Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 07 - Ghost in the Ashes

by Jonathan Moeller

  Caina broke into a jog.

  The plain still shifted around her, and more and more she saw buildings she recognized. And sometimes she saw figures she recognized within the buildings. In one she saw Halfdan teaching her how to pick locks. In another she saw herself running with Nicolai in her arms, Istarish soldiers chasing them. In still another she saw Maglarion, the bloodcrystal in his left eye socket shining with ghostly green light, a bloody dagger in his hand…

  She looked away. No, she did not want to remember that.

  The landscape changed again, becoming featureless gray grass in all directions, and a girl appeared on the road ahead of Caina.

  She was about ten or eleven, short and skinny with long black hair and large blue eyes the color of ice. She wore the rich blue dress of a young Nighmarian noblewoman, and Caina recognized it. It had been her favorite dress as a child, when she had still lived with her father.

  Before her mother had invited Maglarion to take her.

  Caina was looking at herself as a girl.

  “What are you?” said Caina, drawing her ghostsilver blade and pointing at it the girl.

  “You’re a monster,” whispered the girl.

  “What are you?” said Caina.

  “I am you,” whispered the girl. “I am Caina Amalas. I am you as you were, before you…changed.”

  “Before Maglarion came,” said Caina.

  The child nodded. “I wanted to be a mother. I wanted my father to pick a good and strong man for my husband, and I wanted to bear children. I would be a better mother to them than Laeria Amalas was ever to me, and someday I would be surrounded by strong sons and beautiful daughters and laughing grandchildren.” Her young face twisted with loathing. “Instead I became you.”

  “Maglarion did this to me,” said Caina. “I had little choice in the matter.”

  “Maglarion left you barren,” said the girl, “and look what you became. You’re a killer. How much blood is on your hands? How many people have you killed? Can you even count them all?”

  “I’ve done what was necessary,” said Caina. “I’ve killed people, but they were trying to kill me. Or they would have done worse things, had I not…”

  “Excuses,” spat the girl, her face crinkled with loathing. “You turned me into a monster. You turned me into you.”

  “Instead,” said a woman’s voice, dry and cold, “you should have become me.”

  Caina knew that voice.

  It was her own.

  A woman in her early twenties stepped onto the black road. She had long black hair and icy blue eyes, her thin arms and legs tight with sinewy muscle. She wore only a shift of white cloth, and her pregnant belly swelled against it.

  The woman was also Caina, or at least Caina if she could become pregnant.

  The sight of it hurt more than she expected.

  “You should have been me,” said the pregnant woman.

  “I should have been her,” said the girl.

  “None of you,” said Caina. Her voice caught, and she forced herself to start over in a calm tone. “None of you are real.”

  “Perhaps we are real,” said the pregnant woman, resting a hand on the curve of her stomach, “and it is you who are a nightmare.” She smiled. “Would you like to feel our son kick?”

  Caina had taken one step forward and extended a gloved hand before she stopped herself. “I suspect that touching you would be a very bad idea.”

  The pregnant woman sneered. “What a contemptible creature you are. Yearning for what you can never have, desiring that which you will never touch. You wanted to be me, you wanted to be a wife and mother…and instead you are a murderer who shares the bed of an assassin with as much blood on his hands as yours. Our father would weep to see what you have become.”

  “My father is dead,” said Caina, “because my mother and Maglarion murdered him. And I avenged him. I stopped Maglarion from killing everyone in Malarae. And I…”

  “You do not need,” said another woman’s voice, colder and stronger than the first, “to justify yourself to anyone. You did what was necessary, and the Empire still stands today because of you.”

  A woman in a black-trimmed red gown stepped onto the road.

  For an alarmed instant Caina thought that it was the Moroaica, and she raised her ghostsilver dagger. But the woman had long black hair and cold blue eyes, and when Jadriga appeared in Caina’s dreams, she always took the form of a young Szaldic woman with wet black hair and inscrutable black eyes. Her second thought was that the red-gowned woman was her mother, which was even worse.

