Child of the Ghosts

by Jonathan Moeller

  It sounded simple enough.

  “Yes,” said Riogan. “We’ll sneak past a dozen Kindred assassins. That should certainly…”

  The tingling against Caina’s skin doubled, and redoubled, until it was almost physical pain.

  Then green light flared overhead, and Caina looked up just in time to see the top of the mansion's tower explode. The thunderclap was enormous, even louder than the storm overhead, and for an instant a cloud of broken stone wreathed the tower's shattered crown. And then a pillar of emerald flame burst from the tower, stabbing into the clouds. Green lightning leapt from cloud to cloud, and Caina felt wave after wave of necromantic power pulsing from the tower.

  “I think I know where Maglarion is,” she said.

  Riogan swore. “He’s finished the spell!”

  “No,” said Caina, drawing a dagger in either hand. “Not yet. We'll have to fight our way in. Run!”

  Caina sprinted for the gates, Riogan following. They were probably going to die, she realized. She was capable in a fight, and Riogan was better, but they couldn’t defeat Haeron Icaraeus’s guards and assassins by themselves.

  But the guards took one look at the pillar of fire and ran, terror on their faces. She saw servants fleeing the mansion, and even the Kindred assassins were running. Caina had spent so much time around sorcery that she had grown numb to it.

  Though looking at the pillar of flame, she could understand their reactions.

  “That’s our chance!” she hissed to Riogan. “Go!”

  They raced through the gates, dodged the fleeing guards and servants, and entered the mansion. Caina knew her way through the maze of corridors from her previous visits. The mansion trembled and shuddered, dust falling from the ceiling, and she wondered if the force of Maglarion’s sorcery would bring the entire place down before she could reach him.

  Then they sprinted up the tower stairs, Caina’s breath coming fast and hard, running through round chamber after round chamber. The pulsing throb of necromantic sorcery against her skin grew sharper and colder. Then she saw green light from above, and realized they were almost there…

  Blue light flashed, and a jolt of pain went down her arms.

  “Stop!” she hissed. Riogan came to a halt behind her, leaning on the ghostsilver spear to catch his breath.

  "What?" he said, and then fell silent as he saw the faint wall of blue light shimmering across the stairwell.

  "A ward," said Caina. She waved her gloved hand in front of it, and felt a wave of stabbing pain. "A powerful one, too. I...I don't know what will happen if we touch it." They had to get past it. Halfdan had said that ghostsilver spear could pierce spells. Could it break the ward?

  "We go up," said Riogan, crossing to the chamber's tall, narrow windows. "Climb the walls. If Maglarion sees us, he'll kill us the minute we come up the stairs. But I doubt the old devil warded the windows. If we take him unawares, I can have the spear through his heart before he realizes anything is wrong."

  Caina nodded as Riogan lifted the butt of the spear and smashed a window.

  "I'll go up this side," said Riogan. "You take the other. We'll play this the way we planned at Haeron's party. You distract Maglarion, and I'll kill him from behind."

  Caina nodded again. "Riogan?"

  "What?"

  "Good luck."

  He gave sharp nod. "You as well."

  Caina shattered a window with the handles of her daggers and stepped onto the sill. Rain and wind lashed at her, threatening to send her tumbling to the mansion's roof hundreds of feet below. But she kept her balance as she pulled the rope from her belt and flung it. The grapnel caught on the tower's shattered crown. Caina gave it several tugs, took a deep breath, and started to climb.

  A few moments later she reach the tower's top.

  The first thing she was Haeron Icaraeus. Or his corpse, rather. He lay crumpled against the jagged ruins of the wall, face frozen with fear and horror.

  His alliance with Maglarion had not ended well.

  Maglarion himself stood perhaps thirty feet away, his coat billowing in the wind. The bloodcrystal in his left eye socket blazed with light, and he stood with his arms raised to the heavens, face uplifted as he screamed the words to a spell. Caina felt the arcane power swirling around him, vast and strong as an ocean tide.

  But the great bloodcrystal captured the whole of her attention.

  Caina had never seen anything like it.

