Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 07 - Ghost in the Ashes

by Jonathan Moeller

  Sooner or later it would run out.

  And if she failed, if she did not return, Sinan would kill more Imperial Guards. And if that didn’t work, he would likely cut the child from Mahdriva’s womb and retreat to different location to obtain the phoenix ashes.

  Caina did not want the Moroaica’s aid.

  But she did not want Mahdriva to die. She did not want Tanzir to die. And she wanted to stop Sinan.

  And she wanted to see Corvalis again.

  Caina sighed and looked at the ground for a moment.

  “What,” said Caina, lifting her eyes to meet Jadriga’s, “did you have in mind?”

  “Then,” said Jadriga, “you accept that you have no choice but to take my aid?”

  “No,” said Caina, “I choose to take your aid. I could reject it. I could try to get to the Sacellum by myself. But if I do, I’ll probably die…and other people will die. I’m not prepared to accept their deaths as a consequence of refusing your aid.” She took a deep breath. “But I am prepared to accept the consequences of taking your help. Whatever those may be.”

  “You grow in wisdom, child of the Ghosts,” said the Moroaica, her eyes as black and cold as a starless night.

  “So how can you help me?” said Caina.

  “First,” said the Moroaica, “I will take you to the entrance of the Sacellum. The guardians and the other spirits that wander the netherworld will not trouble you for fear of my power.”

  “And when we reach the Sacellum?” said Caina.

  “I shall tell you how to breach the defenses,” said Jadriga. “There are three traps defending the Sacellum, traps that will test your skill, will, and truth.”

  “What does that even mean?” said Caina.

  “I am not entirely sure,” said the Moroaica. “I have never been within the Sacellum myself. I do know that the first challenge is one of skill. Something to test your abilities. The second challenges the strength of your will. The last, I believe, is a question that you must answer truthfully.”

  “And if I fail these challenges?” said Caina.

  “You die,” said the Moroaica. “Though that is little different than the rest of your life, is it not?”

  “Fine.” Caina gave a sharp nod. “Let’s get moving.”

  The Moroaica beckoned, and they started walking towards the Sacellum of the Living Flame. The landscape rippled around them, cycling between the dead forest and the gray grassland and the stagnant swamp. Yet Caina saw new things, and realized the netherworld was also reflecting Jadriga’s thoughts. She saw the gleaming white city where Jadriga’s father had been killed. A desert of rolling sands, brilliant golden dunes shining in the harsh sun. A ruined temple, walls and pillars of weathered stone jutting from the moonlit sand. It was the first city, Caina realized…but after Jadriga had wrought her vengeance.

  The Moroaica walked in silence, her wet hair hanging around her face like a hood.

  “There is another way you could help me,” said Caina.

  “Oh?” said Jadriga.

  “You have so much power,” said Caina. “Why don’t you enter the Sacellum and get the phoenix ashes for me?”

  A cold smile appeared on her red lips. “Because the Sacellum is a place of rebirth.”

  “So?” said Caina.

  “That means someone who has died as many times as I have,” said Jadriga, “cannot enter the Sacellum.”

  “Oh,” said Caina.

  They walked the rest of the way in silence.

  Chapter 21 - The Sacellum of the Living Flame

  “I can go no further,” said the Moroaica.

  Caina nodded, staring at the vast entrance.

  They stood at the top of the broad black stairs leading to the Sacellum’s doors. The entrance itself, a huge arch nearly five hundred feet high and a hundred wide, rose over her. Beyond a vast gallery stretched into the heart of the Sacellum, a fiery glow shining in its depths.

  “I don’t suppose,” said Caina, “that I could simply climb the walls and go through one of the windows?”

  But even that wouldn’t work. The huge building, she suspected, stood nearly a mile high, its vast windows five hundred feet off the ground. It would be grimly amusing to escape the phobomorphic spirits only to slip and fall to her death while trying to climb a wall.

  “A good thought,” said Jadriga, “but this is the netherworld, and the defenses of the Sacellum are not bound by the conventions of mere physicality. If you go through the windows, the tests will merely meet you there.”

