Ghost in the Hunt

by Moeller, Jonathan

  “Yes,” said Caina. “You understand.” She looked towards Cassander and then looked away before the Lord Ambassador noticed. “I should go. I’ll slip away quietly. Likely Cassander will remember me as just another minor merchant, if he even remembers me at all.”

  “Wait,” said Claudia. She hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. “I don’t…think I should give you advice. Not after everything we’ve been through together. But…”

  Caina’s smile was wry. “That’s not going to stop you, is it?”

  “No,” said Claudia. “What I have to say is…I don’t think you should mourn forever.” Caina’s wry smile faded. “You’ve always taken mad risks. But since New Kyre, since…Corvalis, it seems like you are taking even more of them, risks you don’t even need to take. It’s not hard to guess why.” Caina said nothing. “This is presumptuous of me to say…but Corvalis wouldn’t want you to get yourself killed mourning him. Or maybe I’m wrong.”

  “You’re not wrong,” said Caina in a soft voice.

  “I…don’t think he would want you to be alone for the rest of your life, either,” said Claudia.

  Caina laughed without mirth at that. “Probably not, no. But…what do I have to offer? I cannot have children, nor…”

  “You’ve very rich,” said Claudia, trying to lighten the mood, “from all those slavers you robbed.”

  “True,” said Caina. “Perhaps I can find some impoverished younger son of a minor noble house. But, Claudia…I appreciate what you are saying, but almost everyone in Istarinmul thinks that I am a man. Hard to draw the attention of suitors that way. There are so many powerful men who want me dead. One of them will succeed sooner or later. I know what it is to lose someone you love. I can’t inflict that on someone.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Claudia. “I wish…I wish I could do more for you.”

  “You can,” said Caina. “We can stop the Apotheosis, we can keep Istarinmul out of the war. We can keep another sorcerous catastrophe like the day of the golden dead from ever happening again. We can work to make the Empire peaceful, so your sons and daughters will grow up without knowing the sort of pains that we have.”

  “Do you think that’s even possible?” said Claudia.

  “Perhaps,” said Caina. “Perhaps not. But it’s worth trying, isn’t it?” She smiled. “Be well, Claudia.”

  She turned and walked alone from the Court of the Fountain, and Claudia watched her go.

  ###

  Slowly, slowly, Kalgri opened her eyes.

  Even that hurt.

  Whispers echoed inside her throbbing, aching head.

  Whispers? Why should she have voices inside of her skull?

  The Voice. Yes, that was it. The Voice.

  Pieces of her shattered memory began to float to the surface. She had carried the Voice within her for over a century and a half. Killing, so much killing, and she had rejoiced in it, feeding upon the deaths. Callatas and all the enemies he needed killed. Nasser Glasshand, his left hand burning with azure fire. And then…

  Caina Amalas, the valikon shining in her fists.

  A spasm of terror shot through Kalgri, and she sat up with a cry of fear, looking around wildly.

  But she was alone.

  She sat upon the bank of a stream somewhere in the Kaltari Highlands, water flowing over the pale skin of her bare legs. Around her rose the silent, rocky hills, dotted with Istarish pines and tough grasses. Her weapons were gone, and only a few tattered, sodden rags remained of her clothing and armor. She threw aside the useless things, and staggered naked to her feet, her legs wobbling beneath her, wet hair sticking to her shoulders and neck.

  Her skin was quite a bit paler than it had been, and her hair had turned blonde.

  Kalgri limped away from the stream, every movement filling her with pain, found a pool near the stream, and gazed into her reflection.

  “Again?” she muttered. “Again? This is becoming tedious.”

  A new face stared out of the water, thinner and sharper than her old one, with cold blue eyes and long blond hair. She was taller and somewhat leaner this time around. Kalgri turned her face back and forth, considering.

  “Caina Amalas and Claudia Dorius,” she said. “A mixture of their features. How charming. A reminder of my failure. The damned Voice has a sense of humor.” She straightened up with a grunt, a spasm of pain going through her entire body. “And apparently I like to talk to myself now. That might be a problem.”

  The Voice’s thin, whispering moan of exhausted pain filled her mind.

