The Ghosts Omnibus One

by Jonathan Moeller

  “The thing?” said Caina. She remembered the horrible sense of presence radiating from the pit. “You mean the stories are true? There is a fallen angel imprisoned under the tower?”

  Tanya nodded.

  “But why would Jadriga want to free such a thing?” said Caina. “Does she worship it?”

  “No,” said Tanya. “The Moroaica worships nothing but herself. She wants to make it her slave, to pull it into her body, to use its power to augment her own.”

  “Is that even possible?” said Caina.

  “No,” said Tanya. “It is not. It will destroy her, and then it will be free to do as it pleases.” She took a shuddering breath. “And she is mistaken about something else. The legends are wrong, but the Solmonari knew the truth. There is not just one fallen angel imprisoned in the pit, there are many. Hundreds of them. They are legion.” Caina remembered the creature wearing her mother's face in her dream and shuddered. “They will be loosed into the world, free to roam wherever they please. But before that…”

  “That’s bad enough. What will happen before that?” said Caina.

  “My son’s blood will act as a catalyst,” said Tanya. “Immense power is needed to open the prison, and the spell will draw that power to itself by draining the life from every living thing for five miles in all directions. It will most certainly kill everyone in Marsis.”

  “That’s monstrous,” said Caina.

  Tanya nodded.

  “Surely she must know that the fallen angels will destroy her,” said Caina.

  Tanya shook her head. “As powerful as she is, as cruelly wise, in some things she is a fool. I think…I think that she has lived for so long, that she has such power at her command, that she has destroyed so many of her enemies, that she can no longer even conceive of failure. And she knows that the Opening of the Way will kill all of Marsis. But she doesn’t care. She thinks she can survive the release of energies, and the lives of the people living in the city mean nothing to her.”

  “When we will she cast the Opening of the Way?” said Caina.

  “I don’t know,” said Tanya. “Soon. The slaves…she slaughters them in the pit chamber. The blood of murdered innocents prepares the way, weakens the chains binding the fallen angels. My son’s blood is the final key, and she is almost ready. She told me that my service would be over soon. Another month, perhaps. Probably less.”

  “Your service?” said Caina, and then she understood. “That’s why she kept you alive, isn’t it? To care for Nicolai, since I doubt Jadriga could be bothered to do it herself.”

  Tanya nodded. “You don’t…you don’t know what it’s been like. To feed and care for my son, knowing that I was raising him for the Moroaica’s dagger.” She shook a little with the words. “Yet he is my son. How could I do otherwise?”

  “Why did she kidnap Peter?” said Caina.

  Tanya’s mouth twisted. “So Nicolai could have some company. The Moroaica is planning to murder my son, yet she felt it would be cruel to raise him without friends. So she will kill both Peter and myself, once she no longer needs us. Or perhaps she won’t even bother, since the Opening of the Way will kill us anyway.”

  “Not unless I find a way to stop her,” said Caina.

  Tanya shook her head, blue eyes full of pain. “You can’t stop her. No one can stop her. She is too powerful. We’ll die here, all of us. And so will you, if you linger. Go. Please, go now. I beg you, take Arcion and get out of Marsis before it is too late. Please, save him from this.”

  “Once Ark knows you’re here, he’ll rip down the walls if he has to,” said Caina.

  “No,” said Tanya. “You cannot tell him. You have to get him out of Marsis…”

  Her eyes went wide, her face tight with alarm.

  “What is it?” said Caina.

  “The Moroaica is coming,” said Tanya. “We can feel it.” Peter shied into the corner, and Nicolai began to cry. “You must run! Go!”

  “Is there another way out?” said Caina. “Icaraeus’s men are guarding the stairs.”

  “I don’t know,” said Tanya. “But there might be. The mercenaries throw the corpses into a shaft at the end of the corridor. It smells of salt brine. I think it might open towards the harbor. It…no, too late! She is here! You have to hide! If she sees you…”

  Caina needed no further encouragement. She whirled and ran into the carpeted sitting room. After three steps she heard the rattle of a key in the lock. Alarmed, she dove behind a couch in the corner, tucking herself between the wall and the furniture.