  “I see,” said Caina, staring into the vast gallery. “Who built this place?”

  “One of the great sovereigns of the fire elementals,” said Jadriga. “Spirits, like mortals, have their own hierarchies and ranks, though most of them are incomprehensible to us. The phoenix spirits are vassals of one of the greater fire elementals, and that spirit raised the Sacellum as a place for its vassals to renew themselves.”

  “Thoughtful of it,” said Caina.

  The Moroaica shrugged. “The elemental spirits have made war upon each other since before I was born, since before mortal men even walked the face of our world. To them, we are but flickers of light and shadow upon the water.”

  “I heard a spirit say something like that,” said Caina.

  “Yes, the Defender,” said Jadriga.

  Caina opened her mouth to ask how Jadriga could possibly know that, then remembered that the Moroaica had all her memories of Cyrioch.

  She stepped towards the entrance, hesitated, and looked back.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for your help.”

  Jadriga shrugged. “Do not think of it as a gift. For I think of it as an investment.”

  “Never,” said Caina.

  The Moroaica smiled, and with a shudder Caina remembered the mocking words of her potential future self. Was taking Jadriga’s help the first step on the road to becoming that woman?

  Of course, she could die inside the Sacellum, so she might not live to become anything.

  Caina strode into the great gallery and did not look back.

  The entrance receded behind her, her boots clicking against the gleaming black stone of the floor. The high windows towered above her, rising to touch the pointed ceiling far overhead. Caina kept walking, the ghostsilver dagger glowing in her right fist, her eyes and ears seeking for attackers. Yet the interior of the Sacellum was deserted, and the gallery seemed to stretch on for miles, far longer than the exterior of the great temple itself. Yet Jadriga had said that the Sacellum was not bound by the rules of physicality…

  Then the great gallery blurred around her, and Caina found herself standing somewhere else.

  Specifically, in the gleaming ballroom of a Nighmarian lord, the floor of polished marble, the chandeliers of enspelled crystals shining overhead. Tables along the walls held food and drink, and a balcony ringed the ballroom, providing a place for guests to sit and talk and watch the dancers.

  But the ballroom was utterly deserted.

  Caina turned in a circle, watching for any danger. This had to be another illusion, but…

  She heard boot heels clicking against the marble floor and spun.

  “Oh, not this again,” muttered Caina.

  The woman that walked towards Caina was identical to her, with the same height, the same lean build, the same blue eyes, even the same dyed blond hair. The duplicate wore a shimmering green gown of rich silk, slashed with black at the sleeves and bodice, the pointed heels of her boots clicking as she walked.

  “Let me guess,” said Caina. “You’re a ghost of my past. Or you represent what I would like to be. Or who would I like to become. Or you’re going to stand there and spout prophetic nonsense about remaking the world like the Moroaica.”

  The duplicate raised one eyebrow, and Caina hoped she did not really look that smug when she smirked. “Actually, Caina Amalas, I am none of those things. You would call me the Keeper…”

  “For you are the guardian of this place,” said Cai
na, waving a hand around her. “The Sacellum. Which so far looks remarkably like a Nighmarian ballroom.”

  “The Sacellum,” said the Keeper, “is beyond mortal comprehension. The minds of mortals are dependent upon metaphors, upon symbols, and so therefore your mind constructs an image of the Sacellum using symbols you can understand.”

  “And that is why,” said Caina, “you are wearing my form.”

  “Indeed,” said the Keeper, her smirk turning to a smile. “It is good you understand quickly. Most mortals spend more time battling the shadows of their own mind than altering the world around them.” She began walking in a circle around Caina, still smiling, and Caina turned to keep the spirit in sight. “My sovereign bade me to guard the Sacellum, long millennia before your race ever walked under the sun. For my sovereign knew that our foes wished to invade the Sacellum for themselves…and in time, mortals would come to our world and seek to claim the ashes of the phoenix spirits for themselves.”

  “And you seek to stop them?” said Caina.

