Halfdan liked it that way. When they had come to the city a month past, he had bought the Inn from its previous owner, and it now served as the Ghosts' local headquarters.
Caina hurried across the dark, dusty square, passed the Inn’s closed front doors, and came to a small door in the back. She rapped twice on the door with the handle of her knife, then thrice, and then twice more. Nothing happened for a few moments. Then an iron plate rattled aside. A thin shaft of firelight stabbed into the darkness.
It gleamed on the razor-edged tip of a crossbow quarrel.
“Sign?” rasped a man’s voice, low and harsh.
“There are Ghosts in the shadows,” said Caina, reciting the countersign in High Nighmarian, the formal language of the Imperial court, “and let the tyrants tremble in their beds, for the shadows are ever watchful.”
The heavy door swung open.
A hulking man stood on the threshold, his face half-hidden beneath locks of greasy gray hair. His scarred arms were heavy with muscle, and he carried a massive crossbow drawn and ready. He stared at her for a moment, eyes glittering beneath his lank hair, and then jerked his head.
“Halfdan,” said Caina, stepping inside.
“You’re late, girl,” said her circlemaster, closing the door and redoing the locks. He switched to the common Caerish tongue. “I expected you back an hour past.”
“There were complications,” said Caina in the same language.
“There are always complications,” said Halfdan. “Did you get the evidence?”
Caina held up the ledger. Halfdan took it, flipped through the pages, and nodded to himself once. “Good. Very good. This is just what we need. When some anonymous fellow takes this evidence to the magistrate, Vanio will go to the sword for his crimes.”
“That will be unnecessary,” said Caina.
Halfdan stared at her for a moment. “I happened to hear the alarm bells in the mortuary temple ringing a short time ago. Murder, I would guess. Did you have something to do with that?”
Caina sighed, drew back her hood, and nodded.
“Is Vanio dead?”
“Yes.”
Halfdan’s breath rasped through his nostrils. “I told you not to kill Vanio. With proper inducement the magistrate would have made an example of him. Now the people will think that a business rival murdered him, or that the slavers turned on him. Where is the justice in that?”
“I didn’t kill Vanio,” said Caina, pulling off her mask.
“Who did you kill, then?” said Halfdan. “You killed someone. I can see it in your face.”
“Some of the watchmen,” said Caina. She shook her head. “I got sloppy. I should have just gone out the window, but I ran into them in the hallway.”
Halfdan scowled. “So Vanio yet lives, then? And now he is warned to our presence! We cannot spy for the Emperor if we reveal ourselves.”
“No,” said Caina. “Vanio was dead when I found him.”
“Dead?” said Halfdan, surprised. “How? I saw him walking the streets this very afternoon. Someone got to him before we did?” He scowled suddenly, and leaned towards to her. “You smell…burnt.”
“He was burned to death,” said Caina, voice soft.
Halfdan blinked, and then his face went very still. Caina had trained under him, had worked under him for years, and she knew that meant trouble.
“Burned?” he said.
“Burned,” said Caina. “It looked as if he had been roasted over a fire for hours. I don’t understand it. There was no fire damage to the room, no smoke damage. Yet it didn’t look as if his corpse had been carried…”
“It looked as if he had been burned to death right there,” said Halfdan, “but the room showed no damage. Is that it?”
“Yes,” said Caina, “how did you know?”
Halfdan lifted a scarred hand. “Wait.” A flicker of worry went through his face. “You will tell me everything. But with a clear head. I don’t want you to forget any details.” He beckoned, tucking the crossbow under one arm. “Come.”
Caina followed him down the narrow hallway. They went down a flight of stairs to the Inn’s common room, its ceiling supported by thick wooden pillars. Casks of wine rested against the stone walls, while wine bottles stood in neat racks, and a fire crackled in a cavernous stone hearth. Caina sank wearily into a wooden chair, while Halfdan picked up a pair of goblets and crossed to one of the casks.
“What will you have?”