  The thing stood twenty feet high and ten wide, a jagged monolith of gleaming black crystal, wreathed in a swirling cloud of plagueblood. Ghostly green fire danced in its depths, the flames forming faces. So many faces. For a horrified moment Caina saw her father's face in the flames, and the servants of House Amalas that Maglarion had butchered so long ago, and then Alastair and Nerina.

  But even that was only peripheral.

  Because she could feel the great bloodcrystal.

  It felt...the hideous thing felt like it was a part of her, almost like a limb. She felt every flash and pulse of the flames in its depth, felt it shuddering and trembling with stored power. She felt the draining aura radiating from the thing, vast enough to cover all of Malarae, the aura that would drink the deaths from every man, woman, and child in the city when the rain of plagueblood fell.

  It was pulsing in time with her heartbeat.

  How? How was that even possible?

  She saw a dark flicker behind Maglarion. Riogan rolled over the ruined wall and landed on his feet, the ghostsilver spear in hand. Step by step he crept closer to Maglarion.

  Any moment Maglarion would notice him.

  Caina scrambled to her feet, making no effort to conceal herself.

  "Maglarion!" she yelled.

  He spun, the spell faltering, astonishment on his face. Then his good eye narrowed, his hand came up, and Caina felt the crawling tingle as his power closed around her.

  The ghostsilver blade erupted from his chest.

  Maglarion staggered, hands raking at the air. Riogan ripped the spear free, the blade dimmed beneath a thick coating of blood, and buried it in Maglarion's back again. Maglarion dropped to one knee, right eye wide with shock, his shoulders slumped. Caina felt the vast spell shudder and come to a halt.

  They had done it.

  The bloodcrystal blazed with emerald light.

  Maglarion snarled and flung out a hand, invisible force seizing Caina. For a panicked instant she thought the spell would blast her off the tower, send her tumbling to her death. But instead she floated into the air, immobilized by Maglarion's will. She saw Riogan caught in the same way, shuddering as he tried to break free from the spell.

  Maglarion gripped the spear below the blade and pulled it free from his chest, foot by bloody foot. After he got it loose, he spent a few moments coughing and shuddering. But wave after wave of power washed out from the bloodcrystal, the hideous wounds on Maglarion's chest and back shrinking with every pulse.

  Had he become so strong that nothing could kill him? Not even a ghostsilver blade?

  He was linked to the bloodcrystal, Caina realized. It poured so much power into him that he could heal any wound, recover from any injury.

  He was invincible.

  A little later Maglarion levered himself to his feet, leaning on the spear like a staff.

  "Ghostsilver," he said, his voice rusty. "Very clever. It would have worked, a year or so ago. But I've moved beyond that. I've moved far beyond that."

  The wounds on his chest vanished, and he tossed the spear aside. It clattered across the floor and came to rest against Haeron Icaraeus's corpse. The great spell still raged against Caina's skin, waiting for Maglarion to continue.

  "Ghost nightfighters," he said, looking from Riogan to Caina. "You Ghosts are so damnably persistent. Like cockroaches, really. Again and again I smash you, and again and again you come to die." He smiled. "At least you had the wit to wear those shadow-woven cloaks. That's why I didn't sense your approach. But let's see who you are, hmm?"

&
nbsp; He threw back Riogan's cowl and mask. Riogan scowled at him, and Maglarion laughed.

  "I know you!" he said. " Haeron told me about you. The Kindred assassin who refused to murder the child. Haeron put an enormous bounty on your head for that."

  "Guess you didn't care for the fat bastard either," said Riogan, glancing at Haeron's corpse.

  "No," said Maglarion. "I did not. Tell me. You had a life of wealth and power as a Kindred assassin, and you cast it aside to save the life of one worthless child. Was it worth it?"

  Riogan sneered. "If it meant I could defy a miserable craven like Haeron, and a bloody-handed devil like you, then yes."

  "Haeron indeed was a miserable craven," said Maglarion. "But he had his uses, so I kept him alive. You, however, are of no use to me. Your death shall be far worse than his."

  He gestured, and some of the plagueblood whirling around the bloodcrystal struck Riogan in the face.

  Riogan snarled. Then he started to scream. The veins in his face turned black, and cysts swelled beneath his jaw, his nose, his eyes, his armor bulging as the cysts spread. His screams redoubled, raw and horrible and worse than any sound Caina had thought Riogan could ever make.