  Then Caina realized that she was looking at yet another version of herself.

  A future version. The girl was who she had been and the pregnant woman was who she wished she had been.

  This was who she might become.

  The woman was about fifty, with gray at her temples and hard lines upon her gaunt face, though she remained fit and trim, and the red gown clung to the curves of her chest and hips. An aura of strength and power surrounded her, and Caina realized that she felt the tingle of arcane force.

  The woman was a sorceress.

  A powerful one.

  “No,” said Caina.

  “Ah,” said the sorceress with a smile. “I thought you might react like this. No matter. In time, you will see the necessity. You hate sorcery for the scars it left upon your mind and flesh…but a blade can leave scars as well. Do you hate the blade, or the hand that wields it? Sorcery is but another weapon, another tool.”

  “I have no talent for sorcery,” said Caina.

  The sorceress smiled. “Neither where you born with any talent for violence, but you learned it readily enough. So it is with the arcane sciences. One day you will see the advantages of wielding sorcery to defend the Empire.”

  “No,” said Caina.

  “Pathetic,” said the young girl. “You will become everything you hate and fear.”

  “You should have been me,” said the pregnant woman with a mournful shake of her head, black hair brushing against her pale shoulders. “Instead, you shall become her.”

  “Do not listen to these cowardly fears,” said the sorceress. “In time you shall move past them. You have always done what is necessary to save people, to destroy those who would enslave and torment the weak. And with the power of sorcery, you will do far more. You shall bring peace and order to the Empire. You will free all the slaves, force the nobles to heel, and humble the magi.”

  For a moment, just a moment, Caina found that a compelling vision.

  “No,” she said again.

  “Deny it all you wish,” said the sorceress, “but you will become me, in the end. You will wield sorcery. Not to achieve power for its own end, as fools like Kalastus and Ranarius did, or to pursue some foolish dream of immortality like Maglarion. No, you shall wield power to protect the weak and to humble the strong.”

  “And if I did that,” said Caina, “I would be no better than any other tyrant.”

  The sorceress smiled. “You’ve had so many chances to claim sorcerous might already. That book you took from Kalastus and threw into the sea. The Moroaica would have taught you, made you into her disciple. You could have wielded the power of the Defender, or forged yourself a suit of glypharmor in Catekharon.”

  “All of that power,” said Caina, “was built on the blood of the innocent.”

  “But what of power built on the blood of the guilty?” said the sorceress. “You have slain so many tyrants and slavers already. Why not put their lives to better use?”

  Caina opened her mouth and said nothing.

  Part of her, a tiny part, found the prospect alluring.

  “No,” she said at last, pushing aside the emotion.

  “It is too late,” said the girl, stepping forward. “You’ve gone too far down the path already. You will become everything you hate.”

  “You should have been me,” said the pregnant woman, striding alongside the young girl. “But instead you have become a h
ardened killer.”

  “And you will become me,” said the sorceress, smiling. “It is inevitable.”

  Terror flooded through Caina as her past, her denied present, and her potential future strode towards her. What would happen if they touched her? Would they tear her apart? Would she turn into one of them? She pointed the ghostsilver dagger, the blade like a shard of pale white light in her hand.

  “Stay back,” said Caina.

  The others ignored her.

  “I said to stay back,” said Caina, “or I’ll…”

  She blinked.

  “You’re not real,” she said.

  The sorceress laughed. “Do you deny the obvious?”

  “You’re real in a sense,” said Caina, “because you’re part of me. All of you.” She lowered the dagger and pointed at the girl. “You are my past.” She shifted her gaze to the pregnant woman. “You are the woman I wish I had been.” At last she looked at the sorceress. “And you are the woman I fear to become.”

  The three doubles stared at her, remaining silent.

  “But you’re only my own thoughts and fears,” said Caina, “reflected back at me by the netherworld. That’s all.”