  The door swung open, and Jadriga, the Moroaica, entered the room. She was wrapped in a simple red robe, her hair wet, the black paint scrubbed from her face. Again Caina felt the aura of sorcerous power around the woman, like pins jabbing into her skin. She tightened her grip upon the ghostsilver dagger, mind racing. Yes, Jadriga commanded crushing arcane power. But so long as Caina wore the shadow-woven cloak, Jadriga could not sense her thoughts. And Caina doubted that Jadriga could cast spells if her throat had filled with blood.

  One blow. One solid blow. That was all it would take.

  “Tanya, my child,” said Jadriga in that calm voice. “Come here.”

  Tanya entered the sitting room, her face a mask, Nicolai riding in her arms. Peter stood behind her, staring at Jadriga with frightened eyes.

  “Honored Moroaica,” said Tanya, her voice wintry.

  “Ah,” said Jadriga. A flicker of a smile passed her lips, but her eyes remained like black gems. “How I admire your defiance. Even after five years, you still resist. You are limited, small…and yet your pain has made you strong within your limits.”

  “I am so pleased to have your approval,” said Tanya.

  “Do you remember when I first brought you here?” said Jadriga. “You spent weeks sharpening that silver spoon into a knife, and you plunged it into my heart. Then you took your son and ran.”

  “How could I forget?” said Tanya. “You didn’t let me go ten steps. And then you punished me. For weeks.”

  Caina looked at the dagger clenched in her hand.

  So much for that.

  “You didn’t understand that weapons, mere weapons, cannot hurt me,” said Jadriga. “Not then. Now you are wiser. And I inflicted such pain upon you that your mind should have shattered…yet your defiance remains unbroken. It is a pity you have no talent for sorcery. You would have made a far more capable student than the circle of chattering fools I have gathered from Marsis. Captivity such as you have endured would break them.”

  “We can agree on something,” said Tanya.

  “Oh, my brave child,” said Jadriga. “How strong you have been. But soon you shall have the chance to rest. Soon your pain will come to an end.”

  “What do you mean?” said Tanya.

  “For years now I have poured the blood of the innocent into the great dark one’s prison,” said Jadriga. “For years I have weakened the chains binding him. And now, at last…I am ready for the key. The Way at last can be Opened.”

  Tanya stared at her. “No.”

  “Yes,” whispered Jadriga. “The chains have been weakened, the forces are in balance. Tomorrow night, at midnight. The blood of the Solmonari will fall upon the chains. They shall shatter. And then I shall forge new chains to bind the great dark one, and I shall make him my slave. His power shall become my power.” Jadriga closed her ancient eyes and shivered. “And then…the powers I will have at my command…”

  Tomorrow night? She was going to perform the spell tomorrow night? Caina had to get out of here, had to warn Halfdan and Ducas. Yet she could not get to the doorway without Jadriga seeing her.

  “You cannot do this,” said Tanya. “The Opening of the Way will kill thousands.”

  Jadriga opened her eyes. “They are unimportant.”

  “But my son,” said Tanya, her voice breaking. “You will kill my son.”

  “You do not understand,” said Jadriga. She stepped closer, stroked Nicolai’s cheek with one hand. The
boy cowered away from her touch. Tanya tensed with rage and fear and hate, but she did nothing to stop Jadriga. It would have done no good, after all. “This child…he is a chain, an anchor, something holding you back. Shatter that chain and you become stronger. Agria and Messana understand this, and now Vorena does as well. Why do you not?”

  “I thought,” said Tanya, her voice shaking, “that your students were chattering fools.”

  Again the faint smile flickered across Jadriga’s lips. “True. Yet they grasp this simple truth, and you do not. Why?”

  “Because you are evil,” said Tanya. “They are evil. They murdered their children, their husbands. I would give anything to see my husband again, anything to walk free with him under the sun. And your students murdered their families. Their hearts and souls are withered, dead things, black and rotten.” She shook with fury. “Like you.”

