“He would have,” said Mahdriva, looking over her shoulder at Caina, “but the Ghost came and delayed him. The Ghost…the Ghost was very brave.”
“Indeed,” said Tanzir, picking his way over the scarred floor. “I, too, would have perished.”
“Are you well, my lord emir?” said Tomard, hurrying over with a dozen militiamen.
“Er…yes, all things considered,” said Tanzir. “It could have been,” he looked at the dead Immortals and militiamen and swallowed, “it could have been much worse.”
Tomard nodded and turned to his centurions. “Get the wounded comfortable, and start waking up those Imperial Guards.” Both Halfdan and Lord Titus straightened up, groaning, as the militiamen cut their ropes. With Sinan dead and the mist dissipated, it seemed the sleep spell would not last much longer. “My lord Titus, are you well?”
“Not particularly,” said Titus with a scowl, climbing to his feet. “What the devil happened?”
“Yes,” said Halfdan, looking at Caina and Corvalis. “What happened?”
“It seems the Alchemist went berserk and tried to kill the lord emir,” said Tomard.
“Ah…tribune?” said Tanzir.
Tomard didn’t seem to hear him. “The Alchemist put an enspelled mist around the mansion, and sacrificed the Bostaji to hold our attention. Fortunately, the Ghosts realized what was happening, and we came to your aid.”
“Tribune?” said Tanzir again.
“Capital work,” said Titus. He looked at Caina. “It seems I owe my life to your friends among the Ghosts once again, Basil. This Balarigar of yours is quite useful.”
“Tribune?” said Tanzir, fear on his face.
“Tomard,” said Caina, using her disguised voice. “The emir has a request.”
Tomard turned. “My lord emir?”
“Er,” said Tanzir, blinking. He swallowed, looked at Caina, and then drew himself up. “Sinan was brewing a vial of bright golden fluid. I suggest you find it and destroy it at once.”
“He didn’t finish it,” said Caina, looking at Mahdriva.
“Well, no,” said Tanzir. “But it’s still incredibly dangerous. I urge you to find and secure it.”
“Of course,” said Tomard, turning to his centurions. “Delegate some men to find the damned thing. We want no sorcerous relics tormenting our city.”
“Treat it carefully, tribune,” said Tanzir, glancing at Mahdriva. “Master Muravin saved my life from Sinan…and Sinan used the ashes of Muravin’s grandchildren to create that Elixir.”
“Gods,” said Tomard. “Damned sorcerers. Well, I…”
He turned, and Caina saw Sinan.
To her shock, he was still alive. He lay slumped against the broken table, his white robes wet with blood, but he was still alive.
A crystal vial shone with golden light in his right hand.
And even as she looked, he lifted the vial to his lips.
“No!” said Caina. “Stop him! He…”
Sinan swallowed the incomplete Elixir in a single gulp.
The empty vial fell from his shaking fingers.
“Oh, no,” said Tanzir. “Oh, no. That’s very bad.”
“Why?” said Caina. “The Elixir was incomplete.”
Muravin backed away, one arm raised to shield Mahdriva, his scimitar pointing at the prone Alchemist.
“Well, yes,” said Tanzir, “but incomplete Elixirs…there are stories. The results are apparently very bad. It…”
Sinan managed a croaking laugh. “This is your doing, Ghost. You drove me to it. You…”
He groaned, twitching like a dying fish. Perhaps the unfinished Elixir would simply kill him outright.
Then his face began to glow.
A golden gleam shone from his mouth and nose and eyes, spreading across his skin. His hands start to glow, wisps of golden radiance dancing around his fingers. Sinan’s trembling grew more violent, golden light shining from his collar and sleeves. The militiamen and the others stared at him, stunned. Caina remembered the Sacellum of the Living Flame, remembered the phoenix spirit descending to the shallow niche.
Remembered the golden flames erupting from the phoenix spirit.
Suddenly she knew what was going to happen next, even as she felt the crawling tingle of powerful sorcery around Sinan.
“Get out of here!” she said. “All of you, out! Now!”
“Why?” said Titus. “What is happening?”