  Then one of the cysts swelled in his throat, cutting off his air, and the screams stopped.

  Maglarion let Riogan's deformed corpse fall to the floor. The bloodcrystal pulsed, and Caina felt it drink in the power released from Riogan's death.

  Maglarion turned to face her, smiling.

  Caina trembled, trying not to scream. She was eleven years old again, chained to that cold metal table, watching as Maglarion approached with the dagger in hand.

  Only this time Halfdan was not coming to save her.

  And once Maglarion killed her, he would kill everyone in Malarae.

  She had failed.

  "And who might you be?" said Maglarion. "Let us find out, before you join your comrade."

  He reached up, pulled back Caina's cowl, and tossed aside her mask.

  His good eye widened in astonishment.

  "Laeria Amalas?" he said.

  Caina glared at him, forced herself not to show fear.

  "No," murmured Maglarion, taking her chin in his hand. "No...too young, though you are her very image. Her...daughter? Yes. That fierce little girl Laeria sold to me? Still alive? Amazing."

  "You killed my father," said Caina.

  Maglarion ignored that. "And you survived for seven years? I thought I had killed you." He shook his head and rubbed the ragged hole in his coat. "That was an oversight. When the Ghosts poisoned those fool magi...they must have saved you. Taken you in, trained you to become a weapon." He laughed. "Little good it has done you."

  "Better to fight than to let you do whatever you please," spat Caina.

  Maglarion laughed. "You fought back, and I still did whatever I wished. What a fine joke this is!" His hand tightened on her chin. "I created you. By accident, true, but I made you what you are. The Ghosts forged you into a weapon, and I assume you spent the last seven years dreaming of the day you would finally strike me down and avenge your useless father. And now that day has come!" He leaned closer, good eye bright with mirth. "Tell me...is it everything you dreamed it would be?"

  Caina said nothing, every muscle straining against the invisible force that held her fast.

  Useless. She might as well have tried to move a mountain of iron.

  "Of course," said Maglarion, releasing her and stepping back, "you failed to kill me, which means you've wasted your entire life." He spread his arms, gesturing at the vista of Malarae around them. "If you're here, you've figured out what I will do. I should keep you alive to watch your precious Empire die. But I made the mistake of keeping you alive once before. You see, your life, your father's life...their only purpose was to be used as I pleased. Think on that as you die, dear child."

  He gestured, and a spray of plagueblood kept from the cloud and struck Caina in the face.

  It was cold, so terribly cold, and Caina gasped, the plagueblood filling her nostrils and mouth. She felt it trickle down her throat, the terrible cold spreading through her chest and stomach. She waited for the agony to begin, for the cysts to erupt from her flesh.

  Instead, for a brief moment, she felt...better. As if something long-lost had been returned to her at last.

  Then the cold sensation faded.

  Nothing else happened. No cysts, no pain.

  Nothing.

  The plagueblood hadn't killed her. It hadn't even hurt her. Her eyes darted back and forth, glimpsing plagueblood leaking from cracks in the great bloodcrystal...

  The bloodcrystal.

  Realization struck Caina.

  It was the same bloodcrystal. The one Maglarion had made from her blood in that cellar. The one he had used when he killed her father. No wonder she had felt such a terrible attraction to it, to the vials of plagueblood taken from Rekan and Ikhana. Even now, swollen with the stolen lives of thousands, it was still the same bloodcrystal, made from Caina's blood.

  Which meant the plagueblood was made from her blood. It was part of her. A stolen part, but part of her nonetheless.

  She was immune.

  Maglarion stared at her, the beginnings of surprise on his face.

  If he realized that she was immune, he would crush her skull. Or simply throw her from the top of the tower.

  Caina opened her mouth and started to scream at the top of her lungs, throwing her head back and forth. Her arms and legs trembled, and she sobbed, her groans of pain mixing with shrieks of agony.

  Theodosia would have been proud.

  Maglarion's concern melted into a sneer. "The same as all the others," he murmured. "A little stronger, perhaps, but the same as all the others."

  As Halfdan had told her long ago, people saw what they expected to see.