  “Sentiment, and nothing more,” said Jadriga. “Love is only an illusion, as is hope. There is only power, and its exercise. And those who recognize that truth.”

  “Don’t do this,” said Tanya, pleading. “You care about nothing but yourself, fine. Then fear for yourself. The fallen angel will destroy you when it is released. And even, even if by some miracle you overpower it, there are hundreds others imprisoned in the pit. You cannot control them all, and they will destroy you. The Solmonari knew the truth…”

  “The Solmonari?” said Jadriga. “The Solmonari were fools. Why else are they extinct? I faced Solmonari in battle, long before your grandfather’s grandfather was born. They died screaming and begging their impotent gods for succor. Yet I closed my fist, and crushed the life from them anyway. I am the stronger. I shall enslave the fallen angel to my will, and then I shall be the strongest.”

  “You fool,” said Tanya, “you blind, wicked fool.”

  “I shall miss you, after you are gone,” said Jadriga, pacing towards the wall. “So few have ever had the courage to defy me to my face. But you will die as I cast the Opening of the Way. You may take comfort in that. All your pain will soon be at an end…”

  Caina saw her chance. She slipped past the couch and crept along the wall, praying that Jadriga would not turn around. Jadriga, thankfully, had not bothered to close the door.

  She didn’t turn around.

  Caina slipped into the black corridor and fled as fast as she dared.

  Chapter 21 - Spirits

  Four mercenaries worked at the end of the corridor.

  The polished black stone ended in a wall of rough rock, lit by a pair of glowing glass spheres. A yawning black pit opened in the floor below the wall. The charnel smell was very strong here, though overlaid with the faint tang of brine. As Caina approached, she saw the mercenaries seize another corpse and fling it into the pit.

  Caina pressed against the wall, wrapped her cloak around her, and waited. The men worked in silence, eyes cold and uncaring. After a few moments, the last corpse vanished into the pit, and the men turned. Caina tensed, ready to fight. But her cloak merged with the shadows, and the men were too lazy to examine their surroundings.

  They paid her no notice, and vanished into the darkness.

  Caina counted to a hundred, but no one else appeared. She hurried forward, stopped at one of the iron stands, and gazed at the glowing blue sphere. Jadriga might have laid warning spells upon it. Still, Caina needed the light, and perhaps her cloak would baffle the spell.

  She lifted the sphere from its stand. The tingle of its light-giving sorcery brushed against her fingers, but nothing else. The sphere hadn’t been trapped.

  Caina crossed to the pit. It was about twelve feet wide, and even with the light, she could not see its bottom. The charnel smell was overpowering, but the faint hint of the sea lingered. Tanya was right. This cavern opened to the sea. Caina might have found a way out of this hellish place.

  Assuming she survived the climb down. Assuming the cavern didn’t go underwater.

  Caina redid the leather straps that held the throwing knives against her right forearm, knotting the glass sphere into place. The tingling sensation from its sorcery was unpleasant, but she could not climb and hold the sphere at the same time. Caina took a deep breath, trying to ignore the stench, and descended into the pit.

  The walls had been worn smooth long ago, but with many bulges and ridges, and Caina found footholds and handholds. Inch by careful inch she descended, pausing every so often to shine the blue light on a questionable spot. She prayed that none of the mercenaries thought to look down the hole. It was more than likely that they used the pit as a privy, and if one of them happened to look down…

  But no one appeared above her, and she heard nothing.

  From time to time she saw bits of hair stuck to the stone, or a shred of clothing. Not much blood, though.

  Jadriga had used it all.

  On and on went the slow descent. Soon Caina saw neither the bottom nor the top of the pit. Her arms and legs trembled with fatigue. She had already done a great deal of fighting and running tonight, and the strain of the climb made her arms and back scream with agony. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, shaking. A dark voice in the back of her mind wondered what it would be like to simply let go…

  No. She had to keep going. At midnight Jadriga would butcher Ark’s son upon that black stone slab. And the resultant spell would kill thousands, maybe tens of thousands, and free hundreds of horrors to walk upon the earth. Caina could not let that happen, not while she still could fight.