“Go!” said Caina. The golden light around Sinan brightened. “The sorcery in him is going to burn this mansion to the ground. Run! Move, damn you!”
“I suggest,” said Halfdan, “that you do as she says.”
Sinan sat up, his robes smoldering.
“Go!” said Tomard. “Everyone out, now!”
The militiamen fled for the exit, an escort falling around Tanzir and Titus. Muravin urged Mahdriva forward, one arm around his daughter’s shoulders. Caina looked back at Sinan. The Alchemist stood, his face a rictus of agony and terror beneath the golden glow, smoke rising from his robes.
He began to scream, and his robe burst into flames.
“We have to go,” said Corvalis, grabbing Caina’s shoulder and turning her towards the exit.
Sinan went rigid with another scream, his head thrown back, his arms outthrust. The pressure of sorcery against her skin doubled again.
“It’s too late,” said Caina. A high-pitched keening noise came from Sinan, drowning out his agonized screams. “Behind the pillar. Now!”
She darted behind one of the thick pillars with Corvalis as the last of the militiamen hurried out the dining hall doors.
And then Sinan exploded.
Gouts of golden flame erupted in all directions, blasting over the floor and walls. The pillar shielded them from the fire, but the blast of hot air washed over Caina like a giant fist. The floor shook and heaved beneath her feet, the roar of the flames filling her ears. Wave after wave of sorcerous power crawled over her, and for a horrible instant the dining hall reminded her of the river of molten metal flowing through Tower of Study in Catekharon…
The flames died away.
Caina stepped around the pillar, coughing. Muravin and Tomard walked back into the hall, as did some of the militiamen. Charred corpses and heaps of misshapen, half-melted armor littered the floor. Rubble lay heaped here and there, portions of the ceiling blasted away by the fire. A smoking crater lay on the far end of the room, all that remained of…
Shock rippled through Caina.
Ibrahmus Sinan stood naked and untouched in the crater.
No, not untouched.
Younger.
Before he had looked about forty, his thinning hair touched with gray. Now his hair and beard were thick and black, and he was muscled like a god. The wounds Muravin had carved in his chest had vanished.
Sinan looked at himself, at them, and started to laugh.
“All this time,” he said, striding out of the crater. “All those years. It was a trick, wasn’t it? No, another test. The ashes of the children of three sisters. But that was a lie. Three sisters were not required.” He spread his arms wide. “Two seemed to serve, did they not?”
Muravin growled. “Just as you stole their lives, so shall yours be taken!”
Sinan laughed. “Try, worm!” He lifted his hands, and Caina felt a surge of sorcerous force. “Try! I have been reborn…and my powers have been reborn with me!” Caina slipped a throwing knife into her hand, wondering if Sinan’s ward against steel had survived the upheaval of his rebirth. “I shall melt the flesh from your bones.” He stepped forward. “Get on your knees and beg, and I shall…”
Caina raised her arm to throw, taking a good look at Sinan.
She recoiled in disgust.
Caina had seen more horrible things than she wanted to remember. Maglarion’s experiments in the vaults below Aretia. Men burnt alive by sorcery in Rasadda. Andromache’s face twisting in horror as Scorikhon’s spirit claimed her flesh. A woman turned to stone by an ens
laved spirits.
But she had never seen anything quite as unsettling as the thing upon Sinan’s right hip.
The Alchemist glanced at her, eyes narrowed.
“Oh, gods,” whispered Caina.
Sinan smirked. “Yes, beg for your…”
“You idiot!” said Caina. “Look at your hip. Look at what you’ve done to yourself.”
Sinan glanced down, and his eyes widened.
The left arm of an infant jutted from his right hip, the tiny fingers opening and closing over and over again. Sinan jerked back in disgust, as if trying to pull away from his own flesh, and turned in the process.
The face of an infant bulged from the back of his right thigh. The child’s mouth contorted in a silent scream, the tiny eyes clamped shut. Something dangled from the back of Sinan’s knee, and Caina saw the leg of an infant, the toes twitching.
“You did this!” hissed Sinan, glaring at Caina. “You did this to me, you sabotaged the ashes…”
“You drank the Elixir before it was ready,” said Caina. “You murdered Muravin’s daughters and stole the lives of their children. You did this to yourself.”