  White teeth flashed behind the Keeper’s lips in a predatory smile. “The spirits, yes. But the mortals may take the ashes…but only if they prove themselves worthy. Only if they are strong enough and bold enough. If you would steal our fire, mortal, you must prove yourself.”

  “The tests of skill, will, and truth,” said Caina.

  “You have prepared yourself, I see,” said the Keeper. “That is good. You shall need that knowledge for what comes next.

  “And what is that?” said Caina.

  “Why,” said the Keeper, “the test of skill.”

  She whirled with blinding speed, hand dipping into her sleeve, and Caina saw a gleam of steel. Caina twisted to the side just as a throwing knife blurred from the Keeper’s hand. It shot past Caina’s ear to clatter against the marble floor. The Keeper sprang forward, daggers in either hand. Caina yanked a dagger from her boot, gripping it in her left hand, and met the Keeper’s attack. Steel clanged against steel and ghostsilver, and Caina and the Keeper traded a dozen blows in as many heartbeats. Caina lunged, feinting with the dagger in her left hand, and drove the ghostsilver blade for the Keeper’s heart.

  But the Keeper jumped backwards and landed a dozen feet away. Had Caina attempted to jump wearing that skirt and those heeled boots, she would have broken both her ankles. But the Keeper landed with ease, the same mocking smile on her face.

  “You’re cheating,” said Caina, circling to the left, daggers held low.

  The Keeper laughed. “I said it was a test of skill, did I not?”

  Another throwing knife hurtled at Caina, and then another. She dodged both the blades and threw a knife of her own, but the Keeper danced around it. A test of skill this might have been, but it was not a fair test. The Keeper was a spirit, stronger and faster than Caina, and…

  She blinked as the realization came to her, and suddenly she remembered escaping from the Immortals in the Grand Imperial Opera.

  When had her fights ever been fair?

  Her eyes swept the ballroom, and she nodded to herself.

  The Keeper flung another knife, and Caina dodged. A rope was pinned to one of the pillars supporting the elaborate balcony, and Caina severed it with a single slash of her ghostsilver dagger.

  A metallic groan echoed through the room.

  The Keeper grinned and drew another throwing knife.

  An instant later the chandelier, its rope severed, crashed upon the Keeper’s head.

  “I cannot,” said Caina, “believe that worked.”

  The ballroom blurred and disappeared, and Caina found herself standing in a gloomy, narrow corridor. It was the upper corridor from the Serpents’ Nest, the hallway lined with doors on either side.

  The Keeper stood at the far end of the corridor, a closed door at her back.

  “You survived the test of skill,” said the Keeper, titling her head to the side. It was strange to see the spirit creature wearing Caina’s face, but compared to everything else that had happened in the netherworld, it seemed downright innocuous. “Interesting. Most would have struggled against me until their strength failed. Many have struggled against me until their strength failed.”

  “They shouldn’t have done so,” said Caina.

  “No,” murmured the Keeper. “This, mortal, is the trial of will.”

  “And what must I do now?” said Caina.

  “Simply walk the length of this corridor,” said the Keeper, “and pass through the door behind me. This is the trial of will.”

  “That’s it?” said Caina.

  “That is it,” said the Keeper. “Something so simple…but simple is not the same as easy, is it not?”

  She disappeared.

  Caina stood motionless, her eyes sweeping the gloomy corridor. She saw no sign of traps, no tripwires, no trapdoors, no waiting attackers. Perhaps enemies lurked behind the doors, preparing to spring upon her, but the hallway was utterly silent.

  She shrugged and stepped forward.

  And as she did, the door on her left swung open of its own accord.

  Caina whirled to face it, dagger raised to strike. She expected more of the fish-creatures, or perhaps a room filled with shrieking knife-wielding duplicates of herself, or gods only knew what other horrors. But instead she saw…

  Her dagger hand lowered, her jaw falling open.

  Instead she saw her father’s library, the windows behind his desk standing open, the sunlight washing over her and the salty smell of the sea filling her nostrils. Sebastian Amalas sat at the desk, pouring over his books and scrolls, and smiled at her.

