Ghost in the Maze

by Moeller, Jonathan

  “But the visions,” crooned the beggar, his eerie eyes wide and wild as he took another step toward her. “The visions are so beautiful. I see such…such wonderful things. I need more, I must have more, I must…please, just a coin, just a single coin…”

  He stopped, and a look of horror went over his face.

  “I see you!” he hissed.

  Caina remained motionless. This kind of thing had happened before. For some reason, wraithblood addicts saw…something around her, a haze of shadow, a darkness, something. Caina didn’t know what it was. She suspected it was a mark of sorcerous scarring, left over from Maglarion’s spells and the Moroaica’s long possession. Or maybe it was something else entirely.

  “I see you,” said the beggar, his voice trembling with fear.

  “I know,” said Caina. “I’m sorry.” She felt the faint tingle of sorcery as he approached, the legacy of the wraithblood the poor fool had consumed.

  “The shadows surround you,” said the beggar. “They all point to you, like a pyre throwing shadows from dead trees. No! No! Don’t let them touch me. Don’t let them touch me!”

  The beggar fled, moving faster than Caina would have expected from such an emaciated man. He ran from the alley and into the street, and Caina saw her chance. She slipped into the courtyard, and as she expected, saw four men guarding the back door of Nerina’s shop. The guards moved to the street, drawn by the beggar’s panicked screams. Caina dashed across the courtyard and reached into her satchel, drawing out a rope and collapsible grapnel. She caught the grapnel on the shutters of a second-floor window and scrambled up the wall.

  Just as well she had chosen sturdy sandals instead of ornamental ones.

  One thing about men’s clothes – climbing was easier.

  She reached the shutters and knocked. “Nerina?”

  The shutter jerked open, and Caina found herself looking at the end of a crossbow quarrel.

  “Please don’t shoot me,” said Caina. “I’ve come to help.”

  The woman holding the crossbow tilted her head and blinked her eerie blue eyes.

  Nerina Strake was no more than twenty-five or twenty-six, yet she looked delicate, almost frail. When in public, she wore the black dress and headscarf of a widow. When in her workshop, she wore trousers, heavy leather boots, and a loose shirt beneath a leather apron. The crossbow she held was an exotic-looking thing of black steel and polished dark wood, and Caina knew that Nerina had calculated the precise tensions and force necessary to drive a quarrel through flesh and bone.

  “Three hundred and sixty,” said Nerina.

  Caina blinked. “What?”

  “Your rope,” said Nerina. “It is precisely three hundred and sixty inches long, and to judge from the coiling radius and tensile strength, it could support a weight of five hundred pounds. Fortunately, you weigh approximately one hundred and twenty-six pounds, though the load-bearing strength of the rope will decrease proportionally the further you are from the anchor point, also depending upon the strength of the material of the grapnel …” She blinked. “Ciara? Yes, Ciara. Damn!” That was the name Caina had given her at Ulvan’s ascension. Nerina slapped one hand against her forehead, making the crossbow bob alarmingly. “Social graces. I always forget. How…”

  “Nerina,” said Caina, before the locksmith could start talking about numbers again, “there are angry mercenaries surrounding the shop, and if they see me hanging here, they will kill us both.”

  “Actually, it is more likely they will kill you,” said Nerina. “If they kill me, they will never get any money to pay Master Kazyat. Or…”

  “Or you let me inside,” said Caina, “and they don’t kill me.”

  “Yes, that is mathematically sound,” said Nerina, and she stepped back, keeping the bow pointed at the courtyard. Caina rolled over the sill, pulled up the rope, and snapped the shutter closed behind her.

  Nerina’s workshop had not changed since Caina had broken in and stolen the design for the keys to the Widow’s Tower. It remained the single most cluttered room that Caina had ever seen, with three long tables running the length of the workshop, each sagging beneath the weight of tools, half-assembled locks, and various mechanical contraptions. One wall held slates covered with scrawled equations written in chalk. A wooden cabinet held papers secured in leather folders, and iron shavings and sawdust gritted beneath Caina’s sandals.

  “The number of unexpected visitors has been higher than statistically probable today,” said Nerina.

  “Aye,” said Caina. “It seems Master Kazyat is wroth with you.”