  She took a few more deep breaths, and continued.

  Time passed. She couldn’t have said how much. Something glittered below her. A wet stone floor, Caina realized. Almost there. The sight gave her new strength, and she redoubled her efforts. At last she reached the bottom, and dropped the final five feet, her tired legs folding to absorb the impact.

  The charnel smell struck her like a physical blow.

  Caina rested for a moment, her eyes closed, her breath coming hard and fast. At last she opened her eyes and lifted the sphere.

  She almost wished she hadn’t.

  The tunnel was wide and broad, its sandy floor sloping downwards, its glistening walls caked with salt and barnacles. A short distance away rested a pile of Jadriga’s recent victims, battered by the long fall. Twenty feet away lay a bloated corpse, the skin chalky white, the face half-eaten away. A half-dozen more decomposing bodies lay scattered down the tunnel.

  The tide had scattered the bodies, she realized. Which meant that the tunnel must reach the harbor. When the tide came in, the tunnel flooded. When it went out, the water pulled the corpses along with it, driving them out to sea. Except those that happened to catch on something.

  Another realization came to Caina, more disturbing than the last. She didn’t know the time, but it was well past midnight. If she lingered too long in the tunnels, she might drown when the tide came roaring in.

  She had to hurry.

  Caina started down the tunnel, not bothering with stealth. She doubted the dead could hear her, after all. She passed more corpses, more and more of them, their faces bloated and waxy. The stench was horrible, and Caina began to feel light-headed. She tried to breathe through her mouth as she ran.

  More and more corpses littered the floor, in various stages of decay. No doubt it took several tides to pull them all the way out to sea.

  There were so many of them.

  The tunnel widened, and Caina heard the sound of splashing water just ahead. The cave opened up into a large room, the walls rough and glistening. A pool of saltwater glimmered in the blue light of her sphere, a ring of wet sand clinging to the stone wall.

  On the far side of the room, the tunnel branched into five different passages.

  Caina’s heart sank. Five? Did all of them lead to the harbor? Or did some double back, or sink even deeper into the earth? She swung her light back and forth, frowning. All five passages went downward. Well, she would simply have to guess, that was all. She was running out of time.

  She w
asn’t sure, but it seemed like the pool had gotten a little higher in the last few minutes.

  Caina made up her mind. The middle passageway. One seemed just as good as the other. She stepped forward…

  Something crunched beneath her boot.

  Caina looked down and saw bones beneath her foot. Small bones, falling to pieces. A child of nine or ten, maybe as young as eight. They were falling to pieces. Another few tides and they would vanish…

  Something glittered near the skull. Something silvery. Caina knelt and pulled it free from the sand. A small silver comb lay in her gloved hand. It looked familiar, so familiar. Where had she seen it before? It…

  And all at once Caina knew. She shivered and turned around.

  The girl in the gray dress stood a few feet away, watching her. For the first time Caina saw her clearly, without the befuddling haze of nightmares. The girl had fine blond hair and blue eyes, her expression sad and solemn, a silver comb glinting in her hair. Her gray dress was expensive and well made, her small boots perfectly fitted to her feet.

  She was also somewhat translucent.

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  “You’re dead, aren’t you?” managed Caina at last.

  The girl nodded.

  “Who are you?” said Caina.

  “You know.” The specter’s voice was a hollow whisper. “My mother. My uncle. You know them.”

  Caina stared at the girl some more. Then she saw the resemblance.

  “Lydia Palaegus,” said Caina. “Your name is…was Lydia Palaegus.”

  Again the child nodded.

  “Your mother murdered you and your father,” said Caina.

  Again Lydia nodded. “For power. For sorcery.” Her hollow voice carried a crushing grief.

  “You appeared in my dreams,” said Caina.

  Lydia nodded.

  “That night. When Icaraeus’s mercenaries tried to kill us,” said Caina. “You warned me.”

  Lydia nodded.

  “Why?” said Caina.

  Lydia considered this. “You must not die. You must not.”

  “Why not?” said Caina.