  This was not the first time this had happened.

  Kalgri had been wounded mortally before, maimed beyond even the ability of the Voice to heal. When that happened, the Voice stopped trying to heal her and instead rebuilt her flesh anew, like a builder knocking down the burned shell of a house to rebuild from the ground up. The last time had been in New Kyre a year or so past, when that damned stormdancer had wounded her and thrown her into the sea.

  But every time it happened, Kalgri gained a new face, new features. Her personality and tastes changed as well. Once she had come out of it with an insatiable appetite for men, had taken a score of lovers in the five years before the Voice had rebuilt her again. After that she had found the pleasures of the bedchamber tedious, and had not taken another lover for twenty years. Yet one thing remained constant, no matter how many times the Voice reconstructed her body.

  The love of killing, the strength that flowed from death.

  “Later,” said Kalgri. “That will have to happen later.” The Voice was barely a faint whisper. She needed to rest, to let her damaged body recover. The Voice needed to rest, to rebuild itself. Kalgri often fell into a hibernation-like coma after the catastrophic reconstruction, a coma lasting for months or even years. She needed to rest and rebuild herself.

  “But once I do,” she said, “I will find Caina and Claudia, and I will make them…”

  “By the Living Flame! Your poor woman.”

  Kalgri turned, surprised. The Voice had indeed weakened if it could not sense others approaching. A Kaltari man of middle years walked towards her, a frown upon his bearded face. He wore leather and carried a short bow. Likely he had gone hunting and stumbled across her.

  “Did robbers attack you?” said the man. “Here, you can cover yourself with this.” He tugged off his cloak. “My wife can find a dress for you, and…”

  “Oh, how very tedious,” said Kalgri. The Voice had been badly weakened, but it still had power enough to allow her to rip the man’s throat from his neck. “But do you know what?” The man fell to his knees, eyes wide and shocked. “Apparently I am now the kind of woman who likes to talk to her victims as they die. That’s new. It’s really rather enjoyable, isn’t it? Well, for me, maybe. Not for you.”

  The man fell into the stream, his blood running into the water, and Kalgri shivered as the power of his death entered her, the Voice growing a little stronger.

  She turned, intending to find a cave or an abandoned house where she could rest. Once she had recovered, she would return to Istarinmul. The Red Huntress would stalk the night anew, and Caina Amalas and Claudia Dorius would pay for what they had done.

  But for now, Kalgri would rest.

  Chapter 22 - The Loremaster

  The night after Erghulan Amirasku decided upon neutrality, Caina walked into the common room of the Shahenshah’s Seat.

  As ever, the room was crowded with mercenaries and porters sitting upon the benches and drinking. Caina wove her way through the crowd, wearing again the disguise of a caravan guard. She would have to devise some new disguises soon. Kalgri had managed to find her, and if Kalgri could do it, others could follow in her footsteps. Of course, Caina doubted many assassins had a century and a half of experience. But she needed to exercise greater caution.

  Especially now that Cassander and the Umbarians were looking for her.

  Laertes leaned against the wall in his usual place, though this time he had a bandage wrapped a
round his head and another across his left hand.

  “Ciaran,” said Laertes with a grunt.

  “How’s the head?” said Caina.

  “Better,” said Laertes. He grinned. “Never heard the end of it from my wife.” He straightened up. “You should meet her. She could introduce you to my daughters…”

  “By the Living Flame, man,” said Caina. “Are you trying to set me up with one of your daughters? I am flattered, of course…but that is really not a good idea.” On more levels than Laertes knew, too.

  “You’re a good man, Ciaran,” said Laertes.

  “I’m really not,” said Caina.

  “Not many men would have the nerve to go toe-to-toe against the Huntress,” said Laertes. “Fewer still could do it and live to tell the tale.”

  “I wouldn’t wish to leave your daughter a widow,” said Caina.

  Laertes shrugged. “It’s a dangerous world, and growing more dangerous by the day. Even men who have never picked up a sword in their lives might get killed if matters keep going the way they are. You’d be able to look after her, at least.”

