
But no one has ever escaped the dark perils of Callatas's Maze...
Ghost in the Ashes
Copyright 2014 by Jonathan Moeller
Published by Azure Flame Media, LLC
Cover design by Clarissa Yeo
All Rights Reserved
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
Chapter 1 - The Ring
Vaysaal the Master Alchemist had been assassinated that morning, so Caina Amalas decided to loot his palace.
While she often robbed the cowled masters of Istarinmul’s Slavers’ Brotherhood and the emirs of the Most Divine Padishah’s court, their wealth was not her main objective. Money was only another tool to her. Her daring thefts had created the legend of the Balarigar, the shadow-cloaked master thief and bane of the slavers. But Caina was neither a thief nor an assassin, but the circlemaster of Istarinmul’s Ghosts, the eyes and ears of the Emperor of Nighmar, and the Slavers’ Brotherhood was her foe. Disrupting their vile business would have been a worthy goal alone.
But there was more than that.
Something was wrong in Istarinmul, something that Caina did not yet understand.
The drug, the thick black elixir, was called wraithblood. When ingested, it produced euphoria and pleasing hallucinations. As its users grew more dependent upon the addictive substance, the visions darkened, changing from pleasant dreams to horrific nightmares. The eyes of wraithblood users turned an eerie blue color, and they soon collapsed into utter raving lunacy.
Since arriving in Istarinmul, Caina had learned that Callatas, Grand Master of the College of Alchemists, was producing the wraithblood in his strongholds.
And, for some reason, he was giving it away for free.
She could not understand why. Callatas and his lieutenants made wraithblood from the corrupted blood of murdered slaves, charging it with sorcerous power. The costs involved were immense, yet Callatas gave it away for free, using a secret network of thieves and pawnbrokers to distribute it throughout Istarinmul. Some of the middlemen charged their customers, but Callatas sent Kindred assassins to deal with those who charged too much. The Grand Master wanted his wraithblood, his elixir brewed from the blood of murdered slaves, given away as cheaply as possible.
But why?
One of Callatas’s lieutenants had spoken of a plan before Caina had killed him. Something called the Apotheosis, something to do with malevolent spirits of the netherworld. Caina did not know what the Apotheosis was, but she knew in her bones that it was something evil. Caina had seen sorcerous catastrophes before, had seen the golden rift burn in the sky over New Kyre.
She never wanted to see something like that ever again.
She would stop Callatas. But to do that, she needed to know what Callatas intended.
Vaysaal’s death offered the perfect opportunity.
The Master Alchemist had been powerful and influential, a loyal supporter of Grand Master Callatas. Yet no one was safe in the vicious snake pit of Istarish politics, and someone had sent assassins after him. The staff of Vaysaal’s palace, his slaves and servants and guards, would still be in shock.
Vaysaal had helped make wraithblood for Callatas.
Which meant Caina could look around his palace and discover more about Callatas’s plans.
###
The afternoon after Vaysaal’s murder, Caina went to the Sanctuary and prepared.
The Sanctuary had once been the hidden refuge of Istarinmul’s Ghosts, at least until the Teskilati had killed them all. Fortunately, the Teskilati, the secret police of the Padishah, had not learned the location of the Sanctuary, and so Caina used it for herself. The underground Sanctuary was a large, gloomy vault, the ceiling supported by thick pillars. Glowing glass globes stood upon iron stands and emitted pale light. A half-dozen long tables ran the length of the room. One held weapons, another tools and half-assembled locks and traps, and another supported a mirror and a set of cosmetics.
Caina stood before the mirror and assembled a disguise.
She was twenty-three years old now, short and fit and lean with cold blue eyes and black hair trimmed down to stubble. Sometimes she did not recognize the face she saw in the mirror, the dark-circled eyes like blue ice and the sharp lines of her cheekbones. She found it harder to remember the woman she had been, the Ghost nightfighter who had masqueraded as Sonya Tornesti, the empty-headed mistress of the coffee merchant Anton Kularus…
Caina pushed away the thought. Grief unbalanced the mind, and she needed her wits about her.
She contemplated donning a dress and a headscarf, but a young woman walking the streets of the Emirs’ Quarter alone would draw attention, Caina needed to avoid attention. At last she disguised herself as a courier of a noble Istarish house, with a formal white robe and turban to deflect the sun’s heat and a leather satchel slung over her shoulder. A courier would not draw undue attention in the city’s wealthier quarters, and she could get close to Vaysaal’s palace without suspicion.
Caina hid the clothes and tools she would need later beneath the robe.
She examined her reflection in the mirror, applying a bit of makeup to give her jaw the illusion of stubble. She saw the courier of an Istarish noble house in the glass, short for a man, but with no trace of the woman she really was.
Amazing what one could accomplish with a change of clothes and a bit of makeup.