  He watched her wail for a moment. Then he turned his back to her, walked to the podium, and lifted his arms. Again he declaimed the ancient Maatish spell in a thunderous voice, and Caina felt the power swirl in the air, the great spell moving forward once more.

  He was almost finished. A little more power, and the plagueblood would infest the clouds themselves.

  But his invisible grip on Caina faded as more and more of his strength poured into the great spell. Then it released her, and she let herself collapse in a limp heap. Maglarion glanced back at her, once, and Caina did not move, did not even let herself breathe.

  He looked back at the bloodcrystal, his arms and voice trembling with exertion.

  Caina rolled to a crouch, making no sound.

  Her hand curled about the ghostsilver spear's haft, the blade's strange vibrations traveling up her arm, and she lifted the weapon. She had a clear shot at Maglarion's back. Three running steps, and she would bury the spear in his torso.

  Just as Riogan had done.

  Maglarion would heal the wound in a moment, and this time he would make sure to kill her. Even if she impaled him with the spear and threw him from the tower, the bloodcrystal's power would restore him...

  The bloodcrystal.

  Caina's gaze fixed on it. It was the heart of Maglarion's power. It held the stored life energies of his victims, the stolen lives that made him strong. It was the bloodcrystal that made him invincible and immortal.

  And Halfdan had said that a ghostsilver blade could destroy even the most potent enspelled objects.

  Maglarion's voice rose to a triumphant shout, his spell reaching a climax.

  Caina made up her mind.

  She leapt forward and stabbed the spear with all her strength and rage behind it.

  The bloodcrystal looked like obsidian, shiny and hard, yet the ghostsilver spear plunged into it like soft butter. A spray of plagueblood erupted from the impact, along with hundreds of tiny specks of green light. A web of cracks spread over the crystal's surface, and Caina felt the ghostsilver blade straining against the bloodcrystal, arcane power flowing up her arm.

  Maglarion screamed, screamed as he had not when C
aina had shot him, when Riogan had stabbed him. He staggered back, hand clenched to his side, good eye wide with shock and pain.

  "Stop!" he said, raising his hand.

  Caina ripped the spear free and stabbed again. The bloodcrystal shuddered, trembling like a dying thing, and the pillar of emerald flame flickered and sputtered. More plagueblood sprayed from the side, more of those tiny spheres of green light. Maglarion howled and fell to one knee, clutching his side as if the spear had been buried in his flesh. She saw flecks of gray appear in his black hair, saw thin lines spread over his face.

  The tiny spheres of green light spun around the tower's top, moving faster and faster.

  Maglarion snarled, beginning a spell, and Caina ripped the spear free and drove it even deeper into the great bloodcrystal. A storm of green light erupted from the crystal, spinning around the tower, and plagueblood sprayed everywhere. Maglarion shrieked, aging before Caina's eyes. He looked as she remembered from that terrible day in her father's library, an old man with wild white hair, face lined and seamed.

  "You were right!" screamed Caina, twisting the spear. "You turned my mother into a monster! You killed my father!" She stabbed again and again and again. "You turned me into a Ghost!"

  Maglarion struggled to stand, teeth bared in a snarl.

  The whirling spheres of green light grew larger, swelling into faces. Images. Shades of the dead, of Maglarion's many victims.

  Caina wrenched the spear loose.

  "You shouldn't have done that," she said, and threw herself at the bloodcrystal, all her weight behind the ghostsilver spear.

  The blade sank into the black depths.

  And with a hideous scream the bloodcrystal shattered, splitting in two like a lightning-struck tree.

  ###

  Maglarion fought to stand.

  One spell, one spell to tear that impudent child to bloody shreds. Yet every stab of that damned spear into the bloodcrystal sent waves of hideous pain through him, worse than anything he had ever known.

  And then the bloodcrystal shattered.

  Agony filled his veins like molten lead. His link to the bloodcrystal disintegrated, withering like a dry leaf in flame, and the backlash only redoubled his pain.

  He heard someone screaming, realized it was him.

  Green light exploded out, throwing him back, and he slumped against the ruined wall.

  The spinning lights swelled, growing larger and larger, taking on human shapes.