  “That was a good shot, by the way,” said Caina, hoping to change the subject. “With the ballista. I was sure I was finished.”

  Laertes snorted. “I told you I spent a lot of time in the Legion assembling war engines. Didn’t expect Lord Martin to know his way around a ballista. Decent fellow, for a noble.” He scratched his chin. “Better go on up. He’ll want to talk business.”

  “Lead on,” said Caina.

  They went to the Seat’s second floor and entered the sitting room. Nasser sat at his usual place at the round table, rising as Caina entered. He wore the patterned red-and-black robes of an Anshani merchant, his left hand covered with a glove of black leather.

  He looked perfectly healthy.

  “Ciaran,” said Nasser. “Thank you for coming.” He smiled. “I trust you are recovering from our little jaunt into the countryside?”

  “Bit stiff, bit sore,” said Caina. “But I’ve lived through worse, and I’m still alive. I cannot complain.”

  “Please, sit,” said Nasser. Caina sat, as did Nasser and Laertes. “It was a very narrow thing, but we prevailed. Hopefully we shall be rid of the Huntress for a few years.”

  Caina frowned. “Then you think she might have survived?”

  “I do not see how,” said Nasser. “From what you describe, Laertes’s and Lord Martin’s most excellently timed shot tore her to shreds. It is difficult to imagine that even a lord of the nagataaru could reconstruct such extensive damage to its host. And yet,” he drummed the fingers of his right hand upon the table, “and yet I wounded her almost as badly when I faced her the first time. I was certain she was dead…but she reappeared a few years later with a new face to attack you.”

  “Perhaps she claimed a different body,” said Caina. “I have encountered necromancers who possessed the same power.”

  “I must say,” said Nasser, “you are taking the prospect of her survival rather calmly.”

  Caina shrugged. “The Moroaica…I saw her die several times before New Kyre. I killed one of her disciples three times. Or maybe four, depending on how you count it. I’ve seen this sort of thing before.”

  Yet the thought of facing the Huntress again sent cold sweat slithering down Caina’s back.

  “There is no way to know for certain, alas,” said Nasser. “But if she did survive, we shall have at least a few years’ respite. The power that allows her to survive such grievous injury does not appear to be a quick process.”

  Laertes grunted. “Malarae was not built in a day.”

  “Quoting proverbs, my dear Laertes?” said Nasser. “There is wisdom in that, for I fear we have our own Malarae to build. To business, then.”

  “Yes,” said Caina. “Why aren’t you dead?”

  Nasser raised his eyebrows. “I suspect the gods or the Living Flame or the One Divine have work for me yet.”

  “That arrow went right through your chest,” said Caina.

  “It glanced off the ribs,” said Nasser. “It was dark, and likely it only seemed to go through my chest.”

  “No, I’ve seen men killed with arrows before,” said Caina. “It went into your heart, and you dropped like a stone. You should be dead.”

  Nasser smiled and spread his hands, and she felt the aura of sorcery around his gloved left hand.

  “At the fight in Drynemet, when you caught the Huntress’s blade,” said Caina, “it ripped your glove. Your hand was…glowing. Whatever spell lies upon it, is that what let you survive the arrow?”

  “My dear Balarigar,” said Nasser. “You have your secrets, and I begrudge them not, for they protect you. So it is with my secrets. That is all I can tell you for now, I fear. My secrets preserve my life.”

  “Very well,” said Caina. “You have kept faith with me before.”

  “And you with me,” said Nasser, smiling. “Does not a common enemy make for a marvelous alliance?”

  “It does,” said Caina.

  “Quite true,” said Nasser, reaching under the table and producing a sheathed sword with a curved blade. He laid the valikon upon the table. “You should take this.”

  Caina shook her head. “You wielded it more effectively than I ever could.”

  “Aye,” said Laertes. “You are a terrible swordsman.”

  Caina raised an eyebrow. “Still want me to marry your daughter?”

  “There are more ways to kill a man than with a sword,” said Laertes.