  Had this happened to the Imperial Guards, she wondered? Had they seen their past and present and future reflected back at them, filling them with despair until they fell upon their swords?

  “Perhaps,” said the pregnant woman, “but we are still very real.”

  “My fears are real,” said Caina, “but you will not rule me. And the future…I could die tomorrow.” Or in the next few moments, considering the strange things she had seen in the netherworld so far. “But I can change the future, as well. Perhaps it will be like this.”

  She concentrated, and a new figure appeared on the road. The woman looked like somewhat like the sorceress, an older version of Caina. Yet this figure wore a gown of green and black, and stood on the arm of an older Corvalis, clad in the garb of a prosperous merchant.

  “That,” said Caina, “could just as easily be me.”

  “Facile,” said the sorceress. “You would trade the power you could have for this…this illusion of sentimentality?”

  “I would,” said Caina. “We’re done now. My fears are part of me, but I will not listen to them, or to you.”

  She stepped forward, and her doubles vanished. She looked around and saw nothing but the endlessly shifting landscape and the odd objects floating overhead.

  And, of course, the vast black shape of the Sacellum ahead.

  It seemed her fears could harm her only if she permitted it.

  Caina shook her head and kept walking. She wondered what the Imperial Guards had seen when the netherworld reflected their minds back at themselves. Every living man and woman had secrets, old scars, black memories.

  And some of them were too hard to bear.

  Though that didn’t explain what had happened to the beheaded Guard.

  The landscape rippled once again, flickering through an image of Malarae’s docks and then settling upon gray grasses, and Caina saw a hooded shape standing upon the road ahead.

  She tightened her grip on the ghostsilver dagger.

  The figure was nine or ten feet tall, and draped from head to toe in ragged gray robes. A heavy cowl covered its face, and Caina could not see past the darkness of the hood

  She did not think it was a reflection generated from her mind.

  A spirit, then? Some kind of elemental? One of the guardians Sinan had mentioned?

  Or something worse?

  “I have no quarrel with you,” said Caina. “Let me pass, and I will go on my way.”

  The figure said nothing, the landscape blurring into the dead forest. More of the hooded gray shapes stepped out of the trees, joining the first, until a dozen of the strange creatures stood upon the road.

  “Is there something you want of me?” said Caina. “I have no wish to fight.”

  The first shape stepped forward and changed.

  Caina stepped back, an involuntary scream coming from her throat.

  When she had been seven years old, her father had gone to Aretia to consult with the magistrates, and Caina had accompanied him to get away from her mother. While there, they had walked past the docks, and an enormous dead fish, at least two feet long, floated against the quay. The thing had been half eaten away with rot, its ribs jutting through tarnished scales, its eyes swollen and black with corruption. Caina had shrieked in horror at the sight, and it had taken her father some time to calm her down. The rotting fish had appeared in her dreams for weeks after.

  Later, she had acquired darker things to populate her nightmares.

  Yet to this day, she still felt a little uneasy around dead fish.

  The robed shape had transformed itself into a hideous, hulking amalgamation of that long-ago dead fish and a living man. It had the exact same bulging black eyes, the same swollen scales, the same ribs jutting from its rotting flesh. Gods, it even had the same stench. She dimly noted that the other robed forms had changed as well. But how? That fish had rotted away fifteen years ago…

  Her mind, she realized. The spirits were reflecting some deep-rooted, primitive fear from the depths of her thoughts.

  Suddenly she knew exactly what had happened to the rest of the Imperial Guards.

  As one the fish-monsters charged at her.

  Caina was sure their intentions were not friendly.

  She turned and ran.

  Chapter 20 - A Bargain

  Caina sprinted along the black road, her shadow-cloak billowing behind her.

  The fish-creatures pursued her in eerie silence. Despite their half-rotten state, despite the fact that they should not have legs at all, they matched her speed. For a moment, despite the revulsion that clenched her stomach, Caina felt a wild urge to laugh. After everything she had survived, everything she had escaped, she was going to die at the hand of a band of spirits that had transformed themselves into giant fish monsters.