  Nerina snorted. “As if it were my fault that the Balarigar bypassed his locks and sent him drugged and naked onto the sands of the Ring of Thorns. I prepared thirty-seven separate locks for his palace, and not a single one of them had been picked.”

  “I had heard that,” said Caina, who had not bothered to pick the locks. It had been far easier to steal the keys from Kazyat’s seneschal.

  “Clearly the Balarigar is possessed of sorcerous powers, allowing him to bypass walls and locks with equal efficiency,” said Nerina. “I am a locksmith, not a witch-woman of the Kaltari hill country. I deal with mathematical equations applied to devices of precise accuracy, not in sorcery or alchemy…”

  The door burst open, and Azaces stormed into the workshop, his two-handed scimitar gripped ready in his fists. He was nearly seven feet tall, clad in chain mail beneath a Sarbian desert robe. His scarred face was dark with fury beneath his thick beard, and his hard eyes narrowed as he saw Caina.

  “Azaces,” said Nerina. “You remember Ciara?”

  Azaces loosed a displeased growl, but he said nothing. He had once been a slave of the fighting pits, and lost his tongue, either in battle or cut free by orders of his master. Ragodan Strake had purchased him and set him to guard his valuable daughter. After Nerina’s husband Malcolm had been slain, Nerina had freed all her father’s slaves so she could kill herself with wraithblood in peace. But Azaces had refused to depart, watching over Nerina and forcing her to the monks of the Living Flame to break her from the wraithblood addiction. At first Caina had thought they were lovers, but Nerina obviously still mourned her lost husband.

  Caina knew what that felt like.

  And Azaces hovered over Nerina like a man guarding a younger sister.

  Azaces growled again and looked at Nerina.

  “No, the balance of probability is that she does not mean us any ill,” said Nerina. “Though her method of arrival is most improbable.”

  Azaces took a step closer, the board creaking beneath his boots. She saw the decision in his face. He had decided that Caina was a threat to Nerina, and he was going to kill her unless she did something right now.

  “This isn’t the first time it’s happened, is it?” said Caina. “The mercenaries surrounding your home, I mean?”

  Azaces hesitated, and Nerina glanced at him.

  “You told me,” said Caina, “when we first met, that you racked up ‘mathematically unsustainable’ debts while you were addicted to wraithblood. Moneylenders often employ some unpleasant men. They’ve come before, haven’t they?”

  Azaces offered a short, sharp nod.

  “Kazyat is merely the most recent,” said Nerina. “I have been talking all the commissions I can handle, but the income is barely sufficient to cover the interest on my debts. It is almost mathematically certain that sooner or later I will be arrested and hauled before the hakims due to nonpayment of the debts.”

  “Or they’ll just kill you,” said Caina.

  “Unlikely,” said Nerina. “My skills make me too valuable to kill. Most likely I will be enslaved.”

  She remained calm as she said it, but a muscle twitched near her left eye.

  Azaces grunted.

  “Oh, yes, of course,” said Nerina. “The obvious. I always seem to overlook it. Why are you here, and why are you coming through the window?”

  “I’ve come to help solve your problem,” said Caina.


  Azaces’s grunt was dubious.

  “I need to hire you for a job,” said Caina. “A job that will make you enough money that you can pay off your debts and get those mercenaries off your back.”

  Azaces’s scowl deepened, and then Caina heard a clang echoing through the workshop.

  Kazyat’s mercenaries were talking axes to the door.

  “I would be happy to explain further,” said Caina, “but I suggest we get away from here before those mercenaries kill us.”

  “Why?” said Nerina.

  “So the mercenaries don’t kill us, perhaps?” said Caina. “That seems like an excellent reason to me.”

  Nerina made an exasperated sound. “Language is so imprecise and irritatingly fluid. A pity we cannot communicate purely through equations.” Azaces grunted. “What? Oh, yes, the point at hand. Why should I go with you? For that matter, why should I work for you? It could be yet another trap.” She blinked. “And why would a knife-throwing circus girl need to hire a locksmith anyway?”

  “We can come to that later,” said Caina. “As for why you should work for me…I understand you.”

  This time Azaces’s snort was amused.