###
Vaysaal’s palace was a sprawling edifice of white marble and polished tile, its sides adorned with elaborate mosaics, its grounds filled with flowering bushes, bubbling fountains, and winding paths of white stone. By the standards of the poorer quarters of Istarinmul, it was opulent beyond measure. By the standards of the Emirs’ Quarter and the Masters’ Quarter, it was merely average. It would have been no larger than a wing of the Padishah’s splendid Golden Palace, and Grand Master Callatas’s palace was practically a city in its own right.
But Vaysaal’s palace was large enough to house many people, and at the moment a mob filled the grounds. Watchmen had descended upon the palace to secure the property while the hakims investigated Vaysaal’s death. Vaysaal had no children, so either the palace and its wealth would go to Vaysaal’s nearest living relative or the Padishah would seize it. Slaves in their gray tunics stood anxiously near the walls, waiting to learn of their fates. Perhaps they would remain with the palace, or perhaps the Wazir of the Treasury would sell them upon the block to the highest bidder. Caina felt a shiver of fury at the thought. It was not right that men could be bought and sold as cattle, but no matter how much Caina terrorized the Slavers’ Brotherhood, the practice would likely continue long after she was dead.
She walked to the gates of the palace, keeping the aloof expression of a courier upon her face. An official decree had been pinned to the gates, proclaiming the notorious master thi
ef known as the Balarigar an outlaw. It offered a reward of half a million bezants for the Balarigar’s head.
Dead or alive.
A common laborer might earn a hundred bezants a year.
Suddenly her disguise, her tricks of clothing and makeup and posture and voice, seemed like a hideously ineffective shield against her foes. Still, no one had any idea who she really was. For that matter, only two other people in all of Istarinmul knew that the Balarigar was really a woman.
Caina took a deep breath and walked across the grounds of Vaysaal’s palace.
She wove her way past the crowds of miserable-looking slaves, past the various minor merchants who had claims against Vaysaal’s estate. A khalmir of the watch, proud and haughty in his spiked helm and officer’s cloak, stood guard before the doors to the great hall, flanked by a dozen watchmen in mail and helmets.
“You,” said the khalmir in Istarish, glaring at Caina, “state your business.”
Caina hefted her satchel. “Invoices,” she said in Istarish, keeping her voice bored and uninterested. “The late Master Alchemist owed my lord a great deal of money, and…”
The khalmir jerked his head to the side. “Go to the kitchen door and present your documents to the seneschal. He will sort through them in time, once the Wazir of the Treasury has made a final decree over the estate.”
Caina frowned. “My lord instructed me to make sure he received his money at once…”
The khalmir snorted. “Your lord, courier, can wait with everyone else.” He smirked. “I suspect the Wazir of the Treasury will seize the palace and hand it over to the Padishah. Then your lord can appeal to the Padishah for his money.” The watchmen laughed. “Now be off with you before I find an excuse to have you arrested.”
“Sir,” said Caina with a bow, and she circled around the side of the palace. The khalmir and his men watched her go, and then turned away. Likely they had spoken to a score of couriers and messengers, all hoping to claim a piece of the late Master Alchemist’s fortune.
Just as well. That would make it easier for them to forget her.
The sudden tingle of sorcery washed over her skin.
Caina kept her face calm and her stride unhurried, but she risked a look around. No one in the gardens was casting a spell, and the aura wasn’t coming from nearby. In fact, it was coming from above her head. Caina glanced up, stretching her shoulders to mask the movement.
One wing stood isolated from the rest of the palace, standing over an inner courtyard. Thick iron-bound shutters closed off the windows of the wing’s top floor, and a dozen chimneys rose from the roof. The only access was a narrow stone bridge over an inner courtyard. The sorcerous aura was coming from the top floor of the isolated wing.
Which meant it almost certainly held Master Alchemist Vaysaal’s laboratory.
Perhaps more secrets about Callatas and his Apotheosis, about the wraithblood and the nagataaru, waited within that room.
Finding the seneschal proved easy enough. He sat at a wooden table near the kitchen door, the table piled high with ledgers, letters, and invoices. Three more tables stood nearby, and a dozen scribes in gray slave tunics toiled over them. Six watchmen stood guard over the seneschal and his scribes, no doubt making sure no one attempted to rob them.
“I have invoices from…” started Caina.
The seneschal, a balding, stout man with a tired expression, did not look up from his ledger. “That pile. All requests shall be addressed in the order in which they have arrived. Final settlement of any accounts shall have to wait until the Wazir of the Treasury issues a ruling. Next!”
“But…” said Caina.
“Next!” said the seneschal, still not looking up.
Two of the watchmen stepped forward, and Caina raised her hands. The watchmen let her go without further complaint. She retreated, making sure the khalmir at the main doors saw her disappear into the crowds.
Then instead of making for the gates, she turned left, moving through the gardens. She did not sneak, not precisely, but made her way from bush to bush, unnoticed until she returned to the rear of the palace. The seneschal and his guards and scribes still worked, their attention focused upon the various messengers who came to deliver documents and demands.