“For the gods’ sake!” said Tomard. “Kill the damn fool and put him out of his misery.”
The militiamen charged, and Sinan cast a spell. A column of air before him congealed into mist, and two of the militiamen went down, screaming as their skin and flesh melted. Caina flung her knife, and it sank into Sinan’s leg, sending the Alchemist staggering back.
His ward against steel had not survived his transformation.
The surviving militiamen attacked, and Sinan charged with a scream, his hands hooked into claws. He seized one of the militiamen, lifted him, and swung the man like a club, battering the others to their knees. Sinan threw the unfortunate man to the ground, his eyes wild, blood leaking from the wound in his leg.
It seemed the unfinished Elixir had also given him inhuman strength.
Caina flung another knife, opening a second wound in Sinan’s side. The Alchemist turned to face her, face livid with rage, and both Corvalis and Muravin raised their weapons.
“Shoot him!” said Tomard.
Three of the militiamen had crossbows, and they took aim. The bolts slammed into Sinan’s stomach and chest, and the Alchemist fell to his knees, breathing hard. He glared at Caina, hands hooked into claws as he tried to cast another spell, but Corvalis and Muravin plunged their swords into his chest.
Sinan fell upon his back, his blood pooling around him.
Blood that began to glow with golden light.
“Get back!” said Caina. “It’s happening again.” Sinan’s entire body shone with golden light, his limbs twitching. “Run!”
The surviving men raced for the dining hall’s double doors. Caina scrambled after them, and a second later a sheet of golden fire erupted from the hall, so powerful that it tore the massive doors right off their hinges, so hot that the mosaic floor cracked. Caina pressed herself against the wall, wondering if the golden fire would chew threw the stone itself.
But at last the fire faded away…and a hideous groan came from the dining hall.
Caina spun around the doorway, ready to attack.
Sinan stood in the center of the hall.
Or, at least, the thing that had once been Ibrahmus Sinan.
He stood upon six legs, their lengths corded with muscle and bristling black hair. Two arms jutted from each of his shoulders, his chest misshapen and bulging. Two heads rose from his torso. One looked young and healthy, though its expression was twisted with terror. The other was a grotesque mockery, its eyes white and sightless, its jaw hanging open, a moan coming from its throat. The creature twitched back and forth, pawing at itself with its four hands.
“Gods,” breathed Corvalis, more horror in his voice than she had ever heard before.
“You did this to me!” shrieked Sinan, his misshapen bulk shaking. “You did this to me! You sabotaged my Elixir, you…”
“This is the judgment of the Living Flame,” said Muravin, and even he sounded shaken, “for your terrible crimes, for…”
Sinan charged at them, looking like a colossal insect wrought of human flesh.
“Kill it!” shouted Tomard. “Cut off its head. Cut off both of its heads! But I want that thing dead!”
The militiamen hesitated. They had killed Sinan twice before, and both times he had risen again. They hesitated, but Sinan did not, and the mutated Alchemist crashed into them. He caught one man, lifting him with his four arms, and tore him in half. Two of his legs stamped out, crushing a militiaman. But the remaining men found their nerve and attacked, their blades biting into Sinan’s rippling flesh. The Alchemist screamed, throwing back both of his heads in pain.
Caina raced forward, Corvalis and Muravin at her side, and struck. Her ghostsilver dagger sank into Sinan’s leg, and the wound sizzled. Sinan shrieked, his misshapen head rotating to face her, and two of his arms reached for her. Muravin yelled and swept his scimitar before him, and two of Sinan’s hands fell to the floor. The Alchemist stumbled back, both of his heads screaming, and a bold militiaman plunged his spear into Sinan’s torso. The Alchemist staggered backwards and collapsed to the ground.
For a moment Caina hoped the fight was over, that Sinan had been slain at last.
Then his wounds began to shine with golden light, the glow spreading over his skin.
“It’s happening again!” said Caina. “Run, all of you!”
Tomard, Muravin, Corvalis, and the surviving militiamen sprinted for the mansion’s front doors, Caina at their heels. She risked a glance over her shoulder, saw Sinan thrashing and screaming, saw golden light wreathing his body.