“I don’t care,” said Caina. “So long as it’s mixed.” Halfdan opened one of the casks and began filling the goblets. Caina did not know what Halfdan had done before he had joined the Emperor’s Ghosts, but she had a strong suspicion that he had been a vintner. He knew more about wine than any man she had ever met.
She did not know how his old life had ended and his new life as a circlemaster of the Ghosts had begun, but the scars on his arms suggested that experience had not been pleasant.
Nor had Caina’s.
“Mixed?” said Halfdan, cutting into her thoughts. “That ruins the palate.”
“Mixed,” said Caina.
“You brood too much, girl.”
“I cannot argue. And alcohol makes me brood. So mixed wine.”
“Suit yourself,” said Halfdan. He handed her a goblet. Caina took it and drank. It did feel cool and pleasant against her throat, and the aroma helped drown out the stench of burned flesh that still clung to her.
“Thank you.”
“Now,” said Halfdan, settling into another chair. “Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”
She told him. She described the townhouse, the watchmen, the safe and the ledger, and the sharp, vicious fight in the upstairs hallway. Halfdan listened without interrupting, and at last she came to Vanio’s charred corpse.
“So you could smell it the entire time?” said Halfdan.
“Yes.”
“Recent, then,” said Halfdan. “And no damage to the room?”
“No,” said Caina. “He was a big man. Three hundred pounds, at least. Yet he’d been burned down to a husk. A fire like that should have reduced that house to ashes. And yet there weren’t even smoke stains on the walls.”
“So his body was moved into the room, then.”
“No,” said Caina again. “No. There were no char marks on the floor.” She frowned, watching the wine ripple within the goblet. “And he had been…cooked. There was grease pooling beneath him, staining the sheets. I did not see any grease on the floor.”
Halfdan grunted, took a long swallow of wine. “Could it have been cleaned up?”
Caina scoffed. “That carpet he had on the floor? It would take a dozen maids all day to clean that carpet. I don’t see how it could have been cleaned. Especially if Vanio had only been dead for a few hours.”
“Very well,” said Halfdan. He glanced at the door, then back at her. “Then we have a man burned to death in his bed, with no damage to the bed or the room, and no signs that the body was moved. How, then, was Vanio killed?”
Caina stared at the fire, rolling the goblet in her fingers.
“I don’t know,” she said at last.
“Think it through. Have I not always told you that the mind is sharper than any blade?”
Caina thought for a moment. “Sorcery.” Her voice hardened with contempt. “A brother of the Imperial Magisterium.”
“But have you ever seen a magus do something like this?” said Halfdan. “Or even heard of it?”
“No,” said Caina. She had seen magi use their arts to dominate the minds of others, to lift boulders with a thought, to cloak themselves in illusion and ward themselves from all harm. And to do worse things, but nothing like what had happened to Vanio. “No. The magi are villains, cowards, liars, and murderers, but I’ve never heard of a magus using fire. Isn’t that one of the arcane sciences forbidden to them?”
Not that such a restriction would ever stop them, of course. She kept her voice level, but her thumb rubbed the heavy signet r
ing through her glove.
“So if the magi didn’t kill Vanio, who did?” said Halfdan.
“I don’t know,” said Caina again.
“Then it is our task to find out,” said Halfdan. “The Emperor himself has commanded it of us.”
“The Emperor?” Caina sat up a little straighter. “Why should the Emperor care about some wretched slave merchant?”
“Vanio’s death is not an isolated aberration,” said Halfdan. “Do you know the city of Rasadda?”
“I’ve never been there, but I know of it,” said Caina. She thought for a moment. “The capital of the Saddai Province. A week’s ride east of here, along the coast road. Shorter by ship. It used to be the capital of the old Saddai kingdom, before the Saddai became part of the Empire.” She frowned. “During…the War of the Second Empire, I think. In fact, old Crisius was the Emperor who conquered them. They built this city around his tomb and mortuary temple, didn’t they?”
Halfdan nodded. “They did. And over the past year, twenty people have been found dead in Rasadda.”
Caina stared at him.