  “I have no need of the weapon at the moment,” said Nasser. “More importantly, the Emissary appointed you the valikon’s custodian. In the days of ancient Iramis, I am told, only the wisest loremasters were appointed custodians of the valikons, to guard the blades until they were needed. I am inclined to trust the Emissary’s vision. You knew when to give me the valikon, and I expect you will know to whom you must give it next. For we shall no doubt need the weapon.”

  “Very well,” said Caina, taking the sheathed sword.

  “And now to other matters,” said Nasser.

  “Annarah,” said Caina. “The last loremaster. Do you know a sorcerer who might be able to use her pyrikon to find her?”

  “Perhaps,” said Nasser. “I had hoped Lady Claudia would have the skill to work such a spell, but she does not. Nor does Anaxander, nor any of the sorcerers whom I would trust with a matter of such delicacy. In any event, a tracking spell may be useless. Wherever Annarah is, she is someplace where even Callatas cannot find her. If his spells cannot locate her, the spells of a weaker sorcerer will not succeed.”

  “Then it is a waste of time,” said Caina. “She could be anywhere in Istarinmul. Anywhere in the world, for that matter.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Nasser. “I have begun discreet inquires among historians and poets. According to various accounts, Annarah was killed in the Argamaz Desert by the legendary assassin known as Morgant the Razor.”

  “The Razor?” said Caina. “I recognize the name. Sulaman sometimes recites poems about him. But he is a legend…”

  “Like the Huntress?” said Nasser. “The master thief Glasshand? Or the Balarigar?”

  “Oh, gods,” said Caina, rubbing her forehead. “Another legendary assassin?”

  “We know beyond all doubt that Annarah is still alive,” said Nasser, “and that she knows where the Staff and Seal of Iramis are hidden. Yet the tales claim that Morgant killed her in the Argamaz. That tells us, therefore…”

  “That if anyone knows where to find Annarah,” said Caina, “it is this Morgant. But Annarah disappeared one hundred and fifty years ago. Morgant has been dust and bones for decades, unless…”

  She sighed as the realization came to her.

  “Unless he is possessed by a nagataaru,” said Caina. “Another creature like Kalgri?”

  “That was my thought as well,” said Nasser. “Of course, it is possible that Morgant was simply a mortal man and died long ago. But he may have left records.
In any event, this will make a starting point for our search for Annarah.”

  “A very thin starting point,” said Caina. “We might never find her. We should look, yes, but we should focus upon more concrete matters, such as stopping wraithblood production and harassing the Slavers’ Brotherhood. And keeping Istarinmul out of the war against the Empire. It will do us no good to terrorize the Brotherhood only for the Umbarians to flood Istarinmul with cheap slaves.”

  “I completely agree,” said Nasser, “and have a few ideas on how to proceed…”

  Caina nodded. She still did not know what Callatas intended with his Apotheosis. But she was beginning to suspect things. She had seen the wanton carnage that Kalgri and her nagataaru had unleashed, and Caina suspected that was only a fraction of the bloodshed that would be wrought if Callatas finished the Apotheosis.

  Caina would stop it. For the sake of all those who had been terrorized by sorcery. For the sake of Claudia’s child, so the child would not know the horrors Caina had known. So that another catastrophe like the day of the golden dead would never happen again.

  Caina would stop the Apotheosis, or die trying.

  Epilogue

  The message told him to come alone, without his Silent Hunters or his Adamant Guards or any of his other guardians. It was something of an insult, but Cassander Nilas obeyed nonetheless.

  He suspected he was about to meet the true ruler of Istarinmul.

  Cassander walked through the corridors of Grand Master Callatas’s palace, flanked by an escort of Immortals. The palace was, he noted with amusement, rather more ornate than the Golden Palace itself. Though Callatas had a rather more macabre taste in art than the Padishah. Dozens of lifelike crystalline statues stood in niches along the walls, their expressions frozen in fear and horror. Cassander knew that those statues had once been living men and women until Callatas’s sorcery had transmuted them into crystal.

  The Immortals led him up a flight of stairs to a solar atop the palace’s central tower. Through the high windows Cassander had a fine view of the Emirs’ Quarter and the Masters’ Quarter, of the shining towers of the College of Alchemists and the golden domes of the Padishah’s palace.