  It was almost funny.

  Almost.

  She whipped a throwing knife at them, and it struck the lead creature with no effect. The blade sank into the gelatinous flesh and vanished.

  They were gaining on her.

  Caina ran off the road. The terrain shifted as she did so, morphing from grassland to the dead forest. The creatures were fast, but they were big, and the ground in the dead forest was uneven. Without the smooth road, she could outpace them, perhaps even find a place to hide until they passed. She dashed around a tree, jumped over a knot of roots, and kept running, putting more distance between herself and the creatures.

  Then the land changed again to become tangled patch of swamp. A stagnant pond yawned before Caina, and she jerked sideways, hoping to avoid it. Her feet tangled in the thick grasses, and she fell hard to the ground. She jumped up in sudden fear, convinced that the creatures were going to fall upon her.

  But the sudden change in terrain had affected them as well. A dozen of them had fallen into one of the stagnant pools, while others had lost their footing and struggled to stand.

  And one of them towered over her, its vile stink filling her nostrils, its pale, sagging arms reaching for her…

  Caina yelled in fear and reacted on instinct, slashing with the ghostsilver dagger. The shining blade ripped through the creature’s torso with a wet tearing noise, and the creature stumbled back with a keening shriek. The white glow from the dagger spread into the wound, and the fish-creature dissolved into a swirling column of white mist.

  Caina didn’t think she had killed the creature. She doubted it was even possible to kill an immortal spirit. But perhaps the ghostsilver dagger could damage the creatures enough to keep them from taking shape for a time. If she damaged enough of the creatures, perhaps the rest would change their minds and go in search of easier prey.

  But for now, the rest of the fish-creatures seemed eager to kill her.

  Caina raced across the swamp, dodging around the pools of stagnant water. The s
wamp would give her an advantage. The creatures could move just as fast as she could, but they seemed to have difficulty turning. Caina could dodge around the pools far more easily, giving her the opportunity to outrun them.

  She jumped over another pool, and as she did, the land rippled beneath her. When she landed, she stood upon a desert plain, glassy black earth stretching away in all directions.

  The fish-creatures starting gaining.

  “Damn it,” hissed Caina between breaths.

  She was starting to get tired, her breath burning in her lungs. The strange creatures seemed to have no such limitations. On this black plain, with no place to hide, they would run her down. If she had been in the narrow alleys of Malarae’s dockside district, she could have eluded the beasts easily, but in this open plain she had no chance of escape.

  The landscape rippled again and became a city, a strange mixture of the dockside districts of both Malarae and Marsis. The crumbling brick warehouses and sagging taverns split the pursuing creatures into a half a dozen small groups. Caina turned, surprised. She had thought about the city…and the landscape had reflected to change itself.

  Did that mean she could control the terrain with her thoughts? A few years ago the power of a sorcerous relic had trapped her in a shared dream with a murderous noblewoman, and once she realized what had happed, Caina had been able to control the dream with her mind.

  Could the same thing happen in the netherworld?

  She reversed direction, running at the pursuing creatures.

  The maneuver caught the spirits off-guard, and Caina plunged into them, the ghostsilver dagger a white blur in her hand. She slashed left and right, the white light spreading from the blade to consume the creatures. Caina cut down a third one, and then broke through, sprinting down a narrow lane that looked like a drunken mixture of the Grand Market of Marsis and the alley behind the Serpents’ Nest.

  She concentrated, thinking of the forests she had seen, hoping to summon the dead trees back.

  And as she did, the city melted away, morphing back into the dead, leafless forest, the black trunks painted with the sky’s eerie green glow. Caina dodged past the trees, making for the fire-lit shape of the Sacellum of the Living Flame. She heard the fish-monsters blundering behind her, but they sounded farther away now. The shifts in the landscape had thrown them. If she kept her wits about her, she might be able to elude them entirely…