“All of them burned to death,” said Halfdan, “in much the same circumstances as you found Vanio. No trace of a fire, no sign that the bodies were moved, and yet still they were burned alive. You can see why the Emperor might take an interest.”
“Twenty people?” said Caina. “How is that possible?”
“We don’t know,” said Halfdan. “The Ghost circle in Rasadda became suspicious, and sent word to the Masters in the capital, asking for assistance. You will be that assistance, girl.”
“Me?” said Caina. “Why?”
“Because you are good at finding things out,” said Halfdan, “and no one knows how or why these people have been killed. Sorcery of some sort must be involved, but we don’t know what kind.”
“The Magisterium,” said Caina. “It’s plain enough. Some rogue magus dabbling in forbidden arts. It’s happened before, and it will happen again.”
“Unlikely,” said Halfdan. “Have you ever heard of an order called the Ashbringers?”
Caina frowned. “Yes. I…”
The door to the Inn’s common room swung open.
Halfdan had his crossbow leveled before Caina even had time to blink. “Sign?”
The newcomer stopped, and Caina took a good look at him, her hand slipping beneath her cloak to a knife. The man looked like a killer, his face grim and weathered, his mouth a hard line, his hands marked with faint scars, his balding hair close-cropped. He wore a ragged red tunic, trousers, and worn boots, and a broadsword hung from his belt.
His eyes glittered like ice, or frosted steel, and Caina saw no fear in his face. Then his eyes met hers. For a moment the color drained from his face, and he took a half-step forward. Then he stopped, still staring at her, and something like desolation sank into his grim face.
“Sign?” said Halfdan. “I’d really prefer not to shoot you. The blood would take forever to mop up.”
There are Ghosts in the shadows,” said the man, speaking High Nighmarian with a heavy Caerish accent, “and let the tyrants tremble in their beds, for the shadows are ever watchful.”
“You’re late. But good enough,” said Halfdan, setting the crossbow aside.
“That gets tiresome,” said the man in Caerish, stepping forward. He had excellent balance, and Caina guessed he knew how to use that broadsword. “You know who I am.”
“Protocol is protocol,” said Halfdan, “and you should have come through the back door. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you on sight.” He gestured at the casks. “Wine?”
“Do you have any word?” said the man. “And news at all?”
“No,” said Halfdan. “I’m sorry.”
The man nodded, his expression unchanging, and crossed to the wine casks. He filled a goblet and joined them at the table. His eyes flicked to Caina, cold and sharp, and then moved on, dismissing her.
Caina wondered what that had been about.
“You may call this man Ark,” said Halfdan. “He is a member of the Ghost circle in Rasadda, and will assist us.” He gestured at Caina. “For reasons that will soon become clear, there is no good reason for you to know this young woman’s name. She is a Ghost as well, of nightfighter rank, and you may call her the Countess Marianna Nereide.”
Caina outranked him. Ark’s left eye twitched, once, but he said nothing. She knew the name Marianna Nereide, as well; she had masqueraded as the Countess in the past, spying for the Ghosts.
“Now, Countess,” said Halfdan, “you were telling me about the Ashbringers.”
A faint frown flickered across Ark’s face, but he remained silent.
“I know very little,” said Caina. “Nothing more than what I have read about the history of the Empire, and what you told me about them. They were a band of sorcerer-priests, and they worshipped the Saddai god. The Living Flame, I think. Fire fueled their sorcery, and the Ashbringers were loathed for their brutality. They…tried to enslave all the world, but the Emperor founded the Magisterium to fight their sorcery, and the Ghosts to spy on them, and old Crisius wiped them out below the walls of Rasadda.”
“Very good,” said Halfdan.
Caina shook her head. “That’s ancient history. Centuries gone. What does it matter? Does the Emperor think some Ashbringer has killed these people?”