They had no attention left to spare for the kitchen door.
Caina waited until the latest messenger turned and left, then glided forward and reached the kitchen door. It was unlocked. Caina slipped it open, shut it behind her, and entered the palace of Vaysaal.
She found herself in a deserted corridor, the kitchens on her left and the slaves’ barracks upon her right. The watchmen had herded all the slaves outside, lest they try to loot the palace before the Wazir and his magistrates finished their assessment. Of course, the bolder slaves had likely stolen everything they could carry. Which meant that the watchmen would have set patrols through the palace’s halls. Likely they too would steal everything they could carry, but if they saw Caina, they would arrest her.
For a moment dark amusement filled her. If the watchmen killed her, they would simply think they had caught a greedy courier. But once they searched her corpse and found the shadow-cloak, they would likely realize they had killed the Balarigar. A riot might start once they started arguing over who could claim the enormous reward.
Best not to give them reason to argue, then.
Caina hurried through the kitchens, past the great hall of the palace, and found one of the guest bedrooms on the ground floor. It was furnished in typical Istarish fashion, with a colorful carpet upon the floor, a low table ringed by tasseled cushions, and a bed heaped with blankets and pillows.
A bed that had just enough space beneath it to conceal Caina.
She rolled into the gap between the bed and the floor and settled down to wait.
###
After night fell, Caina climbed out from beneath the bed, stretching her stiff limbs.
She never would have attempted such a brazen hiding place in one of the palaces of the Master Slavers, not after she had robbed so many of them. The cowled masters of the Brotherhood lived in terror of the Balarigar, and their guards checked every nook and cranny of their homes. But Vaysaal was dead, and the watchmen hardly cared what happened to his palace. Caina had heard one man walk past the bedroom door a few hours past, but the palace had been utterly silent since.
It was time to begin.
She stripped off the robe and the turban. Beneath the robe she wore black boots, black pants, and a light black coat lined with steel plates to deflect knives. Black gloves and leather bracers covered her hands and forearms, and throwing knives, a coiled rope with a collapsible grapnel, and other tools waited in her belt. She drew a black mask from the satchel and slid it over her head, and then pulled her shadow-cloak free. It was a wondrous thing, lighter than silk and blacker than night. While Caina wore it, she blended with the shadows, and it also had the useful property of shielding her mind from sorcerous attack and detection.
That had saved her life more than once.
A man’s golden signet ring, heavy and worn, rested against her chest beneath the jacket, hanging from a leather cord. It had been her father’s, and Caina carried it in his memory, for his murder had brought her to the Ghosts.
It was all she had left of him.
And she had nothing left of Corvalis…
Again she pushed aside the thought. Caina adjusted her shadow-cloak, checked the daggers in their boot sheaths and the knives at her belt, and crept from the bedroom.
The corridor beyond was dark and deserted, as was the palace’s grand hall. Pale moonlight leaked through the tall windows, but Caina saw no sign of motion. Through the windows she glimpsed watchmen keeping guard over the grounds, but none of them had bothered to enter the palace.
Just as well.
Caina set off through the corridors, making her way to the inner courtyard and Vaysaal’s workshop.
###
At first Caina thought the palace looked no diff
erent than the others she had seen. Vaysaal preferred the same style of mosaics upon his floors as the other wealthy men of Istarinmul, the same frescoes upon his walls, the same statues in niches. If she had not known he was a Master of the College of Alchemists, Caina would have assumed his home belonged to yet another Istarish noble or cowled master of the Brotherhood.
But then she reached the seventh floor. The top level had only one entrance, and Caina picked the lock and entered the corridor beyond.
The artwork was different here.
Crystalline, life-sized statues of naked women gleamed within niches in the walls, their expressions full of fear and pain. Others had their arms raised as if to ward off a blow, while others knelt, their hands raised in supplication. They had once been living women, until Vaysaal had used his powers to transmute their flesh and blood and bone into crystal, killing them and creating his macabre art.
Dozens of the statues lined the walls.
There were other artworks, each more disturbing than the last. The Alchemists had unmatched powers of transmutation, and sometimes the Alchemists put those skills to twisted uses. One of their spells gave flesh the strength and durability of granite while killing the subject, so some of the niches held statues of more women, frozen forever in the instant of their deaths. Others were horribly misshapen, arms and legs grafted to a dozen heads, creating visions of ghastly horror.
Caina thought the world would be better if every last sorcerer was dead. She knew that her hatred of sorcery was irrational, that it had been burned into her by the pains of her childhood and the struggles of her life.
But she so often saw evidence to support that hatred.
She left the corridor of grotesque statues behind and came to a small library, the walls lined books. Her first impulse was to search the books for any clue into Vaysaal’s researches. But a quick glance over the titles told her that it was useless. The shelves held no books of sorcery, only tomes of history and ancient lore.
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