Then he exploded in golden fire for the third time.
The force of the blast slammed Caina to the mosaic floor. She landed with a grunt, all the breath exploding from her lungs. A pillar of brilliant golden fire whirled before the dining hall, chewing into the walls and ceiling and floor. Corvalis helped her to stand, and Caina regained her feet as the golden flame faded away.
Bile rose in her throat.
The thing that squatted before the ruined dining hall was a grotesque parody of human life, a creature congealed out of nightmares. Sinan was now size of a bear, a huge mass of dripping flesh crouched upon a dozen muscular legs. A score of heads rose from the thick stump of his torso, some of stunning beauty, others of hideous appearance. Dozens of arms jutted at random places from the creature’s flesh, and Caina saw that some of its organs were outside of its skin. Two hearts beat atop Sinan’s torso, and she saw four brains and several lungs pulsing and throbbing in his hips.
An all the while, half of the heads screamed, while the other half cursed and snarled in Istarish.
“Run!” said Corvalis.
Caina saw no reason to argue.
She sprinted for the main doors alongside Corvalis. Sinan pursued them, his legs driving his huge, misshapen body with a drunken wobble as he bounced off the walls. Despite that, he moved with terrifying speed, his mouths hurling curses.
Caina raced out the mansion’s front doors. Tomard and Muravin waited outside, surrounded by the surviving militiamen. A mob of Imperial Guards stood behind them, weapons drawn, Halfdan and Titus and Tanzir at their head.
“What’s happening in there?” said Titus.
“Shut those doors!” said Corvalis. “Barricade them! Right now!”
Titus took one look at the creature charging up the entry hall and his face went white.
“Do as he says!” he shouted.
Militiamen and Guards leaped forward, closing the doors and bracing them with spears and shields. Caina heard a thump, and the doors trembled as Sinan pounded against them, his dozen voices raised in insane fury.
Those doors would not hold him for long.
“Gods,” said Titus, “what sort of creature is that?”
“Sinan,” said Corvalis. “Or whatever is left of him.”
Even Halfdan looked stunned. “W
hat happened to him?”
“I don’t know,” said Tomard. “Something in his sorcery went…awry. Seriously awry.”
“Demons,” said Muravin. “Demons have inhabited his flesh, summoned by his wickedness.”
“No,” said Caina. “He’s a copying error.”
“A copying error?” said Titus, incredulous.
The doors thumped again, some tiles sliding free from the mansion’s roof.
“Don’t you see?” said Caina. “It’s like a scribe copying a book and making an error, and then another scribe making a copy of the same book with the first error, while making mistakes of his own. The errors compound themselves over time. Every time we kill Sinan, the power of the Elixir rebuilds his body. Except…except he didn’t finish the Elixir. That must be why he needed the ashes of three unborn children, to stabilize the Elixir. It’s rebuilding his body, over and over again, but…”
“But it’s making mistakes every time,” said Corvalis, “and it turned him into that thing.”
“The Ghost speaks true,” said Tanzir, gazing in fear at the mansion. “There are stories of Alchemists who botched their Elixir Rejuvenata, who transformed themselves into horrid monsters.” He shivered. “I do not think he will be Mother’s favorite Alchemist any longer.”
“Those stories,” said Halfdan, “do they say how Sinan can be killed?”
“Er,” said Tanzir. “No. Unfortunately.”
“Every time we deal him a mortal wound,” said Tomard, “that golden fire appears and heals him.”
“Sooner or later the power of the sorcery will fade,” said Corvalis.
Another thump, and Caina saw the doors splinter.
“Aye, but how many more mortal wounds can he take?” said Titus. “A dozen? A score? He might well kill us all before we can even inflict that much damage. Or, worse, he’ll escape us and rampage through the city!”
Again a thump came, Sinan’s voices screaming threats, and a new crack appeared in the doors.
“Perhaps if we dismember the corpse,” said Muravin, “cut out his heart before the fire comes…”
“We can’t,” said Caina. “Anyone who tries will get burned to cinders.”
Fire. That was the key, somehow, the phoenix fire.
Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 07 - Ghost in the Ashes Page 27