  “Do you?” said Nerina.

  “I know why you haven’t left Istarinmul,” said Caina, “why you haven’t fled the city and escaped your debts in the Empire or Anshan. I know why you work yourself to exhaustion, why you make lock after lock after lock. It’s not to pay off the debts. You don’t care about them, not really.”

  “Then why?” said Nerina.

  The crack of an axe striking wood echoed through the workshop.

  “Because,” said Caina, “you want distractions. From the wraithblood, from the memory of your husband.” The muscle near Nerina’s eye twitched a bit more. “Come with me and I promise all the distractions you can handle.”

  Nerina said nothing, the sounds of the axes ringing up the stairs.

  Azaces growled, put a hand on Nerina’s shoulder, and beckoned.

  “Very well,” said Nerina at last.

  Caina realized she might have just recruited Nerina into the Ghosts. Given that she had made locks for the Slavers’ Brotherhood, Nerina obviously did not care for whom she worked. But Caina could deal with that later.

  “I do hope you have a way of balancing the equation that will allow us to escape with our lives,” said Nerina.

  “I do,” said Caina. “The roof. No one ever thinks to look up. If we stay down and move quietly, we can get away before they even notice we are gone.”

  “It is more probable that they will simply shoot us,” said Nerina.

  “You can’t make keys if you’re dead,” said Caina.

  “This is accurate,” said Nerina, “but that does not apply to either you or Azaces.”

  Caina nodded and walked around one of the worktables, thinking. A distraction, they needed a distraction. Something to hold the attention of the mercenaries while Caina and Nerina and Azaces made their escape. A fire ought to do it. The tactic had served Caina well many times before. But she suspected that Azaces might object violently if she tried to burn down Nerina’s shop. Caina’s eyes roved over the tables. In addition to locks, Nerina also constructed mechanical traps, poisoned needles that jabbed someone attempting to force a door or mechanisms that released clouds of poisoned smoke…

  Caina grabbed a large glass bottle. “Is this a smoke bomb?”

  “Actors use it,” said Nerina. “The chemical composition is such that when exposed to air, it immediately generates a thick cloud of impenetrable smoke.”

  “Poisoned?” said Caina.

  “No. It is actually more mathematically efficient to keep the poison in a separate bottle. The action of the smoke distributes the poison more evenly, and…”

  “Good enough,” said Caina. “I’ll need one of your dresses. You’re about my height. Oh, and a black headscarf, too.”

  “Whatever for?” said Nerina.

  Azaces nodded in understanding.

  “A decoy,” said Caina. “I’ll dress up as you, go out the front door, and use the smoke bomb to make my escape. While I distract them, you and Azaces go out the back. Do you know the Inn of the Crescent Moon? It’s here in the Cyrican Quarter.” Nerina nodded. “Go there, take a room under the name of Maurina of Caer Marist, and stay out of sight. I will meet you there as soon as I am able. If I’m not there by nightfall, assume that I am dead and do as you please.”

  “That is…a very considerable risk you are taking,” said Nerina. She nodded to Azaces, who turned and left.

  “It is,” said Caina. Azaces returned, carrying one of Nerina’s black dresses and headscarves. The bodyguard turned his back, and Caina quickly stripped out of her dress, shoved it into her satchel, and donned Nerina’s black clothing. “But I’ve had considerable practice.”

  “That seems evident,” said Nerina. “You are not really a circus performer, are you?”

  “No,” said Caina, adjusting the dress. It was looser than she would have expected. Nerina was thinner than Caina, but was so indifferent to her appearance that she likely paid no heed to how her clothes fit. “If I live through this, I’ll tell you more. Azaces. Get ready to go out the back door when I cause the distraction.”

  Azaces nodded and stepped closer to Nerina.

  Caina hurried down the stairs to the front door, the glass of the smoke bomb cold against the fingers of her right hand. Despite all the noise of the axes, the mercenaries had made little progress against the massive steel-bound door. Apparently Nerina had constructed the door with the same rigor as she did her locks. Yet even that door could not withstand the battering forever.

  “Stop!” shouted Caina. “Stop! I’m coming out! I have the money! I have Kazyat’s money!”