“We don’t know,” said Halfdan. “But the Emperor wishes us to find out. Certainly the deaths match the ancient descriptions of the Ashbringers’ spells. If some zealous follower of the Living Flame has rediscovered the Ashbringers’ arts, the Empire itself could be in danger. The magi of the Magisterium are corrupt and wicked, but at least they do not practice forbidden arts, at least not openly. The Ashbringers did, and if the histories are correct, they were outright madmen, and murderous madmen at that.” He shrugged. “Certainly they should remain in the dust of history.”
“If only the Magisterium could join them there,” said Caina. Ark gave her another appraising glance, but he remained silent. “But I am doubtful. The Magisterium governs the arcane sciences in the Empire, and they do not suffer rival practitioners. If some fool tried to become an Ashbringer, the magi would kill him within a month.”
“You do not understand, Countess,” said Ark, voice cold and soft. “The Ashbringers are gone, but the Saddai still worship the Living Flame, and they do not love the Empire. If someone appears, claiming to wield the powers of the Ashbringers…”
“Revolt,” said Halfdan.
“Then what must we do?” said Caina.
“You will go to Rasadda and find the truth,” said Halfdan.
“And if we do find this killer?” said Caina.
Halfdan’s smile was cold, almost wolfish. “You know what must be done. And if the killer is indeed a practitioner of sorcery, I think you will enjoy doing it.”
“Yes,” said Caina, gazing back into her wine. For a moment rage filled her, such rage that she wanted to fling the goblet against the wall, but she closed her eyes and mastered herself. “Yes, I think I will.”
“This is what you shall do,” said Halfdan. “In three days’ time a merchant caravan leaves for Rasadda.”
“What are they carrying?” said Caina.
“Salted fish,” said Halfdan. “The owners of the local fisheries think they can turn a greater profit by shipping overland. They will, if they avoid bandits, but that is not our concern. You will disguise yourself as the Countess Marianna Nereide and travel with the caravan to Rasadda.” He squinted at Ark. “You will act as her captain of guard. The role should suit you well enough, I think.”
Ark nodded.
“How many maids will I have?” said Caina.
“Three. And a coachman.”
“Three?” said Caina, lifting an eyebrow. “The last time I played this part I had sixteen. And a butler besides.”
“Your story is different this time,” said Halfdan. “It’s common for the sons and daughters of a noble House to go on a tour of
the provinces. Except, in your case, your lord father is impoverished, and cannot supply you with a dowry. Therefore he hopes that during the tour, your beauty and wit will capture a suitable young man, preferably one with an ample supply of money.” He smiled that cold smile again. “And who will believe that a pretty, charming young Countess has a brain between her ears? You will have access to the wealthy and the powerful, and they might let something slip.”
Caina nodded.
“Ark will be your contact for the Ghost circle in Rasadda,” continued Halfdan. “They will be able to move among the commoners and the native Saddai, while you deal with the rich and the nobles.” He turned to Ark. “Listen well to our young Countess here. She’s quite clever.”
Caina saw a flicker of doubt in the grim-faced man’s eyes, but he nodded.
“Countess, you’ll want to listen to Ark. He knows Rasadda and the Saddai quite well.” Halfdan’s cold smile flashed again. “And he’s quite a useful man to have in a fight.”
Ark smiled once, showing his teeth.
“Once we get to Rasadda,” said Caina, “where should we start?”
“Go to the Inn of Mirrors, located in the great square outside the Imperial Basilica,” said Halfdan. “Ark knows the way, I’m sure. A man named Narmer will arrange rooms for you and await you there. He’s a member of the city’s Ghost circle. He will give you the latest news, and assist you in whatever way you deem necessary.”
“All right,” said Caina. She finished her wine and set the goblet aside.
“Get some rest,” said Halfdan. “We’ll want you to look the part of an Imperial Countess in the morning. After all, your servants have just deserted you, and you’re going to have to hire some new maids.”
###
Caina went to her room and fell sleep.
When she slept, the same old dream returned to her.
She was a girl of eleven again, creeping through her father’s library, her heart pounding with terror. His chair faced the window, and she saw his limp hand resting on the armrest, the heavy signet ring glittering on his finger.
Ghost in the Flames (The Ghosts) Page 2