  “There you are, Caina,” said Sebastian. “I just returned from the Imperial capital, and I brought back some books for you. A history of the Second Empire, I think you’ll like that. And…ah,” said Sebastian, digging through the books on his desk, “a book of old Szaldic myths. Grisly stuff, but after your mother was arrested for collaborating with that necromancer, I suppose we’re used to grisly things.” He blinked. “Why, you’re crying! Is anything the matter?”

  “Father,” whispered Caina, blinking.

  This was not real. She knew it could not be real.

  But she could smell the sea, his dusty old books…

  “Come here,” Sebastian said, holding out his arms, “and we shall talk about it.”

  Caina took a step forward before she could stop herself. She wanted, more than anything to walk through that door and join her father in his library. But Sebastian Amalas was dead. She had seen him die with her own eyes. Whatever was happening beyond that door was an illusion.

  A lie.

  And her anger at that lie gave her the strength to keep walking.

  More doors opened. Through one she saw herself wed to Corvalis, holding their child in her arms. Through another she saw herself as a Countess of the Imperial Court, presiding over the end of the Magisterium and the banishment of all sorcerers from the Empire. And in still another she saw herself with her mother, not with a Laeria Amalas filled with bitterness loathing, but a Laeria Amalas who loved her daughter.

  For some reason, that one cut deepest of all, and Caina wanted to hurry through the door and hear that her mother had repented, that she had truly loved her after all…

  Instead she wiped aside the tears, reached the end of the corridor, and threw open the door.

  The shabby hallway vanished, and Caina found herself back in the vast gallery of black stone.

  The Keeper stood nearby, still wearing the guise of Caina herself.

  “What was the point of that?” said Caina. “To torment me with the past?”

  “Hardly,” said the Keeper. “You mortals are enslaved to your memories. They shape you and mold you, just as a sculptor’s chisel shapes the stone. And your memories give you dreams that you are ill-equipped to resist, no matter how implausible.”

  “So that was the trial of will?” said Caina. “To see if I was strong enough to resist these false dreams?”

  “Not many are,” said the
Keeper. “Look behind you.”

  Caina did, and flinched.

  Bones carpeted the floor as far as she could see, thousands upon thousands of bones. Some of the skeletons wore rusty armor, others crumbling rags. Quite a few of the skeletons, Caina saw, wore what had once been the brilliant white robes of Alchemists. For how many centuries, Caina wondered, had people come here in search of immortality only to die?

  How many millennia?

  “You killed them,” said Caina, voice unsteady, “if they were unable to resist the dream?”

  “Certainly not,” said the Keeper. “They killed themselves. Or, rather, they did nothing to preserve their lives. They fell into their false dreams, and did nothing as they perished of hunger and thirst. They could have escaped at any time, had they possessed the will to turn away from the dream.”

  “That’s cruel,” said Caina. “And you killed them as surely as if you held the sword yourself.”

  “I do not kill mortals for failing the trial of will,” said the Keeper. “I do kill mortals for failing to endure the trial of truth.”

  Caina turned from the gallery of bones, her fingers tightening around the ghostsilver dagger’s hilt. She wondered if she could strike the Keeper down, land a telling blow before the spirit could summon its power.

  “And what,” said Caina, “is the trial of truth?”

  “Simply a question,” said the Keeper. “Answer truthfully, and you will live. Answer falsely, and you will die.”

  “That’s it?” said Caina. “Just a question? What if I don’t know the answer to the question?”

  “The nature of the question ensures that you know the answer,” said the Keeper. “Whether you can speak it, whether you can admit it to yourself…that is another matter entirely.”

  She gazed at Caina, her blue eyes cold and hard. Caina wondered if she really looked like that, if her own eyes were as hard and cold as the spirit’s guise.

  “Ah,” said the Keeper, stepping back and nodding to herself. “I see. Yes. I know the question you must answer.”

  “Then ask,” said Caina, her throat dry.