  The pounding stopped, and through the thick steel and wood Caina heard the low murmur of arguing voices.

  “You have Kazyat’s money?” the captain shouted at last.

  “Aye,” said Caina. “And some more for you, if you’ll just back off and let me out.”

  “Very well,” said the captain. “But try anything, and we’ll drag you off in chains to Kazyat. Along with the head of your pet Sarbian.”

  “Fine!” said Caina, arranging her headscarf so it hung low over her forehead. She reached into her satchel, drew out her blue headscarf, and knotted it around her neck, keeping it loose. Then she gripped the smoke bomb in her right hand, put a stagger into her step, and opened the locks upon the door.

  She stepped onto the stairs, and the door swung shut behind her with a heavy clang, the locks clicking into place. Caina wobbled down the steps, putting a drunken weave into her movements, her hands raised over her head. She kept her gaze down, so the mercenaries saw her black headscarf, and watched them beneath her eyelashes.

  One of the men laughed. “She’s drunk.”

  “No, idiot,” said the captain, “she’s using wraithblood. Kazyat said she was addicted to the poison. The money, Strake?”

  “In the satchel,” said Caina, slurring her voice, her fingers tightening against the glass.

  “Stay where you are,” said the captain, stepping forward. “No tricks.”

  “No tricks,” said Caina, glancing around and memorizing the position of the men.

  The captain stepped forward and reached into Caina’s satchel, and in one smooth motion she reached up, tugged the blue headscarf over her face, and dropped the smoke bomb. The glass shattered, the cloudy fluid within spilling across the street.

  The captain sneered. “You dropped your wraithblood…”

  A column of thick gray smoke erupted around Caina. The captain yelled in alarm, coughing as the smoke filled his lungs, and the ring of mercenaries around Caina stared shouting. She dashed to the left, dodged between two of the blinking men, and sprinted down the street.

  “Catch her, idiot!” roared the captain, between coughs. “Catch her! She has the money!”

  The mercenaries ran in pursuit. Caina kept sprinting, sk
irts flapping around her legs, and turned into a narrow alley. It twisted through the narrow spaces between the smithies, and Caina worked her way deeper into the Cyrican Quarter. The shouts of the pursuing men filled her ears, but she knew this neighborhood better than they did.

  A few moments later, Caina lost them. She ducked into a deep doorway, quickly exchanged Nerina’s black dress and headscarf for her blue ones, and then stepped back into the alley. A short walk took her to one of the main streets, and Caina joined the traffic, just another young woman going about her errands. Twice she saw groups of the mercenaries, scowling as they sought for Nerina Strake, but they looked over Caina without recognizing her.

  She kept a smile from her face. Amazing what wonders a simple change of clothing could work.

  Caina made for one of her bolt holes, and changed into the clothes of a caravan guard, steel-studded leather armor, dusty trousers and boots, and a ragged brown cloak. A short sword and a dagger hung from a belt at her waist, and she secured a few more weapons around her person. The blue dress had been nice, but it was easier to run in trousers.

  She left the bolt hole behind, and headed for the Inn of the Crescent Moon.

  Hopefully Nerina and Azaces had followed her directions and escaped.

  ###

  The Inn of the Crescent Moon looked a great deal like many other middling inns Caina had stayed in during her travels. It stood five stories tall, with the usual whitewashed walls and arched windows of Istarish buildings, though mosaics of gazelles and lions ornamented the doorframes. A wide courtyard surrounded the inn, ringed by a low stone wall. A bribe to one of the Inn’s slaves revealed that a woman named Maurina of Caer Marist had just hired a room, along with her hulking Sarbian bodyguard.

  Caina climbed the stairs to Nerina’s room and knocked.

  Azaces opened the door and glared at her, one hand gripping a weapon. He didn’t recognize her through the disguise.

  “It’s only been a few hours, Azaces,” said Caina, not bothering to mask her voice. “I hope you didn’t forget me.”

  His frown deepened, then his eyes widened. He opened the door the rest of the way and stepped aside, allowing her to enter. The room beyond was cramped, with a bed against the wall and a table below the window. Nerina sat upon the bed, a notebook open on her lap as she scribbled notes across the pages. She looked up and frowned.